CHAPTER ONE
Samantha Quinn wasn’t
afraid of the dark.
Even when she was
walking the edge of the ruins, where the demonic infestation had
transformed New York City’s Greenwich Village into a maze of rubble
inhabited by bloodthirsty predators, the darkness could be an
unexpected ally.
The scary things got
cocky in the shadows. Careless. They made noise—claws on the
concrete, rough skin scraping along crumbling brick, eager breath
rasping through thickly scaled lips—things even a sighted person
could hear if they were really listening.
To a woman who’d been
legally blind since the age of six, the sounds of an approaching
demon were like gunshots—impossible not to notice, and easy to
avoid if you had practice ducking and covering. Which she did. A
girl couldn’t grow up on the south end of the island without
learning how to run and hide.
Or when to pay
attention to the feeling that something bad was going to
happen.
“I’ll be there in
ten, fifteen minutes, tops.”
“Wonderful! We can’t
wait to—”
“Gotta hang up. Bye.”
Sam tapped the bud clipped to her ear, ending the phone call
without waiting for Mrs. Choe to say her good-byes.
Ellen and her
husband, Chang-su, had lived in the neighborhood for forty years
and raised four children in the wake of the infestation twenty
years before—when demons emerging from caves beneath the Atlantic
Ocean had found the densely populated, burrowlike habitats they
sought in the cities of New York and Boston. The Choes knew there
were times when safety dictated the rude termination of a phone
call. But they wouldn’t be worried. Demons were easy to avoid if
you stuck to the main streets and made a run for it on the rare
occasions when the creatures prowled too near to the edge of the
ruins.
The descendants of
the ancient dinosaurs weren’t particularly quick. They had to rely
on their prey being careless and letting them get close enough to
employ the demons’ various deadly natural weapons. Sam wouldn’t let
them get close. She had these streets memorized, and her ability to
distinguish areas of light and dark kept her from running into any
large obstacles. Sure, she had her share of spills, but she felt
confident she could take care of herself, even on the city
streets.
It’s just dumb luck, Sam. Someday you’ll fall at the wrong
time and something will get you.
Ah, Stephen. Brother,
friend, voice of doom. Why was it always his voice that got going
in her head at night, when she was trying to pull off the “brave
New Yorker” thing?
Because I’m right. You know I’m right. You should move
back in with me so you’ll have someone looking out for you, so you
won’t—
Sam did her best to
banish her brother’s voice, focusing on where she was going, not
where she’d been, increasing her speed until her sandals made tiny
scraping noises against the concrete as they chased the white cane
tapping ahead. She was on her own now. She had her own place, her
own life, and she didn’t need anyone taking care of her, no matter
what her brother thought.
The Choes hadn’t been
surprised to hear she’d finally gotten her own apartment. But then,
they’d never treated her like an invalid or an oddity. To them, she
was just another girl from the neighborhood, and the only florist
they wanted to handle their daughter’s wedding. Sam was gradually
making a name for herself above the demon barricade, but Hand
Picked was already the hottest thing going below Fourteenth Street.
Arranging flowers based solely on smell and texture created some
fairly fantastic-looking combinations.
Obviously Sam had
never seen any of her own arrangements, aside from the occasional
silhouette when the sun shone brightly through her shop window, but
she took her clients’ word for it that they were stunning. Old
friends or not, the Choes wouldn’t hire less than the best for
their daughter. They’d finally gotten Sin Moon hooked up with a
nice Korean boy who owned a house in the suburbs, far from the
dangerous community where they’d been trapped when property values
plummeted in the wake of the infestation. They meant to stage a
wedding celebration worthy of such an event. And they wanted to approve every last detail months
in advance.
Hence the centerpiece
Sam was presently cradling with her left arm. She’d promised to
bring the sample arrangement over as soon as she finished cleaning
up the shop for the day, no matter what the hour.
But as the pungent
smell of fresh demon waste mingled with the scents of lavender and
wild roses, she began to doubt the wisdom of journeying out alone
after seven o’clock. Demonic attacks had been on the rise in recent
months. Attacks always increased in the spring, when the warmer
temperatures brought certain breeds out of their winter
hibernation, but this year it was worse than usual.
Just like her
dreams—worse than usual.
