The Devil's Soldier

by Rachel McClellan

  The Devil's Soldier

  1

  Lucien dug his fingers into the flesh of his neck until he could grasp the broken end of a three-inch long werewolf claw. He yanked it out and grimaced. A mere fraction of an inch to the left, and the werewolf would have severed his spinal cord.

  "You should turn that into a necklace," Charlie said. He was kneeling on the grass next to the limp body of the werewolf who had attacked Lucien. "Definitely dead. That was some move you did."

  Lucien held up the bloodied claw in front of him. Light from the half-moon hanging in the night sky made his blood dripping from the tip look more black than red. "He took me by surprise. What is a werewolf doing in a vampire den, anyway?"

  "Good question," Charlie said, flipping the hair out of his eyes. Lucien couldn't understand how he could fight without being able to see properly. That's why Lucien kept his hair short.

  Rick walked out of the darkened house behind them and pointed at the bloodied claw. "You going to keep that?"

  "You want it?" Lucien asked and offered it to him.

  "Thanks, man!" Rick snatched it and walked back to the truck, pushing up his glasses as he went. Being a vampire, Rick had perfect vision, but he always wore them saying they made him look like a nice person.

  As it turned out, Rick was a nice person, maybe a bit obnoxious at times. He was one of the many vampire recruits Lucien's brother, Aiden, had tried to lure in with his deadly plan of unleashing a plague upon the earth, but Rick had doubts. Lucien convinced him to fly back to the states and learn more from Charlie about the Deific, an organization that fights the true evils in the world. He was surprised when Rick actually did it. By nature, vampires were normally blood-thirsty creatures who loved violence, but not Rick. The blood and gore often made him ill.

  Lucien stepped over a pile of vampire ash. He had killed four of them tonight with his bare hands. It felt good to take his anger out on something. Fighting was all he had now.

  He looked back at the run down home where they had found the vampires and the lone werewolf. It was a house at the end of a cul-de-sac, set back a ways from the road. Overgrown trees and shrubs hid its inner horrors from the rest of the world.

  Charlie came up behind him. "You didn't even ask them, Lucien. You must give everyone a chance to learn another way."

  "Did you not see the human leg on the floor? These vampires were too far gone."

  "There might have been one vampire. The wolf even. They're not known for being especially violent."

  "None of it matters," Lucien said. He hated Charlie's rule. Ever since Lucien had convinced Rick to switch sides, Charlie had it in his head that others could turn away from their naturally dark tendencies, but Lucien knew how unlikely that was.

  "You scare me sometimes," Charlie said, eyeing him sideways. "Eve wouldn't like the man you're becoming."

  Every part of Lucien flexed, and he practically snarled. Charlie should know better than to bring up her name.

  "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—" Charlie's mouth closed suddenly, and his eyebrows drew together. "There's another vampire."

  "Where?" Lucien asked, itching for another fight.

  Charlie squinted and glanced around as if trying to hone in on a target. He was a powerful psychic, one with the ability to not only sense things unseen, but often see the future too.

  "Behind the house. In a shed, maybe? Whatever it is, a vampire's hiding in it."

  Lucien sprinted around the small home, nearly losing his shoe in a puddle of mud.

  "Wait!" Charlie called.

  Charlie's footsteps pounded after him, but Lucien was too fast. He stopped near the back porch and tuned into his vampire senses. A broken swing set butted up against an old fence at the rear of the yard, and on the other side was a plastic kiddie pool with a dirty water in its center.

  There was no shed that Lucien could see, but… he zeroed in on a doghouse, sniffing the air. A smile spread across his face. He crouched low and leapt into the air. He crashed on top of the doghouse roof, shattering wood into a thousand pieces.

  A vampire scurried out from within the debris. He was a mangy-looking thing with long stringy hair and bones nearly poking out from his skin. His face was sallow, and his eyes glowed an eerie yellow. Had he ingested something besides blood? Drugs weren't just addictive to humans. Vampires could indulge in them, too, at high doses.

