Immortal Hunter
Immortal Hunter
Kait Ballenger
The Execution Underground - Hunters of the supernatural…But at what price? Exorcist David Aronowitz is a member of the Execution Underground. When a demon slips into the seductive body of the only woman he’s ever loved, David must confront the heartbreak of their past to save her.The piece of her heart Allsún O’Hare gave to David so long ago left her trapped between two worlds:the Fae and the human. Fate soon reunites her with her greatest temptation – and biggest mistake.Swept into a wicked game, David must decide if saving Allsún’s life is worth sacrificing his own – and the future of humanity itself.‘Kait Ballenger is a treasure you don’t want to miss!’— New York Times bestselling author GENA SHOWALTER
Immortal
Hunter
Kait Ballenger
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my dad, Rick Schulz, who has always supported me in everything I do, and who has provided me with all the opportunities I needed to succeed in life. I love you, Daddy.
Praise for
KAIT BALLENGER
“Ballenger offers an extremely promising high-voltage start to her series about superheroes and their adversaries.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Twilight Hunter
“Paranormal fans have a new voice to check out with the debut of Ballenger’s terrific first book in her Execution Underground series.”
—RT Book Reviews on Twilight Hunter
“Debut author Ballenger shows awesome potential and talent.”
—RT Book Reviews on Shadow Hunter
“Kait Ballenger is a treasure you don’t want to miss!”
—New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter
“Nonstop action, pulse-pounding suspense, and red-hot romance … Kait Ballenger’s Execution Underground series delivers in spades!”
—Jaime Rush, New York Times bestselling author
“Action and romance in one mesmerizing story. A phenomenal start to the Execution Underground series. Shadow Hunter will leave you breathless and demanding more.” —Cecy Robson, author of Sealed with a Curse
“Taut with action, suspense, and romance that sizzles, Shadow Hunter is an evocative prelude to what’s certain to be an exciting new series! Fans of J.R. Ward are going to love the sexy warriors of Kait Ballenger’s Execution Underground.” —Kate SeRine, author of Red and The Better to See You
Also available from Kait Ballenger
TWILIGHT HUNTER
AFTER DARK
“Shadow Hunter”
Look for Kait Ballenger’s next novel
MIDNIGHT HUNTER
coming soon
Contents
Chapter One (#u18f38e61-55f2-5c3e-a93c-2b4946f570b0)
Chapter Two (#u382a8ae0-99c8-5575-9720-ce844dcb6223)
Chapter Three (#u6a3662bf-a14c-5903-961e-33083fc0d373)
Chapter Four (#ua77a1faf-8f8d-5048-ad29-bbae7b09d7ec)
Chapter Five (#u29f78779-321f-550b-aaeb-bfccddb1f852)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
DAVID ARONOWITZ UNSHEATHED his dagger and steadied the weapon. The serrated silver blade glinted in the dim amber glow of a nearby streetlight as he slipped into the shadows. He ran his thumb over the edge of the knife. New. Spotless and unused. If he had his way, it wouldn’t be unused much longer.
That demon piece of shit was going down.
He crept farther into the darkness, ears attuned to the slightest noise. The distant sounds of sirens from Strong Memorial Hospital echoed through the night, mixed with the sounds of occasional car horns and passersby. The damp scent of March’s latest snowfall-turned-brown-slush filled his nose. He had only a few minutes until his target arrived, and he couldn’t afford to mess this up.
He didn’t want to leave Allsún. It killed him to leave her bedside. But he had no choice. Jace had agreed to take over his vigil. In his absence, David trusted Jace to keep Allsún safe.
He patted the pocket of his Harley jacket. As he felt his Beretta holstered beneath the leather, a grim smile curved his lips. If there was one thing he loved it was new weapons, and tonight he had two brand-new toys: his dagger and, his personal favorite, the new bullets he’d loaded into the Berretta. Months of trying and finally he’d crafted a bullet that exploded on impact, releasing holy water inside the demonic target. A small part of him couldn’t wait to see the look on the monster’s face when he tested those little beauties.
His current assignment was to trail a demon he suspected was an Abyzu. One of those sick bastards had popped onto the Execution Underground’s radar when an infant girl was murdered two weeks ago. A dull ache pulsed through his heart every time he thought of the horrifying pain her parents had experienced, and would for the rest of their lives.
That baby-killing son-of-a-bitch would pay—no doubt about that, he’d make certain of it. But he had different plans for tonight. An Abyzu wasn’t his target. This was personal.
He shifted behind the Dumpster. A sharp pain shot up his leg, reminding him—as if he could forget—of his last major job gone horribly wrong, and the price of his failure. He deserved the pain. It was a just punishment, because he’d failed her. The one time Allsún had needed him, and he’d let her down. Left his ex-fiancée to the mercy of a sick, sexual sadist.
He gazed in the direction of the hospital, picturing her as he’d left her. She looked so peaceful, lying in the hospital bed with her eyes closed as if she were sleeping, though he knew better. She’d been imprisoned and tortured, and he’d been helpless to protect her. Sure, there were circumstances beyond his control. And, as his fellow hunters liked to point out, he had been the one to save her. But she’d suffered. She continued to suffer.
And knowing her pain was driving him insane.
He kicked the Dumpster with his injured leg, welcoming the sting it sent through his leg. Discovering a demon had possessed the doctor caring for his suffering ex-fiancée while she helplessly lay in a coma had been the chocolate icing on the shit cake.
The demon/doctor was no fool. He surrounded himself with humans, keeping to the busiest sections of the hospital. Shit, David had come close to losing his fucking mind, waiting for the right moment to take the sucker down. He’d been watching the bastard for weeks, and his patience was about to pay off. Any time now the monster would be cutting through the alleyway after the end of his shift.
David paused, and listened. Footsteps approached. He forced himself to focus. It was time. In three, two, one. L’chayim, bitch.
His eyes locked on to the open mouth of the alley, illuminated by a nearby streetlight. As his target rounded the corner and moved toward him, David held his breath and raised his knife for the attack. The sound of footfalls filled the alleyway’s narrow walls, and the whistling wind echoed through the backstreet. With his damaged leg, one wrong move and he would be toast.
The demon’s steps grew louder as David waited to strike. He had one shot to pin the hell-crawler before the monster attacked, or, more likely, turned tail and ran like the little bitch it was. And if the bastard ran, David’s jacked-up leg would make pursuit near impossible.
David focused on his enemy. Suddenly the demon halted mid-stride, on alert, as if sensing the threat lurking in the shadows. David froze, not a single muscle moving. He couldn’t screw this up.
The demon took another cautious step forward. A ray of light from one of the nearby streetlights cast on to the doctor’s face. Shit. This situation was a mess. David had no idea how long the physician had been possessed or, more importantly, whether or not he was still living somewhere inside that skull. He bit back his frustration and reminded himself of the plan. He didn’t want to kill the thing, just pin it down, get the information he needed and exorcise the demon from the doctor’s body. As much as he wanted to carve the monster’s face up for even looking at Allsún, he couldn’t bring himself to go for the kill. Not with the possibility of the body’s original owner being alive.
The demon’s eyes darted around the alley, scanning his surroundings. After several long moments it continued on its way. David smiled. Perfect. He allowed the monster to walk several feet past him, farther into the shadows. Shifting his weight, he prepped for a lunge. The side of his hip brushed the brick wall he stood against, making the slightest sound.
Fuck.
The bastard paused again and turned around.
David didn’t have time to think. He threw himself on to the demon. His torso collided with the lanky physician’s, and he knocked the monster to the ground. He shoved the blade of his knife against the hell-crawler’s throat. The demon struggled beneath him. It wriggled an arm free and clocked David square in the cheekbone.
David’s head snapped back from the force of the blow. His vision blurred. Though the demon’s chosen body was human, the monster’s strength was still of supernatural proportions. The demon possessing the doctor packed one hell of a punch. Damn, that would hurt in the morning.
The hell-spawn seized the free moment, bucking David off and scrambling to its feet. Vision still blurred, David followed suit, quickly regaining his footing. He slashed his knife through the air, backing the demon into a corner between the Dumpster and the wall of the alley.
The demon laughed. “You think a blade will hurt me, hunter?” It put both arms out in a welcoming gesture. “By all means, carve up this nice doctor I’m wearing. You won’t cause me any permanent harm.”
David frowned. Now he was pissed. He hated demons, especially smart-ass ones. He slashed across the demon’s face. A sharp hiss echoed through the alley as the blade seared through its skin. The creature clutched its cheek as steam billowed off the burning wound. David slammed the demon against the wall, pushing his knife flush against its throat.
He smirked. “A blessed blade, you sulfur-sucking fucker.” David pushed the knife harder against the demon’s skin. “And that’s ‘exorcist’ to you.”
The demon swore. David choked back a laugh. What kind of dumbass was this thing? He wasn’t one to brag, but with a reputation like his, the demon should’ve known stepping foot inside Rochester put him smack-dab in the middle of David’s hunting territory. If there was one thing demons hated more than anything, it was dealing with exorcists like him. He sent them back to hell every time—and every demon he’d ever encountered had been desperate to escape Satan’s hellhole for good. It was no easy feat to get here, so they sure didn’t want to be sent back.
David leaned the slightest bit harder into his blade, drawing blood. Another hiss sounded as the cut on the demon’s neck burned and smoked. It writhed against David’s weight.
First for the personal business. “What were you doing at Allsún’s bedside, you freak?” David growled.
A small smile curved the demon’s lips. “Who?” it taunted.
With his free fist David punched the demon in the face. From the crunch beneath his knuckles, he could tell the physician’s nose had broken. The poor guy would have to deal with the pain of the injuries David inflicted, assuming he was still alive, but it sure beat the alternative. David threw another punch, and blood gushed from the demon’s nostrils.
He needed answers, and he needed them now. “Don’t get cute with me, princess. You know exactly who I’m talking about.”
The demon’s eyes shifted from a human brown to a burning bloodred. Its anger showed in the hint of its true form. “You mean the delicious girl I plan to gut from the inside out?”
“If you touch a single hair on her head, I will skin you alive and pour holy water across your open wounds until you’ve sizzled to nothing more than a piece of smoking, rotting flesh,” David hissed. His blood was boiling. The thought of Allsún hurting any more than she already was sent pure rage coursing through his veins. He’d already failed to protect her once. He wouldn’t let it happen again.
The demon grinned through the blood pouring down its face. “And kill this sweet doctor I’m wearing, a man who has saved countless lives? I don’t think so.”
David growled. “You underestimate my hatred for you hell-whores.” He shoved the knife harder against the demon’s throat. More smoke burned from the wound. “Tell me why you’ve been riding her doctor or I’ll exorcise your sorry ass back to hell right this second.”
The demon didn’t respond.
“One last chance.”
The demon grinned. Blood from the doctor’s nose gushed into its mouth and stained its smile a putrid shade of crimson. No answer.
David clenched his teeth. Fine. If the demon wanted pain, he’d give it pain. He cleared his throat and began to recite the exorcism ritual. The Hebrew words fell from his lips with familiar ease.
The veins underneath the demon’s skin darkened until the varicose lines covered the doctor’s whole body. The demon’s eyes blazed an even more fiery red, and he shook in uncontrollable jerks. David didn’t stop chanting, not even to catch his breath.
The demon let out a strained cry. “All right already,” it interrupted him. “Don’t exorcise me and I’ll tell you what you want.”
David waited. The little shit had called uncle sooner than he’d expected.
The demon coughed blood as the blue-and-purple veins covering the body it possessed slowly faded. “She’s the last Fae creature outside the Isle of Apples. I came to kill her, and I would have, if you hadn’t been permanently glued to her bedside.”
Fuck. David fought back a long string of profanities. As if Allsún didn’t have it rough enough already—lying there unconscious while her injuries healed. Now this demon knew what she had been hiding for years, her half-Fae bloodline. Her pixie bloodline, to be more specific. As earthly angels, the Fae were the demons’ only true natural enemy. As one of the last of her kind remaining on earth, Allsún was a danger to them, and she’d gone into hiding several years ago during the last mass exodus of Fae from Earth.
David forced himself to remain calm for Allsún’s sake. He couldn’t let the demon know it was on to anything big. “Who sent you?” he asked.
The demon shrugged. “It’s just me.”
David let out another low growl and slid the edge of his blade across the demon’s throat.
The monster yelled in agony. “I’m on my own. I swear it. I possessed the hospital janitor, and I was riding him for some fun when I came across her. I knew what she was right away, so I decided to toy with her and possessed the doc. I wanted to say I was the demon to kill the last faerie on Earth.”
David met the demon’s eyes and assessed the worthless piece of filth. From its mild strength he could tell it was no head-honcho. Just another lowly bottom-feeder. Probably a Belial demon, if he were to wager a guess. A Belial would be dumb enough to go after someone as valuable as Allsún without orders from its superiors.
“Did you tell anyone else about her?”
The hell-spawn shook its head. “No, no one. You have my word. Just let me go.”
David scoffed. “Your word is worth less than a dead man’s ball sack. I know you demons chatter like gossiping schoolgirls with one another, so unless you can tell me something useful about the demon that murdered that poor infant girl two weeks ago, you’re taking a one-way trip back to hell.” David began to recite the ritual again, his words slow, deliberate.
The veins throughout the doctor’s body bulged again, and the demon shrieked. “Send me back to hell and I’ll tell every demon there about her!”
David froze. Rage filled him as he considered the demon’s words. He was so not in the mood to play around with this sulfurous piss-ant.
The demon grinned from ear to ear. “Looks like you’re just going to have to let me go, exorcist.”
David laughed. “In your dreams.” He punched the demon in the gut. The demon/doctor let out an audible “oof.”
He would exorcise the demonic piece of shit as painfully as possible. He reached for the chain around his neck, pulling the Star of David he always wore from underneath his shirt. He pressed it into the demon’s forehead as he mumbled the ancient words of the ritual.
The demon’s body seized. The screams that reverberated from its throat were anything but human. “For that, I’ll spread the word about the faerie and I’ll kill the doctor, too. He may need to breathe, but I don’t.”
The doctor’s chest quit moving as the demon intentionally stopped breathing, suffocating the body it wore. David quickened the pace of his chanting, mumbling the words as fast as he could. He prayed the doctor was able to fight somewhere in there, was able to force the demon to take a breath.
He was halfway through the ritual and still the doctor wasn’t breathing. Playing out all the possible scenarios in his mind, David calculated his next move. He was damned either way. If he exorcised the demon, he would be putting Allsún’s life in danger once again. Allowing the hell-spawn the opportunity to share the news of her existence was not an option—though for all he knew the others were aware of her existence already. Still, could he take the chance? His only other choice was to kill the demon for good, but that meant he would be killing the doctor, too.
His loyalties clashed—his duties as a hunter to protect the innocent, and the loyalty and devotion he felt for the woman who’d once been the love of his life, even if she no longer returned that love. David gritted his teeth.
Shit.
He shoved the Star of David harder against the demon’s forehead and recited Psalm 91 in Hebrew as fast as he could. Three times. That was all he needed. Just three recitations, and then the ritual would be finished. Allsún would want him to save the doctor if he could. He knew it, but how could he knowingly place her in danger again? And would the doctor already be dead by then anyway?
The demon gasped. The doctor’s face cleared for barely a second. His eyes flashed to their normal shade. The red disappeared as he fought against the demon. “Kill it! I don’t care if you kill me, too!”
For a moment David hesitated. Then, without thought, he plunged the blade into the doctor’s heart. The man’s body seized and shook beneath David’s hold. Blood gushed from the wound in thick spurts. The veins darkened beneath the doctor’s skin as the demon fought unsuccessfully to hang on to its existence. A pulse of energy emanated from the doctor’s body, a signal of the demon’s death. The doctor’s veins faded. The red of his irises transitioned into his normal brown color. His body went limp, but the light hadn’t left his eyes. He coughed up blood, the red liquid oozing down his chin and face.
He opened his mouth to speak. “H-he already told the others,” he rasped. “About...h-her.” The doctor’s body jerked one last feeble time before his eyes went dark, and the muscles in his face slackened.
Blood poured on to the cement as David lowered the doctor to the ground. He stared at the man’s limp form as guilt rushed through him. Shit. He’d wanted to save the doctor. Damn. In situations like this, he always knew it wasn’t his fault, and that he needed to get the job done, which he had. But it didn’t matter. He always blamed himself anyway. Damn it all. Following his first instinct, he clutched the Star of David at his neck and muttered the Mourner’s Kaddish. As the last words fell from his lips, he released his necklace and stepped away from the body.
CHAPTER TWO
THIRTY-SIX HOURS of torture wasn’t exactly easy on the body. Neither was waking up after nearly a month in a trauma-induced coma. Allsún O’Hare found that out the hard way. A pulse of energy shot through Allsún’s body, and she jolted upright, gasping for breath. Every inch of her body ached with a dull throbbing pain. The smell of too much sterilization and cleaning agents assaulted her nose. An incessant beeping sounded like a siren inside her head. She covered her ears as she stared at a white-washed room, her vision blurred.
Shite. Where in Morgana’s name was she? She blinked several times until her eyes cleared, then she took in the scene around her.
“Paging Nurse Robson to the labor and delivery unit,” a female voice echoed over nearby loud speakers. Labor and delivery? She knew there was no way in hell she was in labor and delivery, that was for sure. The last time she’d been there had been when... Oh, God.
Her head spun, and she clutched the sheets over her. Labor and delivery...that meant she was in a hospital, right? Her vision blurred again. Holy faerie dust. No. No hospitals. She hated hospitals. She needed to get out of here. Now.
Her vision spun again. Boy, was she feeling loopy or what? What the hell had they given her? She glanced down at her arm and saw an IV sticking out from the back of her hand. Her eyes followed the tubing up to a clear bag. She squinted at the small printed label on the side of it. Ativan. What kind of drug was that? Nothing she was familiar with from the humane shelter, that was for sure.
She flopped back on to the not-so-fluffy pillow propped behind her head. Why was she in the hospital anyway? Slowly her eyes drooped, as if the lids weighed more than her muscles could bear to handle. How had she gotten here? She...
The image of David’s handsome face flashed through her mind.
With a fresh round of determination, she sat upright in bed again. Though it felt as if she’d lost all muscle control in her hands, she pawed at the IV. She grasped at the tubing in desperation, until finally she ripped it from her hand. She let out a sharp yelp at the pain. A heavyset nurse walking by her room paused at the sound, then turned to see Allsún fiddling with the IV.
She hurried to Allsún’s bedside. Clara, as her badge read, sported platinum blond hair up to the two-inch roots at her scalp, which showed a dark, sharply contrasting brown—clearly her natural color. She smiled with lips that had a little too much burgundy lip liner and placed her hand on her hip. “Oh, no, you don’t. You have to leave that in, honey.”
