Paranormal Hunter Box Set, Books 1-3: Sonnet Vale, Phantom City, & Demon Touched

by Gena D. Lutz

  Remy moved between them, breaking eye contact. “Your crime has been witnessed. I alone pass judgment over your sins, brother.”

  Spiros’s eyes bore into Remy, and his lips issued a hiss as he said, “Impossible. You’re bluffing.”

  “I know about the warehouse. Did you really think shrouding your madhouse with demon magic would keep me from finding it?”

  A look of surprise traveled across his face, only to be replaced by an indignant grin. “It was working until your rat-faced spy interfered.” He scowled at Sonnet. “Bitch.”

  She didn’t waste time with a retort. Instead, she shut up and smiled. This was new territory for her. And she could only hope that Remy would get rid of the powerful demon as quickly as possible, before he somehow escaped the circle and acted out the violence wildly careening from him in vicious waves of energy.

  “So what will my punishment be then, big bad demon lord?” he demanded.

  They’d planned on sending him into hell. She wondered if that was still the case.

  “For your sins, you will be confined to the lower levels.”

  “No.” The protest was whispered. “Father will kill me.”

  “Most likely, but I won’t let your corruption grab a permanent foothold in my city.” He gazed over his shoulder into the shadows behind Sonnet and said, “It’s time.”

  Thrown off-guard, Sonnet stepped forward a few paces, her head swinging around to see what other monster Remy could possibly be talking to.

  “As you wish.”

  Relieved, Sonnet let out a breath. It wasn’t another demon joining the party; it was only Torrent, melting from the shadows with her hands outstretched, chanting.

  But Sonnet barely registered Torrent. She hadn’t realize how close she’d gotten to the circle, nor did she know that her hair was just long enough to flutter inside of it as she’d hastily spun around…

  Pain stabbed the back of her head as Spiro’s fisted her hair and yanked, pulling hard, sending Sonnet careening backward to land at his feet.

  Bane tore after her, but it was too late. Remy tackled him to the ground just outside of the circle.

  Her hand lifted to the back of her head and her mind went fuzzy. She looked up and found a pair of black eyes staring down at her. Spiros’s laughter filled her head.

  “What do we have here?”

  And then everything went dark.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sonnet blinked several times and rose slowly. “Where am I?” Her voice echoed, hollow and bleak. She couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her, and that handful of inches consisted of hard dirt and stone walls with black sludge oozing from them.

  “Consider this your own personal hell.”

  She spun around, searching for the owner of that voice—her evil demon brother.

  All she saw was more dirt, more rock and endless darkness.

  Helpless, she moved her gaze back to the gloom in front of her. And it took everything she had in her to take a step forward, and then another. A shiver of terror slid over her.

  Of course she was afraid; she knew what must have happened. Not only had her brother been sent to the lower levels of hell—so had she.

  This was bad. Really fucking bad.

  “I can smell your fear, chatty rat.”

  She rolled her shoulders back and lifted an indignant chin. “Screw you, Spiros, show yourself. Or are you a coward?”

  Shit. That probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say.

  She thought the only thing keeping her halfway sane was the fact that she couldn’t see him. And then of course, with a shimmer of displaced space, he materialized in front of her.

  Her pulse quickened, his abrupt arrival making her jump back, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn away. Where would she run, what else could she do but face the demon she’d spiraled down into hell with? She may be a demon, but she knew nothing of this underworld other than what Remy had told her. And that amounted to a bunch of nothing useful.

  Feeling at his mercy, a place she absolutely couldn’t stand to be, Sonnet carefully did a weapons check. All there—that made her feel a smidge better.

  A sheen of sweat coated his face and neck, his cheeks burned with color. He let out a snarl, and yelled, “This is entirely your fault!”

  Then he lunged at her.

  She jumped out of the way and pulled out her gun. She was scared—really scared. But now she was also pissed.

