Seduced by Lies by Alex Lux Read Free Book Online

Cujo?”
    Cujo. How original. “He’s a nice dog,” I said, ignoring the stench of piss and beer and bong water wafting from this hovel. Focus on what's nice. “Nice trees around here. I’m Rose and this is Curtis. His cousin was killed the same way your sister was, and we heard you might have seen what did it?”
    Billy’s bloodshot eyes widened. “Ah, man, that sucks. I sure as hell saw something. Come on in.”
    I didn’t want to step foot in his house—and I use the term house lightly—but what choice did I have when we needed information? My wolf senses never shut off completely. Even in human form I had a heightened sense of smell… and, boy, I wished I didn’t as the rancid decay of Billy’s dwelling assaulted me. I gagged, hiding it with a cough, as he gestured us to his ratty, torn up couch. I eyed it suspiciously and sat on the very edge, hoping we didn’t catch anything contagious while here.
    Billy walked to a cooler stuck inside his broken refrigerator. Classy. He held out a beer. “Want one?”
    I shook my head. “No, we’re good. Thanks. Can you tell us what you saw? We heard it was an animal?”
    Billy perched a barstool and took a deep swig of his beer, wiping his mouth on his arm and burping. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
    I was not in the mood for games and it occurred to me we should have brought Sam. Her mind-reading abilities would come in handy right about now. “What do you mean?”
    He took another swig, emptying the can. "It looked like a wolf, but…" His eyes darted around as if someone might be listening.
    Curtis leaned forward. "But?"
    Billy grabbed another beer and chugged before setting it down. "But it had red eyes," he said in a hiss. "Huge teeth. And it was bigger than any wolf I'd ever seen."
    I suddenly had the urge to giggle. It was like being inside a morbid, drug-infested retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. Fighting the urge, I instead asked, "Where'd you see it?"
    He lit a cigarette, but one puff and I could tell there was more than just tobacco in there. I was going to need a shower after this.
    "A grove deep in the forest,” he said. “Me and my sis used to go hiking there. Good place to smoke a few joints and chill, ya know? It was bitchin’ in the daylight, and we wanted to see it at night. So we did." He paused. "It didn't look bitchin’ no more. Smelled like pig shit and ass. Smelled like a fucking demon, yo."
    My pulse quickened, thoughts of my demon father and my trip to the demon realm causing a visceral reaction in me. "A demon?"
    He nodded. "That's what it was."
    If he was right, and I wasn’t convinced he was, this could be seriously bad. "Can you show us where you saw it?"
    Billy shook his head and took another hit of his joint. "I can't go back there."
    "Please,” I begged. “We want to find this animal."
    “Wasn’t no animal. I tolds ya. It was a demon straight from hell.”
    “Right,” I said. “We need to find this demon before anyone else gets hurt.”
    He squinted his eyes at us. "And then what?"
    "We can kill it," I said. "For your sister."
    That seemed to convince Billy. "Okay. Let's go, yo." He pulled out a rifle from a closet, which did nothing to reassure me. "It’s gettin’ dark. The demon may have come back."

E IGHT
     
Man Delights Not Me
     
D RAKE
     

     
     
    Man delights not me. No, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
    — William Shakespeare, Hamlet
     
     
    FATHER PATRICK PULLED out a thick book filled with velum-like cream paper that seemed ancient. It was bound in carved brown leather inlaid with gold and handwritten with a quill pen and black ink. At least, I imagined it had been a quill pen. The edges of the pages had intricate images with more gold inlay.
    He set it on the table in the secret library and flipped through the pages until he reached the image of a wolf standing on two legs, part man and part beast, holding a helpless woman in the air with one claw.
    "Lycans are designed to kill,"