Page 30 of Silver Claw

“Your psycho,” Anika said abruptly, “is a fucking demon, Kait Silver.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “She’s a force.”

“No, no. There’s no ‘she.’ You just tend to be psychotic. There’s madness in there. But when I say demon, I mean actual fucking demon. Do you seriously not know that?”

My heart skipped about twelve beats. “You’re wrong,” I said flatly.

“I’m not. I was inside you, kitten. I know what’s in there, and apparently better than you do. It’s why you have that demonblade. Why it responds to you. You’re not just a wolf and a shapeshifter.”

And there was caution in her voice. Fear, even.

Anika Draper was scared of demons.

But more than that…she was saying she’d felt a demon inside me. That I was part demon.

“What the hell?” Joe’s eyes were a little too wide, and he’d forgotten his hatred of Anika in his worry over me. “You’re saying Kait’s a demon?” He laughed, but it was hollow.

No one loved the demons.

“Part demon, maybe,” Anika told him. “Truth is, I’m not completely sure of much when it comes to Kait.”

I wondered. I wondered everything, and in the space of two seconds. Another gift from my birth mother? What exactly was in that monstrous family tree? How would the angels see me now? Would Nicole still want to be my guardian angel if she discovered the demon part of me?

“You okay there, demon wolf?” Anika asked.

I ended the call, sick of her attitude, her voice, her bad news, her intrusiveness that she seemed to think was somehow okay.

She texted immediately.Work together to find this sonofabitch?

I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached.Yeah. Because I’ll always do what I have to do to protect my city.

I know, kitten. I’ll see you soon.

“I hate that woman,” I told Joe.

“If you work with her,” he said, “you won’t find it easy to kill her, Kait.”

I sighed. “Maybe not, but I can’t let her get away with stealing my magic.” Then I brightened. “Taking her blade will be a decent trade.”

And I could live with that.

Chapter Thirteen

I saw the ghost the second I stepped into Barb’s house. He sat in a flowered armchair, staring intently at the TV like he could will it to turn itself on and start playing his favorite show.

He didn’t acknowledge us at all.

Barb stood still for a moment, leaning on her cane, staring in his direction.

“Barb,” I said. “Can youseehim?”

“No,” she replied. “But I can feel him there.” She looked away from the chair. “Can you see him? He’s really here, then?”

I nodded. “He’s in the chair looking at the TV.”

That was the moment Edgar seemed to realize we knew he was there, that he was being seen. He was in front of me immediately, his eyes bulging and his lips moving, but no sounds came from his mouth.

I couldn’t hear him.