by Laken Cane
She was worried, I could see it in her eyes, even though during lunch and the rest of our visit she acted like nothing at all was wrong. She couldn’t hide it from me. I knew her too well.
Before we left, I needed to give her something more to worry about. I pulled her outside so we could walk off our meal in the cold sunshine and I could tell her one more thing and again, hope she could offer me some advice.
“I killed a demon,” I told her abruptly. “A powerful demon. I’ve sent lesser demons back to hell before, but I never actually killed one.” I showed her the demon blade. “I took this from him. I’m not sure what’ll happen now. Will others come for me?”
She stopped to stare at me, shock in her eyes. “Dear God, Kaity. What is going on with you? Twenty-six years of quiet and now your life is blowing up with alphas and demons and psychic girls?”
“Um, first of all, my life has hardly been “quiet,” Mother. Second of all, how do you know Lucy is a psychic? She didn’t once—”
“He cut you, didn’t he?” she interrupted, her voice the kind of soft that happened when I was in danger, hurt, or doing something extremely stupid. “He cut you, and then he got your blood inside him, and that’s how you killed him and stole his blade.” Her grin stretched her face, but she did not look amused. At all.
And once again, I could only stare at her with my mouth open. How the hell did she know these things? “Yes,” I said, finally. “That’s exactly what happened.”
“Show me where he cut you.”
I pulled down the neckline of my shirt and showed her the pink, almost invisible scratch across my chest. “It healed, I guess. I felt the pain of it, and the blood…there was lots of blood. But all it left was this little mark.”
“He knew you were different,” she murmured. “When you cut his bastard face. That was why he hobbled you.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
She came back to the present with a blink. “Adam. Adam Thorne. He realized when you cut him that there might be something inside you, though I can’t imagine what kept him from killing you right then and there.”
“He hobbled my wolf so I couldn’t come after him someday? Because he thought I was different?”
“He thought you were dangerous,” she said, her voice flat and her eyes dark. “You need to prove him right, Kaitlyn.”
“What do you mean?” I stared at her, feeling like I didn’t know her at all. There was something strange about her right then, something I didn’t recognize.
“You know what I mean. He killed your father. If you can kill a powerful demon, you can kill a fucking werewolf. You just need to wait until Jared returns your shift, and once you’re…sane, you will go after the alpha.” She turned to me and grabbed my forearms, her grip tight, a savage light in her eyes. “This is what you deserve after what he did to you.”
“I deserve to get revenge?” I asked, shocked and just a little confused.
“You deserve,” she said, her eyes like flints of steel, “to be the new alpha.” She tugged me until I leaned down so she could whisper into my ear, as though somewhere out there in the cold land, someone was listening. “Kill Thorne, Kait. Avenge your father, take back your pack, and become the alpha of the Moon Stone wolves.”
Chapter Seven
She thought I could destroy my old alpha and take his place. She thought I could become alpha.
What did I want?
I had no clue. Things were happening too fast—and I needed to put some of them on the backburner for a while. I loaded my kit into the back of my car with my case of belts and holsters, and then I was on my way to pay a visit to Jessie’s ex.
My cell rang not five minutes later, and Detective Rick Moreno’s name popped up on the dash screen. I sighed. He never called unless he needed me to look at a case in which he believed the supernatural to be involved. He also worked in homicide, so his call likely meant someone had died.
Not many cops—or humans—believed in the supernatural, but Moreno had seen me at work. He believed. Though we’d had a rocky start, things were now cool between us. For the most part. I tapped the button on my steering wheel. “This is Kaitlyn.”
“I’m going to text you an address,” he said without preamble. Moreno was always straight to the point. “I need you at the scene.”
Great, and me with an impatient alpha and a wife-beating asshole to visit. “When?”
“Now.” He hung up.
I glanced at my phone when he texted the address, then decided to put off the visit to Jessie’s ex until after Moreno and definitely after the alpha. “Call Jared Walker,” I said, and he surprised me by answering on the first ring.
