by T. F. Walsh
“I didn’t.”
“Well then.” He rubbed a hand across his mouth, his demeanor darkening. “We’d been following that guy. Then you made a dash for him out of the blue. How did you know what he was?” Brent arched an eyebrow, his gaze never leaving Cary.
Her throat tightened. Perceptive guy. Brent knew demons existed. Fine. But she wouldn’t tell him she was part demon, or she might just as well sign her own death warrant. If he hunted demons, he’d hunt her. So telling him she saw demonic auras or that she sniffed them out was out of the question. Time to exit.
“Enjoy your day, Brent.” Cary strode past him.
“I’m a businessman. So I’m always looking for new hunters to join my team. It comes with great financial benefits, training, and a team you can rely on.”
Sure, wave the greenbacks in Cary’s face, and she’d stand up and listen. She glanced over her shoulder. “Go on.” If the guy was genuine and offered her money to vanquish demons, then damn yeah, she’d give him a few seconds of her time.
“You’re fast, think on your feet, and one step ahead with your own weapons. We could use your talent. Come to my office this afternoon, say four, and we’ll chat to see if you’re a good fit.” He strutted closer with a confident grin on his face. Obviously, Brent always got his way.
She accepted his business card—white with Argos and the address printed in black. Above it sat a fanned-out peacock’s tail with eyes dotting the tips of each feather.
“I’ll consider it.” Never appear desperate.
“Nice meeting you.” He stuck out his hand.
She accepted his shake, firm and icy to the touch. “My name is Cary Stone.”
He strode away. “I’ll see you later, Cary Stone.”
Either today was the luckiest day ever, or someone was punking her. She preferred to ignore the latter.
Back on the main road, the traffic had eased. Only a few people filled the sidewalk.
She left behind Glamour Puss, not wasting the embarrassment. A new job prospect was on offer.
Time to go home, disinfect her neck in case the demon carried parasites, and change her bloody top. Taking her weapons to the interview was a must, plus she’d map out her background story. She wouldn’t lie… much. Father had taught her an encyclopedia of knowledge on demons. The real dilemma was how to explain tracking them. Yet, Cary had the same question for Brent. Her demon side helped her see auras, but what was Brent’s story?
The roar of a car erupted from farther down the road. Tires skidded.
A black Corvette gunned along the main road, swerving past cars, and knocking over a row of trash cans. The closer it got, the more Cary’s insides knotted.
The whole car glowed with a silvery aura, just as a possessed person might.
The black car roared past. Tinted windows meant that at a glance, anyone could miss the empty driver’s seat.
She lunged after the Corvette. Careening around an elderly couple, she had to hurry before the Corvette killed anybody.
But someone slammed into her from behind. Her legs buckled, and the concrete rushed toward her face.
Strong arms locked around her shoulders and waist. Wrenched sideways, her lungs emptied as she fell into a roll. Instead of the hard pavement, Cary crashed onto the stranger’s chest, cradled in his arms. His back slammed against the ground. A groan gushed behind Cary’s ear, hot air caressing her cheek. She clutched his arms as if they were a lifejacket. Wind rushed out of her lungs.
“I’m so sorry,” his deep voice said.
Cary untangled herself from the hug and climbed to her feet. Words teased the front of her mind to tell the klutz to be more careful. Except, she froze when she faced the large guy with shoulder length hair. His brandy-colored eyes stole her words.
He glanced up the road and back to Cary, his attention homing on her bloody neck. He pushed himself to his feet. “Miss, are you all right?”
She tore her gaze from his chiseled jawline that sported a shadow of growth. Then hit upon a response. “You could hurt someone with those muscles. I—I mean, don’t run on the sidewalk.”
Kill me now. Could she sound any more like a prudish pre-school teacher?
His eyebrow cocked. “Sorry.”
“Thanks for catching me.” That time her words seemed to almost purr. Okay, maybe she hit her head.
He pulled away, a sultry look capturing his gaze. “I really gotta go.”
And just like that, he sprinted down the sidewalk and vanished down the street.
