On the inside of her right wrist was a black infinity sign. In the left oval of the infinity sign, the numbers 486 appeared, with Anno Domini written below the numbers. The right oval of the sign was blank. Underneath the symbol, written in small flowing script ending about mid forearm, were these four lines:
Sit in nobis inlustret lumine
Ad plures aetates vivet
Et per multiple rebirths
Missio nostra est completum.
D looked back up at her face. “Speak.”
Shanna doubled over in pain, holding the burning red tattoo on her left forearm. “Look, I know you’re confused and pissed, but I’m not a dog. I don’t speak on command.”
“That’s not—”
She spun around on Patrick, glaring at him. “Finish that sentence and I will make Hell look like a top ten vacation spot. Shut up and finish your task.”
Patrick held his hands up in surrender, the whites of his eyes fading to black again.
Shanna turned back to D. “Now, would you like me to translate the phrase under Artemis’ bow for you, or do you want to continue to be an ass?”
“Translate.”
“And we’ve reached the one word stage of anger. Awesome. Well, it’s written in Latin and loosely translates to:
“‘Hunter’s made from fire and light
Hunt the creatures of the night
No broken law shall go unpunished’.”
Patrick joined them at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes back to their normal color. “Done, boss. And technically, it translates to:
“‘From fire and light hunter
Hunt the creatures of the night
Not breaking the law with impunity’.”
Shanna groaned, rolling her eyes. “The demon in the peanut gallery really needs to learn when to keep his trap shut.”
“Bite me, Corelsand.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Is that a challenge? Because I’m sure Tiern would love to meet the other side of you.”
D waved his hands in the air. “Children! Shut up and translate the tattoo on your other arm.”
Shanna flipped Patrick off and obliged D. “It directly translates as:
“‘Let the light shine in us
So that we shall live many lifetimes
And through our multiple rebirths
Shall our mission be complete.’”
D blinked. “That’s actually quite beautiful. Now, would one of you, at this point I really don’t care which one it is, please explain to me why I’ve never seen these tattoos before?”
“Your girlfriend cast a spell that hid her tattoos from anyone who wasn’t a part of The Four.”
“If you’re not careful, I’ll cast a spell that—”
“Now, Shanna. Empty threats aren’t productive at the moment. Demonic charms preventing any supernatural abilities in place, remember?”
Shanna blew a strand of hair out of her face in frustration, crossing her arms over her chest. “I hate you.”
Patrick smiled. “And the petulant child makes an appearance. You are so predictable.”
“I’ll show you predictable,” Shanna grumbled.
“You already have. Twice.”
D narrowed his eyes. “Are you telling me that you’re actually a real demon and my girlfriend is a witch?” he demanded incredulously.
“Technically, she’s half witch, half demon, but essentially, yes.”
Before D could respond to that, Shanna screamed out in pain, the bow tattoo on her forearm turning a fiery red. Her eyes flashed yellow. Patrick’s back stiffened, his eyes turning completely black.
“They’re here,” he hissed.
“He sent Soul Eaters after me? Seriously?” Shanna groaned through the pain. “He really must be running out of supernatural assassins if he’s dispatched Soul Eaters.”
Patrick narrowed his black eyes. “Seeing as you’re technically a supernatural assassin, Soul Eaters are about the only creature he can send that has a chance of completing their mission objective.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “So, Shanna, love, care to explain why my father sent his best assassins to take out a protected member of the elite assassin team?”
Shanna smiled weakly, backing up slowly as she raised her hands in surrender. “Now, Patrick, can’t we discuss this after we take care of the creatures here to suck out our souls. We have a human here to protect, after all. All our focus should be on the fight.”
“Shanna, the only reason I have a soul for them to suck out is because I am a member of the Demonic Four. You know, one of the people meant to protect you at any cost?” Patrick snapped.
“I may have left some details out of last week’s op…”
Patrick feigned shock. “No…you don’t say?”
“Fine. I may or may not have killed Romanova last week.” At the look Patrick sent her, she backed up a couple of steps. “Come on, Patrick, you know he deserved it!”
Patrick glared at her. “He was my father’s favorite pet demonic slave.”
“He was a sadistic creature who deserved a lot worse than what I did to him.” Shanna froze. “Son of a… They’ve breached the outer perimeter. They’re going to be at the front door in less than a minute.”
“How does she know that?” D asked, his eyes still wide.
Patrick sighed. “That tattoo on her forearm, the one of Artemis’ bow, with the symbols of the five elements, is a supernatural early warning system. She can sense any supernatural being around. She cloaksher tats to keep them from knowing what she is. She is a member of a supernatural hunter organization called Regulator’s. They police the supernatural world. And, yes, the supernatural does exist. You can only be born into the Regulator’s and Shanna here just happened to born into an elite group of Regulator’s. She, along with two of her siblings, and one other of no relation to them, are a part of a four member elite assassination squad within the Regulator’s. The squad is run by The Demonic Four or simply The Four. We are essentially their handler’s, four Greater Demons—The Four Princes of Hell—who answer directly to their father.”
