Born in Darkness Read online

  One from Gracie—no surprise there. Another from someone named Brian wanting to know if she wanted to take in a movie. And the last from Sylvia, who had called to say goodbye before she left for a European vacation with her boyfriend.

  Friends. Alice had friends and a life and people who cared about her. People who would have mourned her if they’d known that she died. I swallowed, realizing my throat felt thick, and wondered if anyone was mourning Lily Carlyle. Other than Rose and Joe, I rather doubted it.

  I swallowed and forced the melancholy down, then eyed the machine again. Gracie was already in my new life and, honestly, that was about all the friendship I could handle. It was hard enough being the new me. I didn’t think I could be the old Alice at the same time. Not yet. Not until I got better at the role.

  I reached over and pressed the delete button, then listened as the machine whirred, erasing the friends. Starting from scratch, I thought. Starting over.

  But a secret part of me wanted to meet Sylvia and Brian. Wanted to know them and have a beer and take in a movie. And a bigger part of me wondered if they would look at me and see Alice. Or if, like Deacon, they’d see that something had changed.

  Frustrated with myself, I forced my thoughts aside. Alice’s computer had finished its boot-up, and I was happy to see that not only had she not password-protected the system, but there were at least four wireless networks I could piggyback onto.

  I had planned to type in Deacon’s name, but instead my fingers insisted on my own, pulling up the rather morbid announcement that my funeral would be held on Thursday afternoon, at which time it was assumed the police would have released my body.

  I shivered, the idea that I was walking around while my body was on an ME’s gurney creeping me out. More than that, though, I thought of Rose and my stepfather. Of how they must feel, knowing I was gone. And of how it must have killed them to identify my body in the morgue.

  An image of Rose, her face tear-streaked and battered, swam into my head. I still had the cash I planned to give her, and I found an envelope in Alice’s kitchen and shoved it inside before scrawling out Rose’s address for delivery. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Just as the locket that now hung over my heart wasn’t much, but to me it was also everything.

  I wanted to give her more. Hell, I wanted to talk with her. Wanted more than the brief, shell-shocked girl I’d faced at the door. And even though I knew I shouldn’t, I grabbed up the phone, then dialed our home number. Surely one quick phone call from Lily’s supposed friend wouldn’t result in all the demons of the world descending on her doorstep.

  “Hello? Hello?” Her voice was soft, rushed, and I realized I’d probably caught her getting dressed for school.

  I opened my mouth, but my words stuck in my throat.

  “Dammit,” she said, and slammed the phone down, cutting off my broken whisper of “Rose.”

  I held the handset out, staring at it until I felt the tears pool in my eyes. I’d scared her, and I hadn’t meant to. I’d only wanted to hear her voice. To have that hint of connection.

  And my selfishness had probably conjured up memories of Johnson’s horrific phone calls.

  He, at least, was dead.

  The articles I’d found confirmed what Clarence had told me. Both our bodies had been found at the crime scene. So, yes, I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do—I’d killed Lucas Johnson.

  I’d made a plan; I’d gone out; I’d killed.

  And I didn’t regret it for a moment.

  I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath, truly seeing for the first time what Clarence and Zane had already seen. What I’d experienced when I’d taken down that bloodsucker: I could kill. I could face evil down and thrust the blade in.

  I liked that about me, I realized. I liked it a lot.

  I shook myself, determined to focus. I had another mission here.

  With grim determination, I typed in Deacon’s name, but found nothing. The man was a mystery. Or, to be more accurate, the demon was.

  Mostly to distract myself from blossoming thoughts of Deacon, I switched my search to Alice Purdue, but the findings were also a toss-up between slim and none. A few measly hits about her high school graduation, a reference to her birth date and one photo showing her and Egan and a woman identified as Alice’s sister, Rachel, standing in front of the Bloody Tongue at the ceremony to designate it a historic landmark.

  I mentally filed the information about the sister, then gave up. For better or for worse, twenty-two-year-old waitresses don’t tend to garner a lot of hits on Google.