Just as the car had.
Chapter 2
“Third time this fuckin’ week.” Levi Walker’s voice boomed into the phone which he tucked into the crook of his neck and shoulder. He clipped the lasso to his belt and took a drag from a smoke with the other hand. “The shit of a possessed car ditched me again.” He leaned against a boarded up shop, just one block from his workplace, Argos. His thoughts shifted to the sex-kitten he’d bowled over on the sidewalk. If he hadn’t been in a rush, he might have stopped and gotten her number. Another place, another time.
“Sounds like the speck demon car has a thing for you. They love inanimate objects but get obsessed with people too. Especially if you’ve pissed them off. It’ll want revenge.” Saxon’s words labored as if he was running. Levi wouldn’t put it past his buddy to pursue a demon while they spoke. Nothing scared that guy, but hunting wasn’t a sport.
“Well, I did toss a bucket of holy water across its hood and shoved a holy cross up its exhaust pipe. Does that count?” Levi broke into a laugh because in hindsight, the incident sounded hilarious. Over a week ago, he’d spotted the car cornering a priest behind a church, and Levi stepped in to help. “But if the speck has a crush on me, bring it on. I’ll give it all the attention it needs.” No backing down because that only got innocents killed quicker. Jump in and get the job done.
Saxon chuckled. “God, I miss hunting with you.”
“You moved south.”
“And for good reason, but listen…” He paused, panting for air. “This morning, a hunter got killed here.”
“Shit, man. That’s two in as many months. Who?” Levi ran a nervous hand through his hair.
“Freddy Carter.”
“Damn.” He’d heard of the guy, but Levi didn’t know him. “What’s going on in Louisianna?”
“Who knows, but it’s the same jumper demon. Tall prick, covered in ink, and unstoppable. I swear it’s gone ballistic. I mean demons are mother fuckers normally, but this one is something else. A few of us are getting together tonight to set a plan into action. A shame you can’t join.”
Jumpers were the run-of-the-mill fiends who possessed people, then once they sucked a soul into Hell, they leapt to that poor victim’s family and friends. They devoured as many souls as possible.
“Right now I’ve got my hands full with the speck that’s run over two innocents.” He couldn’t live with himself if another person died when he could have prevented the attack.
“Just thought I’d ask.” Saxon cleared his throat.
“Keep me posted.”
“Okay, later.”
Levi tucked the cell into his pocket, put the cigarette out between his fingers, and tossed it into the astray top of a trashcan he passed. Bag the speck and end its road-rage terror. With the authorities getting involved, it put people in danger, so Levi had to finish fast. Demons invaded the world, but sometimes ignorance was the easiest way for innocents to lead a happy, blissful life. So, Levi had to get his shit together and catch himself that Corvette. After a jumper killed Levi’s best friend, Marcos, eleven years earlier, he vowed to destroy every last demon in his path.
The Argos building stood at the corner of the block and the afternoon sun gleamed off its tinted windows. Out front, the tinted window had the Argos logo printed: a peacock’s tail. To your average Joe, the building was a random business with the front door permanently locked. Argos didn’t need people wandering in with a damn parcel to send only to disco
ver that demons existed. Talk about mass panic.
Levi punched in the pin code on the security box near the door, and it unlocked with a click. As he reached for the handle, an aggressive mechanical rasp caught his attention from around the corner.
He stopped cold, listening to the familiar groan. He darted into the side road where parking meters lined the curb.
Fifteen feet away stood the black Corvette with the silver aura of a possession. After Levi’s eye surgery from Argos, he could easily spot out the bastards. Its motor rip-roared, and the front-mounted pushrod nestled in the valley of the hood convulsed. Why’d it have to be a Z06 sports model? He’d owned one a few years earlier. That babe hugged the road around corners the way Levi had sex—fierce, dedicated, and always pushing the boundaries.
Someone sat in the passenger seat. Even with the distance between them, the distinct yellow eyes told him everything. Demons rarely worked together, so that was new. A jumper working with a speck demon. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d fought two fuckers, and he always came prepared.
