No, the real party girls had left hours ago, the frat boys were well on their way to being too drunk to stand—let alone make their way to one of the all-night diners where they could get a coffee and sober up while waiting for the barricade to open at five a.m.—and the gang members ... well, they just stank of trouble.

Death Ministry thugs had never come into the bar before. They usually preferred to haunt the abandoned docks near what had once been East River Park, plotting their drug runs, planning who to kill, and taking care of whatever other assorted business Very Bad Guys had on their nightly to-do list. But tonight ... they were here shooting tequila—and interested looks in the prostitutes’ direction.

It was three a.m. at the Demon’s Breath Pub, and all was not well.

But it never was at this time of night; Emma had learned that much in her first few weeks as manager.

Most of the tourists had left hours ago—trundled across the barricade that ran along Fourteenth Street in their tour buses—and demon-infested New York City had dropped its civilized veneer. Gone were the shiny-faced men and women offering guided tours and the food trailers selling demon-inspired snacks—ice cream cones painted gold to look like Hamma demon claws, funnel cakes dusted with silver sugar to mimic the Squat demon nests.

In their place were hard men and women tough enough to party in the urban jungle, addicts looking for their fix of demon drugs, and nocturnal predators waiting for humans foolish enough to wander too close to the ruins. The demons—ancient monsters descended from dinosaurs—were amazingly well adapted to the habitat they’d created when they’d surged from caves deep in the earth during the earthquakes of the previous century.

They lurked in wait for easy prey, killed, ate, and disappeared back into the rubble. The bounty hunters and gang members who earned their livings killing and harvesting demon parts were their only predators—aside from one another. The demon ecosystem was as well balanced as any other on earth. Large demons fed on smaller ones, and smaller ones fed on rats and mice. New York City hadn’t had a vermin problem for years.

It was something Emma had been grateful for during the months she’d spent locked in her sister’s psycho ex-boyfriend’s basement. It was cold and dark down there, but at least there hadn’t been any rats.

Emma grimaced and downed the rest of her beer. She did look on the bright side, in her own jaded fashion. Growing up where she had, the way she had, she’d been forced to create her own happiness. Even Father Paul had only so much time, so much energy, and most of it was used up by the time he got back to the halfway house at the end of the day. He’d saved her life, but Father Paul was too busy to worry about her contentment.

Her long-lost sister and brother had been able to lean on each other, but Emma had only ever had herself. Even now—months after she had helped save her sister, Sam, from her ex-boyfriend and the nasty aura demons he’d been trying to summon onto the earthly plane—she still hadn’t learned to depend on anyone else. Even her new family. Sam and her husband, Jace, were good people, but they were just so ... grossly in love—and lust—with each other.

Emma didn’t do love. Or lust. She’d never been able to afford the luxury of either.

“Dude, do you think we should call demon patrol? Or ... somebody?” Ginger, the bartender on duty, asked, pouring a shot of whiskey as she closed out one of the frat boys’ tabs.

Ginger cast a pointed look toward the corner of the room, where several Death Ministry members—easily identified by the scars marking their faces, one long slash for each life they’d taken in the name of gang business—sat sharing a bottle of tequila.

“Nope.” Emma placed her empty beer glass in the dishwasher under the bar. “Demon patrol doesn’t deal with gang stuff.”

“What about the police?”

“They haven’t done anything illegal.” She shrugged and started up the machine, holding it closed as hot water blasted the glasses. It wasn’t staying shut on its own anymore, the dishwasher just one of the things that was falling apart around the pub since her brother’s “disappearance” five months before.

Since her brother’s death. But most people didn’t know Stephen Quinn was dead. No one but Emma, Sam, Jace, and a handful of Italian mobsters—Jace’s family—knew the truth, and they meant to keep it that way. The last thing Emma needed was police sniffing around, wondering why the former owner of the Demon’s Breath was still missing in action.

“They’re just drinking,” she said.

“So far. But who knows what they’ll do after they’ve had a few.” Ginger slammed back the whiskey shot and took a deep breath. “Why couldn’t they come in when Jace was here?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.” Emma watched Ginger pour herself another shot without saying a word.

According to rules, Ginger wasn’t supposed to be drinking while she was bartending, but Emma wasn’t going to tell. Hell, she wasn’t supposed to be drinking, either. She was still a year away from the legal drinking age of twenty-one, but no one questioned her right to imbibe.

Emma didn’t look underage. Despite her shoulder-length blond bob and soft brown eyes, she looked hard, edgy, and far older than her years. Sam said it was because she was too skinny for a woman who was five-eight. Emma knew it was because she was too messed up for a girl who was still a teenager.

