Page 90 of Sins of the Heart

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door hit Dagan’s face. “You—”

Dagan struck. His fingers tore through skin and

muscle, ribs cracking as his bare hand sank deep. It was

like deboning raw chicken without a knife.

Eyes wide, Joe stared at him. Something flared.

Some sort of recognition.

“You,” he said again. Then he made a gurgling gasp

that might have been a laugh. “Thought there was

only…one way…for a man to…guarantee…immortality.… Guess I was…wrong.…” His eyes glazed and he

died with a last gasp, his body loosing a torrent of

waste as the muscles of his sphincter relaxed.

Dagan’s head jerked up and he met Alastor’s startled

gaze. “He recognized me.”

“You ever seen him before?”

Tightening his grip on the heart, Dagan glanced at

the dead man’s face. His head lolled to one side, eyes

open, seeing nothing. “No.”

“You certain?”

“Yeah.”

“Then he didn’t recognize you.” Alastor shrugged

and dropped his gaze back to the box of photos. “Perhaps he recognized death.”

“Maybe.” Maybe not. There had been something definitive in Joe Marin’s gaze, something personal. Like

they’d met before. Which hadn’t happened. Dagan

98

SINS OF THE HEART

revealed himself to very few humans, and 99.99

percent of the time they ended up dead. The other .01

percent were Topworld informers who had no clue

what he was, or the rare woman who ended up naked

in his bed.

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