Never for the better.
Ever.
So much heartache. So much destruction.
Demons in a bottle.
She wondered what the Hanta thought about that since it did seem to enjoy the taste of southern whiskey.
Shooting it back, she felt the slow burn of the drink sliding down her throat, eager to push her towards some ugly outcome. The Hanta enjoyed the heat as it went down.
“Want to leave him a message?” The bartender asked, winking at someone who had just walked by.
“When does he work next?”
“Not sure. Tuesday, maybe? You somebody’s girlfriend or something?”
Somebody’s girlfriend.
A month ago, she’d been somebody’s girlfriend. She and Rushalyn Holbrook had been lovers for three years before Rush left her. Just up and left her.
Not that Rush could truly leave. She was already dead.
Dead and gone for the last forty-three years. Dead as in having no corporeal form, and gone as in not being anywhere around for the last three weeks.
Gone.
No matter where Denny looked or how hard she called out, Rush had not appeared.
For thirteen years, Rush had been lurking around the Holbrook House every hour of every day, watching, waiting. Watching and waiting for Denny to come of age so she could tell her how she felt about her.
And when she did, when they finally managed to connect, it had been beautiful.
Not any longer.
Rush had left her after an argument with Denny about the Hanta. Denny was furious to discover that after Rush had always known Denny carried a demon within her.
Rush had known and yet she hadn’t ever said a word. She’d never told Denny. She’d never let on to her, and in the end, it crushed the tenuous bond between the living and the dead.
Rush left, and had not returned.
Three long weeks, and no word. It was as if she never existed.
“Lady, if you’re somebody’s wife or something––”
Looking up from her thoughts, Denny muttered, “Nah. Nobody’s girlfriend. Nobody’s...anything, really. I’m just a handful of trouble.”
The bartender poured another drink for her. “Harsh.” He pushed it over to her and walked away.
Denny looked at the drink. “Harsh?” She shook her head. “You have no idea.”
***
Once home, Denny stopped to stare at herself in the mirror. Her five-foot ten-inch frame was covered in demon detritus. Blood, brains, and bits of flesh clung to her clothes like supernatural lint. She’d managed to get most off her face and hair, but some still clung to life. Her pupils were pinpricks and she could see that the Hanta had long since gone back to sleep.
Trudging up the stairs to the master bedroom closet, she opened a hidden door leading to a small, oddly shaped room lined with bookshelves and small windows. The musty odor of aged leather bound tomes permeated the air around her. An antique roll-top desk with a green marble slab sat regally in the center of the room. Lying on the desk were several thick, stained leather-bound journals, three to five inches thick. One was open and held a two dollar bill bookmark within the spine.
She slowly took her shirt off and sprayed the bloodstain on the left sleeve with water before squeezing the blood into a well usually reserved for ink. Then she clicked open the green marble slab, which slowly rose to reveal a secret drawer. Within that drawer were several hypodermic needles used for drawing blood.
Once Denny had drawn her own, she squirted it into the well and mixed the two bloods together before grabbing the fountain pen and opening the black leather journal that lay open on her desk.
The writing in blood had always been her least favorite aspect of the demon hunting ritual. To use demon blood to tally the night’s kills was weird but it was her blood that enabled the rest of the demon hunting guild to read her words in their books...her kills...to learn who she killed and how she did it. It kept the legacy hunters connected. It kept them educated and alive.
And they needed this connection to survive.
It was far too supernaturally weird to Denny to know how that all shook out in the end. She just did what Ames Walker, her mentor and trainer, had said her mother did. She recorded precisely who, what, when, where, why and how she defeated her demons. That way, there was not only a reckoning, but a manual of sorts...in case the other legacy hunters came across the same type of demon.
Writing in the Book of Demons, or the Kill Book, as she liked to call it, was the only responsible thing she’d done in the last three weeks. Sure, she’d hunted demons, killed them, questioned them, but she lived fast and loose with her Hanta in her attempt to uncover the truth. What she’d needed was a manual.
