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  Zoria sighed gently. This island is too dangerous. But I’ll be fine here. Only Balthier knew where I was, before you. She paused, and said, I’d prefer to keep it that way.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not telling anybody about this.” Even if I did, they’d never believe me. Necromancers and zombies and demons, oh my. “And the grimoire?”

  Burn it. I don’t want those spells falling into the wrong hands.

  “Will do.” I didn’t smoke, but I had a pack of bar matches on me somewhere. I figured I’d tuck the thumb bone into the book before I burned it, just so there weren’t any bits of Zoria lying around.

  Thank you.

  I looked at the sky — clear and cold, free of impending demons. “Did we really save the world here?” I said.

  No, we didn’t. I sensed her smiling. You did.

  “Great. I think I’ll put that on my resume.” I smiled back, even though she couldn’t see it. “Well, I’d better get moving and try Abe. By now he’ll know I never showed up at the morgue, and he’s probably tracked down my van. He’s gonna kill me when he finds out I’m not dead.”

  I believe it’s time for me to go, too. There was a wistful tone in her whispered words. I’m glad to have met you, Gideon.

  “Same here,” I said. “Goodbye, Zoria.”

  Goodbye, DeathSpeaker.

  For a while after the pain in my head eased, I had a lump in my throat to replace it.

  Zoria was right about the western shore. I had almost a full bar of service standing at the rail of a crumbling concrete barrier, looking at the familiar Manhattan skyline and its ghostly reflection in the river as I waited for Abe to pick up.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  “Where the hell are you, kid?” he answered after a ring and a half.

  “Do you want the sarcastic answer, or the real one?”

  “Guess.”

  “North Brother Island.”

  That silenced him. Finally, he said, “So what’s the real answer?”

  “That is the real one,” I said. “I think I can see your house from here, actually.”

  “Gideon.” He managed to sound worried, relieved and angry all at once. “You’re not kidding, are you?” he said. “How in the name of Jesus Q. Christ did you get to North Brother Island?”

  “I’d tell you, but that’d only make you worry more.”

  “Too late.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I’m fine,” I said. “Just calling in a citizen’s arrest. Did I tell you that I’ve always wanted to do that?”

  “You did not do a citizen’s arrest.”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly tell him I was arresting him. I just chained him to a tree.”

  “Who? Gideon, you’d better start explaining this shit right now, or—”

  “Okay. I’m sorry.” I couldn’t help grinning, just a little. “Here’s the short version. I’ve got five bodies and one live murderer-slash-corpse-thief here, and we all need a lift across the river. Bring helicopters. I’ll give you the long version when you get here.”

  Abe let out a long-suffering sigh. “It’s a good thing I trust you, kid, or I’d think you were crazy.”

  “Yeah, you don’t have to think that. You already know.”

  “North Brother Island,” he muttered. “I can’t wait to hear this one. Hang tight — and for Christ’s sake, don’t arrest anyone else until I get there. That’s my job.”

  “Believe me, I don’t want your job.” I smiled. “Thanks, Abe.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for not getting yourself killed.”

  “Any time. See you soon.”

  I ended the call and took a minute to breathe. Up until now, I’d thought the insanity would be mostly over when we beat Milus Dei. Sure, I had to deal with the fact that I wasn’t human, and with knowing the things that had always belonged in fairy tales and nightmares were actually walking around with the rest of us. But I figured I’d have time to adjust to all that.

  Except I wasn’t just any Other. I was the DeathSpeaker — and it scared the hell out of me, but I couldn’t crawl back under the radar and pretend none of this happened. Not when I could change things for the better, and maybe save the world sometimes.

  I had a feeling life was about to get a whole lot more interesting.

  The DeathSpeaker Codex Series

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  Visit my series page for all books in The DeathSpeaker Codex

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  About the Author

  Sonya Bateman lives in 'scenic' Central New York, with its two glorious seasons: winter and road construction. She is the author of the DeathSpeaker Codex series and the Gavyn Donatti urban fantasy series (Master of None / Master and Apprentice) from Simon & Schuster.

