Hunting Shadows

by Rain Oxford

  The lights started flickering and I felt his fear spike. My thrall over him started to break as his flight instinct kicked in. “You can’t do this to me!”

  “This doesn’t have to get ugly.”

  “He knows when we’re talking about him!”

  “And you’re afraid he’s going to kill you. Look where you are.”

  He looked down at the circle he was sitting in front of. “What is that?”

  “You don’t know?” He can’t be the brains behind this if he doesn’t know at least the basic wards. “This will trap the creature.”

  “He won’t be able to kill me?”

  “Not if you tell us what we want to know. We can protect you, but you have to give us a reason to.” As the light flickered again, his face changed… or at least my vision did.

  His face was red as a tomato with blue veins on his forehead. His black, smiling lips stretched almost from ear to ear, and they didn’t fully cover his sharp teeth. His eyes were the worst part; they were gone. Empty eye sockets dripped lumpy, green blood.

  Before his face could change back, I turned to Logan. Even though I knew I would regret it, that his face would be something so horrible I could never look at him again, I had to see it.

  The bastard was holding a kitchen towel in front of his face so that I couldn’t see him.

  “Fuck you, Logan!”

  “Not today, Ms. Ares.”

  The electricity cut out completely at that point, leaving only the light of the candle. Officer Lewis’s face was back to normal. I forced myself to act like nothing had happened. “Tell me how you got the kids to write the letters.”

  He opened his mouth to tell me, only to be picked up and slammed against the wall by an unseen force. I had a split second to feel disappointed that Lilly’s spell hadn’t worked before the beast appeared right in front of the officer.

  The creature I saw was horrendous. Although it wasn’t any taller than Deimos and was on the lean side, it looked so alien that I half expected it to spit acid. It was a quadruped with longer front legs than hind legs. It had greenish-tan, slick, slimy skin that was loosely hanging from its thin body, with no eyes, slit nostrils, and a circular, gaping mouth full of yellow, crooked, sharp teeth. The creature made a pained, rasping sound as if it were trying to yell without the vocal equipment to do so.

  The cop’s screams intensified, for he was able to see it as well.

  I got in between the cop and the creature and kicked the creature. I must have surprised the beast, because it worked; the creature was tossed back and landed in the circle. It quickly gained its footing, but as it tried to leave the circle, it couldn’t. It screeched, a high pitched, wheezing sound, and I was slammed against the wall.

  It was like a heavy body pushing on my body. Although my hands and legs were free, there was nothing tangible in front of me that I could push away. My strength really didn’t stand a chance against magic.

  “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica,” Logan said, reading the incantation. The creature thrashed in the circle. Logan continued for a few more lines until the creature shoved him against the wall with magic.

  “Let me go! I’m on your side!” the officer implored. The creature turned to him and opened its mouth wide. A sickening crack filled the room as Officer Lewis’s neck snapped, killing him instantly.

  Logan tried to continue his incantation, but the creature put more pressure on him and he struggled to breathe.

  “Hey, ugly!” I yelled. The creature turned its face towards me, despite having no eyes to see me with. “You want to try staking me again, bitch?” When it turned back to Logan, I pulled a flare out of my pocket, took off the cap, and struck it. “Heads up,” I said, tossing the lit flare into the circle. The creature went nuts, screeching and thrashing around to avoid the light, but unable to escape the circle.

  Logan didn’t waste time. With every Latin word he uttered, I felt the pressure weaken. When Logan was done, the creature screeched and seemed to melt into a swarm of darkness, which quickly dispersed in the light of the candle and flare. The pressure pinning us to the wall vanished altogether and Logan and I both fell.

  “Why would you provoke the beast after seeing what it did to the officer? That was very foolish of you,” Logan said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, and jumping in front of a stake for my sake was totally reasonable. It was going to kill you.”

  “That’s strange. It sounds so much like you care.”

  “You are of no use to me dead.” I opened the door to the basement and carefully made my way down the rotting stairs. Logan followed after picking up the flare. We found all six missing kids tied up on the floor, but not Rome’s mother or Jeana’s parents. When they saw us, they started crying and struggling against their ropes.