This obligation, this legacy, had been thrust upon her without either her consent or her knowledge. She had entered the paranormal realm kicking and screaming. She hadn’t wanted to be possessed––hadn’t wanted to spend her nights combing through the underbelly of society looking for evil. She hadn’t wanted any of it.
Now, hunting was the only thing that mattered.
Denny dipped her fountain pen in the blood ink and began transcribing the details of the night’s kill. And as she’d done every night for three weeks, she spoke aloud to Rush, feeling the gaping void left by her disappearance.
“Another mid-level brought down, love, but you already know that, don’t you? What must you think of me now that I’ve become a cold-hearted killer of demons? Do you sit in judgment of me? Do you feel sorry for me? Do you even miss me? Miss us?” Denny sat silent for a moment, waiting, as always, to see if Rush would answer.
“I’ve not given up on you, Rush. And though you left me so I could spend time with the living, look at how I truly spend my time: hunting those neither dead nor alive. The irony can’t possibly escape you. It hasn’t escaped me.”
Denny kept dipping the pen in the well of blood until she finished retelling the death and how she did it. The blood soaked through the vellum pages, becoming a permanent entry in the Black Book of Demons.
“Take that, Peyton, you fucking over-achiever. You think you’re the only one who can serial kill these bastards nightly?” Denny tossed the pen in the cup with the other used pens. “Ten in one night? I’m gonna blow right through you, dude.”
The wall clock read 3:13. Denny looked out at the high windows above the bookshelves at the half moon.
There was still time.
She could still do a few passes through the neighborhood on her rounds.
Her rounds.
Ever since her family had been attacked, she would walk or drive through those neighborhoods occupied by people unfortunate enough to care about her. They were at risk. Loving her put them in danger, but as long as any demons knew she came through every night, the assholes would be less likely to attack.
Less likely was as good as it got right now.
Denny blew on the blood ink, carefully placed the needle and inkwell into a Ziplock baggie and set it by the door.
When she sat back down, she lightly touched her mother’s ragged and stained brown leather journal. Her mother had been the last Silver to carry the Hanta Raya inside her—the previous owner of the Silver Legacy. Every time Denny touched the journal, she felt her mother’s energy, her zest not only for life but for the death of those demons she had killed in her tenure as Demon Hunter.
Denny started to open it when she saw the barest hint of writing on the page opposite. Pulling the thick journal with its embossed vellum pages up to her, Denny waited for someone else’s blood ink to slowly become legible.
“Busy, busy,” Denny murmured when the name appeared at the bottom of the ledger.
Peyton.
“Damn you, Peyton. That’s three more for you this week.” Denny read the entry. Peyton had beautiful handwriting, and Denny suspected a Catholic school upbringing. Given the many parishes in Louisiana, it was a safe bet this hunter had gone to one.
As she read, she t
ook notes. “Mid-level who did not die upon decapitation? Interesting. This guy’s doing a lot of good killing. Cutting off heads and burning the bodies is too fucking labor-intensive.” She re-read the entry. “Using a non-embellished Katana, eh?” Denny rose and traced her fingers along the many cracked spines of a few choice books in her library. She pulled out a thin, relatively new book titled, Weapons.
Denny didn’t quite know why she cared what weapon this Peyton used. Curiosity, maybe. Maybe it just felt good to be connected to somebody. Anybody who could understand what it meant to be a legacy hunter. Maybe she just needed a connection.
After Rush had left and Denny dropped out of college, she’d disconnected with everyone she knew. Vincent had stopped by, but Denny didn’t answer the door, even for him. So maybe that’s all this was...a connection with another living being who knew how she felt.
Flipping through the book, she stopped when she came upon a Katana, the sword of the Samurai warriors of Japan. Skimming the reading, she discovered a block painting by an artist by the name of Sharaku entitled, Samurai and Two Demons. In the painting, the Samurai was chasing after the two demons. The paragraph below it explained that there were only six of these Teymum Tolken, or demon swords, created by the famous sword maker Fujiwara Kanenaga around 1650.
