“So, why did you come over last night?” he asks, staring at his coffee, unable to meet my eyes. He doesn’t like being vulnerable either.
“I told you.” I brush my hair back behind my ears. “I thought you’d be worrying yourself sick. I was… um, worried too, I guess.” I shake my head at the irony of it all. He should be running around, frantic, and I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that he came back for me. He was worried about me, and he didn’t want me to be afraid and alone in the church.
“I am worried.” He holds his cup between his knees, his hands looking larger than I remember. And then I picture them holding my head against his shoulder and stroking my hair like he did last night. The heat of a blush creeps up my neck and cheeks.
Jag’s eyes close for a moment, probably picturing the same thing, and he inhales deeply. “Dean was taken during the day. That means the demons are getting braver.”
Okay. So he isn’t thinking of me. “So where is this demon you found now?”
“Dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yep.” He takes another long gulp of coffee. No wonder he seems so calm and relaxed. He’s already gotten his frustrations out, but he isn’t being very forthcoming with the information he learned.
“So…?” I ask.
He turns to me, his smile widening. “There’s a network of demons we never knew existed. And a hierarchy of leaders.” He shakes his head. “This demon was a peon and didn’t know any details other than the fact there was a big, secret powwow during the night and only the important demons were invited. I know it has something to do with Dean. I feel it. We just have to find this demon lair and get rid of them all.”
I think about this and nod, sipping my breakfast. “So now what?”
“We find another demon. See if it knows more than the last one.” He smiles, and I get the feeling he’s going to enjoy hurting the bad guys. Torturing demons might be Jag’s new calling.
I shiver.
Chapter Nineteen
Dean
The clanking of keys rattles outside my cell door. I’ve been lying here for a while, my throat growing scratchier as the minutes tick by. “Who’s there?” I call, but it only comes out as a croak.
The door squeaks open and Brutus—the guy who kidnapped me—steps in. Yeah, I gave him a nickname. It’s my thing after all. A dim light shines on him from behind. He looks bigger than before, if that’s even possible.
“Time to get up,” he says with a smile in his deep, resonating voice.
When I don’t move quickly enough, he grabs me by the arm, yanking me from the metal cot. I bang my knee on a steel bar and barely find my feet before he starts hauling me out of the room. At the end of the hall, we pass through the storage room with the stairs that lead out to the alley.
We don’t go out that door though, but skirt through the storage room that’s lined with shelves of canned goods. Between two of the tall shelves, we stop at what looks like a cement wall. Brutus reaches behind some canned peaches and flicks a switch. The cement wall screeches, sliding open to reveal a long, black corridor.
The oppressive darkness in that space stretches its inky fingers and wraps them around my quivering heart. Like suffocating liana vines, squeezing the life out of its host tree, the life leaches out of me just thinking about what lies beyond this door.
“I’m not going in there.” I dig in my heels, pulling back.
Brutus stares at me, his smile wide and his eyes crinkling in humor. His dark hair is slicked back with gel. He looks more like a Mafioso each time I see him. “You’ll be entertaining. You show such defiance! I almost can’t wait.”
As I glare back at him, my fingers curl into fists. Next to him, I look like a pathetic wolf pup rather than something fierce, but I want to hurt this guy. “I’m not your toy.”
“No,” he says. “You won’t be. You’ll be the plaything of someone else.” With an effortless yank of his arm, I fall into the dark corridor. The cement wall closes behind us, leaving us in utter blackness. Brutus hauls me along the dirt path as it angles downward, not too steeply, but enough that I can tell we’re heading farther underground. His hand clamps down like an iron shackle on my arm, and my bare feet scuff along the floor.
Reaching out with my free hand, I try to find a wall since I’m lurching blindly along. Brutus drags me with untiring strength, but there is no wall to lean on. I don’t know how he can see where we’re going, and I’m completely at his mercy, unable to make my eyes focus on anything.
“Where are we going?” I ask finally, out of breath, my aching body screaming out in protest. I want to lie down so badly, and my stomach rumbles in hunger. How long has it been since I’ve eaten? It seems like days.