  She enjoys good coffee, bad movies, and finding new people to fan-girl with over awesome things like Dr. Horrible, the Artemis Fowl books, all things Terry Pratchett, Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman, The Dark Crystal, and Dragonball Z.

  Contact Sonya here

  sonyabatemanauthor

  [email protected]

  Hard Row - Ambrose Ibsen

  A Demon-Hearted Short Story

  Demon-hearted brawler Lucian Colt prepares to trace a human trafficking operation to its fountainhead. But will he and his teammates prove a match for what awaits them in the seedy stretch of Hard Row?

  The waitress came by, wearing a too-cheery smile for a weekday evening. Maybe the three of us looked like good tippers or something. “I've got the triple cheeseburger and chili fries for Lucian,” she began, setting a teeming plate before me. “And a chocolate milkshake for Joe. Can I get you folks anything else?”

  Glaring at the aproned woman, Chief Kubo replied, “Just the check.”

  As usual, I'd ordered way too much food. It was an hour or two past sunset, and I was seated with Joe and Kubo in a corner booth at the Steak N' Shake on 4th and Maplewood Avenue. While I worked over my cheeseburger, three patties high and oozing with grease, Joe sipped pensively at his shake and the Chief pretended not to know me.

  I hiked a grease-slick thumb towards the window. “So,” I began, mouth half-full, “the guy's headed in there to do his grocery shopping?”

  Kubo, who'd only ordered a glass of water, crunched an ice cube as he replied, “Yes.” His broad shoulders stiffened in annoyance. “Though why you insist on sitting here, engorging yourself, is beyond me. I'd much rather we wait outside. Ernie will be by any minute now to give us the cue.”

  Joe turned to me, a lock of oily hair escaping his pompadour. He quickly combed it back, checking his reflection out in the window. “Lucy, I know you've got a demon's heart... but are you sure that eating that way won't kill you?”

  I smirked. “Nah, I'm bulletproof. It'll take more than a junk food diet to kill me.”

  Kubo sighed. “Just hurry up. We're working within a narrow window here.” Noticing as my gaze drifted to the dessert menu, he plucked it off the table and smacked me across the face with it. “Get your head in the game, Lucy. For Christ's sake. I feel like I'm babysitting a toddler whenever you're around.”

  I worked my greasy lips into a pout. “It wouldn't kill you to treat me with a little more respect. I mean, I'm your star-player, chief. The least you could do is call me by my full name.” I did my best impression of Kubo's Southern drawl. “Lucian, my boy, we're all counting on you. This dinner's on me, and after the job, I'll take you and Joe out for ice cream.”

  The Chief arched a wooly brow. “If you aren't done eating that monstrosity in the next five minutes, I swear...”

  My heart shifted uncomfortably in my chest, the muscle spasming suddenly.

  No, I wasn't having a heart attack. It was just the transplanted demon heart in my chest acting up.

  I'd had the heart of a fallen angel in my body for a little while now, but I still wasn't used to the way it lurched a
nd hiccoughed in my chest. The demon got restless sometimes, and I guess the only way for him to calm back down was to throw me into palpitations. I thumped myself in the chest until the fluttering stopped and then took a swig of Coke. Getting excited, Gadreel? I thought. Excited about the fight to come?

  The demon in me, Gadreel, loved a good fight. Whenever he sensed one coming on, he tended to grow restless, and in the heat of battle his influence over me would increase a great deal. Not that I minded letting him step into the spotlight; violence was what he did best. I mean, the myths surrounding him mostly dealt with his participating in important battles throughout history, of dabbling in warfare and sharing it with mankind. Some called him the God of War.

  It was hard to believe just how much my life had changed since taking on Gadreel. After getting murdered by a coven of savage witches, I'd been given a second shot at life thanks to the Veiled Order. They'd chosen me as the lucky recipient of a demon's heart, which brought me back from the brink. I even came away from the deal with some crazy new powers. Powers that'd helped me take out the hateful witches that'd killed me in the first place. I'd died a simple, good-for-nothing repo man one day and been reborn a demon-powered badass and secret society mercenary the next.

