Demon Girl by Penelope Fletcher

I started pulling clothes out onto the floor
until the space was empty. “There,” I said with satisfaction. The
space was big enough for two people. He was being prissy. I
deliberated for a moment if you could catch anything from sharing
with a vampire, but then gave myself a mental slap. I chucked my
pillow and blanket in there and nodded. “Best I can do.”
    The vampire picked up my hand and bent over.
My heart stuttered and I flinched. He paused and his shoulders
shook with laughter again. “No biting,” he repeated.
    Keeping eye contact, he flipped my hand over
and kissed my palm. The press of his skin to mine was almost beyond
words. His lips were firm and the tip of his tongue wet. It was
odd, cold and overly smooth, but not unpleasant. My mouth opened
and I made a gasping, choking sound. I blushed from the soles of my
feet right up to the tip of my ears. I tugged my hand away, hid it
behind my back.
    “Once you’re in I’ll close the doors, and no
one will be the wiser.” I glanced out the window. “You’d better
tuck yourself in now. There’s a storm, but I can see breaks in the
cloud cover.”
    He lacked the smooth and predatory movement
of vampire as he staggered forward and collapsed into the space.
We’d pushed our luck too far. He was visibly exhausted, which was
fascinating to see on one of the most powerful demons in existence.
Face shadowed he sighed, shifted a bit, and sat with his legs bent
in font. He wasn’t very tall. It must have just been his scary
vampire presence and the pulsing darkness following him around that
made him seem huge to me. In a very human move he propped the
pillow to the side and leaned his head.
    “At sunset we will talk.”
    I nodded. Pushing the hair out of my eyes I
smiled at him. “Sure thing.” I went to close the door, but then
stopped and yanked it open again. “Oh wait, my name’s Rae.”
    His eyes were already half closed, and as he
died for the day he said, “Tomas.”
     

Chapter Three
     
    The storm broke at dawn. I slipped into the
surge of Disciples heading into Sanctuary block as the first
raindrops hit the ground. Pounding the concrete entrance stairs, I
wheeled through the other bodies to get to the Hall before the bell
rung. I skidded to a stop. Sanctuary Hall had cracked black marble
floors and scuffed ivory walls. Electricity was hard to generate so
the radiators stayed off until winter, and the temperature was on
the cool side, but I liked it.
    Draped across the clunky furniture, and each
other, in erratic clusters the Disciples of the Sect wore two
colors, black and green. Boys tended to leave their chests bare
under the green blazers, and the girls rocked them shorn at the
elbow or tied around the waist to show off their tattoos. Nearly
all humans were marked now days; protective sigils coerced from
defeated wiccans. I myself avoided it. The idea of someone so close
made me sweat, no matter how pretty the ink.
    I wondered what would happen if I shouted out
“I’m a fairy and there’s a vampire in my wardrobe.” It would be
very dramatic.
    Reflexively, my gaze travelled across the
bobbing heads. Alex sat alone at our bench. She noticed me and
wiggled her fingers, animated by my arrival like I was something
special. Rake thin and inked from head to toe, Alex confused people
when they first saw her. She was too pretty to look at straight on
and most slid looks her way to digest her beauty like jolts of
lightening, rather than get a fist in the gut at the sight of her.
Long blonde hair and sultry blue eyes contrasted startlingly with
her deeply tanned skin, a few shades shy of rich chocolate.
    She smiled, and the blue runes prettily
decorating her cheekbones crinkled. “Hai,” she said and chucked a
can at me.
    I caught it one handed and tipped my chin up
as thanks. Popping the top, I took a few slurping gulps and grinned
at her, breakfast done.
    Alex’s general attitude to life was, ‘And
what?’ She didn’t give a damn what people