Page 2 of Demon Heart: The Complete Series

T wo hours later, the rain now a heavier downpour, voices filled the air.

“This will be perfection,” the woman in the group declared above the sound of rain battering umbrellas.

“I know,” came Mark’s arrogant response.

“Looking forward to Monday,” a man chimed in.

You can forget all about Monday.

The men and the woman continued to blow smoke up his arse. I kept up with my little exercises for blood flow, a series of stretches to make sure I remained killing-ready.

“Goodbye, darling,” Mark said, air-kisses following.

“So good to see you again,” the woman purred.

Another possible lover for Marky Mark, eh? Cheating on his latest wife like the wonderfully decent prick he was.

The car doors opened and closed, the vehicle bouncing as bodies got comfy.

“She’s something, ain’t she?” Mark said.

“Yes, boss,” a raspy male voice replied.

“Great tits.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Gonna be sliding my dick between them by the end of next week.”

“Good for you, boss.”

“Hotdog for me.” Mark laughed. They all did. I guess his minions were paid to find anything he spewed hilarious.

Let’s see how funny they found a dead boss.

“Take me home, Keith,” Mark demanded.

The car moved, lots of winding and bumping until a long stretch of smooth driving took over for a while.

Eventually, we came to a stop again, out of the rain.

Inside a garage?

Mark and his crew left the car, leaving me in silence. Giving it a few minutes to be sure this new quiet continued, I pushed the seat hatch open and squeezed through.

Red lights blipped on the dashboard, the alarm system seconds away from ratting on me. I leaned forward, driving Skele into the ignition. One click to the left neutralized the incoming wail.

“Shut your face,” I told the car, and took in my new surroundings.

A spacious garage with a motorbike and a red sportscar joining this one. There were six cameras in the ceiling, because why not?

I refreshed my diversion, praying for no magical failures.

Pretty please!

I slid from the car, darting across the concrete floor to a door. I listened, hearing distant voices. The door was locked so Skele did his thing, and I opened it just enough for me to move into a dark corridor.

I followed the voices through a house of chrome, concrete and blinding white walls, everything extremely clinical. Cameras moved above my head, not spotting me as the spell kept on being my buddy.

Paranoid much, Marky Mark?

“That shithole will be our new playground,” I heard Mark say as I turned into a vast living room.

He sat on a huge black-leather sofa with his shirt open, showing off more gold chains and his super orange tan.

His bodyguards and Keith were sat in a set of chairs opposite him.

Rain streaked down the panoramic windows behind him, an obnoxious TV playing porn on mute.

Money and gold were piled up on a glass coffee table close to Mark, along with some mounds of cocaine.

The King of Clubs leaned forward, cutting white powder with a credit card, forming lines.

“Tonight’s a celebration, boys.”

They nodded like good minions.

“Good coke, women en route. This is gonna be some wild shit.”

He rolled up a fifty-pound note and snorted a line.

“Fuck yeah!” he bellowed, throwing himself back into the sofa, legs and arms spread.

The other men watched on, grinning at each other.

Were they waiting for their master to give the go-ahead for a sniffy sniff?

Mark pinched his nose and sat forward again. “Partake, boys. Par?—”

Double spell time. I cast diversion on the cameras, then a freeze spell on the three men, leaving Mark with a befuddled expression.

“Boys?”

Freezing worked once a month. Annoying, but at least the spell remained available in some capacity, unlike many others.

Mark got to his feet, terror sketched across his features. “What the fuck, boys?” His dilated pupils glinted in the light, sweat beading his brow. “This ain’t funny.”

It kind of was. At least from my point of view.

Call me a little bit sadistic.

“Fuck…” he breathed, pulling out his phone.

Okay, time to end it.

I threw my blade, propelled by a dose of Synth magic, to seal the deal.

It struck him in the forehead, burying itself deep.

His mouth dropped open, his eyes fluttering.

He collapsed onto the sofa, dead. As easy as that.

I could’ve poisoned him, leaving no mark on his body.

But the queen wanted his corpse to instill fear in his associates.

There was no direct line to her, and fear was another branch of revenge.

If it were up to me, I’d eradicate every one of these frozen men, then burn the house down. However, that wasn’t my call. I was the pawn, not the chess master.

