Silver Veins and Wicked Games (Daughters of Demons #1)

1. The Mark

THE MARK

Seraphina

He leaves at the same time every night.

The bell tolls from the Ministry tower, and the doors spill open. Clerks shuffle out in silver coats, smelling of ink and paper dust. They chatter, laugh, safe in their perfect world.

Then comes my mark. No chatting. No laughing, nothing that makes him stand out from the crowd. Remarkably unremarkable.

I know his name, but I won’t use it, not even inside my own head. Names make evil men seem human. He isn’t human, not exactly. He is nephilim. But that should still leave him with some humanity.

To me, he is worse than any human, nephilim or full-blooded seraphim. He is Unrepentable.

The envelope arrived at my turret almost a week ago now. A folded slip of paper tucked inside with a name, location and description. The only thing that never changes is their status:

Unrepentable.

What’s his crime?

Murder. Theft. Rape.

Three sins that Virtus has banished from our lands. Three crimes that not even the Repentance Academy can save his soul from. A pity, given his workplace is right next door.

Which one is he guilty of? I don’t know. I’m not told. It doesn’t matter.

That’s not true, is it, Seraphina?

The thought comes with a wave of nausea. If father knew of my leniency for theft, it would be my name scrawled on the parchment scrunched in my fist.

For my mark, tonight is the night. Enough watching, enough waiting. I’ve done my due diligence.

He walks with the confident gait of someone who has nothing to hide and even less to fear.

Once two blocks separate us, I slip from my post and fall into step behind him.

The ground is dry, the breeze warm, and the sky cloudless, scattered with stars.

Perfectly pleasant, as it always is. Even if it wasn’t, like when the angels need to punish us, I could walk his route blindfolded at this point.

The crowd is his safety net at first, so many bodies between us, their eagerness to get home after a long shift hiding my silent stalking. He blends in well. Too well. That’s what makes him so dangerous.

Magic is strong in the city, well fed by its large nephilim and seraphim populations.

The orblights above don’t even flicker. With such an abundance of the natural raw energy to pull from, silently seeping from all who have angel blood in our veins, they have more than enough to sustain themselves through the night.

They float like tiny suns illuminating the path, casting their glow across streets polished until they gleam.

Too bright. Too open. Every shadow as thin as glass.

He turns left, his strides sharp, measured. Soon he will take another left, then a right, cross the street and by then, will have lost the protection of the crowd.

I match his rhythm. Not too close, not too far. A wrong beat, and he’ll know. Some men can smell pursuit the way demons can scent fear. I don’t trust him not to be one of them.

The last of the clerks turns down a side street. He’s alone now, and the orblights are spread more thinly. I’m patient though. I can wait all night if I have to.

My neck tingles. Something's off, different. I shift my focus wider than my mark, sure to never miss a step.

The sound of running feet. Too fast, too loud. Not part of the pattern.

A girl bursts onto the street, running as though she’s being chased by a ravenous pack of hellhounds. My mark is between us, but the girl is gaining on him quickly. Half dressed, bedraggled, ruffled wings dragging behind her.

It’s as though she can’t see him. Or me.

Her face is pale, breathing ragged. She looks terrified.

I hold my breath when she almost crashes right into him.

She doesn't, but the feathered tip of a wing skims his coat as she passes.

My mark freezes.

And that’s when everything fractures.

This isn’t part of the plan.

Like a sinner of opportunity, he turns, and when he starts moving again, his gait is faster than I’ve ever seen it. He’s walking directly toward me, but it’s the girl he’s pursuing. Does he want to make her his next victim?

Stay calm, I remind myself. You’re just another nephilim on the daily commute.

The girl glances over her shoulder.

Eyes on me, come on, this way.

She has to have seen that she has a tail, but…

Angels save her, what is she thinking?

Rather than continue toward me, on this well-trodden path, she cuts down the first alley she comes across.

No. No, no, no. I’m too far away. My mark isn’t, he’s almost there. If I give chase, it will spook him. He will run, and I will be punished. Not only by my father, but by the knowledge that I’ve let a predator slip through my fingers.

When he reaches the mouth of the alley, he pauses and looks over his shoulder.

Our eyes meet for the first time.

The next will be your last.

Any doubts I might have been harboring over whether he deserves to have his name on my paper are dispelled. In that one look, I see exactly what’s inside him.

Not a man. A monster.

Dipping into the next alley along, I search the night for a way to climb. I’m familiar with these streets now, with the alleyways between the houses, the dumpsters concealed by their darkness.