  Logan and I made quick work of untying them. One of the little girls, who I recognized as Andrea from her photo, hugged me. “This is not going to be an easy night,” Logan said.

  The six children had to squeeze into the back seat of my car as we drove them all home… except for Rome and Jeana. Once the other children were home, Logan and I had to tell Rome and Jeana that their parents were missing. Neither of us was good at comforting people, so we dropped them off at the police station.

  Chapter 11

  Logan went to Lilly’s house to deal with their parents while I returned to the motel. Lilly was watching cartoons with Deimos and Phobos. “Is the monster dead?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She sighed with relief. “Where is Logan?”

  “Talking to your mother.”

  “Oh. That’s good, sort of. She’s going to heckle me for a month, but at least I don’t have to deal with her right now. She says I’m a devil-worshiper, but I keep telling her I don’t worship her at all.”

  I laughed.

  “Thank you for helping me. Logan would have been too worried about protecting me to help the others.”

  “Well, I know how you can repay me. Can you use magic to find my father?”

  “Do you have anything of his?” she asked, getting up and going to her bag. She took out a stack of maps and a leather pouch, cleared off the table, and then laid out a map of the world. She then poured the contents of the pouch into her right hand— a crystal on a string.

  I pulled a small velvet pouch out of my pocket and gently emptied my father’s ring out onto the table. “Be careful. This is all I have left of him.”

  “I’m not going to damage it.” She held the ring in her left hand and dangled the crystal over the map with her right hand. “I need to concentrate, so be quiet.” She closed her eyes. After a couple seconds, the crystal started rotating, although she wasn’t moving her hand. A few minutes later, the crystal began spinning faster.

  Then the crystal cracked and Lilly flinched. “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” she said, not yet giving up. When the crystal shattered, she looked heartbroken. She sniffled, handed me the ring, and wiped the sweat off her face. “I’m sorry. That’s never happened before.”

  “Does that mean he’s dead?”

  “No; if he was dead, it would show me where his body is. My magic can’t find him. I must not be a strong enough witch.”

  “It’s not your fault.” It was my responsibility.

  “Maybe Cindy can do it.”

  I nodded. After sending a text to Logan, I left Phobos to watch Lilly and drove to Cindy’s house. From the outside, it looked normal. However, when I knocked on the door, there was no answer. Deimos sniffed the air, but he didn’t tell me there was anything dangerous. I broke the lock as gently as I could, destroying only part of the wooden frame, and entered the house. Everything was exactly the same as the day before. In fact, there was a plate of food and a half-full coffee cup on the table with some books scattered around.

  Deimos growled.

  Seriously concerned, I called Cindy
’s number. It went to voicemail, so I called two more times. Finally, she picked up. “Hey, I’m driving, so I can’t talk.”

  She sounded out of breath. “Are you okay? I’m at your place and it looks like you ran out of here in a hurry.”

  “Yeah. Sorry I never got back to you. Something is happening at my nephew’s school, so I’m going to pick him up before his mother freaks out. She’s not entirely happy about him attending a paranormal school in the first place. I’m not going to be home for at least a week.”

  I sighed. This is my own fault for getting my hopes up. A short buzz told me I had an incoming call, so I said goodbye to Cindy, hung up with her, and answered Logan’s call.

  “Tell me Lilly is with you.”

  I hesitated. For the first time, he sounded afraid. “No. Didn’t you get my text? I left her with Phobos.”

  “Phobos is gone, too.”

  “I’ll be back in a…” I trailed off as my eyes caught a drawing in the book on the table. “Oh, shit.”

  “What is it?!”

  “I know where she is.”

  “That’s a good thing.”

  “No, it’s really not. I’ll meet you back at the motel in ten minutes. Call around and see if any of the other kids are missing again.” I hung up on him without giving him a chance to argue, got in my car, and drove back to the motel.

