Grant sank into a chair with a sigh. I ruffled his hair as I walked to the fridge—then stopped, frowning, and came back to him. I felt his forehead again.
“You have a fever,” I said, feeling dumb. Yes, his face had been red. But I’d thought it was some symptom of the strain the demons were putting him under. Maybe it still was. But his skin was hot.
“I’m tired, that’s all,” he said, leaning his elbow on the table. Mary frowned, drawing close. She bent, peering at his face, and her hand darted out to grab his jaw. He tried to pull away, but she held him still, peering into his eyes.
The Shurik nosed free of his shirt, the tip of its sharp mouth peeling back just slightly to reveal tiny, needlelike teeth covered in slime.
“None of those are inside you, right?” I asked warily.
Grant, still held in place by Mary, gave me an exasperated look. I shrugged at him, totally not sorry for asking.
“Not right,” Mary muttered, and tore her gaze from him to give me the same hard stare.
“What?” I asked, always a bit unnerved when she looked at me like that. Mary’s scrutiny was usually just a prelude to extreme amounts of violence.
She didn’t get a chance to answer. My phone started ringing. Made me jump. Even Grant flinched.
I didn’t recognize the number. Almost didn’t answer. But my instincts tickled.
“Yes?” I said.
“Fucking Hunter,” replied a woman on the other end. I didn’t recognize the voice, but the anger was familiar. Definitely some human possessed by a demon.
I stayed silent, waiting. The woman let out a ragged sigh. “You tackled me last night. I’m the waitress from Houston.”
“You have my number?”
She made a wet, hacking noise that sounded like she was gargling wet fur. “Forget that. I’m sick, you bitch.”
“What?”
“Don’t you understand?” Her voice broke. I heard another wretched cough, and I realized she was vomiting.
I didn’t understand at first. I was in denial. All I could think was that she hadn’t been anywhere near those dead bodies. It took me a long, confused moment before the truth hit: It wasn’t her, it was me. The boys had been tramping all over those dead humans, touching them—then touching me. So had Zee.
Me, me, me. And I had touched her.
“Wait,” I said, almost stuttering. “Which part of you is sick? Your host?”
“What the fuck do you think?” she snarled weakly. “Yes, my host. My host, who I feed from.”
I looked at Grant, and his fever suddenly meant something totally different to me.
Jack had said this thing couldn’t infect humans. But what if he was wrong? If I had infected the demon-possessed waitress in Houston, then perhaps she’d gone back into her restaurant and infected her customers. If they’d gone out and infected others . . .
I touched that possessed old woman in Taiwan.
“Damn,” I said. “Oh, damn.”
Grant had been watching me the entire time, his expression becoming ever more grave. But something else passed over his face—a tightening of his throat, his lips pressing so hard together they turned white.
That was the only warning we got. He stood so fast his chair fell over, and he lurched toward the kitchen sink. He was in such a rush, he didn’t grab his cane. Mary caught him before he toppled over, but that happened anyway—he fell against the sink and started puking.
I stared, horrified. I heard the demon-possessed woman saying something to me, but I hung up on her and was next to Grant in moments. He had stopped vomiting, but was still spitting, coughing. I looked down into the sink and all I saw was normal puke—a swimmy goop of food fragments and bile. Relief sank through me.
“It’s ok—” I began, just as a violent shudder rolled him up on his toes, and he bent over, again. The sound he made was terrible, like someone had shoved a barbed hook down his throat into his guts and was yanking up, yanking and tearing him inside out.
What rushed from his mouth was a blur, but I saw the glint of darkness, a splash of red in the sink—and parts of my vision blacked out.
The sun set, and the boys woke up.
CHAPTER 13
GROWING up, the plan was always this: I’d get pregnant one day, with a stranger. And then I’d die. Young.
As far as I knew, that was how it had worked for most of my ancestors. No one ever lived to see old age. No one ever got married. Maybe there was love, but no happily ever after. Just mothers and daughters, and demons. Wandering together, alone, down a road as old and dark as blood.
But I was married. I was in love. Which, when you think about it, is almost as rare as carrying five demons on your skin.