Shadowglass by Erica Hayes

Author:Erica Hayes [Hayes, Erica]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror & Ghost Stories
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Published: 2010-07-04T05:00:00+00:00

Fuck.” Joey DiLuca snakes to his feet in fury and swipes his cane up from the carpet, glowing green venom splattering from his claws.

Mina retches on her knees. Broken glass crunches under her palms, her pretty nails torn. Blood streams from her torn eyebrow, her lip, her ripped earlobe. “Sorry. I missed. Let me after them—”

She’s already stumbling to her feet, fetching her fallen knives, dragging back bloody blue hair, heading for the stairs. Joey grabs her elbow, fighting his voice calm even though rage and frustration blacken his heart. “No. They’re gone. You won’t find them. It’s okay. We’ll make another ambush. Peace, Mina.”

She curses, blood and spit flecking. Blood trickles into her eye, from her nose, down the corner of her mouth. Damn magnet-ass fairy ripped her fucking piercings out.

Angry black spines erupt from Joey’s forehead. He lets her go and squelches them back inside with an effort, jamming his hat back on so she won’t see.

There’s one, fallen, a tiny iron ring caked in dust and blood. Joey plucks it from glass shards, and his cold blood pulses warm at the sight, the ragged rosy edges of her skin.

Once he was Dante’s foil, his protector, the one who cleaned up all the blood and bodies and dragged Dante back from the brink of chaos when things got out of hand. Now Dante’s dead because Joey wasn’t there, and he’s got Mina. Pretty Mina, who worships him with those lying ruby eyes.

Whose candy scent waters his mouth slyly when he’s not expecting it.

Whose lovely bleeding face swells his veins with cold-burning rage.

Suddenly he wants to slip the ring into his mouth, suck it clean for her, taste her insides on the warm iron. Bright self-hatred sweetens his fury. Like she’d want it back after he’d done that.

“Here.” Joey tosses the ring at her and stalks over to the dead spriggan, snapping his webs in and out in frustration. Good thing he already hates that thieving ironfairy. It means he can enjoy this ice-fresh loathing without it having anything to do with her.

The smug blue bastard stole Joey’s mirror. No other reason Joey’d want to rip those soft gray eyeballs out and swallow them whole. Certainly not a few bruises on his girl’s face.

Not that she’s his girl.

He squats, leaning on his cane. The body’s not stiff yet, and one scrawny red arm tumbles to the carpet. Joey flares his nostrils at foul spriggan sweat and stale beer. “One good thing from this. A dead Valenti rat.”

Mina folds herself beside him, her slender thighs smooth in tight leather. She scrapes up some blood and sniffs it, her torn nostril dripping. “Thought you said that blue prick was a thief.”

Lick that sugary banshee blood from her lip. Swallow her kiss. Taste her sweat.

Joey tightens his lips and concentrates on the corpse’s slashed throat. “He is.”

“So why not come at night when no one’s around, master? Why’d he do this?”

Stab wound, short and sharp, a single neat slash right to left. Blood mostly on the carpet, a fat green stain, only residual splashing on the corpse.

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