She got that, too.
She also finally understood the need for self-education as well as tutoring from others more knowledgeable than she.
Cassandra had offered to teach her about Wicca. Ames would continue teaching her about martial arts and the job of hunting. Lauren would help her with the massive number of books she would need to read, and even Sterling could expose her to the Catholic views on demonology.
She had a lot to look forward to...but mostly, she would anticipate the day her brother walked out of the prison...the day when, if only for an hour, she was able to bring her family back together.
“It’s a good thing you’ve done.”
Denny glanced up from the Kill Book at Rush. “What? Kill a lot?”
“No, silly, save your brother’s life. You’ve been through a helluva lot. I hope he appreciates all you’ve done for him.”
“I’m sure he will.”
“Where is Tyler Jones now?”
Denny sighed. “Well, someone had to pay for the deaths of those three poor guys I left on the ground. He was a babbling fool once I got his demon from him. He’ll be out on bail one day and back in jail the next. You’ll see.”
Rush smiled. “You must be so proud of yourself.”
Denny rose and put her used vials in a cup. “Proud? Hardly. I’m exhausted, scarred, and I accidentally killed three innocent people. I could really use a full night’s sleep.”
“So, no more skulking around in the dark?”
Denny shook her head. “No more. I need to get myself back on—”
Just then, a text popped up on her phone. It was from Reese. Things will roll in the morning from DA’s office. This will really catapult my career. Thank you so much for believing in me, Golden. I owe you.
“You never told her.”
Denny shook her head. “Didn’t really need to. She did a lot of leg work...it will be her evidence that puts him away.”
“Well, I’m surprised she never made a move. I always thought she had the hots for you.”
“You think that about everyone.”
“And I’d be right.”
As Denny started out of the lair, she waited for Rush. “You coming?”
Rush looked around. “Yeah. I just...I’m really proud of you, baby. You’re an amazing woman who I’m proud to have as my friend.”
“Best friends.”
Rush smiled. “Best friends.”
****
Two Months Later
The day was muggy and hot, but none of the Silvers felt it as they waited outside the prison gate. Behind them was a growing crowd holding signs and cheering for Quick. Cameramen roamed around interviewing people and Reese held court as people shot question after question at her. She had become a media sensation that the press was calling Reese’s Pieces.
She’d been right about this case making her career. She’d had job offers from all over the country.
“Anyone else’s heart racing?” Pure asked from behind Gwen’s wheelchair.
She’d returned from California with blonder hair, tanner skin, longer legs, and bigger breasts. She’d grown like a flower under the sun and when she got home, she was no longer a naive teenager with no direction. She told Denny and Sterling she would return to California for college and had applied to UCLA, USC and Berkeley.
Denny and Sterling couldn’t have been prouder of their little sister, though Denny kept calling her Blondie.
Sterling clucked around her sisters, transforming back into her older sister costume and dumping the habit for one day. Denny was proud of her for that as well.
“The press is chomping at the bit. Your detective is really in her element.”
“I like her,” Pure said. “She has integrity.”
“Without her, none of this would be possible. All the magic in the world couldn’t have created the evidence we needed to put Tyler Jones away. She deserves this.”
Sterling shifted her eyes from the sun. “This is taking forever.”
“They have to play it up big,” Lauren said, “to make up for their mistake. Good press is hard to come by these days. The DA’s office will milk this for as long as it can.”
Denny turned back around and looked into the crowd. A hand went up and waved at her.
Brianna.
Denny smiled at her.
“Golden, are you positive Quick needs to leave so soon? It would be so nice to visit for a while.” Sterling said.
Denny shook her head. “Can’t. Quick is far too easy a target for demons and the supernatural. With Pure in California and Quick in Alaska, all of us will be safer. He’ll be able to get work there, and the number of ghosts and supernatural activity are minimal.”
“I know, I know...Still...”
“You saw the research, Sterling.” Lauren said softly. “It’s his best option for success. I’ve crunched it five ways to Sunday and Anchorage is his best opportunity for an extended, demon-free life.”
Pure was nodding. “Loose cannons aren’t conducive to a safe existence...for any of us.”
Everyone stared at her.
“What? Think I applied to those schools because I’m some dummy? Sheesh.”
