A Wild Light Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  PRAISE FOR THE HUNTER KISS NOVELS BY “RED-HOT LIU” 1

  DARKNESS CALLS

  “[Liu’s] ability to deliver kick-butt action and characters whose humanity resonates, even when they’re anything but human, is a testament to her outstanding storytelling skills. Liu’s imagination is an amazing place to visit.”

  —Romantic Times (Top Pick)

  “Darkness Calls is one riveting book, and Marjorie Liu is one great writer. The desperation Maxine feels as she deals with her past and unknown future is one that will keep you reading and anxious for the next terror Maxine will have to endure.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Liu has done an excellent job of developing and expanding the mythos she created in The Iron Hunt . . . I look forward to reading the further adventures of Maxine Kiss.”

  —SFRevu

  THE IRON HUNT

  “I adore the Hunter Kiss series! Marjorie Liu’s writing is both lyrical and action packed, which is a very rare combination. Heroine Maxine Kiss and her demon friends are wonderful characters who are as likable as they are fierce. You’ll want to read this series over and over.”

  —Angela Knight, New York Times bestselling author

  “Liu is one of the best new voices in paranormal fiction.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Marjorie M. Liu writes a gripping supernatural thriller.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “From the imagination of one of today’s most talented authors comes a mesmerizing, darkly disturbing world on the brink of apocalypse. With her new Hunter Kiss series, Liu has created a uniquely tough yet vulnerable heroine in Maxine Kiss . . . Through Maxine’s eyes, readers take a heart-stopping ride where buried secrets could change the fate of the world.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Readers who love urban fantasies like those of Charlaine Harris or Kim Harrison will relish Marjorie M. Liu’s excellent adventure. This is the superb start of a dynamic-looking saga.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Ms. Liu does a lovely job in . . . preparing us for the highspeed action in her demon- filled adventure. A creative and well-written story line provides a strong backbone for this new urban fantasy series, and the unique characters in The Iron Hunt will charm, tempt, and surprise readers into coming back for more.”

  —Darque Reviews

  “A stunning new series . . . The mythology is fascinating, the characters complicated, the story lines original. I’m a big fan of Liu’s Dirk & Steele series, but this one surpasses even it.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “An incredibly complex, engrossing story that will stretch your imagination and broaden your ideas of what is and what could be.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “Marjorie Liu seems to have an endless imagination for creating new and interesting characters and stories. I can’t wait to see how this story develops and the world of Maxine Kiss evolves. This is a character and a story that has potential to keep the reader interested for an extensive series of books.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  MORE PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF MARJORIE M. LIU

  “Raises the bar for all others competing in its league . . . Liu’s screenplay-worthy dialogue, vivid action, and gift for the punchy, unexpected metaphor rocket her tale high above the pack. Readers of early Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, and the best thrillers out there should try Liu now and catch a rising star.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “The boundlessness of Liu’s imagination never ceases to amaze; her ability to translate that imagination into a lyrical work of art never ceases to impress.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Red-hot Liu . . . packs her stories with immensely intriguing characters, making the high-stakes plotlines even more mesmerizing.”

  —Romantic Times (Top Pick, 4½ stars)

  “Nonstop adventure . . . a rich world with paranormal elements.”

  —SFRevu

  “A wonderful voice.”

  —Romance at Heart Magazine

  “Liu is masterful in merging espionage, romance, and the supernatural into fiction that goes beyond the boundaries of action-adventure romance or romantic suspense.”

  —Booklist

  “Fabulous romantic suspense fantasy that will hook the audience from the first note to the incredible climatic coda.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  Ace Books by Marjorie M. Liu

  THE IRON HUNT

  DARKNESS CALLS

  A WILD LIGHT

  eSpecials

  HUNTER KISS

  Anthologies

  WILD THING

  (with Maggie Shayne, Alyssa Day, and Meljean Brook)

  NEVER AFTER

  (with Laurell K. Hamilton, Yasmine Galenorn, and Sharon Shinn)

  INKED

  (with Karen Chance, Yasmine Galenorn, and Eileen Wilks)

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  A WILD LIGHT

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace mass-market edition / August 2010

  Copyright © 2010 by Marjorie M. Liu.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin
Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18888-0

  ACE

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To the families we love, whether born to or made

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to: my lovely editor, Kate Seaver; my fantastic agent, Lucienne Diver; all the wonderful people at Berkley; and my great copy editors, Bob and Sara Schwager.

