The bar was bottom of the barrel, and Duncan wasn’t sure it had ever actually had what could be termed a heyday. He suspected it had been run-down and held together by sheer will since its inception. He knew it hadn’t changed any in the last two decades. He’d been in it before, nearly twenty years ago. It was as shitty then as it was now.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he was back at the hole in the ground. All he knew was he’d been dreaming about it for three weeks and couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed to be there. That something big was coming, and he should be there for its arrival.
What that something was, he didn’t know.
His luck it would be an archenemy, or a new threat. He’d probably played right into their hands by coming to the establishment.
Oh well. It wouldn’t be the first time that kind of shit had happened.
Wouldn’t be the last either.
Decades ago, he’d been in the area hunting dark mages who had aligned themselves with blood-drinkers and moon-crazed shifters. The entire group had been rotten to the core, sacrificing innocents to build their power base before unleashing a demon.
The area was home to one of his biggest regrets. Had he only been quicker in getting to the location long ago, he might have been able to save the young family that had fallen prey to the dark ones. As it had been, Duncan had arrived too late, finding the young couple dead.
He’d only been able to save their child. A little girl who was maybe eight or nine at the time, if that. Most kids looked alike to him, and he often thought teenagers who were driving seemed to be about ten years old, so he wasn’t a great judge of age anymore.
When Duncan had found himself with a small child, whose parents had died at the hands of the demon the dark mages had released, he’d been at a loss as to what to do with her. He barely took care of himself most days. Seeing to another’s needs had been foreign to him. Plus, he wasn’t good with children, scaring the majority of the ones he’d ever been around without meaning to, so he’d called in help straightaway.
The help had been his grandmother.
The woman more than knew her way around a child. She’d had enough boys of her own in her long life. And they, in turn, had so many boys of their own that the O’Caha clan was fairly large.
Their grandfather had once been in charge of everything, at least that’s what their grandmother had let him believe. When he’d passed, she’d taken over. Duncan strongly suspected the woman had always been the one holding the reins, that she’d simply permitted their grandfather and every other male in the family to think otherwise.
She didn’t look anywhere near her age (a number he wasn’t even sure of). None of the O’Cahas did.
His grandmother had helped Duncan with the little girl he’d saved from the demon. She’d seen to it the young child was placed in a good home. He’d asked about the child more than once over the years, but his grandmother was tight-lipped on the matter, informing him that all was as it should be and the child had been relocated to another town within Ohio.
Since the dive bar he was currently sitting in was also in Ohio, the child had, of course, been on his mind once more. Not to mention this weekend marked the nineteen-year anniversary of the attack. He’d never been able to fully shake the memory of it all from his head.
He’d never forgiven himself for arriving too late to save the kid’s parents. There had been very little left of the father to even identify. The mother hadn’t fared much better. The demon that had attacked them had been savage. To this day, Duncan still couldn’t wrap his mind around how the little girl had walked away without a scratch.
It was as if the goddess herself had wrapped her arms around the wee one, protecting her from harm. Whatever it had been, Duncan was thankful for it.
The demon that had killed the young couple—and who would have done the same to the little girl if afforded the opportunity—had managed to escape.
He’d hunted for the demon for years, to no avail.
Now he was back in the area.
Just like before, dreams had been what prompted his arrival. Though this time he wasn’t ignoring the pull of the dreams. The minute he’d realized the location, and that he’d been there before, Duncan had dropped everything and come. He didn’t want the blood of another family on his hands.
They were red enough.
Just like nearly twenty years ago, Alban Eiler was upon them. It was known to draw out the power hungry, the wayward, and the dregs of the supernatural community.
Duncan strongly suspected this Spring Equinox would bring about one hell of an opponent.
Chapter Three
Catrina Pollard shot awake, her head snapping up as her heart beat wildly. It took her a half-second to realize she wasn’t being chased by a giant dark gray demon with red eyes. That she was actually sitting at a table, in the safety of a building that had been in her family for generations.
Still, it had felt so real.
The dreams that she’d been having for weeks always did.
And they were always the same.
The monster from her past haunting her sleep, tormenting her as it had when she was just a girl.
She wiped a bit of drool from her chin and used her elbow to clean it from the old textbook laid out before her. Cringing, she hoped she hadn’t damaged it, as it was irreplaceable and handwritten. Such was the case with many of the materials in the building.
They were special.
For the eyes of a select few supernaturals only.
Not the general public, and certainly not humans who weren’t to know of supernaturals.
Although she’d clearly taken an unplanned catnap, she was still exhausted. Sleep had been elusive for weeks, and what little she’d managed to gain was filled with visions of the demon hunting her.
“It will end soon enough,” she said softly.