  Logan was standing outside the motel room, waiting impatiently for me. He got in the passenger seat as soon as I parked. I pulled out and got back on the road before explaining. “The office manager saw Lilly willingly leave the room and get into a yellow pickup, along with the biggest black dog he’d ever seen. What did you figure out?”

  “When I was at the farmhouse, the man had a tattoo on his wrist, which he said was protection against demons. When I was at Cindy’s house just now, I found a book on her table with that symbol in it. It’s used for bonding with demons.”

  “Then it was the farmer behind all of this. How did he find Lilly?”

  “Maybe a spell. Do you have a plan?”

  “I plan to shoot him in the head and get my sister back.”

  “As much as I like that plan, he may have magic.”

  “So do I.”

  “Are you willing to use it?”

  “If it comes down to it, yes.”

  * * *

  We pulled into the driveway of the farmhouse twenty minutes later. The instant Logan let Deimos out of the back of my car, the dog took off running towards the barn. When I opened the door, all seven of the kids were kneeling inside a circle and chanting in another language. Phobos paced behind Lilly as if to guard her. In the center was an extremely elaborate magic circle, filled with sigils, magic letters, a snake, and four six-pointed stars. There were also four five-pointed stars outside the circle, as well as thirteen lit candles. To the east of the circle was a triangle with a smaller circle inside of it and a few letters that didn’t spell any words I knew.

  “Stop them from chanting!” Logan quickly grabbed Lilly and put his hand over her mouth. Phobos and Deimos each grabbed a kid by the shoulder and pulled them away.

  None of the kids were restrained, and none of them seemed to know we were there. I may not have been an expert in magic, but I knew this was mind control. That was how they got the kids to write the letters.

  I grabbed two of the kids and put my hands over their mouths to shut them up. The door burst open. “Let them go!” the old farmer demanded, aiming his shot gun at me. I let go of the kids and, before he could even pull the trigger, rushed towards him and grabbed the gun out of his hand. Then I hit him in the back of the head with the shotgun, easily knocking him unconscious.

  Unfortunately, it was too late; all seven of the children passed out at that moment and the chalk circle began glowing. “For fuck’s sake!” A suffocating presence filled the room. The candles flickered violently as a cold wind came from inside the circle. “I don’t have any more paint to make the regular circle.”

  “We wouldn’t have time anyway,” Logan said. “Get everyone out.” He picked up Lilly and another child, Deimos and Phobos each grabbed a child by the back of their clothes, and I grabbed two more. Just as we reached the door, however, it slammed shut.

  I kicked it, only to be shoved back by an unseen force. Instead of being slammed into the wall, I just hit the floor. Something between black smoke and shadow formed inside the triangle. Logan set the children down, pulled two flares out of his pockets, and lit them, but it was like trying to scare off a tornado with a match.

  Logan was slammed into the wall and the flares vanished.

  We might be in over our heads.

  Deimos stood over me and growled while Phobos dragged the kids towards the walls to keep them out of the way. Inside the triangle, the shapeless mass was shrinking and taking the form of a… man.

  After a moment, there was only a man standing in the triangle, and he looked no more demonic than Langril had. The demon had shoulder-length black hair, a short goatee, black eyes, and very pale skin. He was about six-three, fit without being very muscular, and wore a black shirt, black jeans, and black leather boots. Although I couldn’t sense magic like Logan could, I had predator instincts, and they were telling me I was no longer the strongest predator in the room.

  The demon momentarily glanced at Logan and then focused on me. “Come closer, vampire,” Marluk said, his tone surprisingly gentle and strangely pleasant.

  I stood up, pushing Deimos off me, and took a few steps towards the demon. I stopped outside the circle, although I didn’t know if it had any effect on the demon. It was a summoning circle, not a trap.

  “Rory…” Logan said, obviously struggling just to speak. “Make the… trap.”

  “Why would you want to trap me?” Marluk asked smoothly, grinning. “I like vampires and I am a much more powerful master than this half-human weakling.”

  “I’m not a pet.”

  Marluk laughed. “There are vampires and humans on my world, and they are all slaves.”

