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He edged around a rack that was stuffed with bags of potato chips and headed over to the row of coolers. He swung one open, resisting the urge to stick his head inside the icy interior as he grabbed a soda, not bothering to read the label. As he headed to the front to pay, he managed to fully contain his Sight, though he was gripping the glass bottle so hard, it was a miracle it didn’t shatter from the pressure.
The clerk gaped as Darien strode up to the counter, set down the bottle, and asked for his usual brand of cigarettes, having already burned through the whole pack he’d purchased earlier. So much for quitting.
The man didn’t move or blink.
Darien gave an upward flick of his brows, but the man was frozen in place. The name tag pinned to his button-up shirt was faded, the letters barely legible.
“Today, Greg,” Darien said. He snapped his fingers and waved a prompting hand, causing the man to flinch. “Hop to it.”
Greg turned and lumbered up to where he kept the cigarettes. It took him a painfully long time to sift through the cartons, and as the seconds ticked by, and he still hadn’t found the right brand, Darien shifted with impatience, fingers drumming the counter.
“To your left,” Darien instructed. The man’s hand fluttered to the right. “No, no, your other left. There you go.”
The man plucked one off the shelf, knocking a couple others to the floor in the process, and thumped back over to the register. He rang up the items, the click of each key and the beep of each barcode passing under the scanner unbearably loud.
As he waited, Darien scanned the store. The bulk candy bins, the shelves of chocolate bars and gum, the electronic cigarette display, the dusty fan that did nothing to cool the stuffy room, the shave ice machine whirring in a corner…
Darien felt a smile tug at his mouth as he read the list of available flavors of shave ice.
Cherry or peach would do.
He faced the clerk. “Does your shave ice melt?”
The man stared at him, hand hovering over the buttons on the till.
Darien narrowed his eyes. “Your shave ice, does it melt?”
The man gave a faint nod.
“Lame.” He would have to make a point of bringing some home to Mortifer another time. The Hob would no doubt appreciate a change from the plain ice chips he munched on night and day. Darien would be willing to bet the Avenue of the Scarlet Star would sell enchanted shave ice. It was far more likely to find such a thing at a tourist attraction than a convenience store, especially one this close to the Meatpacking District, the smell of blood and butchered flesh permeating the building.
Greg was still staring at him, regardless that he’d finished scanning his items seconds ago.
Darien sighed through his nose. “Look, man. If there’s something you want to say, say it. I don’t got all night.” Once again, he was met with silence and gawking. “Well, what is it? Do you want an autograph or something?” An autograph—wouldn’t that be the day? Though he wouldn’t really be surprised; there were people who idolized Darkslayers the same way they idolized the faces they regularly saw on television.
Greg peered at him over the top of his small round glasses.
Darien tried to see himself from the man’s perspective—bloodstained jeans, ripped gray henley, steel devil’s head rings partially concealing the ink on his knuckles, the fine chains around his neck, the tattoo of the Seven Devils below his ear… Yeah, he could understand why Greg was fumbling over his words, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.
Finally, he spoke, his voice a low rumble, every word blending into one. “Which Devil are you?”
Darien’s brows pulled together. “Darien.”
Greg checked his total on the small till screen. “That’ll be fifteen seventy-eight.”
Darien took out his phone to pay. The man placed the machine on the counter before him.
“Is there a reason you’re asking?” Darien paid for his things with the tapping of his phone against the screen. “You look like there’s a reason you’re asking.”
“It’s nothing.” He waved a hand in dismissal and ripped the receipt that sprouted from the printer next to the till.
The man’s aura appeared in a flicker as the Surge Darien was repressing attempted to make an appearance. “You did not just waste this much of my time only to tell me that it’s nothing. Spit it out, guy.”
He placed the receipt on top of the cigarettes. “Some folks out in Whitebridge have run into trouble with a monster near their property.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Big trouble.” Sweat beaded on his forehead. “They say it’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen. A new creature that hypnotizes its prey before stringing them upside down and drinking the blood from them.”
