by Lexi Ostrow
She watched, amused, as the internal struggle shined through Odette’s eyes. The battle to ignore the command and the desire to do her new master’s bidding.
“Seven.”
That confirmed they were not all in the cave. Seraphina’s watchers had only reported seeing five. One of which was the leader of the Alliance, the Kappa’s mistake had been most fortunate after all. Killing him would most certainly send the organization into a spiral.
“I see. How many back at the guild then?”
It looked as if the woman was trying to force back a gag as the answer slipped out of her mouth. “The physician and Felicia Westham.”
“So my dear, you’re telling me I need to fear six people here and two at home. I can promise you, disposing of everyone within the caves is simple enough. Do you know how many demons are allowed to live down in Hell, in the underworld?”
“Not enough that I would ever grow tired of slaying them.”
She had spirit, and Seraphina couldn’t wait to break it, just as did with the Pure Angels, only far less messy. “The answer is millions. You were not attacked before because I did not want it. They will be no problem to dispose of, even with your attack dog demon present.” The fact that Lucius had gotten to her again riled her.
“And what of the two not here?”
“I’ll command you to kill them, of course. You’ll head back and spin a tale about how you were the only one to make it. They’ll fall for it out of their own grief, and you may kill them. I can flash you home. There is no need for that dastardly airship.”
Odette didn’t push back with some comment about how she wouldn’t. Perfect, she understood just how helpless she truly was.
“You will, of course, repeat the story to those back in London, and once more, take down the two that threaten us. From there it will take time, but it will be quite splendid to watch you take down hunter after hunter. Your precious Alliance will not be able to train them quick enough.” She sneered.
Odette glared daggers at her but said nothing. Her green eyes were growing more and blacker, even more than when she’d first been taken to the cell. It wouldn’t be long, so her defiance against continuing the conversation did nothing to nettle Seraphina.
She rose slowly from the chair. “I see you are starting to understand your fate. I’ll leave you for now. I do have hunters to kill after all.” With that, she pulled open the door and closed it, waving for the demon on guard to lock it behind her.
There wasn’t a rush in killing the hunters. They were so far away from the actual opening to Hell, they would never get Odette the flower in time, and there would be no trouble disposing of them then.
“Then you’ll be rid of me as well you piece of filth,” Demetrious’ deep voice lashed out.
She’d been unable to stop seeing him since Lucius had attacked her again. Her nails dug into her palms as she walked towards the cells where Izazal and Muriel were working. His taunts didn’t cease, and she felt her mind beginning to splinter with each one.
“I’ll kill him myself.” Not even she knew if she meant the hallucination of Demetrious or Lucius.
She stopped in the hallway and saw with much delight that one of Pure Angels stood untied in the center of the room as the door opened. Soon her army would be robust enough, that when combined with an inside agent and a dead Master, the Alliance would not stand a chance.
Izazal stepped out, wiping blood from his hands with a pristine white cloth. “My Queen, we have succeeded.”
“I can see. Unfortunately, you are not done.” She thought she caught a flicker of annoyance in his silvery blue eyes, but it was gone before she was certain. “I need to stop making it a habit to kill the demons I can trust. I need you to send some after the hunters. Everyone has been ordered to stay out of sight, but dispatch a party after them. Nothing so large they turn on each other, but enough to take down the hunters in the caverns. Give the order that Lucius is not to be killed. The demon with the black eyes that is a traitor to his kind. I want to kill him.”
“As you command.” Izazal nodded and started to walk down the hall.
She called after him. “Send someone to my chambers, a Succubus. I feel a need to celebrate my first of many victories.” She smiled, finally winning felt splendid.
Eighteen
“I just don’t think having sent Lucius off was the smartest thing.” Philippe took the extra crystal gun that Kellan was handing him.
Kellan and Master Agardawes had made it to him in about five minutes, but he’d been awake and waiting for almost thirty minutes. Finding out from Kellan that it was six am the next morning had done nothing to improve his grumpy mood. They were left with two days. Two days until Lucius would kill Odette if they failed, which was assuming they could even get to her, wherever she was.
“I disagree. If he grabs that flower, then meets us along this tunnel, it will save us time. Three searching for Odette seems smarter. For all we know we’re walking into a trap.”
Philippe shifted his eyes towards Kellan and shuddered. “Have I ever mentioned how eerie it is when you do that?”
Kellan smiled and laughed. “Do what?”
“Ah-ah. The walls may have ears, my boys.” Agardawes cut in.
“That thing with your voice. I can’t say I like it better the way it is normally, but it’s unnerving to hear you like this.” Philippe rotated his shoulder, ensuring the stitches that Kellan had quickly done in his arm would hold up. He should have been dizzy from blood loss, but the drive to find Odette was riding him too hard for him to give in to anything but finding her.
“If you boys are quite done. I think it’s time we’re off. We are running out of daylight as they say.” The Guildmaster pushed past Philippe and started walking down the pathway.
Philippe quickly followed, not wanting to let the old man be by himself. The man might be cantankerous and authoritative, but Philippe had never seen him out of an office, and him leading the trio into the opening of Hell was not the most reassuring part of the rescue mission.
