“I didn’t,” replied the demon inhabiting the woman, aura thundering silently around her head. “But it was made of blood, nonetheless, and binding. I cannot be killed by you. Or them.”

I wanted to scream with frustration. This was not the first time I had been denied justice because of deals made between my ancestors and other demons. Promises that had to be honored, forever. Demons might be savage, but they always kept their word. As did the boys.

“And your host?” Jean raised the knife and plunged it into the zombie’s shoulder. Somewhere, out in the yard, a woman screamed. My grandmother stilled for one horrified moment—and then quickly yanked out the knife. The Black Cat began laughing again.

“Be quiet,” Jean cried hoarsely. I stepped to the bed, and the Black Cat tore her gaze from my grandmother to look at me. Finally, something more than amusement flitted across her mouth, and that light burned again in her eyes: golden, tinged with red, something deeper that was older than the night.

The zombie murmured, “Hunter. Hunter of the Kiss. The old King’s Kiss. What will you do with me now? Kill my magnificent host, and you will condemn those children. Kill my host, and I will find another, and another.” She looked at Jean. “I will feed every man you ever helped to that Nazi Neumann, for his experiments; and send the women to the comfort houses to be whores for the Japanese. And I will take those sweet children you love,” she added, in a whisper, “and take them, and take them, until they are nothing but rags on the screen.”

Zee pulsed between my breasts. I drew in a deep breath, fighting the tremor that started in my gut—rising up and up into my throat. A zombie was in front of me—nothing but a parasite—but there was demon in the blood of her host, and people’s lives at stake. Jean made a small, frustrated sound—the tattoos on her face seeming to pulse in fury. A cruel smile touched the Black Cat’s mouth. She was goading my grandmother. Pushing her. But all Jean did was quiver. That was all.

Because I took one look at her face, and I knew—I knew. She had never killed anyone. Zombie parasites, maybe, but those hardly counted. She had never, with her own two hands, taken a human life. Not even a host.

She could not do it now, either—and not simply because of the price that would be exacted on the children. I could see it in her eyes. I could feel it in my own gut. It was one thing to let the boys do the dirty work, but making the cut took a whole other kind of nerve. A nerve I didn’t have, either. The only times I had taken human life was in the heat of battle, or by accident.

This was neither. This was cold blood.

I stripped off my glove, revealing the armor, and climbed on top of the bed. I showed the Black Cat my hand. She must have known it was there—she had intimated as much—and yet she still flinched when she saw it. Flinched, as though I had struck her. She stared at the dull metal and her smile slipped away. So did her contempt. Her aura shrank.

“You know this,” I said quietly, and then pulled back one of my braids to reveal the side of my face. “And this.”

I felt the boys shift position, revealing a patch of pale human skin—and the twisting scar that was just below my ear: a brand, a symbol of a birthright that I did not understand; only that it was power. The kind of power that terrified even the most dangerous of demons—and their enemies. I was different from the others of my bloodline in more ways than one.

“No,” whispered the zombie. “No, it can’t be.”

“Look closer,” I snapped. “And tell me what you think it means.”

Because I sure as hell had no clue.

The zombie, however, stared at me like I was going to open my jaws wide and swallow her whole. She bucked against Jean, her aura shrinking even more—hugging the host’s skin so tightly it looked as though the demon was trying to hide. Jean gave me a startled look, but I ignored her, riding a dangerous edge; slipping past fury into something wild and hungry.

“Don’t you fuck with us,” I whispered, bending close, holding that zombie gaze, which was dark with terror. “Bargain or no bargain, I will make you pay. I will make you scream. You know I can. So you will let these people go. And you will leave this host and never return. And you will forget those threats you made.”

The Black Cat closed her golden eyes, but when she opened them again they were brown and human. All the fight had gone out of her. Every ounce of defiance and arrogance. All that power, pissing away. I could taste it, and there was a quiet presence inside me that felt nothing but disdain for how quickly that demonic parasite had folded against nothing but armor and a scar.

She is ours, whispered that darkness inside of me. All of them belong to us.

Heat poured from the zombie, shimmering over her stolen skin. I grabbed Jean’s shoulder, and hauled her away. The Black Cat remained on her back, chest heaving, her mockery of our tattoos suddenly resembling little more than a child’s drawing. As if I were watching ink fade, only deeper: power, heartbeat, breath—breaking loose, leaving the zombie.

Those tattoos had been alive, I realized. Each one a life.

“I could have used them against you,” whispered the Black Cat. “I could have spoken one word and forced those children to stand still while my men shot them. Or made them attack you. Or attack their own parents. They were mine, in every way.”

I took the knife from my grandmother and dragged the tip, hard, across the stab wound in her shoulder, down her arm, across her ribs and stomach. I left behind a trail of blood. No one screamed outside. I looked over my shoulder and found Ernie staring from behind the sofa, eyes huge. Still rubbing his wrist.

“Where’s his?” I asked roughly.

Her jaw tightened. “My breast.”

I found the tattoo. It looked newer than the others. I sliced it open, a single shallow cut. Ernie did not make a sound, or show any discomfort whatsoever.

“Good,” I said, also glancing at Jean, who was staring at the Black Cat as though she had never seen a zombie before. “Now get the fuck out.”

That aura flared to life. The Black Cat said, softly, “This host is strong. And she likes my kind. If you don’t kill her, someone else will take her skin. She will invite them.”

“Then you better make sure your kind knows she’s off limits,” Jean whispered.

“How dare you,” murmured the Black Cat, but there was no fire in her voice. Whatever the demon feared inside me had beaten her well and good.

“Go,” I said. “You had your fun.”

The zombie gave me a cold look. “I’ll remember you. I’ll warn the others. And my mother.”

“Your mother,” I said, startled.

“Blood Mama,” she whispered.

“She’s every parasite’s mother. You’re not special.”

“Aren’t I?” she said, finally smiling again.

Before I could say a word, that thunderous smoky aura gathered tight against the crown of the Black Cat’s head, and slammed upward, away from its human body. In moments it was gone.

And all that was left was an unconscious woman covered in terrible tattoos, resting naked and limp on a large bed. I stared at her for one long moment, remembering what the parasite had said. There was demon blood in that woman. She had been given a taste of power. If she remembered her possession, if she continued hurting people…

Safer to kill her. Do it now.

But I never hurt hosts. Not enough to cripple or kill, anyway. A person had to have limits, and innocence was one of them. This woman, Antonina, had been possessed. She now had the chance to make a new life for herself. If she could. If society allowed her to. Folks, I had found, were usually made responsible for the crimes demons made them commit. Justice was blind.

I dragged Jean away. Grabbed Ernie on the way out, and then scooped up Samuel and Lizbet. Jean tossed away the knife in her hand, and swung the last little girl, Winifred, into her arms. No one stopped us. Maybe it was the tattoos on our faces, which disappeared by the time we reached the street. Or maybe it was the bodies left behind, clearly visible from the garden once the doors opened; the Black Cat in particular, sprawled on the bed.