Shanna snorted. “By all means. Please tell him who Daddy Dearest is.”
They all froze at the sound of breaking glass upstairs.
“That’s going to have to wait until later. D, I’m going to ask you to hide in the men’s locker room. Before I do, would you like to see what your girlfriend really is?”
D nodded. “Absolutely.”
Patrick shoved him through the locker room door, mumbling some words in a foreign language. “There, you should be completely hidden from the Soul Eaters, but will be able to see and hear everything from anywhere in that room like you were out here with us. Go hide.”
Patrick turned to Shanna as the two locker rooms essentially vanished like they never existed. “Sorry about this, love,” he muttered. He grabbed her arm, chanting,
“Ex igne et luce venatorum
Hunt in nocturna animalia,
No violataque iura inultum
Ut audiant unicum dominum
Ipsa reliquish control
Ubi legitur hoc fascinum
Eius verus et protector.”
He basically read her tattoo, adding the lines:
“May she reliquish control
When this spell is read
By her true Master and protector.”
In the locker room, D’s eyes popped out of his head, his jaw resting on the tiled floor as his girlfriend immediately turned into a massive black dog with yellow eyes, giant spikes similar to porcupine quills sticking up from her massive spine, her long forked tail tucked between her legs.
“Your girlfriend is what mythology calls a Hellhound. A special version of the Hellhound,” Patrick whispered.
D picked up his words in the now invisible other room like he was standing next to him.
The Rottweiler like version of Shanna glared at Patrick, sitting on her massive haunches like a domesticated dog might.
Then she did something amazing.
She said, “I really should eat you for that. That was a below the belt move.”
The voice that came out of the massive dog sounded much like one he imagined a person would sound like if they were possessed by a demon, but he could tell it was her speaking.
And that both amazed him and scared the living shit out of him.
Shanna woke up feeling like someone had driven over her head with a Mack truck hauling the entire cast of Riverdance. She opened her eyes, groaning. She blinked away the bright, but somewhat hazy, stars dancing front of her eyes as she stared up at the stone ceiling.
What the hell had happened?
The last thing she remembered clearly was sparring down in the gym with Patrick. D had shown up and found out a couple of her secrets… And then nothing. Nada. The memory banks were wiped clean.
“Sleeping gas coupled with a MP wave is a bitch, ain’t it?”
Shanna closed her eyes, groaning. Pushing herself up from the cold, damp stone floor, she pushed her wet and tangled hair out of her face. “Well, this can’t be good,” she muttered.
Rhyder glared at her through the metal bars separating their cells. “Nice to see you, too, sis. The Soul Eater’s that came after us cheated using the gas.”
“If you two start bickering, I’ll kill you both and put myself out of the horrific misery that comes with your petty infighting,” a deep, male voice warned from behind Rhyder.
Shanna craned her neck, looking past her brother. “Oh, quit your belly aching Xander. Rhyder and I have nothing on you and your brothers.”
The tall dark haired boy arched an eyebrow. “That’s highly debatable.”
“Says the man who argues about everything,” Patrick groaned from the floor next to Shanna.
“Nice to see you again, brother,” Xander said in acknowledgement.
“It hasn’t been nearly long enough, brother.”
“Your ass is mine!” an angry female voice yelled. The echo across the hollow stone room caused the others suffering from the drug hangover to groan.
“I see your sister has awoken,” Xander observed.
They all turned to watch the train wreck in the cell on the other side of Shanna and Patrick play out.
The tall dark haired man backed up, swearing in four different languages when his back hit the electrified bars of the cell. He held his hands up in surrender. “Now, Angel, this isn’t my fault. We weren’t even in the same state when we were taken,” he said in a placating voice, much like one would use when trying to talk down an attacking dog.
The tall, dark haired girl stalked him around the cell, murder very clearly written in her eyes. “It’s always your fault Balam!”
“Oh, wow. She pulled out his real name,” Patrick said from the corner of his mouth.
“She is definitely making this personal,” Shanna agreed.
“Now wait a minute here, Angel. I’ve left you alone like you asked me to. For the love of God, you are dating my brother!”
“He’s your adoptive brother,” Angel pointed out.
“Seriously? Does that really matter right now? Let’s not forget here that I have a boyfriend.”
“Boy toy.”
“You think Zi will take offense to her calling him that in anger?” Rhyder whispered to Xander.
“Nah. Boy toys don’t last over a century,” Zander whispered back. “Zi has thick skin.”
Balam narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. He stopped running from her, standing his ground. “Let’s see here, your longest relationship since Lincoln held office has been three years. Zi and I have been together since Lincoln was in office. You have boy toys. I have what grownups call an actual relationship. Based on trust. And the truth. No secrets.”
“Grownup? Where? All I see is a boy who likes to play dress up in his daddy’s closet.”
“You know, for someone who claims they are done with me, who wants absolutely nothing to do with me, you sure care an awful lot.”
“Don’t mistake disdainful loathing for caring.”
