All Hallows Night (Night Series) Read Online Free Page A

now, and for damn sure Kemen would still be alive. Something inside me screamed to trust Billy, and it wasn’t because he’d really given me any outward signs that I should. But then again, maybe it was just Lust coloring my better judgment.
    With a snarl, I hid inside the deepest slice of shadow and traced to Grace’s, leaving nothing but the scent of sulfur in my wake.
    ***
    S itting in Grace’s one-bedroom adobe ten minutes later, I had to apply every bit of acting skill I had as I waited for the old bat to come out of the bathroom. Her new assistant had led me to a worn, overstuffed leather chair.
    I sometimes wondered what had happened to Mary (Grace’s previous assistant), She’d been so scared of me when I’d first met her, but she was also the one who’d given me that book of Middle English poems that Billy insisted I now read.
    I was in the middle of a giant effing conspiracy, and I hated with the heat of a thousand burning fires that I was too stupid to just figure it out. Grace was a rotten seed, the Order was nothing but a bunch of murderous bastards, Billy was still alive, Luc hated my guts I was sure, Kemen was dead...
    I swallowed hard because that one still made me want to curl into a ball and cry.
    “Pandora!” Grace’s shrill voice sliced through my thoughts. She walked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her, and opened her frail-looking arms to me.
    Once, I would have run to her. Hugged her with every ounce of love left in me. There used to be a time when I’d thought myself more human than demon, because of her. Because of the lies she’d spoon-fed me and made me believe.
    But I knew the opposite to be true now. I wasn’t human. Not really. I never would be. She’d played me for a fool, and all I wanted to do was shove my claws through her chest and rip her heart out. Make her hurt in the same way she’d hurt me.
    Lucky for her, Billy had gotten to me first. Made me see I needed to focus and put petty things like revenge off, at least for a while.
    Plastering a smile on my face, I stood. “Grace.” I forced warmth into her name and walked to her side, where I grabbed a hold of her elbow and helped guide her to the chair I’d been previously occupying. “It’s so good to see you.” I smiled.
    Why hadn’t I noticed the shifty look in her pale blue eyes before? Or the way her pulse increased by a notch, booming like a bullet’s ricochet in my ears?
    But even as I asked it, I knew the answer. I’d seen it happen in a million different ways in a million different people. Because when you wanted to believe something, you would. I wasn’t fooled anymore, though I wondered what she would think if she realized the shoe was now on the other foot?
    How she must have mocked me to my back, thought me a stupid idiot. I’d heard her tape recording—it’d been sent to me by the Gray Man—her laughing into the line, calling me a fool desperate to believe she actually loved me.
    I smiled wider, exposing the full length of my fangs, and experienced a cheap thrill when her eyes widened slightly.
    “Always good to see you,” I said, acting the part of the loving adopted daughter I’d once foolishly thought I was. “I’m sorry I’m late. I was scouting the village and heard rumors that I was trying to follow up on, lost track of time.”
    Grace cleared her throat and sat. Her smile wasn’t as wide as I usually remembered it. Her skin was definitely more yellow-looking. An obvious sign of a failing liver. Grace was old and would probably die of natural causes soon. But only if I let her. I hadn’t decided yet.
    She lifted a hand. “Much better furnishings this time, no?”
    She referred, of course, to her previous digs. The place Mary had decorated. It’d been a hideous amalgam of Christmas and gaudy Liberace rolled into one. This small adobe structure wasn’t much to look at on the outside, but inside it was clean. The floors were a sandy-hued tile, the walls stucco, and there