Written by Sage Collins / Artwork by Lee Ann Barlow

That woman has ice in her veins, they say.

You have to be cold-hearted to shove this curved knife into the chest of what looks like an ordinary human. Only a tug at my chest tells me that each is, in fact, a Glace. That's true, at least, until I drive the knife in.

Today's quarry is better prepared than most. Most Glace I meet have become complacent. Sure, they might be mugged or subject to other forms of violence, but there isn't much crime to be found in this small Kansas town. The demons like it here in the heart of the country. Maybe it's the symbolism.

It sure isn't the shopping.

The Glace swings his fist at my head, but I duck under it and sweep his legs to take him down. He hits the ground but is up so fast, I don't have time to strike. Damn, I haven't gone after one with enhanced powers in a long time. It means that, despite the twenty-something face, he's older, from a time when they were actively hunted by more than a single predator. No wonder he's adept at countering my attack.

I've lost sight of him. Never a good sign. Once they've locked on to a victim, they'll rarely leave it. It's more than pride or obsession; they feel physical pain if their target escapes.

Physical pain is guaranteed in this one's future.

I whip around, relying on an instinct that he'll be behind me. My intuition only saves me from the surprise, as he punches me in the stomach. I fall onto my back, trying to catch my breath so I can get back to my feet, but he straddles my torso, pinning my arms against my side and my body to the ground. A shit-eating grin on his face, he places both hands over my chest.

Nothing happens.

"Surprise, asshole," I say. Anyone else, and he'd absorb the warmth of their heart, their lifeflow. Once the body was empty, he could choose to slip in and take it over or keep the form he has. Either way, his essence would be charged, like a battery, from the lifeflow.

I start each day off with a workout routine that ends in extensive ab workouts, and I put that training to good use with a crunch. Forehead, meet a Grace's nose. He jerks back in surprise, and my arms gain their freedom. I thrust the knife into his heart.

Had he successfully sucked my lifeflow, my body—or his, if he had chosen to take mine over—would've dissolved, leaving no victim to be found. Likewise, the body he's been inhabiting evaporates, leaving a black mist behind.

The mist hovers at the end of my knife then follows the length of the blade. The blade's glued to my hand until the blackness is absorbed into my palm, a trail of ice burning along the path of my veins into my heart. My heart soaks the cold into it, as it always does.

I curl my fingers against my chest, gasping for breath as if I'm drowning. Every time this cold threatens to consume me...except once, when the Glace had freshly fed off a human. But I won't sacrifice a human life just to save myself the pain. Even if it would free me from the inevitably I face.

With every demon I kill, my heart freezes more and more. My lifeflow is gone; this Glace proved that. I must continue hunting them if I want to keep living, but each time I know, I know, I'm more like them than the humans I save. It's becoming noticeable. I can't give it up, but I don't belong in this world, anymore.

­That woman has ice in her veins, they say.

And they're right.

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