“Don’t mistake my taking your psychotic mood swings with a grain of salt as a sign of weakness.”
“Oh, my God. I can’t decide who is worse,” Zander moaned, burying his head in his hands. “Shanna and Patrick or the other two.”
“Angel and Balam,” Rhyder, Patrick, and Shanna said immediately in unison.
“In their defense, they’ve only been separated since the Civil War. The pain is still raw,” Shanna added.
“Then what’s your and Patrick’s excuse?” Angel tossed over at her sister. “You guys have been divorced since Shakespeare was still in the middle of turning the idea for Hamlet into one of the world’s greatest plays.”
“Fifteen hundred years of never learning from our mistakes,” Patrick muttered under his breath.
“Fifteen hundred years of a tiger refusing to change his stripes. He really does enjoy being a jackass,” Shanna grumbled.
“You’re not exactly a picnic, dear. You’re the literal definition of the world bitch,” he threw back.
“There is not a single person in this room who is younger than a millennia, yet you all bicker like school children fighting over toys on the playground,” a deep, hoarse voice commented calmly from the corner of the room.
The sinister voice caused goose bumps to appear on Shanna’s skin and sent chills down her spine.
Ryder dropped down onto the bench in his cell, dropping his head in his hands. “Kill me now,” he mumbled.
Patrick, Balam, and Zander groaned. “Father,” they said in unison.
And that’s when Lucifer—most referred to him simply as Satan—himself stepped out of the shadows, looking at the six of them like they were pawns on a chess board.
“Shall we begin?”
CHAPTER 39
August 2015
Déjà vu.
That feeling was really starting to piss Megan off. It’s not like she enjoyed being knocked out by the Schlafend gas. Quite the opposite, actually. The green sleeping gas hit hard and fast, knocking you into oblivion in under five seconds. The canister it was deployed in sent out a MP wave set to a predetermined perimeter—say, two hundred yards in any direction.
The gas itself followed those same perimeters, taking every supernatural creature, including the genetically engineered superhumans, off the playing field. It rendered them completely defenseless as they dropped off into a dreamless sleep.
Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that being kidnapped while completely defenseless wasn’t exactly on her daily to do list.
If they were going to take her against her will, again, they really needed to come up with new material. They were starting to get predictable.
She opened her eyes to find herself facedown, drooling on a blue gym mat.
Well, wasn’t that just freaking awesome?
Groaning, she went to push herself up, but the chain gang breaking rocks inside her skull warned her that wasn’t such a bright idea. She decided to listen to the mean people breaking the large boulders very loudly, flopping back down, arms spread wide. Taking a couple of deep breaths, she made attempt number two at moving as she exhaled.
Moving, she flopped over onto her back. She was pretty sure to anyone that was watching—and someone was always watching—she looked like a fish out of water.
Awesome. That was just awesome.
She opened and closed her mouth, attempting to swallow through the wads of cotton someone had stuffed down her throat while she was passed out. Her mouth was as dry as the Sahara Desert. Her tongue felt swollen and heavy and it took way more effort than should ever be necessary to lick her lips.
Her entire body felt like it was made of lead.
A hangover had nothing on the side effects of Schlafend gas.
She had felt better after a night out drinking with Daniels, Cuervo, and Beam. Jack, Jose, and Jim had never treated her like this.
She attemp
ted to convince her arm to lift up and cover her eyes. It took a few tries, but her mission was finally complete. She sighed in relief as the arm blocked out the majority of the bright lights glaring down at her from the gray ceiling.
She blinked a few times, shushing the people in her head, but they ignored her as they continued to break rocks.
That figured. They tended to be selfish like that.
Megan had to admit, though, that a chain gang crushing rocks in her head was ten times better than having a Five Finger Death Punch concert and mosh pit take up permanent residence in her skull.
Great music, bad company to have in one’s head. She was just saying…
The sprinklers attached to the ceiling turned on suddenly, spraying a pink gas along with the water. She closed her eyes, letting the water and gas cover her body. She sighed in relief as it settled into her pores, causing the chain gang to cease its work for the time being.
Her body slowly lost its lead feeling as she started to regain control over her limbs. As the watery film continued its healing magic, her tongue slowly returned to its normal size, the cotton in her throat disappearing, and the dryness became more manageable.
Erwachen gas was the best. Its name translated to Awaken and it canceled out any and all side effects of the Schlafend gas.
And no, she had absolutely no idea why the general and his crew named their serums in Latin and their gasses in German. She had stopped trying to figure out their insanity decades ago.
The sprinklers shut off.
She pushed off the mat, landing fluidly on her feet. Looking over to her right, she caught sight of a bottle of water sitting in the middle of a small table. Trying not to drool more than she already had, she quickly walked over to the table.
Grabbing the bottle, she twisted off the lid and downed the entire bottle in one drink. Setting the empty bottle back down on the table, she spun around to check out her surroundings.
It was similar to the room back at the warehouse in Virginia a few nights ago, but the only real difference that stood out was the wall of weapons that took up the entire back wall.
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