“I might be a little late,” I told him. “A detective with the police department called and I need to take care of that. I’ll be there when I can.”
“Of course,” he said smoothly. “The humans and their troubles must take precedence.” He ended the call without another word.
“Fuck you too, buddy,” I muttered.
It took me ten minutes to arrive at the address Moreno had given me. I parked along the street, then opened the center console to pull out my laminated ID badge, though the initial investigation was done, and no one remained at the scene except for the detective.
I dropped the lanyard over my head and stared up at the old apartment building before crossing the sidewalk and then walking across the small postage stamp yard. Moreno was waiting at the entrance, his hands on his hips, impatience in his dark eyes.
He hadn’t called me until everyone else had gone, something he tried to do as much as possible to avoid complications. He didn’t want people knowing he called in a “medium” or “little spook” as they mockingly called me when I showed up at a crime scene. Moreno knew I could see things other people couldn’t, but that’s all he knew. He had no idea I was a wolf. As far as I knew, it wouldn’t have occurred to him that we existed.
We rode the creaky elevator in silence, and I leaned against the wall, crossed my arms, and studied him. He wore a black suit, white shirt, and blue striped tie, his jacket cut with a little extra fabric around the waist to better accommodate his gun and gear. His badge was clipped to his belt. Rick Moreno was a good-looking man. Sexy in a dangerous and angry but blank and reserved sort of way. He was also married, but I knew little about her other than the fact that her name was Beth.
Despite the neatness of his attire, his eyes were bloodshot, and his face sported a few new lines. “You look like you need a long vacation,” I said.
He swung his dark brown eyes in my direction. “As do you.”
I laughed. Moreno wasn’t a talker, but that was okay. Neither was I, usually. “What happened?” I asked, my mind back on the crime he’d called me for.
“I’ll show you.”
I sighed. That was all I was getting from him.
A few seconds later we got off on the fourth floor, walked down a dimly lit and clean but old and rather battered hallway. The place could have used a refresh. He pushed up the yellow barrier tape and opened the door to apartment 408, then motioned me inside.
Even before I stepped across the threshold, I felt something. A cold chill swept across my body and I touched my demon blade, quite unintentionally. “Whatever it is,” I murmured, “it’s still here.”
He stiffened. “Tell me what you need.” He didn’t draw his gun, but his fingers twitched.
“When I know,” I answered.
He followed me in—when he’d first began using me as a consultant on these cases, he’d attempted to protect me from whatever might have been inside. He’d insist on going first, his gun out, because one, his instinct was to protect the civilian, and two, he thought he could protect the civilian.
But when it came to supernaturals, the detective and his gun didn’t have a chance. I was the protector, and he’d learned that lesson early on.
I slid my demon blade into my hand, and its warmth caressed my palm. Just holding the thing made m
e feel more powerful. I walked into the living room and he stood silently beside me, giving me time to do my thing.
I didn’t see the supernatural responsible, but I felt his presence. The room was a mess—the recliner was on its side, the glass coffee table was shattered, a plate of someone’s dinner upended on the thin carpet. Blood was…everywhere. The floors, the walls, even the ceiling. A bloody handprint decorated the large window, and there were clumps of things I didn’t want to look at too hard scattered over the furniture.
The smells were overpowering, especially to my wolf nose. The place smelled of death—guts, blood, and horror.
The apartment had a particular quietness about it, a stifling, thick silence and a heavy darkness relieved only by the waning light coming through the windows—another sign a supernat had been here. Bulbs had blown, electronics had stopped working, and there was not so much as a refrigerator hum to break up all the quiet.
“Okay,” I said, finally, relieved to hear my own voice, “tell me what happened.”
He told me, his voice matter of fact and his face blank, but I could see the emotion hiding beneath the surface. Four people had died there, hacked to pieces by two butcher knives. The murder weapons had been left stuck inside two of the victims. He didn’t go into detail, but he didn’t have to. I had a very vivid imagination.