Allsún shook her head. No way was she letting that human poison run into her veins for another second. Clara left her bedside for a moment, searching a nearby cabinet for supplies. Supplies she wouldn’t need. Scooting to the end of the bed, Allsún swung her legs over the edge. She dangled on the side of the hospital mattress until finally her tiny feet touched the cold, hard tiling of the floor. Still clutching the bed, she stepped forward. Her knees wobbled beneath her and...shite. She crumpled to the floor, her legs so weak she couldn’t even support herself. How was she supposed to escape like this?
At the sound of Allsún hitting the floor, Clar...Clarese?—Allsún’s mind went fuzzy. What was the nurse’s name again? Before Allsún could think about it much longer, the woman was at her side, hooking her under the arms and hauling her to her feet as if she weighed no more than a doll. Maybe she did weigh that little...she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.
“All right, honey. Let’s get you back in bed, okay? We don’t want you falling again. I’m already going to have to fill out a nice big pile of paperwork just because of that little spill. So let’s take it easy, okay?” She eased Allsún back toward the bed.
Allsún planted her feet as firmly on the ground as she could. With every ounce of strength she had, she pulled against the woman’s hold. “No, I’mmm not ssstaying here,” she said, suddenly very aware of her slurred speech.
The nurse frowned. “I know you don’t want to, but you really need to lie down and rest.”
Allsún pulled against the nurse’s hold again, trying her hardest to make her voice sound firm. “No.”
The woman grabbed hold of Allsún’s left wrist, gentle but commanding. “You have to—”
“I said no.” Allsún wrenched her arm away from the nurse. She stumbled several steps sideways, away from the woman’s hold.
The nurse stepped toward her again. Her frown twisted into a look of frustration as she reached for Allsún. “Look, I only have so much patience. You need to—”
Allsún lifted her hand and made a throwing motion. A cloud of sparkling faerie dust emanated from her open palm, as if she’d thrown a handful of glitter straight into the nurse’s face. Immediately the woman crumpled to the floor. Her mouth gaped open as she fell into the best sleep she’d probably had in years.
Allsún blinked two times, the movement slow and sluggish from the weight still forcing down her eyelids. “Thass what you get for m...m...messing with a pi...pixie.” She was slurring worse than a college frat boy on a Saturday night.
Concentrating on keeping her balance, Allsún stumbled out of the room and into a long hallway. After what seemed like an eternity of thinking, she deduced that it had to be nighttime. The lights were dimmed, and no one was in sight. She inched down the hall for what seemed like hours before reaching the nurses’ station directly next to the elevators. Her escape.
A night nurse perched at her desk looked up from a mound of papers. “Miss, are you all right?”
Allsún didn’t answer. She walked up to the desk, made a throwing motion with her hand, and watched the nurse slump onto the desktop with a thud in response to her natural faerie dust. She shuffled past the now-incapacitated woman toward the elevator.
Allsún jabbed the blurry elevator button three times until the doors finally opened. Using every ounce of brain power she could muster through her drug-induced haze, she selected the star button for what she hoped was the ground floor.
The elevator closed with a high-pitched ding. After four floors the elevator finally reached the bottom, and as fast as she could, she stumbled out and booked her way through the sliding glass doors of freedom.
When the doors opened, a huge burst of cold air hit Allsún straight in the face, sending a chill racing through her entire body. She wrapped her arms around her torso in a useless attempt to keep herself warm. She needed to get home before she got hypothermia. Her bare feet stung from the light layer of snow still coating Rochester’s streets. The prickling sensation helped clear her head, like what she imagined a sobering cold shower after a long night of way too much drinking would be like. Not that she would know for certain, since she’d never been the partying type. Not too much to celebrate when you’re spending your days chasing after...
Demons.
The scent of sulfur hit her nose as she passed by an empty alleyway. All at once her senses came alive, and she could feel the natural instinct in her Fae blood calling her. She turned in the direction her instinct indicated, the instinct that told her where demonic activity was, the instinct she hadn’t used in years. Not since that night...
Since then she’d found herself capable of ignoring the call. She knew that the city would remain safe without her. Though David couldn’t be everywhere at once, he was the only human she’d ever encountered who was capable of exorcising demons back to hell instead of just killing them. He could save the victims in a way that not even she could.
But somehow this time was different.
The pull inside her, like a rope tugging hard at the center of her chest, compelled her forward. And how could she not listen to such a strong command? She took another step, and then her head began to clear. She was thankful for her supernatural metabolism. It was burning up the drugs nicely, but...
How had she ended up in her current situation? What had put her in the hospit—
She staggered as the memories rushed back to her in one overwhelming burst.
That thing, the monster that did this to her. The thought of his disgustingly handsome face twisted in a look of pure hatred and malice flashed through her mind. Robert. That had been his name, before the hunters killed him.
She’d been in the hospital because that monster had kidnapped and tortured her, left her for dead. And then David had saved her. The memory of his arms wrapped around her warmed her to her core.
No, she couldn’t think like that.
She shook her head, trying to erase both Robert and David from her thoughts. She shouldn’t be thinking this way. Robert was dead now, and she’d done her best to push David from her mind years ago. David had made his choice. When she’d left, he’d never come after her, so that was that. Sure, he’d saved her, but that was his job. Nothing more. She was certain of it.
Shuffling to the edge of the busy street outside the hospital, she waved her arms, hoping to flag down a taxi. Someone out there needed to be saved, her instincts told her that much, and after the torture she’d so recently been through herself, she couldn’t just leave them to that same horrifying fate. If she could just get a cab to stop, she could follow her instincts. The coldness in the air continued to seep into her body, and slowly her feet tingled to numbness. After several minutes with no taxis in sight, she ran into the middle of the street the minute she saw one barreling toward her. The driver slammed on his brakes and pounded the horn. The sound reverberated in her ears, pulling her further from her drugged haze.
The cabbie rolled down his window. “What the fuck are you doing, lady? Get out of the street.”
She inhaled a deep breath and called back to him over the busy sounds of the city. “I need a ride.” Rushing to the side of his cab, she fumbled her way into the backseat, apparently still slightly dizzy from the remaining Ativan.
The cabbie leaned back in his seat and sighed as he stomped on the gas pedal. “Where to, lady?”
“Listen, this is an emergency, and I don’t have any money on me.”
The cabbie glanced in the rearview mirror, eyeing the hospital gown. “Look, lady. I don’t give free rides. Either you pay or you get out of my—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Allsún shoved her hand in front of his face, releasing another swirling puff of faerie dust. She cleared her throat. “So, about that free ride?”
The man blinked as if in a haze before he said, “Free ride? Sure, I can do that. Where to?”
She smiled. “Head toward the south end of the city, and hurry. I don’t know where we’re going, exactly, but as we get closer, I’ll figure it out.”
The pull deep inside her chest increased with every mile, her senses sharpening the nearer they came to their destination. She marveled at how quickly she had burned off the drugs. Her head cleared more with each passing moment. No wonder they’d had her hooked up to the stuff. She’d probably needed a dosage more appropriate for someone three times her size.
When they reached the edge of the city, the tall buildings and industrial sprawl faded into quiet suburbia. Out here the bright lights of the skyscrapers shimmered from a distance, but the streets were dim, lit only by the occasional streetlight. She directed the cabbie through a series of turns until they were fully surrounded by rows of small brick houses. The view of the city disappeared. She would search all night if she had to. Because maybe, just maybe, she could save someone tonight.
* * *
DISPOSING OF A body was never pretty. The metallic odor of the doctor’s blood invaded David’s nose, and he fought not to gag as the scent mixed with the smell of rotting garbage. The open Dumpster smelled more like decaying flesh than the actual dead guy did. Better get this over with. Lifting the doctor’s corpse, he hefted the limp body into the trash. God forgive him. It went against every fiber of his conscience every time, but he always got the job done. A part of him wished he could call up the guy’s family or at least take him to the morgue, make sure he had a proper funeral, but unless he wanted witnesses, that wasn’t a possibility.
Boy, how much fun would it be to explain to the police that he’d killed a man because the guy was possessed by a demon? That one would really go over well with the cops—about as well as fat-free doughnuts and decaffeinated coffee.
After closing the Dumpster lid, he pulled an old black bandana from inside his jacket and wiped down everything he had touched. He couldn’t leave his prints around. Once he finished, he slipped down the alley, hobbling through several back passageways until he reached his parked motorcycle. A sharp pain shot down his leg with every step, and he winced. Damn it.
He let out a long breath and unlatched the saddlebag on his black 2011 Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide, a piece of perfect machinery, if you asked him, and the one beauty who never failed him. He dug around the inside of the saddlebag, then frowned as he uncapped the bottle of hydrocodone. He shook two of the white horse-sized pills into his hand and dry-swallowed them, then placed the prescription bottle in the saddlebag once again. He hated taking the pills, but they were the only way he could operate with his leg as jacked up as it was. At least the doctor insisted the limp and the pain were only temporary, and he’d be healed soon.
Every four to eight hours, depending on his level of pain and the amount of strain he’d put on his muscles, he was reminded of his most recent failures and misgivings.
Robert, that sadistic skinwalker, had tortured the only woman David had ever loved. Kidnapping and torturing Allsún had been pure fun and games for Robert, and because the sicko had torn up David’s leg, leaving him with a limp, David had been humiliatingly unable to save Allsún himself and had been forced to watch as his friend and fellow hunter Jace McCannon did it for him—but not before Allsún had incurred the kind of physical and mental damage she might never recover from. Sure, he’d been the one to actually get Allsún out of the building and to safety, but Jace had been the one to kill Robert.
If only David had been stronger, a better fighter, he could have bested Robert to begin with, and Allsún would have remained safe. He would never forgive himself for all the pain she’d endured. Her suffering was his fault for not protecting her.
He knew nothing good would come from blaming himself, but it didn’t matter. The guilt was enough to hurt him until the day he died. But hell, he had already failed her in so many other ways, what was one more thing added to the list?
A muffled buzzing noise broke his train of thought. His phone was vibrating in the pocket of his jeans. He slipped his hand underneath the edge of his leather bike chaps and pulled out the sleek new phone—courtesy of his fellow hunter Shane Gray. The name “Damon Brock” flashed across the screen. His division leader calling could only mean one of two things: either there was another bitch-fest meeting he would have to attend or a demonic possession had been reported.
Having grown up in Rochester, David had the advantage of knowing all the rabbis in the city, so once he had grown old enough to begin his work as an exorcist, the rabbis had introduced him to the pastors, the priests and the imams, until he had an entire network of holy men aware of the work he did. When people figured out a family member was possessed, their religious leader was always the first person they called. Any time a parishioner reported a possession, someone in the network called Damon or reported it directly to David.
Sure, the system wasn’t perfect, but it definitely helped David find the monsters. He had been called in a few times for some druggies who had taken one too many tabs of the brown acid and were spouting all sorts of demonic bullshit, but for the most part the system worked.
Knowing he couldn’t avoid Damon’s call, he finally hit the talk button and pressed the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”
“Father O’Reilly called. Someone needs you,” Damon said without so much as a hello. Cold and straight-to-the-point, as always. He wasn’t one to fool around with pleasantries, especially where the Execution Underground was concerned.
“What’s the address?” David asked.
“South side of the city. Almost out in the suburbs.” Damon rattled off the info.
David quickly committed the address to memory, pulled out the keys to the Super Glide and mounted his bike. “What’s the situation?”
“A woman from O’Reilly’s parish called him,” Damon said. “She’s certain her husband is possessed by the devil. The Father heard her scream, and then there was a gurgling followed by...nothing.”
“Poor old bastard was probably scared shitless.” David shoved back the bike’s kickstand with the heel of his boot and jammed his key into the ignition.
“There’s a meeting tonight. Come here once you’re finished.”
“Anything else?” David asked.
Damon hesitated before he said, “You know I don’t agree with your theory that there are going to be more murders, but O’Reilly said to tell you the family had an infant.”
“Shit.” Without another word, David hung up the phone.
He turned the ignition key, and the engine rumbled to life. Within moments he was zooming through the streets, cutting in and out of traffic. He needed to get there—and fast.
This night was going great. One dead body was bad enough, and now he had another possession and a bitchfest meeting to boot. Somehow he doubted things were going to get any better.
He didn’t care what the other members of the Execution Underground said or that Damon didn’t support his theory; something big was about to go down with the demons in Rochester, and he was determined to find out what that was. It had been two weeks since the infant girl’s murder, and he’d been expecting more to come. Since he’d found the victim, Rochester’s demons had been quiet—way too quiet for his comfort. He’d never seen such a drop in demonic activity in all the years he’d been hunting. Since the decline in possessions, a feeling of dread had been slowly building inside him. Something in his gut told him these past two weeks had been the calm before the storm.
Beyond the sheer horror of the baby’s death, something just wasn’t right about the situation. Demons rode humans like disposable cattle, but they didn’t kill them for sport. They used them for pleasure, to get their rocks off and escape the hellfire for a while, and if the human happened to die in the process of their twisted games, so be it. But they didn’t set out to kill normal humans, and there was no way a demon would have a good ol’ time possessing a sixth-month-old baby. The little girl’s death was more than collateral damage. Demons were sick dipshits to begin with, but it took a special kind of evil to kill an infant.
Initially, he’d had no leads on the case. During an examination of the infant’s corpse, he’d found little indication of what type of demon had orchestrated the murder, let alone its motivation. Demons left messes behind them, but this one hadn’t. That set off more red warning flags than heroin track marks on a cheap hooker. Those warning signs told him one thing: something bad was about to go down. His best guess had been an Abyzu. The awful little shits were known for preying on infants, using their life force for energy and power. But Abyzu’s, who did set out to kill, weren’t common—at least not since the decline of so-called SIDS.
The whole case was a mess. No evidence, no indication of what was to come, just a dreaded gut feeling things were about to become even messier.
CHAPTER THREE
WITHIN FIFTEEN MINUTES David reached the address. Shutting off the ignition and setting the kickstand, he parked his bike on the street several houses away. He quickly jogged toward the house, ignoring the shooting pain coursing through his leg.
As he crept up the porch steps, the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end. His senses heightened, he listened for the sound of screams or yelling from behind the door. Nothing.
He breathed deep, preparing himself, then froze. The smell of rotten eggs hit his nose, and he swore under his breath. David knew that smell.
Sulfur.
Without hesitation, he slammed into the front door with his full weight. It caved in after two hits from his two-hundred-plus-pound frame. Thank God for flimsy locks and no dead bolts. When his leg still functioned well, one kick would’ve done the trick. He frowned at that thought. As he stepped through the broken doorway, he pulled his gun and cocked the hammer, preparing to shoot. He was so ready to try out those new bullets. Holy-water-filled bullets wouldn’t kill a demon, but they would definitely slow it down for a few moments, and that was all he needed.
He listened intently, trying to get a sense of where the demon was.
After a quick scan of the ground floor, he called out, “Is anyone home?”
An eerie silence answered. The quiet was too absolute. No sounds of talking or movement. His stomach dropped, and something inside told him he wasn’t searching for a demon anymore. He was searching for its victims. Its dead victims.
He charged up the stairs. Agony seared through his leg as he climbed the steps faster than his pain-in-the-ass physical therapist would have approved of, but he wouldn’t allow that to hold him back. Not again. Three bedrooms to scan. Slowly he pushed open the door to the first and stepped inside. From the size and décor, definitely the master bedroom, probably where the wife, who’d called Father O’Reilly, and her husband slept. Unlike the rest of the pristinely organized room, the comforter and bedsheets lay in a twisted bundle, as if someone had shoved them off in a rush to jump out of bed. Otherwise, no signs of anything out of the ordinary. But there was no way he had the wrong house, not with the sulfur he smelled. Even old rotting Easter eggs that the kids hadn’t found for months didn’t smell that potent.
He moved to the next bedroom, gun still drawn. He peeked inside: the room of a teenage boy. Sports memorabilia and a game system, but nothing unusual, just another messy bed. Turning toward the last room at the end of the hall, David stared at the open doorway. A shiver ran down his spine. Most people would have run in the other direction. It didn’t matter what dumbasses movies made the average citizen look like; in the real world, when people felt threatened, they ran, which honestly was the smartest thing to do. Instincts served a good purpose. But it was David’s job not to run.
With a deep breath, he stepped inside. Immediately he lowered his gun. He was standing inside a baby’s nursery. He turned on the light and blinked rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. From the pale pink molding on the white-painted walls and the small onesies lying in a neatly folded pile on a changing table near the crib, he could tell the room was meant for a baby girl. His stomach twisted into knots.
Not again. Dear God, not another baby.
Adrenaline coursed through him, and he fought back panic. He needed to find her, find the whole family, but to do so he needed to stay calm, collected, no matter how much the situation primed him to leap into action.
Where was this family? No signs of a struggle, yet they weren’t here, and the disarray of their beds in comparison to the rest of the immaculately clean house suggested they hadn’t planned on leaving. No, David could tell something had woken them and forced them out of their beds.
Tucking his gun back into its holster at his hip, he limped over to the baby’s crib and peered inside. A single bloodied thumbprint dirtied the white-painted wood. Shit.
As quickly as he could manage, he jogged down the stairs. There had to be something he’d missed. He stopped as he reached the bottom of the staircase. Light shone faintly underneath the door of what he’d initially thought was a closet. He wrenched the door open.
Carpeted stairs descended down into a basement. Several drops of blood stained the tan carpeting. One painful step at a time, David negotiated the stairway. His heart thumped against his chest. The sound rang in his ears in the silence.
Though he’d known as soon as he reached the porch steps that something was wrong, nothing could have prepared him for the sight before him. A large lump crawled into his throat as he surveyed the gore-covered scene. The basement looked as if someone had taken the contents of an entire blood bank and used them to set off an explosion with a messy homemade bomb. Blood soaked the walls, ceiling and floor, seeping into the carpeting.
The whole family...slaughtered.
David stood for several long moments, surveying the scene. There was something not right about this on so many levels. Demons were assholes, and they loved to use humans and leave them for dead, but this? The carnage in front of him made the victims Robert had left in his wake look as if they’d died in their sleep. But the lingering smell of sulfur mixed with the overpowering odor of freshly spilled blood told David he wasn’t imagining things. This was demons’ work.
If someone had told him that a demon had murdered an entire family in cold blood, he wouldn’t have believed it. He scanned each of the family members. The mother lay slumped against the corner of the far wall, her throat slit. Blood covered the front of her nightgown. Her mouth remained open, and her lifeless eyes stared upward to where her attacker would have stood. The cell phone she must have used to call Father O’Reilly sat a foot away from her outreached hand, the screen covered in cracks like spiderwebs.