Catrina stared across the piles of scrolls, books, and parchments spread out before her on the large table. Her phone was sitting on the edge of the table, barely eking out enough space with all the books near it. She had multiple missed calls from one of her friends. It was simply a matter of time before her friend showed up on her doorstep, demanding to know why Catrina was ghosting her. Thankfully, Catrina hadn’t let Maria know where she was going. Had she, Maria would have found a way to stop her, wanting to protect her.
It’s what friends did.
Friends didn’t let friends hunt ancient demons alone.
The saying should have been on a T-shirt or something. Maybe it was.
Catrina had met Maria Flores when they were younger. They’d hit it off and formed a friendship that had lasted over the multitude of moves Catrina had gone through in her life.
Maria tended to rub others the wrong way, and for good reason. She was loud and obnoxious with a temper that knew no limits, but, under it all, she was fiercely loyal, and Catrina knew the woman’s behavior often stemmed from fear—fear of losing someone else she loved.
Both had been dealt rather ugly blows when they were younger, but Maria hid her truths behind false bravado, threats, and sarcasm. Everyone had their own way of dealing with hardship and tragedy.
Catrina liked to pull away and be alone.
Maria kept her from disappearing fully. They were a nice balance.
Their friendship had also weathered the storm of what each of them did—what they were. They were champions for the side of good in the fight against evil. At least, they tried to be. There were times Catrina wondered if the lines didn’t blur too much with what they were often forced to do.
Maria and her best friend Maggie (who also happened to be a close friend of Catrina’s) fought the good fight a couple of hours away. Catrina hadn’t spoken to either woman in months. She was doing something they’d not only disapprove of, they’d try to stop it, or join in, and she couldn’t allow that.
It was too dangerous.
What she was hunting needed to be stopped. The demon couldn’t be allowed to obli
terate any more families. The destruction it had left in its wake was something she still felt to this day.
And if her research was right, it would be showing its ugly face sooner rather than later. The demon had been dormant for nineteen years. It was time for it to come out of hibernation.
Time for it to feed.
Catrina continued poring over the reference materials spread out before her. Large old books that were hand-bound were stacked several deep in more than one spot. Maps of the area—the expansive woods, mountains, caves, taverns, and terrain—were perched precariously on the edge of the oversize table. Some of the maps were so old that they were yellowed and on parchment that was delicate to the touch. And some of the maps showed the underground tunnels that ran through the area. Tunnels that were still used to this very day in the fight against evil.
Had she herself not had a tragic event that had occurred down the street from where she lived, nearly twenty years ago, she’d have never believed that such a quaint town, nestled in the rolling hills of the Unglaciated Allegheny Plateau in Ohio, could have such a disturbing past and present. That it was a known paranormal hotspot.
But it was.
It was a foothold in a tale as old as time—the fight between good and evil. For all of its beauty and wonder, it harbored a darkness, as did everything in life.
But this one just happened to be active, and if she was right, the location was about to get a heck of a lot more active over the course of the weekend.
And she had every intention of trying to stop it.
That was the reason why she was burning the candle at both ends. Why she was surrounded by research, nodding off at the table, rather than still living her life far from the area and the memories it dredged up.
Catrina’s journal was on the table as well, a token reminder of every memory and bit of detail she could find about what had happened to her in the past and what she suspected was about to happen again. It was filled to the brim with information. Anything at all that might be useful. Knowledge was power, and power was everything when fighting evil.
The room was dimly lit by way of old-style lamps that held Edison bulbs with soft, warm glows. Antique maps of the area were framed and mounted on the walls. Next to them were weapons, also affixed to the walls. Several oversize chests contained additional weapons, leaving the entire room stocked.
The knight-in-armor statue was a favorite of Catrina’s. When she was little, she’d spend hours staring at it, daydreaming about having her own knight in shining armor. A man who would swoop in and make everything right.
In some ways, she’d gotten a version of that at one point, when she was younger. A man had come at the eleventh hour and kept her from being a midnight snack for the demon.
As quickly as the man had entered her life, he’d left, never to be seen again. Whoever he was, she owed him a debt of gratitude. Though she doubted she’d live long enough to ever find him and thank him. Especially not with what she was planning to do now.
Getting ready to hunt what had killed her parents.
The demon she planned to confront would more than likely be her end, but she intended to take it with her when she went.
She just needed to figure out how to destroy it so it could never harm anyone again.
It was why she was tucked away in a location dedicated to the fight against evil, among ancient texts, scrolls, and research material. She was trying to find a way to best the demon once and for all. That was easier said than done.
Information on the demon was scarce, at best.
She just hoped what she had found was enough to cobble together a plan of action. That, combined with all the magical items and weapons forged to fight evil, had to be enough.
A myriad of unlit candles filled the large room. Some were for rituals. Others were simply to provide lighting should the electricity fail. Since the wiring in the building was nearly as old as the structure, the power was often on the fritz.
