Valcour- Enchanted by a Demon (Hunted by Hellfie- Book 1)

by Libby Sparks

  Brianna wondered to herself why she was allowing him to drag her down the streets of Blue Earth like this, past shops and homes and people. Streetlights came on in response to the deepening dark of nighttime, and the crowds of people who had been out earlier were now slowly disappearing, leaving few others out and about besides her, Jake, and the two men following.

  She looked back over her shoulder again. The two men were still there, walking slowly, not rushing, and yet managing to stay not far behind.

  Jake saw them too, and ground his teeth in a scowl. He took them off the main road, down several side streets, taking as many turns as he could. “Jake, where are we going?” she asked him.

  “Somewhere we can hide.”

  They came to a red brick building with stone steps leading up to a red door. Without hesitation he led them there. Brianna saw “Blue Earth Community Library” spelled out in gold stick-on letters across the door.

  “You’re not seriously going to hide us in a library, are you?” she asked him. “Wait, why are we hiding at all? Why don’t we just call the police? Don’t you have a cell phone with you?”

  He held his hands gently on either side of her face, turning her eyes up to his. “Brianna, I need you to trust me,” he said.

  And she did. His touch left her cheeks burning and for a moment she felt slightly dizzy.

  Jake took hold of the door’s brass handle and tugged. It didn’t open. It was after eight o’clock now, and scanning the sign in the window next to the door Brianna saw that the library wasn’t ever open past six at the latest. “Jake, there’s no one here.”

  “Good. This will go easier if there’s no one else around.”

  He tugged on the door again, one hand on the handle, one hand stroking the frame slowly. And this time it opened.

  She blinked in surprise, looking from the door to him. Jake shrugged and pulled her inside. “Someone must have forgotten to lock it.”

  Inside there was one large open room, with two smaller rooms leading off from either side. Two overhead fluorescent lights had been left on, dimly lighting the place. She saw three parallel rows of shelving units marching down the center of the room, packed with books, and more books lining shelves along the walls. A counter with computers and papers stood along the wall to their left.

  Brianna had always loved libraries. Loved to sit in them for hours and just explore the different books until she found one that caught her imagination. She stared at all the stories around her now, words and ideas and information waiting to be shared. Libraries were magical places for her.

  Except of course, when she was running in a panic from strange men stalking her through the night.

  She listened but couldn’t hear anyone else in the building. Not that she could have heard much over the beating of her own heart. They stopped in the middle of the room, between the stacks, and Jake turned first one way and then the other before taking her hand again and heading to the back of the room.

  “Come on,” he said to her. “If I can get in, so can they.”

  “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Not now.”

  He led them to the very back of the room, where a gray metal cart on wheels stood with dozens of books on it, all waiting to be returned to their proper place on the shelves. “This will do. Here, get down.” He got down flat on the floor and squeezed himself into the deep, empty bottom shelf along the wall. “Hurry,” he said, when she didn’t immediately do it herself.

  At the other end of the building, Brianna heard the library door open.

  She had no idea what he was thinking. There was apparently no way they could hide from anyone like this. She had no choice but to do the same thing Jake had done, as he asked, lying down flat on the floor and sliding into the bottom shelf with him, her face close enough to his that she could feel his breath against her cheek.

  When she was in as far as she could squeeze herself Jake took hold of the book cart by one leg, just above the castor wheel, and pulled it close to them against the wall of shelves they were hiding in, partly blocking them from anyone’s view.

  The door closed with a loud, echoing bang. Then she heard footsteps as the men entered the library.

  She put a hand over her mouth. She didn’t dare speak or even breathe. It was only then, when she realized her hands were shaking, that Brianna was aware that breathing silently was almost an impossible task. She didn’t know why they were hiding, but those men were chasing them for a reason, and they seemed dangerous.

  She heard them now, speaking in low, quiet voices that she couldn’t make out. They were at the other end of the room. But it wouldn’t take them long to search this place. Or to find them.

  Jake wrapped his hand over hers, put his face close and whispered, “It will be all right. Shh.”

  The footsteps came closer.

  She looked into his eyes. She focused on them, their green pupils with their sparks of copper. No. Not copper, she realized. The lines that radiated out from the iris in each of his eyes were the pure color of gold. They mesmerized her, holding her attention and calming her.

  Closer. Step. Step. Soft sounds of shoes on the deep brown carpet.

  Jake held a finger to his lips. Not that he needed to remind her to be quiet.

  The footsteps were right next to her now as one of the men followed the wall around the room. Turning her head as little as possible, she saw a pair of shiny black shoes stop just on the other side of the book cart. And then the other man’s shoes were there too, facing the first man.

  “Anything?” asked a deep, resonant voice.

  “No.” Brianna knew it had to be the second man who answered, but the voice sounded identical to the first man’s. “I cannot think in here. But I do not see them.”

  “We are sure they came in here.”

  “Yes. We are. But they are not here now.”

  “Perhaps they left through a window.”

  “I do not know how he evaded us, but we know where he will be.”

  “The hotel.”

  “Yes.”