“To hell,” Brutus answers with a devil’s chortle rather than a man’s, and a chill slithers down my back. Every step I take, I wonder how much farther, and when it seems I can’t take another, we stop before a heavy, metal door.
He knocks, and it scrapes open. I’m introduced into a huge ballroom, glowing with a thousand candles. It’s similar to a church chapel, complete with a cross, except it is hanging upside down. Chills ripple through me again, and the hairs on my arms stand on end.
Chairs line the walls, and an obsidian throne sits at the head of the room in front of the cross. A long table runs along the back wall, which is where most of the candles are, creating a haunted glow at that end of the room. A hundred golden goblets, filled with a dark, ruby-colored liquid, sit on the table waiting to be picked up.
In the light, I see how disheveled I look. My clothes are torn and bloodied, my feet are bare—and have been since I arrived—and my knuckles are bruised and cracked from the fight I put up—to my credit. I can’t imagine what my face looks like. It still throbs and has not healed at all yet.
I saw a kid with a broken nose once. He had two black eyes for a week. I reach up to finger the bruises, to see if I can tell if it’s broken or crooked. It hurts too much, so I give up, not wanting to subject myself to more agony than I have to.
Even though there are at least a hundred chairs lining the walls of the room, there are only a few people in attendance so far. One guy in particular keeps me riveted because he is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. He sits at the front of the room on the throne, lounging, relaxed. He’s a demon, but he isn’t like the other demons.
He doesn’t come close to looking like the things we kill every night, nor does he look like any of the pictures I’ve seen in my studies. Jag and I took a vast amount of time to learn about our enemy before we were brave enough to kill one. There were encyclopedias at the library, but our true education came after we’d gone into battle… or at least, Jag had.
Pale, russet skin covers this demon, and he wears no clothes. Long, black spikes grow from his fingertips like icepicks, and two twisting horns spring from his forehead, curling back over his leathery skull. His lips are blood red. When he smiles—which he did when I came in—his yellow, jagged teeth glisten in the candlelight.
“Welcome,” this terrifying creature says, his words a low, thunderous rumble.
As I’m led forward, I just stare, all the horror stories I’ve ever read rushing back to my mind. If I ever wondered if monsters lived under the bed, I know now. They do. And they feed on unsuspecting, helpless people.
“Tell me your name, boy,” the beast commands. His abysmally deep voice is impossible to describe and is filled with the screams of the damned. Like the roar of a rogue tidal wave, I feel it to the depth of my bones, not just in my ears. He is something that can call forth the legions of the underworld. I know it instinctively.
I don’t answer. I can’t… for a moment. I tremble, searching the room for other anomalies like him, but he is the only one so hideous. His wicked smile widens, and with a blink of his eyes, he morphs instantly into a normal, human-looking man. He wears a gray, pinstriped suit and his white-blond hair is slicked back. Blue eyes sparkle beneath dark eyebrows and his teeth are whi
te and straight. He’s handsome. Movie star handsome.
“Is this better?” he asks, his arms stretched wide as though he is performing, which he probably is.
Still, I remain silent, watching him carefully as he saunters closer.
One of his hands rests over his chest as though he is humbled and pleased to meet me. “I’m very happy to make your acquaintance,” he says. “You may call me Coem.” He bows slightly, never taking his eyes from mine.
He’s so striking, so different from before. “Are you Satan?” I ask in a whisper, realizing quickly how stupid that sounds. He bursts out laughing, his amusement seeming more like the cheerful chuckle of a friendly neighbor than a terrifying monster.
“No, no. I’m not Satan. He was a weakling who couldn’t get the job done. No, I’m from a different world altogether. There are many unseen worlds out there in the Big Black. Did you not know this?”
I shake my head, my lips slack and numb. Is this something people learn at church? I didn’t go much with my family and I feel stupid, thinking it must be something from the Bible.
“The people of Earth are so ignorant and uninformed,” he says.
