by G. Bailey
“Are you ever going to listen?” I slowly say, trying not to stare at her for too long, which seems physically impossible. Lilith was not this hot when she was younger; in fact, I barely even noticed her. She was funny but still just the kid sister of my best mate who would fucking kill me for the thoughts going through my head right now.
Damn, I never even liked redheads. They are batshit crazy, especially the short ones.
And this one won’t get out of my head.
I lean back and run my hands through my hair, shaking my head. I’m losing my mind. Lilith doesn’t care about my internal freak-out. She goes back to the box and pulls out an enormous diamond. My stomach drops as she throws it into the air, and I snatch it before she can catch it.
“You don’t get to touch this yet, songbird,” I warn her.
She pouts. “Why not?”
I’m not about to tell her it’s a demon bomb and would blow up this entire building. Why the fuck do they give new hunters this?
“Because you’re a newbie,” I reply, but she is already back in the box, dragging out four daggers with the DHT logo on the hilt. Next she finds eight guns, with two hundred iron bullets in a smaller box.
“Can bullets kill demons then?”
“Did you listen in any of your classes at the Caeli academy?” I demand.
“There is a specialist class on demons, and you can’t sign up for it if you’re female,” she frowns. “I tried dressing up as a boy and using a fake name, but it didn’t work.”
“That’s fucked up,” I respond, rubbing my chin. The Caeli definitely hid a lot of their sexist shit from me when I was there, or I just wasn’t looking for it. “The iron in the bullets and daggers will kill lower-level demons, but nothing over a level two.”
“Levels?”
“It will be explained tomorrow before our first mission,” I tell her, needing to get away from her scent, from her, period. I pick the box up, placing the diamond demon bomb gently back in it, and ignore her protests as I take the box to my room. Carefully, I leave it on my chest of drawers and grab the book next to it before going back to Lilith. I hand her the book I had as a kid. “You need books more than you do weapons. Welcome to demonology for beginners.”
“Thanks,” she calls to me but I head for the bathroom.
I need a cold shower and a smack in the fucking balls. Lilith Caeli is off limits for so many goddamn reasons, and my dick doesn’t seem to care about either of them. I always knew he would be the death of me.
Chapter 9
Lilith Thornblood
It’s early morning when we’re summoned to the courtyard. As I hide a yawn behind my hand, I scan the area slowly, a little disappointed when I find the throne empty. I don’t know why I hoped the prince would be sitting there. Maybe I wanted him to see me off on my first day. Instead, it’s the male in the green robe who greets us.
And by greets, he snaps his fingers and orders everyone to gather in front of the throne.
Does the dude ever crack a smile?
I ignore the eyes of my fellow hunters cutting into me and follow in Caspian’s wake. He weaves a path to the crowd and folds his arms, glaring at the sour-faced male scanning the crowd. I think Caspian said his name was Aamon or something and that he’s the prince’s advisor.
While he counts everyone’s heads, I look up to see a huge board hovering above the throne. Numbers, names, and locations shimmer on the screen in bold, bright-orange font. I scan the names in search of my own. Autumn French. Points: Zero. Won’t stay like that for long, I think to myself with a wry grin. Beside the points, on the other side of the screen, is a long list of wanted demons.
“Now that everyone’s here, let’s begin.” Aamon clasps his hands behind his back and begins pacing. He nods briefly at the screen. “This is where your progress during the Demon Hunter Trials will be recorded. The leader board contains everything you need to know. It will be synced to your tracker at all times and within all realms. Lose it and you will be disqualified, effective immediately.”
“There are five kinds of demons in total, each ranked from the lowest level to the highest,” Aamon resumes, still pacing with his hands behind his back. “The first level are known as fledglings. These demons are not very powerful and can be disposed of with the use of weapons. The second level, however, are resistant to weapons, even silver bullets and blades, and therefore must be eradicated using magical items. Third and fourth levels are more difficult because they can look like humans and have their own magic. Anything from a three upwards should be handled with more than one team unless you want to die. The fifth level, while rare, can almost guarantee you a place amongst the top ten depending on your progress. Most level-five demons are handled by qualified demon hunters, and if you happen to come across one of them, stay out of the way.