“Commissioned by the emperor’s wife to create six Katana rumored to have been called demon swords because they often appeared to act of their own free will.” Denny thought about her own weapons and how, at times, they felt alive in her hands. “Only two of these swords are still known to exist. One is in West Point, and is the Katana of a World War II criminal named General Tomoyuki Yamashita, nicknamed the Tiger of Malaysia.”
Denny paused there.
The Hanta Raya originated in Malaysia. So had her demon. “This can not be a coincidence.”
As she read on, she discovered the second sword in a private collection in New Orleans.
“Well, well, well. I’ll be damned. Looks like little Peyton is sporting a stolen, big ticket demon-slashing sword. Good for him. Now I understand how he has so many kills.”
As she returned the book to its place, she pulled out her phone to record what she’d found out. The little green icon said she had fourteen missed calls. Three were voice messages she’d get to later; the rest she ignored.
“I hate to admit that I sorta admire a guy like Peyton,” Denny said aloud. A large part of her hoped Rush was still there, still listening. “A go-getter. It will be interesting watching his kills now that I know what he’s using.”
Resuming her seat in the leather desk chair that creaked every time she moved in it, Denny pulled her mother’s six-inch thick journal to her and opened it. She had stopped reading it three weeks ago because it hurt too much. It made her miss her mother that much more.
Denny seriously began to believe the Hanta had been right when he’d growled that there were worse things than dying.
Catatonia was one of those worse fates.
To be there and not really be there made her mother as much a ghost as Rush. Only deader. At least when Rush had been around, she knew it. She could feel it. She could converse with her and laugh with her and share her day.
Her mother, not so much.
“The living dead.” That’s how Pure, her little sister, referred to their mother. She wasn’t completely wrong, either.
Denny gently opened the weathered journal and skimmed ahead until she came to the entry where her mother, Gwen, first encountered the demon. Denny suspected this demon of running them off the road, killing her father, destroying her mother’s life, and leaving four children to raise themselves.
As hard as it was to read her mother’s polished penmanship, Denny inhaled and took the plunge.
It was time.
***
Gwen’s Journal
I felt watched this afternoon in the park. I know that feeling well and it wasn’t a pair of human eyes. This, I am sure about.
Golden, Quick, and Sterling were playing on the jungle gym when I felt it. I looked over at Sterling and I think she felt it, too, because she pulled her baby sister to her, almost afraid someone might snatch her.
I have no such fears.
My Hanta Raya seems overly protective––like a pit bull or a Doberman. It rears its head any time it feels danger near my kids. I fear for anyone messing with us.
But this was different. Someone was actually hunting me.
Me!
Can you imagine? I finally found peace and quiet here in Chicago and now this? I was foolish to think it would ever really end. Perhaps the best thing we can do for ourselves is leave. Pick up stakes and move out of the danger zone. Robert has three different universities courting him, but he won’t tell me which ones. Says he doesn’t want to “jinx it.” How cute is that man? His wife slays metaphorical dragons and he’s crossing his fingers to keep evil away? You have to love him.
With any luck, we will find some place demon-free––safe. Or at least safer than Chicago. I just want someplace to call home.
Denny closed the journal and shook her head. “No such luck, eh, Mom? To land in the most haunted city in the United States? You must have been so bummed.” Denny pushed the journal away like a meal she was sending back, then rubbed her eyes and stretched.
She gathered her things, closed up shop, took a quick shower, and headed, as she had done every night for the last three weeks, to the sturdy recliner in the corner of the family room. She turned out all the lights and waited in almost complete darkness. Her inert weapons sat in her lap, back in their innocuous cylinder form, but still at the ready.
She pulled out her phone and listened to only one of the voicemails left for her.
