Dusk of Death: an Armen Leza, Demon Hunter novel (Armageddon Trilogy Book 1)

by N. L. Gervasio

“You shall pay for the trouble you are causing me.”

  “Bring it, bitch.”

  Banshi screamed.

  Armen slapped her hands over her ears. The sound coming from the bitch’s throat seeped between Armen’s fingers to reach her eardrums. Armen dropped to her knees, shrieking in agony.

  The demon rushed Armen once more, her hands stretched out to wrap scrawny blue fingers around Armen’s neck and squeeze the life force out of her, to take her soul because a succubus she definitely was. Armen twisted to the side and fell to the floor, throwing Banshi off and breaking the demon’s grip around her neck. She rolled away and hopped to her feet. Banshi hit the wall and started to turn around. Armen jumped forward, picked her up, and threw her to the other side of the room. Banshi hit the wall screaming, legs and arms flailing, before dropping to the floor in a heap of blue tatters.

  Armen dropped to her knees again, covering her ears. Once the screaming stopped, she pulled her hands away and saw blood on them. She pushed herself up. She had to find a way to kill this bitch before she lost her hearing.

  Hands touched her shoulders and she spun around in a circle. No one was there. Then she heard Banshi moving and groaning. Good, she’d hurt her. Armen quickly looked around the room for a weapon, but couldn’t find anything that would destroy her. Father, please, my cane, the scepter, ANYTHING.

  Banshi rose to her feet, hissing and seething.

  A faint cry called her name. Hands once again applied pressure to her shoulders. Terry. The pressure grew and her flesh warmed in that area, as though he stood in front of her. It worried her because if she were to attack Banshi, she didn’t know if she would hurt Terry, who seemed to be trying to wake her up. She brought her arms up in a motion to remove his hands from her by knocking them away, but the pressure remained. Good.

  “Not yet,” she shouted, hoping he could hear her.

  She jumped toward the oncoming demon, held her arm out, and took a step to the side, catching Banshi at the neck and dropping her to the floor. Banshi yelled and vaulted to her feet, turning in a swirl of motion that created a whirlwind in the room for a brief moment. Armen grabbed the bedpost so the force of the wind wouldn’t knock her off her feet.

  “Weapon, please,” Armen shouted and dodged the demon once more by ducking and turning to the side. She hoped Terry would understand her request. It was the only way.

  “Can you bring it out?” Armen heard faintly. She frowned. How in the world was she supposed to do that?

  “You little bitch,” Banshi screamed when she turned around to face her.

  Armen smirked when an idea came to her, and she summoned Banshi forward. “Come on, Sister, what about that pain you promised me?”

  “Oh, you shall have it, Sister.” Banshi lunged forward, feet leaving the floor as she flew at her.

  Armen raised her hands, and the moment she felt Banshi’s flesh against hers, she twisted to her right, pulling herself from the dream and Banshi along with her. Banshi soared through the air and rolled along the floor until she hit the wall in the spare bedroom of Terry’s home.

  “Holy shit!” Terry jumped forward with the scepter in his hand. He plunged the blade into Banshi’s chest before she could get to her feet. She tried to shriek, but the scream was lost in her throat.

  “You always were careless, Banshi,” Armen said.

  Terry held Banshi down and forced the scepter’s blade in until she heard demon bone crack. The fire around her irises died, leaving only black to fill the void. The blue demon blinked a final time.

  “Now I know how to fight in that realm.” Armen tilted her head and ran her fingertips down the side of Banshi’s face. “Too bad you can’t tell the others.” Armen stood up again and stepped back.

  Embers rushed over Banshi’s flesh, burning everything away.

  Terry jumped back to watch her fade to ash, and turned to Armen and smiled. “Nice job.”

  “Thanks, you too.”

  He pulled her in tight against his bare chest, the scepter still in his right hand. His arm tightened around her until she could barely inhale. When she gasped for breath, he lightened his grip on her.

