The Demon Road Trilogy: The Complete Collection: Demon Road; Desolation; American Monsters

She snarled, showing him her fangs, and his eyes went wide. He dropped the money and spun, but Amber was right behind him, faster than he could ever hope to be. She grabbed the collar of his jacket and he shrieked as he was launched backwards.

“Do you know what I’ve just done?” she growled as she stalked after him. “I’ve just broken some poor woman’s bones in the gas station. I threw her around like she was nothing and then I went for a goddamn swim. You think I’d hesitate for even one moment before I ripped your throat out for robbing me?”

Glen scrambled back on all fours. “Please, I didn’t mean anything!”

“You meant to steal from me.”

“I’m starving!”

She leaped, landing on top of him in a crouch, her right hand closing round his neck and pinning him to the ground. “Not my problem.”

He looked up at her, tears in his eyes, and those tears just made her angrier. She wanted nothing more than to grow talons, to feel them slice into the soft meat, to sink her teeth in, to feel that warm blood flow down her …

She blinked. Wait, what?

She loosened her grip. The impulse to tear his throat open was rapidly receding.

“Are you going to kill me?” he whispered.

“No,” she said dully, and stood. “No, I’m … I’m not going to kill you. I wanted to. I was going to. But …”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he said. “Something’s going to kill me sooner or later. Most likely sooner, to be honest. If I had a choice, I’d prefer it to be you.”

Amber took a few steps back, then turned, walked to her clothes. She let her scales retract fully as she pulled them on, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of dry fabric on wet skin. Still frowning to herself, she sat on a log to wipe the soles of her feet before putting on her socks and sneakers.

“Your clothes don’t fit you, y’know,” Glen said.

He was tall and skinny, scruffy but not bad-looking. He bent to pick up her roll of money and she bared her teeth. He walked over slowly and held out his hand.

Amber finished tying her laces and stood, taking her money without a word and stuffing it back into her pocket.

“You should probably invest in a wallet,” he said.

“Shut up, Glen,” said Amber.

He nodded. “Yeah. That’s fair.”

She turned away from him, hiked her shorts up to her waist, and started walking back towards the gas station.

He caught up to her. “Can I ask a question, though? What are you?”

“What do I look like?”

“Honestly? A demon.”

“Then there you have it.”

He nodded. “You’d think that’d shock me, right? Meeting a demon? A few weeks ago, it would have, but my life has taken a pretty weird turn lately, so I’ve adopted a policy of complete and utter credulity in all things. It saves everyone a lot of time. These days I don’t ask for proof or reasons or anything. I just accept. That doesn’t mean I’m not curious, of course. I’m very curious. I mean, look at you. A real live demon, just walking around. Do you live down here?”

“Down where?”

“Here. In the woods.”

She frowned. “Are you stupid? Why would I live in the woods?”

“Well, I just thought, y’know …”

“Stop following me.”

“Okay. Right. But can I ask another question? Why do you have money? How do you buy stuff?”

She stopped walking and turned to him. “How do you think I buy stuff? I walk into a store and say I want something and I pay for it.”

He frowned. “You walk into a shop like that?”

She remembered her appearance. “Oh,” she said. “No. This is new. I’m still getting used to it. I keep forgetting I have horns.”

“They are magnificent,” he breathed, staring at them.

“Eyes down here, Glen.”

“Yes, sorry.” He blushed. “You’re … Sorry. You’re just the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Like, prettier than most actresses and models, even.”

Amber grunted, and started walking again. “This isn’t the real me.”

“No, it is,” Glen said, matching her pace. “Like, you’re beautiful in a way that I’ve never seen before. Everything about you, your face, your horns, your amazing teeth, your skin that’s my favourite shade of red, your legs, your body, your—”

“You can stop anytime now.”

“I’m not scared,” he said. “You might think I’m scared of you because you’re a demon and most people would be scared of demons, and that’s why you put up this wall, to reject others before they reject you, but I’m really not scared. You’re not scary. You’re beautiful, not ugly. And I’ve seen some ugly things. I mean, I really have. Back in Ireland, I was attacked by this, by this creature, you know? It passed something on to me, the Deathmark. Wanna see it?”

“Not really.”

He held out his right hand, proudly showing her his palm. Just below the surface of his skin, a tendril of darkness circled like a fish in a bowl. “Isn’t it freaky? Ever since it happened, I’ve been meeting the oddest people. I met this guy in Dublin, this real weird guy, knows all about monsters and stuff. He said this thing will kill me in forty days if I don’t pass it on to its intended target. That was, like, thirty-two days ago.”

“You’re going to die in eight days?” said Amber, frowning.

He nodded, and seemed oddly unbothered about it. “Unless I pass this mark on to a woman called Abigail. Apparently, she’s a bad person. Like, really bad. Killed a lot of people, that kind of bad. I’ll be doing the world a favour by passing this on to her. That’s what I was told. She’s supposed to be in a bar here in America that I haven’t been able to find – The Dark Stair. You know it?”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, me neither. I looked it up online and nothing. I don’t even know what state it’s in. Maybe I’ll find it, maybe I won’t, but I’m here now, y’know? If I die, I want to die here. I want to see bigger things before I go, better things than the creature that attacked me. I want to see proper monsters. American monsters. I didn’t think I’d see anything as beautiful as you, though.”

“Right,” said Amber. “Well, I better get going.”

“Where are you off to?”

“Oh, uh, Springton. It’s in Wisconsin. We have to find someone.”