They all laughed.
Their laughter was cut short when the doors to the prison slowly opened and the crowd quieted. The new DA paused his interviews and waited with the rest of the crowd.
Denny held Sterling and Pure’s hands, and together, they stood behind Gwen’s wheelchair and waited.
As the grains of sand fell slowly through the hourglass, Denny thought back over the last two months and how peaceful her life had become since her battle with the Magyar. She’d stopped prowling around at night and started sleeping during normal hours. She’d started jogging regularly, had been eating better, and had already read over two dozen books in her lair.
She was finally on track.
Having some normalcy in her life was a welcome change, and she’d even re-enrolled in school to take Latin and German.
Reese had worked tirelessly on the case, the earlier evidence that had been omitted came to light and the slow churning wheels of justice had kicked into second gear.
Cassandra made several nighttime appearances for booty calls, but Denny finally had to put an end to that. As fun as casual sex was, she knew it hurt Rush to have Cassandra in her bed, and the last thing she needed was the complication of a relationship, even if it was just a sexual one.
For her part, Rush had settled into a deep friendship with Denny, making sure she ate and took time away from the lair. That time away usually consisted of half-day long training sessions with Ames, who showed her how to better use the Saugen. It had other little tricks to it as well as the ones she’d used, and now, she had weapons that could change the course of her career.
For two months, she and Lauren had spent countless hours trying to find ways to decipher the carvings on the trunk. So far, they’d come up with nothing.
Funny thing was, ‘nothing’ was just fine for her right now. She was learning balance. She was learning that being a demon hunter was what she was, not the sum of all her parts. Ames had taught her to view it like a job, not a lifestyle.
Even the Hanta seemed to accept that.
“People will come to you for help now that the word is out there that you can help,” Ames had told her. “Until then and in between jobs, live your life to the fullest.”
That was about to happen now that Quick was getting out of prison.
When he finally walked out the gates, he made a beeline straight for Denny. Cameras clicked, the crowd cheered, and Denny cried into his musky smelling army jacket.
“You did it,” he whispered.
“I promised you I would.” Denny pulled away and looked into his face. He was heavier than when he went in. “Welcome home.”
Sterling and Pure joined the embrace. There were tears, laughter, and love as the Silver family reunited.
“Quick! Over here!”
“Quick,
a few words!”
Quick started to cut them off when Denny put her hand on his chest. “You need to do this—if for nothing else than to sing Reese’s praises. She’s the one who made this happen. Go.”
“Fine, but don’t go anywhere.” Quick knelt in front of Gwen before kissing her forehead and whispering something in her ear.
As he addressed the crowd and answered questions from the press, Denny knelt in front of Gwen, tears in her eyes, and said, “I promised to get Quick out of his prison, Mom. Now it’s time for me to get you out of yours.” Caressing her mother’s gaunt cheek, Denny vowed to herself that the next person she saved...the next life she would pull out of incarceration, would be her mother’s.
It was a promise she intended on keeping.
Demon Blood
Coming in 2015
When demons explode, demon detritus flies everywhere, and at this very moment, the demon Denny Silver was trying to put down was one wrist flick away from blowing up.
“Come on Jahi, just release this woman,” Denny said. “Take your minion from her and maybe, just maybe, I’ll let her live.” In each hand, Denny held a silver cylinder about a foot in length. When she snapped her wrists forward, a sword made of energy cracked out of the right cylinder while a blade chain whipped out of the other.
The possessed woman laughed a laugh that sounded slightly insane. “Your reputation as a killer of demons proceeds you, Golden Silver, but how will you fair against one you cannot kill?”
Denny pulled herself up to her full five feet ten as she slid the whip into a specially made inner pocket in her vest. “Oh, I could kill you and the host, but I’m hoping Jahi comes to her senses before I do that.” Denny stepped closer to the possessed women, who looked like a forty-year-old mom trying to dress like her fourteen-year-old daughter.
“Stay where you are hunter, lest my mistress, Jahi, feels the need to defend me.”
From another inner pocket, Denny withdrew a third cylinder, a weapon known as the Saugen. The woman stepped back, eyes wide with fear.