The buildings in this part are mostly residential, only two or three stories tall. Easy to scale for someone who’s spent so long without the luxury of wings.

Within moments, I’m up. Making my way across the rooftops, I stay light on my feet, aware I’m treading on tiles that were not made to be walked across, much less sprinted over. One slip and the smash of clay will give me away.

By the angels, I didn’t realize there was more than one alleyway between us until I run out of roof, finding an empty space beneath me. I calculate the trajectory as best I can, making sure to avoid the patch with several cracked tiles. Wings made life so much easier.

I take a deep breath to compose myself. I have one shot. If I mess this up… there’s no way my mark won’t hear me and Katana crashing down on the cobbles below like a bird of prey that’s been shot out of the sky.

Why hasn’t the girl screamed yet? Even as a trained killer, I’m pretty sure that’s the first thing I’d do if a strange man with sickness in his eyes followed me into a shadow filled alleyway at night.

Something’s wrong. It’s too quiet.

With no time to think, no time to hesitate, I bend my knees and push off, my shoes scraping against the uneven tiles.

The ground vanishes beneath me. The air tears past my ears, my stomach drops, and for a split second I’m weightless—flying or falling, I can’t tell.

I don’t care which, as long as I make it.

The moment my feet land on the other side, my legs are moving. A few more yards and I’ll be on top of them.

That’s when I hear him, his voice sweet as poison. “Evening, miss,” he purrs, and every hair on my body stands on end. I grip Katana instinctively, wrapping my fingers around the hilt resting down by my hip.

I inch forward, peering down at them.

The girl is not a girl, but a young woman, not much younger than me. Twenty-one at most. I expected to find her in the shadowy depths of the alley crawling up the wall blocking her retreat, but she stands halfway along it, not even attempting to defend herself.

She doesn’t flinch when he reaches out a hand toward her cheek. She closes her eyes and lets out a long breath.

She’s nephilim too, born with the gift of flight, but I shudder when I notice her wings have been cruelly bound in iron chains.

Who would do such a thing?

She’s trapped. She looks like she’s giving up.

My mark strokes slow circles across her cheek with his thumb, moving down to trace her lips. He doesn’t know it yet, but he just signed his own death warrant.

“Someone so pretty shouldn’t be out all alone at night. You never know what trouble you might run into.”

She’s not alone.

Dropping down into the alley like a ghost, I block the only exit by foot. If his wings emerge, I’ll have a problem, but I don’t plan to give him time to escape.

The girl gasps.

My mark’s spine stiffens, and he drops his creeping hand. No sign of a blade. Nothing but empty palms twitching at his sides.

I’m within lunging distance by the time he turns his back on his prey. Fear flashes in his eyes as they size up the new predator in the alley.

Moonlight spills over me, catching the blade as I draw it from a fold in my cloak.

Yes, Katana is sharp. Very capable of dicing that disgusting tongue of yours into a thousand pieces.

His hands rise in front of him, palms spread outward. “You don’t-don’t want to do this,” he stammers, then gestures toward the girl. “She-she’s lost. I’m helping her. That’s all!”

Lie.

His eyes flick up to the stars above.

Don’t do it.

He has no way of knowing I can’t pursue him in the skies. That I lost the gift of flight all those years ago. But I keep moving anyway, my boots hitting the stone with echoing cracks.

He flinches at each step.

“Don’t,” he blurts, hands trembling. “Please. I can pay. Whatever you’ve been told about me, it’s wrong. I didn’t—” He cuts himself off, his breath catching. “I didn’t do anything.”

He lies like a demon.

The spark inside me that I try not to think too hard about is set alight. I tilt my head to the side and smile, twirling my weapon nonchalantly. This close, he’s even more pathetic than I’ve been giving him credit for.

“You just used your last breath on a lie.” I push out my bottom lip, frown and shrug. “Now it’s time to die.”

My hand tightens around Katana's hilt.

Don’t hesitate, Seraphina. He deserves it. Your soul will be spared.

Murder. Theft. Rape.

Unrepentable.

But predators beg too when they are the ones cornered.

“Please—” he tries. “I have a family. They need me.”

Another lie.

I do not like liars.

I end it clean. One motion, a simple flick of the wrist and he crumples to his knees, hands still up, eyes wide and wet. A merciful death. He deserved much worse.

His body slumps at my feet.

The girl stumbles backward until a wall stops her retreat. She gulps for air, staring at him, then at me.

Then her legs give out and she sinks awkwardly to the ground.

Her fear shifts.

She’s not afraid of him anymore, she’s afraid of me.