The Demon's Deceit Teaser...
Chapter One
The demon found me slumped over on a pile of bloated trash bags in the dingy light of a narrow alley. When the idea of consciousness spread into the muffled corners of my mind, its faithful partner—pain—wasn’t far behind. A clanging headache throbbed in time with my churning stomach and almost distracted me from a tongue as dry as a desiccated cactus. Before full lucidity could set in, my fingers crawled around my body in a desperate search for something to drink. I winced when they met the sharp edges of a broken malt liquor bottle. Ignoring the blood, I picked it up and poured the rest of its contents into my mouth.
“Uuuuuugghh,” I moaned as the last of the warm, flat liquid trickled down my throat and ignited a painful hiccup. Tossing the bottle aside, I patted my pockets until I located the bottle of pills and shook it. Empty. I sighed—a good evening was not in the forecast. Again.
“Pathetic.” The word was so crisply enunciated I could picture the mouth from which it came, like a bubble blown through a sneer. I propped myself up on an elbow to peer over the mound of garbage where I’d crashed after my latest bender. After some time spent squinting against the pattern of broken lights peppering my eyelids, I saw her: a dark-haired woman in a crisp, navy-blue suit. Further inspection revealed clean tailoring, expensive shoes, a sleek coiffure, and an expression of lip-curling revulsion so at home on the faces of moneyed elites.
“Just pathetic.” Her sharp eyes pierced into my own and confirmed that I was, undeniably, the object of her disgust. I pushed myself up a little farther to help cough out a gob of off-color sputum, which I spat neatly toward her designer pumps. Unperturbed, she approached and stood square in front of me, hands on hips and disdain as clear as day on her face.
“Please, do come in,” I croaked and gestured to a torn and greasy bag across from my makeshift bed. “Make yourself at home.” I punctuated the sentence with a loaded burp and more painful hiccups. Alarm klaxons went off in my head when I considered sitting up all the way, and I slumped over onto my side again.
“Do you have any brain cells left, or have you killed them all?”
I ignored her while testing whether my head felt better with my eyes open or closed.
“He better be right about you,” she muttered to herself. “Though I don’t suppose I have any other options at this point.” She sighed. “Get up. You’re coming with me.”
My hand rose in a weak wave of dismissal before the spins began (eyes closed, definitely closed) and I adjusted my body to get more comfortable. “Listen, lady, I’m not interested in doing weird sex things for money right now, okay? Unless maybe you’ve got a trunkful of opiates and blow?” I tilted my head up and opened a hopeful eye to check her expression before closing it again in disappointment.
“I can offer you something much better.” Her voice carried the hint of a sinister smirk.
I snorted. “There’s nothing better than oblivion.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, but once you’ve done my bidding, you can have all the oblivion you want.”
My face scrunched as I attempted to parse her cryptic words through the haze of my migraine. “So weird sex things and then the starring role in a snuff film?” I shrugged against the slick black bag beneath me. “I’m not opposed to the idea, as long as I can’t feel a thing.”
I was only partially joking.
A low, mirthless laugh sent shivers across my skin. “Very well,” she crooned.
A drizzle of bitter liquid wetted my lips, and I sank into the welcome embrace of darkness.