Across from the wife, her husband lay facedown on the floor, the murder weapon still clutched in his hand after he’d slit his own throat. The wife had been right. From the looks of the scene, the demon had possessed her husband, who’d murdered her and their children before he’d turned the knife on himself.
A sharp pang of sadness hit David in the heart at the sight of the couple’s teenage son. A gaping hole in the middle of his chest showed the brutality of what the demon had done to him. The sulfur-sucking monster had slung the kid’s intestines around his corpse as if they were nothing more than sausage links. This had to be the most sickening scene he had ever laid eyes on, and he had seen some seriously messed-up shit during the year he’d served in the Brooklyn division.
The next thought that came to his mind made him cringe. Where was the baby?
Cautiously, David rounded the staircase to another section of the basement. His stomach flipped. Bile rose in his throat and burned his esophagus. He ran to the nearest trash bin and hurled the contents of his stomach into the small plastic bag. He didn’t have a weak stomach by any stretch of the imagination, but even he couldn’t handle the sight of what had been done to the once beautiful infant girl. He blinked back tears on the family’s behalf.
A dangerous mixture of sadness and pure unadulterated rage rushed through him. He would find the demonic piece of shit that did this. He would find the bastard and painfully torture it for days, weeks, until it was begging to be put out of its misery. Then he would do more than send it back to hell, where it had the potential to crawl its way out again decades later. He would find some sort of spell, some ritual, something to ensure it was tortured in the most painful way possible for the rest of eternity.
David stood in the middle of the basement amidst the dead bodies and the lingering smell of sulfur mixed with the metallic scent of the family’s blood. With robotic movements, he removed his phone and snapped photos of the crime scene for HQ to process and analyze. One step at a time.
He would get the job done, just like he always did, and each time he emerged as a stronger, better hunter...and less of a human being. A normal person wouldn’t have been able to handle seeing something like this and still function. And that was exactly the problem: he could.
* * *
EVERY FAE SENSE Allsún possessed blazed to life when the cabbie finally turned the corner on to the correct street. Immediately she knew they were in the right place, the exact house. Her Fae senses rang like a sounding school bell, alerting her that she had reached her destination. Peering out the front window of the cab, she eyed the broken-in front door. She leaned forward from the backseat. “Stop here,” she said to the driver.
The cabbie had barely braked to a smooth stop before Allsún darted from the car, practically leaping from the vehicle. She burst into a full-on sprint toward the house as the cabbie drove away.
Shite. Was she too late?
As she neared the threshold, the rotten scent of sulfur assaulted her nose. She ran inside, hands up and prepared to blast any demons she encountered with a burst of faerie dust. The place reeked of demonic activity, and she could practically feel the power seeping out from the basement. Were the demons still down there?
She padded lightly down the steps, careful not to make noise. Her stomach flipped as she reached the bottom of the stairs and took in the sight before her. She couldn’t even gasp, couldn’t yell, couldn’t scream, couldn’t cry. Her heart thumped against her ribs, and a wave of anxiety washed over her. She was in way over her head.
She had seen demons do some horrific things in the years she had spent freelance hunting alongside David before he joined the Execution Underground, but nothing she had ever seen then remotely compared to the carnage that lay before her now.
A shiver rushed down her spine at the thought of what kind of creature could have done this, and then she froze as a small click sounded from behind her. The click of a handgun’s hammer.
CHAPTER FOUR
DAVID HAD BEEN waiting all night to test these new bullets, and finally he was being given a chance. He held the Beretta steady, pointing it at the base of the woman’s skull. His voice came out in a low, aggressive rumble. “Don’t move.”
She froze.
He gave one slow deliberate nod as he told her, “Good. Now—slowly—raise your arms.”
Moving carefully, she did as she was told and lifted her hands from her sides, fingers spread so he could see she had no weapons. Holding the Beretta in his right hand, he quickly used his left hand and frisked her, patting down the thin material covering her.
“What’s your name?” He eyed her up and down.
From behind, all he could see was her long curled brown hair. She wore a hospital johnny coat that opened in the back, exposing just the thinnest peek of a round, firm ass. Wait a second. He knew that gorgeous hair and that sweet behind all too well. What the—
Her voice shook as she spoke. “David?”
His heart came to a screeching halt before starting to thump double-time in his chest. The blood pounded in his head. He knew that voice, but...no. It couldn’t be.
She shifted, and the robe moved ever so slightly to reveal a small orange freckle right above the curve of her butt. He knew that freckle. He had run his fingers over it so many times as they made love. Incredibly sexy and perfectly adorable all at the same time.
It couldn’t be...but she was in a hospital gown.
After a long moment, he finally managed to choke out her name. “Allsún?”
She lowered her hands to her sides again and turned around.
David’s eyes widened, and for a moment he forgot to breathe. He took in the familiar contours of her beautiful face. Large green eyes the color of the Irish countryside, full pink lips, high cheekbones and a small button nose that made him want to kiss every inch of her. Man, seeing her alive and well was a relief beyond anything he’d known before. She had lost weight in her already slender face and body during her time in the hospital, but aside from the minor detail, she was as perfect and divine in her beauty as she had always been when they were together. The kind of beauty most women envied. Allsún didn’t need makeup to enhance her looks. She had a natural aura about her, the kind that couldn’t be replicated.
A wide grin spread across his face, and at the sight of her, all the horrors surrounding him melted away. His heart continued to pound. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There she was, alive and healthy. Weeks had passed since he’d last seen her that way, and even then it had only been for a handful of minutes. It was hard to believe that five years had passed since they’d broken off their engagement. There were times when the wounds of her leaving still felt fresh. Hell, he would be lying to himself if he said he was anything but lonely without her around.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said.
Allsún opened her mouth as if she wanted to speak, only to close it seconds later. She didn’t say a word. Instead, she ran.
Shit.
She bolted up the stairs faster than David would have thought possible. Throwing aside any concern for his injured leg, he raced up the steps after her. How the hell could she move so fast? She’d just come out of a trauma-induced coma, and she’d been drugged on top of it, for Pete’s sake. Then again, when didn’t Allsún surprise him? Hell, he sure as shit hadn’t expected her to show up in the middle of the crime scene, still in full patient garb. Only two hours ago he’d been sitting at her bedside while she rested peacefully.
Though Allsún was fast and he was hurt, his legs were still significantly longer than hers. He reached her just as she was about to rush straight out the front door. Grabbing her from behind, he circled his arms around her waist, lifting her clean off the ground.
She struggled against him, feet kicking wildly and hands shoving against his hold. “Let me go!” she shrieked.
David hauled her back into the house, closing the broken door behind him.
Allsún beat her fists against his grip, her words in rhythm with each blow. “Let. Me. Go.”
David fought back a laugh. She was so tiny compared to him and always had been. Did she really think that would work? “Are you kidding me? You wake up from a coma after being tortured, then you show up at a crime scene littered with bodies, and you expect me to just let you run off?”
She tried elbowing him in the shoulder. “Yes.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Allie. You’re not going anywhere. How the hell do I know if your sanity is even intact?”
“I’m perfectly fine.” She pushed against him, grunting as she fought to break his hold.
But no matter how powerful her Fae powers were, she would never match him in the strength department. Their difference in size alone was enough to give him an unfailing advantage.
Loosening his hold, he quickly rotated her to face him. She weighed so little, even less than she used to.
“Let me go.” She kicked hard and caught him straight in the shin. Holy shit, that stung. He bit his lower lip and fought back a curse. Allsún had never had much in upper body strength, but, man, did she have loads of power in her legs. Holding her out in front of him, he walked over to the wall, then pinned his body against hers, holding her in place with his weight so she couldn’t kick him.
But now he had other problems. Shit, if the feel of her body against his wasn’t enough to undo him completely. His cock stiffened as her hips pressed against him. He wanted to kiss her hard and deep, slide his hands down to truly remember the feeling of her body.
No. He couldn’t do that. She didn’t want him like that, not anymore.
“Let me go,” she said again.
He held on to her tight. It didn’t take much for him to subdue her, and frankly, he wanted to keep her pressed against him forever. “I’m not letting you go until you agree not to run off.”
She continued to shove against him. “I won’t make any promises.”
When he didn’t release her, her sweet face twisted into a scowl, and he knew what she was gearing up to do—what she always did when she was beyond pissed at him. Use his full name.
She inhaled a sharp breath, and as she spoke she punctuated each of her words with pure irritation. “David Jonathan Matthew Aronowitz, you let me down this instant or I swear I’ll—”
“Allsún, you need to listen to me. This is really important,” he interrupted her.
Refusing to listen, she continued to scowl at him, and he knew her stubborn side had set in. If he didn’t cave, at least a little, she would keep going for hours, and if he got her pissed off enough, boy, would he regret it. Allsún might be only half-Fae, but that half was of pixie heritage, and while pixies were sweet little things most of the time, you really didn’t want to piss them off. Allsún held true to that rule.
Slowly he loosened his hold, allowing her body to slide down the wall until her feet touched the floor. But he didn’t release her completely, just enough to placate her temper.
The scowl faded slightly. “I can’t stay here, David. I came to help that family, and you know I’m all for saving live victims, but the dead ones are your thing, so since you have this covered, I really need to go and get out of this hospital gown.”
No way was he letting her go when there were demons out there who knew what she really was. “Allie, listen to me. We need to talk.”
Turning her head away, she refused to look at him. “There’s nothing for us to talk about.”
He scoffed. “Really? Nothing? How about the fact that you’ve been in a coma the last month, and now you’re suddenly awake and at a crime scene? How the hell did you get here? How did you get out of the hospital? Jace was heading to the hospital to watch over you as soon as I left.”
Finally she met his gaze again. “No one was there but me when I woke up, so I just left, okay? All of a sudden I woke up. I was lying in a hospital bed, connected to an IV, and when I woke up I didn’t want to be there anymore, so I took the IV out and I left.”
David stared at her for a long moment. She wasn’t serious, was she? “So you woke up, pulled out your IV, decided ‘I don’t really need to be here,’ and then walked out in a hospital gown into the freezing cold Rochester night and decided to follow me to a crime scene? Why wouldn’t you wait for clearance from a doctor to make sure you were okay?”
She ignored his last question. “Followed you? I didn’t have any idea you would be here, okay? I woke up, and I had one of my feelings. I knew that somebody in the area was in trouble, that they were having problems with demons. I listened to my senses. I flagged down a cab, and I got a ride here. I didn’t expect you to be here, that’s for certain. If I had, I wouldn’t have come.”
“I’m the only demon hunter in the city, and you didn’t expect me to be here?”
She flashed him a look that said don’t-be-an-asshole.
David’s eyes widened, and he stared at her in disbelief. Clearly she hadn’t thought a single bit of this through. All the more reason she needed to stay with him. She needed time for her head to clear. “Last I knew, you weren’t hunting demons. What happened to that?”
She frowned. “I haven’t been hunting demons, okay? I haven’t been hunting anything in the past five years, but when I woke up, this feeling of someone being in danger overcame me and I couldn’t ignore it. I’ve never felt a pull so strong. I knew I had to track it to the source, and my senses led me here.”
“What exactly were you expecting to do when you got here? Single-handedly take down a demon with no weapons and protected by nothing but a hospital gown?” he asked.
He loosened his hold enough for her to wiggle free. As soon as she left his arms, he missed the feel of her body pressed against him. He grabbed her hand to keep her from leaving, but she wrenched away from him.
“I hadn’t thought that far through it, okay? Get off my case. What does it matter to you, anyway?”
David’s jaw dropped. “What does it matter to me? I’m the one who’s been stationed at your bedside nearly 24/7 since you were hospitalized. I’m the one who carried you out of that awful warehouse where Robert tortured you. You do remember that, right?”
She met his stare. “There’s no way I could forget that, even though I want to.”
A lull fell between them. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he wasn’t even certain where to begin.
Allsún broke the silence first. “Once the drugs wore off, it all came back to me pretty fast.”
David couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She’d simply snapped out of her coma? That was it? On the very night he’d found out that her life was in danger?
No. It was too coincidental. Her senses were clearly trying to tell her something.
Allsún dropped her hands to her sides in exasperation. “Look, I get that it was dumb, okay? And I can clearly see that I’m not needed here. The carnage that’s down there—” her eyes flicked to the staircase leading down to the basement “—well, you can take care of that. Now that you have the Execution Underground on your side with all their fancy equipment, I’m sure that sort of thing is no problem for you.”
He could hear the slight contempt in her voice at the mention of the Execution Underground. Did it really still piss her off after all these years? She’d left him after he joined the Execution Underground. She hadn’t approved of him signing on. Not that he could really blame her. Hell, he should’ve considered her feelings more back then. He knew that now. He’d been young, naïve and so ready to save the world that he’d failed her in the process. For the first year, every day without her had been worse than the last. He tried to tell himself that things had improved since then, that he wasn’t constantly longing for her to be by his side, and that he was really okay, but who was he kidding? Even being with her like this now was killing him. He shoved the feelings inside, boxing them away where they wouldn’t be so painful. He couldn’t allow himself to go down that road.
She wrenched her eyes away from the stairs and spoke again. “Anyway, I’m out of here,” she said. She moved toward the door.
David stepped in front of her. “I can’t let you do that.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why not?”
“Because I need to watch over you.”
She scoffed. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. In case you hadn’t noticed, I wasn’t kidnapped by a psychotic killer until you and Jace barged into Frankie’s pack. Before that I was fine.”
He winced. He knew it was his fault. He knew that before he and Jace had shown up at K9’s, the club run by Frankie Amato, Rochester werewolf packmaster and Jace’s girlfriend, Allsún had just been hanging out with the werewolves. He had brought Robert into her life. She didn’t need to point that out to him. “Yeah, I know it was my fault, but that’s all the more reason I need to keep you protected now. I know you’ve always been capable, but give yourself at least a few days to recover from what you’ve been through, Allsún. Allow me to watch over you.”
She tried to move around him, but whatever way she turned, he blocked her path. “I don’t need you to watch over me. Robert’s dead, right? If I remember correctly, Jace killed him.”
David nodded. “Yeah, Jace killed him.”
The tense muscles in her shoulders relaxed. “Good. Then, as far as I’m concerned, I’m perfectly safe.”
Without warning, she ducked underneath his arm and started to walk out of his life yet again.
“A few days ago a demon possessed your psychiatrist.”
Allsún froze. She lingered in the doorway for a moment as if she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to leave or not. Finally she turned around. “You have my attention now,” she said.
Relief washed over David. Maybe he could actually convince her to stay. “I went after that demon tonight.”
Allsún wrapped her arms around her body as if she was trying to hold herself together while she listened to him speak. “And?”
His face hardened at the thought of that demonic piece of shit threatening Allsún. “And I killed him.”
“Good,” she said. She turned to leave again.
“But it knew about you, Allie. It knew you’re the last Fae outside the Isle of Apples.”
Allsún turned back toward him. He could see in her eyes that she realized the ramifications of the news he’d just told her. If that demon had told even one other demon about her—and according to the doctor, it had told far more than one—the word would spread amongst them.
As the natural enemy of the demons, the Fae had been engaged in a constant war with them for centuries. But not long before David and Allsún separated, there had been a mass movement of Fae back to the Isle of Apples, an alternate dimension inhabited exclusively by the Fae, a completely different world. Since then David had done plenty of searching, and as far as he could tell, all the full-blooded Fae were gone, and Allsún was the only remaining half-breed outside the Isle. When she stopped hunting, she had gone undetected by the demons. Now that the demons knew she was still here, they would all be gunning for her.
A slight note of panic crept into her voice. “B-but I’m only a half-breed. He must have realized that I—”
“Allie,” he said, cutting her off before she could get herself worked into a tizzy, “you know that doesn’t make a difference to demons. You’re a faerie all the same. You’re still their enemy. Plus, you don’t think it’s strange that on all the nights you could have woken up, this was the one? I don’t know about you, but that’s a little too coincidental for my tastes.”
“Shite.” Allsún swore under her breath. The slightest bit of her mother’s Irish accent crept into her voice. That always happened when she was upset. “What do I do now?”
He stepped forward again. He was barely a foot away from her. He towered over her small frame and scanned the length of her body. She was hardly covered in the hospital gown, and being this close to her still electrified him. His desire for her came rushing back, though he was certain it had never truly left. God, how he’d missed her.
“Stay with me. Allow me to protect you.” He said the words as if the situation were only temporary, only until they could find a way to get her off the demons’ radar again, but deep down he wanted so much more. Being so near her when he knew she didn’t want him anymore was the sweetest form of torture—painful and divine all at once.
She shook her head. “You know I can’t do that, David.”
“Why not?”
She glanced at the floor, refusing to meet his gaze. “Because forgive me if I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t want to spend time with my ex-fiancé.”
Damn. That stung. His face remained calm on the surface, but inside he wanted to scream in agony. He was tormented by so many emotions he couldn’t let out. He wanted to say that he didn’t have to be an ex-fiancé, that nothing in the world would make him happier than getting back together with her again, but instead he settled for, “You know it’s necessary, at least for a few days until you’re back to normal again and can fight off demons on your own.”
“Fine,” she said. “But I want to make it clear that this is not a chance to mend things between us.”
A sharp pain hit him straight in the heart, but he held on to his poker face.
When he didn’t respond, she continued. “I assume that’s not what you’re going for here, but let’s both be adult enough to agree beforehand that dredging up our past is only going to make both of us miserable. So, if I stay with you for the next few days, just until I’m on my feet again and we’ve figured this situation out, we’ll agree to be just friends and nothing more, okay?”
She stuck out her hand to shake on it. He stared at her and couldn’t help but wonder how they’d gotten to this point. How had their relationship gone so wrong? They’d grown up together, been friends since they were young.
It was the summer in between David’s junior and senior years in high school that changed everything. Allsún had been away all summer in Ireland with her mother, while David had spent his free time acting like an idiot and getting into trouble with Jace, who was home for a brief summer break from training with the Execution Underground. Once Jace had shipped off again, the rest of David’s summer was spent watching too many bad cartoons. With Allsún not scheduled to return until the day before school began, David had anticipated the first day of class like a starving man staring at a juicy hamburger. He had never been a bookworm, much less enjoyed school, but Allsún had gotten him into reading, which was the extent of his interest in learning. His excitement for that first day of classes had been solely because of the chance to see Allsún again. He had counted down the days all summer long until he could tell her his thoughts on the books she had left him to read.
But all of that had been blown to hell as soon as he saw her.
The once gangly Allsún who wore glasses a little too large for her face and a retainer, and possessed an unruly amount of curly, slightly frizzy hair, had blossomed into the gorgeous girl who every guy in high school wanted. Over the summer she had filled out in all the right places. Her hips had widened, and her formerly nonexistent breasts had developed and then some. She’d ditched her retainer, giving her the perfect smile, and her mother had finally caved and bought her contacts. Even her once-crazy curls had now fallen in smooth, perfect ringlets without a hair out of place.
