Free Otherworld 02 - Stolen by Kelley Armstrong

human. Dad's the living embodiment of absolute evil. Luckily, I got my looks from Mom's side. My father's not exactly GQ material. Don't ask me what my mother was thinking. Obviously one too many tequila shots that night."
    "Demons take human form to rape or seduce human women," Paige said. "Half-demons are always human in appearance. They inherit other qualities from their fathers. Each has different powers, depending on the type of demon that sired them."
    "The X-Men of the underworld," Adam said. "Now that Paige has so neatly summed up my biology, here are the goods on the rest. Paige and Ruth, witches, but you knew that. Cass, vampire. Ken, shaman. You know what a shaman is?"
    "Yes," Jeremy said.
    "So that's it. The major supernatural races, all in one place, like Satan's Ark."
    "Adam, please," Ruth said. She turned to us. "Adam likes to joke, but I can assure you, we are not evil, not Satanists, nothing of the sort."
    "Just regular folks," Adam said. "With a few quirks."
    I glanced at Adam. So this was a half-demon. Uh-huh. I'd never heard of half-demons before Pittsburgh, but I was sure if such things existed, they shouldn't look like this guy. Any portrayal of demons I'd ever seen was quite clear on several points: They had cloven hooves, scales, horns, and tails. Logically, then, a half-demon should at least have bad skin. He should not be a baby-faced, all-American boy who looked like he should be greeting guests at Disney World. Maybe that was the idea. Maybe half-demons were supposed to look charming and innocuous. It would be far easier to tempt mortals to evil without scales and horns ruining that all-important first impression. Perhaps beneath that wide-eyed exterior lurked a soul of pure evil.
    "Chairs," Adam said, scrambling to his feet. "You guys need chairs. Hold on. I'll be back in a flash."
    Maybe it was a deeply hidden wellspring of evil. Very deeply hidden.
    Then there was Cassandra. A vampire? Who was she kidding? She looked as much like an undead bloodsucker as I looked like a half-wolf monster. Okay, bad analogy. The point was that Cassandra could not be a vampire. It wasn't just her appearance. Granted, she looked less like a crypt-dwelling fiend than a Wall Street exec, the kind of woman whose tailored dresses, perfect manicure, and nearly flawless makeup were a trap waiting to spring on anyone who mistook the outer package as a sign of inner softness. But the problem went deeper than that. Much deeper. First, there were no fangs, not even oversized canines. Second, she sat in a room with sunlight streaming through the windows. Third, there was no way in hell-pardon the pun-you could tell me that any woman could style her hair and apply her makeup that well if she couldn't see her reflection. Even with a three-way mirror, I can't get my hair back in a clip without tendrils escaping every which way.
    Jeremy must have been thinking the same thing because he started by saying, "Before we begin, we need to clear up one thing. I don't mean to sound suspicious-"
    "Don't apologize," Cassandra said. "You should be suspicious."
    Jeremy nodded. "Although Adam so neatly categorized everyone, you can see where we might be in need of more… concrete evidence."
    I said, "To put it bluntly, how do we know you are what you say you are? You say you're a vampire, but…"
    "Everyone knows vampires don't exist," Cassandra said.
    "It is a bit hard to swallow," I said. "Vampires, witches, shamans, demons."
    "Are you listening to yourself?" Paige said. "You don't believe in the supernatural? You're a werewolf!"
    "Alleged werewolf."
    Paige rolled her eyes. "Here we go again. You still don't believe we're witches, do you? Even after we cast multiple spells to save your life-"
    "Save my life?" I sputtered. "You were the one padding down a hotel hallway in your nightgown, so eager to see the bad guy lurking behind door number one."
    Adam laughed. Paige shot him a glare.
    "Okay," I said, "let's pretend I believe in vampires