“Golden Silver, it’s Brianna once more. I don’t know what the hell is going on with you but dropping out of school and out of sight is not cool. It’s not cool at all. Call me. Please. Just let me know you’re okay. Leave a message if you want, but let me know you’re not dead somewhere.”
Denny deleted the message.
“Okay is such a relative term, don’t you think, Rush?” Turning off her phone’s ringer, Denny waited in the dark as she had for the last twenty-one nights.
Waiting for them to come.
***
When Denny woke up, still sitting in the recliner, her weapons still on her lap, she stretched and yawned. The vibration of her cell between her legs woke her up. It was her little sister, Pure, but by the time Denny clicked the answer button, it had gone to voicemail.
To keep Pure safer over the summer break, Denny had sent her to their aunt and cousin’s house in California. A particularly nasty demon had attempted to use Pure as a pawn to get to Denny, and she felt sending her little sister away to be the wisest move.
The demons erroneously believed that because Denny was new to demon hunting, she would be easy prey...that she would leave her family unprotected.
Oh, how wrong they’d been.
She had wiped up the floor with them, crushing their leader and threatening them with the worst possible deaths if they bothered her or her family again.
Denny slowly got out of the recliner, and put Fouet and Epée back in the inner pockets of her specially-made leather vest she now wore practically everywhere. She’d been attacked once three weeks ago when she didn’t have her weapons with her.
She would not make that mistake again.
After opening the cavernous refrigerator, Denny stood staring at the minimal items occupying the vast space. Two bottles of water, a carton of eggs, mustard, and a half-empty bottle of olives. The state of the refrigerator was an apt symbol for the emptiness of Denny’s life.
Entering the bathroom, she gazed at herself in the mirror a long time. Her lithe frame had lost a great deal of weight this past month and her hollow cheeks were indicative of the minimal food she’d eaten. Her green eyes, one of her better features, were sunken deep in her face, the dark circles underneath a testimony to her lack of sleep. Instead of their ty
pical emerald green, they were darker, more intense. Angry.
Very angry.
And rightfully so.
Her life had stopped being her own and it didn’t look like she was going to be getting it back any time in the near future.
She’d taken to wearing a baseball cap and had cut her brown tresses in a short, boyish style after one demon had grabbed her hair and bashed her face into a door. Her hair had to go.
Lightly fingering a scar bisecting her eyebrow, Denny marveled that so far, it was the only real wound she’d received from the chain blade. It had clipped her on the rebound when she was first learning from Ames how to be the hunter. She had other wounds, of course, but had only tasted the bite of the whip once. Ames had been surprised and impressed by that fact.
Ames Walker.
He had stopped calling her after that first week and sent her a card.
The old ways of the South still lived. If you sent someone a message, snail mail was still the vehicle of choice. Quaint, but not very efficient.
That letter, among a growing pile of others, lay unopened on the dining room table. As much as she respected him as a tutor, she would not be guilted into ceasing her hunt. This was something she had to do for herself––for her family—and she didn’t need to explain that to anyone.
Anyone, that is, except for the woman now using her own key to open the front door.
It was Sister Sterling, nun’s habit and all.
“I wish you wouldn’t barge in here like that. You don’t live here anymore.” Denny’s voice was flat and cold from the top of the stairs. “Especially wearing that God-awful outfit.”
Sterling stopped two steps inside the door, her eyes panning the room in disapproval. “You won’t answer my calls. You don’t reply to emails, and you’ve not responded to one text I’ve sent. I’ve stopped by several times and left––”
“What is it you want, Sterling?” Denny walked slowly back down the stairs, turned into the kitchen and grabbed her coffee pot. From the reflection of the window, Denny watched as Sterling’s sharp blue eyes took in the layers of dust on the furniture, the unopened mail, the half-eaten containers of Chinese food on the coffee table. The air smelled of sour milk.
Demon Within (The Silver Legacy Book 2) Page 2