Allsún spat straight into Sammael’s face. The sneer that crossed his features was staggeringly foul, and then he pulled back his fist and punched her straight in the stomach.
Between the self-inflicted blow to the head and the lack of oxygen from being punched in the gut, her vision swam, pulsing dots clustering before her eyes, until finally, everything faded to black.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE REST OF the night passed in a blur for David. He barely felt the joy he normally experienced in exorcising a demon. His follow-up call to Damon to check on the arrangements to sanitize the scene had been almost mechanical. He was still trying to wrap his mind around everything Allsún had told him. All he wanted now was to get back to where they’d once been before he’d failed her in so many ways. He wanted to be the man she loved once again, but after all the pain he’d caused her, he wasn’t certain if she would be able to love him again or not. The thought of losing her all over again was agony the likes of which he’d never known.
Pregnant. She’d been pregnant with his child, and he’d told her he didn’t want to have a family. No wonder she’d run off when she’d shown him the baby shoes and he’d reacted the way he had.
Suddenly it all made sense. Her sudden anger over a situation she’d long before known his feelings about, followed by her not speaking to him. She blamed him for the baby’s death. He could feel it in his bones, and honestly, he couldn’t fault her for feeling that way. The thought that maybe, if he’d gone after her, he could have saved their unborn child killed him inside.
How had he been so blind to the changes going on with her in the weeks leading up to their breakup? He’d been so focused on his plan to join the Execution Underground that he hadn’t even noticed what must have been subtle but still obvious changes in her. His mind played those thoughts and worse on constant repeat as he went through the motions of his job, returning to the crime scene to assist Damon.
When he arrived, the clean-up crew had just shown up, and Damon had already placed the two boys and their infant sister into HQ’s custody.
David tried not to think about the difficult adjustments that lay ahead of the twins. As tough a life as it could be to hunt the paranormal killers of the world, it was one of their better options. The Execution Underground only recruited men who already knew about supernatural creatures, and often the way the regular population found out about the supernatural was by losing someone they loved. The twins would be a recruitment target. HQ loved to find potential hunters with what they termed a “personal passion” for fighting the supernatural, which was really just a bullshit political way of saying they liked it when hunters had a personal vendetta that fueled their training. If they chose, both boys would both become hunters for the Execution Underground, be trained in combat for years until they were ready for the serum injection that gave them increased and strengthened capabilities. After that they would be sent out for field training. He was rare in his recruitment as an exorcist. That was the one gift the Execution Underground hadn’t given him, though at the moment he wasn’t loving the abilities he’d been born with any more than those he’d been given or, in fact, his job.
Damon aided him in gathering data from the scene and taking photos to show to the fellow members of their team. Damon agreed to send the samples off to Chris immediately, but David knew they would be no help to his case. That wasn’t the demon that had been behind the previous murders, and he told Damon as much. He’d continued to interrogate the demon before he’d chased after Allsún, but the little shit had refused to give anything up. David was no closer to solving the crimes than he had been a few hours earlier. This incident had only managed to raise more questions.
Clearly, whoever the head-honcho demon was, it had been hoping David’s encounter with the Abyzu would throw him off, but he couldn’t possibly fathom why. What was the point? Why change its M.O. now and send a surrogate to do its work?
Once he’d finally finished up at the scene, he returned to the hotel. A deathlike numbness had washed over him after his conversation with Allsún, but as soon as the hotel door closed behind him, he let loose. Anger and guilt pulsed through him as he bashed his fist into the wall. A garbled yell ripped from his throat. Damn it all. What the fuck kind of man did she take him for? How could she ever think he would ask her to abort her child? His child. Their child.
He’d always known how much she wanted a family. How could she have thought he would ask her to end her pregnancy? And if she’d only told him sooner, he could have helped her through the pregnancy. Instead, it had ended tragically, all because she’d kept him in the dark, so he hadn’t known she needed extra protection. It was his fault, because he hadn’t protected her, but damn it, why hadn’t she told him?
After he’d fumed in anger for so long he couldn’t stand it anymore, he lay awake in bed for hours, unable to sleep at the thought of her alone in her apartment. Finally he decided that, come morning, he would go to her place. He needed to be there to protect her, whether she liked it or not. He didn’t expect them to get back together. He was far past hoping for that. But that didn’t mean he had any intention of staying away.
* * *
NOT AGAIN.
David woke the next morning to the awful sound of his phone’s ringtone. He knew it couldn’t possibly be Allsún calling him, which could only mean one thing. He picked up the phone with a grumble. “Hello?”
Damon’s voice sounded from the other line. “Sorry to wake you.”
“Let me guess: bad news? Another dead family?” David asked.
Damon let out a short sigh. “Unfortunately, yes.”
David swore. “How could the demons have possibly gotten around the surveillance? Why did no one call me?”
“They hit a family outside of the surveillance. From the intel Chris was able to gather, the family used a midwife and their birth was only on record with the state department, not with any of the hospitals or social services.”
