Page 5 of Whispers From The Dark

A few people walk up the path behind me, and I assume there’s a bus stop nearby. Most of them hurry past the fountain, determined to get wherever they’re headed.

“Why meet me here?” I ask.

“Vanessa doesn’t want me to involve you.”

“Vanessa,” I say, holding my fingertip to my lips while I struggle to remember Dmitri’s business partner. “Was she at the Crossroads with you the night we met?”

His cheeks darken, and he tugs at his collar. “Yes.”

“Was she the woman with the hood piercing?” I ask, surprised that a human so devoted to their own pleasure wouldn’t be glad to seek my help.

“No,” he says, and he clears his throat. Shame has a scent I don’t find appealing—cloying and viscous. And shame of the sexual variety? It is rotten, and I gag on it. But it tells me exactly who Vanessa is.

“I do not understand humans. If it feels good, then why—” I cut myself off, shaking my head. There is no point with Dmitri. Though humans have grown far more comfortable with their sexual desires in recent years, a boon when I crave their lust, Dmitri is too old-fashioned to bother convincing. “She’s the one who pegged you?”

“Jesus, Az, please shut up.”

I snort, wondering what Dmitri can offer that I don’t already have.

Silence falls as a slight human walks past. I can’t see them well beneath the thick layers of fabric they wear, but their soul is loud. I recognize them. Drawn by awareness, my desire to know who they are, I stand without thought and follow them to the fountain. Just as I’m about to speak, Dmitri knocks into them as he attempts to sidle up beside me.

A cell phone falls into the empty fountain with a crack, and the person it belongs to gasps.

“Shit, sorry,” Dmitri says, fishing the phone out of the fountain. “Oh, hey Petra. Aren’t you going to be late?”

Leaning forward to see past Dmitri’s thick frame, I find Petra. Heart-shaped, the symmetrical face belongs to a soul I have met before. She hides the horror and disappointment over her shattered device before I can even blink. Tiny fractures spiderweb across the glass screen. Dmitri doesn’t even notice what he did.

Petra grins up at him, shoving her busted phone into her hoodie pocket.

“I’ve got a few minutes. I like the decorations,” she says, boot scuffing against the ground.

“Petra’s one of our girls,” Dmitri says, clasping her on the shoulder. “Great tits, and the vamps love her.”

Petra’s beige skin blooms pink, and her light green eyes twitch as she looks upon Dmitri, but she doesn’t voice any annoyance. Instead, she turns a beaming smile upon him.

“What can I say?” she asks, laughing as she leans past Dmitri to wave at me. “Ven you got eet, flaunt eet.” I think her playful accent is supposed to be Swedish, but I do not know why.

Fascinating.

Has another demon played a joke on her? Instead of making her speak in tongues, she speaks in accents—brilliant.

Her eyes widen just a fraction when she looks at me. Joe Bauer isn’t unattractive, but I wouldn’t call him handsome either. Though there’s no other reason for her flared nostrils—and, fucking heaven, that sweet smell that must be her lust—I’m still surprised.

Normally, my glamour takes a moment. The soul responds only after I learn it, and then it’s foolproof. Shifting the human perception of what I look, smell, or even taste like, turns me into something irresistible. And it has already worked on her.

Because I’ve met her before. Each soul is unique, and once I come into contact with one, it’s like an imprint on my own. Yet I have no memory of the woman.

How do I know you?

Petra appears nonplussed, despite her scent, as she reaches out to shake my hand. For how potent her arousal is, she should be stuttering or flushed. But she’s composed.

I’m staring, trying to remember her. I never forget a deal, and yet, this woman, whose soul I have certainly met before, eludes me.

“Nice to meet you, sir.” Her smooth skin is cold when she shakes my hand.

“Call me Az,” I respond, and she gives me a bright smile—not even close to indicative of the lust I’d just scented or the disappointment she must feel as she looks down at her destroyed phone to check the time. How does she cloak her emotions so well?

And again, who the heaven is she?