  And hail their queen, fair regent of the night.

  —ERASMUS DARWIN

  I will vanish in the morning light;

  I was only an invention of darkness.

  —ANGELA CARTER

  CHAPTER 1

  IT was my birthday, the anniversary of my mother’s murder, and on the way to the party, I made a special point to stop and kill a zombie.

  I did it every year. My secret. Only Zee and the boys knew. Our gift to each other.

  Sun had been down for only an hour, but this was Seattle, the skies were black as midnight, and the rain pounded the windshield like each drop was trying to break the glass. Cyndi Lauper played on the radio, softly, because I wanted to hear Dek and Mal sing along. “True Colors,” one of my mother’s favorites.

  The little demons were coiled around my shoulders, heavy and warm, their breath hot against my ears as they hummed the song in their high, sweet voices. Aaz and Raw sat in the backseat, uncharacteristically quiet, their little legs dangling over the floor as they clutched half-eaten teddy bears against their scaled, muscular chests.

  Zee crouched in the passenger seat. Razor- sharp spines of black hair flexed against his chiseled skull, and his eyes glinted red. His claws flexed, in and out, in and out, and every few minutes, he raked his arms in quiet agitation. He was difficult to see, even seated beside me. All of them were. Blending with the shadows, falling into shadows, except for the silver glint of veins and their burning eyes.

  “Left,” Zee rasped. I didn’t question his instincts. I turned at the intersection. We were in the south end of Lake Union, near the park. I pulled into the lot near the armory. The boys were gone before I turned off the engine, disappearing into the shadows like ghosts. Only Dek and Mal stayed, heavy and reassuring around my throat. Little bodyguards.

  The downpour did not ease. I didn’t worry about it. Less visibility was a good thing.

  I only had to wait ten minutes. Zee poked his head out from beneath the dashboard. He didn’t have to say a word. I got out, hunching down, as the rain slammed me. Cold as ice. My gloves were already off. I looked down, once, at the armor hugging my right hand: organic metal, quicksilver as mercury, embedded in the skin of my fingers and wrist, connected by threads that traveled over the back of my pale hand.

  Magic. Or close enough not to matter. It certainly didn’t matter tonight.

  Zee loped ahead on all fours. We moved amongst trees planted in concrete beds, my bootheels clicking sharp. Rain slid down the back of my neck into my clothes. My hair plastered against my skull. My nose began to run.

  Aaz and Raw waited beneath a tree, near the jogging path. A zombie lay between them. A woman. She wore sweatpants and a lightweight rain jacket. Blond, young, possessed by a demonic parasite. Her aura was old, fluttering with a darkness deeper than the night.

  She bared her teeth when she saw me, but it was the beginning of a scream, and Zee clamped his small hand over her mouth. She bucked upward, but Raw had a firm hold on her legs, and Aaz had already pulled her arms over her head. All of them, touching her as gently as they could. Hosts were innocent. I always assumed so, anyway.

  I crouched. Stared long and hard at the zombie, memorizing her face and the thunder of her aura. I didn’t ask questions, I didn’t care about crimes. I didn’t think too hard about the last two years and how some demons could be reformed, converted. I didn’t think about the possibility of innocence. Tonight, I didn’t accept innocence.

  Instead, I thought about my mother carrying my birthday cake across the kitchen, and the window exploding, and her head doing the same. I thought about her blood, and the boys weeping, and my screaming. I thought about the possessed men and women—the zombies—who slaughtered her.

  I had lost count of all the demons I’d exorcised over the years, but the ones I took on my birthday were always special.

  I was gentle. I pressed my palm against her brow. I said the words, and the demon stretched and stretched, the parasite holding on for dear life. It had been a deep possession. Years, maybe—even decades. Controlling this woman, using her as a puppet to feed on the suffering the demon certainly had caused around her. Growing fat on pain.

  The parasite snapped free. Aaz caught it first, and then Raw and Zee took hold. Dek and Mal purred. I looked away, trying not to listen to the high screams of the creature as it was eaten. I focused on the woman. Checked her pulse. Found her ID. She lived nearby. A jogger. Bad night for exercise. Those parasites and their fun.

  Zee glided close, running his long black tongue over his teeth. I smelled sulfur and ash.

  “Maxine,” he whispered. “Happy birthday.”