“It was quick,” he said. “Neighbors heard screams, and the ones who called it in all said they called within five minutes. Less than ten minutes after the first call, we were on the scene. They were already dead and the killer was gone.” He looked at me then, and his eyes were full of rage. “Tell me what did this, Kaitlyn.”
“What made you call me?” I asked. “Why did you think a human didn’t do this?”
He flicked his light on and played it over the ceiling. When I looked up, I gasped. The entire ceiling of the little room was painted with blood. Flowers, moons, what looked like hellfire, and smack dab in the middle of it, the single and somehow sinister word wolf.
“One of the victims exploded,” Rick said. His voice was soft and gentle. Too gentle. “That’s how I knew.”
I swallowed hard and concentrated for a few seconds on my unending pain. It centered me, calmed me, gave me focus.
Then I pulled my bag around and reached inside for a vial of holy water. Holding the silver blade in one hand and the holy water in the other, I opened myself to the evil, lingering spirit, and I began to hunt.
He was here. I felt him like a piece of ice lodged in my throat, and the more open I became, the larger the ice shard grew. It spread through my body and left ice crystals in its wake, overwhelming my usual wolf’s pain. The wolf’s pain was red and hot. The pain caused by the malevolent spirit was frigid, and when it finally reached my head, I wanted to run from the apartment to get some relief. It was like a giant brain freeze, and I thought it might push my eyeballs from my skull.
I would like to go just one day without pain. But before I could fall too deeply into self-pity, I told myself sternly to suck it up. Fight like a warrior. At least I was alive to feel pain, unlike the four who’d been hacked to death just hours earlier.
And then the spirit I was hunting flew screaming from the darkness, the fires of hell surrounding him, and I went immediately from icy to on fire. I didn’t scream or panic—the panic would come after the crisis. I realized immediately what—and who—the spirit was, and that knowledge sat like a bloated, grinning toad in the back of my mind, waiting for me to have time to take it out and look it over.
Right now, I could only fight.
My wolf helped me. Her rage and madness took over my body, and I let her. Not that I could have stopped her, not then. Every whirl, lunge, leap, and dodge had her behind it. She was behind every thrust of the blade, each dash of holy water.
She—and I—were fighting for our lives. Then I unlocked my jaw and I did scream, but only to warn the detective. “Rick,” I yelled, “get out!”
I heard the door slam as he immediately obeyed me. I’d been keeping the spirit occupied, but I knew suddenly what had happened in that room.
The supernatural being had possessed one of the victims. He’d forced him to kill his family, and then turn the blade on himself. Not unheard of.
Why the pain, little girl?
“No,” I cried, finally.
The spirit in the apartment was the demon boss whose blade I now held.
I’d believed I’d killed him, but I had not killed him, and I hadn’t sent him back to his world. I’d simply freed the enraged, malevolent demon to take out his vile inclinations on the humans of my world.
And I had no earthly idea how I was going to stop him.
I wasn’t sure I could even survive him.
Chapter Eight
I shoved the guilt and horror away. It served no purpose. I hadn’t set the demon upon the world deliberately, and I would find a way to truly kill him or to send him back to hell. Right now, I just had to survive. I had to keep him from climbing into my body and taking control of me.
The holy water made him scream, though it didn’t stop him—nor did the blade that had once belonged to him. I had salt in my bag, but not enough, and no time to rummage for it, anyway. The box of salt sitting on the countertop would do great things, if only I could get to it. The demon had no blade, but he was on the offensive. He didn’t want to kill me. Without a body, he couldn’t kill me. He wanted to possess me. He wanted a body, and because I’d been the one to destroy his, he had set his sights on mine.
I’d gotten anti-possession tattoos long ago, but I wasn’t sure they’d keep him out of me. I wasn’t sure at all.
And if I couldn’t kill him, I needed to trap him until I could figure it out.
