The vampire avoided hotels, preferring to be able to access the room from the outside, less chance of being seen carrying in a person. They’d also been unable to get any video of the vampire or victims, he occluded his face with angles, and hats, from any video cameras when checking in. Not that it mattered, I’d know for sure when I tracked him down, I’d take the truth from his mind, and my abilities would sense him if I were close enough. Unfortunately, detecting magical auras was a limited proposition, I’d have to get very close, around thirty yards.
There weren’t that many motels in the Gillette area, on the outskirts or off nearby exits. I narrowed it down to four different places, if I was lucky and he didn’t change his pattern, I’d be ending him tonight. I got up and headed for the exit, and walked far enough away from the building so no one would notice a non-standard departure. I stepped into a side alley before teleporting to the Gillette area.
I needed to visit the four hotels, I had teleport sites all over the United States, but couldn’t go directly to any of the four motels since I’d never been there. The previous victims all died between midnight and two in the morning, so my plan was simple enough. I’d teleport in a circuit, and circle those four hotels one at a time from eleven at night until two in the morning. If I’d guessed right, I might even catch the bastard before he kills another human.
It was going to be a long night, and once I got this guy I’d be taking a little time off.
Chasing rogues, and preserving the secret, was lonely work at times. I’d been here for millennia and I was dedicated to the task I’d been given, but it could be quite lonely. I was an angel, but I was also a woman. Cute human men like the agent that had flirted with me this morning were a temptation at times. But… falling for a mortal, sleeping with a mortal, was against the rules.
I couldn’t imagine breaking that rule and falling like some other angels had in the past, but that didn’t mean it was easy to resist. My body was female, young, healthy, and had needs, and there weren’t that many options. I’d dated a few of the male angels assigned to this plane, but it’d always wound up a disaster, they were all workaholics, kind of like myself actually, and I’d always failed to make a permanent connection. We just… didn’t turn out to be compatible. I hesitate to say any angel was an asshole, but… yeah, male angels were arrogant assholes, every single one of them.
It’d been almost five hundred years since I’d had anything but inanimate objects between my legs, and although the battery-operated-boyfriends of this century were great, it still wasn’t the same. Point was, it was a lonely existence at times, except I’d managed to find something to throw my heart, love, compassion, and need to connect with others into.
It all started with those two wolf shifter kids I’d found in the summer of nineteen twenty-seven, after killing their out of control rogue father. At first it was just a house in the middle of nowhere, with a natural spring and stream nearby. We planted crops, and of course the children could shift and hunt animals for meat. I made it a point to check on them every day, and we were totally off the human grid.
Then one day I ran into another rogue on the edge, except she was a good person, just desperate, so I took her to the house. Her name is Carla, and she runs a diner now. It all… snowballed from there. A hundred and forty years later, and we had a small town of seventy-eight rogues, all good people. Shifters, mages, vampires, and one Fae. All living together, some even crossed the lines to mate those not of their kind. In fact, John Rhodes, the boy I’d met in nineteen twenty-seven, was mated to a fire mage of all people. Katherine was a firecracker too; most fire mages were. It was kind of cute, because he had a bad ass alpha personality, until his little redheaded wife crooked her finger, and turned him into a puppy.
They were all my children, my passion, and what I threw myself into. It wasn’t the same of course, I’d like a mate too, but that wasn’t going to happen, I wouldn’t allow myself to fall from grace, and become a demoness. My people kept me sane. They were my home. I also personally warded every building and home in town, they’d be protected if predators learned of them and came for them if I was away at the time. It would protect them from violent rogues, Fae looking for slaves, and if a non-rogue supernatural had the bad luck to run across the place, and be stupid enough to confront them about it.
They weren’t part of my duties, they were a labor of love that lightened my heart, they were my family. I loved my job, but they kept me sane, grounded, and from feeling so lonely all the time. My life was richer with them in it, and I’d like to think their lives were richer and safer with me and the others in it. A safe place for rogues of like minds, which is why I named the place Sanctuary.
When I caught this asshole tonight, that’s where I’d go to recharge for a few days, back to Sanctuary, Montana…
Chapter Five – Jason
There weren’t very many cars on the road late at night, and it was very dark with just my headlights to light the way. My eyes could see the road fine though, adjusted to the low light of the moon and stars. Nephilim didn’t have enhanced senses when it came to hearing and smell, and even eyesight was just slightly raised. Our talents ran to speed, strength, power of magic, and the ability to sense minds and magic around us.
The last few times I’d stopped, I’d just filled the tank and grabbed food for the road, begrudging the idea of adding even more time by sitting down to eat again. I probably should have done that for lunch as well.
It was about eleven when I got off interstate-90 an exit before the city, it was a small highway, and had a motel-8, with a small diner across the street from it. I pulled into the motel parking lot, and gave serious thought to just teleporting home and sleeping in my own bed. Now that I was there, I could teleport back easily enough to continue on in my car in the morning, but I dismissed the idea. This was my first trip away from home, it was time to let the apron strings go, I wasn’t going to run home, no matter how good it sounded.