  With eyes still closed and an arm embracing her, he finally spoke. “It seems I’m always asking you if you’re okay.”

  Armen nodded into his chest and shoulder. “Yeah, fine.” She didn’t want to move from this comfort. Terry dropped the scepter to the bed and he wrapped the other arm around her waist. The form-fitting tank reached her hips. After the last wake-up call from a demon, she’d learned to wear something minimal to bed. It had nothing to do with modesty and everything to do with vulnerability.

  “So, who’s Banshi?” He moved his head just enough to kiss her temple. “You mean the actual ban-shidh?”

  “Nah. Demon pretending to be one.”

  “Didn’t expect her to look like that.”

  “She’s a mean little bitch.”

  He chuckled. “Armen?” He gently combed through her hair.

  “Hmm?” She was enjoying the warmth of his body against hers.

  “I like your tattoo.”

  Armen’s tattoo rested on her right hipbone, just below the rise of her hips: a Celtic trinity knot about the size of a silver dollar that looked exactly like the one he wore around his neck.

  Armen opened her eyes and found him grinning from ear to ear. She looked down at herself. “How did you see it?”

  “You moved a lot, but not really. It was weird.” He chuckled again.

  “So much for not moving while you sleep,” she said, and then looked up at him with concern. “Did I hurt you?”

  Terry shook his head. “You didn’t really move all that much until the end, right before you brought her out. Kind of freaked me out at first. It wasn’t like the last time.”

  “No, Banshi’s tactics are . . . were different.”

  “So . . . bring it, bitch.” He did a terrible job of hiding the grin as the corner of his mouth twitched. “Really?”

  She laughed. “You heard that, huh?”

  “I did.” His hand drifted up and down her back, and he tilted his head toward hers. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  Armen stared into his eyes with a smile. “Me, too.” She wanted so badly for him to kiss her in that moment, to do more than that.

  He lightly brushed a hand against her cheek. “I love you, Armen.” He pulled her into his arms again. “When I heard the call . . . it scared the hell out of me. I haven’t heard that call in ages. She’s usually a bit more peaceful, though.”

  “Again, that wasn’t the ban-shidh you know. I’m just happy you could hear me, and understand me.”

  “Me, too,” he said right as his cell phone rang distantly from his bedroom. He sighed and took off after it.

  Armen looked at the time. Technically, if they hadn’t taken time off, she and Terry were on duty, as it was only five in the morning. Yep, another night of interrupted sleep. She walked out of the bedroom and into the hall. Her hours were completely out of whack now. It would be hell trying to get back into her routine again . . . assuming they lived through the hell that had only just begun. She never thought she’d see the day the War fell to Earth. Never thought it possible, it had been going on so long. And she certainly never thought she’d be flesh when it happened. Armen figured, given her human form, that her odds of survival might be in the low percentage range.

  Extremely low.

  A fair number of them, angel and demon alike, would want a piece of her.

  Hot water splashed against her skin, little droplets forming and running down various directions. The heat felt wonderful and she stood under the hot stream for what seemed an eternity before she heard a knock on the door, distracting her aimless thoughts.

  “What?” she yelled over the running water.

  “I have to run out for a bit. Do you need anything?”

  If only he could see the devilish grin that question produced when she thought about telling him to pick up feminine
products. “Blended coffee, mocha, please,” she answered after the long pause.

  “Thank God,” she heard him say, knowing full well he’d had the same thought she did. It was just uncanny how their thoughts linked. “I’ll be back soon.”

  Armen didn’t respond. She didn’t need to. It was kind of like how he never said goodbye to anyone, with the exception of demons, of course. The habit had grown on her over the past couple of years. Hell, Terry had grown on her over the time she’d known him, much as she didn’t want to admit it. She thought about all the times he helped her, took care of her, saved her from the wrath of the captain, and most importantly, the night he saved her life. That was a brutally fucked up night with what was thought to be a corpse, but ended up being a real nasty fellow who was damn good at playing dead before he put a knife in her multiple times. She ran her fingertips over the scars on her stomach and left side. She’d only been on the job for a few months, and had only known Terry for a short time when it happened. She’d heard that he sat all night in the hospital waiting to hear news about her. When they’d moved her into a room, he sat by her side for two days. Two. Days. She woke up to find him there one morning, sound asleep in the chair, and later on when Terry left to get something to eat, one of the other officers told her how long he’d been there.