Whatever was in the water in Ireland, David was a major fan.
Really, he hadn’t been sure if he was seeing correctly at first. Hell, he’d always thought Allsún was beautiful, even despite all her geeky attributes, but she’d been transformed overnight from his best friend to the girl he couldn’t stop thinking about.
Sure, even to this day he still felt a bit shallow that he wasn’t interested in Allsún romantically until her inside and outside matched in beauty, but he had been a teenage boy then, and he knew now, as a full-grown man, that even in her nerdlike state he would have fallen in love with her.
When she’d walked into the hallway of Brighton High School after that summer, he’d dropped the three textbooks he was carrying, just like a total idiot.
A smile had blossomed across her face at the sight of him, and she’d thrown her backpack to the ground and run down the hallway to launch herself into his arms. “Hey, jerk. I’ve missed you.”
It had taken him a minute to respond. He’d still been trying to process the fact that his best friend, someone he’d never been nervous around, was suddenly the one girl in school he wished he could take advantage of. Shit, that was so not good.
They’d danced back and forth in an overly flirtatious tango throughout the year. They would go from being comfortable with one another one minute to avoiding each other for days the next, because in some way the thought of wanting to kiss and touch the girl he had once considered to be like a sister made him sick to his stomach with anxiety. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, and he hadn’t wanted a romance between them to mess up the friendship they’d shared for so long. But that friendship had already changed as soon as his attraction to her had made itself evident. He’d been certain Allsún had noticed the different way he looked at her.
He wished he could say that he’d swept her off her feet on prom night or something equally cheesy, like Sixteen Candles or all those other ’80’s movies that she loved to watch. But he hadn’t shown up with a birthday cake at her house to declare his love, he hadn’t ridden a lawnmower across her front lawn, held a blaring boom box outside her window, or any of the other ridiculous things that Allsún fawned over in those films.
One night, when she was at his grandmother’s house for dinner and his grandmother had gone to bed, leaving the two of them alone, he’d just done it. Mid-sentence. Without any warning signs.
Allsún had been talking about how his grandmother had offered to teach her to cook, and before he knew what was happening, his hand had been on the back of her neck. He’d pulled her into his lap and was kissing her with so much force the world seemed to spin. She’d kissed him back, and that sealed the deal.
They’d never been “just friends” since.
He’d thought that year of school had been pure unadulterated torture—wanting her but being completely unable to make his move—but that would be nothing compared to the torture of being around her now. Because now he knew her in every way he possibly could, wanted her more than anything, loved her more than anything, knew how great it was to be with her, and he knew how much he wanted to stop boxing all that up and allow himself to go back to the way things had been when they were together.
Back then he hadn’t known what he was missing, but now he knew exactly what he was missing—and the longing was going to kill him.
But he didn’t care.
He would torture himself every day if it meant he was able to see her.
With as much fake enthusiasm as he could muster, he forced a smile on to his face and stuck his hand out to meet hers. They shook.
“Friends?” she asked.
He gritted his teeth. “Friends,” he lied. “And nothing more.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FRIENDS? FRIENDS? WHY the hell did she have to label it like that? She had regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth, and David’s willingness to agree had hit her like a sucker punch to the gut. She was fooling herself if she thought she could ever be “just friends” with David. She’d always cared for him, from the time she thought boys didn’t have cooties anymore until she was old enough to realize her true feelings: that she loved him.
She ran her eyes over his frame. Towering over her at a whopping six foot six, with muscles that put most of the male population to shame, he was quite literally tall, dark and handsome, sporting the bad-boy look to boot in his leather Harley gear. His deep brown eyes were so close to black she could almost drown in their darkness, and the feel of his large masculine hands holding her moments earlier was as divine as it had ever been. Heat rushed between her legs as she thought of all the things he could do with those hands.
No. She shook her head to shove the thoughts away as the handshake ended. She didn’t love him, not anymore. She had moved on from that chapter in her life, left all the memories, both the good and the bad, behind her. She did not love David. She didn’t even know David anymore. Until they’d recently met again, it had been years since they’d last seen each other for any extended period of time, much less spoken to one another. Her gaze traced over his sharply defined features, his prominent cheekbones and jawline. She was forced to admit to herself that David was like a fine bottle of top shelf whiskey that only got better and better with age.
A sudden feeling of self-conscious awareness hit her hard. She doubted he was thinking the same thing about her. She glanced down at herself, unable to ignore her appearance. A hospital gown wasn’t flattering on anyone, and from the lovely breeze she was getting back there, she was certain that her behind was bared for anyone’s viewing pleasure. And her curls probably hadn’t been combed through in ages.
But there she was, standing in front of David looking like something one of her cats had digested and then hacked up all over her brand new carpet. She knew she shouldn’t care, but somewhere a part of her still hoped that David was the same man she’d once planned to marry. The one who would take care of her when she had the flu or comfort her when she was sick, and tell her she was beautiful all the same. He thought he’d been seeing her at her worst then, but damn if she wasn’t vain enough to have put on just a touch of makeup every time before he’d come over.
Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, David began to text a message. “Let’s get you to my place and cleaned up as soon as possible.”
“Who are you texting?” she asked.
“Jace. He’s been blowing up my phone with calls for the last twenty minutes, probably wondering why you weren’t at the hospital when he showed up, and someone needs to watch over you while I finish up here. He can take you back to my apartment.”
“Wait a second. I agreed to stay with you, not to be kept under lock and key.”
“I don’t want you to get another look at what’s down in that basement.”
She rolled her eyes. She wasn’t some fragile china doll that was easily broken, and he knew that. “It’s dead bodies, David. I’ve seen them before.”
“You didn’t see what was around the other corner, and believe me, Allie, you don’t want to see it.”
She crossed her arms. “I’ve seen some pretty gruesome things over the years, David, and you know it. I doubt there could be anything down there that I haven’t seen worse. Remember when that Imp decided to prey on teenage girls?”
A grim look crossed his face. “It’s worse than that.”
Allsún’s eyes widened. She wasn’t certain she could imagine anything worse. She wasn’t weak, but she couldn’t detach herself from the victims the way David could. She had spent hours crying once that case was over with. It didn’t matter that they’d earned justice for the victims. The pain of the victims’ loved ones and their horribly unfair deaths was still with her.
“David, whatever it is, after everything with Robert, I’m sure I can handle it.” No matter her feelings, she wasn’t about to let him baby her. The sooner she could prove to him that she was strong, fully recovered both mentally and physically, the better. She needed to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.
David shook his head. “Allie, I know you, and believe me when I say you can’t handle this one. We both know you’re one tough chick, so you don’t need to prove it to me. Not this time.”
“Fine. If you’re not going to let me help and just plan to keep me...keep me prisoner, then I’m leaving.”
She needed to get out of here and away from him anyway. She shifted to move past him, but he grabbed hold of her wrist. Another wave of electric power shot through her, straight to her heart and the growing warmth between her legs. The energy that flew between them just from his touch was mind-blowing and sexy and a massive reminder of everything they’d once shared. She could have sworn that from the brief look of shock in David’s eyes that he felt it, too.
She forced herself to pull her wrist away and fixed him with a stern glare—the same stern look that had always let him know that he was pushing the envelope with her, and if he kept it up, he would regret it when her anger peaked.
They both knew that hell hath no fury like a pixie pissed off. The last thing she needed was the heartache he still brought her, even all these years later.
David let out a long sigh and tried to renegotiate. “The point is that you shouldn’t be here. You need to be resting. You need to be healing.”
“I’ve been healing for a month, David. I feel fine now that the drugs are wearing off. All my injuries from Robert are gone.” She cringed a little as she said his name. The thought of what Robert had done to her still haunted her. “Besides, I want to get to the bottom of all this, too. I want to know why I was drawn here.”
The pain in his face pierced through her. She saw the guilt he felt written all over him.
He pressed his lips together until they formed a thin line before he sighed. “If you want to stay, then fine, but you’re not leaving my sight. I’m not letting anything happen to you. Not again.”
* * *
DAVID STARED DOWN at Allsún with resolve in his eyes. He had agreed to let her stay with him, but he still didn’t want her to see the atrocities in the basement. After all she’d been through, she didn’t need something like that seared into her memory.
The buzz of his phone interrupted their argument. She turned away from him as he pulled out his cell. Jace’s name flashed across the screen.
He hit the talk button. “Yeah?”
“So I have something to tell you that you’re not gonna be happy to hear.” Jace delivered the words slowly, as if he wasn’t certain he wanted to say them. “Frankie and I are at the hospital, and...Allsún’s not here.”
David eyed Allsún as she paced anxiously around the foyer. “Yeah, I know, J. She showed up here—at the crime scene.”
A string of profanities sounded from the other line. “And you couldn’t have fucking called to tell me that? Frankie and I were scared shitless that a demon had gotten to her before we did. I’ve been calling you repeatedly.”
“Sorry. She just now showed up.”
“Well, that’s a fucking relief. Aside from that, did you find anything?” Jace asked.
David bit his lower lip. He’d found something, all right. Something not fit for human eyes, something so evil it made his stomach churn and his heart hurt. “Yeah, I found something. I’ll tell you about it at the meeting.”
Silence answered from the other end of the line. David could tell Jace was waiting for an explanation.
“J, I’m sorry, man. I can’t even... This is just so evil. I’ll tell you when I get there.”
The images of what lay one level beneath his boots flashed through his mind. Those poor people.
“I’ll see you at the meeting, then. Get the job done, David. For their sake.”
David nodded. “Yeah.”
With a small click, the line went dead.
Allsún stopped pacing and faced him again, arms crossed over her chest. “So, are you going to tell me what else is down there or keep me in the dark?”
“You don’t want to know what’s down there, Allsún.”
“If I’m going to help you, I—”
He held up a hand. “Who said anything about you helping me?”
With a frown, she pointed to herself. “I did. If you refuse to let me leave your side, then you’re going to let me work the case with you.”
“I can’t let you do that. This is different than usual.”
“How different can it be, David?”
He shook his head. He knew Allsún, and he understood completely why she wanted to be a part of this. Back in the day, she had been amazing at hunting demons. They’d partnered together and had been damn near unstoppable, between her Fae power and his exorcist abilities, but that had been before he was a member of the Execution Underground, before Allsún decided she didn’t want to live a hunter’s lifestyle anymore. “Allsún, the demon massacred this family. You know that’s not typical.”
“It’s not typical for me to have premonitions about upcoming demon activity, either, not since I quit hunting. But somehow, in this case, I did—to the point that it woke me up from a drug-induced coma. That means I’m supposed to be involved somehow. If you were in my position, you’d want to be involved, too.”
She had a point with that one. He would definitely want to be a part of the investigation. Well, “want” was the wrong word. No one wanted to be involved with demons, but they did so because they needed to, because they felt it was their duty. Allsún had given up that duty long ago.
“What happened to ‘It can be somebody else’s job’? You told me that it wasn’t my duty to protect people from demons, despite the fact that I was born with this gift. Now, just because you have a feeling, that means that you’re meant to do this? You’re being a hypocrite.”
“Quit dredging up the past.” Allsún pushed past him and marched down the stairs before he could stop her. When she reached the bottom she turned and surveyed the side of the basement that had been blocked from her view before. David heard her breath escape in one large gasp. Shit.
His bad leg burning at every step, he hurried down the stairs as fast as he could.
As he reached her side, he saw that tears were rolling down her cheeks. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close to him. Though the sight of her tears made him ache inside, he relished the feel of her in his arms. God, he had missed holding her like this, being this close to her. They stood together for a few moments before she pulled back, wiping vigorously to erase the streaks from her tears.
He cleared his throat. “I told you it was a horror show.”
Horror show. Talk about a massive understatement. The things the demons had done to the humans before their deaths were sick and despicable, twisted. Only pure evil could have been responsible for something like that. Anyone with an ounce, even a shred, of humanity, would have shown at least some mercy.
She looked toward him. The barest quiver still shook her lip. “So, what do we do now?” She was fighting to get hold of herself. He could see her face visibly change as she transitioned into work mode.
She took a deep, steadying breath. “Back when it was me and you, we would have taken the evidence we needed, called the cops and then continued the investigation ourselves, but...you know. Now that you’re part of the Execution Underground and all...”
“Similar protocol,” David said. “We take photos of the crime scene that will be processed and sent off to Headquarters, if necessary, but in the meantime the Rochester division begins the investigation. We need to be quick, though. We’ll take the samples and leave. We don’t want to hang around in case a neighbor heard something and contacted the cops.”
“I doubt they’ve been called, since they haven’t shown up yet.” She lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “So, once you gather the evidence, then what? Do you take me to your meeting place, too?”
“Yeah, and I debrief the rest of the hunters.”
Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “The rest of the hunters? How many of them are there? Jace and you make two, obviously.”
He’d forgotten her bias against hunters. While Allsún was all for hunting demons, her natural enemy, as a supernatural creature herself, she was wary of the Execution Underground and its policies. That was one of the many reasons why she hadn’t wanted him to join. “There are six total, me included.”
Allsún’s eyes widened slightly, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I wasn’t surprised to find out Jace is one of you. I knew you two would eventually find your way on to the same team, or whatever your unit is called. I know he played a part in getting you to enlist.”
“Don’t be bitter toward Jace. It’s not his fault I joined the Execution Underground.”
“He and Frankie are together now, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah, they’re together.”
Allsún nodded in return. “Good. I’m glad he’s making her happy. Frankie has been a good friend to me.” She paused, carefully considering her next words. “I don’t feel any resentment toward Jace. It’s been...what? Five years now.”
He opened his mouth to tell her exactly how many years, months and days it had been, but she lifted her hand to silence him. “Don’t give me the exact count. Just get your evidence. I don’t know how much longer I can stand to be here. These poor people.”
He closed his mouth and swallowed down the words he’d been about to say.
David scanned the scene. He wasn’t even sure where to start. As awful as the thoughts would be, he needed to re-create the events in his head. The way in which the demon had carried out the murders might give him some insight into its sick motivations. Part of him felt it would be like reading tea leaves—trying to understand remorseless violence was hardly ever fruitful—but on the off chance that something, anything, might give him a hint that would help him catch this murderous hell-crawler, he needed to do this.
According to the information Father O’Reilly had relayed to Damon, the mother had called, claiming that her husband had been possessed by a demon. David walked over to the corner of the basement where the woman’s body slumped against the wall. The cell phone with the cracked screen lying a few feet from her hand was evidence of the truth of that assumption. The husband had died last. From the knife lying in his hand, it was clear the demon had made the man slit his own throat, then undoubtedly hightailed it in untraceable spirit form to the nearest human it could possess. He would put his bet on one of the family’s poor next-door neighbors being its latest suit of flesh. Thankfully demons never changed hosts unless they had to. The process weakened them and was painful as hell. In a way, they were like a parasite that grew attached to its host, never wanting to let go.
Knowing the way the parents had died was helpful, but in what order had the children been killed, and was there any significance to that? And why this specific family?
His eyes darted from the disgusting atrocity on the other side of the basement to the teenage boy spilled across the floor. From the things that had been done to the infant, he could tell that she had been the demon’s main focus. The innocence of the child was clearly an important part of the demon’s plan. What else could draw a demon to a child that way? He stood and crossed the room, though it took everything he had in him not to toss the remaining contents of his stomach into the garbage bin again. In fact, he would need to find a way to dispose of that evidence so he didn’t leave his DNA at the crime scene.
Eyeing the surrounding area, he paused when a glimpse of red caught his gaze. A small spot of blood on the edge of a nearby chair. He moved closer to examine it. A small clump of blond hair was caught in the clotting fluid. Yes, this was what he was looking for. The mother was the only blond in the family, but she was several strides away. Crossing the room again, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. No gashes on her forehead, but no one else was blond. He quickly wrapped the fabric around his hand before slowly tilting her head, which fell forward with an awful flop in the way only dead weight can. He tried to ignore the anger he felt on her behalf and focus on the situation at hand.
Leaning forward, he examined the back of her head until—bingo. A bloodied gash on the back of her skull confirmed what he had suspected. Like any mother would instinctually do, she had tried to save her child. The horror of the scene flashed before his eyes. That poor woman, witnessing her husband doing those awful things to her sweet baby girl. The thought made him sick with pain for her, and he all too vividly imagined the sounds of her uncontrollable screams at the sight of her husband hurting her child. She would have tried to save her baby, but with its supernatural strength, the demon had undoubtedly shoved her away with ease, causing her to fall back and hit her head on the chair. But why not just kill her then, when she was trying to interfere? Her body and phone were on the other side of the room, with no smears of blood across the carpet leading to her to indicate she had died elsewhere and her body had been moved, so clearly the demon had chosen not to kill her right away? Why leave her alive?
Because the demon had wanted her to see....
The pieces of the puzzle fell together in his mind as he played his theory out step by step. But another question nagged at the back of his mind: Why had the woman thought her husband was possessed? Undoubtedly she hadn’t wanted to think her husband was capable of such atrocious violence, but she had been so specific. She hadn’t said he had gone mad or crazy. She’d said he was possessed, which meant the demon had done something to give away its identity. It wouldn’t have shown its demonic red eyes unless she’d somehow managed to hurt it, which she wouldn’t have been able to do unless she had holy water or a blessed relic at hand, which didn’t seem likely, even though the family had been religious.
He thought back to all the crappy B-movies he had seen over the years, which had portrayed demons in some of the most absurd ways and most likely would have been the extent of this woman’s knowledge of the demonic. What could the creature have done that would have...
The thought clicked into place. Latin. The demon must have been speaking Latin or some other dead language her husband wouldn’t have known. That was one thing the films got right, and if the demon had been speaking Latin, that meant it had performed some sort of demonic ritual. That explained the desecrated state of the infant’s body. The horror of the situation hit David like a punch straight to the balls.
The point of the demon’s ritual hadn’t been spilling blood, it had been creating fear. The demon had forced the mother—and the father, while he was possessed and unable to control his body—to watch the deaths of their two children so it could feed off their fear.
David shoved his anger down inside, balling it up in a way he was certain would kill him one of these days. He needed to remain focused. He had already taken photos of the crime scene. Now he needed samples to send off to the lab. If he could find some trace of sulfur the monster had left behind, forensics could analyze it and give him some idea of what type of demon fucker he would be torturing. He made quick work of taking the samples. After pulling the small lab kit from inside his leather jacket, he swabbed the victims’ wounds and underneath their fingernails, and took samples of their hair, anything that could give him insight.
