Dark Victory Read Free Page B

Every generation of Rose women had a Slayer, a Healer and a Witch. She had been practicing her craft since she was fourteen—the year her mother had died, the victim of a demonic pleasure crime. There was one big fat problem, though. Rose women usually came into their powers very, very swiftly once their Destiny was made known. Apparently, Tabby was the exception to that rule. Although she’d been practicing magic since adolescence, her powers were still erratic and, once in a while, too weak to do any good. It simply didn’t make any sense.
    But as the Book of Roses said, there was a reason for everything.
    Kit said, “After the gym, I went back to HCU. I was digging around in some older case files. That last Rampage has been bothering me. There were only three in the gang.”
    “They were doped up on a drug we’ve never seen before,” Sam said quietly.
    HCU’s jurisdiction was the past—all past demonic activity, even if centuries old. Because so many of today’s demons came from previous centuries, HCU’s agents worked closely with CDA. Rarely could a present-day crime be solved without HCU’s expertise. Tabby had already heard about last week’s Rampage. A couple had been burned at the stake in one of Manhattan’s most posh neighborhoods. These terrible murders were usually committed between midnight and dawn, with an entire gang present. But it had only been 8:00 p.m. and only three gang members had been there, two males and a female. Were they becoming bolder? Had it even been a genuine Rampage?
    The press had dubbed the crimes “witch burnings,” a label Tabby particularly disliked, because the victims were average men, women and children of all ages, races, sizes and shapes. But then, evil rarely discriminated—except, of course, when it came to pleasure crimes. Then the most innocent and beautiful were chosen. The witch burnings had instilled so much fear into the general public that no one seemed to care that seventy percent of all murders were still pleasure crimes. What was really scary was how vicious the gangs of possessed kids had become.
    They’d once been ghetto gang members or normal kids gone missing. Evil preyed on them, seducing these gang members, offering them power in return for their souls, and then directing them to commit violence, brutality, bestiality and anarchy. The possessed gangs were out of control, ruling the city streets through fear and might. Gang warfare was no longer “in.” Now the gangs often worked together to hunt down civilians, cruelly and sadistically. Very few “normal” gangs remained in the country now.
    “Something’s been bothering me about the Rampages, across the board,” Kit said. “I feel like I’ve missed a really glaring clue.”
    “I’ll go back to HCU with you,” Sam decided, “and we can check it out.”
    They had reached the security checkpoint. Tabby smiled at the guard as Sam flipped her government ID. Sam’s messenger bag was loaded with weapons, and she carried a stiletto up her sleeve and a Beretta in a shoulder holster. She would never make it through the checkpoint. Kit flipped a similar ID. Although they were government issued, neither Kit nor Sam were Feds, as the IDs claimed. But CDA was so clandestine that only the top levels of the CIA, the FBI and the Secret Service worked with its agents.
    As they passed through the checkpoint, Sam and Kit were both so thoughtful that Tabby had the feeling they were ready to cut out on their plans for the afternoon. She would have to wander around the exhibit by herself, and return alone to the loft she shared with Sam. She’d float around it in the same solitude she did every night—except when she was out with some sweet guy she had no real interest in. It was lonely—Sam was almost never there—but she’d deal the same way she always did. She’d outline tomorrow’s curriculum, and then work on her spells.
    “So which way to the Wisdom of the Celts?” Sam asked.
    Tabby smiled