Page 2 of Demon Touched (The Demon Syndicate #2)

Nova

C limbing out her window, she slid down to the street where she’d parked her bike. The shadows wrapped around her and she settled over her eyes.

Nova couldn’t believe Dex had really thought she was a guy.

Grinning as she swapped out her license plates, she had to admit the pure shock on his face when he’d first seen her had been incredibly satisfying even though she’d been terrified of what he would do if he got his hands on her.

The moment a man found out he’d gotten his ass handed to him by a girl was almost a kink by now.

Slapping a charm on her bike to mask every sound before she hopped on, Nova started the engine and tried not to think about how Grim Corp owned her apartment building.

If she ended up going undercover, she would have to get a second apartment since she couldn’t risk being inside a rival’s territory when she was hunting.

Nova had to be careful. She could end up in the middle of territory skirmishes with no affiliation to either side and if either of them decided to come after her, she was fucked. She didn’t have backup in this city and using the card up her sleeve for something like this was a waste.

Parking her bike as deep in the shadows as she could get it, she considered her options.

Maybe she could get a job at a bar.

Every good hunter had at least one normal job they could use to blend in with humanity when necessary, and hers was tailored to her issues with the midday sun. A lot of the businesses in this area could use a bartender and she had the skills.

Nova stuck to the walls and took the same path she had the first night when she’d gotten into that altercation with those wolves.

If this grey area was hunting territory for the paranormals who didn’t belong to the Grim Corp, then maybe she’d be able to catch them in the act again.

Hunting humans wasn’t against the rules, but here in the city? It would catch too much attention from the human authorities and she could use that to her advantage.

Unaligned shifters causing minor problems like this would go in her report, but she knew it wouldn’t be enough for the council to consider her mission complete. They wanted to know about the reports on magic and she’d end up stuck here until she could figure out who was behind those reports.

Nova climbed up the first gutter she could find and took to the rooftops. She could see everything from up here and it would be difficult for anyone to get the jump on her with so much open space.

Pulling herself up onto the ledge, Nova crouched on the corner of the roof and watched as people came and went from the bar across the street.

This one didn’t have the Grim Corp’s hourglass and wings anywhere in the window and it was also close to where she’d been attacked.

Technically, she was still on the edge of Grim Corp borders. This street should be considered grey territory which would explain why Dex had followed her and why his mortuary was close by.

He’d even taken her to the pizzeria up the street that didn’t seem to be owned by anyone, but this bar had a bouncer with a black lotus tattoo on his forearm. She couldn’t see it with her blue eye, but it glittered when she looked with her purple eye.

The tattoo seemed to be enchanted, invisible to anyone without the key or a way to see through illusions and enchantments.

Not everyone who came and went from this bar had the tattoo, but a lot of them did which meant this was most likely another organization, not just random paranormals.

Then why did this bar exist so close to official Corp borders? Were they trying to squeeze Grim Corp out?

A territory war would have the council sending a squad of hunters, if not a whole platoon since territory fights could easily get out of hand. They happened all the time, but within city limits was dangerous for everyone, and far easier to attract the notice of humans.

She’d have to find the owner of this place and their accounts to map out what she could. If not, maybe she could cut off one of those tattoos and figure out all the points of connection.

Tattoos were complicated magic, which made her wonder how they were able to hand them out to so many people. This group must have at least one powerful witch, if not more.

Nova watched as a shifter girl left the bar and she was immediately followed by a group of male shifters. She didn’t have the tattoo, but they did.

Were they planning to hunt her the same way those wolves had hunted Nova on her first night in the city?

She moved, following the group on a parallel path from across the street and then paused when their eyes started to glow. They had a bear shifter and a feline shifter in that group. Could the wolf girl handle that?

Then turned down the same street as the woman and she could practically taste the bloodlust from across the street.

Watching them turn a corner, she snarled softly, annoyed she’d have to cross the street.

Nova placed one hand on the edge of the roof, twisting until her feet hit the wall and she was hanging three stories up. She checked the lights and kept a lookout for cars, before pulling on the shadows.

Sliding down the wall to slow her speed, she bent her knees when she hit the ground and rolled to dissipate the impact. The moment she popped up on her feet, she moved her fingers in the right pattern and whispered the words of the spell until every light on the block went out.

Nova ran across the street and deepened the shadows as she went until her blue eye was blind, but she could still see everything with her purple eye.

There were shouts from the bar, and she jumped up the second she made it to the building, climbing the gutter in record time. Nova hauled herself up and over before releasing the spell on the streetlights and just like that, everything was back to normal.

She ignored the confusion from the bar and went after the shifters who’d disappeared around the corner.

Sprinting across the rooftop, she tried to zero in on their scents and sounds, shoving back the general noise of the city.

Where was that girl?

“Dex, I’m being followed.”

Nova adjusted her direction toward the sound of the female’s voice and picked up the pace. The shifters hadn’t caught up to her yet, but they weren’t far behind either.

“Where are you?”

“Behind the bar. I was doing recon like you asked, but they must have sensed something.”

Nova caught the girl’s scent and frowned. Why was a wolf out here alone?