“Shit.”
“You have a few hours before the police show up. Get over there and collect your samples, investigate the crime scene. The media is in a total frenzy. We need to end this soon, David.”
David wanted to scream into the phone that he wanted to see Damon end this soon. How could they expect to make any progress when the system they ran their samples through came back with no answers? He bit his tongue and refrained from bitching out his leader. “Yeah, I’ll get over there.” He hung up the phone, but he needed to make a personal stop first.
* * *
TWENTY MINUTES LATER David was knocking on Allsún’s door. When there was no response he knocked again, harder. Still nothing. Desperate to get inside, terrified that she was there and too injured to call out—he refused to consider the even worse possibility that raced to mind—he pulled out a credit card and jimmied the lock.
“Allsún?” he called as he entered, then paused just inside the doorway.
Everything looked normal. Her living room was pristinely clean, as usual, and everything appeared in place. He called out her name again and received no answer. With careful movements, he crept down the hallway toward her bedroom. When he reached it he flicked on the light.
Shit.
Her bedroom was a mess, piles of laundry scattered across the floor, drawers pulled out of the dresser and dumped, and a knocked-over water glass no one had bothered to clean up.
This wasn’t like Allsún.
In all the years he’d known her, she’d been a total neat freak. Back when they were dating, she’d even gone so far as to clean his apartment on a regular basis, because, according to her, she couldn’t stand the mess of his bachelor living space.
Something had happened here. Something bad.
He called out her name. “Allsún?”
No response and no sign of her. Wherever she was, it wasn�
�t here, and he was frighteningly certain that it wasn’t good.
Panic rose in his chest. What the hell had happened to her and where the hell was she?
Just as he was preparing to call her and pray she answered—because if she didn’t, he was calling Shane to put a tracker on her cell—his own phone vibrated. Allsún’s name flashed across screen. He let out a sigh of relief as he answered the call.
“Hey, babe,” Allsún cooed.
David raised a brow. Babe? Since when did she call him babe? He pushed the thought aside. He was overanalyzing things. “Where are you?”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter right now,” she said. “Maybe I should be asking you the same thing.”
David frowned. What the hell was up with her? Why was she acting as if everything was fine between them? “I’m in your apartment,” he said. “Looking for you.” He paused, then asked again, “So, where are you?”
“I just decided I needed to go out and get some fresh air.”
Some fresh air? “You mean you’re not still mad from last night?”
“Nah, I’m over it.”
Over it? Over blaming him for the death of their child? Something wasn’t right. He was certain of it.
“I’m glad to hear you’re not mad.”
“How could I be, silly? You know I can’t stay mad at you for long.”
Bullshit. Even Allsún herself would admit that she had a temper; it was in her nature, part of her pixie bloodline. For a second the thought that he might not actually be speaking to Allsún crossed his mind. Had she been possessed?
He shook his head. No, that couldn’t be. The Fae weren’t capable of being possessed. Then again, Allsún was only half Fae. Could it be? No. She was just behaving oddly after their fight. That was all.
“I have bad news,” he said.
Silence. He took that as his cue to continue.
“Another family has been killed.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
David raised a brow. Unfortunate? She was referring to the brutal murder of a family as unfortunate? Something wasn’t right, and he needed to figure out what. He also needed to get over to the scene before the police descended on it. “I have to get over there right away. Why don’t you meet me?” He told her the address. Once he saw her, maybe her behavior would reveal what was really going on with her.
* * *
ALLSÚN WAS WAITING for him outside the house with a calm smile on her face. David’s suspicions were immediately confirmed. And her behavior once they were inside wasn’t any better. He took in the monstrous scene around him with a mix of fury and nausea, yet Allsún barely blinked. All the signs pointed to possession, but he still hadn’t figured out how it was even remotely possible for a demon to possess a Fae. He’d never heard of such a thing before, even for a half-breed. He carefully examined the crime scene, trying to determine which family member had died first.
Judging from the state of the bodies, blood pooling and stage of rigor, the teenage son had been the first to go. Dark, dried blood formed an ominous halo around his head. Figuring out the cause of death was easy. His throat had been slit.
Judging by the corpse’s lividity and the lack of blood, the next victim had been the father. His death was disturbing in a different way. It had been clean, almost clinical in nature, as if the demon had decided the man was too annoying to deal with, and had just shut off his life force like a light.
He took samples from the first two victims, even though he suspected they would be completely useless.
Knowing the M.O. of the killer, he was certain the baby had been the next to die, with the poor mother left for last and forced to watch her family being murdered before her eyes.
Unlike with the previous scenes, the infant’s body had been left intact. He noticed that everyone else’s hands and feet had been bound, the victims gagged, as well. The demon had possessed an outsider, using someone outside the family as the murderer.
“I’m surprised the baby’s in such good shape,” she said in the same blasé tone she might have used to say she was surprised it wasn’t raining.