  She heard his voice in another memory. Please don’t make me say that word, he’d whispered to her. I can’t say that word to you, Armen. I don’t want to have to. You have to pull through this.

  Armen gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh my . . . .” Her mind raced through her memories, covering every moment of her stay in the hospital. They were vague to say the least. She abruptly turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, pulled on the robe, and left the bathroom. She stood in the hallway for some time, looking from her room to Terry’s bedroom to the living room. Armen stood frozen with those words in her mind. He wouldn’t have said ‘goodbye’ to her, would he? What if there was another word? Suddenly, she moved into the living room and headed right for his bookshelf, not certain for the reason but following instinct.

  She scanned the spines of numerous books on law enforcement before discovering the section on religion. Interestingly enough, Terry had every book from each religion on the shelf, except the Book of Enoch. He even had a satanic bible on the shelf: a well-studied man is a well-prepared man, and his father likely had the same books. She passed over the Book of Mormon, paused briefly at the King James Version of the Bible, and stopped altogether on the Qur’an as her fingers pressed against the spine, so many memories attached to it. She vividly recalled the time in which it was written. Then she moved on, passing several others by, pausing briefly on a few from alternative religions and lesser known or welcome beliefs, before her fingers rested on a book she didn’t recognize—one with nothing printed or written on the spine. She studied the aged leather and pulled it from the shelf after her fingertips tingled from touching it. This book held something powerful within its pages.

  “What are you?” She stood up, flipping through the pages, and walked over to the sofa to sit down, curling her legs beneath her. Armen wasn’t sure what she searched for exactly, but had a feeling something was about to reveal itself within the pages of this ancient tome. Even she hadn’t possessed this one in her collection that burned up in the fire, and she’d owned some pretty rare books. Her Goya leered from the corner of the room as she fervently turned page after page, scanning each one with her fingertips so she wouldn’t have to actually read the entire text—she still had a few traits leftover from her divine and not-so-divine forms—and she was so engrossed that she didn’t hear Terry until he walked in carrying a couple of grocery bags and her coffee.

  “Mocha coffee for the lady,” he said in a light tone and handed it to her, and his eyes fell to the book in her hands. His light-hearted tone changed. “What are you looking for?”

  The odd question startled her. “What? Why?” She took the drink from him and set it on the table next to her. “Thanks.”

  He stood upright and walked into the kitchen, then returned sans grocery bags and stood in the center of the living room staring at her. “Because someone doesn’t pick up that book just to read it.”

  “Oh? It looked interesting.”

  Terry’s brow dipped down, creating two vertical lines just above the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t happy. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Armen.”

  She threw him an innocent look. “What?”

  “Why did you pick up that book?”

  “It looks very old. How did you come by it?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Liar.”

  He moved to sit on the sofa next to her. “You’re lying, too.” He dropped onto the cushion.

  Armen looked down at the book, recalling those words again, and she finally turned to him. “Tell me about the time I was in the hospital.”

  Terry’s body went completely rigid. He stared at the floor. “Why?”

  She looked down and then back up to meet his eyes that wouldn’t look at her. “You spoke to me while I was . . . sleeping. What did you say?”

  The fingers of his right hand pulled at invisible threads on his jeans. “You were pretty much in a comatose state, not sleeping.” He finally met her eyes. “How do you know I spoke to you?”

  “I remember some of it, but I can’t remember it all.” She flipped the page of the book over to the next one. “Something about you not wanting to say goodbye to me.”

  Terry still plucked at invisible threads. “That’s not the word I was talking about.”

