Hotter After Midnight (Midnight 1)

“Just don’t try it again, Doc.”

That she couldn’t promise. “Look, Colin, it’s kinda hard to turn off, you know?” He’d been on her couch, in her office, and when he’d started talking she’d slipped into counselor mode.

“Try.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll see what I can do, and, hey, how about you try not to be such a jerk?”

He blinked, obviously caught off guard by the insult she’d just delivered in her soft, I’m-a-Professional voice.

Then he tossed back his head and laughed.

Emily fought the smile that curved her lips. Good. Looked like they were back on even ground.

“Agreed.” Colin strolled around her office, eyeing her bookshelves and the framed Rorschach inkblot pictures on her walls.

After a few moments, he said, “I need to know about them. Need to know what I’m gonna be dealing with.”

Yes, she understood that. Colin was ill prepared to deal with the world of the Other, especially considering his own rough introduction to the Other world. But before she could begin his lessons, there were a few other questions that she needed to ask.

“So you’ve come across other shifters?” All of the Other were born with an instinctive ability to recognize their own kind. Demons saw through the veil of glamour to other demons. Shifters could scent one another, thanks to their heightened sense of smell.

Witches and wizards felt the power pull of their brethren.

Like to like. It was the way it had always been.

And for whatever reason, Emily had been born with the ability to sense them all. Even though she wasn’t kindred to any of them.

Colin touched the spine of one of her books. “Yeah, I have. Once or twice.”

“You could…smell them, right? Smell the difference between a shifter and a human?” As far as she knew, shifters didn’t see the beasts they carried. They didn’t know about the golden glow that cloaked their bodies. It was just something she saw.

“Yeah, I can smell ’em.” He shook his head. “We all smell like animals.”

Her nose wrinkled at that. She rather liked the way Colin smelled.

“Well, all the Other have a way of sensing their kind. Demons can look through the glamour and see the black eyes that mark them, witches feel a surge of power in the air when another is close, djinn can hear the thoughts of others like them, charmers can—”

He glanced back at her, a black brow raised. “What’s a charmer?”

“You’ve heard of snake charmers, right?”

Colin nodded. “Big in India. Those guys who carry around cobras in baskets.”

“Right.” Well, partially right. “Charmers are beings who can communicate with certain animals. They can talk to them.” Some charmers talked to snakes, some to birds, some to dogs or cats.

“Just how many types of Other exist?”

Oh, now that was a hard one. “Think of every legend of every magical being you’ve ever heard and then imagine all those stories are true. Then you’ve got the Other. ” Hundreds, thousands of types. Some kind and benevolent. Some downright evil and dangerous.

Just like humans.

“This city seems to have more than its share of supernaturals. When I lived in Grisam, Illinois, there weren’t any others like me.”

“Well, yes, but if you’d gone to Chicago, you would have found dozens of SBs.” They liked the big cities. Loved them, in fact.

“Think about it, Colin. Where is it easier to hide? In small-town America, where your neighbors know every move you make? Or would you want to go to a big city where—”

“You could disappear into a crowd and no one would give a shit what you were doing,” Colin finished for her.

“Exactly.” She waited a bit and then, because she really couldn’t help herself, asked, “Isn’t that why you came here?”

“Yeah, yeah, I guess it is.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s talk about the demons first.”

“What do you want to know?”

“They’re fast healers, right?” At the slight inclination of her head, he continued, “What’s the deal with the power-level thing you keep mentioning? Level one, level two—what does that mean?”

“Demons can work magic, just like witches can. A low-level demon, a one or a two, can do small things, like light a candle or make a breeze blow through a room. But a level nine or ten”—this was the bad part, the very bad part—“they can stir tornadoes, start five-alarm fires, and even steal the minds of others.”

“What? ” He paced toward her, brows furrowed. “You’re telling me those bastards can control humans?”

“Sometimes.” That was how the idea of demon possession had first come into being. “If a demon is strong enough, he can push his way into someone’s mind, can control the person or, at the least, incapacitate him.”

Colin walked around her desk, came to stand less than a foot away from her. “Is that what happened to you?”

“Wh-what do you mean?” There was a faint line of stubble on his jaw. And far too much knowledge in his eyes.

“You told me you were nearly put into a coma once by an Other. The guy who did it, he was a demon, wasn’t he? One of those level nines or tens.”

No sense denying it. “Yes.”

She watched a muscle flex along his jaw. “Where is he now?” There was a banked rage in his voice, and for an instant, she saw the glow of the beast in his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter. That was years ago.” And Myles couldn’t hurt anyone with his magic, not anymore. “I told you before, he burned out.” She’d burned out the bastard.

“Would his powers have worked on me?” Before she could answer, he continued, “Niol tried something on me back at the bar. I could feel the hard shift in the air, but nothing happened.”

“No.” Shifters were the most powerful of the supernatural beings because they didn’t have just one body and one soul. Shifters had two. And the strength that came from that double bond was too strong for demons to touch. “A powerful shifter is the only Other that can match a demon’s strength.”

“Well, that’s something then.” His jaw clenched, and for a moment his eyes seemed to glitter. “How the f**k did you meet a guy like that anyway?”

Emily swallowed. She’d wondered when he’d ask. And since she’d pushed her way into his private life earlier, well, she figured he deserved to know about her past too.