Devil Inside, page 28
“Well, we pulled a couple of Nocte from there to cover the areas where the Rogue has hit. As a result the balance is kind of off there. And besides—I’m pretty sure that is exactly where you want to be.”
“Why’s that?” A seedling of hope sprouted in Harley as she looked at Levi expectantly.
His smile grew wider as he looked at her. “It’s the last place that Cutter was spotted.”
She felt her face split into a wide grin. “New York it is then.”
Part Two
Chapter 25
A week later, Harley found herself settled in Manhattan. She used an apartment that was on permanent lease by the Praesidio. She hadn’t really asked much about money and living space and things of that nature. With everything that had happened, it had not been a pressing matter. While living at the Den the food had been provided. For over a month she hadn’t even been sure where the food came from. Then one morning after everyone else had gone to bed she walked into the kitchen to find an older woman stocking the cupboards. She had been shocked into silence for several moments until the woman laughed and introduced herself as Betty. Betty called herself the house mother. She picked up food and supplies and did light cleaning. Everything else was up to those living at, or visiting, the Den. Whatever Harley needed or wanted—within reason—she could leave on a list in the kitchen and Betty would buy it and leave it for her to find in the kitchen. Harley often wondered just how much Betty knew about the “people’ she cared for, so Harley didn’t say much to her for fear of breaking some rule of silence. When it was time to move out of the Den, Harley was informed that while she would be given an apartment and a small salary, she would have to take care of her own bills and shopping.
Otherwise, Harley hadn’t known what to expect from New York. She stood in the window of her small apartment looking down and the busy street below her. She may not have been on Broadway or Penn Avenue, but even off the main routes her street got a lot of traffic from tourists and commuters. She allowed a moment of melancholy to sweep over her. She and Jamie had always planned on visiting New York one day. But, they had never found the time or money. As soon as she arrived in the city she had wanted to run off and see the sites. The Empire State Building, The Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, Rockefeller Plaza—she wanted to see it all. But when she realized that she would only be able to half enjoy it, her excitement waned. She still had not made an effort to visit any of these sites.
Harley pushed away the ache of Jamie’s absence. She only allowed herself to wallow in small amounts of sorrow at a time. She didn’t know if she would ever feel like it was OK for her to stop feeling sad and guilty, but she couldn’t punish herself all the time. If she didn’t control the amount of time that she spent feeling the sadness she would eventually be overwhelmed by it. Harley couldn’t get used to how easy it was now to push away unwanted emotions. It was both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because she found it much easier to behave as she knew that she should and needed to. But it was also a curse because few things could make you feel less human than being able to turn off your emotions when you needed to. Harley had never been an overly emotional person, but the longer she was a Nocte the easier it became to pick and choose her emotions.
Even when Levi had left her at the New York apartment Harley had not been overcome. Sure, she hated to see him go. And her Nocte certainly grumbled about the loss of her…toy? Harley still couldn’t figure out her Nocte’s weird possessive tendencies toward Levi. Levi had only been able to spend one night before he had to leave for Italy. When he left Harley hugged him back, locked the door behind him and began putting her stuff away. She felt the nagging regret of his leaving, but she didn’t wallow and instead began unpacking the few possessions she had acquired in the past four months. She had wanted to get settled in before Cassandra showed up the next evening.
Cassandra had agreed to spend a week with her in New York making sure she adjusted to the “hunting” routine quickly and easily as possible. Harley was both nervous and anxious to get started hunting. She hadn’t fed in nearly a month and she could feel a hunger burning inside her. Nya had been careful to parcel out her feedings so that she didn’t gorge herself or get too hungry. The longer she went without feeding, though, the worse the need became. It was worse than her worse PMS cravings. It burned in her stomach and it was becoming the only thing that she thought about. It made her look forward to her hunting debut even more.
Nya had been somewhat surprised that Harley’s hunger didn’t come on faster than it did. But then again, Nya had said, she didn’t seem to fit many Nocte norms so maybe this one wasn’t all that surprising either. Nya, revealing that she was about 500 years old, only experienced a burning hunger every month or month and a half—depending on the strength of the Ignis she consumed. Harley had been floored by Nya’s age and when she had pressed her for details it was the one time that Nya refused to discuss something entirely. Harley had let it go and asked her about her relatively low hunger levels. Nya had attributed it to her uncanny Nocte strength making Harley, again, wish she could find out more about her Nocte.
By the time that Cassandra had arrived the next evening Harley was feeling hot and twitchy and altogether uncomfortable. She didn’t know where Cassandra was staying but she had said that she would arrive at eight o’clock so Harley was ready by seven. She paced the apartment for an hour waiting on Cassandra. The apartment was small and simple, but still better than she had expected from a Manhattan apartment on a modest budget. It was a living room, an eat-in kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Everything worked and she had what she needed since the apartment came furnished. A firm three knocks on her door startled her out of her monotonous pacing.
When she opened the door Cassandra stood on the other side, unsmiling but not altogether unpleasant. She looked Harley from head to toe and raised an eyebrow.
“What in the world are you wearing?” Cassandra asked and looked like she was trying not to laugh.
