Confessions of a Demon by S. L. Wright Read Free Book Online Page A

night that he’d ripped my shirt trying to get hold of me to steal my energy.
     
I had used the Aikido techniques I had perfected to deflect, disengage, and find his leverage points to unbalance him. Then I ran. I was very good at running—and healing. Pique broke my arm that night, but I didn’t care whether he broke my arms and both legs; I would run home, anyway. Pain didn’t matter when I could repair myself later.
     
Pique would certainly go after a new demon like Petrify while he was vulnerable in his newly minted, nearly drained state. He might even try to go after Shock.
     
I glared across the street at Pique, clenching the towel. I wanted to confront him and drive the beast away. Who did he think he was coming into my territory and hurting my people? With the energy I’d taken from Petrify coursing through me, I felt as if I could beat him. It felt right to try.
     
Pique pushed his glasses up firmly, as if he were making a decision. He waited for several taxis to pass by, then started across the street. Some guy shouted after Pique, shaking his fist in the air. That was Pique, pissing off people everywhere he went.
     
“Trouble, Lo!” I called over my shoulder, hurrying to the door. I put my hands on the worn jambs.
     
Pique came straight toward me, apparently not concerned about anyone else. This was exactly why I worked for Vex: so he would keep demons away from me.
     
“You can’t come in. You’re not welcome at the Den,” I said loudly enough for the patrons inside and some passersby on the sidewalk to hear. They were walking toward the bright lights of Houston and barely noticed the argument. One guy quickened his steps to get out of the way.
     
Pique’s head was hanging slightly and he peered at me through his Coke-bottle glasses, making his eyes seem larger and more protruding. I hoped Petrify wouldn’t be such a nasty demon as Pique, but if he was, it was my fault for being so frightened during his birth and imprinting that fear on him.
     
Pique kept coming forward.
     
I shouted over my shoulder, “Lo, call 911.”
     
The police couldn’t stop a demon, but they could certainly help run interference. Surely Pique had enough sense of self-preservation that he wouldn’t reveal his true nature.
     
I stepped forward out of his line of attack, moving away from the door and to one side, the classic Aikido defense. As he tried to close the distance, I lightly pushed down his outstretched wrist with both hands. He resisted, stepping back as I took another step forward. Spinning in a full circle, I brought his hand up again, twisting it around into an armlock. With the slightest pressure, I pushed him down on his back away from the door of the bar.
     
I’m sure it looked easy, but it took good judgment and timing to do Aikido right. Demons usually went for the brute-force approach. We were stronger and faster, maybe because it didn’t matter if we ripped up our bodies. We might appear to have the organs and bones and digestive system of a human, but we were really a three-dimensional copy, like solid ephemera.
     
As Pique grabbed at me again, I turned slightly and deflected his arm away from me. Then, fueled by all that demon energy I had stolen, I took a step closer and punched him in the face three times, flattening his nose.
     
A human would have dropped down to the ground, but Pique took it with hardly a shake of his head.
     
Aikido moves technically weren’t supposed to include offensive maneuvers. I couldn’t have punched him if he hadn’t been attacking me. Yet my punches left me open when, instead of going down, Pique grabbed my wrist and his fingers sank in.
     
He had me. He was pure determination, wanting only to steal my energy—and the demon essence at my core.
     
I’d been too cocky and caught off guard when my punches hadn’t flattened him. As I was a creature of pure will, shock at my own stupidity made me vulnerable. My shields slipped.
     
He started ruthlessly