The Devil's Soldier

by Rachel McClellan

  "Two dead. A couple burned in their home." Henry let go of the curtains and stepped back.

  "Were they Supernaturals?"

  "The woman was a witch, but low level, nothing dangerous."

  Lucien swallowed despite his throat being dry. So many attacks. So many deaths. He and Henry had tried to stop what they could, but it was hard to know when the violence was going to occur—there were so many of them! Humans assaulting Supernaturals and vice-versa. Alarica was attacking both with no thought as to what she was killing as long as blood was drawn.

  At first, Lucien had been able to sense her, so great was her evil, but now with the whole world in turmoil, darkness seemed to be everywhere. Charlie was having the same issue. His psychic abilities were only working locally. The only real advantage they had was the fact Charlie still had a couple of loyal contacts within the CIA and FBI that still fed him information.

  Across the street, the Deific front door opened.

  "Charlie's off," Lucien said.

  Liane wasn't with him this time, which meant Henry would stay. Henry still didn't want anyone even remotely connected to Boaz to know about him. Lucien didn't blame him. He still wasn't sure about Liane, although he did have to admit that she had been a big help the last few weeks in stopping many any fighting.

  Charlie glanced up to Lucien's window and nodded briefly. There was a tightness in the way he moved, and his face was pinched. Something was wrong. Charlie waved away a couple of the reporters before ducking into a cab. The cab would drive him two blocks then drop off. From there, Charlie would walk back to the rear of the building Henry and Lucien was in and sneak inside to meet them.

  Ten minutes later, Charlie swung open the door. "We have a problem."

  "What is it?" Henry asked. He shifted his weight to the edge of the sofa.

  "I got a call from Ryan over at the FBI. The DSRD's special unit was deployed to a club on the other side of town. They received a tip that a powerful witch was going to attack it later tonight."

  Lucien jumped to his feet. "Alarica."

  "That's what I was thinking too, but I can't sense her," Charlie said. He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "We need to get there."

  "Are they going to evacuate the building, or is this strictly a reconnaissance mission?" Henry asked.

  "Just recon at this point, but I've got a feeling something bad is going to happen."

  Lucien walked to the door, his stomach tightening. He had learned to listen a long time ago to Charlie's "bad feelings."

  "Let's go then." Henry rose. "We need to be careful, though. The DSRD will have their Supernaturals, and I don't think they are going to be on our side."

  "I want Liane to meet us there," Charlie said. Before Henry could disagree, he added, "She's been extremely helpful with other Supernaturals, and where we are fighting a witch, she may prove useful. Plus, I won't point you out to her. You can blend in with everyone else."

  "Fine. Let's just get there quickly. We must get Eve back. If Alarica shows up, this may be our only chance." Henry crossed the room to a wooden chest in the corner and opened its top. He reached inside and withdrew several weapons before tossing a dagger to Lucien, followed by a wooden stake.

  "Do you still have a pistol?" he asked Charlie

  Charlie opened the right side of his jacket, revealing a Berretta tucked into in a shoulder holster.

  "I'll drive," Lucien said and walked out.

  "I'll meet you there," Henry called after him and Charlie.

  Lucien turned around to protest that they should all stick together, but Henry was already gone. Henry rarely traveled by any motorized vehicle. He preferred to use magic to transport him wherever he went—a skill Lucien hoped to accomplish one day.

  "I hate when he does that," Charlie said, following after Lucien.

  Lucien took the stairs to the building's basement garage and jumped behind the steering wheel of his SUV. He wasn't a fan of fighting witches, as he never knew what their strengths were until the middle of a battle. At least with other Supernaturals, he had a general idea how to fight them, but witches often dealt more with the mind and, right now, his felt fragile. It had been too long since he'd seen Eve, and her absence seemed to have weakened him.

  While Lucien drove to the other side of the city, Charlie called Liane and explained what they were doing. Lucien listened in.