  A good deal of her life had been spent at the Bloody Tongue, and that was a place I wanted to know more about. I went first to the website and reviewed the standard PR material—the excellent restaurant reviews, the pub’s longstanding history of ownership all within the same family, the authentic pub menu mixed up with a few new favorites. And, of course, the pub’s reputation for being haunted and creepy. All of which I remembered from my Haunted Boston tour.

  The truth was, the Bloody Tongue did good business playing up the rumors that it was dark and dangerous, that it had ties to witches and witch trials, and that witch hunter Cotton Mather himself had tried to force the pub’s doors shut in the late 1600s but had been unable to pull off that feat. A fact that either supported the argument that the pub had no actual connection to the demonic . . . or suggested that the place was so firmly entrenched in real black magic that the false persecutors of the time couldn’t touch it.

  The website left the question open, the mystery adding to the allure of the pub. And though all the tourist websites that referenced the pub mentioned the tie to the dark arts as something amusing and a little kitschy, I had to wonder if there wasn’t a great deal of truth tied up in the PR.

  I poked around in her browser, figuring I might get a clue as to what had been so important to Alice that she’d scheduled a clandestine meet with Deacon. But the history had been cleared, and so had the cookies. There was nothing, which meant I learned nothing. Nothing, that is, except the queer fact that little Alice obviously had some secrets. And she held them very, very close.

  I drummed my fingers on the desk, considering where to poke next, and decided that I might as well learn more about my strange new world. Clarence had started teaching me about various demon species, but I’d never really been a lesson-oriented girl, and considering all that had happened to me in day number one of my new career, I think it’s reasonable that the information pretty much poured out of my head as fast as he shoved it in.

  Demons, I soon learned, are not a topic easily explored over the Internet. Rather than the scholarly information I’d hoped to find, I pulled up page after page of fan fiction, summaries of various television shows, and a few Apocalypse-related gloom-and-doom sites. There was some information I recognized—like Clarence’s explanation about how some demons actually had a human form, whereas other demons dove in and possessed a real, sometimes willing, human, which truly grossed me out. Goth girl had been an actual, human demon. I hadn’t yet met a possessed human—willing or unwilling—but I figured in my new line of work, the odds were good that it was on my agenda.

  Other than that, though, I couldn’t tell where reality ended and fiction began. Apparently, I was going to have to pay more attention to Clarence’s lectures and books. I wondered idly if I could just get the CliffsNotes.

  At any rate, I gave up on learning about my newfound life’s work pretty quickly, and decided to give Alice-exploration another attempt. This time, I poked around in Alice’s file structure, hoping for some insight into the woman I’d become. It was a short-lived detour, though. Alice might not have password-protected the computer itself, but each individual file was locked to me.

  I managed to open only one file, in fact. An odd stroke of curious, stupid luck, really. The folder on her desktop labeled “For Saturday” caught my eye, and I took a wild leap and input “Deacon” as the password. Lo and behold, the gates opened and I was i
n.

  Not the most exciting of victories, though, because the folder contained exactly one file. A single photograph of a bear of a guy with pockmarked skin, sagging eyelids, and a don’t-fuck-with-me demeanor. He was facing away from the camera, so I could see only about half of his face. The picture had been taken at night, and the image quality was poor, as if Alice had snapped it with her phone while walking. The file name was “T,” and there was no other information. Nothing stood out as exceptional about the picture. It was just there. On the computer. Taking up space and, possibly, hiding some deeper meaning. But damned if I knew what that was. Certainly I couldn’t guess why it had been password-protected any more than I could guess why Deacon’s name was the password.

  Was that merely a convenience because he was the one she’d been planning to meet on Saturday? Or did he know this man? If so, what could he tell me about T? I had no answer, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to a low, tingling hum that coursed below my skin when I realized that I needed to see Deacon again. Yes, he was dangerous. Yes, he suspected me.