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Kait Ballenger
The Execution Underground - Hunters of the supernatural…But at what price? Exorcist David Aronowitz is a member of the Execution Underground. When a demon slips into the seductive body of the only woman he’s ever loved, David must confront the heartbreak of their past to save her.The piece of her heart Allsún O’Hare gave to David so long ago left her trapped between two worlds:the Fae and the human. Fate soon reunites her with her greatest temptation – and biggest mistake.Swept into a wicked game, David must decide if saving Allsún’s life is worth sacrificing his own – and the future of humanity itself.‘Kait Ballenger is a treasure you don’t want to miss!’— New York Times bestselling author GENA SHOWALTER
Immortal
Hunter
Kait Ballenger
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my dad, Rick Schulz, who has always supported me in everything I do, and who has provided me with all the opportunities I needed to succeed in life. I love you, Daddy.
Praise for
KAIT BALLENGER
“Ballenger offers an extremely promising high-voltage start to her series about superheroes and their adversaries.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Twilight Hunter
“Paranormal fans have a new voice to check out with the debut of Ballenger’s terrific first book in her Execution Underground series.”
—RT Book Reviews on Twilight Hunter
“Debut author Ballenger shows awesome potential and talent.”
—RT Book Reviews on Shadow Hunter
“Kait Ballenger is a treasure you don’t want to miss!”
—New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter
“Nonstop action, pulse-pounding suspense, and red-hot romance … Kait Ballenger’s Execution Underground series delivers in spades!”
—Jaime Rush, New York Times bestselling author
“Action and romance in one mesmerizing story. A phenomenal start to the Execution Underground series. Shadow Hunter will leave you breathless and demanding more.” —Cecy Robson, author of Sealed with a Curse
“Taut with action, suspense, and romance that sizzles, Shadow Hunter is an evocative prelude to what’s certain to be an exciting new series! Fans of J.R. Ward are going to love the sexy warriors of Kait Ballenger’s Execution Underground.” —Kate SeRine, author of Red and The Better to See You
Also available from Kait Ballenger
TWILIGHT HUNTER
AFTER DARK
“Shadow Hunter”
Look for Kait Ballenger’s next novel
MIDNIGHT HUNTER
coming soon
Contents
Chapter One (#u18f38e61-55f2-5c3e-a93c-2b4946f570b0)
Chapter Two (#u382a8ae0-99c8-5575-9720-ce844dcb6223)
Chapter Three (#u6a3662bf-a14c-5903-961e-33083fc0d373)
Chapter Four (#ua77a1faf-8f8d-5048-ad29-bbae7b09d7ec)
Chapter Five (#u29f78779-321f-550b-aaeb-bfccddb1f852)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
DAVID ARONOWITZ UNSHEATHED his dagger and steadied the weapon. The serrated silver blade glinted in the dim amber glow of a nearby streetlight as he slipped into the shadows. He ran his thumb over the edge of the knife. New. Spotless and unused. If he had his way, it wouldn’t be unused much longer.
That demon piece of shit was going down.
He crept farther into the darkness, ears attuned to the slightest noise. The distant sounds of sirens from Strong Memorial Hospital echoed through the night, mixed with the sounds of occasional car horns and passersby. The damp scent of March’s latest snowfall-turned-brown-slush filled his nose. He had only a few minutes until his target arrived, and he couldn’t afford to mess this up.
He didn’t want to leave Allsún. It killed him to leave her bedside. But he had no choice. Jace had agreed to take over his vigil. In his absence, David trusted Jace to keep Allsún safe.
He patted the pocket of his Harley jacket. As he felt his Beretta holstered beneath the leather, a grim smile curved his lips. If there was one thing he loved it was new weapons, and tonight he had two brand-new toys: his dagger and, his personal favorite, the new bullets he’d loaded into the Berretta. Months of trying and finally he’d crafted a bullet that exploded on impact, releasing holy water inside the demonic target. A small part of him couldn’t wait to see the look on the monster’s face when he tested those little beauties.
His current assignment was to trail a demon he suspected was an Abyzu. One of those sick bastards had popped onto the Execution Underground’s radar when an infant girl was murdered two weeks ago. A dull ache pulsed through his heart every time he thought of the horrifying pain her parents had experienced, and would for the rest of their lives.
That baby-killing son-of-a-bitch would pay—no doubt about that, he’d make certain of it. But he had different plans for tonight. An Abyzu wasn’t his target. This was personal.
He shifted behind the Dumpster. A sharp pain shot up his leg, reminding him—as if he could forget—of his last major job gone horribly wrong, and the price of his failure. He deserved the pain. It was a just punishment, because he’d failed her. The one time Allsún had needed him, and he’d let her down. Left his ex-fiancée to the mercy of a sick, sexual sadist.
He gazed in the direction of the hospital, picturing her as he’d left her. She looked so peaceful, lying in the hospital bed with her eyes closed as if she were sleeping, though he knew better. She’d been imprisoned and tortured, and he’d been helpless to protect her. Sure, there were circumstances beyond his control. And, as his fellow hunters liked to point out, he had been the one to save her. But she’d suffered. She continued to suffer.
And knowing her pain was driving him insane.
He kicked the Dumpster with his injured leg, welcoming the sting it sent through his leg. Discovering a demon had possessed the doctor caring for his suffering ex-fiancée while she helplessly lay in a coma had been the chocolate icing on the shit cake.
The demon/doctor was no fool. He surrounded himself with humans, keeping to the busiest sections of the hospital. Shit, David had come close to losing his fucking mind, waiting for the right moment to take the sucker down. He’d been watching the bastard for weeks, and his patience was about to pay off. Any time now the monster would be cutting through the alleyway after the end of his shift.
David paused, and listened. Footsteps approached. He forced himself to focus. It was time. In three, two, one. L’chayim, bitch.
His eyes locked on to the open mouth of the alley, illuminated by a nearby streetlight. As his target rounded the corner and moved toward him, David held his breath and raised his knife for the attack. The sound of footfalls filled the alleyway’s narrow walls, and the whistling wind echoed through the backstreet. With his damaged leg, one wrong move and he would be toast.
The demon’s steps grew louder as David waited to strike. He had one shot to pin the hell-crawler before the monster attacked, or, more likely, turned tail and ran like the little bitch it was. And if the bastard ran, David’s jacked-up leg would make pursuit near impossible.
David focused on his enemy. Suddenly the demon halted mid-stride, on alert, as if sensing the threat lurking in the shadows. David froze, not a single muscle moving. He couldn’t screw this up.
The demon took another cautious step forward. A ray of light from one of the nearby streetlights cast on to the doctor’s face. Shit. This situation was a mess. David had no idea how long the physician had been possessed or, more importantly, whether or not he was still living somewhere inside that skull. He bit back his frustration and reminded himself of the plan. He didn’t want to kill the thing, just pin it down, get the information he needed and exorcise the demon from the doctor’s body. As much as he wanted to carve the monster’s face up for even looking at Allsún, he couldn’t bring himself to go for the kill. Not with the possibility of the body’s original owner being alive.
The demon’s eyes darted around the alley, scanning his surroundings. After several long moments it continued on its way. David smiled. Perfect. He allowed the monster to walk several feet past him, farther into the shadows. Shifting his weight, he prepped for a lunge. The side of his hip brushed the brick wall he stood against, making the slightest sound.
Fuck.
The bastard paused again and turned around.
David didn’t have time to think. He threw himself on to the demon. His torso collided with the lanky physician’s, and he knocked the monster to the ground. He shoved the blade of his knife against the hell-crawler’s throat. The demon struggled beneath him. It wriggled an arm free and clocked David square in the cheekbone.
David’s head snapped back from the force of the blow. His vision blurred. Though the demon’s chosen body was human, the monster’s strength was still of supernatural proportions. The demon possessing the doctor packed one hell of a punch. Damn, that would hurt in the morning.
The hell-spawn seized the free moment, bucking David off and scrambling to its feet. Vision still blurred, David followed suit, quickly regaining his footing. He slashed his knife through the air, backing the demon into a corner between the Dumpster and the wall of the alley.
The demon laughed. “You think a blade will hurt me, hunter?” It put both arms out in a welcoming gesture. “By all means, carve up this nice doctor I’m wearing. You won’t cause me any permanent harm.”
David frowned. Now he was pissed. He hated demons, especially smart-ass ones. He slashed across the demon’s face. A sharp hiss echoed through the alley as the blade seared through its skin. The creature clutched its cheek as steam billowed off the burning wound. David slammed the demon against the wall, pushing his knife flush against its throat.
He smirked. “A blessed blade, you sulfur-sucking fucker.” David pushed the knife harder against the demon’s skin. “And that’s ‘exorcist’ to you.”
The demon swore. David choked back a laugh. What kind of dumbass was this thing? He wasn’t one to brag, but with a reputation like his, the demon should’ve known stepping foot inside Rochester put him smack-dab in the middle of David’s hunting territory. If there was one thing demons hated more than anything, it was dealing with exorcists like him. He sent them back to hell every time—and every demon he’d ever encountered had been desperate to escape Satan’s hellhole for good. It was no easy feat to get here, so they sure didn’t want to be sent back.
David leaned the slightest bit harder into his blade, drawing blood. Another hiss sounded as the cut on the demon’s neck burned and smoked. It writhed against David’s weight.
First for the personal business. “What were you doing at Allsún’s bedside, you freak?” David growled.
A small smile curved the demon’s lips. “Who?” it taunted.
With his free fist David punched the demon in the face. From the crunch beneath his knuckles, he could tell the physician’s nose had broken. The poor guy would have to deal with the pain of the injuries David inflicted, assuming he was still alive, but it sure beat the alternative. David threw another punch, and blood gushed from the demon’s nostrils.
He needed answers, and he needed them now. “Don’t get cute with me, princess. You know exactly who I’m talking about.”
The demon’s eyes shifted from a human brown to a burning bloodred. Its anger showed in the hint of its true form. “You mean the delicious girl I plan to gut from the inside out?”
“If you touch a single hair on her head, I will skin you alive and pour holy water across your open wounds until you’ve sizzled to nothing more than a piece of smoking, rotting flesh,” David hissed. His blood was boiling. The thought of Allsún hurting any more than she already was sent pure rage coursing through his veins. He’d already failed to protect her once. He wouldn’t let it happen again.
The demon grinned through the blood pouring down its face. “And kill this sweet doctor I’m wearing, a man who has saved countless lives? I don’t think so.”
David growled. “You underestimate my hatred for you hell-whores.” He shoved the knife harder against the demon’s throat. More smoke burned from the wound. “Tell me why you’ve been riding her doctor or I’ll exorcise your sorry ass back to hell right this second.”
The demon didn’t respond.
“One last chance.”
The demon grinned. Blood from the doctor’s nose gushed into its mouth and stained its smile a putrid shade of crimson. No answer.
David clenched his teeth. Fine. If the demon wanted pain, he’d give it pain. He cleared his throat and began to recite the exorcism ritual. The Hebrew words fell from his lips with familiar ease.
The veins underneath the demon’s skin darkened until the varicose lines covered the doctor’s whole body. The demon’s eyes blazed an even more fiery red, and he shook in uncontrollable jerks. David didn’t stop chanting, not even to catch his breath.
The demon let out a strained cry. “All right already,” it interrupted him. “Don’t exorcise me and I’ll tell you what you want.”
David waited. The little shit had called uncle sooner than he’d expected.
The demon coughed blood as the blue-and-purple veins covering the body it possessed slowly faded. “She’s the last Fae creature outside the Isle of Apples. I came to kill her, and I would have, if you hadn’t been permanently glued to her bedside.”
Fuck. David fought back a long string of profanities. As if Allsún didn’t have it rough enough already—lying there unconscious while her injuries healed. Now this demon knew what she had been hiding for years, her half-Fae bloodline. Her pixie bloodline, to be more specific. As earthly angels, the Fae were the demons’ only true natural enemy. As one of the last of her kind remaining on earth, Allsún was a danger to them, and she’d gone into hiding several years ago during the last mass exodus of Fae from Earth.
David forced himself to remain calm for Allsún’s sake. He couldn’t let the demon know it was on to anything big. “Who sent you?” he asked.
The demon shrugged. “It’s just me.”
David let out another low growl and slid the edge of his blade across the demon’s throat.
The monster yelled in agony. “I’m on my own. I swear it. I possessed the hospital janitor, and I was riding him for some fun when I came across her. I knew what she was right away, so I decided to toy with her and possessed the doc. I wanted to say I was the demon to kill the last faerie on Earth.”
David met the demon’s eyes and assessed the worthless piece of filth. From its mild strength he could tell it was no head-honcho. Just another lowly bottom-feeder. Probably a Belial demon, if he were to wager a guess. A Belial would be dumb enough to go after someone as valuable as Allsún without orders from its superiors.
“Did you tell anyone else about her?”
The hell-spawn shook its head. “No, no one. You have my word. Just let me go.”
David scoffed. “Your word is worth less than a dead man’s ball sack. I know you demons chatter like gossiping schoolgirls with one another, so unless you can tell me something useful about the demon that murdered that poor infant girl two weeks ago, you’re taking a one-way trip back to hell.” David began to recite the ritual again, his words slow, deliberate.
The veins throughout the doctor’s body bulged again, and the demon shrieked. “Send me back to hell and I’ll tell every demon there about her!”
David froze. Rage filled him as he considered the demon’s words. He was so not in the mood to play around with this sulfurous piss-ant.
The demon grinned from ear to ear. “Looks like you’re just going to have to let me go, exorcist.”
David laughed. “In your dreams.” He punched the demon in the gut. The demon/doctor let out an audible “oof.”
He would exorcise the demonic piece of shit as painfully as possible. He reached for the chain around his neck, pulling the Star of David he always wore from underneath his shirt. He pressed it into the demon’s forehead as he mumbled the ancient words of the ritual.
The demon’s body seized. The screams that reverberated from its throat were anything but human. “For that, I’ll spread the word about the faerie and I’ll kill the doctor, too. He may need to breathe, but I don’t.”
The doctor’s chest quit moving as the demon intentionally stopped breathing, suffocating the body it wore. David quickened the pace of his chanting, mumbling the words as fast as he could. He prayed the doctor was able to fight somewhere in there, was able to force the demon to take a breath.
He was halfway through the ritual and still the doctor wasn’t breathing. Playing out all the possible scenarios in his mind, David calculated his next move. He was damned either way. If he exorcised the demon, he would be putting Allsún’s life in danger once again. Allowing the hell-spawn the opportunity to share the news of her existence was not an option—though for all he knew the others were aware of her existence already. Still, could he take the chance? His only other choice was to kill the demon for good, but that meant he would be killing the doctor, too.
His loyalties clashed—his duties as a hunter to protect the innocent, and the loyalty and devotion he felt for the woman who’d once been the love of his life, even if she no longer returned that love. David gritted his teeth.
Shit.
He shoved the Star of David harder against the demon’s forehead and recited Psalm 91 in Hebrew as fast as he could. Three times. That was all he needed. Just three recitations, and then the ritual would be finished. Allsún would want him to save the doctor if he could. He knew it, but how could he knowingly place her in danger again? And would the doctor already be dead by then anyway?
The demon gasped. The doctor’s face cleared for barely a second. His eyes flashed to their normal shade. The red disappeared as he fought against the demon. “Kill it! I don’t care if you kill me, too!”
For a moment David hesitated. Then, without thought, he plunged the blade into the doctor’s heart. The man’s body seized and shook beneath David’s hold. Blood gushed from the wound in thick spurts. The veins darkened beneath the doctor’s skin as the demon fought unsuccessfully to hang on to its existence. A pulse of energy emanated from the doctor’s body, a signal of the demon’s death. The doctor’s veins faded. The red of his irises transitioned into his normal brown color. His body went limp, but the light hadn’t left his eyes. He coughed up blood, the red liquid oozing down his chin and face.
He opened his mouth to speak. “H-he already told the others,” he rasped. “About...h-her.” The doctor’s body jerked one last feeble time before his eyes went dark, and the muscles in his face slackened.
Blood poured on to the cement as David lowered the doctor to the ground. He stared at the man’s limp form as guilt rushed through him. Shit. He’d wanted to save the doctor. Damn. In situations like this, he always knew it wasn’t his fault, and that he needed to get the job done, which he had. But it didn’t matter. He always blamed himself anyway. Damn it all. Following his first instinct, he clutched the Star of David at his neck and muttered the Mourner’s Kaddish. As the last words fell from his lips, he released his necklace and stepped away from the body.
CHAPTER TWO
THIRTY-SIX HOURS of torture wasn’t exactly easy on the body. Neither was waking up after nearly a month in a trauma-induced coma. Allsún O’Hare found that out the hard way. A pulse of energy shot through Allsún’s body, and she jolted upright, gasping for breath. Every inch of her body ached with a dull throbbing pain. The smell of too much sterilization and cleaning agents assaulted her nose. An incessant beeping sounded like a siren inside her head. She covered her ears as she stared at a white-washed room, her vision blurred.
Shite. Where in Morgana’s name was she? She blinked several times until her eyes cleared, then she took in the scene around her.
“Paging Nurse Robson to the labor and delivery unit,” a female voice echoed over nearby loud speakers. Labor and delivery? She knew there was no way in hell she was in labor and delivery, that was for sure. The last time she’d been there had been when... Oh, God.
Her head spun, and she clutched the sheets over her. Labor and delivery...that meant she was in a hospital, right? Her vision blurred again. Holy faerie dust. No. No hospitals. She hated hospitals. She needed to get out of here. Now.
Her vision spun again. Boy, was she feeling loopy or what? What the hell had they given her? She glanced down at her arm and saw an IV sticking out from the back of her hand. Her eyes followed the tubing up to a clear bag. She squinted at the small printed label on the side of it. Ativan. What kind of drug was that? Nothing she was familiar with from the humane shelter, that was for sure.
She flopped back on to the not-so-fluffy pillow propped behind her head. Why was she in the hospital anyway? Slowly her eyes drooped, as if the lids weighed more than her muscles could bear to handle. How had she gotten here? She...
The image of David’s handsome face flashed through her mind.
With a fresh round of determination, she sat upright in bed again. Though it felt as if she’d lost all muscle control in her hands, she pawed at the IV. She grasped at the tubing in desperation, until finally she ripped it from her hand. She let out a sharp yelp at the pain. A heavyset nurse walking by her room paused at the sound, then turned to see Allsún fiddling with the IV.
She hurried to Allsún’s bedside. Clara, as her badge read, sported platinum blond hair up to the two-inch roots at her scalp, which showed a dark, sharply contrasting brown—clearly her natural color. She smiled with lips that had a little too much burgundy lip liner and placed her hand on her hip. “Oh, no, you don’t. You have to leave that in, honey.”
Allsún shook her head. No way was she letting that human poison run into her veins for another second. Clara left her bedside for a moment, searching a nearby cabinet for supplies. Supplies she wouldn’t need. Scooting to the end of the bed, Allsún swung her legs over the edge. She dangled on the side of the hospital mattress until finally her tiny feet touched the cold, hard tiling of the floor. Still clutching the bed, she stepped forward. Her knees wobbled beneath her and...shite. She crumpled to the floor, her legs so weak she couldn’t even support herself. How was she supposed to escape like this?