They walked along in silence, save for Kellan’s irritating humming. Philippe ground his teeth together to push the sound from his mind. He needed to keep his mind clear, because the minute he started to think about anything, his thoughts would turn to Odette and become reckless. Not thinking was the smartest thing he could do for all of them.
The mood was somber. They all knew they might be on nothing more than a murder mission. The idea was weighing heavily on them all. The Guildmaster marched quickly, his head bowed to the ground, and he kept muttering something in what sounded like Latin.
“Philippe, what are your intentions towards my daughter?”
The question was partially eaten by the cave since the man hadn’t turned. That didn’t stop Kellan from uttering a low whistle.
“I don’t think I need to be around for this talk,” Kellan joked and playfully slapped Philippe’s arse.
He growled at Kellan, one of the things he hated most about the young hunter was his lack of boundaries. “I’m not certain what you mean, sir.”
“Tell me, Philippe, do you think I’m a daft old man?”
“Not in the slightest, sir. I’ve seen your mind, and whilst it doesn’t rival the inventors, you’re quick witted. Not to mention not terribly old.”
“Then why do you think I don’t see what’s right in front of me?”
Philippe pursed his lips and thought about the question. He had sincerely believed that, whilst their actions had been questionable, they weren’t indicative of feelings. Yet, he had not hidden how he’d protected her on the airship and had been perhaps too adamant in this mission to pass it off as living up to his reputation.
“I don’t think I have any intentions beyond saving her and getting us the fuck out of here.”
“No intentions to court her? Woo her?”
Caught.
“I do not think it is the best course of action. She has indicated many times to me that her husband
takes precedence.” Saying the fact aloud disrupted his blank mind, and he felt as if someone had stabbed a dagger in his heart. He was coming in second place to a dead man.
“I can tell you know that you would be wrong. I may not have loved Odette’s mother, at first. That’s not true. I had loved her from afar for her beauty, but I do know what a woman looks like when she’s in love. Her mother looked at me with eyes that made me feel a million times bigger than I am. Of course, that was after many years together. Yet, I knew what it was, because I saw the same look grace her face whenever Layel would arrive at the Alliance. In those days, we were nothing more than a small troop that mixed with the King’s Army.”
“I’m not certain I understand your meaning.”
“He’s telling you, Odette looks at you with those lovely eyes. Like you’re the only person in the room with her,” Kellan interjected. “Doesn’t matter what her words are saying, it’s her actions that speak the truth.”
“Kellan, you may be our youngest and newest hunter, but you are certainly wiser to the world than even I have given you credit for.” Sincere respect echoed from Agardawes’ tone. “So tell me then, what will you do when she’s freed from both this Seraphina and her curse of sorts?”
He was silent. There were so many ways he could answer that question. None of them would be the truth, though. He wanted to be able to let Odette go about her life and wait for her to decide when it was all right to move on from her past. Sure, he could try at first, but they had a magnetic relationship, and being in the same room with her was torture when he couldn’t touch her.
He responded honestly, “What would you have me do, sir?”
“Not the question. The question is what would you have yourself do. What’s stopping you from doing what you want? I’ve seen looks pass across your face, where it looks as if one moment you want to profess love to my daughter, and others you want to run as far away from her as you can.”
“I’d like to court her sir, but she isn’t ready.”
“So you wait. I’ve never had a woman’s affections for more than a roll in the sack. But I’ve seen enough people in love. If you love her, tell her and let her have your time.”
Kellan’s words threw him. He hadn’t expected something so sincere from one of the guild’s known Casanovas.
“Then I suppose that’s what I’ll do.” His voice lacked conviction, and he knew why. “Assuming we find her and the flower in time.”
“That does seem to be one of many problems in this life. Particularly as hunters, time isn’t as infinite as the ticking clocks the guild workers make.” Kellan’s voice was sullen, almost as if there was a story to tell behind it. He was of course correct, life as a hunter was deadly.
The conversation died, and Philippe was left fitfully fighting off thoughts about what could be with Odette. Kellan was right; she’d been open enough with her feelings that she simply needed time.
When the tunnel opened up into another cavern with three separate tunnels to choose from, he wasn’t the only one to curse. Three different words rang out into the open space, and Kellan’s accent slipped out with his. They lined up, side by side, and stared at what could be their undoing.
“What if they’re like before…dead ends?” Kellan asked.
“What if they’re not? What if all three of them take a decent amount of journeying to get through?” Defeat laced his voice, and he wanted to kick himself. Philippe Clemis did not give up.
“I want us to split up. I think it’s the best idea. We know the demons are out there, and Seraphina certainly knows where we are, which means we can use our communicators if they work so far inside a mountain.”
“I do not disagree. However, there are not enough weapons to go around. Kellan, you take the center tunnel. If it ends, and you haven’t heard from us, go to the right. We will take the left.” The order was out in the open, and there was nothing any of them could have done.
He turned his head to Kellan and offered him a rough smile. “Kid, I may not have been the best partner, Dieu, you may not have been the best partner, but you’re a damn good person. You come back out of this cave alive. Eliza would kill one of us if anything happened to you, I think.”