  Yes, he was a goddamned demon.

  And, yeah, that made it complicated.

  But despite all that, I still wanted it. And damn me, I wanted him, too.

  My thoughts were drifting toward the prurient pleasures that this forbidden lust could provide when a persistent—and puzzling—pounding at my door shut down my fantasies. Puzzling because it was barely dawn, and at least in my world, people do not come in the wee hours of the morning.

  Frowning, I grabbed the knife off the table where I’d left it beside the computer, then stalked to the front door. I knew it wasn’t Clarence—he wouldn’t bother to knock—and I tried very hard to stifle the tingle of anticipation I felt at the possibility that Deacon stood beyond that door. After all, it could be anyone. Just because I and my demon-killing baggage now occupied the apartment, there’d been no announcement to that effect in the local paper. Which meant that this visitor was most likely calling for Alice. The original Alice.

  I gripped my knife even tighter, realizing that Alice’s killer might be a little perturbed to see her up and walking around. And the crack of dawn seemed like a good time to remedy that little problem.

  Then again, a potential killer probably wouldn’t be polite enough to knock.

  I pressed my face to the peephole, then grimaced when I saw a tall woman with raven-black hair, familiar eyes, and an impatient expression. I’d seen that face before, but it wasn’t until she pounded on the door again, calling out, “Alice! Dammit, open up,” that I recognized her from Alice’s picture and the newspaper article I’d seen.

  This was Rachel. Her—or, rather, my—sister.

  “You are not going to avoid me,” she yelled through the door, loud enough for the neighbors to get an earful. “Ignore me all you want, but I’ve got a key and I’m not afraid to use it.”

  I considered the possible advantage of slipping onto the fire escape, but ruled it out. This was Alice’s sister, and sooner or later, I’d have to deal with her. Might as well do it now.

  One more solid bang and then the rattle of keys. “Okay. I’m coming in.”

  I snapped the lock, turned the doorknob, and pulled the door open, sending Rachel tumbling into the entrance hall, led by her key, now stuck in the lock.

  She glared at me, righted herself, and then yanked the key free. “Could you move any slower?”

  “It’s early, Rach,” I said. “You woke me up.”

  “Rach?” she repeated. “What’s the matter, Al?”

  I managed a weak smile. Apparently this was not a family that was big on nicknames. “It just slipped out.”

  “Slip it back in.” She dropped her purse on the little inlaid-tile table by the door, then moved without preamble toward the kitchen. I lagged behind, taking stock. I recognized the Prada purse right away, and I could tell by the incredibly put-together look that Rachel didn’t have an item of clothing on her that didn’t come complete with a famous name. Alice, I’d noticed, was well put together, but the pieces were mostly discount cute. With Rachel, though, I caught the distinct whiff of money.

  “Are you sleeping in your clothes now?” she asked from the kitchen.

  “Huh?”

  Her brows lifted and she nodded pointedly toward me. I looked down, then realized I was still in jeans and my tank top, the stench of blood on me, if not the stains. It had been one hell of a day. Literally.

  “Nice jammies.”

  “Oh, right. I fell asleep watching television, and, well, you know.”

  “I think I do,” she said, but before I could ask her what she meant by that, she disappeared from view behind the counter, then popped up again with a blender. She plugged it in, gave me an eagle-eyed stare over the breakfast bar, then turned to inspect the contents of my freezer.

  “What are you—”

  “I know you, Alice. And you’re not eating right. I’m making you a smoothie.”

  I was quite ready to argue that I had a pathetically balanced diet when I realized I’d eaten nothing except a few bites of fish and chips in the last twenty-four hours. My stomach chose that moment to growl, Rachel looked at me triumphantly, and I realized two things. One, a smoothie sounded pretty good. And two, I had absolutely no experience in the younger sister role. So far, I had to admit it wasn’t too bad. Invasive, but tolerable.

  “What?” Rachel squinted at me. “What’s wrong?”

