by T. F. Walsh
The smell of piss and rotting garbage invaded his nostrils, worse than usual because of the hot, humid night. A fat rat dashed in front of him, vanishing behind a cluster of bins as he ran past. Up ahead, the alley opened onto another main road. The red glow of brake lights reflected off the jumper’s leather coat as he sprinted across the street. He glanced over his shoulder at Levi, grinning.
“Hell, no,” Levi said to himself. “I’ve fought hundreds of demons, some stronger, others faster than you, but in the end, I beat them all.” He dashed across the road with his gaze trained on his target.
Suddenly, a horn blared: a woman swerved her pink VW Bug toward the curb to avoid hitting him, brakes squealing.
That’s twice in one night.
Levi leapt off the road, his breathing speeding up. He turned to make sure the woman was okay, but she floored the gas and yelled, “Dickhead!” at him out the window as she drove on. He had just enough time to see the “Namaste” sticker on her back windshield before she was gone. “Damn,” Levi realized. “I lost him.” He tightened his grip on the cuffs and took off again.
Following the curved lane, he jogged out into an empty parking lot fenced off on three sides. Shadows from a nearby streetlight flickered across several large dumpsters nestled against the dilapidated building to his right.
Nervous energy spread through him like electrical sparks. Approaching the dumpsters, Levi clenched his fists. He slid open a rune-protected handcuff.
“Knock, knock,” he called out. “Publishing’s Clearinghouse with a big ass check for you.” And a first class ticket back to Hell.
Something shuffled behind the bin.
“Promise to make it quick.” Levi stepped closer.
A grating rasp pierced the air, and the garbage bin skidded across the lot. It tumbled over as if it were as light as an empty cardboard box.
The Mediterranean dude lifted himself from a crouching position, his jacket scraping against the brick wall on the way up. He tilted his head forward, revealing piercing yellow eyes that were anything but human. Hollowness and death lay behind them.
For a few seconds, Levi froze, reminded that this could be the day the demon won. No reversing of the timer on the ticking time-bomb every hunter knew was out there. You just keep going forward.
“Be nice, and I promise not to hurt you much,” Levi said as he stepped closer.
Before he knew what was happening, the other man keeled over, hitting the ground like a sack of potatoes. Black tendrils swarmed out of his every pore, converging into a solid mass and swelling in size.
“That’s new,” Levi said to the black cloud, “but I’ll play along.” He counted to six. So why wasn’t the jumper evaporating like they usually did?
Demons and the number six were all rolled up together with human weakness, the evils of the devil, and the manifestation of sin. Each host had six days before being destroyed by a demon.
And six seconds was the length of freedom demons got outside a host body before being sucked back into Hell.
Levi sidestepped a brick in his path and noticed the black tendrils still attached to the man’s ear—a lifeline to the guy’s energy. “Clever.”
The shadowy form hovered above the ground and solidified into a figure with bony limbs, claws for fingers, and an emaciated torso covered in scratches that oozed pus. Its approximation of a pelvic bone had skin pulled taut across it. Black hair drooped around its broad, wrinkled head that had no eyes or nose. Mouth opened wide, the demon exposed two rows of sharp teeth, then chomped down repeatedly like those clacking wind-up toys.
“You.” Its crackly voice boomed at Levi across the night. “I remember you.”
“Don’t think so,” Levi quipped back. “I’ve killed or captured every one of you I’ve met.” He knew the bastards shape-changed all the time and he’d vanquished more than he cared to remember, but there was no point of admitting that.
The demon’s head contorted weirdly, its gaze following Levi as he took another side step toward it.
“I remember Marcos.” The demon licked its mouth, making a sucking sound. “He was delicious.”
“Marcos!” Levi shouted involuntarily. “You’re the one that killed him!” He staggered backward, thoughts whirling. His body trembled, and he tucked the handcuffs away. Instead, he grabbed his lasso, Noose, from his belt, clicked the button on the base of the small, cylindrical rod. Like a compact umbrella, it extended, turning into a pole four feet long. At the tip, a dangerous-looking loop of rope sprung out, encrusted with salt rocks.
