Raven

Raven
Alison Paige

Raven

Alison Paige

www.spice-books.co.uk (http://www.spice-books.co.uk/)

CHAPTER ONE

“This body’s dying, Morrigan. Make haste.” A snarl curled Morrigan’s upper lip, mimicking her master’s orders. She shifted against the cool stone of the tenant building’s roof, high above New Orleans’ busy night streets.

The Leshii demon ordered up a soul like he was calling for Chinese takeout. Fifty-one years and his detached superior attitude still ruffled her feathers. Morrigan sighed and rolled her shoulders, loosening the knot heating through her muscles. She’d be at this all night if she let her ire fester.

Hunting required focus, a tranquil mind and a steady bow. She closed her eyes, reaching deep within her to that eternal stillness, the dark well of energy inherent to her kind and the source of their power. Her mind touched the black quiet inside her and a cool rush of magic gushed up through her veins.

Morrigan’s frustration melted away, left her arms loose, her mind clear. She opened her eyes, scanned the crowded sidewalks below. Herds of people spilled into the streets, bumping shoulders, pressing and pushing against one another like mindless cattle. The sounds of laughter, boisterous conversation, car horns and idling engines were all muffled beneath the thundering roll of music echoing off bodies and buildings alike. The stench of stale beer and bodily fluids, having stewed in the hot New Orleans sun, wafted up to her.

She refused the vile aroma, allowing its notice to pass through her mind without pause or reaction. She hunted, her natural prey so easy to spot. The husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Upper-class, escaping their uptight, pristine world in the sinful city, indulging fantasies unfit for polite company.

They wore their vulnerability like a second skin, an irresistible call to her nature, their wealth, their security, their belief in the greater good all ripe for the taking. She swallowed against the sweet taste of prey, like maple syrup on the back of her tongue, and licked her lips.

Morrigan reached over her shoulder to the quiver she wore on her back and drew out one of the long arrows. Without thought or sight, she readied her bow, shifting up to one knee, pulling the string taut. They turned a corner, taking the less crowded side street, darker, fewer witnesses. So easy. Her belly fluttered, lower regions warmed, excitement tingling through her body.

The bowstring creaked next to her ear. She held firm—waiting. One strike each, rapid fire, and they’d both stand stupefied as she took what she wanted. Or maybe she’d convince them to bring her back to their hotel room, let her rifle through their belongings, take it all. They would. Her magic arrows turned humans into muted dummies, like dolls she could manipulate and abuse. Perfect prey. So easy.

She spotted the other one out of the corner of her eye. Morrigan’s gaze shifted to the opposite end of the street. Exhilaration fizzled like a flickering light, then winked out completely. Here was the prey she’d been sent after. What the master made her hunt. The body and soul he needed to survive.

The couple strolled past the dirty man, Mrs. Upper-class hugging her shoulder bag, Mr. Upper-class tucking his wife close, his other hand gripping his bulging fanny pack. Their pace quickened, eyes darting, watching the staggering indigent without staring. Polite to a fault. Fools. Neither of them possessed an ounce of instinct, both ignorant of what danger looked like, smelled like, felt like.

The bum wasn’t danger, Morrigan was. She was loss. Death was her wake, but not for them, not tonight. Morrigan was here for him. After tonight he’d be nothing, vanishing like cotton candy in her mouth.

Mr. and Mrs. Upper-class turned the corner and Morrigan opened her two fingers. The arrow was set free. Her bowstring twanged. The air parted in a whoosh of wind, her arrow hitting its mark with a muted thunk into his chest. She stood, waiting as the man stumbled back, his greasy salt-and-pepper hair curtaining his face as he stared at the arrow he could feel, but not see.

He lifted the edge of his threadbare flannel shirt, brushed his stained T-shirt underneath. His hand passed through the protruding arrow unaffected. He couldn’t remove an arrow he didn’t know was there. A Raven’s magic, once struck, is inescapable.

Morrigan unfurled her wings, hooking her bow on her belt at her hip. She stepped to the edge of the building and then stepped off. For a moment the Louisiana night felt blissfully cool against her skin, the air rushing by, tugging her long black hair from her face, caressing through the feathers of her wings.

Her feet touched pavement, silent as a cat on the prowl. She strode across the empty street to her prey, meeting his wide, worried eyes.

“I…I think I been shot,” the yellow-toothed man said.

Damn, she hated it when they spoke, reaching them before the magic took hold. She didn’t want to talk to them, didn’t want to hear their voice, see their spirit shining through their eyes. She didn’t want to see them alive.

Morrigan fisted his shirt collar, swallowing back the knot of pity choking at the back of her throat. “Shut up. You’re dead.”

The man’s watery, bloodshot eyes stretched wide, his bushy brows shooting high, shifting wrinkles from his cheeks to his forehead. “Am not. I ain’t dead. I ain’t.”

“Close your hole. You will be soon enough.” A good yank on his collar and the man stumbled behind her into the empty street. The sudden move pushed a cloud of stink ahead of him, body odor, hard liquor and human waste. Lord, did he even bother looking for a toilet before he gave up and pissed himself?