  I should really put him out of his misery. This is what he thought, but deep down he knew he just wanted to fight more. He scopes the area for a means to do so. Leaning against a nearby tree was a weathered rake. He kicked at it, snapping it in two, and picked up the jagged handle.

  "Where do you think you're going?" Lucien asked the vampire who was still scrambling across the lawn on all fours like a frightened puppy, his eyes darting back and forth.

  "I'm a good boy," the vampire mutt said. "A good boy. Not a vampire—a dog. Ruff!"

  Charlie rounded the corner and came to a stop near Lucien. "What in the—? Is he high?"

  "Either that or crazy." Lucien inched toward him, as if not to startle him.

  "Try and talk to him first," Charlie whispered. "He might not be one of the bad ones."

  "But he is one of the crazy ones," Lucien muttered. They were just as dangerous.

  The mutt turned in a circle, as if chasing his tail. After two spins, he stopped and sniffed the air. His head slowly turned in Lucien's direction, and he growled.

  "Down, boy," Lucien said, his voice calm. "I just want to rip your head off."

  The mutt's expression went from crazy to calm in a blink of an eye. He took his time standing up, stretching to his full height, which was a few inches taller than Lucien. He held out his hands and unfolded each finger one at a time; his long, sharpened nails were filled with dirt and grime.

  Lucien tightened his grip on the wooden rake handle.

  "Have you heard of Boaz?" Charlie asked him.

  He cocked his head.

  "Bo-az," Lucien said, enunciating each syllable slowly.

  The corner of the mutt's mouth twitched and spread into a smile. "The Devil's Soldier. May he kill every human he touches."

  Lucien sprang from the ground and swung an open clawed hand at the mutt's face. His nails caught the side of his cheek just as the mutt turned away. Lucien swung his other arm. The mutt blocked it.

  He was surprisingly strong for his thin frame. He twisted Lucien's arm until Lucien's shoulder almost popped from the joint. With his unrestrained hand, Lucien took hold of the mutt's shirt and jerked him to the ground, but the mutt took Lucien with him.

  Lucien kip-upped to his feet and whirled around. The mutt glanced behind him toward a never-ending forest, and then back at Lucien as if trying to decide whether or not to fight. Lucien made the decision for him.

  It wasn't a fair fight. Lucien realized this when the mutt's cheekbone caved in beneath Lucien's fist on only the second punch. But Lucien didn't stop. He jumped on top of him and continued to rain down punches into the mutt with a desire to break every bone in his body. Lucien's anger burned deep and the only way to keep the fire from consuming him was to physically release it.

  Eve was dead. Every second of every day he saw her stepping off the cliff, heard her bones shattering against the rocks, and smelled her blood permeating the air. All because of Boaz.

  "Lucien!" Charlie had his shoulders and was attempting to pull him off of the mutt. "Stop!"

  Lucien shoved him back and snarled. He turned back to the bloodied, crushed face of the vampire mutt and raised his fist. Charlie tackled him knocking him to the side.

  "You have to stop!" Charlie yelled in his face.

  Rick, who must've been watching the whole time, picked up the broken rake handle on
the ground and jabbed it into the mutt's heart. His body burst into ashes; they hissed and smoked into the air.

  Lucien's chest heaved up and down, and he returned Charlie's heated stare. "He deserved it."

  Charlie moved off him and stood. "No one deserves a beating like that. Besides, he knew Boaz. You ruined our first chance at finding him."

  "You have some serious mental issues," Rick said to Lucien.

  Lucien came to his feet and shrugged his jacket back onto his shoulders. Every part of him still burned with a desire to destroy. He felt it all the way to his fingertips, and in the darkest parts of his mind. He wanted to consume everything around him, make it feel the pain that racked him continually.

  He inhaled deeply, his hands balled tight. The darkness inside him was dangerous. He knew that, but that anger was better than feeling overwhelming grief.

