Dark Hunt

by Richardson, Kim

  Crap. I could see in his eyes that he already knew I would say yes.

  My adrenaline pumped. “I’m not going to let Cindy die in the hands of that demon,” I said. “Degamon needs to die. This is my chance at vanquishing the demon before it kills anyone else. I screwed up the first time. But I won’t screw up again.” I looked at my wrist, glad that my sleeve covered my angel curse.

  “I love playing the hero and all,” said Tyrius, his eyes pinched in worry, “but the last time we confronted the Greater demon, we almost got our asses kicked. How do we get Cindy back without getting killed? Are we just going to walk right in there and demand Degamon hand her over?”

  “We could fight him,” offered Jax, his shoulders tight in determination. “We’d be better prepared than the last time.”

  “No, he’ll be expecting that,” I said. “We won’t have to do that either.”

  Jax watched me, eyebrows high. “Why not?”

  I steadied myself, my heart pounding at what I was about to say. “Because I have something better.”

  “Like what?” said Tyrius. “Catnip?”

  I took a breath, trying to decide how I should word this. “Because I know who summoned it.”

  Silence soaked in, followed by a stirring unease. I clenched my jaw, glancing at the shocked faces.

  “You do?” Tyrius’s voice was flat, and a wisp of annoyance flashed over him. “Why didn’t you say so? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Because I wasn’t sure until now,” I answered, knowing it to be true. “But it all makes perfect sense. I just can’t believe it took me so long to put the pieces together. I’m usually not this slow.” Again, I looked at my wrist, wondering if the curse had somehow given me brain fog.

  “Who is it?” Danto’s dark eyes narrowed, and his mild fear shifted to hot interest. “Who summoned the demon?”

  I swallowed hard. “A dark witch.”

  “N-o-o-o-o!” exclaimed Tyrius as he shot in the air like a rocket with fur. “The one you stole the grimoire from?”

  I nodded. “The very same.”

  Mani looked at Bemus, eyes wide. “This is exciting!”

  “I wish we had some popcorn,” whined Bemus.

  Jax was looking from me to Tyrius. “You stole a book from a witch? So what? What does that have to do with Degamon?”

  “Because that’s the book I used to summon the demon.” I sighed. “It’s her book. And she’s not just any witch, she’s a dark witch, and a really old and powerful hag. If anyone is powerful enough to summon and control a Greater demon, it’s her. The book is filled with dark magic spells, demonic spells, and the very worst hexes and curses, a real treasure in the dark arts.”

  “And you stole it from her?” Jax whistled. “But how do you know it’s the same witch? How do you even know she’s doing this?”

  “Because I just saw her outside.” I saw the realization dawn on him. He knew I meant the witch he had pointed out to me. “She made sure I saw her too. She practically told me with her one good eye that she’d sent the demon after me.” I stifled a shiver as I remembered the winning smile on her pasty, wrinkled face. She thought my days were numbered. But I wasn’t finished yet.

  “The witch wants me dead,” I said, avoiding their eyes. “The only way to get her revenge was to summon the worst demon to do it for her.”

  “Shit.” Jax raked his fingers through his hair, leaving the left side sticking out. “She could have just cursed you with some dark witch hex. Why the demon?”

  “Because she doesn’t know my name, and you need a name for a curse to work,” I said, feeling even worse than before. “Well, at least for the kind of curse she wanted to use on me.” I sighed heavily as a new dread twisted my gut. “But she somehow figured out that I was angel-born and different. Somehow, she made the connection that I was an Unmarked. But without a name, the demon had to—”

  “Kill all the Unmarked females hoping to finally get you,” answered Tyrius.

  My chest ached at the realization that I was the cause of those deaths. The Greater demon had always wanted to hunt me. To kill me. All because I had stolen that goddamned book.

  I felt my throat and stomach knotting into a tight ball until it hurt. I felt the blood drain from me. I was cold and light-headed as though the Seal of Adam was back with a force.

  What have I done?

  I looked up and found Danto’s lethal glare on me. He looked like he was debating whether or not to vamp out and rip my throat out. Totally understandable. If Cindy died, that was on me.

  “But when you summoned the Greater demon,” asked Jax. “Why didn’t it recognize you as its main target? Shouldn’t it have known you were the one it was seeking?”

