The Demon Road Trilogy: The Complete Collection: Demon Road; Desolation; American Monsters
I don’t have any other friends.”
“You and me aren’t friends, Glen.”
He looked dismayed. “So I have no friends?”
“I have to get going.”
She started walking again.
“I could help,” he called after her. “And I wouldn’t be a burden. I’d carry things, and I’d sit in the back and I wouldn’t say anything, unless you needed me to say something, in which case I obviously would. Does your radio work? I could sing if it doesn’t. I know a lot of songs. I don’t have the best voice in the world and I might not remember every single one of the lyrics, or sing them in the right order, but I can carry a tune and I’ll just make up the bits I forget. My dad used to do that all the time. It was like a gift he had, you know? Only he wasn’t very good at it. I’m much better.”
His voice eventually started to fade, and Amber left him behind. As she neared the edge of the woods, she focused on shifting back. What had Imelda called it? Reverting, that was it. She concentrated on her breathing, on calming down, on becoming her again, and, just when she thought it wasn’t going to happen, an explosion of pain rocked her, made her stumble.
She put her shoulder to a tree and stayed there, blinking, her brown hair falling across her brow. She looked at her hand and noted the normal skin. She looked down and noted that her clothes fitted her once again. So that was normal, too, then.
Great.
A TANGLE OF BRIARS scraped across Amber’s bare shin and she grimaced, bent down to rub it, then continued on. Moving through this little patch of forest had been easier as a demon – her red skin, even without the scales, was a lot hardier than the pale flesh she usually wore.
She felt the damp unpleasantness of her clothes more acutely now, too, as she did the embarrassment over a stranger seeing her naked. Both these sensations were washed away when she remembered what she’d done to that woman in the restroom. She could have killed her. She had wanted to kill Glen.
Amber forced herself to move on.
Emerging from the treeline further up from where she went in, she walked along the road back towards the truck stop. She kept her head down, really wishing she’d thought to grab the baseball cap as she ran from the restroom.
The throaty growl of the Charger’s engine caught her by surprise, and she turned to watch it pull in sharply behind her.
Milo got out. He looked mad. She walked to the passenger side and he threw her the baseball cap. “Found this in the restroom,” he said. “It was lying next to a woman who swore blind she’d been attacked by the Devil.”
Amber put it on. “Um. Thanks.”
They looked at each other over the roof of the car.
“I got you a sandwich,” he said. “You can eat while we drive.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Amber said as Milo ducked to get in. “I shifted and she walked in. She pulled a knife, for God’s sake!”
Milo straightened up. “She’s fine, by the way.”
Amber winced.
“A few nasty bruises. A dislocated shoulder. Maybe a fractured cheek. Definitely a concussion. But your concern over her wellbeing is touching.”
“I get it, okay? You can stop now. I feel guilty enough as it is.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Milo. “But it isn’t all bad. She’s going to have a great story to tell, about the time she was attacked by a genuine, bona fide devil. A red-skinned devil with horns, no less. She’s going to get some mileage out of that one. The cops have already been called, don’t you worry.”
Amber glared. “I just wanted to see what I looked like in a mirror. Is that so bad?”
“Not at all,” said Milo. “Doing that in your bedroom mirror behind a locked door, no problem at all. Doing it in a truck-stop restroom, however …”
“Can we just go? Can we? Before the cops get here?”
“Sure.” He hesitated, then looked at her again. “But I need you to understand something, Amber. This will catch the attention of your parents.”
She blinked. “I’d … I’d …”
“You hadn’t even considered that, had you?”
She frowned. “No. But I should have. What the hell?”
The expression on Milo’s face softened. “What did Imelda tell you? Your demon side is more confident. You can take that to mean arrogant. And you can take that to mean self-centred. You’re not going to be thinking too much of the consequences of your actions when you’ve got your horns on. That’s what makes it so dangerous.”
“Do you think they’ll come here themselves?”
“I would, if I were them.” A van passed on the road beside them. “We’ve lost our advantage. Up till now, they didn’t know you were running; they just thought you were hiding. Now that they know, they’ll be coming after you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “Come on, the sooner we get away, the better. At least no one here knows where we’re headed.”
Amber winced, and Milo froze.
“What?” he asked.
Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. “Someone might know where we’re going,” she said.
Milo blinked at her. “I don’t understand. Who did you find to talk to around here?”
“A guy. His name’s Glen. I met him in the woods,” she said. Then she added, “He’s Irish.”
“Oh well, he’s Irish,” said Milo. “That’s okay, then. The Irish are renowned for how tight-lipped they are. What the hell, Amber?”
“I’m sorry, all right? I wasn’t thinking.”
“Some random guy in the woods?”
“He’s not random,” she responded, a little hotly. “He’s like us. He’s, you know … cursed by darkness.”
Milo actually laughed. “He’s what?”
“They’re the words he used,” she said, scowling. “And they’re not too far away from what you said about the blackroads connecting points of darkness, whatever the hell that means. And, y’know, he’s dying, actually. Glen. He’s got the Deathmark.”
“What’s a Deathmark?”
“I … I thought you’d know.”
“Edgar’s the occult expert, not me.”
“Well, the Deathmark is this thing that he has that’s killing him, and he’s on the Demon Road, too. He wants to see some real American monsters before he dies.”
Milo rubbed a hand over his face. “He’s going to get his chance.”
“What do you mean?”
Milo folded his arms on the car roof and leaned on it. “People travelling the blackroads tend to meet, Amber. I told you that. Whether they’re drawn to each other by some unconscious radar or it’s all down to recurring coincidence or part of some grand scheme straight from hell, the fact is travellers tend to meet. That’s why I’m confident of finding Dacre Shanks. But think who else is going to be on the blackroads. If your parents