Deliverance Read Online Free

slower these days?”
    When Maliha was Ageless, her healing was instantaneous. Since she’d broken her contract with her demon, she healed slower, and as she aged, she healed slower still.
    “You’re right. Ten years ago, a wound like this would heal in a day. Now a deep wound takes a day to close up on the outside and a couple more to finish healing the inside. Something with a lot of skin loss like this one—” She shrugged.
    “Doesn’t that prolong the pain you feel when you get injured?” He put a hand on her shoulder in sympathy.
    She shook his hand roughly off and lowered her eyes so she couldn’t meet his. “I don’t need sympathy. Pain is part of my job description. Master Liu says . . .”
    “Fuck Master Liu! He’s some ascetic hermit who counts snowflakes on a mountain in China and dips his balls in ice water for the hell of it. You’re not Liu. You live in the real world.”
    Maliha couldn’t help smiling at the mental image of Master Liu running around naked, counting snowflakes, with a container of ice water clasped to his groin.
    “Okay,” she said. “You have a point. As long as I remain worldly, I can’t approach Master Liu’s way of living. He would say I have barely started on my spiritual journey.”
    “So you heard about Arnie leaving?”
    Maliha nodded. “I don’t know what to think about the new guy, Chick, yet. It’s strange the way he finishes my sentences. Does he do that to you, too?”
    “Yeah. Weird.”
    “I want to track down Arnie. The police are treating this disappearance with suspicion and we should too. You and Amaro could get together and start tracing his credit card usage and phone calls.”
    Hound looked indignant. “I don’t need the little squirt’s help for that. I’m a licensed private investigator. A dick and proud of it.”
    Maliha laughed. It felt good. “Okay, I won’t tell Amaro you called him a little squirt if you can make sure Arnie’s absence is intentional. On top of everything else.”
    “I know. You’re thinking about Lucius.”
    Maliha hesitated. She hadn’t revealed to anyone her last words to Lucius as he died in her arms. I’ll do it. I’ll do it for us. I’ll kill the demons and then we’ll be together.
    Lucius was in the private hell created by his demon Sidana, suffering constant torture. “I told him I’d bring him back, Hound. I don’t have the slightest idea of how to do that. Even if I kill the demons, does that mean he’s free? Or that he finally dies? Even thinking about what he’s going through . . .”
    “Listen, you still have me and Yanmeng and Amaro. And Jake. You still have your goals. Maybe in time you’ll figure out how to free Lucius.”
    Hound was a close friend of Maliha’s, one of three who worked with her and understood her situation of trying to wiggle out from under Rabishu’s thumb. Hound had been a medic in Vietnam. He didn’t know that Maliha had been responsible for saving him after shrapnel had left him looking like Swiss cheese on the battlefield. Years later, she hired him as a private investigator. They had a history as lovers, too, but that had cooled as Hound’s relationship with his girlfriend—and now fiancée—Glass, heated up.
    Get a grip, woman. This isn’t a soap opera.
    Maliha straightened up. “Arnie’s disappearance isn’t the only piece of news. Xietai’s dead.”
    “Finally caught up with him, huh? So was he Ageless like we thought?”
    “No. I’d sure like to know who trained him, though.”
    “Get some rest. I’ll tell Yanmeng and Eliu.”
    Maliha stood up. “Yanmeng already knows and I’m sure he’s told his wife by now. I brought his son’s knife back for him.”
    It would be up to Yanmeng and Eliu to decide if they wanted a memento of their son’s life or not. If it were Maliha’s choice, she’d say no, but she wanted to be able to give Xietai’s parents a choice.
    “I have something else I want to work on. Lucius gave me a key right before he,