Demon Destiny Chapter 3

Lucas meets his prey for the first time and she is not what he expected. We get to see the new and improved Prudence Miller.

Chapter 3

 

     Three torturous weeks later, Lucas stalked through a residential section of Daly City carrying a plate of cookies.

     After traveling to the joke of a rental house and finding it occupied by someone other than Prudence Miller, his prey, Lucas felt a niggling sense of surprise. The biography put together on the girl had said that after moving to the tiny town in the north of the sunny state she had never left. Lucas stayed close to the town to make sure she was truly gone, while he sent one of his men to follow up on her parent’s place.  

Lucas had told the six men who called themselves his employees repeatedly to find someone else to follow around after his strike of conscience. But they’d proved sentimental and continued to sit and wait for him to give them jobs.

He had sent Lyric. The only man in his group that was, in fact, a Demon female. She had worked for him for less than a century but the boys had learned to treat her much the same as any other man. He remembered the first time one of them had stared at her a*s. She had tossed a knife directly into his eye. Recovery had sucked for the guy and Lucas made her sit on her hands for awhile after the stunt. Yup. One of the boys.

Lyric had learned that Prudence Miller lived in the bay. Lucas could have sat in his spacious penthouse for an extra three weeks, and then wandered down the bay to her home.

He couldn’t begin to fathom why a twenty-four year old hermit would move to the city. When Lyric had tracked down her parents in Arizona they had known nothing of the move. They assumed she still lived in a cheap rental up north. Not only had she put Lucas out, but she had lied to her parents. The easy hit, the hit that looked like a breeze was quickly becoming an annoying gnat. A gnat that looked more and more tempting to squish. 

The rental house had made the perfect location for his agenda. No one would have missed her for days, if not weeks, because of the remoteness.

Lucas put the extra time he spent searching for her into coming up with a way around the spell. It kept all threats away, but it allowed anything that did not pose a threat to see her and interact with her as normal. He wasn’t yet sure which species made the cut. Demons were out, since they made up the majority of assassins in the world. But he thought for sure humans would make the safe list. And he was half human.

First he needed to make sure that humans didn’t hit the barrier in the spell. Witches typically forgot them because they couldn’t do much damage to other races anyways. He would have to set up a sting operation to see. If they weren’t included in the barrier spell this job would be as easy as he initially thought.

     Before setting anything up, he wanted to get a good look at his hit and the only way to accomplish that meant Lucas needed to appear nonthreatening in his human form.

After so many years suppressing his human half and then thinking he vanquished it all together, and even in the last two decades fighting it constantly, it would be hard.

Lucas put a great deal of effort into people seeing him as the Leraje Demon, not the human Lucas. To reverse that so that beings with the ability to read auras would see his human half as dominant he needed constant vigilance on his more rebellious side.

His Demon half yearned for the kill so he didn’t want to risk thinking too much about her demise. He might not lose his human façade every time, but mentally his Demon took charge. On the plus side, Leraje had spent the majority of the last two decades leashed inside a very human brain, one that felt pain and guilt. But if his DNA as Demon automatically blocked him out as a threat, he needed to work around it.

Lucas had always seen himself as a Demon first, human second…no, not even second. He had hated his human half until his psyche change twenty-ish years ago. Growing up, he wore his human form to hide, blend in, or seduce females. He had always known his true identity though. Leraje. Nowadays, it was a constant balance between the world seeing him as a deviant who liked to taste blood and a human conscience hidden away that was wracked with guilt for tasting that blood to begin with. Yup. He was so fucked.

Quiet swallowed him as his boots hit the concrete walk. Even thinking about the idiotic lengths he had to go through to get one target humbled him.

Lucas came to a halt in front of a compact, peach colored abode and pulled out a sheet of paper with the address from the pocket of his jeans. He closed his eyes and imagined himself as an innocent, fluffy rodent. It couldn’t hurt.

He tried out a smile. Yeah. F**k that.

Lucas reminded himself that his whole plan rode on Prudence Miller thinking of him as human, assuming humans weren’t affected by the spell. He would know the moment he saw her. Because if he saw her, then it had worked, and if he saw her, then he could touch her. And if he could touch her, then he could do his job.

So firstly, he had to make it through the damn door with his attitude in check, which was never something he’d bet on.

Lucas walked up the small rocky path to the door and knocked with his free hand. He tried to quell his abject horror when a blonde middle aged human woman opened the door.

“Welcome!” Then she got a good look at him as her eyes widened in apparent delight. “You must be Lucas?”

Lucas tried for another smile only to drop it when she reached out a hand to pull him inside. Oh, Empiri she was touching him. She. Was. Touching. Him. Do not kill her.

He looked around the room seeking the woman he braved this house for, only to see strangers. Lucas growled low in his throat.

He glanced back at the woman and noticed her hand still on his arm, her eyes wide. Stepping back, Lucas realized he never answered her question.