  "We miss her, too," Charlie said, his voice gentle.

  Lucien tightened his lips. He had to get out of here. He glanced up to into the night sky and sprang upward, his body bursting into a cloud of smoke.

  Flying high among the blackest of black, he would burn out the rest of his anger, at least for a while. But the rage would return. It always did. Only Boaz's blood would be enough to satisfy his fury.

  2

  Eve took hold of the bottom of the chair she was sitting on and closed her eyes tight. I can do this. Focus.

  "Keep your eyes open," Dmitri said.

  Eve's eyelids fluttered wide. Dmitri was sitting opposite her, only a couple of feet away. His gray hair was matted with sweat against his forehead, and his round face was red. Sometimes she wondered if these training exercises were harder on him than her.

  "Ready?" he asked.

  She tightened her lips and gave a quick nod.

  An invisible force pressed against her chest, attempting to claw and scrape its way inside her. She concentrated hard, staring Dmitri in the eyes. She would not let him in, not this time.

  A few more seconds…

  Eve grinded her teeth together, straining against the intense pain that seared her skin. Dmitri's mind was nearly inside hers. If he came any closer, he'd be able to take her magic and use if for himself. Her whole body began to shake, and she grunted.

  Dmitri didn't look much better. His eyes were vibrating within their sockets, and sweat dripped from his face. By the looks of it, he was close to breaking, too.

  Eve decided to try something new. Instead of using up the last of her energy trying to block his mental attack, she chose to fight back. She sucked in, then mentally pushed outward with everything she had. Dmitri's eyes widened, and his body slumped into the chair. The invisible force pressing against her dropped, and she leaned forward gasping for air.

  "You did it," Dmitri said, breathing heavy.

  She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. "I wasn't quick enough though."

  "But it's a good start, especially considering you were in a coma four weeks ago."

  Eve rubbed the back of her neck, remembering how disorientating it had been to wake up in a place that she had no memory of going to. Her only thought when she'd jumped from the cliff to escape Boaz was to go to a place that could help her. And even when she had bounced off the sharp rock face, her bones shattering into pieces, she had still kept her mind centered on one single thought: help. That's how she found herself within the walls of a small monastery just outside Paris, one of the last of its kind.

  Dmitri was a witch, like her, but had left the supernatural world decades earlier to live a life of solitude. Then Eve had arrived, fulfilling a premonition he'd had of her almost a year earlier. Dmitri knew just what to do with her.

  "Thanks, Dmitri. For everything." She didn't want to think about where she would be without him.

  Dmitri gathered his long robe and stood from his chair. "You're strong. Stronger than I ever was. And now that you know how to protect your magic, you've finished the first part of your plan. It's time."

  "I don't know. It still feels too soon."

  He walked across the bamboo flooring and opened the door. A gust of cold air rushed in from the underground, stone hallway. Eve couldn't understand why he chose to live in the basement; there were plenty of rooms upstairs, but Dmitri insisted it was more peaceful underground. That was a theory she could easily debate, seeing how she had been buried alive by her parents years earlier when she wouldn't give them what they wanted—her magic. Being underground was anything but peaceful.

  "That's because you've been out of the game," Dmitri said, "and you've been neglecting your other powers with all this training. It's time to focus on putting everything together."

  She followed him out and down the long stone corridor. The cold seeped through her thin sweater. "What do you suggest?"

  "I want you to go to the city tonight and use your ability to help others. Like you used to do. Basically, I want you to use the gifts you had before your accident."

  "All of them?"

  He looked pointedly at her. "All of them."

  Eve swallowed the growing lump in her throat. He was talking specifically about going to see Lucien while in a dream-like sleep. It's not that she didn't want to see Lucien—she did with every fiber of her soul—but she was afraid of the consequences. The only thing she had going for her right now was the fact that Boaz thought she was dead. She couldn't handle being hunted by him again. This time, she was going to be the hunter.