“Points will be earned for each demon you bring back, with extra ones given based on the demon’s rank. Similarly, points will be deducted if you fail to capture your target.” He stops and turns to us. “I will now answer questions.” Then he resumes pacing, his attention fixed on the ground as he walks. “In the Demon Hunting Trials, yes, you can die. Yes, it will be extremely painful. No, you cannot be brought back. Is this fair? Perhaps not. But dying is the risk one takes if one wishes to be amongst the winners.”
The thought of dying no longer fills me with fear like it used to. Maybe it’s because I have no intention of dying until I’ve avenged my family.
Until Rizer has paid for what he’s done.
“Once you have chosen your mission, you may begin,” Aamon says, stepping aside.
Everyone immediately jolts into action. Caspian is one of the first to approach the board with his tracker outstretched. He presses his screen, and case three hundred and eighty-six magically transfers from the board onto his device. The board also updates with his name and my own.
I scan my own tracker, check the details, and grin when I read the location. I’ve always wanted to visit there.
“Ready?” Caspian asks, his finger poised over the screen of his tracker.
I tuck mine into my back pocket and nod. “Ready as I’ll ever be, partner.”
Caspian rolls his eyes and presses a button, then a portal wraps around us.
Mission number one… I’m coming for you.
“I mean, yeah, walking through creepy alleyways is definitely my idea of fun,” I grumble as I stomp after Caspian. Creepy is a bit of an understatement. The cobbled roads and narrow little shops smooshed together would be quaint in the daylight, but after dusk, the buildings create eerie shadows that stretch around me. So far, Edinburgh City, while beautifully historic, is totally giving me Ghost Hunters vibes. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”
Caspian pauses inside the narrow alleyway. Slivers of moonlight catch his hair, making it almost silver. “Yeah, I’m sure, songbird. And these aren’t ‘alleyways’. They’re closes,” he corrects smugly, pointing to the sign etched above us. The inscription reads Mary King’s Close, whoever the hell that is, and in the distance, strange clothing hangs from a wire stretching between the narrow building. “Six hundred people were sealed up here and left to die. That’s some of their clothes. It’s pretty neat, huh?”
A shiver runs down my spine. “Neat isn’t the word I’d use.” But my curiosity gets the better of me. “What happened to them? Why were they sealed up?”
“I’ll give you a hint.” Caspian waves a hand over his face. A long, beaked mask wraps around his head.
It’s vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
“The Black Death. Bubonic plague,” he says, as if I should’ve known. “Did Leo get all the brains in your family?”
I slide him a pointed grimace. “Ha ha. No.” I peer into the close despite myself. A cold wind sweeps over me from behind, and I jump back. “This place totally feels haunted.”
“Oh, the whole city is,” Caspian informs me happily, the mask disappearing.
It
reminded me of a crow.
“In fact, there’s even an underground city where more people were left to rot and die a slow, painful death. Wanna check it out?”
“Uhhh…” My mouth hangs open, and I stare at him like he’s grown a second head. “I think I’ll pass. Shouldn’t we get on with the mission?”
But Caspian, clearly enjoying my discomfort too much, winds his hands around my waist and drags me farther into the close. A strangled protest escapes me as my claustrophobia kicks in.
“Let me go, you sonuva bitch!”
He just laughs and continues walking. The narrow walls close in around me, and I grasp at Caspian’s hands on my body, trying to pry them off. To my relief, he puts me down, but he closes the small distance between us. He stands so close that my back hits the wall and his minty breath fans my cheeks.
“You really brushed up on your history about this place, huh?” I ask, my heart thrashing.
