Jenna Black - Dark Descendant

I took a long, hot shower before I left. Afterward, I stood naked in front of the foggy, full-length mirror. The wound was nothing but a faint red line. I couldn’t even find a bruise anywhere. I didn’t know whether to be thankful, or just freaked out.

Worse, the glyph was still there, despite my attempt to wash and exfoliate it away. Gone was my hope that it had all been a frighteningly realistic nightmare.

The sun was just beginning to rise when I cautiously set foot outside my apartment building, dragging the roll-aboard and carrying my laptop in a backpack. Along with the laptop, the backpack held my .38 Special and several boxes of ammo. I had never once needed to use it in my line of work, but I did sometimes have to venture into neighborhoods where I didn’t feel safe. Having a gun gave me a sense of security. I wasn’t a very good shot, and I wasn’t sure I’d actually be able to pull the trigger if I were pointing it at a human being, but it was comforting to know I had the option. Of course, since I was headed for D.C.—the better to lose myself in the crowds—carrying a handgun was risky. I had concealed carry permits for Maryland and Virginia, but there was no such thing available for a civilian in D.C. Still, given the mess I was in, I wasn’t leaving home without it.

I looked carefully up and down the street, but didn’t see anyone suspicious lurking around. I then headed for the closest Metro stop and took the train to Dupont Circle, where I took a room at the Holiday Inn. The fact that no one on the train or in the hotel gave me a second glance suggested that Maggie had been telling the truth and ordinary people couldn’t see the glyph. I refused to allow myself to speculate about which of the other outlandish things she’d said might be true.

As soon as it was late enough for businesses to open, I located the nearest shooting range—which, of course, was outside the D.C. city limits, making me thankful for our efficient public transportation. I had a feeling that with Anderson and his crazies potentially after me, I might need to use the gun whether I wanted to or not, and it wouldn’t hurt to try to upgrade my shooting ability from “poor” to “okay.”

I picked up a new cell phone to replace the one that was destroyed in the accident. Then I showed up at the shooting range by ten o’clock, my nerves taut with one hell of a caffeine buzz even while I found myself yawning every two point five seconds. There were three other people shooting—all men—and even through the earplugs, the sound of all those gunshots made me jumpy. Probably just the caffeine. Or the fact that the guy standing nearest to me was firing an assault rifle, which sounded rather like a cannon.

I figured with the exhaustion, the caffeine, and the way I jumped every time the assault rifle fired, I was going to have one of my worst shooting performances ever. I took aim at the target, taking a few slow, deep breaths in hopes that it would soothe my frazzled nerves. The guy with the cannon fired off a shot right as I was squeezing the trigger. My attempt to go Zen notwithstanding, my arms jerked as I jumped at the noise.

I almost laughed when I saw that my shot had hit the bull’s-eye. Maybe I should take target practice while exhausted and jumpy more often. I took another couple of deep breaths to dispel the remainder of the adrenaline, then fired again. This time, my hands were steady.

And I hit the bull’s-eye again.

Luck , I told myself. Even a bad shot had to hit the bull’s-eye occasionally. That I’d just done it two times in a row was nothing more than a freaky coincidence. I lowered the gun so I could roll my shoulders a little bit to work out the tension. Then I took my shooter’s stance again and squeezed the trigger.

I swallowed a yelp when I saw that for the third time, I’d hit the bull’s-eye. If two times in a row was a freaky coincidence, what was three times in a row?

I lowered the gun again, this time looking it over as though I might find some magical can’t-go-wrong gizmo had been attached while I wasn’t looking. Of course, there was nothing different about the gun. I couldn’t help remembering Maggie telling me that my glyph meant I was a descendant of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt. Crazy talk, right? But if it was crazy talk, then it seemed like an awfully strange coincidence that suddenly I seemed to have become a sharpshooter.

Telling myself three bull’s-eyes in a row was statistically within the realm of possibility even for a lousy shot like me, I raised my shaking hands and took aim again.

I was considerably less surprised this time when I hit dead center.

I took about twenty shots after that, experimenting. I tried aiming at things other than the bull’s-eye. Being nowhere close to ambidextrous, I tried firing with my left hand. I even tried shooting with my eyes closed.

Whatever I aimed at, whatever crappy technique I used, I hit my target one hundred percent of the time, once and for all dismissing the statistical realm of possibility.

There was no more denying that I’d become a supernaturally good shot.

I headed back to the hotel in a daze, spaced out enough that I missed my stop on the Metro. I decided to walk the rest of the way, figuring the fresh air might do me good. I’m generally pretty good at denial, but the evidence was piling up too high. I might have been able to talk myself out of believing the things I’d seen the cultists do last night. They could have been tricks, after all, though who would go through such elaborate lengths to pull a trick like that on me? But it was much harder to explain away the glyph on my face, or the way my body had healed overnight, or the way I had suddenly become an expert marksman.

What am I talking about, “much harder”? It was impossible to explain away.

Much as I tried to convince myself that there had to be a rational explanation that didn’t involve woowoo, I failed. I didn’t know where that left me—except with an aching head and an urge to give in to hysteria—but I’d had to learn to accept some very unpalatable truths in my life, so I would eventually find a way to accept this one.

I was in too much of a stupor to pay attention to what was going on around me, so at first I didn’t notice the black Mercedes with the tinted windows that was pacing me. Even when the car behind it started honking indignantly, it barely registered on my conscious mind. Then, the Mercedes sped up a little, getting ahead of me and pulling into what would have been a parking space if it weren’t for the fire hydrant.

The Mercedes’s door opened and a man in an expensive charcoal gray suit got out. I froze in my tracks when I saw the stylized lightning-bolt glyph on the back of his hand.

He was not oneof Anderson’s people. He was a complete stranger to me, and the warm smile that curved his lips as he looked me up and down did nothing to ease my instant, instinctive dislike.

Many women would find him handsome. I supposed that objectively he was—tall, nicely muscled, manly square jaw softened by dimples when he smiled, and lovely gray-blue eyes. But the way he carried himself reminded me of every arrogant, entitled, self-centered country club asshole Steph had ever introduced me to, all rolled up into one pretty package.

I considered trying to walk past him, but the look in his eye told me he had no intention of letting me ignore him. There was nothing overtly threatening about him, but my gut was screaming “danger, danger” even so. I’d ignored my gut instincts last night, and look where it had gotten me.

“What do you want?” I growled at the stranger.

He blinked in what I suspected was surprise. I bet that smile of his had charmed every woman he’d ever used it on, but I was made of sterner stuff.