  I rubbed my eyes, scrubbing away the tears that had threatened as I thought of Rose. “Nothing. I told you. You woke me up.”

  She didn’t look entirely convinced, but she was too busy scooping out globs of yogurt to call me on it.

  “So what are you doing here at this hour?” A risky question for one so clueless, but I figured I’d take the chance.

  “Can’t a big sister want to pay her baby sister a visit?”

  I cocked my head, hoping I looked either irritated or resigned.

  It worked. “Oh, stop it. I promised I wouldn’t go there again, and I meant it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a piss-poor idea to start working at that place again.”

  “I know,” I said, then shrugged in a manner that I hoped invited a longer diatribe.

  The deafening whirr of the blender put a kibosh on that hope, and by the time she was pouring smoothies, I could tell she’d worked her way off the subject. With any luck, I could work her back on. Clearly, she hadn’t wanted Alice working at the pub. Did that have something to do with it being a demon magnet? Or was there some other reason?

  My thoughts circled back to Deacon. Had something she’d seen at the pub prompted her to go to Deacon for help?

  I didn’t know, but I needed to find out. Because when you added it all up, Alice had ended up dead. And I needed to figure out why. Not only because I felt like I owed her, but also because I wanted to protect my own new hide.

  “So why are you here?” I repeated when she handed me my smoothie.

  “I was worried, okay? And don’t get all huffy and tell me you’re grown-up and can watch out for yourself because I know how you can be.”

  “How’s that?”

  She shot me the kind of irritated-sister look I well recognized. “And since I have to fly out again this morning for London, I wanted to swing by and check on you. Remind you not to do anything stupid. Or anything more stupid, I guess I should say, since you’ve already gone back to work with Uncle E.”

  “It’s a good job,” I said, hoping to goad her into telling me why it wasn’t. “I make great tips.”

  “A good job? The pub’s always this close to shutting down, and you know as well as I do how Egan manages to get that extra little influx of cash every time.”

  “Yeah,” I said, pretending I did know, and wishing there were an easy way for me to figure it out. This had to have something to do with the hints and whisperings that the pub had connections to the dark arts. But how? More important, how could I ask while at the same time sounding like I kne
w?

  “Dammit! You promised me you’d stay away from all that dark stuff.”

  I took a sip of smoothie to cover my reaction. Alice wasn’t as pure as she appeared, and I was beginning to think the little dagger tattoo on her breast was more telling than the pink wardrobe. But what exactly had Alice done that had landed her dead and me in her body?

  I shook it off, cleared my face, and forced a smile. “I’m not dark,” I assured her. “Only light here.”

  “Alice . . . ”

  “Sorry. But I’m fine. You’re worrying too much. Or is there something in particular you’re worried about?” Great, Lily. That was subtle.

  “Why do I always get drawn back into this same conversation?” She started to scrub out the blender with a soapy sponge. “You got accepted to Harvard, Alice. You don’t have to work at the pub. You don’t have to slide into the family business. It’s a one-quarter ownership in something you’ve told me over and over that you don’t want. That you were perfectly content to walk away from.”

  “Like you did?”

  Her eyes narrowed, her glare pure fire. I stepped back, surprised by the reaction to what I’d thought was a good question for digging a bit further. Hadn’t realized I was using a pickax. “Don’t be glib,” she said coldly. “It doesn’t suit you.”

  “Sorry,” I muttered, genuinely contrite.

  Her shoulders slumped and she exhaled loudly through her nose, then slammed the blender in the dish drainer. She dried her hands on a towel, then stood there, flailing a bit, as if she were at loose ends without a prop. Finally, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her formfitting jacket.

  “Just promise me you’re being careful rather than stupid.”

  “I promise,” I said, vowing to figure out what exactly Alice had been stupid about.

  “Okay, then.” She moved around the breakfast bar, then pulled me into a hug. I stood there awkwardly for a second, then put my arms around her and sank into the comfort of being loved. By proxy, maybe, but right then I needed it however I could get it.