He grabbed Noose from his belt and pressed the button on its base. It extended to four-feet and released a loop at the tip. The salt-encrusted and holy-water-blessed leather could send any demon screeching into Hell and the handle had been engraved with magical runes for extra sting.
“Time to whip some ass,” he whispered to Noose.
But something solid rammed into the back of Levi’s legs, and he lurched forward, losing his footing. He hit the ground with his knees and hands, Noose slipping out of his grasp.
Levi scrambled to his feet. His fists tightened by his side, his gaze settled on the elderly man in a four-wheel mobility scooter.
“Help, son, I’m so sorry.” His white hair stuck upward, and terror filled his gaze. “Can’t get out of this contraption. It keeps moving on its own.” He tugged on his seat-belt just as the scooter jolted forward, ramming into Levi’s shins.
Levi swallowed the curse forming in his mouth and rushed to the guy’s side. Why the shit was that of all objects possessed? And what was up with today—a demon convention in a back alley? Two demons were rare, but three, almost unseen. Didn’t matter. Release the man and deal with the real danger.
A car door slapped shut behind him.
Levi glanced over his shoulder.
Yellow eyes from inside the Corvette strutted closer, all the while the possessed car’s engine sounded as if it taunted Levi.
Shitty timing. Levi tugged against the seat-belt that was pulled tight across the old man’s hips. It wouldn’t budge. He’d have to cut him out. Now.
“It’s jammed.” The elderly man’s voice quivered.
“You’ll be fine.” Levi growled unintentionally, but seizing a blade from his boot proved a mistake. The scooter peeled forward, running over Levi’s foot.
“Son of a donkey’s ass.” Gritting his teeth, Levi pushed aside every spasm of excruciating pain lacing up his leg.
The old man cried out in the distance. His elderly body rocked from side to side while he was being driven halfway down the road to behind the Corvette.
“Enough of this bullshit,” Levi called out. He dove for Noose and charged for Yellow eyes. With weapon in hand, Levi threw himself sideways of the man at the last minute and kicked the back his knees with a backward kick. The possessed man fell forward.
Levi flung around and snagged Noose’s loop around the man’s neck, then tugged on the weapon, the lasso snapping tight. Dickhead demon was going home, just like every ogre that snuck out of Hell.
The grate of rubber against asphalt filled Levi’s ears. He twisted around and froze.
White smoke billowed from the Corvette’s tires, the stink clawing at his nose. Behind it, the tiny scooter tottered back and forth. Funny, if Levi wasn’t picturing a pancake version of himself plastered on the ground.
Maybe he’d been too cocky to take on three beasts at once. Especially when one was a damn car with over 3000 pounds of weight and 500 horsepower gunning for him.
The possessed man caught in Levi’s lasso had his mouth gaped open in a silent scream before blacking out and collapsing on the sidewalk. Six seconds was all it took ‘till the demon got flushed from the guy’s system and expelled from the world. Black vapor swirled out of the man—the demon was getting sucked into Hell. Every vanquished jumper or speck left behind mist as the last traces of their black soul, along with a dark stone. The haze would disintegrate into ash soon enough and that was the least of Levi’s problems.
Actual, black moths from the jumper fluttered in his face. “Bugger off.”
The Corvette roared up the street, swerving in their direction.
Levi’s breaths vanished, his mind cramming with a dozen scenarios. The plan included leaping onto the car’s hood. If he didn’t get run over first. Or take off and direct the car into a tight corner. Or…
Levi leaned over the innocent he’s just exorcised and tucked his hands under his armpits, lifting him of the ground. He lugged the dead weight farther up the sidewalk in a half-stumble, half-run, away from the car. His foot pinched each time he put weight on it.
He shouldn’t have let the speck bait him to the alley alone. Idiot.
The pulsing temperature of the car was a blaze against his back. He leapt out of the way, with the victim in his arms, and crashed on his side. He rolled on top of the innocent’s body.
