The Demon-Eater: Hunting Shadows (Book One, Part One Read Free Page B

contours that were yet
feminine, and an accurate enough portrayal of the short, wavy hair,
which flared slightly outward once it reached chin-length and
framed the face perfectly. That much was all clear in his memory.
But he could not, for the life of him, sketch the actual features
making up her face. He recalled beauty and strength, but little
more of the woman he sketched, and he felt those few details
beginning to elude him as time pressed onward. He did not even have
a name for the woman. She was... her . The reason he hunted the
demons.
    “ Who are you?” he whispered to the faceless sketch. Gabriel
remembered loving her; that constant ache in his chest could not be
undone from his memories. And he remembered that she was now gone,
taken from him by a demon. She was her , and she had been his. That much,
he held on to with a fervency he hoped could not be taken from him
by the others .
    Gabriel turned away from his sketch, staring
unseeingly into the tea-filled saucer on the tray. His thoughts
lingered back to the alley in the slums of Pitsville. Back to what
the demon had spoken.
    Even as he sat there in his
silence, he could hear the soft chanting of the others in his mind. Never
ceasing.
    How long will it
take? he wondered. This could never truly turn me into a monster, could it?
Consuming demons? I have control. They can do no more than try and
frighten me with nonexistent sounds. Brief visions. Although, in
the beginning, the others had not even been able to do that much, had
they? He brought a hand up to the side of
his head, massaging his temple with two fingers. It did feel
cramped these days, his head.
    After a moment, Gabriel
brought his hand back down and shook his head, shoving away his
unsettling thoughts. The demons are just
trying to get under your skin, he told
himself. Remain vigilant, keep your wits
about you, and—by Father Truth, Himself—you will find a way to make
them bleed. You will make right the wrong they—
    “ Ahem.”
    Thrust from his thoughts, Gabriel snapped
his book closed and turned his attention in the direction of the
cleared throat. His grim mood lightened up almost immediately, as
he took in the two glittering sapphires that were a woman's eyes,
just outside his train cabin. The woman's skin was fair and soft,
and her fiery hair—straight, sleek and cut short, as was becoming
the fashion—fell just below her jawline, curling up at the ends, as
though to cradle her chin. Freckles lightly dusted her cute,
slightly turned-up nose and cheeks.
    She stared at him,
expectant. Gabriel found the sharpness behind those eyes of her's
quite alluring. Yes, she would be a perfect distraction from
thoughts of the faceless woman and the demons.
    A bright smile alighted across his face.
Gabriel had never known himself to be a charming man, until only
about a year ago, when he had realized it was the most essential
asset for one to possess when fooling others into believing he was
someone of actual import. And, oh, how he had grown proficient at
the most important part of charm. The smile.
    “ What can I do for you, madam?” he asked, taking her in with
his grin. It was not enough to be a fake lord in his line of work.
Tracking demons required piecing together a lot of rumors overheard
from the higher-ups in society; rumors not even the media knew to
share, but that those with enough status passed along to one
another, as a kind of “ammunition” for their never-ending social
warfare. And charm was the most useful tool he had to use in order
to gain certain accesses he would have not been granted before,
even as a lord.
    Of course, there were also
his hunches to
follow, when he was at a dead end.
    Charm was more than just a necessity when it
came to gathering information. It was, also, a means by which to
pretend—in moments such as this—that he was a normal man, with a
normal life. Even if the charade lasted for a mere moment, that was
one moment of distraction from the doom-and-gloom