  Life as a member of a secret society wasn't as glamorous as I'd hoped. For starters, there weren't any interesting rituals to carry out, no micromanaging of the world's affairs. All of those conspiracy documentaries I'd watched had gotten that stuff wrong. Joe and I got dragged into the office now and then to discuss new supernatural threats to the city, but by and large the higher-ups in the Veiled Order didn't concern themselves with us a whole lot, and they weren't gearing up to take over the world, either. The organization's only goal was to keep magic off of the streets. There are two worlds; the world of spirits, often called the “Beyond”, and ours. The Veiled Order stood between them like a chaperone at a school dance. Better that the two worlds not dance too close, you know?

  A burger joint was a weird place to wait for a suspect in a human trafficking operation. The guy we were keeping an eye out for, the target our ghostly informant Ernie was currently tracking, was a fellow by the name of Enrique Pena. I didn't know a whole lot about Enrique, had never met him, but had been told he was the human ringleader in a trafficking operation that dealt in children. The real masterminds behind it were allegedly a pair of werewolves, Mikhail and Gennady Kaminsky, and the two of them were pretty high up on the Veiled Order's most-wanted list. We were hanging around at the restaurant, keeping our eyes peeled for ol' Enrique, who was known to do his nightly grocery shopping at the chic organic market across the street.

  That's how us secret society guys roll. If you're on our shit-list, we're going to take you down while you're planning the week's meals and rummaging through the sale produce.

  “This guy, Enrique, what's he look like?” I asked.

  “Big,” replied Kubo. “Full sleeve tattoos. I hear he isn't too pretty; lots of metal in his face and dinner plates in his ears. He's mortal, and as far as I know he has no magical skill whatsoever, but it's hard to say whether the Kaminsky brothers have provided him with any sort of protection.” He crunched another ice cube. “We want him alive, of course. We need him to tell us where his bosses are hiding.”

  “Don't go getting carried away, Lucy,” said Joe, leaning towards me. “You're going to have to rein it in, you know? Nothing flashy.”

  I smirked. “Yeah, yeah. I'll try to hold something back.” I took a gulp of soda and stretched a little, patting my gut. “So, why would a pair of werewolves dabble in something like human trafficking? It seems a little pedestrian for two creatures of the night, no?”

  Kubo frowned, setting down his empty glass with a thud. He glanced around the restaurant for a time. There was no one within earshot. The only other customer at the time was an old man seated near the entrance. Our waitress came by and dropped off the check, which Kubo hastily dealt with. When she'd gone, he finally replied. “Us humans are valuable in certain spheres,” he said.

  I took a bite of my burger. “Yeah, but monsters with special powers could certainly get involved with more lucrative work than, like, abducting kids, don't you think?”

  Sniffing the air, Kubo shook his head. “No, you misunderstand. These kids they kidnap aren't ending up in prostitution or something like that. It isn't that sort of operation.”

  Joe shifted uncomfortably in his seat, tugging at the collar of his leather jacket. “What do you mean by that?”

  Kubo leaned forward, taking on the severe cast of a father trying to explain to his idiot sons where babies came from. “I don't know how much more obvious I can make it. The kids are bought and sold to be used in rituals. Their parts are, anyway.” He cleared his throat. “Blood... fresh human blood, or body parts, especially those of a child, can supercharge one's spells. The market for living children in the Beyond is vast. There are entities on the other side that do business with the Kaminsky brothers, selecting human children like you might select a fresh lobster from one of those tanks at the grocery store.”

  My stomach dropped, and no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to chew up the bite of hamburger in my mouth. I wasn't sure what was more upsetting just then; the fact that this sort of thing actually happened or the Chief's utter nonchalance surrounding the matter, comparing abducted kids to grocery store lobsters. “Y-you serious?” I asked.

  It was a stupid question, of course. “Yeah,” replied Kubo. “That's why the Veiled Order is involved.”

  The color had fled Joe's face. He glanced nervously through the window, fidgeting with his milkshake. He'd unknowingly pressed a number of crescent moons into the styrofoam cup with his fingernails. “That's fucked up,” was all he could manage.