  When she'd first awakened from the coma and physically felt well enough, she had gone to visit Lucien in her dreams, but she discovered he wasn't alone. There were witches he wasn't aware of watching him. Most likely they were following him on Boaz's orders to look for any signs that Eve had survived. They probably had even put some sort of a spell around him too to watch his emotions. Surely they would notice a difference in his demeanor had he known she was alive and well and alert Boaz.

  It nearly broke her to see how Lucien had changed in just a few short months. There was an uncontrolled rage in his eyes that frightened her. She only hoped that when he found out the truth about her, he'd let go of the burning anger that was visible even in the way he walked.

  She returned to her small room on the second floor and sat on the narrow bed. Other than an antiqued wooden wardrobe for her clothing, there were no other furniture in the room or objects on the walls. The simplicity of it helped keep her focus on what needed to be done—destroy Boaz. She would do as Dmitri asked and go to Paris tonight. If it would help accomplish her goal, she would do anything.

  The last time she had visited the city was with Boaz over eight years ago. It was a time when she thought she was happy. Not only was she with a man who she thought loved her, but she was extremely powerful too. Or so she believed. She knew the truth now—Boaz had secretly been sucking the magic from her. Her life with Boaz had been an illusion, one masked by evil's dark nature. Lucien had unveiled Boaz's deceit.

  Going to Paris was going to be difficult though, being around all those people and the noise, but if she was ever to move on to part two of her plan, she needed to follow Dmitri's instructions to the letter. Her subconscious had taken her to him for a reason.

  She opened the doors of the wardrobe and removed a pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt. She slid the tan rob off her shoulders and stepped out from the only clothing she'd worn the last two months. Clothing was kept to a minimal within the monastery; most only wore tan or black robes. She pulled the white t-shirt over her head and zipped up the jeans. The clothing felt tight, and she missed the freedom the robes provided.

  There was one last thing she needed to do before she left the monastery. Within its walls, she was protected from anyone who might try to find her location by using magic, but the second she stepped foot away from the monastery, she could be tracked.

  She closed her eyes and concentrated on her entire body. Even the smallest details, like the freckle on her third knuckle, until pressure built up around her. She focused on that pressure and thought the word "
pallium " over and over until the spell was complete. She would be protected now from anyone trying to find her with magic, including Boaz and Lucien. It broke her heart to block Lucien, but as long as he was being watched, she had to keep her identity a secret.

  After running a brush through her long hair and taking a deep breath, she left her room. She passed a few people along the way. Not really people per se—one of them was a werewolf and the other two were fae. The monastery was a sanctuary for Supernaturals who were looking for another way, one free from the seductive call of power and greed. In the human world, one might call this place a luxury retreat—a place where they could go to escape the stress and pressure of the "real" world. If only they knew about Supernaturals, their whole definition of stress would change.

  Eve stopped in the library on her way out. The walls were covered in shelves from ceiling to floor, each of them crammed full of books. Dmitri was sitting in his usual spot by the window, reading his usual small book. She never saw him reading anything else.

  "I'm ready," she said.

  He set the book down carefully, his hand lingering over the cover. "I see the clothes fit."

  "Yes, thank you."

  He stood up. "I will drive you in."

  Her eyebrows lifted. "Really? I'd like that."

  "I want to be there for you."

  She followed him outside. The sun was setting on the monastery, bathing it in a warm, honey-kissed light. It was nearing the end of summer in France and yet flowers were still in full bloom. They had been planted everywhere on the grounds, and they gave the air a sweet aroma. She would really miss this place when she finally left for good.

  Dmitri started the engine of a small vehicle that barely fit the both of them. It was a big deal having him take her into the city. It was something he didn't enjoy doing, a complaint he often verbalized, so she was surprised, yet grateful, that he had offered.

  He drove the car down a long, bumpy private lane that winded through a heavily wooded forest. The monastery was well concealed if people didn't know what to look for.