I removed my blade with a little wiggle, wiping the blood with a black handkerchief. The diversion spells on me and the camera wobbled, a sharp ache in my hands that felt like the agony of Repetitive Strain Syndrome. Thankfully, the magic held.

Casting spells wasn’t too fun nowadays. Synth, a synthetic magic used by witches, was weakening, and using too much of it came with painful consequences in the hands.

I popped some Synth pills to help with the rising pain.

Ah, much better.

In order to use magic, a witch had to take Synth pills.

The red, easy-to-swallow capsules were designed to be taken easily without water, laced with a non-addictive painkiller for safe, regular consumption.

Dulling the pain allowed us to use magic for longer, as well as keeping it topped up.

However, at a certain point, rest became the best course of action to help everything recalibrate.

I longed for the days of pain-free casting, of the glamour spells now six months gone. Disguises were fantastic tools in my field. I’d worn so many faces, so many bodies as I jetted around the world for the queen.

Oh, well. Another thing to be left in the past.

The freeze spell dropped.

Shit.

“Boss?” one of the men said. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“Is he dead?” Keith asked. “What…”

Panic set in. The two guards drew their guns, sweeping around the room.

Keith checked Mark’s pulse, the hole in his head clearly not enough to convince him his idol had snuffed it.

“He’s dead,” Keith whispered. “He’s really dead.”

I wanted to applaud him on such an amazing discovery.

The guards’ shock switched to anger, the hunt firmly on for a potential killer.

With the prospect of being swiss cheese if my diversion failed hanging over my head, I ran to the front door. Unlocking it, I sprinted into the night, bounding down a gravel driveway. I could’ve stolen one of the vehicles, but that would only leave me open to being tracked.

Unfortunately, I found myself in the middle of the countryside, the rain intensifying as if to mock me. The darkness out here was thick, no streetlights, nothing but fields, trees, and country lanes, the sky choked by rainclouds.

I opened the GPS app on my phone to pinpoint my location.

I heard the roar of engines behind me, headlights cutting through the dark. I moved off the road, crouching on the verge. Keith’s car tore past me seconds later.

Fingers crossed he plowed into a tree.

Wiping raindrops from my phone screen, I got back to it. Ah, not too bad. I was a forty-minute walk away from Cray’s Pond, a hamlet approximately an hour and half’s drive west of London.

Calling a taxi might cause a problem for me and the driver out here on the country roads, so I got to walking, not encountering Keith’s car when I reached the hamlet. In fact, I didn’t see any other vehicle on my entire walk.

Good.

I came to a pub, still open, a press of bodies inside. As much as I could’ve gone for a nice pint of something, I stayed in the small carpark and called a local taxi firm. My driver noted what a soggy mess I was, and practically salivated when I told him my destination.

Central London from here? Ka-ching!

By the time we got back to my Soho flat, the blasting heaters had dried me off. I paid the man eighty quid with my special untraceable credit card, and hurried inside.

My flat sat above a convenience store on the corner of Old Compton Street and Frith Street, right in the heart of a roaring LGBTQ+ scene. Even after all the changes London had undergone over the decades, this area retained its rainbow energy.

I didn’t partake in the clubs and bars or put myself out there dating guys. I wanted to, but there were rules to my life:

Never break my cover.

Don’t get tangled up in messy love affairs.

Keep my life clean.

Stay away from demons.

I made sure I stuck to them, especially the last one.

Demons had once been hidden within society, the enemy trying to take over our world.

Dangerous creatures who’d invaded our world.

They were often banished, if discovered, because they couldn’t be killed by anything other than the lost magic of Arcana.

And they were still unkillable now, as well as being totally unbanishable.

Another consequence of The Rift.

The walls between this world and the demon realm were down, demons experiencing their share of toxic river and monster problems, too. Where there had once been gates to access that realm, there were now several points of entry, granting free movement for both species.

Things were complicated to say the least.

Ongoing peace talks between demons and the witches were trying to find a way to move forward in our new reality, but public opinion remained intensely divided.

Why should there be peace between us and invasive monsters?

Why should we share our world? They had one, let them stay there.

What about us moving into their realm? Where were the discussions about new human settlements on that side?

And were we supposed to simply forgive a multitude of sins against us, regardless of there being some decent demons behind these talks?

Yeah, complicated.