  “No, even if it was staring at me in the face, it couldn’t have known,” I answered. “The witch never gave it a name. To the demon, I was just another Unmarked. For all we know, the witch told it to destroy us all, just in case. And it won’t stop until we’re all dead. No matter if it takes ten, twenty years… the demon will never stop.”

  A nauseating mix of dread and angst shook my knees, and I held my ground so I wouldn’t collapse like an idiot.

  Jax’s eyes went serious. “And you’re sure Degamon will give us Cindy for the witch’s name?”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling confident. “We’ll trade Cindy’s life for the witch’s name. The Greater demon will want to seek revenge on its summoner. It’s why you never give the summoned demon your name. It can hold power over you. With the summoner’s name, it can break the hold, destroy the binding and protection spells, and kill the summoner.”

  Jax shifted next to me, his worried posture easy to read. “You sure about this? Don’t you want to rest just a little.”

  “We don’t have time to rest,” I breathed as I caught Danto watching me. His eyes were calculating as he took in the scene, seemingly for the first time. I turned away from the vampire’s intense stare and looked to the nearest monitor. “It’s two in the morning. Sunrise is at around five thirty, right? Which gives us a little over three hours. We have sunrise to fall back on, if things go sour.”

  I sheathed my blade to my waist. This time I was going to kill the Greater demon SOB. “Where’s the bastard?”

  Danto’s relief was visible as he exhaled loudly. But then the sharpness returned to his dark eyes as he said, “Fox Island.”

  24

  It took us about an hour to drive to Fox Island. I sat in the passenger seat next to Jax while Tyrius and Danto sat in the back, both leaning on the doors to put as much space between them as they possibly could. I’d been surprised Danto accepted a ride with us instead of following us in one of his many Range Rovers, which I had seen him drive before.

  More astounding, Jax hadn’t objected to giving the vampire a ride. In fact, he hadn’t said anything at all as Danto pulled open the back door and slipped in quietly. At least he hadn’t tried to sit in the front. That would have been awkward.

  Jax’s hands were stiff on the wheel, and a muscle feathered along his jaw. He was quiet. Too quiet. And it made me nervous.

  He looked straight at the road, his face pale and shadowed in the darkness of the car. A storm was brewing in his eyes, a conflict of emotions ranging from guilt and anger to uncertainty, and I knew he was thinking of his sister. From what I’d seen, there was a playful side to Jax, but it was overwhelmed and overshadowed by his grief. And he had succumbed to it, letting his emotions control him. A part of me wished I could do something for his pain. I wasn’t sure why. It’s not like I knew him well, or that we’d be friends once this was over because I knew we wouldn’t. He’d go back to whatever happy life he had before, to the welcoming arms of the Council, and I’d never see him again. Just as well, I didn’t have time for relationships.

  My mood soured as I stared out the window. The Hudson River sparkled in the light of the moon. I could make out shadowed surrounding hills across the river. The mortal world was asleep, but nighttime was when half-breeds and
demons came alive, feeding on the very darkness itself.

  We were going to Fox Island for the sole purpose of putting an end to the Greater demon Degamon.

  But something didn’t feel quite right.

  Why did the demon need to go so far away? And dragging an angel-born with it? Why Fox Island and not Brooklyn or Queens? What was so important about that place that the Greater demon would risk being seen or caught by guardian angels or other Sensitives?

  My gut told me it was a trap, but it also gave us the whereabouts of the demon. I wouldn’t pass it up. I caught Danto’s face in the rearview mirror. He flicked his long bangs from his eyes. There were no more tears, and the faint tightening of his jaw was the only sign of his distress. While Jax and I had our soul blades and Tyrius had his black panther alter ego, I couldn’t see any visible weapons on the vampire. Through the tears of his clothes, there was only pale skin. I couldn’t see any leather holsters or even a weapons belt. It was a mistake to think that he could take down a Greater demon with just his good looks and sharp claws. What was he going to do? Try and seduce the demon with his pouty lips?

  The chances that Cindy was still alive were slim. Why would the demon keep her alive anyway? It wouldn’t. It was commanded to kill her. If, by a miracle, she were still alive, it was only because the demon was using her as bait to get me to come to it. We all knew it, but what other options did we have?

