The Descent Series, Books 1-3: Death's Hand, The Darkest Gate, and Dark Union (The Descent Series, Volume 1) by SM Reine Read Free Book Online Page A

words trapped between the spikes of his teeth, but he swallowed them down.
    Fifteen minutes later, she trotted down the stairs into Blood again, flicking the check against the fingers of her free hand. David Nicholas slunk behind her, his arms wrapped tight around his body. He wasn’t going to fall apart yet—not if he could hold himself together long enough to feed. But Elise hadn’t made it easy on him. His shirt was in tatters, and the flesh beneath it wasn’t much better.
    The amount on the check was more than what they owed her for six months of work. It would cover the next quarter, too—and two months of her office’s rent. She tucked it down her belt along with her dagger.
    “Pleasure doing business with you,” Elise said over the thudding of music. David Nicholas’s eyes flashed.
    A scream.
    Elise twisted, facing the direction from which the scream had come. The dressing room .
    David Nicholas was already gone, jumping shadow to shadow to disappear from the stool and reappear at the end of the hall. He vanished around the corner in a swirl of tattered clothing.
    Elise grabbed the doorknob to the dressing room and shook it. Locked.
    Neuma screamed again, and the door rattled in its hinges as something heavy slammed against the other side.
    She took a step back and unleashed a powerful kick next to the lock mechanism. The door shattered around the handle.
    Elise kicked again. It slammed open.
    Neuma was pressed against the counter, her back smashed into the now-shattered glass of the mirror. A gray creature with branded flesh crushed her, its stubby hands locked on her wrists as its slavering mouth lowered toward her chest.
    “Hey!” Elise shouted.
    The demon turned. Its bulging eyes were almost all black. Opens slashes across his face wept blood and pus, and saliva dripped from its mouth.
    It focused on her, and its pupils dilated.
    Elise drew back her fist and punched, throwing her whole body behind the blow. The demon’s head snapped to the side. It toppled with a keening scream.
    The half-succubus cried out as she got off the counter. Several shards of glass stuck in her back, and blood poured down her perfect spine.
    The little demon clambered to its feet. Elise pushed the bartender behind her.
    “What do you want?” Elise demanded. The demon’s thin gray tongue darted out of its mouth to lick where its lips should have been.
    It lunged at Elise.
    She moved into its attack and it slammed into her shoulder. They hit the ground, and she rolled with their momentum. Her entire body felt the impact. It was like getting hit by a raging bull.
    The fiend recovered instantly. Elise wasn’t quite so fast.
    It came at her with a roar, and a flash of inspiration struck—the black lights, the vanity bulbs, the demon’s huge pupils. Elise threw herself out of the demon’s way, and it hit the wall behind her instead.
    She launched across the room. Elise fumbled in the darkness behind the rack of costumes. She heard the sound of clawed feet against ground, and shut her eyes against the impact—then found the switch.
    Click . The lights over the vanities blazed to life.
    Her eyes watered from the sudden light, but it was nothing compared to the demon’s reaction. It screamed and clawed at its eyes, stumbling toward Elise. A stray swipe of its claws slashed her arm. Pain flared, and she jerked back with a shout.
    The demon plunged into the dark hallway.
    “Wait here,” Elise told Neuma.
    She expected the demon to go make a break for the club—and the fresh meat the partiers could provide—but instead it went for a door she hadn’t noticed before. Elise began to follow.
    “No!” Neuma cried, grabbing Elise’s arm. “Don’t! That door goes down to the Warrens. You’d get eaten alive.”
    “Shit,” Elise said.
    “Shit,” Neuma agreed, stepping back into the room. She twisted around to look at her back in the mirror. Some of the glass was still in her back, and the injuries streamed thin, watery