He glances up from my mouth and smirks, placing a hand beside my head. “I take my job very seriously, songbird.” His focus strays back to my lips, and for a moment he just stares at me, and I at him. The marks etched on his face glow the softest colour, and flecks of it shine in his narrowed eyes.
“What are you doing?” The question barely escapes like a whisper.
The words “kiss me” echo through my mind. Caspian isn’t looking at me like I’m that annoying little lovestruck kid chasing after him. There’s desire pooling in his eyes, and longing. But the sound of someone walking past the entrance to the alleyway rouses his attention. After a moment, he meets my gaze again and holds it. I swear my heart is about to burst out from my chest.
Ever so slowly, Caspian reaches out to touch my face, and maybe I’ve gone crazy, but I close my eyes and wait for him to kiss me. But he doesn’t. He just ruffles my hair like he did when I was a girl. Confused, I open my lids and stare up at him. He’s grinning at me. What an assho—
“Let’s get going,” he says with a grin.
And then he saunters off, whistling, as if he wasn’t just about to kiss me.
What. The fuck.
I glare at his retreating figure for a minute before following.
Why is it Caspian Hardling can reduce me to that little girl again with just a mere look? I need to watch myself around him from now on.
Falling for half-demons is the last thing I need in my life.
Glaring at Caspian waiting for me outside the alleyway, I shadow him down one of the many winding, cobbled streets. Back to the task at hand. We need to capture this demon and take it back to Hell if we want to complete the mission. And get a point. The more points we get, the greater our chances are at being in the top ten.
I glance at the tracker and go over the details again in my head. Caspian literally told me, in a two-minute rush, about these demons and expected me to just be cool with it. The demon we’re hunting is a nyxie, a small water-horse that likes to drain humans of all the water in their body, thus leaving them dead.
Nyxies are also notorious for getting drunk.
This will be fun…
I keep scrolling through my tracker, all the way the bottom. My heart skips a beat when I read the notes.
“There’s a note on the file saying two of the victims were reported dead.” I peer up over the back of Caspian’s head as another cold breeze hits us. “Is the pub closed off to the public?”
“Nope.” He doesn’t look over his shoulder. “The folk here like haunted shit. You should see all the tours they already do. Witches. Ghosts. Scotland’s built on all the folklore and mythology stuff.”
That could explain why the humans aren’t as freaked out about the ‘nyxies’ as they should be. Maybe they just think it’s superstition? Who knows.
I fall into step with Caspian. “Have you visited here before?”
He nods, his hands stuffed into his pockets. “Got some friends in the Rivermare pack. Crazy, loyal fuckers that they are.”
I’ve heard that about them, too. The Rivermare wolves are slightly more feral than the rest of us. They prefer to avoid human contact and generally keep to their rivers and lochs. The ones in Scotland are said to be the link between this world and the fae one, though no one I know has ever seen them in real life. Even the academy’s textbooks are dubious about their existence; according to ancient folklore, anyone who gazes into the eyes of a fae turns to stone. Although they are unearthly beautiful, fae are also incredibly terrifying.
More so than demons.
Or haunted cities.
At the bottom of the winding pathway, we cross a cobbled road and emerge into a square surrounded by pubs and restaurants. The area is bustling with people, especially since it’s a Friday night.
“This is where they used to hang witches back in the day,” Caspian says without peering up, his focus on the device in his hand. “And shifters.”
A shudder rakes through my body, and I rub the chill from my arms. The souls of all those who were executed here lay heavy around me. There’s a tightness in my chest as if one of the ghosts is sitting on top of me. So many of our people were killed by humans, all because they were—and still are—scared of us. I hate that even hundreds of years later, we’re still not fully accepted by them.
I doubt we ever will be.
“There’s The White Lyon,” I say, pointing to an old-looking pub on the corner of the square. “Seems like you were wrong about the tourists. The place is completely empty. Well, apart from one person.”