She’d been tortured
by nightmares since the night she lost her sight when she was six
years old. At this point, she couldn’t remember what a good night’s
sleep felt like. She was accustomed to bolting awake two or three
times a night, soaked in sweat, screaming for the giant, shadowy
fingers that crept through her dreams to stop hurting
people.
It would have been
bad enough if the dreams were just dreams, but they weren’t. Once
the shadow fingers touched someone, it was only a matter of time.
Cancer, the loss of a family member, the loss of that person’s own
life—it was impossible to guess what tragedy would befall the
touched, but Sam no longer doubted that tragedy would
come.
Knowing suffering was
on the horizon was her “gift.”
Her best guess was
that what she’d gone through as a child had somehow caused her
ability, but she had no idea how to make it stop. Or how to help
the people she dreamed about, even when she was able to guess their
identity from the brief flashes she recalled upon waking. That had
been awful when the dreams were filled with shadows and frightened
voices crying out for help, but lately her nights had grown
worse.
She dreamed she was a
man turned inside out by some kind of animal, a girl beaten in a
dark corner, a woman with blood running down her face. Each dream
was more vivid, more horrific than the last. She hadn’t been able
to identify any of the people, but still …
Knowing those things
might happen to someone made her crazy, but she didn’t know who to
turn to for help. Stephen had never believed in his sister’s
ability to predict the awfulness coming to people in the near
future, no matter how much proof she presented. Still, Sam could
tell when a bad dream was more than just a nightmare.
She could smell it on
the air. Taste it on her tongue, sharp and bitter.
“Crap,” she whispered
under her breath as the wind shifted, carrying a hint of damp ocean
mixed with garbage from the Chinese restaurant down the block,
along with something cold and spicy and … evil
smelling.
The last note wasn’t
something she could define, but she’d smelled the scent before, two
nights ago, while running through a nightmare that had left her
shaking, drenched in sweat but too terrified to get up and change
her nightgown. It was the smell of pure horror, a smell that
reminded her of the time when her parents had plucked her from her
warm bed and carried her out to the barn in the middle of the
night.
It had been a spring
night like this one. She’d been sucking her thumb as she snuggled
into her dad’s flannel shirt, even though she was supposed to be
breaking the habit. She was six years old, and big girls didn’t
suck their thumbs. Only babies like baby Emma, her new little
sister, sucked their thumbs. Mom and Dad said so.
Mom and Dad also said
that the elders were just playing a game when they put her in the
middle of a circle drawn in red, next to the wooden box her
archaeologist father had brought home from his last dig. They were
tying her hands and feet only to make sure she didn’t smear the
markings, they said. No, it wouldn’t hurt, they said. “Yes, baby,
you’ll be fine.” But it had hurt and
she hadn’t been fine.
Luckily, the police
from the town nearby found out what the grown-ups were doing and
came to take all the kids on the compound away. But not before it
was too late, not before the cold, awful-smelling thing had invaded
Sam’s body, wriggled inside her mind, and stolen her
sight.
The doctors she’d
visited couldn’t explain how it had happened. Not a single one
could explain why Sam couldn’t see. According to their fancy
equipment and sophisticated tests, nothing necessary to sight had
been damaged. One doctor had even suggested Sam’s blindness was
psychosomatic.
She’d kicked that guy
in the shin, twice, before her brother pulled her
away.
She’d been nine years
old and unsure what “psychosomatic” meant, but figured it wasn’t
something good. She could read condescension loud and clear, even
as a child, and had known the doctor was wrong.
Her parents had been
demon worshipers, members of one of many cults that believed the
emergence of the animalistic demons heralded the coming of hell on
earth. Ancient artifacts discovered near the various caves from
which the demons had emerged foretold a world where invisible
demons lived within human hosts, possessing them so completely that
the human soul vanished.
And she knew the invisible demons her parents had summoned
were responsible for her blindness. Sam’s parents had believed in
this terrifying new world. They’d been archaeologists themselves
and sworn the little wooden box they’d pulled from the ground
during their last dig in China left them no choice but to believe.
And to fear. But they’d been sure the invisible demons were
intelligent beings—unlike the animal-like demons that had infested
the major cities—and that they would reward those who helped them
become flesh with exemption from infestation and positions of power
in the new world order.