I got out of the car and headed into the office, there was an old man behind the counter.
“Help you?”
I handed him a credit card, “Room for the night.”
I filled out the form he wordlessly handed me, as he ran my credit card and programmed a key card, and then handed both to me with a receipt.
“Room two oh eight, and there’s a complimentary continental breakfast between seven and nine.”
I wouldn’t turn down free coffee and muffins, and I was starving again. It’d been a long day sitting in a car, I felt a little icky, hungry, stiff, and tired.
“Thanks,” I said, and then went back to the car.
I moved it down the lane. Close to the stairs and underneath a street lamp. I grabbed my duffel bag, and headed up the stairs and down the balcony hallway to my room, and went inside. The room had gray carpets, the bed had a red and brown comforter, and the wood furniture was stained a dark brown. There was also a small flat screen television and remote, along with a phone on the bedside table. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it was clean, and would do just fine for a night’s sleep.
The first thing I did was take care of the icky and stiff feeling. A couple of spells later, and my muscles were loose and relaxed, and I felt like I’d just showered and my clothes were clean and fresh. It didn’t feel quite as good as a hot shower would have, but it worked in a pinch and got me just as clean.
I headed back out, and crossed the street to take care of the hungry part, and then I had plans to catch some sleep so I could head out early tomorrow morning.
The diner was filled with people, some teens finishing up their night out, or some early drunks from the bars going out to eat, there were also some families who I thought were probably part of the motel crowd and travelling. It was a little late to be eating dinner with the family otherwise. I went over to a small booth and sat down, and waited just a couple of minutes before a waitress noticed me and came over.
She was cute, she had reddish brown hair, large doe eyes, and an i
nnocent beauty to her face. She was young, maybe a year or two older than I was. She also had a smile that made her eyes twinkle, and she tilted her head a bit and brushed the hair out of her eyes. I was pretty sure the flirting was subconscious, I had that effect on woman sometimes, and not just human woman. At least, until they found out what I really was, and ran the other way.
“Hi, I’m Julie, I’ll be your server tonight. Do you know what you want?” her eyes flickered down to my physique, and then back up to my eyes.
I smiled, but otherwise ignored it, “Cheeseburger, with fries and coleslaw, and a coke.”
She replied warmly, “I’ll get that in right away, and be right back with your drink.”
Julie continued to flirt with me during the process of getting and finishing my meal, and stopped by often to make sure I was okay. I had no doubt I could get her phone number, and was halfway sure she’d come to my motel room when she got off shift if I asked, but I wasn’t interested. Not because she wasn’t attractive, she was very attractive, and it wasn’t because she was human either, I’d learned early that the true measure of a person’s worth was not power.
I just wasn’t interested in a one night stand, especially where people would most likely get hurt. I got the idea she wanted more than a tumble, she wanted to date me. Her mind was practically screaming it, which for a Nephilim was a literal thing. It was both an ego boost, because she thought I was hot, and made me feel lonely, because it was impossible. That wouldn’t work out, even if she wasn’t a thousand miles from where I lived, I’d never age, never get any older, and she was human. That obstacle was bad enough already when it came to supernatural women, with a human it was just impossible.
It was why I got with cat shifters, they didn’t care about my power, and they didn’t want to mate me, they just liked me because I was good in bed. They were good women, but they had needs that worked out for me. Some would call them the genetic sluts of the supernatural world, but I didn’t think of them that way. Their libido was genetically off the charts, they needed sex at least once a day, and preferred it two or three times, which made them rather accommodating, but they also had standards which was why I thought it was a bad description. By definition, a slut had no standards, and they were beautiful and exotic enough that they could be choosy and still get what they needed. They were also my friends, friends with benefits that actually didn’t have complications.
Point was, I was screwed that way, where would I ever find more than temporary satiation? Where would I find a match that wouldn’t be unbalanced? Maybe it was odd for an eighteen-year-old to think that way, but my family was very loving, and that’s what I wanted. Yes, my succubus greater demon fallen angel mother was loving, and so besotted with my father it was apparent to anyone that looked at them. So, I turned down the slightly tempting offer that Julie had been extending all night, gave her a nice big tip, and went back to the motel alone. I wondered if that’s how I’d always be, alone.
I shook that off though, I was still young, and was hardly suffering. Still… it was one thing that weighed on my mind, ever since I was sixteen and a date with a mage had gone very wrong, once she’d learned the truth of what I was. How could I find the woman for me, if I scared them all?
I usually slept in the buff, but changed into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, the sheets and comforter looked and smelled clean, and a spell ensured that they were, but it wasn’t my bed. Probably made me a bit weird, but there it was. I laid down and went to sleep.
I woke and jerked up to a sitting position. The clock on the night table glowed red, and showed the time as three minutes after twelve. I couldn’t have been asleep longer than fifteen minutes, but the reason I woke up was a screaming human female mind, and not in a good way. She was screaming in terror, pain, and abject horror.