And heavily blessed by Argos’ magical team.
“I do know you,” Levi said to the beast. “You killed my friend.” Despite the cold clawing up Levi’s legs, his hand readied to lasso the beast. “You’ll beg me for mercy before I’m through with you.” He lifted Noose and flicked the lass forward, watching the loop widening as it flew toward the demon’s head.
But its clawed hand jerked outward and wrenched the pole out of Levi’s grip in a snakelike strike. Then it leapt for him, sharp fingernails extended, lips peeled back, teeth bared.
“Marcos screamed like a child,” it hissed.
Levi’s heart slammed into the back of his throat. Plucking a knife from his boot, the one engraved with runes for extra sting, he flung himself sideways and slashed at the attacking fiend, the blade slicing the dead flesh across its gut. Instead of blood, pus spilled from the wound.
Dropping his knife to the ground, Levi lurched backward. He plucked a vial from his belt. At the press of his thumb, the lid popped open and he hurled the holy water into the demon’s face. “You’ll never hurt anyone again.”
An inhumane shrill echoed through the night as the skin on one side of the demon’s face melted away from the bone like softened butter. Mid-scream, its still-solid fist shot out and collided with Levi’s chest.
Levi’s lungs emptied as he stumbled backward. He tripped over a broken brick and smacked the concrete with his hip. His heartbeat throbbed in his ears.
Every second seemed to play on forever as he lay perfectly still, his mind flooded with images of dying at the hands of the same demon who killed Marcos. His lungs tightened as if being smothered by an invisible hand.
The beast stepped closer, an evil, guttural groan vibrating in what Levi assumed was laughter.
“Well, fuck you too,” he replied.
He scrambled to his feet and pulled the second vial from his belt.
Getting closer, the creature’s mouth stretched open, revealing a black hole edged with knife-like teeth. More pus dribbled down its skeletal legs.
Levi tugged the vial top, but it wasn’t budging. Shit no. Perspiration rolled down his back.
Claws reached for him. He retreated until his back hit a metal fence. The beast was only a foot away now, teeth and claws heading for him. He bit down on the cork top and pulled. It popped. He tossed the contents into the beast’s gaping mouth.
The demon reared back as its mouth fizzled, and steam trickled out.
Levi pushed himself back up, off the fence, and onto his knees.
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” Levi recited.
Hissing, the spirit’s body folded over, arms over its head, cowering.
“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
The tendril connecting the monster to the man wavered.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Levi opened his eyes. The demon was cowering away from him, but movement near the side street caught Levi’s attention.
Cary stood there, eyes pinned on the spirit, her hands curled into fists.
“Attack from the back,” he called out to her.
The demon sensed the newcomer then too, and spun toward her, muttering in another language Levi had never heard before. Then it hurled itself in her direction.
“Wat
ch out!” Levi yelled. He jumped up to help her, grabbing the blade he’d dropped earlier. Too late! The demon knocked Cary off her feet, but rebounded backward from their contact. It shoved Levi aside with a swinging arm before halting halfway across the yard.
Levi fell back, but righted himself quickly, and dove for Noose.
Cary pulled herself up and shook her head.
The demon turned back for her again, arms outstretched, its mouth wide enough to bit off Cary’s entire head. She seized a knife from her boot and hurled it, but the fiend swerved, and the blade barely skimmed its arm. Forgetting Noose, Levi threw himself in front of Cary, cutting off the attack as he grabbed her wrist.
An electric force smacked into his flank, sending him into a stumble alongside Cary.
Streetlight globes exploded around them, erupting in fiery sparks. Levi blinked, and the demon was gone.
Somehow, he’d stayed on his feet but his dinner churned in his gut, promising to come out.