Sam hadn’t understood
all that at the time, but her studies the past few years had helped
her to make sense of her parents’ beliefs. Her parents’
madness, Stephen would say. But Sam
wasn’t sure that her parents had been mad. Her memories told her
something different from her brother’s.
The last thing she
remembered seeing with her six-year-old eyes was the rafters of the
old barn wavering like pavement on a hot day. The air had been
filled with alien screeching as she yelled for her mom and dad and
then for her blankie, a part of her sensing her pale pink blanket
with the faded hearts would offer more comfort than either of her
parents.
She’d heard Stephen
yelling, too, begging for mercy for their baby sister, who howled
as she was placed within the circle of blood. He’d pleaded for one
of the grown-ups to do something, to—
Somewhere, deep in
the ruins, a young girl screamed, startling Sam from her memories
and nearly making her drop the flowers she’d worked on all
afternoon.
“Damn it.” She
stumbled to the side, regaining her grip on the basket, but
clocking her shoulder on something big, hard, and foul smelling in
the process.
A Dumpster, but one
that wasn’t used much. The stink wasn’t fresh, but more the
lingering sourness of ancient vegetables mixed with rotted meat and
coffee grounds. Gross, but it was probably the best hiding place
she was going to find around here.
After using her cane
to check the area behind the Dumpster—grateful for once for the
smaller demons that had all but eliminated the city’s rat problem
south of the barricade—Sam set the centerpiece on the ground and
turned back to the ruins. She’d never ventured inside by herself
and had dared take the shortcut between her apartment and her
brother’s bar only when accompanied by half a dozen of his biggest,
burliest friends, but for some reason she had to follow to its source the cold, slippery
energy oozing across her skin.
The scream hadn’t
come again, but the smell was stronger than ever, as was the
certainty that something horrible was happening. A woman had
screamed in her dream and there had been blood, so much blood.
She’d felt it as if she were in the woman’s skin. It had oozed down
her face, hot and wet, slipping between her lips before she could
think to shut her mouth.
She’d had her share
of portentous dreams, but never anything so violent. She was
positive that if she didn’t find the woman who’d screamed before
whatever hunted her did, blood would be spilled and an innocent
person would die. For once, she had a chance to do something to
prevent the awful thing she’d seen from happening. There was no way
she could live with herself if she didn’t at least
try.
Still, the rational
part of her mind argued that she should call for one of the many
demon-control patrols always a scream away in this part of
Manhattan. It was their job to keep the streets safe, to make sure
the thousands of tourists who came to New York to see the demonic
urban habitat didn’t get themselves killed trying to get a picture
of some of the more fantastic species.
Even decades after
the initial emergence, people were still fascinated by the
dangerous, extraordinary-looking creatures. And as long as they
stayed in their tour bus, demons weren’t usually a threat—at least,
no more so than lions observed from a jeep trundling through the
African savanna. The barriers erected in the collapsed subway
tunnels and the Fourteenth Street barricade kept the demons
contained, and the demon-control patrols took down the rare beast
that dared to leave the habitat they had created during the
destruction of the initial infestation. Demon control also dealt
with the homeless and the drunks, and looked into the reports of
concerned citizens.
They would take a
report, get a police task force down here within a half hour,
and—
The scream came
again, higher and even more terrified. “And they’ll be too late,”
Sam said, setting a swift pace toward the sound. She tripped twice
on the uneven pavement before she reached the first bend in the
path, and the smell actually seemed to be growing fainter as she
walked, but she didn’t think of turning back.
She was the only one
who could save this woman. Hell, she might be the only one who
could even hear her. Whether it was
simply that her ears functioned better than an average person’s
because she was missing one of her other senses, or something more
paranormal in nature, Sam had always heard things other people
missed.
Like the sound of
something breathing nearby. Something big. Really big.
Heart thudding in her
throat, Sam edged closer to the crumbling buildings on her right,
moving into the darkest shadows, where most people would never
think to look. Her gut told her that, whatever she’d heard, it
wasn’t human, but getting out of the middle of the path couldn’t
hurt.
There were human
predators here as well. Several of the most violent city gangs
called the ruins home. With crime in New York at an all-time high,
everything below Fourteenth Street was low-priority to the metro
police once typical tourist hours were over. They assumed the
freaks who chose to live next door to demon nests deserved what
they got, including a bunch of thugs for neighbors.