Denny grinned. “Yeah, I’d back up too. See, here’s the thing: in less than one minute, this Saugen is going to suck you right out of this poor women, and the second you clear her body, Epee here will cut you in half, ending your days of whoring around for the sake of your demon. So I’m giving you one final warning. Get out now or I’ll tear you from her and destroy you.” Denny looked up. “Do you hear me Jahi?”
Suddenly, a black mist appeared out of nowhere, formless, shapeless, almost two-dimensional. The mist hovered near the women a moment before slowly taking the shape of a curvaceous shadow. “Cease your threats, hunter. You needn’t destroy my minion, thought she is far tougher than you might surmise.” The shadow shimmered a moment.
“Your minions do not belong in Savannah, Jahi. Why are we having this conversation again? You’re trying my already limited patience.”
“It is my error, hunter. One I’ll not make again.”
“Good, then take your servant with you when you leave and don’t return. I mean it, Jahi. Next time, it won’t be your minion I come after.”
The tense silence hung in the air between them, the shadow never anything more than a heavy smoke-like mist. “Save your warnings, hunter. Your reputation is well-earned. Come, Enocha. Leave that poor dimwit to her own devices.”
“And don’t return. Either of you. Whatever my reputation is ain’t nothing compared to what it can be.” Denny’s voice chopped three octaves. She sounded like a gnome who just ate a bag of rocks and chased it with a pitcher of sand.
The Hanta Raya demon’s voice was always so unsettling coming out of her mouth.
“Your demon is far more powerful than any Hanta Raya I’ve ever felt,” Jahi said.
“My Hanta has kicked a lot of demon ass in the six months I’ve been a hunter, yet you all still come to harass the rookie and I keep blowing you to smithereens. Why is that, Jahi?”
Before the demon could answer, Enocha rose from the woman, flipped Denny off, and then vanished.
“Where…what…where am I?” the now-empty host asked, looking wide-eyed at Denny.
Denny pointed to the bus station on the corner. “You just got a little lost. Wait for the next bus to come take you home. You’ll be fine.”
The bewildered woman walked away, stopping to look down at her clothes. “Why…why am I dressed like a hooker?”
Denny shrugged, “Costume party?”
When the woman continued to the bus stop, Denny focused back on the shadow. “I may be a rookie, Jahi, but my Hanta is almost a thousand years old. I think it’s time you gave my demon the respect it deserves.”
The black shadow slowly began to fade. “You are an enigma, Golden Silver…both at peace with your own demon while at war with the rest. I bid you adieu and wish you luck with your Hanta. You are going to need it.” With that, Jahi disappeared, leaving Denny in the near darkness of a deserted street.
“Well, I supposed our work is done for the night. How ‘bout we put this in the book as a successful extraction and go get laid?”
As usual, the demon within did not directly respond, but she could sense its agreement. Her Hanta Raya loved sex…one of the few perks that came with being possessed.
There were other perks as well, of course, such as greater strength and faster healing abilities, but the best part? The best part was knowing at the end of the night, there was one less asshole roaming the streets.
And that was good enough for her.
About the Linda Kay Silva
Linda Kay Silva is the big brain behind such characters as Echo, Jessie, Dallas, Denny, Delta, and Quinn. She writes 3-4 novels a year as she travels around the world visiting exotic locations where Linda Kay does most of her writing.
Now settled in Palm Springs, Linda Kay spends her days riding through the backroads on her Harley, Lucky. When she isn’t hanging out in her backyard writing, she can be found playing tennis, or managing her menagerie.
She is a rescuer of anything with fins, fur, or feathers, and has snakes, lizards, turtles, tortoises, frogs, a parrot, and her beloved Lucy. By night, she is a not-so-mild-mannered Literature Professor at a military university where she teaches World Lit, British Lit, American Lit, Sci-fi/fantasy, epic fantasy, American Poetry, Comparative Lit, and Creative Writing to our men and women in uniform all over the globe.
Linda Kay writes every day, plays hard every day, wakes up laughing every morning, and is a lover of life. Not some tortured artist...you’d be hard pressed to find someone as happy as she is...especially when she’s watching zombies eat people. (what’s up with that?) She responds to any and all inquiries, and feel free to friend her on Facebook.
You can learn more about Linda Kay at
www.lindakaysilva.com
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