Kellan laughed and patted him on the back. “Minus being an arse that insisted on running off to hunt solo, you weren’t a bad partner either. Lucius and Greyston are better, but they’re also not as uptight.” He winked and trotted off down the center tunnel.
Determination set in. Philippe wanted everything that came with courting Odette, and that meant doing everything they could to find her. “Let’s go find your daughter.”
“Indeed.”
They hadn’t taken more than ten steps when colorful fog appeared in the tunnel in front of them. Green and purple fog-like smoke lingered in the air, and he could make out the forms of two Imps standing in the center of it.
He lifted the gun he’d been holding and passed it back to the Guildmaster. He wasn’t as agile, and Philippe could use his daggers as efficiently as the gun, he just had to put himself in a bit more danger.
The gun lowered a little as the man behind him took hold of it. Philippe released it and grabbed both daggers in his belt, leaving a third in his boot. That was all he had, though, three, and if something came at them from the other side of the tunnel, it was over.
“Sir, you’re going to need to watch your back. All I can see in front of me is the Imps.” Anger coursed through him that the little fuckers hadn’t made a move. “Come on! Do Something!” his voice echoed in the small tunnel and the creatures attacked.
A green beam of light pierced the tunnel, just slightly to the right side of his abdomen, and hit the purple Imp in the center of the head. It dropped to the floor with a shriek, and the second was bounding towards him in a flash, just as two more puffed in inside red clouds.
Without a thought, he let one of the daggers fly. It sailed through the air with deadly accuracy and right into the eye of one of the red Imps. He felt teeth on his ankle as the green one locked onto his flesh. It was painful, but their teeth were small, and he’d recently been bitten by much worse.
He arced his arm down and sliced the dagger through its chest, feeling the spray of blood that came off it. A green beam hit the last remaining Imp in the hand, and he had to wonder how the man had hit a target that small.
The demon and Philippe leapt towards one another at the same time, him with a dagger ready, and it with its mouth wide open. He extended his arm and felt the blade slam into the creature. They both hit the ground, the creature still impaled and unmoving.
It was done.
He couldn’t help but wonder why such a powerful creature was sending such powerless demons after them unless she had that low of an opinion of them. He leaned over and pulled the dagger from the Imp and it made a sucking sound. Philippe rose and dragged the bloody knife over his chest to clean it as he walked to retrieve the one he had thrown. He repeated the process of cleaning it off and slipped both daggers back into his belt.
“That was a good warm up for whatever she sends next. That had to have only been the start.” Philippe turned to make sure Agardawes was all right, just in time to see two Thrasher Demons running up the path they had just come from. “Sir!”
Philippe shouted, but it was too late. He watched in horror as the sharp claws of one of the demons came protruding through the center of the old man’s chest. Agardawes choked and sputtered, and the gun fell to the ground. At the same moment, the second demon sunk its rows of black spiny teeth into the man’s throat.
This time Agardawes’ scream pierced the tunnel. Philippe did nothing. He stood and watched as the claws were pulled out, and the one at Agardawes neck let go. His body froze. The image that had flashed through his mind during Lucius’ attack last summer took hold. He was on a hunt, and he would fail to save his partner.
“No!” the scream tore from him as he ran towards the gun on the floor. The Guildmaster’s body hit the floor with a
thunk as Philippe scooped up the gun from the floor. He watched as the blood pooled around him far too quickly.
Both demons were onto him, and he felt the slash against his chest, but it only managed to tear his shirt some more. His mind was a haze as he pulled down on the trigger over and over again. His eyes burned as flash after flash of green light appeared in the cave with no goggles to protect him. Over and over, his finger jammed the trigger and set the cogs spinning to produce the heat and the deadly beam. There was no way to count how many times he had done it, his finger had begun to cramp from the effort, and he tossed the gun into this left hand—grateful he had trained with both.
He kept firing the gun off into the blackness of the path they’d came from until he heard a soft, gurgled voice.
“Philippe. Philippe, you must stop. They’re dead.”
Agardawes choked, and the fluid filled sound made Philippe’s inside’s churn, and he flinched. Slowly, he lowered the gun and looked at the ground both in front of him. Both demons lay, almost touching. Tiny plumes of smoke rose by the dozen, indicating how many times he had successfully shot them. He snarled at the one with blood on its teeth and aimed the gun at his head. He pulled the trigger and held it until the beam practically sliced right through its skull. Then he did it again to the other.
He was breathing heavy, and his whole body was shaking with emotion. He pulled his eyes away from the demons and saw the man lying on the floor. Blood seeped so far away from his body that it hit Philippe’s boots. Anger switched to fear as he dropped down onto the ground and pulled the man’s head into his lap. Philippe’s hands waved frantically over Agardawes’ neck, trying to figure out something he could do to stop the bleeding.
“Philippe,” he coughed, “stop this nonsense. There is nothing you can do for me. I don’t have much time left. I can feel everything starting to slow down. I must have lost so much blood. So much blood.”
His voice was weak, and Philippe felt his lip tremble. “I’m sorry. I failed. I should have known that would happen. She used Thrasher’s the last time,” his voice cracked with sorrow as he spoke and tears began to form in his eyes.