The Devil's Metal by Karina Halle Read Free Book Online

teeth were fanged. Sharp as
razors and entirely inhuman.
    Then the smile vanished and the boy turned
around.
    I spent the rest of the plane ride with my
eyes locked on the back of his seat. I didn’t fear the airplane
anymore—I feared something else.
    It wasn’t until we were getting up to get
our bags that I got another glimpse of him. He was smiling,
perfectly normal teeth, chatting to his parents, a cute young boy
overall. He didn’t look my way once, and by the time I was walking
into the airport, dragging my carry-on behind me, I’d come to the
conclusion that it was all in my head.
    Why on earth had I just spent a couple of
hours on an airplane focused on some random little boy when I had
more pressing things to think about? Was it just a distraction for
my mind? Because it had worked.
    Now, as passengers dispersed in the arrivals
terminal, I had to look for a man carrying a sign that said Dawn
Emerson on it.
    The man would be Hybrid’s manager, Jacob
Edwards.
    The man who would take me to the band at the
famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
    The band who would become my shadow for the
next few weeks.
    I was hit by such a burst of excitement that
I thought my heart was going to bounce its way out of my chest. My
knees began to quiver, the handle of my bag starting to slip out of
my clammy hands. Could I do this? I didn’t even know where I was .
    Denver, right, Denver, Colorado. I was Dawn
Emerson in Denver, Colorado, having survived her first plane trip
ever with a non-demonic little boy. I was thousands of miles away
from home, standing in an airport full of strangers going back and
forth. I was on the verge of something epic. It could go well, it
could all go bad, but it was going to be epic in whichever way it
went.
    I was going to throw up.
    I spied the signs for the bathroom and began
to hurry my way there when I heard someone call out my name.
    I stopped and forced the vomit to stay down.
I tried to compose myself. Smoothed the fringe down on my
shirt.
    I turned around and looked. Over by the
baggage claim was a tall, red-headed fellow holding a plastic sign
that had my name on it. His eyes lit up at my gaze and he gestured
for me to walk over to him with a quick shake of his head.
    “You’re Dawn, right?” he yelled, full-on
Cockney accent. People in the terminal turned to look at us,
perplexed at the ginger invasion.
    I nodded, feeling like a deer caught in the
headlights.
    “Well hurry up and piss and get your ass
over here, time is money.”
    Yes, he certainly did just shout that at me
from across the airport.
    I was a little too annoyed to piss or vomit
now. So this was the Jacob Edwards, was it? What a rude dude.
    I straightened my shoulders, gripped my bag
tighter, and hurried off toward him.
    “Dawn, nice to finally meet you,” he said as
I neared him. “I’m Jacob Edwards, but you can call me The Cob.
Actually don’t. I can tell I might like you and I only let buggers
call me that.”
    Now that I was up close, I could see he was
quite the brutal looking character. Oh, he was handsome in a
peculiar way with a large sloping forehead and broad chin. His eyes
were small and sparkling, a weird amber color, and his nose had
been broken a few times. Freckles dusted the tops of his cheeks
along with pockmarks.
    This was the man who kept Hybrid under
control. Given some of the rumors I had heard, I wondered how often
he was able to do his job. Guess I’d be finding out.
    A little thrill ran through my body at that
thought, and I held out my hand. I needed to act professional,
assertive.
    “Nice to meet you, Jacob. Thank you for, you
know, thinking of me,” I said. He took my hand in his and gave it a
bone-crushing squeeze. I had no doubt he could have broken it in
two. So much for being assertive.
    He held on to it for a few more seconds,
looking deep into my eyes like he was testing my pain threshold or
something. Then he released it and smiled. “It was nothing. Now
let’s get started. I have a