But then, when you spent the first couple of years of your life in a hospital after nearly being killed by your own parents, you sort of got a head start on the messed-up thing. Emma, Sam, and Stephen had all been scarred by what their parents had done when they were kids—using them as human sacrifices for their cult’s aura-demon summoning ritual—but Emma wondered whether she wasn’t the most twisted of the three.

The aura demons—invisible demons most people believed were an urban legend—had been banished from the earth last March, but their mark on the Quinn family remained. Sam, though legally blind, had prophetic dreams, as well as moments when her eyes changed colors and she was literally able to see men and women who were on the verge of major psychic shifts in their lives. It was creepy to watch Sam’s brown eyes turn blue, but nothing compared to Emma’s own demon mark.

Sam’s mark hadn’t mutated something at the very heart of her. It didn’t drive her to steal in the name of survival. It didn’t make her feel aged and rotten on the inside—a wine gone bad that no one would ever want to drink.

“I’m going to have another shot. You want one?” Ginger asked.

Emma’s stomach cramped. No, a shot wasn’t a good idea. It was time for her to get something real to eat, something more than beer and stale pretzels. “No, I’m good. But you go ahead.” She couldn’t care less if Ginger was trashed on the job.

In fact, it worked in her favor if her roommate and coworker was too smashed to pay much attention to Emma as she prepped for closing at three thirty. It would make it easier for Emma to sneak away and find something to sustain her. Or maybe she wouldn’t have to go out to find food. ... Maybe she had something suitable right in the bar.

Emma’s eyes drifted back to the Death Ministry thugs. There were five of them, each one scarier than the last. Still, they were paying customers, customers who looked like they were running low on tequila.

“Check on the frat boys again, will you? I think they need another pitcher,” Emma said, waiting until Ginger turned away before grabbing a bottle of Jose Cuervo and slipping out from behind the bar.

She let a little wiggle creep into her walk as she crossed to the darkened corner. Her low-heeled biker boots thumped on the bare floorboards, catching the rhythm of whatever angsty, techno-pop tune the frat boys had selected from the jukebox. She’d never been dancing at a club, but she imagined this was the kind of crap they played at the places where young men and women went to grind against complete strangers for a few hours every Friday and Saturday night.

It was painful listening, and for the hundredth time Emma was glad she had no urge to grind against another person ... at least not in a public place, and not for the reasons the average twenty-year-old girl would press her body up against someone else’s in the dark.

“Looked like you guys were running low.” Emma plunked the fresh tequila bottle in the middle of the Death Ministry table.

A shiver raced along her skin as five pairs of flat, cruel eyes tracked up her body—taking in her tight black jeans and black tank top on the way up to her face—but it wasn’t fear that made the blond hairs on her arms stand on end. It was excitement ... anticipation.... Oh, yeah, these men were bad. Plenty bad for her purposes.

She’d bet one of their lives on it.

“We didn’t order another bottle.” The man who spoke had bright blue eyes and seemed a little younger than the rest, but his face was still heavily lined with kill scars.

He’d taken a dozen lives, if those ruined cheeks were anything to judge by. Surely not all of those people had deserved a grisly death. Odds were at least a few had been innocents. The Death Ministry was notorious for taking out an addict’s entire family when drug tabs weren’t paid in a timely manner—using moms and dads and sisters and brothers to get the message across that unpaid debt to the DM was a bad idea. It was one of the major reasons for the occasional violent clash between the gang and the Conti family. The Contis didn’t make a habit of killing innocent people. They also didn’t like losing money. For every demon killed or mutilated by the Death Ministry in the name of acquiring more drugs to sell, the Contis had one less demon body to turn in to the city. The demon-control agencies wanted their specimens taken alive or not at all.

“Yeah, I know,” Emma said, cocking her head in Blue Eyes’ direction. “Consider it a gesture of good faith. This bottle is on the house, provided you guys don’t make trouble while you’re here tonight.”

“Make trouble? What kind of trouble would we make, blondie?” guy number one asked.

“Vanish, chica. Leave the bottle.” The speaker was a brown-skinned man with a Mohawk and a low opinion of women. He didn’t bother to look at her when he spoke but kept his dark eyes trained on the tiny dance floor, where one of the prostitutes writhed to the pounding beat.

Most of the other men had shifted their eyes elsewhere as well—unimpressed by the skinny blonde with the crooked nose and mud brown eyes—except for the young guy. The blue-eyed dude with the crew cut and a sprinkling of acne across his wide forehead was still looking—and he would do just fine. More than fine.

God, Emma could already feel how good it would be, how much stronger she’d be afterward.

Her heart raced as if she’d downed a triple shot of espresso instead of a couple of light beers, pounding so hard her ribs ached. Her pulse thudded unhealthily in her ears. It had been too long. She should have taken care of this sooner, before she needed it so badly. But she always tried to put it off, to find a way to keep from committing the same, necessary sin.

That was the thing about necessary sin. ... It was just so ... necessary.