She jumped over her from one roof to the next so she could see the faces of the men hunting this woman.

“Something else is here too,” the wolf whispered. “But I have no idea what it was.”

“Backup is already on the way,” Dex snarled. “Just hold out long enough for me to get there.”

Shit, things were going to get messy if Nova didn’t handle this herself.

She watched as one of the shifters emerged from the shadows and gave the wolf girl a toothy grin.

Nova pulled herself up on the edge and waited to see what would happen. If this girl was one of Dex’s, then she should be able to take care of herself, but this was five against one with a bear in the mix.

A single wolf was going to have a hard time unless she was a prodigy.

“Why’d you leave?” one of them drawled. “I thought we were having a good time.”

Nova didn’t like their tone or the scent of their predatory arousal. This girl must have turned them down and they had no plans to let her get away with that.

“My friend cancelled,” the wolf girl whispered. “I don’t like being alone. It doesn’t feel safe.”

“If you come with us, you won’t be alone,” the feline shifter purred as the five of them stalked forward.

Real fear scented the air and Nova knew she was going to have to step in. She considered the numbers and the angle, but there was no clean way to do this.

Fuck it.

She launched herself from the roof and aimed for the biggest bear.

“What the fuck?!”

All her weight dropped on him when she landed and they slammed into the ground. Nova couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive, but she didn’t have the time to check.

Nova stood and put herself between the girl and the shifters with the shimmery, black flower tattoos.

“Who the fuck are you?” the feline demanded.

She backed up another step to make sure the wolf girl knew what she was trying to do and a trembling hand settled on her back.

“You really don’t want this fight,” one of the wolves warned her.

Nova just looked pointedly at the bear bleeding on the pavement.

These guys planned to hurt this girl, rape her if they could, and Nova refused to let that happen.

Dex had said backup was on the way and Nova would rather it didn’t turn into a battle between two sides. If this group with the tattoos was looking for her instead of Grim Corp syndicate, it might ease some of the collateral damage.

“This is none of your business,” another one told her. “Just let us have her and we won’t hurt you.”

Nova wanted to laugh but silence unnerved people more.

“Fine,” the feline snapped. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

She had a split second to decide.

Whirling around, she pressed the wolf girl to the wall and lowered her voice to a deep grit. “When they come at us, you run. Get your backup and take them back to Dex. Don’t engage. Got it?”

“Got it.”

The sound of a fist whistling through the air had Nova rolling them both to the side and she smirked when his fist shattered against the brick wall and he howled in pain.

She pushed the girl toward the end of the alley and whipped her leg around, clipping someone’s jaw with her heel.

The sound of the wolf girl’s footsteps faded and Nova did nothing but dodge or block their attacks as she waited. She needed to wait until…there.

As soon as the girl left the alley, she turned it into a pitch-black nightmare with a single thought.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Where did he go?”

“I didn’t see him use magic, did you?”

Nova studied them with her purple eye and she almost felt bad about this, but these guys would only cause more problems if she left them alive. They would have raped that girl – just like the others would have done to her that first night.

Unsheathing two knives—she struck.

Their screams were muffled by the darkness and Nova twisted the knives in their hearts. Two dropped and she yanked them out, using both to slice across another throat and his garbled yell was music to her ears.

She gently slid her knife into his heart and twisted, making sure to finish the kill.

The last one tried to run, but her knife sank into the back of his neck, severing his spine. He dropped like a stone and she stepped over him as she headed for the bear, yanking her knife out of the body as she went.

Only one heartbeat was left.

Nova gripped the bear by the hair and pulled his head back so she could study his face and he glared at her. It was honestly impressive. She’d nearly squashed him, but he was still alive.

“Who are you?” he asked, voice quavering.

“I am the monster who hunts monsters,” Nova whispered into his ear. Then she slammed his head into the pavement to put him to sleep.

Hunters left traps and this bear was the bait. He would pass along her message and the group with the tattoos would come to their own conclusions when they saw the bodies she’d left behind.

A random hunter with a vigilante complex would turn their attention away from the Grim Corp and keep Dex out of the council’s sights.

Nova strode through the alley, following the path of the wolf girl and her scent.

The shadows eased into natural darkness where the alley met the street and she stopped just inside the shadows to watch as Dex checked over the wolf girl across the street.

“He told me not to engage,” she said, her voice shaking. “You’re trying to tell me you didn’t send him?”

“Who exactly are you talking about?” Dex snarled. Then a sudden look of understanding crossed his face. Nova felt her stomach flip when their eyes met.

She’d been avoiding him after what had happened last week and now he knew exactly where she was.

Helping that girl had given away her location to the nephilim hunting her. Nova had known it would, but she couldn’t let that girl get hurt when she could do something to stop it.

Gianna may be the reason she felt like she had to be the best hunter in the world, but when it came down to it, making sure the real monsters paid for their crimes was more important.

Nova gave Dex a two-finger salute and then turned, walking back into the alley as she wrapped the darkness around her like a cloak. She slipped into one of the nearby buildings and settled in to wait and see who would claim the bodies.

Once they took her bait, she would decide her next move.