My mind shields were stronger in the daytime, but at night when I slept they were very light. Still strong enough to wake if someone attempted intrusion, and to keep from transmitting my own thoughts and dreams while unconscious, but much weaker. During the day, I could fortify them with my will.
My magical detection was also picking up a vampire’s magical signature just thirty feet away or so.
Point was, the panicked woman’s mind had felt like an invasion, it was strong, and had woken me. I actually considered that it wasn’t my business, but then felt a flush of shame and jumped out of the bed, grabbed the key, and headed for the door. I reached out with my mind on the way to try and discover the issue, because she wasn’t screaming out loud at all, which meant I was the only one who could hear her panic.
Maybe it should have been obvious, but I was asleep and my mind wasn’t fully engaged yet. I discovered of course, that the vampire was in the same room as the terrified human female, and that his plans for her were not good at all. My mind flinched and withdrew from his immediately. I got all his plans for the night from his public mind in a split-second, since he was thinking about them, relishing the situation, he was getting off on it, or he would be soon. Except, I’d get there before he took her forcefully, if I hurried.
Worse, I knew from the brief mind contact he’d done it at least four times before.
I moved down three doors in the blink of an eye, and didn’t bother casting the unlock spell, fortunately I knew that magic quite well enough to simply form the magic and cast it, which saved a few seconds. The door clicked and I pushed inside the room.
As a Nephilim, I was part mage, part warlock, part angel, and as such I always had certain spells running in my mind, constantly. All I had to do was concentrate on the partition spell, which after years of doing it was a subconscious thing, I didn’t even lose my partition spell in my sleep. Which meant all those copies of my mind were able to hold other spells, and I didn’t have to worry about concentrating on those at all.
I always kept six protection spells going, which was actually cheaper magic wise than one general purpose spell or my shield affinity. Protections from Fire, water, air, and earth spells, then there was general magic, like mind spells, paralysis, sleep, and the like. Lastly, I was protected from physical threats. If I was hit by a spell of fire for instance, the fire protection spell would block it, and take more magic from my internal pool. My internal magic pool regenerated faster than it took to maintain the spell, as long as they weren’t actively being used to protect me.
They could of course, be overwhelmed, either with a hit so hard the spell died before I could reinforce it, or if I was hit hard and long enough for my internal magic pool to run out. That second one was highly improbable, unless I was facing a whole circle of mages, I could out power and outlast any mage alive.
Besides those six, I also always had both telekinesis, and levitation running. Those spells could be useful, among others. Because of that, I could simply pass a thought to the partition running those spells, and my mind copy would make it happen. I’d gotten in trouble more than once for being a lazy ass teenager, for pulling the remote off the coffee table because it was way too far from the couch to bother reaching for it.
In any case, when the vampire’s head turned and he hissed at me, I passed a thought. The vampire had barely started to turn, when my telekinesis spell lifted him off the human woman, and thrusted him into the wall and held him against it.
The woman was young, attractive, and had a tight black skirt and a half shirt that was sliced up, to reveal assets that strangers shouldn’t see. I guessed she’d been at a bar, where the vampire had probably picked her up with the use of compulsion. She was also bleeding from her neck, and looking at me in panic now. I immediately cast sleep, and paused in thought as the woman passed out, and the screaming in my mind finally stopped.
I glared up at the vampire who was hissing, and looked like he wanted to yell at and threaten me, but considering the situation, the vampire was forced to settle on a gaze filled with the empty promise of death. A promise he wasn’t going to be able to keep.
I walked over to the bed, and cast three spe
lls on the young woman. The first healed her shallow wounds from the vampire slicing up her clothes with his clawed fingernails. The second spell cleaned both her and her clothes, as well as repaired them. The third spell scrubbed her mind of the last three hours, and of any compulsions. She’d wake up in a few hours when the spell ran out, and be very confused about how she got here, but wouldn’t remember a damned thing.
I looked up at the vampire with narrowed eyes, “I’m going to banish your demon in a moment, instead of simply killing you, do you know what that will do?”
The vampire’s eyes widened with alarm, and I nodded in satisfaction that he understood, as I cast a concealment spell in the room, to muffle his screams. If I simply killed him by taking his head, his demon wouldn’t even feel it, and would take its happy ass back to the infernal plane and rejoin the herd so to speak. This idiot’s soul would move on to where it was supposed to go next.
But… banishing a demon hurt, a lot, and not just the vampire, but the demon. I wasn’t going to do it to torture the guy, even if he deserved it. If his demon animal was in pain, and panicked, it would most likely latch onto the human soul in its animal panic… and drag it along for the ride. The vampire’s soul would sit trapped in the belly of a demonic animal, until some demon lord came along and found him there, then his afterlife would start to really suck.
It seemed an appropriate punishment for someone who rapes and kills young woman, and gets off on their fear. To say I was angry and disgusted in that moment, would be an understatement.
I gathered the magic and formed the spell, I grew up in a warlock’s household, of course I knew that spell very well, well enough to not need the words.
Nephilim's Journey Page 3