A giant explosion from the car behind Levi detonated inches from his feet—an inferno blazed across his legs. Bits of metal and glass from the car ripped into them. Levi covered his head, while scorching hot debris dotted his arms and back. Each breath tripped over the next.
Get up. Move. Before it’s too late.
He dragged himself to his feet. Something slammed into the back of his legs.
Levi jerked around and faced the scooter. Rage shook his insides, and the only thing he visualized was ripping the vehicle apart with his bare hands. “You’re going to the scrap yard to be crushed into a cube.”
The old man was unconscious, slumped to one side in his seat, his chest rising and falling. The mobility vehicle reversed away.
Levi turned to face the smashed up Corvette, which stood eerily silent, while partly crashed into the brick wall, spluttering oil across the road. The hood had half penetrated the brick wall of the Argos building. No ordinary car, or even a truck could create such force from a short distance. Demonic intervention was responsible. Despite that, the only image floating in Levi’s mind was him trapped between the car and the wall. He could have died today. Well, that applied to every day, but most demons fought for escape. None had actually stayed to murder him.
Acrid smoke permeated the air. Suddenly, a cluster of bricks from the building dropped onto the car, indenting the body, throwing dust everywhere. A web-like crack snaked across the front windshield.
Levi returned to the victim behind him, removed Noose, and dragged him across the road to the empty sidewalk. The car attack was too close. He knew better than to let it corner him. Dogged determination was a double-sided bitch.
The car backfired, and Levi snapped around.
The Corvette’s tires burned rubber, dislodging itself from the wall in a sudden backward jerk. Wheels grated asphalt.
Covering his mouth from the cloud, Levi gripped his weapon and bolted forward. He snagged the lasso over the car’s side mirror. His swollen foot stepped on a broken brick coated in oil and twisted his leg. A cruel scalding shot through his ankle bones. His body crumbled forward the moment the driver’s door flung open. It smashed into Levi’s head, sending him reeling sideways.
With a blurred vision and his head thundering, Levi groaned. “Shit…” He wasn’t dying today.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself to his feet and tottered back and forth as he rubbed his eyes.
When the plume of smoke evaporated, he noticed several Argos staff inside the building through the gaping hole in the wall, wide eyed, along with his hunting buddy.
“Cha
se,” Levi called out.
His coworker lunged through the hole, lasso in hand. He flung it at the Corvette. The race car reversed and dragged a section of the wall caught in its front bumper. Impossible, but it wasn’t a normal vehicle and supernatural strength was involved. The rest of the crowd from Argos darted outside, some targeting the mobility scooter. They’d exorcise that speck and look after the innocent.
The Corvette revved, swerving away from Levi.
He limped toward the car and catapulted himself onto the trunk. An invisible shock zapped through his chest, and he flew backward as the vehicle grunted away.
He hit the ground with a thud and rolled from the momentum. Air gushed from his lungs, and his jeans did little to shield him from the unforgiving surface. Groaning, he climbed to his feet and rubbed his arm. The car swung right at the end of the street and disappeared.
Chase’s voice snagged his attention. “Brent’s gonna be pissed, man.”
“Give me a break.” Levi dusted his jeans and swiped Noose off the ground while his head still spun. At least he’d stopped two of the evil scum today. Not the one he wanted though.
Levi coughed from the plume of dust and wasn’t sure what ached more. His foot, the singe marks on his back that had destroyed his T-shirt, or the ringing in his head.
He saw Brent Moore, the owner of Argos, emerging from the gaping hole in the building. A dozen people followed him.
“Everyone evacuate the building, now.” Brent’s voice rumbled, and within seconds the alarm sounded.
People rushed toward the exit. Great! Scouts worked at the Argos building, tracking sightings of demons before informing hunters where to go. With that damage, hunters would be put back weeks while untracked demons ran amok.
“Have fun.” Chase clapped Levi’s back, then retreated to the unconscious man behind them.
“Levi.” Brent’s voice thundered in that tone that always came with a lecture and suspension. He marched toward Levi, his arms pinned to his side, his eyes burning with fury. Nothing new.