No one seemed to
remember that the prices the government had offered people for
their homes in the wake of the infestation hadn’t been enough to
pay for the moving trucks out of Manhattan. A lot of the families
had been stuck where they were, figuring a home next to demons was
better than no home at all.
And, in the
beginning, they’d all expected the government to do something about
the infested wreckage.
But demons were as
ancient as cockroaches and just as hard to get rid of. Then there
was the matter of demon tourism. In a global economy ravaged by the
recession of the early part of the century, anything that brought
money into the city was considered a good thing. Eventually,
government officials had stopped trying to eradicate the demon
habitat, settling for a half-assed kind of population control
accomplished largely by freelance bounty hunters who flocked to the
city to hunt amid the ruins.
Bounty hunters who
were often just as dangerous as the creatures they
hunted.
Whoever or whatever
was watching her, its breath slowly getting swift and shallow with
excitement, it wasn’t a good thing. It was a bad thing. A
very bad thing, and that very bad thing
was ready to pounce upon the prey it had spotted in the shadows. It
was simply waiting for the right moment, enjoying the fear it could
feel rolling from its victim.
Sam tasted the mocha
she’d made just before leaving the shop and swallowed hard. Now
wasn’t the time to lose control of her stomach. She could do that
later, bent over the cool bowl in her cozy apartment, worshiping
the porcelain god the way she had on her eighteenth birthday, when
her brother had finally allowed her to order anything she wanted
from his bar.
God, Stephen was
going to go crazy when he found out she’d been wandering around
here by herself, acting like some drunk tourist who wanted to dance
with the devil in the pale moonlight. He’d warned her a thousand
times not to go within fifty feet of the ruins. He was going to
kill her for getting killed like this.
The thought was
almost enough to make Sam laugh, even though the giant, breathing
thing was so close she could taste it. Fire and sulfur and the hint
of some exotic fruit, mixed with the unmistakable smell of demon
waste. It was definitely a demon, but not the one she’d smelled
before. The scent from her dream was gone, vanished along with the
sound of the woman’s screams.
Whoever she’d heard,
the woman was probably already dead. And now, because she was a
stupid blind girl who thought she could play the hero, she was
going to die, too.
“But I’m going to
hurt you first,” she whispered to the thing in front of her as she
thumbed open the secret compartment on her cane, flicking the
switch that turned the red-tipped end deadly.
Switchblades were
illegal in the city, so she assumed switch-canes weren’t something
the police would approve of—especially when the woman wielding the
knife couldn’t see where she was aiming her deadly weapon—but
abiding by the letter of the law wasn’t a priority for most
Southies. Sam wasn’t any different. Being blind didn’t
automatically mean she was a law-abiding citizen or helpless or
sweet.
Or willing to wait
for someone else to make the first move.
“Come and get me
already,” she yelled, lifting her cane and lunging forward, aiming
a few inches below where it seemed the breath was coming
from.
An outraged squeal
echoed off the bricks, but there wasn’t time to celebrate her hit.
Seconds later, her cane was ripped from her hands and the smell of
fruit got even stronger as something whizzed by her face. Shit!
She’d heard of demons that shot poison quills into their prey to
immobilize them before they began to feed. They were alleged to be
relatively small for demons, but size didn’t matter when you were
passed out cold on the ground and the thing coming for you had
sharp teeth and claws.
Sam ducked and felt
the air stir above her head. So far, she’d been lucky, but she
could avoid a hit for only so long. She had to put some distance
between her and the demon before it was too late.
Whirling around with
her hands held out in front of her, Sam started to run, praying she
remembered the obstacles she’d encountered on the way in well
enough to avoid them. Without her cane, she had no way of “seeing”
the ground in front of her before she stepped, no way
of—
She cursed as she
tripped over something round and hard and fell to the ground, the
whizzing needles of the demon that hunted her pinging against the
concrete near her scraped hands. On instinct, Sam curled into a
fetal position, her body still trying to protect itself though her
mind knew this was it. She was down, and the thing behind her was
coming, and this time there would be no escape.
All of a sudden she
was six years old again, bound and tied and waiting for the
invisible demons the cult had summoned to take what her parents had
invited them to take, to steal what they needed to steal. But this
time, it wouldn’t be just her eyes. This time, it would be her
life.