At the sound of Allsún hitting the floor, Clar...Clarese?—Allsún’s mind went fuzzy. What was the nurse’s name again? Before Allsún could think about it much longer, the woman was at her side, hooking her under the arms and hauling her to her feet as if she weighed no more than a doll. Maybe she did weigh that little...she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.
“All right, honey. Let’s get you back in bed, okay? We don’t want you falling again. I’m already going to have to fill out a nice big pile of paperwork just because of that little spill. So let’s take it easy, okay?” She eased Allsún back toward the bed.
Allsún planted her feet as firmly on the ground as she could. With every ounce of strength she had, she pulled against the woman’s hold. “No, I’mmm not ssstaying here,” she said, suddenly very aware of her slurred speech.
The nurse frowned. “I know you don’t want to, but you really need to lie down and rest.”
Allsún pulled against the nurse’s hold again, trying her hardest to make her voice sound firm. “No.”
The woman grabbed hold of Allsún’s left wrist, gentle but commanding. “You have to—”
“I said no.” Allsún wrenched her arm away from the nurse. She stumbled several steps sideways, away from the woman’s hold.
The nurse stepped toward her again. Her frown twisted into a look of frustration as she reached for Allsún. “Look, I only have so much patience. You need to—”
Allsún lifted her hand and made a throwing motion. A cloud of sparkling faerie dust emanated from her open palm, as if she’d thrown a handful of glitter straight into the nurse’s face. Immediately the woman crumpled to the floor. Her mouth gaped open as she fell into the best sleep she’d probably had in years.
Allsún blinked two times, the movement slow and sluggish from the weight still forcing down her eyelids. “Thass what you get for m...m...messing with a pi...pixie.” She was slurring worse than a college frat boy on a Saturday night.
Concentrating on keeping her balance, Allsún stumbled out of the room and into a long hallway. After what seemed like an eternity of thinking, she deduced that it had to be nighttime. The lights were dimmed, and no one was in sight. She inched down the hall for what seemed like hours before reaching the nurses’ station directly next to the elevators. Her escape.
A night nurse perched at her desk looked up from a mound of papers. “Miss, are you all right?”
Allsún didn’t answer. She walked up to the desk, made a throwing motion with her hand, and watched the nurse slump onto the desktop with a thud in response to her natural faerie dust. She shuffled past the now-incapacitated woman toward the elevator.
Allsún jabbed the blurry elevator button three times until the doors finally opened. Using every ounce of brain power she could muster through her drug-induced haze, she selected the star button for what she hoped was the ground floor.
The elevator closed with a high-pitched ding. After four floors the elevator finally reached the bottom, and as fast as she could, she stumbled out and booked her way through the sliding glass doors of freedom.
When the doors opened, a huge burst of cold air hit Allsún straight in the face, sending a chill racing through her entire body. She wrapped her arms around her torso in a useless attempt to keep herself warm. She needed to get home before she got hypothermia. Her bare feet stung from the light layer of snow still coating Rochester’s streets. The prickling sensation helped clear her head, like what she imagined a sobering cold shower after a long night of way too much drinking would be like. Not that she would know for certain, since she’d never been the partying type. Not too much to celebrate when you’re spending your days chasing after...
Demons.
The scent of sulfur hit her nose as she passed by an empty alleyway. All at once her senses came alive, and she could feel the natural instinct in her Fae blood calling her. She turned in the direction her instinct indicated, the instinct that told her where demonic activity was, the instinct she hadn’t used in years. Not since that night...
Since then she’d found herself capable of ignoring the call. She knew that the city would remain safe without her. Though David couldn’t be everywhere at once, he was the only human she’d ever encountered who was capable of exorcising demons back to hell instead of just killing them. He could save the victims in a way that not even she could.
But somehow this time was different.
The pull inside her, like a rope tugging hard at the center of her chest, compelled her forward. And how could she not listen to such a strong command? She took another step, and then her head began to clear. She was thankful for her supernatural metabolism. It was burning up the drugs nicely, but...
How had she ended up in her current situation? What had put her in the hospit—
She staggered as the memories rushed back to her in one overwhelming burst.
That thing, the monster that did this to her. The thought of his disgustingly handsome face twisted in a look of pure hatred and malice flashed through her mind. Robert. That had been his name, before the hunters killed him.
She’d been in the hospital because that monster had kidnapped and tortured her, left her for dead. And then David had saved her. The memory of his arms wrapped around her warmed her to her core.
No, she couldn’t think like that.
She shook her head, trying to erase both Robert and David from her thoughts. She shouldn’t be thinking this way. Robert was dead now, and she’d done her best to push David from her mind years ago. David had made his choice. When she’d left, he’d never come after her, so that was that. Sure, he’d saved her, but that was his job. Nothing more. She was certain of it.
Shuffling to the edge of the busy street outside the hospital, she waved her arms, hoping to flag down a taxi. Someone out there needed to be saved, her instincts told her that much, and after the torture she’d so recently been through herself, she couldn’t just leave them to that same horrifying fate. If she could just get a cab to stop, she could follow her instincts. The coldness in the air continued to seep into her body, and slowly her feet tingled to numbness. After several minutes with no taxis in sight, she ran into the middle of the street the minute she saw one barreling toward her. The driver slammed on his brakes and pounded the horn. The sound reverberated in her ears, pulling her further from her drugged haze.
The cabbie rolled down his window. “What the fuck are you doing, lady? Get out of the street.”
She inhaled a deep breath and called back to him over the busy sounds of the city. “I need a ride.” Rushing to the side of his cab, she fumbled her way into the backseat, apparently still slightly dizzy from the remaining Ativan.
The cabbie leaned back in his seat and sighed as he stomped on the gas pedal. “Where to, lady?”
“Listen, this is an emergency, and I don’t have any money on me.”
The cabbie glanced in the rearview mirror, eyeing the hospital gown. “Look, lady. I don’t give free rides. Either you pay or you get out of my—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Allsún shoved her hand in front of his face, releasing another swirling puff of faerie dust. She cleared her throat. “So, about that free ride?”
The man blinked as if in a haze before he said, “Free ride? Sure, I can do that. Where to?”
She smiled. “Head toward the south end of the city, and hurry. I don’t know where we’re going, exactly, but as we get closer, I’ll figure it out.”
The pull deep inside her chest increased with every mile, her senses sharpening the nearer they came to their destination. She marveled at how quickly she had burned off the drugs. Her head cleared more with each passing moment. No wonder they’d had her hooked up to the stuff. She’d probably needed a dosage more appropriate for someone three times her size.
When they reached the edge of the city, the tall buildings and industrial sprawl faded into quiet suburbia. Out here the bright lights of the skyscrapers shimmered from a distance, but the streets were dim, lit only by the occasional streetlight. She directed the cabbie through a series of turns until they were fully surrounded by rows of small brick houses. The view of the city disappeared. She would search all night if she had to. Because maybe, just maybe, she could save someone tonight.
* * *
DISPOSING OF A body was never pretty. The metallic odor of the doctor’s blood invaded David’s nose, and he fought not to gag as the scent mixed with the smell of rotting garbage. The open Dumpster smelled more like decaying flesh than the actual dead guy did. Better get this over with. Lifting the doctor’s corpse, he hefted the limp body into the trash. God forgive him. It went against every fiber of his conscience every time, but he always got the job done. A part of him wished he could call up the guy’s family or at least take him to the morgue, make sure he had a proper funeral, but unless he wanted witnesses, that wasn’t a possibility.
Boy, how much fun would it be to explain to the police that he’d killed a man because the guy was possessed by a demon? That one would really go over well with the cops—about as well as fat-free doughnuts and decaffeinated coffee.
After closing the Dumpster lid, he pulled an old black bandana from inside his jacket and wiped down everything he had touched. He couldn’t leave his prints around. Once he finished, he slipped down the alley, hobbling through several back passageways until he reached his parked motorcycle. A sharp pain shot down his leg with every step, and he winced. Damn it.
He let out a long breath and unlatched the saddlebag on his black 2011 Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide, a piece of perfect machinery, if you asked him, and the one beauty who never failed him. He dug around the inside of the saddlebag, then frowned as he uncapped the bottle of hydrocodone. He shook two of the white horse-sized pills into his hand and dry-swallowed them, then placed the prescription bottle in the saddlebag once again. He hated taking the pills, but they were the only way he could operate with his leg as jacked up as it was. At least the doctor insisted the limp and the pain were only temporary, and he’d be healed soon.
Every four to eight hours, depending on his level of pain and the amount of strain he’d put on his muscles, he was reminded of his most recent failures and misgivings.
Robert, that sadistic skinwalker, had tortured the only woman David had ever loved. Kidnapping and torturing Allsún had been pure fun and games for Robert, and because the sicko had torn up David’s leg, leaving him with a limp, David had been humiliatingly unable to save Allsún himself and had been forced to watch as his friend and fellow hunter Jace McCannon did it for him—but not before Allsún had incurred the kind of physical and mental damage she might never recover from. Sure, he’d been the one to actually get Allsún out of the building and to safety, but Jace had been the one to kill Robert.
If only David had been stronger, a better fighter, he could have bested Robert to begin with, and Allsún would have remained safe. He would never forgive himself for all the pain she’d endured. Her suffering was his fault for not protecting her.
He knew nothing good would come from blaming himself, but it didn’t matter. The guilt was enough to hurt him until the day he died. But hell, he had already failed her in so many other ways, what was one more thing added to the list?
A muffled buzzing noise broke his train of thought. His phone was vibrating in the pocket of his jeans. He slipped his hand underneath the edge of his leather bike chaps and pulled out the sleek new phone—courtesy of his fellow hunter Shane Gray. The name “Damon Brock” flashed across the screen. His division leader calling could only mean one of two things: either there was another bitch-fest meeting he would have to attend or a demonic possession had been reported.
Having grown up in Rochester, David had the advantage of knowing all the rabbis in the city, so once he had grown old enough to begin his work as an exorcist, the rabbis had introduced him to the pastors, the priests and the imams, until he had an entire network of holy men aware of the work he did. When people figured out a family member was possessed, their religious leader was always the first person they called. Any time a parishioner reported a possession, someone in the network called Damon or reported it directly to David.
Sure, the system wasn’t perfect, but it definitely helped David find the monsters. He had been called in a few times for some druggies who had taken one too many tabs of the brown acid and were spouting all sorts of demonic bullshit, but for the most part the system worked.
Knowing he couldn’t avoid Damon’s call, he finally hit the talk button and pressed the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”
“Father O’Reilly called. Someone needs you,” Damon said without so much as a hello. Cold and straight-to-the-point, as always. He wasn’t one to fool around with pleasantries, especially where the Execution Underground was concerned.
“What’s the address?” David asked.
“South side of the city. Almost out in the suburbs.” Damon rattled off the info.
David quickly committed the address to memory, pulled out the keys to the Super Glide and mounted his bike. “What’s the situation?”
“A woman from O’Reilly’s parish called him,” Damon said. “She’s certain her husband is possessed by the devil. The Father heard her scream, and then there was a gurgling followed by...nothing.”
“Poor old bastard was probably scared shitless.” David shoved back the bike’s kickstand with the heel of his boot and jammed his key into the ignition.
“There’s a meeting tonight. Come here once you’re finished.”
“Anything else?” David asked.
Damon hesitated before he said, “You know I don’t agree with your theory that there are going to be more murders, but O’Reilly said to tell you the family had an infant.”
“Shit.” Without another word, David hung up the phone.
He turned the ignition key, and the engine rumbled to life. Within moments he was zooming through the streets, cutting in and out of traffic. He needed to get there—and fast.
This night was going great. One dead body was bad enough, and now he had another possession and a bitchfest meeting to boot. Somehow he doubted things were going to get any better.
He didn’t care what the other members of the Execution Underground said or that Damon didn’t support his theory; something big was about to go down with the demons in Rochester, and he was determined to find out what that was. It had been two weeks since the infant girl’s murder, and he’d been expecting more to come. Since he’d found the victim, Rochester’s demons had been quiet—way too quiet for his comfort. He’d never seen such a drop in demonic activity in all the years he’d been hunting. Since the decline in possessions, a feeling of dread had been slowly building inside him. Something in his gut told him these past two weeks had been the calm before the storm.
Beyond the sheer horror of the baby’s death, something just wasn’t right about the situation. Demons rode humans like disposable cattle, but they didn’t kill them for sport. They used them for pleasure, to get their rocks off and escape the hellfire for a while, and if the human happened to die in the process of their twisted games, so be it. But they didn’t set out to kill normal humans, and there was no way a demon would have a good ol’ time possessing a sixth-month-old baby. The little girl’s death was more than collateral damage. Demons were sick dipshits to begin with, but it took a special kind of evil to kill an infant.
Initially, he’d had no leads on the case. During an examination of the infant’s corpse, he’d found little indication of what type of demon had orchestrated the murder, let alone its motivation. Demons left messes behind them, but this one hadn’t. That set off more red warning flags than heroin track marks on a cheap hooker. Those warning signs told him one thing: something bad was about to go down. His best guess had been an Abyzu. The awful little shits were known for preying on infants, using their life force for energy and power. But Abyzu’s, who did set out to kill, weren’t common—at least not since the decline of so-called SIDS.
The whole case was a mess. No evidence, no indication of what was to come, just a dreaded gut feeling things were about to become even messier.
CHAPTER THREE
WITHIN FIFTEEN MINUTES David reached the address. Shutting off the ignition and setting the kickstand, he parked his bike on the street several houses away. He quickly jogged toward the house, ignoring the shooting pain coursing through his leg.
As he crept up the porch steps, the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end. His senses heightened, he listened for the sound of screams or yelling from behind the door. Nothing.
He breathed deep, preparing himself, then froze. The smell of rotten eggs hit his nose, and he swore under his breath. David knew that smell.
Sulfur.
Without hesitation, he slammed into the front door with his full weight. It caved in after two hits from his two-hundred-plus-pound frame. Thank God for flimsy locks and no dead bolts. When his leg still functioned well, one kick would’ve done the trick. He frowned at that thought. As he stepped through the broken doorway, he pulled his gun and cocked the hammer, preparing to shoot. He was so ready to try out those new bullets. Holy-water-filled bullets wouldn’t kill a demon, but they would definitely slow it down for a few moments, and that was all he needed.
He listened intently, trying to get a sense of where the demon was.
After a quick scan of the ground floor, he called out, “Is anyone home?”
An eerie silence answered. The quiet was too absolute. No sounds of talking or movement. His stomach dropped, and something inside told him he wasn’t searching for a demon anymore. He was searching for its victims. Its dead victims.
He charged up the stairs. Agony seared through his leg as he climbed the steps faster than his pain-in-the-ass physical therapist would have approved of, but he wouldn’t allow that to hold him back. Not again. Three bedrooms to scan. Slowly he pushed open the door to the first and stepped inside. From the size and décor, definitely the master bedroom, probably where the wife, who’d called Father O’Reilly, and her husband slept. Unlike the rest of the pristinely organized room, the comforter and bedsheets lay in a twisted bundle, as if someone had shoved them off in a rush to jump out of bed. Otherwise, no signs of anything out of the ordinary. But there was no way he had the wrong house, not with the sulfur he smelled. Even old rotting Easter eggs that the kids hadn’t found for months didn’t smell that potent.
He moved to the next bedroom, gun still drawn. He peeked inside: the room of a teenage boy. Sports memorabilia and a game system, but nothing unusual, just another messy bed. Turning toward the last room at the end of the hall, David stared at the open doorway. A shiver ran down his spine. Most people would have run in the other direction. It didn’t matter what dumbasses movies made the average citizen look like; in the real world, when people felt threatened, they ran, which honestly was the smartest thing to do. Instincts served a good purpose. But it was David’s job not to run.
With a deep breath, he stepped inside. Immediately he lowered his gun. He was standing inside a baby’s nursery. He turned on the light and blinked rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. From the pale pink molding on the white-painted walls and the small onesies lying in a neatly folded pile on a changing table near the crib, he could tell the room was meant for a baby girl. His stomach twisted into knots.
Not again. Dear God, not another baby.
Adrenaline coursed through him, and he fought back panic. He needed to find her, find the whole family, but to do so he needed to stay calm, collected, no matter how much the situation primed him to leap into action.
Where was this family? No signs of a struggle, yet they weren’t here, and the disarray of their beds in comparison to the rest of the immaculately clean house suggested they hadn’t planned on leaving. No, David could tell something had woken them and forced them out of their beds.
Tucking his gun back into its holster at his hip, he limped over to the baby’s crib and peered inside. A single bloodied thumbprint dirtied the white-painted wood. Shit.
As quickly as he could manage, he jogged down the stairs. There had to be something he’d missed. He stopped as he reached the bottom of the staircase. Light shone faintly underneath the door of what he’d initially thought was a closet. He wrenched the door open.
Carpeted stairs descended down into a basement. Several drops of blood stained the tan carpeting. One painful step at a time, David negotiated the stairway. His heart thumped against his chest. The sound rang in his ears in the silence.
Though he’d known as soon as he reached the porch steps that something was wrong, nothing could have prepared him for the sight before him. A large lump crawled into his throat as he surveyed the gore-covered scene. The basement looked as if someone had taken the contents of an entire blood bank and used them to set off an explosion with a messy homemade bomb. Blood soaked the walls, ceiling and floor, seeping into the carpeting.
The whole family...slaughtered.
David stood for several long moments, surveying the scene. There was something not right about this on so many levels. Demons were assholes, and they loved to use humans and leave them for dead, but this? The carnage in front of him made the victims Robert had left in his wake look as if they’d died in their sleep. But the lingering smell of sulfur mixed with the overpowering odor of freshly spilled blood told David he wasn’t imagining things. This was demons’ work.
If someone had told him that a demon had murdered an entire family in cold blood, he wouldn’t have believed it. He scanned each of the family members. The mother lay slumped against the corner of the far wall, her throat slit. Blood covered the front of her nightgown. Her mouth remained open, and her lifeless eyes stared upward to where her attacker would have stood. The cell phone she must have used to call Father O’Reilly sat a foot away from her outreached hand, the screen covered in cracks like spiderwebs.
Across from the wife, her husband lay facedown on the floor, the murder weapon still clutched in his hand after he’d slit his own throat. The wife had been right. From the looks of the scene, the demon had possessed her husband, who’d murdered her and their children before he’d turned the knife on himself.
A sharp pang of sadness hit David in the heart at the sight of the couple’s teenage son. A gaping hole in the middle of his chest showed the brutality of what the demon had done to him. The sulfur-sucking monster had slung the kid’s intestines around his corpse as if they were nothing more than sausage links. This had to be the most sickening scene he had ever laid eyes on, and he had seen some seriously messed-up shit during the year he’d served in the Brooklyn division.