  "Do you need my help?" Liane asked. Her voice sounded tired, as if she had just woken up.

  "If it's not too much trouble," Charlie said. "You do well against witches."

  "Can I get a ride?"

  "Can you take a cab? Sorry, but I'm not at the Deific."

  She was silent for a few seconds then said, "Where did you say it was?"

  "Roxy. It's a night club on 77th."

  "I need to get dressed, but I should be able to get there in thirty minutes."

  Charlie glanced at his watch. "That should work."

  "Be careful, Charlie," she said before hanging up.

  Charlie lowered the phone to his lap and peered out the window, his expression solemn.

  "Is it serious?" Lucien asked.

  "Is what serious?"

  "Whatever it is you have going on with Liane."

  "No."

  "Do you want it to be?"

  "It doesn't matter what I want. She is a means to an end."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  His silence weighted the air in the car.

  "Charlie?" Lucien asked again.

  "Park over there," Charlie said, pointing to a space in front of a shipping center.

  Lucien drove into the empty spot and shut off the engine. "We are still several blocks away from the club."

  "I know." Charlie opened his door and jumped out.

  Lucien followed after, wondering if he should press the issue about Liane, but decided against it. Charlie could do what he wanted with his love life.

  They were a block away when Lucien heard the club's music with his sensitive hearing. It wasn't his type of music—way too much bass—and would make it extremely difficult to hear anyone talking inside.

  He and Charlie rounded the corner. There was a long line of people waiting anxiously to get inside, and by the looks of their nicer-than-usual-club attire this was a much classier place than he was expecting. The women mostly wore dresses and the men were in nicer shirts and dark slacks.

  Charlie must've noticed too because he glanced down at his own pants. "I don't think I'm dressed right."

  "Don't worry. I'll get us in."

  "What? You don't think I could?"

  Lucien looked him up and down. Charlie was still in his work clothes, tan pants and jacket, and a red polo shirt. "You look like you just left your shift at Target."

  Charlie glanced down at himself again and grimaced. "Damn it."

  "Follow me." Lucien led the way to the front of the line. Several people called out to them to get in back.

  "This is never going to work," Charlie mumbled.

  Two security guards stopped them at the door. "Did you miss the line?" the one with short hair and a Metallica t-shirt asked.

  "John called us," Lucien said. "He said to come down and fix some issue with one of the speakers. We're from Electronics R Us."

  "Sure you are," the other guard snorted.

  Lucien gripped his upper arm. The short-haired guard reached to stop him, but Lucien grabbed his arm also. His hold was tight enough that neither of them dared move. "We don't want any trouble, but we will be going in there. Do you understand?"

  Lucien looked at each of them and released his vampirism through just a gaze. Their eyes widened. One of them nodded and reached back with his free hand to open the door. Lucien released them and motioned Charlie forward, despite a sudden shout of protests from the customers in line. Before the door closed, Lucien saw the short-haired guard fumbling with a phone.

  Charlie noticed too. "Those tricks don't work as well as they used to, Lucien. He's report
ing you as a Supernatural."

  "Let him. The DSRD is coming either way."

  Lucien walked farther into the club, his hair and clothing blowing from dozens of fans mounted high along the walls. The club was packed both on the main floor and on a balcony that circled the room. Blue lights pulsed from above, illuminating the people below, flashes of their bodies moving in sync to a throbbing beat.

  Charlie grabbed his arm and spoke loudly in his ear. "Liane just texted. She's almost here. I'm going to wait for her by the entrance."

  Lucien nodded and turned back into the crowd. He took a second to scan the ground, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but saw nothing. He turned to his vampire senses. Right away, he detected several Supernaturals in the room, but determining if they were dangerous was going to be a little trickier.

  He slipped inside the giant ever-changing organism of moving bodies and made his way toward the bar where a man with long dark hair chatted with a female. An electric energy surrounded him, unlike the humans; it flickered in the air the way an illusion appears on the horizon in the hot desert. It wasn't strong, but enough to mark him as a Supernatural.