There is no way out of this and I pray to die quickly, with as little crying and begging as possible. I have a feeling that whatever torture they have planned for me won’t be over for a while. My heart races when he reaches a finger toward me. If he touches me, a trail of fire will welt on my skin. I just know it.
“Does it amaze you how stupid the people of Earth are?” he asks Brutus, who laughs and nods his head in agreement.
“But that is neither here nor there,” Coem continues. “You’re here now, and we are in for a treat.” He runs his finger down the side of my face and under my chin. His touch is cool and smooth. No burning at all. I close my eyes.
“Come.” He takes my hand and leads me to the center of the room, where I stand like a child, submissive and afraid… and then he shackles me to the floor. I don’t notice the cuffs and chains until they are clasped around my wrists, and then he walks away. I tug on the chains. They are at least an inch thick, and I’ll never be able to break away.
“Hey! Wait!” I call, confused, but Coem ignores me. The room begins to fill. All sorts of foul beings enter and find a spot to sit. At least half are gray men, like I am familiar with, a few others are human-looking spirits, and some look similar to Coem before he turned himself into a man, but none are as hideous or terrifying.
The creepiest of all are the men who aren’t possessed at all. Mortal men, who are here of their own accord, drinking wine and conversing with the many devils in attendance. I don’t understand their relationship to the demons at all.
I call out to them. Surely, they’ll have compassion on a fellow human being. “Please! You!” I catch one man’s eyes. “Help me!” I yank on my chains to show him I’m a prisoner, stupidly thinking it will matter in some way. He glances at me, like a few others, and then turns back to his conversation. How is this possible? I can’t wrap my mind around it, and my heart sinks.
Coem sits down on his throne and places his arms on the armrests at his side. He smiles, and a shadow of jagged teeth—like the negative picture of film—shows over his human-looking teeth. He yells, “Let the games begin!”
Chapter Twenty
Dean
I always thought the demons came here to run rampant, to cause havoc. But now I know they are controlled and organized. They have leaders, a hierarchy. This makes it worse than before.
As I stand there, chained to the floor, surveying my underground prison, I realize these aren’t mindless fiends bouncing from one stolen body to the next, but an army, directed and commanded by their leaders to overtake our world.
The demons fill the room, packed into corners, and they don’t seem to mind being jostled for space. Their savage smiles are wide and expectant as they gaze at me with what can only be described as hunger. Some are disembodied, their gray, sinewy arms and legs slithering and twisting like smoke.
Coem sits on his black, stone throne, gazing out over the horde, his expressions morphing from one moment to the next. Smiles. Frowns. Glares. He looks completely out of place in his dark, pinstriped business suit, despite the fact that he is their king.
I am court jester. And they won’t stop until my heart does.
My pulse pounds and my face grows hot. It becomes hard to breathe in this stuffy, overcrowded room, and I wonder stupidly if I’ve just developed asthma. My body continues to tremble as I begin to hyperventilate. I keep a constant strain on my chains in the hopes that they will miraculously release if I just pull hard enough, but my arms are cramping and shaky.
The scent of candle wax permeates the air, but instead of a calming balm, like it is in our church basement, the acidic fumes fill my nostrils and turn my stomach sour. The candles seem to grow and breathe with my terror, the room becoming brighter as I become more frightened.
When the doors at the back are closed and locked, my heart just about stops. It’s beginning. Silence reigns where there were once voices and a cacophony of laughter. The only sound I hear is the clinking of my chains and the ragged breaths I inhale.
“Welcome all, friends and fiends,” Coem says, still sitting casually on his throne. “Welcome to my home! For tonight’s entertainment, we have brought you… a Cazador! A killer of demons!”
The room erupts in a roar, their leering faces hateful, calling for my destruction. My eyes jerk to Coem’s. He knows who I am! Or who I’m supposed to be. Actual Cazadors are able to kill demons. So am I one really?
“I’m sorry,” I call, desperate to think of a way out of this. “I’m not whatever you just said. I don’t even know what a cazadory-thing is!”