The next thought that came to his mind made him cringe. Where was the baby?
Cautiously, David rounded the staircase to another section of the basement. His stomach flipped. Bile rose in his throat and burned his esophagus. He ran to the nearest trash bin and hurled the contents of his stomach into the small plastic bag. He didn’t have a weak stomach by any stretch of the imagination, but even he couldn’t handle the sight of what had been done to the once beautiful infant girl. He blinked back tears on the family’s behalf.
A dangerous mixture of sadness and pure unadulterated rage rushed through him. He would find the demonic piece of shit that did this. He would find the bastard and painfully torture it for days, weeks, until it was begging to be put out of its misery. Then he would do more than send it back to hell, where it had the potential to crawl its way out again decades later. He would find some sort of spell, some ritual, something to ensure it was tortured in the most painful way possible for the rest of eternity.
David stood in the middle of the basement amidst the dead bodies and the lingering smell of sulfur mixed with the metallic scent of the family’s blood. With robotic movements, he removed his phone and snapped photos of the crime scene for HQ to process and analyze. One step at a time.
He would get the job done, just like he always did, and each time he emerged as a stronger, better hunter...and less of a human being. A normal person wouldn’t have been able to handle seeing something like this and still function. And that was exactly the problem: he could.
* * *
EVERY FAE SENSE Allsún possessed blazed to life when the cabbie finally turned the corner on to the correct street. Immediately she knew they were in the right place, the exact house. Her Fae senses rang like a sounding school bell, alerting her that she had reached her destination. Peering out the front window of the cab, she eyed the broken-in front door. She leaned forward from the backseat. “Stop here,” she said to the driver.
The cabbie had barely braked to a smooth stop before Allsún darted from the car, practically leaping from the vehicle. She burst into a full-on sprint toward the house as the cabbie drove away.
Shite. Was she too late?
As she neared the threshold, the rotten scent of sulfur assaulted her nose. She ran inside, hands up and prepared to blast any demons she encountered with a burst of faerie dust. The place reeked of demonic activity, and she could practically feel the power seeping out from the basement. Were the demons still down there?
She padded lightly down the steps, careful not to make noise. Her stomach flipped as she reached the bottom of the stairs and took in the sight before her. She couldn’t even gasp, couldn’t yell, couldn’t scream, couldn’t cry. Her heart thumped against her ribs, and a wave of anxiety washed over her. She was in way over her head.
She had seen demons do some horrific things in the years she had spent freelance hunting alongside David before he joined the Execution Underground, but nothing she had ever seen then remotely compared to the carnage that lay before her now.
A shiver rushed down her spine at the thought of what kind of creature could have done this, and then she froze as a small click sounded from behind her. The click of a handgun’s hammer.
CHAPTER FOUR
DAVID HAD BEEN waiting all night to test these new bullets, and finally he was being given a chance. He held the Beretta steady, pointing it at the base of the woman’s skull. His voice came out in a low, aggressive rumble. “Don’t move.”
She froze.
He gave one slow deliberate nod as he told her, “Good. Now—slowly—raise your arms.”
Moving carefully, she did as she was told and lifted her hands from her sides, fingers spread so he could see she had no weapons. Holding the Beretta in his right hand, he quickly used his left hand and frisked her, patting down the thin material covering her.
“What’s your name?” He eyed her up and down.
From behind, all he could see was her long curled brown hair. She wore a hospital johnny coat that opened in the back, exposing just the thinnest peek of a round, firm ass. Wait a second. He knew that gorgeous hair and that sweet behind all too well. What the—
Her voice shook as she spoke. “David?”
His heart came to a screeching halt before starting to thump double-time in his chest. The blood pounded in his head. He knew that voice, but...no. It couldn’t be.
She shifted, and the robe moved ever so slightly to reveal a small orange freckle right above the curve of her butt. He knew that freckle. He had run his fingers over it so many times as they made love. Incredibly sexy and perfectly adorable all at the same time.
It couldn’t be...but she was in a hospital gown.
After a long moment, he finally managed to choke out her name. “Allsún?”
She lowered her hands to her sides again and turned around.
David’s eyes widened, and for a moment he forgot to breathe. He took in the familiar contours of her beautiful face. Large green eyes the color of the Irish countryside, full pink lips, high cheekbones and a small button nose that made him want to kiss every inch of her. Man, seeing her alive and well was a relief beyond anything he’d known before. She had lost weight in her already slender face and body during her time in the hospital, but aside from the minor detail, she was as perfect and divine in her beauty as she had always been when they were together. The kind of beauty most women envied. Allsún didn’t need makeup to enhance her looks. She had a natural aura about her, the kind that couldn’t be replicated.
A wide grin spread across his face, and at the sight of her, all the horrors surrounding him melted away. His heart continued to pound. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There she was, alive and healthy. Weeks had passed since he’d last seen her that way, and even then it had only been for a handful of minutes. It was hard to believe that five years had passed since they’d broken off their engagement. There were times when the wounds of her leaving still felt fresh. Hell, he would be lying to himself if he said he was anything but lonely without her around.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said.
Allsún opened her mouth as if she wanted to speak, only to close it seconds later. She didn’t say a word. Instead, she ran.
Shit.
She bolted up the stairs faster than David would have thought possible. Throwing aside any concern for his injured leg, he raced up the steps after her. How the hell could she move so fast? She’d just come out of a trauma-induced coma, and she’d been drugged on top of it, for Pete’s sake. Then again, when didn’t Allsún surprise him? Hell, he sure as shit hadn’t expected her to show up in the middle of the crime scene, still in full patient garb. Only two hours ago he’d been sitting at her bedside while she rested peacefully.
Though Allsún was fast and he was hurt, his legs were still significantly longer than hers. He reached her just as she was about to rush straight out the front door. Grabbing her from behind, he circled his arms around her waist, lifting her clean off the ground.
She struggled against him, feet kicking wildly and hands shoving against his hold. “Let me go!” she shrieked.
David hauled her back into the house, closing the broken door behind him.
Allsún beat her fists against his grip, her words in rhythm with each blow. “Let. Me. Go.”
David fought back a laugh. She was so tiny compared to him and always had been. Did she really think that would work? “Are you kidding me? You wake up from a coma after being tortured, then you show up at a crime scene littered with bodies, and you expect me to just let you run off?”
She tried elbowing him in the shoulder. “Yes.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Allie. You’re not going anywhere. How the hell do I know if your sanity is even intact?”
“I’m perfectly fine.” She pushed against him, grunting as she fought to break his hold.
But no matter how powerful her Fae powers were, she would never match him in the strength department. Their difference in size alone was enough to give him an unfailing advantage.
Loosening his hold, he quickly rotated her to face him. She weighed so little, even less than she used to.
“Let me go.” She kicked hard and caught him straight in the shin. Holy shit, that stung. He bit his lower lip and fought back a curse. Allsún had never had much in upper body strength, but, man, did she have loads of power in her legs. Holding her out in front of him, he walked over to the wall, then pinned his body against hers, holding her in place with his weight so she couldn’t kick him.
But now he had other problems. Shit, if the feel of her body against his wasn’t enough to undo him completely. His cock stiffened as her hips pressed against him. He wanted to kiss her hard and deep, slide his hands down to truly remember the feeling of her body.
No. He couldn’t do that. She didn’t want him like that, not anymore.
“Let me go,” she said again.
He held on to her tight. It didn’t take much for him to subdue her, and frankly, he wanted to keep her pressed against him forever. “I’m not letting you go until you agree not to run off.”
She continued to shove against him. “I won’t make any promises.”
When he didn’t release her, her sweet face twisted into a scowl, and he knew what she was gearing up to do—what she always did when she was beyond pissed at him. Use his full name.
She inhaled a sharp breath, and as she spoke she punctuated each of her words with pure irritation. “David Jonathan Matthew Aronowitz, you let me down this instant or I swear I’ll—”
“Allsún, you need to listen to me. This is really important,” he interrupted her.
Refusing to listen, she continued to scowl at him, and he knew her stubborn side had set in. If he didn’t cave, at least a little, she would keep going for hours, and if he got her pissed off enough, boy, would he regret it. Allsún might be only half-Fae, but that half was of pixie heritage, and while pixies were sweet little things most of the time, you really didn’t want to piss them off. Allsún held true to that rule.
Slowly he loosened his hold, allowing her body to slide down the wall until her feet touched the floor. But he didn’t release her completely, just enough to placate her temper.
The scowl faded slightly. “I can’t stay here, David. I came to help that family, and you know I’m all for saving live victims, but the dead ones are your thing, so since you have this covered, I really need to go and get out of this hospital gown.”
No way was he letting her go when there were demons out there who knew what she really was. “Allie, listen to me. We need to talk.”
Turning her head away, she refused to look at him. “There’s nothing for us to talk about.”
He scoffed. “Really? Nothing? How about the fact that you’ve been in a coma the last month, and now you’re suddenly awake and at a crime scene? How the hell did you get here? How did you get out of the hospital? Jace was heading to the hospital to watch over you as soon as I left.”
Finally she met his gaze again. “No one was there but me when I woke up, so I just left, okay? All of a sudden I woke up. I was lying in a hospital bed, connected to an IV, and when I woke up I didn’t want to be there anymore, so I took the IV out and I left.”
David stared at her for a long moment. She wasn’t serious, was she? “So you woke up, pulled out your IV, decided ‘I don’t really need to be here,’ and then walked out in a hospital gown into the freezing cold Rochester night and decided to follow me to a crime scene? Why wouldn’t you wait for clearance from a doctor to make sure you were okay?”
She ignored his last question. “Followed you? I didn’t have any idea you would be here, okay? I woke up, and I had one of my feelings. I knew that somebody in the area was in trouble, that they were having problems with demons. I listened to my senses. I flagged down a cab, and I got a ride here. I didn’t expect you to be here, that’s for certain. If I had, I wouldn’t have come.”
“I’m the only demon hunter in the city, and you didn’t expect me to be here?”
She flashed him a look that said don’t-be-an-asshole.
David’s eyes widened, and he stared at her in disbelief. Clearly she hadn’t thought a single bit of this through. All the more reason she needed to stay with him. She needed time for her head to clear. “Last I knew, you weren’t hunting demons. What happened to that?”
She frowned. “I haven’t been hunting demons, okay? I haven’t been hunting anything in the past five years, but when I woke up, this feeling of someone being in danger overcame me and I couldn’t ignore it. I’ve never felt a pull so strong. I knew I had to track it to the source, and my senses led me here.”
“What exactly were you expecting to do when you got here? Single-handedly take down a demon with no weapons and protected by nothing but a hospital gown?” he asked.
He loosened his hold enough for her to wiggle free. As soon as she left his arms, he missed the feel of her body pressed against him. He grabbed her hand to keep her from leaving, but she wrenched away from him.
“I hadn’t thought that far through it, okay? Get off my case. What does it matter to you, anyway?”
David’s jaw dropped. “What does it matter to me? I’m the one who’s been stationed at your bedside nearly 24/7 since you were hospitalized. I’m the one who carried you out of that awful warehouse where Robert tortured you. You do remember that, right?”
She met his stare. “There’s no way I could forget that, even though I want to.”
A lull fell between them. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he wasn’t even certain where to begin.
Allsún broke the silence first. “Once the drugs wore off, it all came back to me pretty fast.”
David couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She’d simply snapped out of her coma? That was it? On the very night he’d found out that her life was in danger?
No. It was too coincidental. Her senses were clearly trying to tell her something.
Allsún dropped her hands to her sides in exasperation. “Look, I get that it was dumb, okay? And I can clearly see that I’m not needed here. The carnage that’s down there—” her eyes flicked to the staircase leading down to the basement “—well, you can take care of that. Now that you have the Execution Underground on your side with all their fancy equipment, I’m sure that sort of thing is no problem for you.”
He could hear the slight contempt in her voice at the mention of the Execution Underground. Did it really still piss her off after all these years? She’d left him after he joined the Execution Underground. She hadn’t approved of him signing on. Not that he could really blame her. Hell, he should’ve considered her feelings more back then. He knew that now. He’d been young, naïve and so ready to save the world that he’d failed her in the process. For the first year, every day without her had been worse than the last. He tried to tell himself that things had improved since then, that he wasn’t constantly longing for her to be by his side, and that he was really okay, but who was he kidding? Even being with her like this now was killing him. He shoved the feelings inside, boxing them away where they wouldn’t be so painful. He couldn’t allow himself to go down that road.
She wrenched her eyes away from the stairs and spoke again. “Anyway, I’m out of here,” she said. She moved toward the door.
David stepped in front of her. “I can’t let you do that.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why not?”
“Because I need to watch over you.”
She scoffed. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. In case you hadn’t noticed, I wasn’t kidnapped by a psychotic killer until you and Jace barged into Frankie’s pack. Before that I was fine.”
He winced. He knew it was his fault. He knew that before he and Jace had shown up at K9’s, the club run by Frankie Amato, Rochester werewolf packmaster and Jace’s girlfriend, Allsún had just been hanging out with the werewolves. He had brought Robert into her life. She didn’t need to point that out to him. “Yeah, I know it was my fault, but that’s all the more reason I need to keep you protected now. I know you’ve always been capable, but give yourself at least a few days to recover from what you’ve been through, Allsún. Allow me to watch over you.”
She tried to move around him, but whatever way she turned, he blocked her path. “I don’t need you to watch over me. Robert’s dead, right? If I remember correctly, Jace killed him.”
David nodded. “Yeah, Jace killed him.”
The tense muscles in her shoulders relaxed. “Good. Then, as far as I’m concerned, I’m perfectly safe.”
Without warning, she ducked underneath his arm and started to walk out of his life yet again.
“A few days ago a demon possessed your psychiatrist.”
Allsún froze. She lingered in the doorway for a moment as if she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to leave or not. Finally she turned around. “You have my attention now,” she said.
Relief washed over David. Maybe he could actually convince her to stay. “I went after that demon tonight.”
Allsún wrapped her arms around her body as if she was trying to hold herself together while she listened to him speak. “And?”
His face hardened at the thought of that demonic piece of shit threatening Allsún. “And I killed him.”
“Good,” she said. She turned to leave again.
“But it knew about you, Allie. It knew you’re the last Fae outside the Isle of Apples.”
Allsún turned back toward him. He could see in her eyes that she realized the ramifications of the news he’d just told her. If that demon had told even one other demon about her—and according to the doctor, it had told far more than one—the word would spread amongst them.
As the natural enemy of the demons, the Fae had been engaged in a constant war with them for centuries. But not long before David and Allsún separated, there had been a mass movement of Fae back to the Isle of Apples, an alternate dimension inhabited exclusively by the Fae, a completely different world. Since then David had done plenty of searching, and as far as he could tell, all the full-blooded Fae were gone, and Allsún was the only remaining half-breed outside the Isle. When she stopped hunting, she had gone undetected by the demons. Now that the demons knew she was still here, they would all be gunning for her.
A slight note of panic crept into her voice. “B-but I’m only a half-breed. He must have realized that I—”
“Allie,” he said, cutting her off before she could get herself worked into a tizzy, “you know that doesn’t make a difference to demons. You’re a faerie all the same. You’re still their enemy. Plus, you don’t think it’s strange that on all the nights you could have woken up, this was the one? I don’t know about you, but that’s a little too coincidental for my tastes.”
“Shite.” Allsún swore under her breath. The slightest bit of her mother’s Irish accent crept into her voice. That always happened when she was upset. “What do I do now?”
He stepped forward again. He was barely a foot away from her. He towered over her small frame and scanned the length of her body. She was hardly covered in the hospital gown, and being this close to her still electrified him. His desire for her came rushing back, though he was certain it had never truly left. God, how he’d missed her.
“Stay with me. Allow me to protect you.” He said the words as if the situation were only temporary, only until they could find a way to get her off the demons’ radar again, but deep down he wanted so much more. Being so near her when he knew she didn’t want him anymore was the sweetest form of torture—painful and divine all at once.
She shook her head. “You know I can’t do that, David.”
“Why not?”
She glanced at the floor, refusing to meet his gaze. “Because forgive me if I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t want to spend time with my ex-fiancé.”
Damn. That stung. His face remained calm on the surface, but inside he wanted to scream in agony. He was tormented by so many emotions he couldn’t let out. He wanted to say that he didn’t have to be an ex-fiancé, that nothing in the world would make him happier than getting back together with her again, but instead he settled for, “You know it’s necessary, at least for a few days until you’re back to normal again and can fight off demons on your own.”
“Fine,” she said. “But I want to make it clear that this is not a chance to mend things between us.”
A sharp pain hit him straight in the heart, but he held on to his poker face.
When he didn’t respond, she continued. “I assume that’s not what you’re going for here, but let’s both be adult enough to agree beforehand that dredging up our past is only going to make both of us miserable. So, if I stay with you for the next few days, just until I’m on my feet again and we’ve figured this situation out, we’ll agree to be just friends and nothing more, okay?”
She stuck out her hand to shake on it. He stared at her and couldn’t help but wonder how they’d gotten to this point. How had their relationship gone so wrong? They’d grown up together, been friends since they were young.
It was the summer in between David’s junior and senior years in high school that changed everything. Allsún had been away all summer in Ireland with her mother, while David had spent his free time acting like an idiot and getting into trouble with Jace, who was home for a brief summer break from training with the Execution Underground. Once Jace had shipped off again, the rest of David’s summer was spent watching too many bad cartoons. With Allsún not scheduled to return until the day before school began, David had anticipated the first day of class like a starving man staring at a juicy hamburger. He had never been a bookworm, much less enjoyed school, but Allsún had gotten him into reading, which was the extent of his interest in learning. His excitement for that first day of classes had been solely because of the chance to see Allsún again. He had counted down the days all summer long until he could tell her his thoughts on the books she had left him to read.
But all of that had been blown to hell as soon as he saw her.
The once gangly Allsún who wore glasses a little too large for her face and a retainer, and possessed an unruly amount of curly, slightly frizzy hair, had blossomed into the gorgeous girl who every guy in high school wanted. Over the summer she had filled out in all the right places. Her hips had widened, and her formerly nonexistent breasts had developed and then some. She’d ditched her retainer, giving her the perfect smile, and her mother had finally caved and bought her contacts. Even her once-crazy curls had now fallen in smooth, perfect ringlets without a hair out of place.
Whatever was in the water in Ireland, David was a major fan.
Really, he hadn’t been sure if he was seeing correctly at first. Hell, he’d always thought Allsún was beautiful, even despite all her geeky attributes, but she’d been transformed overnight from his best friend to the girl he couldn’t stop thinking about.