  My mood worsened when Jax killed the engine, and I climbed out of his car with the others. The solid thuds of Jax’s car doors shutting echoed off the river and the stone faces of the buildings we had parked beside. I welcomed the cool night air and the faint salt breeze coming from the East River.

  Leaning against the black Audi, I looked around at the rotten roofs, boarded-up windows, and overgrown, twisted black, thorny vines that could skewer a leg sprouting from the cracks in the concrete street and forming giant impenetrable walls of death. Remnants of buildings collapsed into concrete rubble. Once it had been a booming amusement park, filled with the laughter of human children. Now beams and walls of abandoned buildings and rides stuck out like the skeletons of a giant beast, with only the whispers of a chilling wind. It was surreal. The park’s once pulsating kinetic energy was eerily frozen in time.

  The place was trashed by trespassers, tagged by vandals and reclaimed by Mother Nature. The deteriorating and collapsing Ferris wheels, carousels, and roller coasters transformed with each passing season into rusting and rotting still-life portraits of benign neglect.

  Fox Island was a small island just off Hunts Point in the Bronx, bordering the edges of the East River—a haven and breeding ground for demons.

  Even the half-breeds stayed clear of Fox Island because it was overrun with demons. True demons, not half-breeds with a human heritage, but the real nightmares that sprouted from the bowels of the Netherworld. Demons and half-breeds hated each other, and a demon would kill a half-breed out of spite.

  The streets and pathways were blanketed in a cold shadow. I sensed the darkness, the icy pull of death, and the suffocating stench of rot—so thick, I could almost see it like a black mist. Unnatural. The place gave me the creeps. There were hundreds of demons here, possibly thousands. Great.

  Tyrius was next to me. By the narrowing of his eyes and the line of hair that stuck out on his back, I knew he could sense them too.

  “Lots of demons in this place,” mewed the cat, reading my thoughts.

  “I know,” I said. “I can sense them too.”

  “Foul ones,” said Tyrius, as he lifted his head toward a gust of wind. “It seems as though the entrails of the Netherworld came to Fox Island to party.”

  Jax moved to the back of his car and popped the trunk. My curiosity got the better of me as I heard the familiar sound of metal hitting metal and leaned over and took a peek.

  My brows rose. “Damn, Jax. There’s practically an armory in there. Where did you get all this stuff?” I took in a dozen or so soul blades, long swords, angry-looking hunting knives that could carve through steel, guns, rifles, shotguns, and huge bags of salt. The trunk was so packed with weapons I was amazed he could actually close it.

  Jax gave me a sly smile. “I never leave home without my babies.” He pulled out a thick, long hunting knife that looked a lot like a machete. The edges were sharp and stained. He slipped it into his weapons belt and began rummaging in his trunk. “You can never be too careful in our line of work. I believe in being prepared.”

  “Just a little overkill is all.” A nice golden sword caught my eye. I wondered if Jax would let me borrow it. The gold would look great with my gold earring studs, and the blade looked sharp enough to pierce through stone.

  Tyrius jumped up to my shoulder and leaned over. “Impressive collection, my man. Is that a Remington revolver? Whoa—those things are priceless.”

  Jax beamed, looking smug, and I rolled my eyes. “You know your guns,” he said. “I’m impressed.”

  “I like things that go pow-pow,” answered Tyrius.

  “Okay, there, boys,” I said as I lowered Tyrius to the ground, forgetting about the pretty golden sword. “Enough talk about toys. Let’s be serious. This place is creepier than a Guillermo del Toro film, and it’s crawling with demons.” I spotted Danto, who stood with his arms wrapped around himself, his dark eyes searching the grounds. His bare feet stood out starkly against the dark concrete as he shifted from foot to foot.

  “Rowyn, you need any extra weapons?” Jax leaned on his trunk. “You want a gun?”

  “No, thanks,” I said, cringing. I thought of that pretty golden sword. “I don’t like guns. Never have. I prefer my good old-fashioned soul blades.” I put my hands on my weapons belt, feeling the two soul blades. “Thanks, but I’ve got all that I need.”

