Bleeding Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

Sure, it was only one time, but old habits die hard.
    “Be a better person,” I tell myself. “You can do it.”
    I pick up the phone and click on the new message. Clearly, I wasn’t chosen for this profession because I’m trusting. In the soul of every investigator, there’s an only child who wants to know every last detail, even if it hurts.
    The message is from an unknown number. It says:
    Night, bro.
    I put down the phone. I suddenly feel cold. Lucian did have a brother, Lorenzo, but he died. The text must be some kind of joke. I mark the message as unread and go downstairs.

3
    I have an appointment with my occupational therapist this morning. In exchange for my paid leave of absence, I had to sign a contract saying that I would see Dr. Lori Hinzelmann more often. I’m not sure what these sessions are supposed to accomplish, other than reminding me at regular intervals how crazy I am. I drew the line a year ago when he asked me to sketch the anger I felt toward all the demons who had tried to kill me in the past. Now he mostly just grills me about my personal life, which never fails to provide sundry material for discourse. It’s a bit unreal having a four-foot-tall kobold ask you about your erotic dreams, but then again, most things in my line of work lean toward the bizarre. At least his office has an espresso machine.
    The SkyTrain flies me over Commercial Drive. I look through the glass as the tops of trees and buildings whip by. Vancouver exports most of its smog to the Fraser Valley, so the air is clear. I see the shadows of mountains and unlaced clouds. People around me doze, do crosswords, and listen to music that their earbuds can’t contain. The various Auto-Tuned voices and synthetic beats murmur in the air. There’s a trick with aerobic materia that would let me block out the sound, but my mother taught me never to waste power on the things that annoy us. I content myself with looking at the blue fabric of the empty seat across from mine, which resembles movie theater carpet.
    I was still a teenager when I was selected by the CORE to become an Occult Special Investigator. They like to headhunt people with any capacity for manipulating natural forces, and when your father’s a pureblood demon, you tend to have that in spades. At the time, I didn’t actually know that my mother had power as well. I thought I’d inherited it solely from my father’s side of the family. There’s still a lot I don’t know about my mother. I look out the window again, as if expecting to see her flying alongside the SkyTrain, waving at me. But all I see are the buildings on Main Street and, between them, patches of blue space.
    As far as I know, I’m the only person on this train who can see the energies that make life possible, the torsions and cosmic flares that drive everything. I see the blood and nerves of the universe, but its narrative stays hidden.Sometimes it’s all too much. I want to be normal and nearsighted. I want to live in a world where demons are just something Hollywood uses to sell movie tickets.
    I get off at Burrard Station and walk to the CORE building, which houses multiple offices in addition to the occult Forensics unit. The foyer is all slick marble and track lighting, but within the stone and under the air, power curls hot and sweet like dragon breath. I pass through the necessary checkpoints and step into the elevator, along with several other people. A few of them I’ve seen before, but don’t know by name. We smile politely. We keep silent, which is the first rule. The less we know about each other’s domains, the better.
    I step off the elevator and into an air-conditioned waiting room. I check in at the desk and then take a seat. People just like me are reading old issues of
Chatelaine
or cycling through various menus on their smartphones. I guess it should be a comfort to know that I’m not the only person in my line of work who needs therapy. It should be, but I still feel like