He turned around to find Cary—her face had paled to the color of milk. “Did it hurt you?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, but the way her words shook screamed the opposite.
He reached out to give her a hand up. Cary ignored him, getting quickly to her feet before rushing over to check on the comatose man. She felt for his pulse. “He’s still alive.”
Levi picked up Noose, stepped in front of Cary, and laced the loop over the man’s head carefully.
“6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...” he said slowly. Nothing happened. No spirit flooded out. No fizzling steam, or guttural growls. “He’s clean,” Levi said to Cary. “So, where is it?”
“Maybe it got sucked into hell?”
Levi looked around. “No one here but the three of us. The tendril connecting the spirit to the man was severed, but that's all that happened. Where's the showy exit? The demonic signs every departing beast leaves behind?” He walked around the parking lot, searching for a clue.
Unable to find anything, he turned to Cary, who was stashing a blade into her boot. “I know you haven't given up on finding that thing's whereabouts,” he said. “But you're not looking.”
She shrugged. “It's not here, Levi.”
He wanted to say that he knew she was braver than most hunters. That others in her position would have run screaming. She not only stood her ground, but attacked the jumper. He wanted to say it was another reason that he respected her.
“Are you wearing new armor from Argos, or did you get protective ink?” he asked instead, unable to quiet his pounding heart. “Can’t understand why it rebounded off you like that?”
“How would I know?” She spoke with her back to him, strands of reddish hair billowing behind her in the breeze as she called the paramedics for the victim.
Levi had that familiar sick feeling inside all of a sudden, the one he got whenever something terrible was about to happen. Was his chance meeting with the same demon from twelve years ago a coincidence or a warning of more to come?
With the adrenaline wearing off, Levi's thoughts grew foggy, and a horrific pain stung his chest with each breath. His ribs, where the demon had struck, burnt like an inferno. He rubbed the skin beneath his shirt, which felt blazing hot against his fingers. Better not be some evil rash or weird demon parasite.
Worse yet, that demon better not have placed a curse on him.
Chapter 3
“Third overdose tonight. We'll straighten him out.” The young police officer tucked the pen in his shirt pocket and glanced at Cary. “Thanks for calling it in.”
“No problem.” Cary watched the guy strapped to the gurney, his wrist handcuffed to the railing, as he was lifted into the back of the ambulance.
None of the officers or paramedics had radiated a silver glow, so the demon hadn’t hijacked a ride with them. The cop climbed into his patrol car and followed the ambulance as it headed out.
Darkness filled the empty spaces again.
Cary coughed, unable to eliminate the sulfuric taste clinging to her throat. It should be gone by now, but it wasn’t. She turned to find Levi leaning against the wall, just out of sight of the departing EMS crew, pale-faced and squinting.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Taking her phone from her pocket, she activated the flashlight app. He nodded.
“Really, I'm fine,” he insisted.
“They won't find any illicit drugs in his system, unless he was on something when he got jumped,” she said. “Poor guy will probably end up in rehab anyway, confused and disorientated.”
“That's for the best, isn't it?” Levi asked. “Even if he remembered the events from tonight, they could help him.”
“No one deserves to remember the sensation of drowning in their own mind. Shrouded in blackness, memories misplaced, and fear hunting them. Inside their head, victims are alone.” She sighed.
“He’ll be fine. He'll work through the trauma.” Levi grabbed the lasso from its sheath on his belt. “Anyway, I want to know where that son-of-a-bitch jumper demon went.” He clicked it open and dragged the lasso gently across his face, neck, and arms. Finished, he frowned as if disappointed he’d come up clean.
“I doubt you’re possessed,” Cary told him. “Think about it. You have no silver aura, plus you’d sense it instantly… Or, so victims have told me. So, um, I'm going to go.”
“Can’t be too sure.” He stepped toward her. “I’ll cleanse you.”
