Sherrilyn Kenyon - Devil May Cry

It was obvious he was gearing up for battle, but there were no Daimons anywhere near them. If there were, she'd be able to sense them.

And still that strange whispering continued.

Kat crept through the trees, trying to see where he was headed. Without warning, something was hurled at Sin's head. He ducked it and rose, twirling the cord over his head like a cowboy with a rope as he moved. The balls whistled in the air a moment before he released them and they flew through the foliage.

A scream tore through the night.

Kat froze as she saw what had caused it. At first it looked like a pretty human woman, until she opened her mouth and showed a double row of serrated fangs. But worse than the fangs was the blood that dripped from her chin. Human blood that matched the redness of the creature's eyes.

And she wasn't alone. There were three of them in total—the woman and two stocky men. Kat had never seen anything like them. They definitely weren't of the human species even though they had human bodies. They communicated with one another in that ferret meets-Flipper language of theirs.

As one unit, they rushed to Sin. He ducked and sent the first one to reach him flipping over his back. In a smooth, fluid move he pulled the dagger from his boot and sliced at the second male. The demon caught his arm and sank his fangs into Sin's hand.

Cursing, Sin kneed the creature in the stomach hard and twisted to confront the woman. The female demon jerked back a split second before his dagger would have slit her throat.

The first male pushed himself up and rushed at Sin's back. Sin turned and hit the ground so that the demon would fall into the arms of the one who had bitten him. He uncoiled another string from his left arm, then rose and wrapped it around the throat of the female. She screamed an instant before her head fell free from her body.

Kat turned away and cringed at the grisly sight as bile rose in her throat.

The other two demons shrieked, then ran. Crossing his arms over his chest, Sin jerked the knives from his biceps and threw them straight into the backs of the fleeing beasts. The knives landed at the bases of their spines with an unerring accuracy. They fell instantly to the ground, where they writhed and screamed in agony.

After one last cry, they each went still. But continued to whine. Kat was horrified by what she was witnessing. It was grisly and intense, and there was something about Sin that said he was enjoy­ing it a lot more than he should. It was as if he took pride in inflicting as much pain on them as he could.

He's a sick bastard.

Sin watched the men for a few seconds more before he went to check on the human they'd been feeding from. But it was too late for her. Even from her distance, Kat could tell the human was dead as her glassy eyes stared up at the star-filled sky. Her entire body was ravaged from their kill.

The poor woman.

His face grim, Sin closed the woman's eyes and whispered an old Sumerian prayer for her soul to rest peacefully in spite of the violence that had taken her life. Kat was surprised by his actions. They seemed completely incongruous with everything she'd just witnessed from this man.

At least that was her thought until he retrieved a knife from the back of one of the demons. He made a ball of fire in his right hand to heat the blade, then once it was hot, he placed the blade over the bite wound on his hand. She cringed in sympathetic pain even though he didn't so much as whimper.

He merely stood there with his teeth clenched while the stench of burning flesh made her queasy.

But he wasn't through. Once his wound was cauterized, he went back to the human woman and then mercilessly cut her head from her body. Kat cringed in horror.

He's insane...

There was no other explanation. Why would he do something like that to their poor victim? It didn't make sense.

And still he wasn't through. He repeated the decapitation on the two male demons before he piled all the bodies together and burned them. His face completely stoic, he watched them burn. The flames illuminated his cold, emotionless features. The shadows darkened his eyes, making him look even more like a demon than the ones he'd killed.

He didn't speak a single word the entire time or show even a drop of compassion.

Once they were completely burned, Sin spread the ashes with the toe of his boot until there was no trace left of any of them. No one would ever know what had befallen the one poor woman.

Kat felt sick. How was it this man had been allowed to live given this kind of savagery? Did Acheron not know what Sin did at night? That he desecrated human remains? She couldn't imagine Acheron forgiving something so horrendous. It wasn't in his na­ture, any more than it was in hers.

Maybe, for once, Artemis was right. A man like Sin didn't need to be let loose on the world. He was too dangerous.

But before Kat went in there blazing to attack him, she needed to know what his powers were. From what she'd just seen, he could control fire and he was well versed with weapons and hand­ to hand tactics.

Taking him out would be tricky. Perhaps stasis would be a wiser choice. She could put him to sleep where he couldn't hurt anyone—it would be like death, only he would still be alive. Yeah, that might be her best bet instead of just outright killing him.

And while she contemplated his death, Sin headed for his coat.

He put it on with a flourish and then vanished into a shimmery mist.

Damn it!

Kat closed her eyes, trying to locate him again so that she could finish her mission.

But she felt nothing. No trace of him anywhere.

She frowned. How could that be? He had to have an essence, and that essence always left a calling card. She tried to locate him again, and again there was nothing. It was as if he were no longer part of the earth. She had no idea where he'd gone.

That had never happened to her before. "Where are you, Sin?"

But the real question wasn't where he was. It was what he was doing...

Sin flashed himself back to his hotel room even though he could have just as easily taken himself home. Right now he didn't want Kish or Damien to bother him. He needed his space and time alone to prepare himself mentally for what he had to do.

He was coated in blood, and though there had once been a time when he would have reveled in it, those days were past. Now he was tired of the never-ending battles. Tired of fighting in a war he knew he couldn't really win.

There was only one person whose blood he wanted on his hands. One person whose blood would make him rejoice to feel its stickiness coating his flesh.

Artemis.

The mere thought of cutting her head from her body brought a smile to his face as he made his way into the bathroom for a long, hot shower.

After turning the water on, he dropped his weapons to the floor, where they landed with a heavy thunk , and stripped while he waited for the water to heat. As soon as it was scalding hot, he stepped inside and let the water rinse him clean. The fighting had left him gritty and covered with sweat and blood—his and theirs. Dipping his head down, he watched as all of it slid from his flesh to the tile and then circled down the drain.

The heat felt good against his sore muscles. But it did nothing to alleviate his troubled thoughts.

The Kerir or Reckoning, as some called it, was coming and he still had to find the Hayar Bedr or Forsaken Moon before the gallu demons found him and destroyed him. Without the Moon, Sin stood no chance whatsoever of beating them back.

Not that he had much of one even with the Moon, but that sliver was infinitely better than no hope whatsoever.

Sin ground his teeth as he envisioned the Kerir in his mind. At midnight on New Year's Eve as people rushed to celebrate, the seven Dimme demons that Anu had created to avenge their fallen pantheon would be freed. The only one who could fight them was Sin, and since he no longer possessed his god powers, he didn't have a hope in hell of succeeding in beating the Dimme back.