Sure, even to this day he still felt a bit shallow that he wasn’t interested in Allsún romantically until her inside and outside matched in beauty, but he had been a teenage boy then, and he knew now, as a full-grown man, that even in her nerdlike state he would have fallen in love with her.
When she’d walked into the hallway of Brighton High School after that summer, he’d dropped the three textbooks he was carrying, just like a total idiot.
A smile had blossomed across her face at the sight of him, and she’d thrown her backpack to the ground and run down the hallway to launch herself into his arms. “Hey, jerk. I’ve missed you.”
It had taken him a minute to respond. He’d still been trying to process the fact that his best friend, someone he’d never been nervous around, was suddenly the one girl in school he wished he could take advantage of. Shit, that was so not good.
They’d danced back and forth in an overly flirtatious tango throughout the year. They would go from being comfortable with one another one minute to avoiding each other for days the next, because in some way the thought of wanting to kiss and touch the girl he had once considered to be like a sister made him sick to his stomach with anxiety. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, and he hadn’t wanted a romance between them to mess up the friendship they’d shared for so long. But that friendship had already changed as soon as his attraction to her had made itself evident. He’d been certain Allsún had noticed the different way he looked at her.
He wished he could say that he’d swept her off her feet on prom night or something equally cheesy, like Sixteen Candles or all those other ’80’s movies that she loved to watch. But he hadn’t shown up with a birthday cake at her house to declare his love, he hadn’t ridden a lawnmower across her front lawn, held a blaring boom box outside her window, or any of the other ridiculous things that Allsún fawned over in those films.
One night, when she was at his grandmother’s house for dinner and his grandmother had gone to bed, leaving the two of them alone, he’d just done it. Mid-sentence. Without any warning signs.
Allsún had been talking about how his grandmother had offered to teach her to cook, and before he knew what was happening, his hand had been on the back of her neck. He’d pulled her into his lap and was kissing her with so much force the world seemed to spin. She’d kissed him back, and that sealed the deal.
They’d never been “just friends” since.
He’d thought that year of school had been pure unadulterated torture—wanting her but being completely unable to make his move—but that would be nothing compared to the torture of being around her now. Because now he knew her in every way he possibly could, wanted her more than anything, loved her more than anything, knew how great it was to be with her, and he knew how much he wanted to stop boxing all that up and allow himself to go back to the way things had been when they were together.
Back then he hadn’t known what he was missing, but now he knew exactly what he was missing—and the longing was going to kill him.
But he didn’t care.
He would torture himself every day if it meant he was able to see her.
With as much fake enthusiasm as he could muster, he forced a smile on to his face and stuck his hand out to meet hers. They shook.
“Friends?” she asked.
He gritted his teeth. “Friends,” he lied. “And nothing more.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FRIENDS? FRIENDS? WHY the hell did she have to label it like that? She had regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth, and David’s willingness to agree had hit her like a sucker punch to the gut. She was fooling herself if she thought she could ever be “just friends” with David. She’d always cared for him, from the time she thought boys didn’t have cooties anymore until she was old enough to realize her true feelings: that she loved him.
She ran her eyes over his frame. Towering over her at a whopping six foot six, with muscles that put most of the male population to shame, he was quite literally tall, dark and handsome, sporting the bad-boy look to boot in his leather Harley gear. His deep brown eyes were so close to black she could almost drown in their darkness, and the feel of his large masculine hands holding her moments earlier was as divine as it had ever been. Heat rushed between her legs as she thought of all the things he could do with those hands.
No. She shook her head to shove the thoughts away as the handshake ended. She didn’t love him, not anymore. She had moved on from that chapter in her life, left all the memories, both the good and the bad, behind her. She did not love David. She didn’t even know David anymore. Until they’d recently met again, it had been years since they’d last seen each other for any extended period of time, much less spoken to one another. Her gaze traced over his sharply defined features, his prominent cheekbones and jawline. She was forced to admit to herself that David was like a fine bottle of top shelf whiskey that only got better and better with age.
A sudden feeling of self-conscious awareness hit her hard. She doubted he was thinking the same thing about her. She glanced down at herself, unable to ignore her appearance. A hospital gown wasn’t flattering on anyone, and from the lovely breeze she was getting back there, she was certain that her behind was bared for anyone’s viewing pleasure. And her curls probably hadn’t been combed through in ages.
But there she was, standing in front of David looking like something one of her cats had digested and then hacked up all over her brand new carpet. She knew she shouldn’t care, but somewhere a part of her still hoped that David was the same man she’d once planned to marry. The one who would take care of her when she had the flu or comfort her when she was sick, and tell her she was beautiful all the same. He thought he’d been seeing her at her worst then, but damn if she wasn’t vain enough to have put on just a touch of makeup every time before he’d come over.
Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, David began to text a message. “Let’s get you to my place and cleaned up as soon as possible.”
“Who are you texting?” she asked.
“Jace. He’s been blowing up my phone with calls for the last twenty minutes, probably wondering why you weren’t at the hospital when he showed up, and someone needs to watch over you while I finish up here. He can take you back to my apartment.”
“Wait a second. I agreed to stay with you, not to be kept under lock and key.”
“I don’t want you to get another look at what’s down in that basement.”
She rolled her eyes. She wasn’t some fragile china doll that was easily broken, and he knew that. “It’s dead bodies, David. I’ve seen them before.”
“You didn’t see what was around the other corner, and believe me, Allie, you don’t want to see it.”
She crossed her arms. “I’ve seen some pretty gruesome things over the years, David, and you know it. I doubt there could be anything down there that I haven’t seen worse. Remember when that Imp decided to prey on teenage girls?”
A grim look crossed his face. “It’s worse than that.”
Allsún’s eyes widened. She wasn’t certain she could imagine anything worse. She wasn’t weak, but she couldn’t detach herself from the victims the way David could. She had spent hours crying once that case was over with. It didn’t matter that they’d earned justice for the victims. The pain of the victims’ loved ones and their horribly unfair deaths was still with her.
“David, whatever it is, after everything with Robert, I’m sure I can handle it.” No matter her feelings, she wasn’t about to let him baby her. The sooner she could prove to him that she was strong, fully recovered both mentally and physically, the better. She needed to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.
David shook his head. “Allie, I know you, and believe me when I say you can’t handle this one. We both know you’re one tough chick, so you don’t need to prove it to me. Not this time.”
“Fine. If you’re not going to let me help and just plan to keep me...keep me prisoner, then I’m leaving.”
She needed to get out of here and away from him anyway. She shifted to move past him, but he grabbed hold of her wrist. Another wave of electric power shot through her, straight to her heart and the growing warmth between her legs. The energy that flew between them just from his touch was mind-blowing and sexy and a massive reminder of everything they’d once shared. She could have sworn that from the brief look of shock in David’s eyes that he felt it, too.
She forced herself to pull her wrist away and fixed him with a stern glare—the same stern look that had always let him know that he was pushing the envelope with her, and if he kept it up, he would regret it when her anger peaked.
They both knew that hell hath no fury like a pixie pissed off. The last thing she needed was the heartache he still brought her, even all these years later.
David let out a long sigh and tried to renegotiate. “The point is that you shouldn’t be here. You need to be resting. You need to be healing.”
“I’ve been healing for a month, David. I feel fine now that the drugs are wearing off. All my injuries from Robert are gone.” She cringed a little as she said his name. The thought of what Robert had done to her still haunted her. “Besides, I want to get to the bottom of all this, too. I want to know why I was drawn here.”
The pain in his face pierced through her. She saw the guilt he felt written all over him.
He pressed his lips together until they formed a thin line before he sighed. “If you want to stay, then fine, but you’re not leaving my sight. I’m not letting anything happen to you. Not again.”
* * *
DAVID STARED DOWN at Allsún with resolve in his eyes. He had agreed to let her stay with him, but he still didn’t want her to see the atrocities in the basement. After all she’d been through, she didn’t need something like that seared into her memory.
The buzz of his phone interrupted their argument. She turned away from him as he pulled out his cell. Jace’s name flashed across the screen.
He hit the talk button. “Yeah?”
“So I have something to tell you that you’re not gonna be happy to hear.” Jace delivered the words slowly, as if he wasn’t certain he wanted to say them. “Frankie and I are at the hospital, and...Allsún’s not here.”
David eyed Allsún as she paced anxiously around the foyer. “Yeah, I know, J. She showed up here—at the crime scene.”
A string of profanities sounded from the other line. “And you couldn’t have fucking called to tell me that? Frankie and I were scared shitless that a demon had gotten to her before we did. I’ve been calling you repeatedly.”
“Sorry. She just now showed up.”
“Well, that’s a fucking relief. Aside from that, did you find anything?” Jace asked.
David bit his lower lip. He’d found something, all right. Something not fit for human eyes, something so evil it made his stomach churn and his heart hurt. “Yeah, I found something. I’ll tell you about it at the meeting.”
Silence answered from the other end of the line. David could tell Jace was waiting for an explanation.
“J, I’m sorry, man. I can’t even... This is just so evil. I’ll tell you when I get there.”
The images of what lay one level beneath his boots flashed through his mind. Those poor people.
“I’ll see you at the meeting, then. Get the job done, David. For their sake.”
David nodded. “Yeah.”
With a small click, the line went dead.
Allsún stopped pacing and faced him again, arms crossed over her chest. “So, are you going to tell me what else is down there or keep me in the dark?”
“You don’t want to know what’s down there, Allsún.”
“If I’m going to help you, I—”
He held up a hand. “Who said anything about you helping me?”
With a frown, she pointed to herself. “I did. If you refuse to let me leave your side, then you’re going to let me work the case with you.”
“I can’t let you do that. This is different than usual.”
“How different can it be, David?”
He shook his head. He knew Allsún, and he understood completely why she wanted to be a part of this. Back in the day, she had been amazing at hunting demons. They’d partnered together and had been damn near unstoppable, between her Fae power and his exorcist abilities, but that had been before he was a member of the Execution Underground, before Allsún decided she didn’t want to live a hunter’s lifestyle anymore. “Allsún, the demon massacred this family. You know that’s not typical.”
“It’s not typical for me to have premonitions about upcoming demon activity, either, not since I quit hunting. But somehow, in this case, I did—to the point that it woke me up from a drug-induced coma. That means I’m supposed to be involved somehow. If you were in my position, you’d want to be involved, too.”
She had a point with that one. He would definitely want to be a part of the investigation. Well, “want” was the wrong word. No one wanted to be involved with demons, but they did so because they needed to, because they felt it was their duty. Allsún had given up that duty long ago.
“What happened to ‘It can be somebody else’s job’? You told me that it wasn’t my duty to protect people from demons, despite the fact that I was born with this gift. Now, just because you have a feeling, that means that you’re meant to do this? You’re being a hypocrite.”
“Quit dredging up the past.” Allsún pushed past him and marched down the stairs before he could stop her. When she reached the bottom she turned and surveyed the side of the basement that had been blocked from her view before. David heard her breath escape in one large gasp. Shit.
His bad leg burning at every step, he hurried down the stairs as fast as he could.
As he reached her side, he saw that tears were rolling down her cheeks. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close to him. Though the sight of her tears made him ache inside, he relished the feel of her in his arms. God, he had missed holding her like this, being this close to her. They stood together for a few moments before she pulled back, wiping vigorously to erase the streaks from her tears.
He cleared his throat. “I told you it was a horror show.”
Horror show. Talk about a massive understatement. The things the demons had done to the humans before their deaths were sick and despicable, twisted. Only pure evil could have been responsible for something like that. Anyone with an ounce, even a shred, of humanity, would have shown at least some mercy.
She looked toward him. The barest quiver still shook her lip. “So, what do we do now?” She was fighting to get hold of herself. He could see her face visibly change as she transitioned into work mode.
She took a deep, steadying breath. “Back when it was me and you, we would have taken the evidence we needed, called the cops and then continued the investigation ourselves, but...you know. Now that you’re part of the Execution Underground and all...”
“Similar protocol,” David said. “We take photos of the crime scene that will be processed and sent off to Headquarters, if necessary, but in the meantime the Rochester division begins the investigation. We need to be quick, though. We’ll take the samples and leave. We don’t want to hang around in case a neighbor heard something and contacted the cops.”
“I doubt they’ve been called, since they haven’t shown up yet.” She lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “So, once you gather the evidence, then what? Do you take me to your meeting place, too?”
“Yeah, and I debrief the rest of the hunters.”
Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “The rest of the hunters? How many of them are there? Jace and you make two, obviously.”
He’d forgotten her bias against hunters. While Allsún was all for hunting demons, her natural enemy, as a supernatural creature herself, she was wary of the Execution Underground and its policies. That was one of the many reasons why she hadn’t wanted him to join. “There are six total, me included.”
Allsún’s eyes widened slightly, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I wasn’t surprised to find out Jace is one of you. I knew you two would eventually find your way on to the same team, or whatever your unit is called. I know he played a part in getting you to enlist.”
“Don’t be bitter toward Jace. It’s not his fault I joined the Execution Underground.”
“He and Frankie are together now, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah, they’re together.”
Allsún nodded in return. “Good. I’m glad he’s making her happy. Frankie has been a good friend to me.” She paused, carefully considering her next words. “I don’t feel any resentment toward Jace. It’s been...what? Five years now.”
He opened his mouth to tell her exactly how many years, months and days it had been, but she lifted her hand to silence him. “Don’t give me the exact count. Just get your evidence. I don’t know how much longer I can stand to be here. These poor people.”
He closed his mouth and swallowed down the words he’d been about to say.
David scanned the scene. He wasn’t even sure where to start. As awful as the thoughts would be, he needed to re-create the events in his head. The way in which the demon had carried out the murders might give him some insight into its sick motivations. Part of him felt it would be like reading tea leaves—trying to understand remorseless violence was hardly ever fruitful—but on the off chance that something, anything, might give him a hint that would help him catch this murderous hell-crawler, he needed to do this.
According to the information Father O’Reilly had relayed to Damon, the mother had called, claiming that her husband had been possessed by a demon. David walked over to the corner of the basement where the woman’s body slumped against the wall. The cell phone with the cracked screen lying a few feet from her hand was evidence of the truth of that assumption. The husband had died last. From the knife lying in his hand, it was clear the demon had made the man slit his own throat, then undoubtedly hightailed it in untraceable spirit form to the nearest human it could possess. He would put his bet on one of the family’s poor next-door neighbors being its latest suit of flesh. Thankfully demons never changed hosts unless they had to. The process weakened them and was painful as hell. In a way, they were like a parasite that grew attached to its host, never wanting to let go.
Knowing the way the parents had died was helpful, but in what order had the children been killed, and was there any significance to that? And why this specific family?
His eyes darted from the disgusting atrocity on the other side of the basement to the teenage boy spilled across the floor. From the things that had been done to the infant, he could tell that she had been the demon’s main focus. The innocence of the child was clearly an important part of the demon’s plan. What else could draw a demon to a child that way? He stood and crossed the room, though it took everything he had in him not to toss the remaining contents of his stomach into the garbage bin again. In fact, he would need to find a way to dispose of that evidence so he didn’t leave his DNA at the crime scene.
Eyeing the surrounding area, he paused when a glimpse of red caught his gaze. A small spot of blood on the edge of a nearby chair. He moved closer to examine it. A small clump of blond hair was caught in the clotting fluid. Yes, this was what he was looking for. The mother was the only blond in the family, but she was several strides away. Crossing the room again, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. No gashes on her forehead, but no one else was blond. He quickly wrapped the fabric around his hand before slowly tilting her head, which fell forward with an awful flop in the way only dead weight can. He tried to ignore the anger he felt on her behalf and focus on the situation at hand.
Leaning forward, he examined the back of her head until—bingo. A bloodied gash on the back of her skull confirmed what he had suspected. Like any mother would instinctually do, she had tried to save her child. The horror of the scene flashed before his eyes. That poor woman, witnessing her husband doing those awful things to her sweet baby girl. The thought made him sick with pain for her, and he all too vividly imagined the sounds of her uncontrollable screams at the sight of her husband hurting her child. She would have tried to save her baby, but with its supernatural strength, the demon had undoubtedly shoved her away with ease, causing her to fall back and hit her head on the chair. But why not just kill her then, when she was trying to interfere? Her body and phone were on the other side of the room, with no smears of blood across the carpet leading to her to indicate she had died elsewhere and her body had been moved, so clearly the demon had chosen not to kill her right away? Why leave her alive?
Because the demon had wanted her to see....
The pieces of the puzzle fell together in his mind as he played his theory out step by step. But another question nagged at the back of his mind: Why had the woman thought her husband was possessed? Undoubtedly she hadn’t wanted to think her husband was capable of such atrocious violence, but she had been so specific. She hadn’t said he had gone mad or crazy. She’d said he was possessed, which meant the demon had done something to give away its identity. It wouldn’t have shown its demonic red eyes unless she’d somehow managed to hurt it, which she wouldn’t have been able to do unless she had holy water or a blessed relic at hand, which didn’t seem likely, even though the family had been religious.
He thought back to all the crappy B-movies he had seen over the years, which had portrayed demons in some of the most absurd ways and most likely would have been the extent of this woman’s knowledge of the demonic. What could the creature have done that would have...
The thought clicked into place. Latin. The demon must have been speaking Latin or some other dead language her husband wouldn’t have known. That was one thing the films got right, and if the demon had been speaking Latin, that meant it had performed some sort of demonic ritual. That explained the desecrated state of the infant’s body. The horror of the situation hit David like a punch straight to the balls.
The point of the demon’s ritual hadn’t been spilling blood, it had been creating fear. The demon had forced the mother—and the father, while he was possessed and unable to control his body—to watch the deaths of their two children so it could feed off their fear.
David shoved his anger down inside, balling it up in a way he was certain would kill him one of these days. He needed to remain focused. He had already taken photos of the crime scene. Now he needed samples to send off to the lab. If he could find some trace of sulfur the monster had left behind, forensics could analyze it and give him some idea of what type of demon fucker he would be torturing. He made quick work of taking the samples. After pulling the small lab kit from inside his leather jacket, he swabbed the victims’ wounds and underneath their fingernails, and took samples of their hair, anything that could give him insight.
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Kait Ballenger
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The Execution Underground – Hunters of the supernatural…But at what price? Exorcist David Aronowitz is a member of the Execution Underground. When a demon slips into the seductive body of the only woman he’s ever loved, David must confront the heartbreak of their past to save her.The piece of her heart Allsún O’Hare gave to David so long ago left her trapped between two worlds:the Fae and the human. Fate soon reunites her with her greatest temptation – and biggest mistake.Swept into a wicked game, David must decide if saving Allsún’s life is worth sacrificing his own – and the future of humanity itself.‘Kait Ballenger is a treasure you don’t want to miss!’– New York Times bestselling author GENA SHOWALTER