Harley looked at herself. She was wearing tight black pants, boots with a low heel and a red and black corset-style tank top that zipped up the side but had fake stitching in the back. She had found the clothes in a cool boutique at the end of her block earlier in the day. She had realized that the heels might have been a bit impractical, but she hadn’t been able to resist. She had felt like a sexy badass—at least until Cassandra hid the laughter that threatened to bubble out of her behind her closed fist. She had not seen the stern Nocte this amused and Harley would have rather it not been at her expense.
Harley looked at Cassandra’s clothes. She was wearing running shoes, Navy sweat pants with a logo on the right leg and a plain red tee-shirt. Cassandra also wore a dark blue jacket that Harley figured was hiding whatever weapons Cassandra carried. “Uh…” Harley began. She willed herself to not blush like an idiot. “Not a good outfit, I guess?”
“It’s wrong on many levels,” Cassandra replied after clearing her throat and composing herself.
Harley chose to not explain herself. Instead, she held the door open for the normally stoic Nocte. “Well, come on in while I change.”
In her bedroom she changed into a pair of loose black cargo pants and flexible biker boots but she chose to keep the tank top. She wanted to balance out the biker boots. And this tank top is just too cool to not take advantage of. She slid the holster that held her knife over her shoulders. To hide the weapon that she added a black leather jacket. She flexed her shoulders and reached for the handle of her knife to make sure she could get to it easily and quickly. Like Levi, she chose to carry hers in a holster that hung down the middle of her back. She also looped a chain around her waist and fastened it with a leather strap that easily passed for a normal buckle. If people noticed the chain they would assume it was an eccentric fashion accessory or that she rode a bike. She had come across the chain among the random assortment of weapons at the Den. Something about its versatility had struck Harley and she had decided to carry it with her. It made for a good weapon that had a slightly longer range than the knife.
Confident that she looked more the part Harley returned to the living room and spread her arms.
“Better?”
Cassandra considered her carefully. “Better.” If the shirt still bothered her Cassandra didn’t mention it. Harley finished getting ready by pulling her hair up into a ponytail to keep it out of the way and followed Cassandra out of the apartment.
Together they left the building and began Harley’s first hunt. The sun had only recently set and people still swarmed the sidewalks. Harley held her head high and refused to dodge the people moving in the opposite direction. Some of them bumped into her, but most of them stepped out of her way and it made her smile to herself.
As they reached less crowded sidewalks Harley walked side-by-side with Cassandra. “How many Burners do you typically find in a night?”
Cassandra glanced and her and answered without slowing her stride. “It depends. It depends on the city you are in. The time of year. The day of the week…”
“The day of the week?” Harley asked perplexed.
“I’m kidding,” Cassandra responded dryly. “It just varies and isn’t always predictable.”
“How many do I need to kill in a night? Or what if I don’t find any?”
“Look, no one is going to expect you to lead some Ignis apocalypse. You just do what you can.”
Harley bit back a growl. She would have liked to have had more information than that and her hunger was making her irritable. She clenched her teeth and continued following Cassandra in silence. As they walked she surveyed the people around them. She hadn’t seen an Ignis since she became a part of the Praesidio, but she felt confident that she would recognize one when she did see it. She didn’t know for sure, but she recognized other Nocte so it was logical that she would recognize all other world creatures.
They walked for a long time before Cassandra finally stopped outside a small deli.
“Hungry?” she asked Harley.
Harley stared at her with wide eyes. “Well—yeah!” she stammered. “But I wasn’t thinking about a sandwich.” At that she felt the hunger flare through her and set her further on edge and she fought the urge to just walk away from Cassandra to hunt on her own, leaving her with a few choice words as she left.
Cassandra let out an exasperated breath and gestured towards the deli window. “I suspect that the owner of this deli may be a Burner.”
Harley spun around to peer at the man on the other side of the window. He was portly, balding man who at the moment was laughing at a small child being held over the counter by its mother.
Harley raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“No,” Cassandra answered dryly. “I just want a fucking sandwich before most of these places close. Now,” she opened the door, “are you hungry or not?”
Harley closed her mouth and followed Cassandra into the deli. I think I’m not the only one who needs some real food. The deli was full but not overly crowded and Harley scanned the diners as they stood in line. Everyone seemed normal but she still couldn’t relax. She was hungry and she knew normal food wasn’t going to satisfy her, but Cassandra was right, she still needed real food too. She tried to be patient. She needed to be a good hunter. If she didn’t do this right she wouldn’t survive long, let alone have a chance at defeating Cutter once she found him.
Cassandra and Harley got their sandwiches and sat at a small corner table in the back. Harley knew that Cassandra wasn’t the talking type, but she had questions and Cassandra was supposed to be “mentoring” her. She finished chewing her bite of turkey sandwich and braced herself before asking her questions.
“So, basically, when we hunt we just wander around and look for Burners?”