“Uh yes. I’m Lucas” He decided not even to try for the smile this time.

“Well, welcome to Book Club, Lucas! We are so excited to have you here to try out our group. I’m Stephanie.”

He didn’t respond. She would fill in the silence if he waited long enough. Sure enough by the time her eyebrows landed in her hairline she did.

“I’m the woman you emailed about the group.”

Oh, that Stephanie. “Ah. Of, course. I apologize for forgetting.” Lyric had set the whole thing up.

A smile filled her face again, “Can I take those for you?”

Lucas looked down at the plate of cookies. He had sent Truman to get them earlier knowing he had to appear legit. Truman hadn’t batted an eyelash at the request but had given Lucas a mutinous grin.  

After handing the cookies over and watching her walk down the hall to the kitchen he looked more closely at his surroundings.

The small room seemed comfortable, with a décor of apples and earth toned walls. From all the talismans he saw around the room, he assumed that the human Stephanie studied as a Witch. There was no way the average human would have those particular items in that particular order.

The find was interesting because it was illegal for humans to practice any craft of another race. Stephanie was a switch. A term used for humans who illegally practiced a Witch’s craft.  

Though it might be a coincidence that Prudence Miller was in close contact with an underground switch group, he would file the information away.

The three others in the room had situated themselves on various chairs and couches. Lucas tried not to dwell on his prey’s absence knowing his mood had become precariously balanced between irritated and kill-everyone-in-the-damn-book club.

As the switch walked back into the room, he heard her mutter about refreshments, and thank him for the cookies.

“Is this everyone?” he asked.

She didn’t comment on his abruptness and replied, “We have several more on their way.” She paused before continuing, “I hope you enjoy the group tonight. We are always happy to have new members, and from your emails I gather you are an avid literature reader.”

Lucas had read more books than she could possibly ever read in her entire lifetime. Reading had been the only thing that kept him sane in the beginning years. And Truman.

As with every time he had thoughts of his past, the feeling of suffocation that came with it cooled his blood and closed his throat. I can breathe. He is gone and I can breathe. I can scream if I want. I can dance the Macarena if I want and no can stop me.    

Freedom reestablished, Lucas cleared his throat before answering, “Yes, I am an avid reader.”

“Well, make yourself at home. We should be starting in the next ten minutes.”

He didn’t bother to introduce himself to the others present. He sat at one end of the room, faced the door, and waited.

Ten minutes later, his scowl had increased tenfold. It had grown blacker as each new arrival reminded him that Prudence Miller had not shown up yet.

Once everyone had taken their seats, Lucas began to wonder if she would even show.

The switch stood up and addressed the group in welcome. As she began to speak a flurry of activity drew everyone’s attention to the door. Lucas found himself staring as a young woman raced through it like a tornado chased her. She carried a stack of books, a pan of brownies, a large hand bag, a phone, a ring of keys, and a pair of ear buds. Everything was jumbled together in a knotted unbalanced mess.

Lucas didn’t get a good look at her as she turned and kicked back her foot in an attempt to shut the door behind her, in the process catching her foot on the floor rug. He then watched in frozen amazement as the books started to slide, gaining speed as they went.

In an effort to rebalance the books, the girl shifted, causing the purse slid from shoulder to elbow. This jerked the arm holding the brownies and sent them flying forward to the floor.

If Lucas hadn’t been completely dumbfounded by the entire episode, he might have leapt forward to help. Not that a human would have made it across the room in time. So, he could excuse his slow reaction time this once.

Everyone stilled, as if statues, as the items fell. Lucas felt his lips twitch as several men stood to help the new arrival after everything had landed on the floor. He remained seated.

The men gushed over the hapless girl. He hadn’t gotten a look at her face, but her body showed lean muscles, easily visible in the jeans and strapless shirt she wore.   

As he heard her laugh Lucas’s head snapped up seeking a view of her face. Laugh wasn’t the right word, more of a giggle. She was giggling. And Lucas would be lying through his teeth if he didn’t admit to it being an attractive sound. Innocent and infectious.

Along with the men and a few women, including the switch Stephanie, trying to help with the mess, she knelt on the floor to pick up her things. Lucas could only make out her veil of dark chocolate brown locks as she said, “I’m sorry, Steph, I’m never this disorganized, but I lost my list today, yoga ran late and I forgot the brownies. I ruined your introduction.” The laugh came again then, “I knew I should have taken it in two loads, but I hate the extra time it takes.”

Someone had taken the broken brownie plate into the kitchen and the young woman had cleared her personal things into her handbag, and stood, still facing the other direction.

Though Lucas knew he needed to stay focused on his mission, he had the strangest urge to see this woman’s face. He wanted an image to put to the innocent sound he had heard. Turn around.

Almost as if she had heard his silent plea she turned while her eyes scanned for a seat.

Lucas stared, and thought it very possible that his jaw dropped on the floor.

His prey.

 

Author's Note

Just an overall review is needed.