Read Online Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1) by Rachel A. Marks - Free Book Online

people touching me, not ever. And I’ve had too many people think I’m a punching bag. If he does that one more time, I’ll take that stick from him and shove it up his—
    “Yes! Fire! There, I see it now.” He smiles, changing his entire face. He glances behind him at the audience. “You were right, Kara.”
    When I look over at her, her eyes move away to the window.
    “Listen,” I say. “I just wanted to talk.”
    “You need help,” Sid says.
    I open my mouth to deny it, but then let out a sigh and just nod. What’s the point in pretending?
    “Who sent you?” he asks.
    “Hanna from SubZero. She gave me your number last night.”
    He looks me over again. His eyes pause at my wounded hand. “What happened?”
    I just stare back at him. Silent.
    “Let me see it.” He waves me forward.
    I don’t move. I can’t let him be in control, not before I know his angle. “I have a few questions first.”
    He leans back on the arm of the couch beside Finger and nods for me to continue. A few members of the audience look impressed at my stubbornness, especially Lester and Holly, a young Hispanic girl—the one who’s high strung, according to Kara, and apparently obsessed with hair products. Her tight pink T-shirt says, I see stupid people . She kind of looks like an eighties throwback with rainbow knee-highs, pink Reebok high-tops, hair tied up with bright ribbons, and a headband with Hello Kitty on it.
    “First I need to know exactly what it is you people do around here,” I say.
    “Would you like to take that one, Kara?” Sid asks.
    “We’re like fumigators,” she says to me. “We kill bugs. Otherworldly bugs. Kill ’em, lock ’em up, or cast ’em out. Whatever suits at the time. And we get paid pretty good to do it, too.”
    “Otherworldly bugs?” I ask, feeling the blood leave my head. “Like what, exactly?”
    Sid responds, “Don’t play dumb, boy. You already know what kind of bugs she means. The same kind that helped you get that wound.” He nods at my hand.
    This is unbelievable. “Demons?”
    I realize too late that he tricked that piece of information out of me. First he opens his mouth in shock, then his lips shift to a slight, knowing smile. “The rare demon, here and there, but mostly ghosts and poltergeists.” No red spark. He’s not lying—or doesn’t think he is, anyway.
    Lester pipes in, “We killed a vampire once!” He sticks his chest out a little, like he’s the one that made the kill. Which is ridiculous.
    “Vampires?” Okay, they’re full of shit.
    “It wasn’t a vampire vampire,” Kara says, glaring at Lester. “It was a spirit that liked blood energy. We just didn’t know what else to call it. This old man had to put a fresh bowl of pig’s blood out every night, or the thing would rattle his windows and turn off his TV. So we helped him get rid of it.”
    A million questions are spinning around in my head. They know about this stuff. But how? I look at Kara. “You can see them.”
    “Not exactly,” she says. And I’m surprised by the disappointment that filters into my gut. For a moment I’d thought she might be like me. “I feel them. Sometimes hear them. But I can’t see them.”
    “Kara is invaluable,” Sid says, giving her a fatherly look that seems a little . . . off.
    She glances away, back to the window again.
    I glare at Sid. “And what is it you do?”
    He moves closer, right in front of me. “I can help you.” He points the handle of his walking stick at me. It’s tipped by a clear ball with what looks like a pentagram inside. “Eric told me about you. Said you have several unique gifts. But I’m guessing these gifts feel more like curses, don’t they?”
    My hands are shaking.
    He motions to the audience. “Each of the souls you see here was living in hell until I found them. I pulled them from gutters and padded cells and foster homes and helped them learn to use their gifts. To accept who they are. And now they’re lights in