David’s jaw nearly fell open. It took everything he had in him not to turn to Allsún and ask, “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
He nodded, trying not to let his suspicions show. “Yeah, I was surprised by that, too.”
He wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it was the look on her face, the blank stare devoid of any sadness or anger at so much atrocity, but no matter what, he knew he had to get her out of here while he figured out what to do.
He cleared he throat. “Why don’t you head home like you usually do, and I’ll collect the rest of my samples?” He wanted to see her reaction to the blatant lie about her usually going home. “I’ll give you a call in a few hours. Sound okay?”
She nodded. “Sure, sounds fine.”
David fought to keep his face from revealing his thoughts. The Allsún he knew would never sit still for being excluded from an investigation. He walked her to the front door and opened it for her. She smiled, then leaned in and kissed him on the mouth, grinding her lips against his in a parody of passion.
His muscles tensed, but his body was as certain as his brain that this wasn’t Allsún, and his blood ran cold at her touch. The very thought of kissing Allsún’s body while there was a demon inside her made him sick to his stomach.
She pulled away with a grin that was flippant and carefree. “See you later,” she said lightly, before waltzing out the door.
As soon as David closed the door behind her, he pulled out his phone.
Jace picked up on the first ring. “Yeah?”
“I think I have a serious problem on my hands.”
“You care to elaborate?” Jace asked.
David shook his head, though he knew Jace couldn’t see him. Habit. “Not yet. I need you and Shane to meet me at my apartment as soon as possible. Can you track him down?”
“Yeah, I can do that. No problem. See you soon.”
David hung up. Once he finished taking photos and gathering his samples, he quickly ran out into the cold Rochester air and threw himself on to his motorcycle. He was going to get to the bottom of this, and if a demon was possessing Allsún, he would make the fucker pay.
* * *
JACE AND SHANE were already waiting for David in his apartment when he arrived. David was grateful to see that the landlord had fixed the door, and Jace had used his key to get in. David found the two of them sitting on the sofa. Jace picked up the romance novel from the coffee table and shook it at David.
“Romance, dude? Really?”
David closed the door behind him and waved a hand in dismissal. “Whatever. I don’t have time to hear you harp on me about my reading habits right now. There’s some serious shit going down.”
Shane leaned forward on the couch. “And I have some serious shit to tell you in return. I’ve been researching all night. You first.”
David stared at the floor, unable to meet his fellow hunters’ eyes. “I think Allsún’s been possessed.”
“What?” Jace barked. “No fuckin’ way. She’s Fae. She can’t be possessed.”
Shane’s eyes widened. “Shit. It all makes sense now.”
David pegged him with a sharp look. “What are you talking about?”
Shane met David’s gaze. “When Jace called me, I was just about to call you. I figured out where the symbols from the crime scenes are from. They’re not occult. They’re biblical.”
David didn’t like where this was going. “What are demons doing fucking around with symbols from the Bible?” he asked.
“I think you already know what I’m getting at. The fixation on infant victims, the similarities to the Abyzu DNA. I just didn’t know she was anything more than a myth, but this is clearly som
e sort of biblical summoning ritual for her,” Shane said.
Jace lifted his hands in a questionable shrug. “What am I missing here? Fill me in.”
David looked at the floor with a thoughtful expression. “According to Jewish belief, Adam had a first wife, a disobedient wife, before Eve. Her name was Lilith. She was cast out from the Garden of Eden and is now better known as the mother of demons. Specifically, she’s said to have spawned the Abyzus. I thought she only existed in biblical lore, and apparently Shane did, too, but if Shane is right about those symbols from the crime scenes, the demon that’s been murdering those families has been trying to raise Lilith from hell.”
“Why would it want to do that?” Jace furrowed his brow.
Shane shook his head. “Why do demons want to do anything? To be evil assholes.”
David nodded in agreement. It all made sense now. The demon that targeted Allsún and caused the miscarriage. That was what Lilith was known for, causing miscarriages, infant death and SIDS, because she was jealous and infertile after being cast from the Garden. If Allsún had been the target all along, there was only one reason he could think of for why Lilith would choose her. “If Allsún is possessed, the only demon I know of that would be strong enough to possess a Fae is the mother of demons herself. And if Lilith specifically targeted Allsún, I can only think of one reason why. Allsún is the last Fae outside the Isle of Apples, where all of demon-kind’s enemies are residing. It takes a Fae to open the portal. That’s what she’s going to use Allsún for.”
Shane and Jace fell silent for a moment, as they processed everything David had just said.
“Are we jumping to conclusions? Can we even be certain she’s possessed?” Jace asked.
David groaned. “I’m not certain. I don’t have proof without doing something to try to hurt her. I just have a feeling, because she’s acting beyond weird.” The thought of Allsún possessed by Lilith, the mother of demons herself, caused bile to rise at the back of his throat.
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