  Thwack, thwack, thwack. Without a moment’s hesitation, Sonnet unloaded three bullets into Spiros torso as he turned around for another go at her, giving her a clear shot at his chest.

  Shocked eyes widening upon impact, he grasped at the open wounds in his chest then folded down to land hard on his knees.

  But he didn’t stay there for long. He pushed himself up onto one bended leg, took a deep, wheezing breath, and managed to find his footing. “Why have you taken it upon yourself to try to ruin my life?” He didn’t take his attention off of her even though blood was pouring from all three bullet wounds, seeping down his stomach and legs. “Where the fuck did you even come from?” He licked his fangs. “Do you know what? I don’t give a fuck…you’ll be dead soon anyways.”

  “Not if I can help it,” she replied thickly, her gun trained on the spot between his eyes.

  Spiros’s recovery was swift. Within a second he was back on his feet and moving with blinding speed.

  Two bullets flew through the air missing a target that was no longer there.

  Before she knew it, her ass was cracking against the ground, the hard impact making her heartbeat echo inside her ears. Spiros had gotten the drop on her, his massive form pinning her underneath him.

  He laughed. “I’m going to enjoy wrenching every ounce of pain out of you that I can.”

  His cruelty didn’t come as a surprise. She tried to fight against his hold, but a useless squirm was all she could muster for movement.

  “Would you still kill me knowing that I’m your sister?”

  Spiros laughed again, but Sonnet kept eye contact with him, her features unchanged.

  He frowned. “What kind of idiot do you think I am?”

  “It’s true.” She tried really hard to sound like she didn’t give a shit if he killed her or not.

  His body moved closer, leaving barely an inch between them. “You’re lying.”

  She wedged her hands between them, pushed hard against his soppy, blood-drenched shirt. But he was too heavy, and with zero leverage, he wouldn’t budge.

  Though she was almost numb with fear, Sonnet recognized the slickness of blood coating her fingers, felt a familiar thrum of magic residing within it. Magic she’d never felt before—except for one other time in her life.

  It was when she’d passed Galvin on the streets of her hometown…and that feeling had been stronger when he’d barged into the pawn shop during a kill.

  It was hunter magic.

  Words poured out of her mouth before she could stop them. “You’re a hunter.” It was said with a sober certainty, not as a question.

  She felt Spiros’s body tense over her, his hard exhale was laced with disbelief. And then with a vicious rumble that reverberated against the hands she had pressed to his chest, he said, “I’ll settle this right now!” Brandishing the fangs he’d inherited from his demon father, he struck like a viper, piercing her neck.

  Reaching for the stake, her fingers desperately grabbed and clawed at her jacket, but it was no use. She couldn’t get to her only hope of survival. Inside, she raged like a feral cat, but in reality, all she could do was weakly paw at the lean, muscular body that pinned her.

  “Stop…sto…p.” She thought she was yelling, but her stilted words were a whisper upon shallowed breathes as her blood was swiftly drained from her body.

  And then, mercifully, her world crept silently into darkness.

  ***

  The crook of Sonnet’s neck burned as if acid had been dripped across it. She found herself touching
the bite mark. Warm liquid spilled over her fingers and down her neck to splash across her shoulder.

  The feeding should have told Spiros the truth—that she was indeed his sister.

  Stabbing pain drummed several beats over the space between her brows, traveling from temple to temple. Little by little, all the details returned. She was still alive. Though trapped in hell with a deadly monster and gods only knew what else—she was breathing.

  Sonnet lifted her head to take a look around and winced. “Enjoy your little snack?” she asked Spiros, who was hunched over, arms wrapped around his knees with his back against the wall.

  “Fuck off.”

  She rose to her full height with her hand still cupped over the bite wound. “I told you so, asshole. I’m your sister.”

  He laughed halfheartedly, her blood staining his lips and chin as he craned his neck to meet her gaze. “I’m glad all of this amuses you, sister.” He said the last word as though it was a sour pill to swallow. Or a curse he was stricken by.

