Identifying marks: Tattoolike symbols extending from tip of right fingers to shoulder. Pierced left ear.
Personal Seminus symbol: Unseeing eye on throat Tayla Mancuso—Tayla spent her entire childhood and most of her teenage years in foster care thanks to a drug-addicted mother who was unable to care for Tayla. Eventually, Tayla’s mother gained custody of her, but the happy reunion was cut short when Tayla witnessed her mother’s torture and death at the hands of a demon. After that, Tayla dedicated every waking moment to killing demons, and until she met Eidolon, she believed that the only good demon is a demon with a stang buried in its brain.
Hair: Red
Eyes: Green
Profession: Aegis Guardian Species: Half human, half Soulshredder Wraith—As a demon born to a vampire, Wraith is an anomaly. A childhood of torture at the hands of vampires gave him an intense hatred of the entire race, and he spent his entire adult life killing them for sport. His horrific younger years left him with a strange quirk: he won’t feed from or have sex with human women. All other females, however, are fair game—a game he plays several times a day. Unlike most Seminus demons, Wraith was born with the red-eyed glare other Sems gain around the time of s’genesis.
Hair: Kept between chin-and shoulder-length, bleached blond Eyes: Blue
Height: 6' 5"
Profession: In charge of acquisitions for UG
Species: Incubus
Breed:: Seminus demon
Identifying marks: Tattoolike symbols extending from tip of right fingers to shoulder Personal Seminus symbol: Hourglass on throat
The Reckoning
Reckoning (noun)—An unpleasant or disastrous destiny
Chicago. 1928.
They were coming.
Wraith lurched across the floor of the abandoned brewery, one leg dragging. He’d yanked the dagger out of his thigh, but the damage had been done, because his leg wouldn’t work right. Hell, it wouldn’t work at all.
Dusty equipment and trash littered the huge warehouse, slowing him down even more. He ducked behind a giant vat, but if he believed he was hiding, he was fooling himself. Even if he wasn’t leaving a blood trail a blind man could follow, the bastards on his tail were vamps. They’d track him by scent.
Pain radiated up from his leg, competing with the burning in his lungs for attention. Wincing, he put pressure on the puncture wound, which did nothing to stanch the blood.
He was in trouble.
Two years of running had gotten him nowhere. His mother’s clan had finally caught up with him. They’d chased him from California to Texas, and from there to Canada. Then Alaska. Now he was in Chicago, thinking he should have forced someone to teach him about the Harrowgates instead of traveling on foot, following the odd, ever-present feeling deep in his chest that told him he had family out there.
Then again, he hadn’t been overly enthused about finding those mysterious relatives. Not when the only family he’d ever known had tortured and abused him, and who were even now entering the building to finish what they’d started the day he was born.
In the moon’s silver light streaming through the broken windows, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in one of the vat’s metal panels. His dark hair hung in ropes around his shoulders and his face was caked with dirt and blood. Only his eyes looked the way they’d always been—the color of mud and just as murky. A vagrant had once told Wraith his eyes were dead.
Wraith had eaten the guy for that, but the homeless man had spoken the truth. Inside, Wraith was an empty shell, and he had no idea why he kept fighting.
“We know you’re in here, boy,” Dick, Wraith’s uncle, called out. “So why don’t you come out from hiding like the rat you are and face your justice.”
Justice. Funny. Wraith had been in a kill-or-be-killed situation with his own mother, but that was of no consequence to people who had kept him in a cage his entire life. Wraith’s mother had been a full-fledged vampire, while Wraith was nothing more than a demon. Didn’t matter that he had to drink blood to survive—he wasn’t a true vampire, so his life had been deemed worth less than an insect’s, and her clan intended to squash him.
He glanced around wildly for a way out, but three vampires he didn’t know blocked the exits. Looked like good old Uncle Dickhead had found some locals who were eager for a little bloodsport.
Wraith dug into his pocket for his knife. This was the end of the line, and he knew it.
Maybe the afterlife would be better than this one, because it sure as hell couldn’t be worse.
“Hell’s bells.” Shade clutched his leg, nearly falling on his ass in the middle of the living room of the Queens row house he shared with Eidolon. Little bursts of pain rode his nerves from his leg to his skull. “I’m starting to not like this brother of ours.”