  I wiped rain from my eyes and walked back to the car.

  I had started keeping a box of prepaid disposable phones in the car. Public pay phones were becoming a rarity.

  I dug one out, made a call. Told 911 that a woman was unconscious in the park. An amnesiac, too, I didn’t add. It was an old routine. Aaz ate the phone after I was done.

  We didn’t talk as I drove to the party. Dek and Mal blew on my hair, trying to dry it. I jacked up the volume on the radio. Aaz and Raw yanked whole steaming pizzas from the shadows and ate them, along with two gallons of paint, a box of plant fertilizer, and several canisters of whipping cream. Zee sat in the passenger seat, held his sharp knobby knees to his chest, and rocked back and forth in silence.

  Grant waited for me just inside the entrance of the art gallery. Tall, broad, leaning hard on his cane. His brown hair was damp, like he had been poking his head into the rain, searching for me. Inside, the lights were dim. I heard music upstairs: Tchaikovsky. The Sleeping Beauty.

  I tried to smile, but I was wet and cold, cold beneath my skin. My heart hurt. Grant took one look and pulled me inside, into his arms. He held me a long time. I listened to the rain, and Dek and Mal as they purred, and the scratch of claws on the hardwood floors. I listened to my heartbeat, and I listened to Grant’s. Perfectly matched.

  Slowly, slowly, I relaxed.

  “I don’t like having birthdays,” I whispered.

  He didn’t try to reassure me. He didn’t tell me it would get better. All he did was hold me, and kiss the top of my head, my closed eyes, my mouth, his rough cheek rubbing against mine. He was so warm.

  “Come on,” he breathed finally, in my ear. “Dance me to the stairs.”

  I smiled and kissed his throat. “It’s your life.”

  “I trust you.” Grant leaned hard on his cane and offered me his arm. “I’ll even let you lead.”

  “Oh, wow,” I replied, wiping my sleeve across my nose. “That’s love.”

  “Eh,” he said, but with a grin and cocky shrug. Aaz and Raw giggled. Zee, crouched nearby, pulled jasmine petals from the shadows and tossed them at our feet.

  I helped Grant climb the stairs. Neither of us said so, but I knew his leg hurt him. I was his shoulder, and we moved with the rise and fall of the “Sarabande” portion of the ballet. Near the landing, I glimpsed a shadow move across the golden light spilling from the door into the stairwell.

  “Need help?” Byron asked. He was young, no older than fifteen, pale and dark-haired, wearing jeans and a soft white T-shirt that had SHAKESPEARE HATES YOUR EMO POEMS written across the chest.

  I flashed him a smile. So did Grant. �
��Almost there. But thanks.”

  The boy nodded but didn’t move until we were on the landing. I ruffled his hair. He smiled, just a little—but that might as well have been a grin, with nothing guarded in his eyes. Good kid. Smart, honest. He’d come a long way from living inside a cardboard box.

  I heard pots banging from the apartment. Grant squeezed my hand. “Jack’s been busy.”

  “Is that a warning or a threat?”

  Byron had already begun picking his way through the books on the other side of the door. “He made pies. Grant said you hate cake.”

  I stared at the boy’s back. Grant leaned a little harder on the cane, his hand tightening around mine.

  “I didn’t tell you I hated cake,” I said.

  “You also didn’t tell me when your birthday was. But you did tell me how your mother died.” Grant kissed my ear, and lingered. “My brain, it works sometimes.”

  “You’re going to make me sentimental.”

  “Jack has you beat. In all his thousand million years of being alive, I’m not certain he’s ever celebrated a granddaughter’s birthday.”

  “In all his thousand million years, I’m sure he had other children, tons of grandchildren.”

  “Maybe. But he has you now.” Grant patted my ass. “Go on, Wonder Woman. He’s wearing an apron just for you.”

  The apartment had been cleaned. Or rather, the aisle between Jack’s stacked books had been widened, just a little. The walls were lined with shelves, sagging with books and pottery, masks, stones—but those were just the walls, and the walls were a good ten feet away from the center of the room, which was the only place a person could stand and walk without tripping. Everywhere else, towers of books, half-opened crates, papers and journals tipping sideways—some lamps perched precariously on boxes, cords disappearing into the maze—along with used coffee cups, chocolate-bar wrappers, and the occasional glass eye, which I pretended did not watch me as I passed.