“Exactly.” Emma stared at her victim through lowered lashes. “I’m sure you boys aren’t anything to worry about. I’m just going to take out the trash. Be good while I’m gone. Or ... not.”

Emma turned slowly, maintaining eye contact with Blue Eyes until the last second before sauntering away. On her way back across the room, she did one last sweep of the bar, making sure Ginger was occupied and none of the other patrons were paying attention as she slipped through the thick plastic strips separating the pub from the storage room. All eyes were elsewhere. She was clear. No one would notice the thug slipping out behind her and think about playing hero.

Hurrying across the cracked brown tile, Emma headed for the silver door and the back alley beyond, certain the man was behind her. He didn’t seem to be the sharpest knife in the case, but he was smart enough to read the interest in a woman’s eyes and horny enough to go for a chick who barely filled out an A cup.

Or maybe he was simply frugal—preferring to get his pussy for free instead of paying for it like his buddies were intending to do. Not everyone cared to spend their hard-earned money on prostitutes.

Emma could sympathize. Money had always been tight around the halfway house growing up. Father Paul worked as a chaplain for a hospital, and collecting weird kids was an expensive habit. There were nights when everyone went hungry for traditional sorts of food. No one ever had their supernatural needs unmet, however; Father Paul made sure of that. He considered it a holy calling to provide for the strange children in his care, to teach them how to manage their inhuman powers, to control their baser cravings, to feed their unnatural hungers with the appropriate sort of food.

Food. Damn, she was hungry. The dark craving that had been her companion since the day her parents offered her as a sacrifice surged through her body, making her fingertips itch and burn.

“Come and get it,” Emma whispered under her breath as she slipped into the shadows behind the bar.

The alley was wide and clear except for two small Dumpsters and an oversized ashtray—the city made sure the streets were kept tidy to prevent infestation by demons who made their nests in tight, crowded places—but it was still dark. It wasn’t a place where a woman should walk alone. There were predators in Southie who didn’t need teeth or claws, who used fists and knives and guns to dominate, steal, and kill.

She wondered what kind of weapon Blue Eyes was packing—the trademark DM knife or something with a little more firepower. Either way, it wouldn’t matter, not as long as she got him close enough to touch before he whipped anything out.

Anything other than his dick, of course. Emma didn’t mind when men whipped out that particular “weapon.” A man with his dick in his hand was a man with his head in the clouds. Or maybe someplace less wholesome than the clouds, someplace darker, more dangerous ...

The door creaked open, and Blue Eyes stepped out of the bar, his movements confident but careful. He was a man used to watching his back, accustomed to keeping one eye peeled for possible threats. But she was one “threat” he would never see coming. They never did, not one person in all the time she’d been stealing from the wicked.

“Over here,” she said, her voice trembling a bit. The man turned toward her, looking even scarier in the shadows. “What’s up?”

“You said you were taking out the trash. Figured I had something that needed to be thrown away.” He held up the nearly empty tequila bottle, and his features twisted into what Emma supposed was meant to be a smile.

“That was thoughtful of you.”

“That’s me. Thoughtful.” He closed the distance between them in four long steps and reached out, cupping her breast in his hand and squeezing, making his intentions abundantly clear.

Guess he wasn’t much for verbal foreplay. Good. She wasn’t, either.

“So you want to do this here?” she asked, running one hand up into his greasy hair as he pulled her close, willing her fingertips to find the pressure points on the skull that made her job so much easier. She had to make sure he was one of the bad guys. It was what Father Paul had insisted upon, and she’d never gone against his teachings. She’d never wanted to. She might be a killer, but she wasn’t a monster.

“Fuck yeah. Here’s good.” He laughed and tipped the tequila bottle back, emptying it before throwing it against the bricks behind them.

“Good, I—” Emma groaned as he slammed his mouth down on hers, his tongue probing between her lips, sending secondhand tequila rushing into her throat. It was swallow or gag, but Emma regretted her decision to drink as soon as the tequila hit her stomach.

Her belly clenched and cramped, and the dark craving grew even stronger, sizzling along her nerve endings, making her fingers feel like they would catch fire at any moment. The telltale blue light erupted from her hands before she could control it. She’d waited too long. She couldn’t remember feeling this weak, this needy, even in the months she’d been Ezra’s captive. He’d known what she was and helped her survive, bringing her suitable “snacks” every few days.

Thankfully, the thug’s eyes were closed, but he’d notice the pale blue glow sooner or later. She had to hurry.

Forcing her attention away from the thick tongue that moved sluggishly in her mouth and the meaty fingers squeezing first her breasts and then her ass, Emma concentrated on the hands pressed against Blue Eyes’ greasy head, sending her intention out through her fingertips.