A bearded man in a striped chef’s apron leans against the front of the building, smoking a cigarette, and the chairs dotted around him are eerily vacant. The rest of the establishments are chock-a-block with patrons, some of them more intoxicated than others. It’s clear everyone’s giving The White Lyon a wide berth, and honestly, I don’t blame them. I’d rather get drunk in a non-haunted pub, thank you very much.
The chef stomps on his cigarette and watches us approach him.
“You the hunters?” he asks in a thick, Scottish accent.
“Aye, we are, laddy,” Caspian says, flashing me a grin.
His Scottish accent isn’t awful, but it does do things to me.
Bad, bad things.
If he ever wears a kilt, I don’t think I’ll be able to resist climbing him like a tree.
“Not really the Ghostbusters I was expectin’,” the human says, turning on his heel. “All right, follow me. The name’s Feargus.”
If this Feargus was expecting us, then he must be the owner.
He enters the building and holds the door open for us. We hurry after him, me first, then Caspian, and as expected, the inside is mostly empty. A young barman smiles and waves cheerily at us as we pass by, then he goes back to wiping the bar with a cloth. The pub’s interior is old and rustic, more like a historical tavern than anything, with wooden booths in the corner and stools positioned around the bar. The tartan furnishings help to make the place look homely. It’s warm, too, with an open fireplace blazing across the room.
“I’ve been waitin’ on the hunt to be sending one of you out for weeks now,” Feargus grumbles. He leads the way down a narrow, creaky flight of stairs. “Wasn’t so bad until the little fuckers got into the barrels. Whisky and spirits? They can drink my regulars under the table with those, but the beer? Turns ’em into real nasty wee fuckers.” He pauses outside a door marked for staff only. “I loaded them up with some whisky before you got here, so they should still be asleep. Good luck. Don’t make a mess. And try not to die, eh? I’m still recovering my rep from the last ‘freak accident’.”
And with that, Feargus punches a set of numbers into the security lock. The door clicks open, and he steps back. With a nod from Caspian, I follow him inside, my breath streaming out before me. Nyxies I can totally deal with. Ghosts, on the other hand, are another kettle of fish I’d much rather avoid.
At least with demons I can physically see them and drag their asses back to Hell, but dead people left to rot in an underground city?
Yeah, that’s a hard pass from me.
No thank you, siree.
Inside the huge stockroom, bottles of alcohol and barrels of beer litter the floor. The single, dim lightbulb hanging from the ceiling gleams against the shelves stacked with even more bottles, but that’s not what draws my attention. It’s the nest of tiny water horses snoring on top of the barrels in the centre of the room, their tails swishing from side to side. Their blue hooves look no bigger than my pinkie finger. How can such tiny little creatures be so deadly? But I know that one bite from a nyxie and your entire body shrivels up.
A shudder rakes through me, and it’s not just from the prospect of being drained. The temperature in here is more like a giant fridge than a stockroom.
“Why is it so cold?” I murmur to Caspian.
“Because we’re in Scotland,” he whispers, pulling out a slingshot from his back pocket. “And nyxies freeze their prey so they can eat them later. Watch out for any body parts they’ve probably stashed around here.”
I cast a quick glance around the room in search of frozen limbs, my eyes strangely burning. So not only do nyxies drain their prey but they also freeze the remains to snack on later. Great. How comforting to know my body won’t go to waste.
I tiptoe after Caspian, my footsteps light, and I get out my own slingshot. It’s actually a little exciting, using magic like this. Apparently, all I need to do is take aim and shoot. And going by how loudly the nyxies are snoring, catching them should be a piece of cake. I could probably play the bagpipes in here and I doubt it’d wake them. Not that I can play the bagpipes, mind you.
I stretch the sling and aim for the nyxie nearest to me. However, the strong scent of flowers invades my nostrils, and I wiggle my nose. Stacked on one of the shelves are several bouquets of flowers. Oh, no, no, no. This is not good. So not freaking good.
Caspian glares over his shoulder at me. “What are you doing?”
My eyes water as I try to contain myself. “I’m—I’m allergic to—to flow—achoo!”