“I’m fine, trust me.” Her insides constricted. She stepped back and couldn’t help but scratch her arm as if spiders crawled over her flesh. Even if the lasso revealed no physical signs on her skin, she wasn’t in the mood for torture.
His jaw twitched. “You know I don't have a choice but to be sure, so don’t make me chase you.”
She inched backward until her back hit the wire fence and tucked her phone into her pocket. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“You bet, but I’ll enjoy it more when I’m certain you’re clean of filthy demons.”
That stung. Sure, she loathed the beasts of Hell as much as the next hunter, but hearing the hatred in Levi’s voice reminded her of why she could never be with him. No matter how many times she told herself she was human with only a slight allergic reaction to salt and all things religious, she could never escape her dark side. She was born on earth, and the only way she could protect herself from demons dragging her into Hell was to get to them first.
“You're not giving this up, are you?” Silently, Levi stood there, studying her with an arched brow. She stuck out an open palm. “Hand it over.”
“Nah, you can redo me afterward,” he said. Despite the seriousness in his eyes, a smirk formed on his lips.
“And let you act out your fantasies on me? No thanks. Give me the lasso. I’ll do it myself.” She reached out for the handle, but Levi grabbed her wrist, pulling her close. His touch sent her heart into a spin.
With his free hand, he scraped the loop along her forearm. Pain exploded across her arm and felt like acid biting into her skin. A scream caught in the back of her throat. If she hadn’t been watching while Levi scratched the salt stones down the back of her knuckles, she’d have sworn someone had dragged a dozen blades along her arm. The lasso, a blessed object, didn’t leave physical scars on the possessed, but it sure destroyed evil spirits.
“There, you happy now?” She pulled away from his grip, but Levi wasn’t letting go. “You fight me at work, when I’m trying to help you, and even in bed.”
Despite the smile dancing across his lips, at that moment she simply fought to stay upright on shaky legs. If she showed Levi a sign of weakness from the lasso, he’d probably try to purify her. People have been known to die during basic exorcisms, and who knew what a full, holy cleansing might do? She wasn't sure. Ever since her dad’s vanishing act a few months after her eighteenth birthday, she had no one to ask questions on how her demon side worked. There was always Uncle Thomas (who wasn’t really her uncle, but best buddies with her dad). They had spent s
ummers together when she was a kid, traveling the country.
So, despite her dad insisting he hadn’t told a soul about them, maybe Thomas was more up to speed on demons than her dad had explained… Except she didn’t have his contact details, either.
Levi backed up, arms raised, starting to pray.
Damn him and his tenacity.
She bit her lower lip until it hurt, then flicked her long hair off her shoulder and exposed the side of her neck. “Fine, go for it.” Her heart froze as she fixed her gaze on a discarded bag of chips—anything to ignore the pain. She avoided most chips due to their high salt content, but the yellow packet read “Sour Cream and Chives”, the worst kind.
Levi slid back several loose strands of hair, and his warmth seeped into her being. In her memories, his kisses had melted her like ice cream in the sun.
Think about the damn chips, Cary.
As he lifted Noose, panic crammed into the deepest corners of her mind.
His smile softened her muscles, but the moment the loop connected with the side of her neck, it was like a branding iron pressed against her flesh. The pain sunk into her, burning her innards. Levi dragged the weapon up her cheek and onto her brow, but he might as well be using a blade.
She dug her fingernails into her palms.
This was why spirits bolted out of humans the second a lasso touched them, and why handcuffs were needed to keep them from running off until they were exorcised. They hurt like a bitch.
“You’re done. Now do me.”
Cary couldn’t move, let alone smile. She doubted she’d ever bring her lips to work again, not with her arm and face feeling as if they’d just dropped off her body. “I just saw you do it, and I trust you. Something you’re obviously lacking.”
“I trust you. I don’t trust demons.”
The sharp pain of needles scalded her arm, but Levi only followed the rules. And this was why Cary preferred to work alone.