  My horror gave way to anger. “So, the guy we're meeting tonight is the human motherfucker who facilitates this whole thing? The middleman?”

  Kubo nodded.

  I cleaned my hands off on a napkin and threw it down onto my plate. “Well, I'm looking forward to meeting this Enrique, then. I'm going to have to apologize in advance, too. I don't know if I'll be able to take it easy on him.”

  “Don't start, Lucy,” began Kubo. “We need him alive. This whole thing falls apart and his bosses get off scot-free if we kill him.” He tossed his shoulders, smoothing out the front of his black sport jacket. “Then again, if he tells us what we want to know, then I certainly won't have any hard feelings if he winds up dead.”

  That businesses existed to sell off human children like cattle for use in blood rituals sickened me more than I can describe. What could possess someone, a human being, no less, to take part in an operation of this kind? How could such a person sleep at night, knowing what became of his “merchandise?” The whole thing made my skin crawl, made my stomach roil. And that wasn't good, because I'd packed away at least a pound of beef and cheese before Kubo's reveal had seen my appetite disappear.

  The door to the restaurant opened and then fell closed with a clatter. There was no one there. I thought I heard footsteps, but figured it was the waitress or someone in the kitchen walking out into the dining area.

  It wasn't until the voice seeped into my ear, followed by a touch of freezing cold air, that I realized Ernie was in the house.

  “Hey, kiddo,” said the ghost. His voice was low, and with it I could have sworn I caught a whiff of Colt 45 malt liquor. Ernie was one of the Veiled Order's informants. Every night, he walked the city of Detroit, keeping an eye out for suspicious activity or following the organization's targets. He'd been an alcoholic and compulsive gambler in life, and he'd met his end when those two passions collided. Kubo had told me he'd blown his brains out in a game of Russian Roulette over a bottle of bum wine. “Your man has just entered that store across the street. Just like I said he would,” continued Ernie, loud enough for all three of us to hear.

  Kubo shot up from the table. “All right. Let's move it.” Grabbing my shoulder, he pulled me out of the booth and waited for
Joe to fall into step behind us. “It's just like I said. Confront the guy. Lead him outside. I'll have the SUV waiting. Don't make a scene; the last thing we want is to have to deal with cops. Keep your wits about you, too. It's hard to say whether he's packing a weapon, or if he has any magical skill.” He turned to Joe just as we exited the restaurant. “Keep an eye on Lucy. Don't let him fuck this up.”

  Joe cracked a grin. “I'll do my best, Chief.”

  The green neon sign for the organic grocery across the street lit up the night. It was a real fancy place, the kind where you could buy your clementines pre-peeled, where all of the avocados were picturesque and never turned brown. The three of us started towards it, Kubo breaking away as we neared the parking lot. His massive SUV was parked at the very edge of it, so that we could make a quick getaway with our target when the time came.

  “He's got tattoos and piercings and shit, right?” I asked Ernie, whose footsteps I could still hear at my back.

  The ghost whistled, loosing a nervous chuckle. “Oh, yeah. He's an ugly fella, that's for damn sure. Can't miss him. I followed him as far as the door. Came in on foot. He's done the same thing pretty much every night this week, so if you don't get him tonight, then maybe tomorrow you can—”

  “Oh, no,” I replied, approaching the entrance to the store. “We're getting him tonight.” I cracked my knuckles, the joints popping grotesquely. My heart thrashed in my chest, the demon sensing an altercation in my future.

  Joe took hold of his silver Zippo lighter, twirling it between his fingers. He could do some pretty wild things with it. As a pyromancer, he was capable of manipulating an open flame, could throw fireballs at people or even cook them from the inside with their own body heat.

  I shook my head. “Nah, man. Put it away. I'll handle this.” The two of us stepped into the store, a wave of air conditioning making the sweat on our faces go frigid. “I'll talk to him. Get him to leave with us without making a ruckus. You stay close-by, just in case he tries to make a run for it, OK?”