  Then the two of them walked away.

  Brianna turned to Jake, unable to believe that they hadn’t been seen. She took her hand away from her mouth to say something but he put his finger up against her lips instead, frantically shaking his head, urging her not to say anything yet.

  Brianna heard the footsteps going back to the front door of the library. There was a pause, a silence, as if the men were waiting to be sure there was no one to be found. Then the door opened, and it closed again.

  It was another few dozen heartbeats before Jake took his hand away from her face. When he did, he sighed out a long breath he must have been holding and started pushing himself out of their hiding spot. “All right. You can come out of there now.”

  He pushed the cart away for her and offered his hand to her to help her up. She ignored it, using the shelves as a handhold instead. “Do you mind explaining that to me now? Do you?”

  The tone of her voice must have been even harsher than she realized. He took a single step back from her, raising his hands palms out. “I’m sorry, Brianna. Really, really sorry. But they wouldn’t have left you alone. Not after they saw you with me. I couldn’t just leave you there.”

  “So you took us to a library?” She wanted to yell it at him, but she was keeping her voice down. Those men might still be close enough to hear her if she shouted.

  And they were in a library, after all.

  “It was the best place I could think of.”

  “Seriously? Wouldn’t a police station have been a better place? You didn’t think that maybe they’d find us in here?” She thought about that. Leaning her hips against the stacks, folding her arms under her breasts, she took a moment to settle herself. “And how come they didn’t find us, anyway?”

  “It was the books,” he explained. “It’s too loud in here for them.”

  “
Excuse me? How is it too loud in a place where there aren’t even any people who could have helped us if the two crazy men had found us hiding behind a freaking book cart!”

  He smiled at her as she said it, and it made her furious that he found this amusing. “Stop laughing at me, Jake. I’m serious! You’re the one who has men chasing after him. And you’re the one that got me caught up in this…this…whatever it is! So no more stalling, no more promises of explaining yourself to me later. Confession time is now.”

  She saw him chew on the inside of his cheek in thought. Then he stuffed his hands into his pockets again and nodded stiffly, like he’d made some hard decision. “Those two weren’t looking for us in here. Not in the strictest sense. They were listening for us. They could hear a pin drop in the middle of a desert. That’s how they knew we were outside your hotel before they saw us. They could hear my heartbeat.”

  She didn’t understand. “Your heartbeat?”

  “Yes. My heartbeat. And that’s what they were listening for in here. Well, mine and yours.”

  “But they couldn’t hear it.” She couldn’t help the sarcasm that slipped into her words.

  “No, they couldn’t.”

  “Because of the books.”

  “Right. Those men, they soak in information from any outside source. Books, television, computers. They hear it in their heads. So, take them into a place like this, and it’s like a thousand people shouting at them all at once. They can’t hear anything else. And they’ve forgotten how to use their eyes.”

  “Well. Isn’t that lucky for us.”

  “Sarcasm’s like a second language for you, isn’t it?” He tried for a smile as he shifted his weight from foot to foot nervously. “I’m telling you the truth, Brianna. You wanted it, and I’m giving it to you. I just don’t know how much you’re ready to hear.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to think. A few breaths later, she still hadn’t figured anything out. “Okay. Pretend this isn’t making any sense to me, because it’s not. Can you please explain to me exactly who it is that was chasing us, who can hear books and heartbeats? And use little words for me. Okay? Who exactly were those two?”

  He stared at her, his face suddenly very, very serious. He seemed to suddenly age in front of her for a moment as though he’d been caring a terrible secret for too long. She could tell he didn’t want to answer her, but he did it anyway.

  “Demons,” he said to her. “They were demons.”

  Chapter 5

  Demons. He said…demons?

  Brianna did what any rational young woman would do when she found herself alone in a dark library with someone talking about demons.

  She ran away.

  Keeping the cart between herself and Jake she circled him, turned, and bolted for the entrance. She slipped between the stacks, racing past signs that read “Fiction,” “Historical Biography,” and others. Wasn’t the door right there? She came out of the shelving units facing a wall full of books, and no way out.

  “Brianna, wait!”

  He was close behind her. She chose a direction, went left, and stayed along the wall. Eventually it had to bring her to the door. It had to.

  Instead, what it led her to was Jake. He was standing right next to the door, hands out like he was going to catch her and Brianna nearly stumbled right into him before she could stop herself. She brought her hands up in fists as if she was going to be able to do anything to stop him if he wanted to—

  “Be calm,” he said to her.

  And she was calm.

  His voice had been odd, like it was vibrating through tissue paper. But as soon as he spoke the words, all of her fear and anxiety melted away and she stood there, blinking at him, wondering why she had been so scared. Jake was such a nice guy and he would never hurt, so there couldn’t possibly be anything at all wrong.

  Wait a minute.

  She blinked again, this time coming back to herself and remembering exactly why she had been so freaked out and exactly why she had bolted for the door. “What did you just do to me?” she demanded, taking a step back from him. “Stay away from me, Jake.”

