Devil May Care by Pippa DaCosta Page A

her, we were all dead.
    Heat both smothered and swelled over me, filling me up until my demon broke the surface. She stepped from the unknown, from nothingness, into my heart. I gasped. A sudden thrill of power danced through my veins. Sparks jerked my mortal body. My puppet master element pulled the strings attached to my nerve endings. She laughed. I laughed. The room throbbed with energy. The building sizzled. The city outside buzzed with the promise of power. I had it all at my fingertips, could summon it into my heart and release it into the wild. The lust for chaos stole my breath away and wrenched reason from my mind. She wanted power. She wanted to burn it all; to slice open the veil and summon the fires of hell to dance for her. So did I.
    She laughed again and pulled me onto my feet. I saw the three of them standing across the room. Ryder had the gun trained on me. Nica leaned into her father, tucked protectively against him. Burn them, my demon purred. Burn them all.
    I smiled and allowed my demon to manifest. They would see her image shimmer over my mortal form, not entirely there, but real enough. They could never see all of her—too human to witness the truth. My one wing stretched high and flapped once, sending a scorching blast of air swirling about the office, lifting papers. Chaos thrashed at my core. It would take little more than surrender on my part for my demon to call enough heat and flame to burn the Institute to the ground. Just one moment of acceptance. It flirted with my thoughts, called to me, lured me closer to the precipice of madness with promises of freedom. They couldn’t stop me. It would be easy. It would be divine.
    I snarled and stood tall. Dying embers spiraled loosely around me like moths fluttering around a campfire. Ryder eyed me down the length of the gun, his finger hooked over the trigger. He looked into my eyes. He’d see the demon there, the fire. He might even see the madness bubbling in my mind. And he could pull the trigger.
    I sucked in air through my teeth, hissed deeply, and eased the thirst for chaos back where it belonged, deep behind my human barriers. She didn’t fight me. I had feared she would, but she seemed content to curl up at my core and rest, until all I could feel was a tiny filament of fire. I was complete again.
    I blinked, licked my lips, and ran my hands through my hair; gathering my self-control around me. “Okay then. Put the gun down, Ryder. We need to find Damien before he kills again.”

Chapter 14
    T he woman —what was left of her—had been propped up against the massive trunk of an ancient oak tree, arms and legs posed at awkward angles, like a discarded doll. Foxes, stray cats, and all the other city critters had feasted on her remains while the city slept. It wasn’t until dawn broke that she’d been discovered in the park by a jogger. The sickly cloying odors of death hung in the stagnant air. Mist hovered around the trees and wisped across a nearby shallow pond.
    The tug of tiredness dulled my senses, numbing me. I’d been up the majority of the night briefing a handful of Institute officials on Damien, keeping my emotions in check behind a detached professionalism that I hadn’t known I was capable of. While we’d been talking, Damien had been killing.
    I’d told the officials everything I knew and given them the caveat that demons behave differently on this side of the veil than they do on their home turf. They’re restrained here, governed by laws they don’t understand. Unless a demon has enough clout to bend reality, they usually try to blend in—until their efforts to disguise themselves fail.
    Damien wasn’t there to blend in, but he wasn’t out to create chaos either. He was treading carefully, making sure he couldn’t be caught, feeling his way. His premeditation was something I hadn’t anticipated. The Damien I’d known hadn’t needed to tread carefully.
    “There’s something different about you.” Coleman had