  “I don’t care. I’m not a pet or a slave.”

  “Then you can die with everyone else who doesn’t worship me,” he said.

  “Are all demons like this?” I asked Logan.

  “I don’t know.” He was still struggling, trying to reach for something in his pocket.

  Realizing this, I distracted Marluk. “You’re not going about it the right way. What would I get out of working for you?”

  The demon grinned again and walked forward, out of the triangle and through the circle without even a slight hesitation. He stopped just a foot in front of me. “I’m not going to share my power with some pathetic human, but I will share it with my adoring pet.”

  Phobos growled loudly from my right, trying to distract him from Deimos, who was coming up behind the demon. “Boys, guard the kids.” Phobos stopped growling and looked at me with confusion. “Do it.” They both did as I ordered. “What kind of power?”

  “Any kind you want. If someone angers or threatens you, I’ll kill them.”

  “I already do that.”

  He grinned even wider. “That’s why I like vampires. What is it you want?”

  “I want to find my father.”

  “Easy.” He put his hands on my waist and pulled me closer. He smelled good, much like Logan when he was kissing me. Although he did smell a little of smoke, there wasn’t even a hint of sulfur. He oozed power and control. “Agree to be my pet.”

  I heard the rattling of chains and turned to Logan. His shirt was open and he was tearing the tattoo from his skin. It was the strangest thing; the two-dimensional ink was coming off of his skin and turning into a three-dimensional chain. That was more magic than I had ever seen. The chain was in his right hand while his left was clenched and dripping blood.

  Marluk raised his hand towards Logan, who grunted in pain, but it was the blood I was focused on; it was pooling on the floor and flowing towards the demon. The demon clenched his fist and red lightning shot from him in
to Logan, who grunted with pain. I punched the demon in the face with my full strength. Any human would have been dead.

  Marluk barely flinched.

  Then he made a dismissive motion with his hand and I was slammed against the wall next to Logan. At that point, I realized what Logan was doing with his blood; it was forming into an extremely intricate magic circle, right under the demon’s feet.

  Deimos and Phobos tried again to attack the demon, but they had never faced a creature as powerful as him before. Marluk made the same motion with his hand as he had done to slam me to the wall and both dogs were thrown across the room. I never wanted to rip out someone’s entrails so much.

  The instant the circle of blood closed, I felt the pressure holding me to the wall dampen just enough for me to reach Logan. Logan started speaking the Latin incantation from memory.

  Marluk only laughed. “You need power to banish me, not just pretty words, human. You may have been strong enough to send my pet back, but you don’t have enough to bother me at all.”

  Although I suspected the demon was right, Logan continued as if Marluk hadn’t spoken. I grabbed the chain dangling from Logan’s chest and pulled, earning a shout of pain from him. It worked nonetheless. Before I knew it, the last piece of chain was peeled loose of his skin and he dropped to his feet.

  The shock on Marluk’s face was amusing. “You concealed your magic. Who are you?”

  “You don’t know me.” Logan’s voice hadn’t changed, but his tone was even more dispassionate than usual. His eyes were as black as Marluk’s.

  “I do recognize your power though; I must know one of your parents.”

  “It doesn’t concern you; you’re not going to be here long.”

  “I make a better ally than an enemy.”

  “I expected as much, but the only way to save my sister is to banish you, so I will do so.”

  “Your sister?”

  “One of the human children you’re currently feeding on in order to be here.”

  “You still don’t have enough power to send me back.”

  In answer, Logan continued saying the incantation. Unlike with the creature, I didn’t feel any weakening in the pressure as Logan spoke. Then the demon raised his hand towards me and the same red lightning he used on Logan shot into me, turning my vision red momentarily. It felt similar to the shocks the Foxes used on me when I was a child, only much, much more intense. Even after it was gone, my entire body pulsed with burning pain. My teeth were clenched and I couldn’t open them or even breathe, although that was probably because all my organs were fried. It was probably comparable to being electrocuted and then thrown out into the sunlight naked. Even my heart was feebly quivering with pain rather than beating.