  She stopped scanning the text and looked up at him. “So there is another word.”

  He nodded. “Did you even bother drying your hair? You’re dripping all over the damn place.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m not trying to change the subject.” He stood to walk to the bathroom to fetch a towel. “Did you even dry off? There’s a puddle of water in the hall.”

  Oops. She stifled a laugh and cleared her throat. “Sorry.”

  When he returned, he stood in front of her with towel in hand. “Come here.”

  She reached for the towel after placing the book down on the table.

  He pulled it out of reach. “No, come here.”

  Armen rolled her eyes and stood up. He placed the towel over her head and worked it through her hair.

  “I know how to dry my hair, Terry.”

  “That’s debatable right now, but this way I get you close to me.” A faint smile reached his lips. “Was it the memory that made you forget to do it?”

  She nodded as he squeezed the ends of her hair into the towel.

  “I don’t like remembering that time, Armen,” he whispered.

  She smoothed down the robe with her left hand to ‘feel’ the scars. “Wish I could say the same, but I just plain don’t remember a lot of it.”

  “That’s probably a good thing. You don’t want to.”

  She looked up at him. “I just want to know what else you said to me.”

  He slowly shook his head. “Not much else.” He worked the towel underneath her hair and pulled the ends of it over her shoulders. Then he pulled her forward, using the towel, and he sighed. “I didn’t know if you were going to make it.”

  “What word didn’t you want to say?”

  His nose touched hers. “I can’t say it, Armen.” He looked away, swallowing the frog in his throat before speaking again. “I had trouble saying it to my own mother.” Tears welled in his eyes. “I tried, but it didn’t work, not if you had to release her.”

  Armen’s mind reeled through the conversation around his dead mother that day, trying desperately to find the word that he spoke. “Maybe it didn’t work because of how she died,” she said, not having a clue as to what she was talking about, but not knowing what else to say.

  “Maybe.” His eyes focused on her once more. “What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t k
now. Why don’t you want to discuss what happened to me?”

  He stared into her eyes for a long time before answering her question, and when he finally did, his voice trembled. “Because I sent you in there.”

  “Terry, it’s not your fault. No one would have guessed that freak was still alive. Even I didn’t realize it until he moved.”

  “I should have made sure of it.”

  “There was no way for you to do that,” she insisted. “You all looked at him. You all thought he was dead. You all checked.”

  “There’s something I never told you about that guy. I mean, what we discovered after he sta . . . did that to you and I shot an entire magazine into him because he wouldn’t go down.”

  She was shocked beyond belief because Terry always kept his control. “What about him?”

  “He was speaking in a tongue I never heard before when I shot him,” he replied, and focused intently on her eyes. “The same tongue, I think, you were speaking to Sariel.”

  She frowned. “Possession?”

  “Not quite. But not entirely demon, either.”

  Armen tried to remember all the legions that resided in the Darkness. His stating that the man wasn’t entirely demon intrigued her. “Are you sure he wasn’t a demon?”

  Terry nodded. “Why?”

  “Because there’s one in particular who has attributes that would explain why everyone thought he was dead.”

  Terry’s eyes grew wide. “Who?”

  “Dumah. He represents silence and the stillness of death.” She shook her head at her stupidity. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. It makes perfect sense.”

  “Maybe because you were fighting for your life.” He caressed the side of her face.

  “I meant after that, like lately.”

  Her mind swarmed with thoughts about the attacks on her. Dumah, a chief in Hell over demons. Sariel and his wicked torture, seemingly to lure her—a Grigori as she had once been, then one of the Fallen chiefs who became Samyaza’s hit man. Banshi, one of the first demon-born long before they fell who was also a hired gun, so to speak, and her invasion of the dream world and sounding the call of death. What the hell? The Shedim were coming out of the woodwork, each demon a notch up in the hierarchy from its predecessor. Banshi was higher than Sariel because she was more evil, though Sariel’s victims would protest such a claim, but also because she was actually born a demon and Sariel had been an angel first.