  Lucien sat on the stool next to where Long-hair chatted and expanded his hearing so he could listen in on their conversation. It took less than a minute for Lucien to determine he wasn't a threat. The woman he was with was a coworker who was trying to set him with one of her friends.

  Lucien made his way to the next unusual energy force. This Supernatural was a woman with a faint animal smell. Lucien couldn't detect what kind, but he guessed she was a shifter. When he passed, their eyes met. She nodded in recognition and returned to the man she was with. He did not feel she was a threat.

  A more powerful energy, more felt than seen, drew his attention to the balcony above. Henry was standing against the rail eyeing the crowd. He locked eyes with Lucien and motioned his head to the right. Lucien followed his gaze to a tight crowd of people all jumping up and down in front of a massive speaker. The air there was especially hazy, more so than anywhere else in the club. Somewhere within that mass was someone powerful. Lucien headed that direction.

  A woman approached him and took his hand. "Want to dance?"

  Lucien shook his head and kept moving, his focus on the crowd ahead. He searched for an opening into the clustered group. As soon as one opened, he dove in, but his head immediately spun and the sounds in the room slowed.

  He rubbed his eyes hard, trying to clear the fog from his mind. Humans swarmed all around him, bouncing up and down and bumping into him on all sides. It took him great effort to lift his gaze. The men and women all had their heads turned downward with never-blinking eyes open wide. There was no color in them, only a never-ending black.

  Lucien turned around, still trying to fight the dizziness in his head. In the center of the group, he spotted a woman different from the rest. She wore a short black dress and was thrashing her head back and forth, whipping long red hair to the side in time to a musical beat. He approached her slowly, having to physically move people away from him. No one protested, as they all seemed to be in some kind of a trance.

  Lucien was almost to the woman when her eyelids snapped open. The intense stare coming from her blue eyes nearly dropped him to his knees. He flexed his muscles in concentration to fight off the power she seemed to be having over him.

  She moved forward, her full lips threatening to break into a grin. She came to stand inches in front of him, her eyes scanning him up and down.

  "You are magnificent," she purred. "A perfect," she said, leaning toward him until her mouth was only a breath away, "specimen."

  The sweet smell of her breath, and the way her gaze held his further clouded his mind. What was it about her? She was not familiar, and yet… her exposed skin, her slender fingers, the tiny diamond pendant around her neck. He reached up as if to touch it, but she caught his hand and entwined her fingers into his while her other hand trailed up his side and slipped beneath his shirt. He would've shivered had he been in his right mind. No one had ever touched him like this except for Eve.

  Eve.

  He pictured her now. Imagined that the woman in front of him was Eve. It was an easy illusion, especially when the red-haired woman's eyes flashed brilliant green, just like Eve's. She lifted on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his. He didn't fight it, not when Eve felt so close. He snaked his arm behind her back and pressed her to his body, making her gasp.

  The kiss turned deep and passionate and seemed to last forever. There was a moment, small as it was, where Lucien sensed something else in the kiss—a probing on his mind. He thought he should fight back, but then he would have to let go of the illusion of Eve that felt so real.

  The kiss ended and the woman said, "Thank you for the magic. Now sleep."

  Lucien closed his eyes and dreamed of Eve.

  A moment later, his eyelids flew open to a sharp sting across his cheek. Liane was standing in front of him, yelling something. She slapped him again. Charlie was standing next to her, his eyebrows pulled tightly together. Slowly, Lucien's hearing returned.

  "Snap out of it!" Liane said. She raised her hand to slap him again, but he caught her wrist.

  "What happened?" he asked. He was back in the club, standing alone in front of a large speaker. The red-headed woman was gone.

  "You completely lost it, that's what!" she said. "What is wrong with you?"

  "I don't understand."

  Charlie placed his hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "You need to shake off the magic. She really did a number on you."

  "Who?"