  His reaction wasn’t at all unexpected.

  Though her feelings about her demon brother were less than charitable, she was thankful for one thing—after finding out who she was, he hadn’t killed her. And because of that, she now had one thing she could try to make herself like about the jerk.

  She pursed her dry lips. Being drained of most her blood had left her more than a little dehydrated. “Trust me. I was just as shocked as you are when I found out what kind of monster I really am.”

  Black dirt stuck to her jeans like a thin coat of molasses. Her hand dropped from her neck and she tried to dust it off her legs as best she could. After several seconds, she gave up and adjusted all of her weapons instead.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Well,” Spiros said, unfolding from his crouch, “since I haven’t decided if I should kill you or not, I suggest we find a way out of this hellhole.”

  Brushing off the threat, she blinked her large dark eyes at him. “Is that even possible?” From the way Remy spoke of how he’d trapped their father within the lower levels of hell, she’d just assumed that any attempts at an escape would be futile.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Great.

  Sonnet peered into the horizon, her gaze locking on to what looked to be a small body of water only a short distance away. Dread stirred within her. The view was ugly, dismal, and bleak. She looked behind her and all she could see was the darkness she’d first arrived in, and she wasn’t about to go back into that void, the nothingness. Not if she could help it.

  She drew a deep quaking breath and pointed to the lake.

  He gave her a brief nod. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  When they reached the black lake, Sonnet’s gaze moved over it. She watched as tiny bubbles formed, thousands of them in quick succession. They popped, discharging puffs of smoke. Her nostrils filled with the acrid scent of decay. The body of watery tar shifted every so often, like a restless entity searching for something, or someone, to latch on to.

  She was seeing what the lay of the land in the lower levels of demon-hell looked like. Needless to say, it gave her the creeps.

  Spiros walked up behind her. He stopped next to her, close enough that she could feel his energy. He stared off into the distance, his boots a foot away from the water’s edge. A warm breeze danced through his shoulder-length black hair. His face looked paler than normal, with eyes full of anguish. He hooked his thumbs inside the front pockets of his wrinkled slacks and murmured, “I never thought I’d see this place again.”

  She glanced around the dark, barren land that surrounded the lake. “You’ve been here before?”

  He nodded. “I was born here.” They stood side by side in contemplative silence, and then his gaze traveled over to her. “You were born here too, you know.”

  Chill bumps traveled across Sonnet’s flesh. Her eyes narrowed. “How would you know that?”

  Their eyes met and held. “Because we’re not only siblings, we’re twins, Sonnet. I found the truth of it within your blood.”

  And in that moment, the line between the good guys and the bad guys was shattered.

  It didn’t matter that she was afraid of him. Or that he was a powerful, drug-dealing demon. Spiros was her twin brother. And once the words were spoken out loud, she knew them to be one-hundred percent true. Her instincts never lied. No longer could she look at him with only her eyes and basic nature; she was seeing him through her heart.

  Nothing could be worse than that.

  For a moment, she didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, she didn’t even try to swallow the lump quickly forming in her throat. She just stood there in complete and utter shock.

  That was, until something hard rammed straight into her chest, knocking the wind from her lungs.

  The smell of burnt tar and charcoal shot up her nostrils and something thin but strong, like wings, swatted at the sides of her face.

  “Get off me!” she shouted, batting her hands at the thing clinging to her shoulders and arms.

  Spiros came over, his usual cruel eyes sparked with amusement. “Trouble!”

  The beat down paused, and then as fast as the…whatever the hell it was on her had come, it left.

  “What is it?!”

  Sonnet paused and watched her brother and the creature for a second. They seemed familiar with one another, and happy. She couldn’t tell what kind of being it was. Only that it had wings, was a shade of purple so deep that it was almost black, and looked like a cross between a bat and a raccoon, closer to the size of the former, but on a grander scale.

  Spiros ducked his head and turned in a circle to evade the playful coon-bat.