Cassandra thought for a minute, but she didn’t look angry at being asked the question so Harley relaxed a little. “The goal is to kill Ignis. As long as you do that without bringing too much attention to yourself then you are fine.” Cassandra took another bite of her sandwich, chewed for a minute while she thought about her response and then continued. “You should just live the best that you can. Go to bars. See the sights. If you aren’t a part of the world, you will never find any Ignis. And you are going to be in this world for a long time. You have to enjoy yourself sometimes.” She wiped her mouth with a napkin and leaned back in her chair. “That being said, you will need to avoid people. You aren’t going to be able to get close to humans without them realizing you are different eventually. And it’s important to stay off the radar.”
Harley nodded and continued eating her sandwich. That was the most she had heard Cassandra speak at one time. She watched the other woman as they finished their food. Cassandra was quiet and no nonsense—but she wasn’t a jerk. Harley liked her—gruff attitude and all. And she was grateful that Cassandra was here for her first hunt. As she watched the other Nocte, she wondered how and why Cassandra had joined the Praesidio. She knew better than to ask though. That was often a personal question and Cassandra wasn’t much of a talker about non-personal topics. Harley didn’t want to piss Cassandra off before her first hunt. Harley was more than a little nervous about what was to come but she swallowed her nerves and got up from the table to throw her trash away as they made their way back into the night.
______________________
It took longer than Harley expected before they found their first Ignis. She had been under the impression that she would find them around every corner. In reality, she realized how silly that seemed. If they were that populous then they would overrun the humans and not just the Nocte and Lux. The first ones they came across were huddled near a street corner in a part of the city that normal tourists didn’t walk through—it was dark and off the popular streets. Harley had been walking behind Cassandra distracted by what seemed like the beginning of a headache. Her head had begun to feel like it was vibrating and the feeling increased as they walked. Harley rubbed at her forehead. The strange vibrating in her head was throwing her off kilter and making her uneasy. It had come on so suddenly that she wasn’t able to pass it off as normal. And furthermore, she hadn’t had so much as a sneeze since the bonding process had begun, let alone a headache.
Suddenly, Cassandra stopped and Harley almost walked into her back. There were three of them and Harley knew what they were right away. The animal gleam that she had noticed the night she and Jamie had been attacked was much more obvious now that she was a Nocte. In fact, their eyes were practically glowing without any light hitting them at all.
Cassandra pulled Harley into a doorway. “Do you see them?” she asked.
“Yep,” Harley answered, not taking her eyes off the three creatures in front of them. They were all males and stood close together. They were dressed in hooded jackets and one was wearing a hat. They looked like they were of the normal shady variety making a drug deal. Most people seeing them wouldn’t know the difference. Cassandra and Harley stood in the doorway of a closed nail salon and watched them for a moment. The sight of the Ignis caused the aching hunger in Harley’s belly to flare up again and her mouth watered unattractively. There were not many people on the streets, but there was a restaurant several doors down so the two women didn’t stick out for being out this late. The more that she focused on them the more the buzzing began to pulsate in her skull. She soon realized that she wasn’t feeling a headache—instead she was feeling what she could only describe as an alert of some sort. The closer they had gotten to the Ignis, the stronger the alert. Cassandra didn’t give any indication that she felt the buzzing so Harley decided against mentioning it, wanting to avoid drawing more attention to her differences. Maybe this is how Levi monitors the balance? Harley thought to herself and made a note to ask him the next time she talked to him.
Cassandra speaking brought her back into focus on the task at hand. “Considering that there are three of them and two of us they will probably try to fight instead of run,” Cassandra began explaining their plan of action. “One of us will end up having to fight two. Try to kill them quickly and quietly. Do you see the alley behind them?”
“Uh huh,” Harley wasn’t able to look away from the Burners who continued to laugh and do their business just outside of the glow of a streetlight. Harley was surprised to find that she felt no fear of the Ignis. Between the strange alarm buzzing in her head and her Nocte’s excitement, any fear that she might have felt was replaced instead with nervous excitement. It was hard to be scared when it was practically impossible for you to die.
“Go for that alley if you can. If you can get them to chase you into there that would be ideal. Especially when you feed. You won’t have to worry as much about being seen.”
Harley could feel her Nocte rise up in anticipation of action. The burning in her stomach grew hotter and she flexed her fists ready to go. “I’m ready,” she growled.
Cassandra hesitated a moment. Harley glanced at her and she could see that the other Nocte was as eager as she was. Cassandra’s breathing was faster and she looked coiled and ready to strike with an unnatural stillness. She griped Harley’s arm to hold her attention. “Harley, if you get into trouble—you are on your own. I’m not going to stop and rescue you.”
Harley scowled at her. “What if you get into trouble?” She pulled her arm from Cassandra vise-like grip and they both stepped away from the doorway. Cassandra’s statement was harsh, but she found she appreciated the woman’s honesty and she knew that she wouldn’t have said it if she didn’t think Harley could handle herself. As they made their way towards the Ignis, Harley reached under her jacket and unlatched her knife. It fit into the holster snug enough she didn’t have to worry about it falling out and she didn’t want to have to fumble with it when the fight began. She flexed her shoulders and rolled her neck, her Nocte was practically singing with excitement and Harley could feel her pulse and breathing speed up. The Burners were on the same side of the street as they were, but they had to cross a perpendicular street to reach the corner where the Ignis stood.