  "Who do you think?" Liane snapped. She glanced around anxiously.

  Charlie leaned forward and said into his ear, "Alarica is here."

  35

  Alaric melted into the crowd, her hair slowly changing from red to black. Even her dress changed to gray. She kept her eyes on Lucien, and whispered his name, the syllables sliding from her tongue. There was a beautiful darkness inside him, buried deep within, and it had tasted good. Maybe she could tap into that dark magic somehow. Before she killed him, she would try.

  He was standing in front of the speaker, his head down as he was still in a trance. She had expected him to put up more of a fight when she had stolen his magic, but he had easily caved, and all it had taken was a single image of Eve. Alarica would very much like to kill his love for Eve. Maybe then she could eat that darkness inside him.

  Charlie appeared in front of Lucien, along with a woman. Alarica searched Eve's memories until she came up with a name: Liane, another witch. She was yelling something at Lucien, and then she slapped him. Lucien shook his head, as if trying to clear his mind. Charlie whispered something in his ear. Lucien straightened, completely alert now, and by the way he was suddenly scanning the audience, he must know about her.

  Time to make her move. This was going to be so much fun. The first thing she needed to do was change the music.

  Toward the back of the room, a DJ was standing behind a table, his head bobbing up and down while his hands played with several of the dials on the electronic equipment. The song he was playing, a mix from a popular boy hand, was giving her a headache. She reached her hand up in his direction and began to squeeze, focusing her energy on his throat. The DJ's eyes widened, and he clawed at his neck. Alarica squeezed tighter. Blood vessels in his eyes burst, turning the whites of them red. His face grew scarlet, then a deep purple—almost to the color she loved, but she didn't have time to wait for the shade of death's gray.

  The DJ fell backwards, dead. Alarica mentally changed the musical tracks so quickly a loud screeching sound vibrated the room, making everyone cover their ears. She stopped only when she found a song she liked. There were no voices, only a fast pumping beat and several violins. It took a few seconds for the crowd to recover from the screeching and to get into the music. Their bodies swayed and thumped to the rhythm.

  So did she.

  She stood in the center of the room, surrounded protect
ively by others. When Lucien finally noticed her, he tried to break through the crowd, but Alarica didn't allow anyone to move. She held them fast with magic knowing that neither Lucien nor Charlie would hurt a human to get to her. But then all of a sudden, Lucien was shoving humans across the room, and by his stone expression, he didn't seem to care about any of them—only getting to her.

  If she was capable of love, she could love this vampire.

  Charlie took hold of Lucien and attempted to pull him back. Alarica glanced to the crowded balcony above them. With a flick of her wrist, she exploded the metal poles that held it up. The whole side began to fall. Several people on the balcony screamed and clawed at anything they could grab onto. A few fell the twenty-foot drop to the floor. The rest of the balcony should have fallen, too, but it was curiously still in place.

  Impossible!

  Alarica glanced around. The whole room had become a mob; people pushed and shoved to get outside. On the other side of the room, Charlie and the witch Liane were trying to get people off the broken balcony as quickly as possible while Lucien was searching for a way around the crowd. It would take a minute for him to find his way over to her.

  High up on the opposite side of the great room, near the edge of the balcony that still stood, was—she narrowed her eyes—a vampire. An extremely old and powerful one: Henry. Alarica's smile grew as she remembered who he was. Henry was just the vampire she needed to remove the curse, and she knew exactly how to make him do it.

  She snapped her arms downward and whispered, "Ascendo."

  Her whole body lifted and continued to rise until she was standing on the balcony near him, but not close enough that he could make a grab for the necklace.

  Henry had one hand pointed in the direction of the fallen balcony and the other turned toward her in a defensive position.

  "Do you really think you can do both?" she asked.

  "Do you care to find out?"

  She smiled, wanting very much to know the answer to his question, but she needed something else first.

  "Henry," she said, "I'm surprised you showed yourself to me of all people. You know I'm working with Boaz, right?"