The room grows quiet again.
“What’s that you say?” Brutus asks. He stands beside Coem’s throne with his meaty arms crossed over his chest. He raises one eyebrow in question.
My eyes water as my mind grasps at something intelligent to say.
“You say you are not a Cazador?” Coem repeats, leaning forward, his visage shifting from human form to beastly as he concentrates on my face.
“No, I’m not. I don’t even know what that is. I’m just a normal person.” The lie comes easily, which surprises me. I’ve never been a very good liar.
“Really?” Coem stands, his hands clasped behind his back as he makes his way calmly toward me, a slight smile adorning his handsome human face. “Mephistophilis!” he calls to Brutus. “Come here.”
When they stand side by side, Coem glances at his subordinate, his smile cold and his eyes narrow. I don’t know how to read this guy, but if I were Brutus, I wouldn’t trust him. He’d probably stick a shiv into your side when you’re not looking. I almost feel sorry for Brutus… until I grimace and the bruises on my face scream out.
“You said you caught a Cazador. Did you?”
Brutus’ gaze shifts between his commander and me. His eyebrows pull down into a worried scowl, but he sticks his chin out and holds his ground. “He is one. I know it. I ran into him and his partner when they were out hunting. They killed Nybbas right in front of me. He runs around town with the one they call The Jaguar.”
Coem looks Brutus up and down, taking his time to answer. His eyes seem to see right through him, assessing him, and I wonder if Brutus is coming up short. “Well, we shall test him, and then we will all know for sure.”
He turns back to me, still smiling. “Does that sound fair? Everyone came here tonight for the sole purpose of seeing a Cazador brought to his knees. It would be unfair to disappoint them. And you’re here to entertain us anyway.” He turns in a slow circle, his arms raised like a circus master. The audience shouts in agreement and cheers him on. “It’s settled then. We will put this boy to the test. If he is an imposter and not a Cazador, well… he’ll just be dead, which will be just as much fun. Weth! Come forward!”
A tall, lithe woman rises from a red velvet seat along the front row of the far wall. I can see
through her, so she must be a spirit only. Making no sound, she floats toward me, ethereal and beautiful. Her wide, blue eyes are the color of sapphires and long, blonde hair falls over her shoulders and down her back. When she stands before me, a soft smile graces her porcelain-hued face. She seems very angelic and out of place here.
Coem bows to her in a gentlemanly gesture. She nods her head to him, and then steps up to me.
“What is your name?” she asks as softly as a warm breeze. My eyes close, and I take a long, slow inhalation. She smells like cinnamon and apples, and I feel my muscles relax along with my anxiety, as though I’ve just been filled with a summer day. This woman doesn’t feel mean or cruel. She doesn’t seem like someone I should be afraid of. A small part of my brain screams for me not to fall for her enchantments, that she is more powerful than I can imagine, but I push those thoughts away and draw in another breath of apples.
“This is Weth,” Coem says before I can answer. “She is the highly revered and beloved demon of anger. You will see.” He steps back, the smile never leaving his face, and walks with sure steps back to his black throne. He rolls into his seat and rests his chin on his fist as he watches Weth work her magic.
Her gaze returns to me, and her eyes soften as she looks deeply into mine. She can’t possibly be a demon of anger. She is too calm and lovely, relaxed and serene. “Your name?”
“Dean,” I answer as she raises her hand to my face, tracing, feather light, the bruises on my cheeks.
“You are wounded.”
“Yes.”
Her hand cups my cheek and my eyes close, her fingers cool and healing. How is it possible that I can feel her when she doesn’t have a physical body? I have no idea, but I don’t question it.
“It must have been terrible, to be hurt in such a way. Mephistophilis is a horrible, wicked beast. He has no compulsion about causing pain.”
I feel a stirring with her words, and heat begins to well in my chest. She continues to speak, condemning the abominable Brutus for his scheming and physical abuse of me. Each sentence paints him as a darker, fouler creature than the last, and the fire in my belly grows to a burning flame.
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