She wrinkled her nose against the pungent assault. At least the master would rid him of the stench…and everything else that made him who he was. Pity irritated through her chest again, stung her eyes, but Morrigan shoved it deep, stomped it down inside her where it couldn’t toy with her resolve.

“Are you…are you the angel of death?” the man tripped out of his left shoe as he struggled to find his footing beside her. The magic was taking hold. Finally.

She allowed her gaze to land on him, see him for who he was, the spirit that lived within. As prey there was nothing about him that appealed to her. He wasn’t wealthy, or key to the treasure of others. He wasn’t blind to the harsh realities of life. He was a harsh reality.

His capture wouldn’t benefit her or her family, wouldn’t feed them or provide shelter. He wouldn’t even be good for sport. He was no prey of hers.

His eyes met hers, blue, like the bottom of a swimming pool. The thought, the color, stuck in her mind. His skin was withered and wrinkled beyond its years, alcohol and exposure shaving decades from his life. He’d be taller than she was if he stood straight, long legs and arms, a broad chest and shoulders. His nose was blunt at the end and looked like he’d probably broken it at least once.

Beard stubble hid a square chin and high cheekbones, the man might be remotely attractive if he didn’t look like he’d been dragged through life on the back of a manure wagon.

He blinked, her magic seeping down to his bone. “Death?” he asked with his last ounce of will.

Morrigan smiled, knowing how her Raven eyes gleamed red in the night. “Yes.”

No reaction. The grimy old man was asleep in his own mind. Her magic had him, dulled his brain, handed him helpless into her keeping. She turned his back to her and wrapped her arms around his chest under his arms. A quick glance to ensure they were alone and she took flight, carrying them both up and into the dark night sky.

Morrigan blinked against the sting of wind in her eyes, except it wasn’t wind that tightened her chest and made her chin quiver. They’d lied to her, tricked her into quiet acceptance. Her family, those who were supposed to protect her, love her. People she thought she could trust.

Nanna was wrong. She’d told Morrigan it was an honor to serve the demon. It wasn’t. The demon perverted Morrigan’s power, used it to take life. She wasn’t a murderer. At least she hadn’t been before he took her.

Morrigan and her kind separated fools from their money, as well as from their gullibility and ignorance. Thieves by most definitions, yes, but they took nothing that couldn’t be replaced—or should be.

Their victims learned a fast lesson in the penalties for complacency and carelessness. One could even say the Ravens provided a service. But the demon served only himself. And he made her help. For that she would be forever ashamed.

Fifty-one years she’d been in service of the demon. Like most shape-shifters she had a life span that was more than double that of a human, and once her kind hit puberty the aging process slowed dramatically. Still, time marched on for her and her kind as it did for everyone. Though the passage of time was never more acutely felt than by one who was forced to stand still as it slipped by. She’d grown older over the years, but little else about her life had changed.

The old mansion she and Akram called home for the past six and a half months peeked between the tall oaks below. Morrigan banished the threatening tears with a deep breath, landing silent as a ghost on the river-rock courtyard.

The century-old house wasn’t really theirs. It belonged to the defense lawyer whom Akram consumed last. The lawyer had made his fortune defending business moguls from their stockholders and suffering employees when the company books didn’t back up the profits claimed.

She’d have preferred Akram consume one of the lawyer’s clients, but time had been a factor and proximity a priority.

Morrigan steadied the bum on his feet. “Come,” she said and led the way up the wide stone steps of the back deck and through the double French doors that opened onto the sitting room. The human host stuck to her heel like toilet paper.

“Morrigan, you’ve kept me waiting,” Akram said, rounding the corner from the hallway. “Was there a problem? Were you seen?”

Morrigan shook her head, then realized he was already busy inspecting his new host. “No. No problem,” she said. “And I’m never seen.”

Akram paused, the man’s dirty head in his hands, his thumbs hiking up the man’s lips to show his teeth. He met her gaze. “Of course. You are a true talent, Morrigan. Thank you.”

His smile was little more than a flicker across his lips, but the rarity of it sent a flutter through her stomach and made her breath catch.

Akram wore the expensive trousers and tailored dress shirt that’d come with the body and house. His hair was neatly trimmed, his face clean-shaven, his shoes shined. Good grooming and fine dressing has its own appeal, but Akram’s outward appearance rarely caught her notice anymore.

Physically Akram looked nothing like he had all those years ago when she was a young girl just beginning her service to him. The demon had possessed ninety-eight bodies from that day to this, devoured ninety-eight souls. Every one of them was male, and no two were alike. The hosts were as different as thumbprints, but Akram made each his own.

How many times had she studied him, discerning the differences and the similarities? Those unique quirks, the cadence of his speech, the crooked tilt of his smile, the fluid gestures of his hands, elements of the demon that never changed regardless of the body that housed him. Too many hours, too many sleepless nights, spent pondering the spirit who’d been her only companion, her only concern for more than fifty years.