  He looked surprised. But then he reached out for her as she took another step back. “Listen, I know it’s a lot to understand.”

  “Yeah?” she scoffed. “You think?”

  “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you anything about it until we were in your car and on our way, Brianna. And even then, I’m pretty sure I was going to leave out the part about the demons.”

  “Oh, thanks so much. Just stay the hell away from me!”

  He lowered his hands, finally, and looked down at the floor. Jake looked disappointed, dejected almost, like a puppy that had just been shoved off the couch or something. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was hoping we could get to know each other before all this had to come out. You know?”

  Did she know? Did she know what? That he had lied to her, led her into a dangerous situation, and then tried some Jedi mind trick on her? “Oh, no. No. You do not get to act like the victim here, Jake. You want to go around acting all crazy and telling people there are demons chasing you, that’s on you. Not me. For all I know those guys are like from the local psycho hospital and they want to take you back there.”

  He flinched at her words and huddled into his sweater more. “I’m not crazy, but I can see why you might think that.”

  “Uh, yeah. We just covered that.”

  He sighed and looked up at her again. “Look, if you want to go, fine. I understand. But you can’t leave yet.”

  She gave him the most determined look she could muster up. “I’m leaving.”

  “Those two are probably still out there, waiting for us. If not, then they went back to the hotel to wait for us. For both of us.”

  “I’m not a part of this!”

  “You are,” he said, “as far as they’re concerned.”

  “Why would they be waiting for me?”

  “Because you were with me.”

  “And that’s enough to get a girl chased by the crazy patrol?”

  He smirked at the way she said it, but his eyes were still overcast. “It will be enough for them, Brianna.”

  Without her permission, her heart went out to him. He looked so lost and shaken and even if he was crazy, he did have evil versions of the Weasley brothers from Harry Potter chasing after him.

  She was such an idiot when it came to cute guys. If only she’d listened to her conscious and not gotten involved with him in the first place … but now she knew she was in a bind. Staying wasn’t an option and neither was running. Inwardly she kicked herself for being so stupid. Everything has its consequences, even flirting that wasn’t meant to go anywhere. Apparently this town wasn’t Vegas; where you could have a little fun and then leave it behind.

  “Okay.” She relaxed a little, but folded her arms defensively across her chest as she leaned back against the wall of books. “Fine. So tell me more. Why are demons chasing you?”

  “Well, that’s the complicated part.”

  She groaned in frustration. “Fine, man of mystery. I gave you a chance, you don’t want to talk to me. Fine. Keep your secrets. I just want to go.”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  She glared at him. What little patience she’d had was disintegrating.

  “Look, it’s not that I’m trying to hold you hostage or anything. It’s just that if you leave here, now, they will take you. And they won’t be gentle about it.”

  “I’m leaving, Jake. Don’t try to stop—”

  “You want to stay,” his voice said in that raspy vibrato.

  And she found that she wanted to stay.

  For all of half a minute she was content to lean against the carefully stacked books. There was nowhere to go. There was nowhere she needed to be. She could just stay right where she was for a while and that would be fine with her.

  Just.

  Stay.

  Here…

  She snapped back to herself agai
n. Shaking her head, she pushed away from the wall. “Will you stop that? What are you, some kind of—”

  “Please don’t say vampire.”

  Which was exactly what she had been about to say. Vampires she might have been able to buy into. More so than an escapee from the mental ward being pursued by demons. But this was the real world. And she should know better. Crazy things didn’t happen in her world.

  “Okay, you’re not a vampire.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re just crazy.” A thought occurred to her. “Hey…when we first came in here, you told me to trust you. And I did. Was that more of this? Did you mind rape me or something?”

  “Mind rape? Seriously?”

  “Well, you’ve got me dancing in circles like a trained dog! You’re telling me what to do and I’m doing it. What do you call it?”

  He twisted a hand in the air like he was trying to find the right words. Then he blew out a short breath and just shook his head. “When we came in here, I was just asking you to trust me. That’s all. No tricks.”

  “But tricks now.”

  He pursed his lips tightly but nodded. “Yes. Tricks now.”

  “Mind raping tricks.”

  “Look, Brianna, I can’t let you go out there to be hurt by those two. It would be my fault.”

  She ran her tongue around the inside of her teeth while she thought about it. She hadn’t heard his voice buzzing when he’d asked her to trust him, back when they came in here. It had just used his normal voice, simply a guy asking a girl for her trust. She had given it to him, because she had really felt that she could trust him.

  But now?

  Crazy things didn’t happen in the real world where she lived. But they were happening tonight.

  “Listen…we have a lot to talk about,” she said to him, unfolding her arms and twisting her fingers together. “But right now, I just need to pee. So, let me go use the bathroom and we’ll talk more after that, okay?”

  He regarded her, as if looking for the truth in her face. But at last he shrugged his shoulders and stepped aside for her. Brianna went by him, past the front door, and down the side wall where there was a sign that read “Restrooms.” It led through the doorway and into the room on this side of the building, a children’s reading room by the looks of it, with two doors off to the side. One read “Men’s” and one read “Women’s.”