  After the initial shock of being attacked wore off, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy. Over what, she wasn’t sure. But as ridiculous as it seemed, it was probably the way the two seemed so at ease with each other, as though they shared a bond. A far cry from the way her newfound sibling hated, scowled at, and threatened her like the demon scorn he was.

  In retrospect, she did help shut down his drug business and planned on killing him in the process—but other than the murdering-him part, wasn’t that precisely what family was supposed to do? Save you when you’re being a complete and total idiot? Her brows rose and she bit her bottom lip. She’d like to think so. In her book, she was just being a great sister—even if she hadn’t known it at the time.

  The winged creature screeched.

  “Hello! Did you hear me, jerk? What is that thing?”

  He threw her a grin. “He is a drake, and my childhood pet.”

  A glance over Spiros’s shoulder had Sonnet backing up. “Uh…do drakes usually travel in hordes?”

  His brows pulled together. “Huh?”

  She pointed into the gloomy horizon. If she hadn’t been frightened before, she definitely was now. What looked to be hundreds of purple coon-bats—err, drakes—where soaring over the lake, and they were heading straight for them.

  Spiros stopped goofing off with his pet and glanced behind him. “Uh, that’s not good. Trouble won’t attack us. But his species in general are man-eaters. We need to find shelter…now.”

  Head spinning, she stared at him. “But where can we go?”

  “I know of only one place. And you’re probably not going to like it.”

  She glanced at the sea of black, leathery wings looming closer and closer. Chaos brewed with each second they stood there. “To tell you the truth, I don’t give a damn where we end up. As long as it’s not here and is safe.”

  He looked down at her. “I never said we’d be safe. Just not here.” He stepped forward and then moved around her, his swift walk turning into a jog. “Just keep up.” Then the jog turned into a full-out run.

  She slid her gun out of its holster and sped behind him.

  ***

  The sounds of winged monsters chasing them reached Sonnet just as their destination came into view a few
miles up ahead. It was an enormous Gothic castle that looked as if it had been there since the dawn of time.

  Ear-piercing screeches were the drake’s promise of pain and destruction, the horrific sound lighting a fire underneath her ass to run faster. Jesus, could the castle be any farther away?

  Her lungs flashed fire, the muscles in her legs burned as she pushed herself even harder. But she wasn’t fast enough. A rapid series of hits and scrapes ripped through the back of her jacket and through her shirt, slicing the skin underneath to ribbons.

  Through watery eyes, Sonnet could see her brother up ahead, but the pain was too great for her to yell out for help. Oh, but the agony, something that resembled a scream was wrenched from her throat in vicious waves as the drakes dive-bombed her with savage eyes and snapping fangs, their claws scoring her flesh, rendering it bloody.

  Her steps began to falter. And in that moment, she knew pure terror, a fear so great that it dove deeper within her than any hunt of evil immortals ever had.

  Her skin pulsed with potency, her muscles coiled with strength as fear and adrenaline unleashed a greater power within her. And with that boost she regained control. Each time her boots hit ground, the surface cracked beneath the pressure. Within seconds she was passing her brother, and after less than a minute, she made it to the castle gates.

  “Feed it your blood!” Her brother’s voiced boomed from behind. She looked over her shoulder and saw him advancing from about a half mile away with a sea of drakes fast on his trail.

  She turned back and stared up at the enormous gate. “How in the hell do you suppose I do that!?”

  Then she saw it. A round opening at the base of one of the thick steel bands bracing the gate shut. It was big enough to fit a human arm.

  Great, just what she needed—more surprises. She slid her arm inside.

  At first, nothing happened. But then a searing pain sliced at her wrist. With a hissed curse, she pulled her arm back. And as she clenched her bloody limb to her chest, the gate swung open widely.

  She smiled and let out a sigh of relief, but the victory was short-lived as her brother zipped past her yelling, “Don’t just stand there, idiot, run!”