Read Online Where The Heart Lives by Marjorie Liu - Free Book Online

flexed my fingers, the organic
silver armor covering my right hand tingled. Everything, coming alive as that
red truck rolled and rumbled down the driveway.
    The
driver parked in front of the barn, surrounded in a swirling cloud of pale, hot
dust. I couldn’t see much behind the tinted windows, so I listened to the
engine pop and groan as I stepped off the porch.
    The
door opened, and a foot dangled out. Fortunately, it was attached to a leg. I
wasn’t always that lucky.
    I
saw a simple white sneaker with a thick sole, and an equally thick ankle that
was so swollen the flesh seemed to sag over the top of the shoe. I walked
sideways, peering into the truck to see what else that limb was attached to.
    What
I found was a demon having a heart attack.
    That’s
what it seemed like at first. The unfortunate host was a woman well over three
hundred pounds, who wore a sleeveless blue sundress that clung to her round
stomach and heavy breasts. Her arms were thick and wide, as was her soft neck,
which was almost lost in her sagging jaw. She had pale skin—around her
hands—but the rest of her was pink and red as a lobster, and dripping with
sweat.
    Soaked
brown hair clung to her face, along with a thunderous aura that marked her as
demon-possessed. Somewhere, deep inside, a human soul still
resided . . . but it was impossible to tell just how long it had
been buried beneath that seat of darkness. Some demons, the young ones, clung
with only a light touch, a whisper. Others dug in, latching onto the flesh,
sliding into lives and pulling every string.
    Those
clinging shadows rose and fell off the woman’s shoulders with each heaving
breath, and she sat—half-in, half-out of her truck—with her eyes closed and
mouth open, panting and clutching her chest.
    It
would be easy for me to exorcise the demon. Even a year ago, I would not have
hesitated. Those gutter rats who regularly escaped the prison veil had no
business possessing humans and feeding off their pain. Nothing had changed my
opinion about that.
    But
I’d learned a thing or two about demons—and myself—that blurred the lines
between good and evil. I could no longer cast stones. Not without asking
questions first. Any demon looking for me was either very desperate—or
coerced—and that was bad news, in more ways than one.
    So
I waited, silent. Wishing I had gum to chew. The aftertaste of that ginger ale
had gone sour, right along with my stomach. I hated this so much. All the
possibilities of all the bad things this demon might tell me, crowding my head,
making my pulse thicken.
    The
possessed woman finally caught her breath and opened her eyes to look at me.
    She
didn’t seem to know where to settle her gaze, which flitted above and around,
and on me, with such rapidness it made me dizzy. Finally, she settled on my
eyes, then danced down to the tattoos covering my arms: an unbroken tangle of
obsidian muscle and scales, knotted, curling, shimmering with veins of mercury
that caught the light—though not nearly as much as the glinting crimson eyes
that always remained open and staring.
    I’d
found some of my mother’s old white tank tops in the closet and hadn’t seen
much point to leaving them there—or hiding the boys. I had few, if any, secrets
from the people in my life. Which was another dazzling departure from the way I
had been raised.
    “Boo,”
I said to the possessed woman, and felt sort of bad when she flinched from me,
like I’d hit her.
    Silent,
and with agonizing stiffness, she reached sideways into the passenger seat and
dragged a red plastic bowling bag across her stomach. Her breathing roughened
again, and sweat dripped off the ends of her thin hair.
    “Take
it,” she whispered. “Hurry.”
    Licking
a bad case of herpes sounded more appealing than taking a gift from a demon.
Safer, too.
    I
did not move. “Why are you here?”
    “Come
on, it’s fragile.” Her demonic aura twitched and fluttered, tendrils of shadow
flirting with escape.