  Jax reached in his trunk again and pulled out what I recognized as a double-barrel shotgun. My mouth dropped slightly open as he moved next to Danto and handed it to him. The look of mild surprise on the vampire’s face echoed my own.

  “You know how to use it?” asked Jax, but I somehow suspected he knew the vampire did. Otherwise he wouldn’t have entrusted him with one. “No one should meet this thing without some sort of weapon.”

  “I don’t have a weapon,” complained Tyrius.

  “Tyrius,” said Jax, looking down at the cat. “You are a weapon.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty, Jaxon.” Tyrius flashed him his needle-sharp teeth.

  Danto grabbed the shotgun easily with one hand, and in the same movement, with a flick of his wrist, he popped the gun open. The barrel opening swung on its hinge. “You’ve modified it,” he said as he examined the inside of the double barrel. “Sawed off the tip. I’ve never seen cartridges like these. What are they?”

  “Yeah, I modified it,” answered Jax. His guarded expression shifted to one of pride as he looked at Danto. “It shoots salt bullets.”

  “Salt bullets?” Danto raised his brows. “Clever contraption.” And with that, he flicked the shotgun shut and swung it over his shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Sporting the shotgun draped over his shoulder, Danto looked remarkably comfortable. Strangely enough, that look suited him, in an odd, goth-rockstar-vamp-cowboy sort of way.

  Jax pinched his lips and gave a simple nod of his head. He reached in, filled his jacket pockets and jeans pockets with boxes of salt cartridges and then pulled out a smaller version of the shotgun he gave Danto, slipping it in his leather baldric. He pushed his trunk shut and moved to the front of his car, slightly a little less tension in his walk.

  I stared at this exchange, completely flabbergasted. What the hell had just happened? Jax gave his car a cheerful chirp and locked it.

  When I looked down, Tyrius was peering at Danto with a curious expression. He looked up at me and said, “Now that’s a first. Never thought I’d see the day when a vampire carried an angel-born shotgun—modified to shoot salt bullets.” He shook his head. “The world’s changing. Mark my words, Rowyn. There is shift. I ca
n feel it.”

  “Maybe,” I said as I hiked up my weapons belt over my hips. “Tonight, we have bigger problems. Come on.”

  The four of us walked toward the center of the amusement park. The sound of my boots hitting the pavement was loud in my ears. Apart from our tread, it was quiet, but the stillness seemed to hold a threat—a no humans or half-breeds allowed kind of threat.

  Breathing deeply the chill air, my skin rippled in goose bumps at the sudden shift of darkness around us, like stepping out of the heat and into an air-conditioned room. The darkness suffocated all light, all life. No grass grew on the island, and the trees I spotted were leafless, decaying sticks, a memory of what they used to be. No insects. No pests. Nothing. We were the only living things on the island. I shivered, feeling as though something was breathing down my neck. The cool air was quickly replaced by a thick, rotten-egg smell.

  “Which way?” asked Jax, who had taken the lead. Tension pulled his neck and shoulder muscles tight.

  “Devil’s Mouth,” said Danto as he pointed with his shotgun to a maroon and green colored building in the distance that looked as though it were wearing a hat. Danto took a breath to say something but then stopped, shifting his shoulders as he changed his mind.

  There were a couple hundred yards of fallen rides and debris between us, and I could make out what looked like a large field with mounds of dead grass and shrubs separating us from the building. Gray stones and ash sloped down to a barren landscape. The site was rough, covered with ash and heaps of weathered buildings and stone. Dotted in the landscaped were black, twisted trees.

  It was the ugliest island I’d ever been to, and I couldn’t wait to leave.

  “We should hurry,” said Tyrius, his voice edged with a little fear. “The demons know we’re here. I don’t think they’ll bother us once we reach Devil’s Mouth. If Degamon proclaimed it as his lair, then technically, all lesser demons should leave us alone. Technically.”

  “Technically.” I knew that was a long shot. The creepy silence around us sent shivers rolling over me. Every now and again, I heard scraping, like fingernails on hard rock, and distant moaning. The wind brought forth a frayed chorus of faint wails and whimpers of things in pain. I knew the moaning and the cries weren’t human. I could hear the distinct creaturelike cadence that could only be described as monster in origin—demon, not human.