Without his body, he was like a bright, sharp light, blue around the edges, then red, and finally, in the very center, a deep, pulsing greenish black. The image of his face was floating in all the light with his long red eyes, his sharp teeth, his hooked nose. Evil. It was the face of evil.
I’d defeated him once, and I’d do it again. There was no room for doubt.
The odor coming from him was growing stronger by the second, and it was nearly enough to kick my ass all on its own. He smelled like sulfur, only worse. I had nothing to compare it to, but sulfur was as close as I could come.
And then I got a taste of it, and it was like…dusty pieces of gravel, but also like sludge and slime, dry and wet at the same time. I could taste it, because the demon had charged through the barricade of my blade and my wolf’s rage, and he was attempting to stuff the essence drifting around him down my throat.
Oh God, the taste. The feel.
I found his black center with his former blade and he roared—his voice filled my head, making me dizzy and shivering across my brain—and then he was forced from me and he reeled away, his light somewhat diminished.
I don’t know if I forced him away, if the blade did, or if my wolf did. Maybe my strange blood did, for it was seeping through the cut across my chest, the cut that had healed into a thin scratch.
And while he reeled, I had mere seconds. I didn’t hesitate.
I grabbed the salt and shoved up the spout, then as he zoomed toward me, the blurry image of the demon he’d been blinking in and out, I sent an arc of salt straight at him. It hit him and for a few moments, he buzzed and sparked like a live wire. And all I needed were a few moments.
I raced around him, trailing salt as I went, and the very instant before that circle would have closed, he shot back, his light stuttered, and he was gone.
Gone for now, but not for long.
Not until I figured out what was holding him here, so I could destroy it and get rid of him once and for all. But I had a very bad feeling it was going to get worse before I completed that little task.
Once the crisis passed, I slid down the refrigerator with my shaking hand to my throat, coughing out the residual goo and smoky debris, swearing between the wet hacking because I hadn’t caught him. He was going to kill
again, there was simply no doubt.
My mouth tasted like a dozen skunks had crawled inside and sprayed me, then vomited rotten eggs down my throat.
I squeaked, startled when Rick crouched suddenly beside me, his sharp stare darting around the kitchen. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I managed.
“What was that?”
“Demon.”
He gave me a few minutes to catch my breath and to try a little more discreetly to cough all the gross from my throat. Then he helped me up, lifting my hand once to show me the swollen fingers and bruises covering it. “You need to get checked out.”
“I’m okay.” I took a deep breath as we walked from the kitchen back into the living room. He wouldn’t be back, not here. But he knew he could fuck with me now, and I had no doubt he was going to do exactly that. He was so enraged.
“A demon,” he said, finally. “You’re telling me that actual fucking demons are in this world.”
“You know they are,” I told him, my voice hoarse. “You’ve seen things that can happen.”
“Not like this,” he muttered.
“This wasn’t a regular demon,” I told him when we leaned against my car a few minutes later. I’d inhaled the fresh, cold air, downed a bottle of water, and still couldn’t get the taste of him out of my mouth. “He was a…boss demon, I like to call them. He’s strong. He tried to get inside me, and if he had been successful, he’d have taken over my body and sent me on a rampage of murder.” I swallowed hard, the first tears threatening. “Rick, that’s what happened in that apartment. He climbed inside one of those people and had him—or her—murder everyone in the place. Then he blew apart the body, which is how so much of her ended up on the ceiling.”
“How did you keep him from possessing you? That’s a trick I’m going to need to learn.” He crossed his arms as he stood with me, constantly but subtly surveying the area, watching the pedestrians, on the alert for a demon who had just killed an apartment full of humans.
I shook my head. “I have anti-possession tattoos. And still the bastard was stuffing goo and shit down my throat when I grabbed the salt. Carry salt in your trunk and a baggie of it in your pocket. Salt repels them and can even trap them, at least for a while.” I hesitated, because I didn’t want to say the next bit. “He’s not going to stop until I stop him. He’s going to find another family, and he’s going to stay close to this area.”