Almost immediately, images flashed on her mental screen—Blue Eyes’ rat hole of an apartment near the ruins, the interior of a nearly empty fridge, a pile of dirty laundry he’d dug through to find his shirt for the evening. The mundane flooded in first, as it always did, but Emma swam deeper, sending her mind into the man she touched, the need within searching for what it craved.

She found it seconds later—the pale face of a little girl with a split lip, bleeding from where one of Blue Eyes’ fists had connected with her face, the gutted corpse of a man he’d shoved out of a boat into demon-infested waters, the mascara-stained cheeks of a woman who screamed as his hand fisted in her hair.

Emma had seen enough. More than enough.

Silently, she reversed the flow of her energy, no longer diving into her victim, but swimming to the surface, pulling his evil along with her. The sin-filled memories flowed into her fingers, up her hands, surging through her arms and into her chest, where her heart slammed against her ribs, her body working to disperse the energy to her demon-altered cells.

The aura demons fed on the pain and suffering of humans; Emma fed on evil. It was a slight difference but an important one. When her parents had given her blood to the demons, the very essence of her had been changed, mutated. A part of her became more demon than human. In many ways, she was like the monsters that had nearly killed her. She craved human life force and had to steal the vitality of others to survive. But she stole only from those who deserved what she did to them, those whose karmic balance was firmly tipped into the realm of evil. The choice allowed her to sleep at night, and as an added bonus ...

Evil was damned tasty.

Emma moaned as she pulled harder on the man’s soul, sucking out all the bad mojo he’d created with every horrible thing he’d ever done. She didn’t know how her body fed on the nastiness flowing into her fingers, but it did. God, it did. She hadn’t felt this good in weeks, since the last time she’d lured a very bad man into a very dark alley.

Faster and faster the energy flowed, until the blue glow in her hands burned so bright that Emma could see it behind her closed eyes.

Blue Eyes pulled his mouth away from hers, removing the repugnant tongue Emma had hardly noticed was still moving against hers. Once the feeding began, the awareness of everything else faded away. “What? What the ...” The man’s voice cracked, and he swayed on his feet.

“Don’t stop. You feel so, so good.” Emma smiled up into his face, not at all troubled by what she saw there.

The blue light from her hands lit up Blue Eyes’ head like a jack-o’-lantern, revealing a second face lurking beneath the skin and bone. It was the face of his soul, the hidden visage only she could see. She watched as the face shriveled before her eyes, wrinkles became tears in the spirit flesh, rotten places that would fester long after she removed her hands.

No one else would ever witness the transformation—she herself would see nothing but a healthy young man as soon as the blue light faded—but the damage had been done. She’d sucked away his vital energy, gobbled up his life force, and there would be a price to pay. He’d die from what she’d done, sooner or later, simply fall over dead from a heart attack or stroke that no one would ever understand.

And no one would be able to connect it to her ... assuming she stopped before it was too late.

With more effort than she would have liked, Emma pulled her hands away from Blue Eyes’ head. Immediately the blue light disappeared and the soul face vanished. Once again, he looked like what he had been—a healthy young monster at the beginning of a lifetime career of evil.

But now that lifetime was going to be a whole hell of a lot shorter.

“I feel ... sick. ...” The man’s hands fell to his sides.

“Bummer.” Emma looped his arm around her shoulders when he swayed again. “Must be the tequila.”

“Yeah. Fuck. Just give me a second ... and I’ll be ready to go. ...” He groaned and clutched at his stomach. Emma had just enough time to jump back before he bent double and emptied his stomach on her favorite pair of black boots.

“Great,” she whispered beneath her breath, hand flying to press against her nose. Ugh. The smell was noxious, like rotten eggs mixed with pizza and a tequila-and-stomach-acid cocktail. It was all she could do not to gag. “I’ll go get your ...”

Gang buddies? Fellow killers? BFFs?

Blue Eyes heaved again. Emma flinched and danced back a few steps.

“I’ll get somebody,” she said, turning toward the door. Or maybe she wouldn’t. The man was a monster, and she’d just taken the majority of his life away. It seemed hypocritical to fetch someone to hold his hair while he barfed. Not to mention the fact that he had a crew cut.

Yeah. He could sleep in his own vomit for all she cared. She’d just have to make sure he was gone ... before they closed up. ... Maybe she could ...

Her head spun, and black flecks teased the edges of her vision, but Emma didn’t think much of it until she tried to reach for the silver door handle and found that her arm wouldn’t move.

Just. Wouldn’t. Move.

Her legs followed the disturbing trend seconds later, her knees buckling, sending her pitching toward the pavement. Her bony shoulder hit first, followed by her temple. Pain bloomed inside her head, like something from her sister Sam’s flower shop.

“Ginger ...” Emma heard her own voice from a distance, as if the sound were drifting through water. Then she was pulled under the waves, too, swept away from the conscious world.