He stared into the shadows in silence, Stefanie clinging to his arm, and dared the things that lurked within to come into the light. It seemed to him as he did so that he could feel them daring him, in turn, to come into the dark.

Chapter 10

Even though its hunger had become all-consuming, the demon waited until after midnight to hunt.

It crept from its lair as silent as the death that awaited its victims and slipped out onto the empty streets of Pioneer Square. The weeknight city had closed its eyes early, and even the bars and restaurants had shuttered their doors and clicked off their lights. The air was damp and heavy with mist and the beginnings of a fresh rain, and the moisture glistened on the concrete in a satiny sheen. Cars eased past in ones and twos, carrying their occupants to home and bed, strays following in the wake of the early evening rush. The demon watched from the shadows close by Occidental Park, wary of being seen. But the park and sidewalks and streets were empty and still. The demon was alone.

It crept from its hiding place in human form, standing upright, maintaining its guise as it made its way to the place where the hunt would begin. It wore running shoes and sweats to mask the sound of its passing, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, sliding along the walls of the darkened buildings, across the shadowed stretches of the park, and through the blackened tunnels of the alleys and walkways. The homeless who spent their days in the park had all gone elsewhere, and the Indian totems loomed above the empty stone spaces like hunters in search of prey, eyes fearsome and staring, beaks and talons at the ready.

But the demon’s hunt was not for food. Its hunger was of a different sort. Its hunger was more primal and less easily understood. The demon hunted because it needed to kill. It hunted to feel the struggles of its victims as it rent their flesh, cracked their bones, and spilled their blood. It hunted to experience that exquisite moment of fulfillment when its efforts claimed another human life—that last shudder of consciousness, that final exhalation of breath, that concluding gasp as death arrived. The demon’s need for killing humans was indigenous to its makeup. It had been human itself once, long ago, and to continue to be what it was, it was necessary for it to keep killing its human self over and over again. It accomplished this through the killing of others. Its own humanity was drowned completely in the madness that drove it, but it was necessary that it pretend at being human so that it could move freely among its victims, and there was danger in this. Killing kept the pretense from ever threatening to become even a momentary reality.

At the corner of First Avenue and Yesler, the demon paused a final time in the shadows to look about. Seeing neither cars nor people approaching, it slipped quickly across First to the line of old doorways and basement windows that fronted the street, and hunkered down beside a set of concrete steps that led into a kite and banner shop. Again, it paused to look about and listen. Again, it saw and heard nothing.