The entire space was set up to serve one purpose—researching the supernatural and paranormal. What the room lacked was modern technology in the form of computers and internet. None of which were super helpful in what she was hunting anyway. She did have a laptop in the apartment on the level above, but she hadn’t opened it in months.
The fuses in the old building left a lot to be desired. She’d tried blow-drying her hair and realized that caused issues, cutting the power quickly. Charging her phone had also become something of an ordeal. Finally, she’d given up and began charging it at the bar where she worked on the weekends.
The bar was basically a dump, purposely so, as it was a front for something far greater than serving beer. It was a check-in station for the demon slayers passing through the area. Beneath the bar were passageways that stretched far under the town and fed into old buildings, just like the one she was currently residing in. The owner and operator of the bar was charged with training new slayers. He was also very against her hunting for what had killed her parents. He’d said as much already.
But he couldn’t stop her.
She wasn’t one of his trainees.
All she did was work for him waiting tables.
The tips were pretty good and she had very little in the way of bills, making it easier for her to live off a modest income. Her car was something she’d picked up for a few hundred dollars. It ran but that was about it. That was fine, because it did what it was supposed to do—get her from point A to point B.
For now, she called said apartment home. Since the building was long since paid for, it meant she didn’t have anything in the way of rent. That helped too. And if she was feeling brave, she could eat at the bar where she worked to save money on food. Though she was pretty sure the bar’s kitchen violated about every health code there was.
Every step of the plan had been carefully considered. Catrina had saved for years, working odd jobs to squirrel away cash. All of it had led to this moment.
This weekend.
The anniversary of the last time the demon had surfaced nineteen years ago, and when her calculations told her it would be back.
Everything in her life had gotten her here, to this point. To the old building that looked like time had forgotten it. To a pending showdown with the monster that had forever changed her life, and more than likely the weekend she’d die.
She pushed that thought from her mind and took a deep breath, still smelling the scent of old books. When she’d opened the door for the first time in years, she’d instantly been hit in the face with the odor of closed-up books. It was distinctive.
She’d aired the place out as best she could upon her arrival in town two months back. It didn’t really do much to help the smell of mold and old. Currently, sage-scented incense was burning. Its purpose was twofold. One, to help with the smell. Two, to help cleanse any negative energy that might be in the building after being shut up for so long while housing so many magikal items and ancient books and texts.
Runes were built into the building’s foundation. As were various crystals and whatnot. All items used in the world of magik. All intended to keep evil out of the building and any dark items brought in from being a danger to others.
Catrina knew so much about it all because her mother’s family had been the ones to build the place long ago. They’d also helped set up the tunnels under the town, the check-in point for slayers, and so very much more. She was a legacy in the world of demon fighting. Her mother and her father had done as much and been revered.
And yet they’d lost the battle.
She closed her eyes, unwilling to go down memory lane again. For the past nineteen years, she’d done an amazing job of compartmentalizing. Of locking away the pain and looking at it all objectively, doing her best to figure out what had gone wrong and how to prevent anything like that from happening again.
Time was limited.
If her calculations were correct, the demon was not only back, he’d start killing soon, if he hadn’t already. Once
he got his fill of draining magiks for their power, he’d go to ground again to sleep, and she’d lose her chance at him for another nineteen years.
That wasn’t an option.
“No one else will suffer at its hands.”
Reaching out, she put her fingers on one of the many old scrolls that called the building home. This one had several mentions of the demon. The demon was referred to as the harvester in the old writings. It wasn’t the only one of its kind. From what she was finding, harvesters were vicious, smart, and extremely deadly. Many a warrior for good had fallen victim to one.
She could find no evidence that harvesters hunted in packs. They seemed to be solitary by nature, which was a good thing. If anything about the situation could be seen as good. Going against one was bad enough. Going against a pack of them would be far worse.
Yawning, she glanced at the time. Her shift at the bar started soon. Researching the demon further would have to wait. Since she’d taken to living in the quarters above what the locals called the library—even though it was no such thing—it meant she had unlimited access to the materials.
She went to head up to her apartment but bumped a pile of books sitting on the edge of the table. One single book fell to the floor. Bending, she retrieved it and paused, skimming the cover. It was all in Latin, which she could both read and write. Strangely, Catrina had no recollection of having pulled the book from the shelves when gathering research on the demon.
It didn’t have anything to do with the demon she was hunting. The book was about shifters. Wolf ones, to be exact.
“Weird.”
It wasn’t the first time objects seemed to relocate on their own in the place. The first few days it had happened, it freaked her out. Now that she was eight weeks into calling the building home, she’d gotten somewhat used to it all.
Glancing around, she tried to sense if something else was there with her.
She got nothing.
Catrina stood with the book, caressing the spine absently as she let her magik up slightly. Her magik tickled whenever she used it, making her feel as if someone was brushing her skin lightly with a feather.
Seduced by the Highland Werewolf Page 2