She grabbed her weapons and shoved the three-foot long cylinders into a vest she’d had specially made for them, before heading to the park, where she sat on a bench beneath Spanish moss that waved in the slight breeze.
Savannah was beautiful at the end of September. Not nearly as muggy or buggy. Nannies and moms alike brought their kids to the park to run off any excess steam.
She’d spent many a day in the park as a child having fun with her sisters and Quick. He would chase them around or let them ride on his back while Gwen sat on a bench reading—but today, Denny wasn’t here for fun and games.
Suddenly, a small terrier sniffed at her leg. Attached to the dog’s leash was a cute young blonde with a backpack filled with books that tumbled out when she set the beast of a bag on the ground.
“Down, Killer.”
Denny leaned over to help pick up the books. “Killer, eh? Um, have you looked at this little dog? What a sweetheart.”
The young girl wore a Georgia Bulldogs T-shirt with tight-fitting jeans. “That’s what my girlfriend said about him just before he bit her ankle.” She tossed Denny a flirtatious grin.
When the books were back in the bag, Denny returned to the bench, where Killer resumed sniffing at her. When the dog bared his teeth and growled, Denny leaned over to pet him, and quickly flashed her demonic red eyes at him.
Killer retreated to his owner’s lap.
“That’s strange. I’ve never seen him be afraid of anyone.”
“We’re all afraid of something,” Denny said softly, pulling out her iPad to start her history reading.
“You a student, too?”
She nodded. “I am.” Denny’s eyes were riveted to a young man kneeling down to talk to a little boy of five or six.
“I’m surprised we’ve never met.”
Denny kept her eyes on the boy. “Really? Why would we?”
“Well, you’re obviously gay and gorgeous, and I’m, well...I’m gay. There aren’t so many of us at the U that we wouldn’t know each other.”
Denny finally pulled her eyes from the boy to look at the blonde. Denny didn’t see herself as obviously gay, but whatever. Clearly the girl’s gaydar was operable.
Denny focused her attention on the student.
She was cute.
Really cute.
Too cute.
And working too hard. Whether this feeling was her own or her Hanta’s, Denny didn’t know. Nor did she care. The feelings she was experiencing were enough to tell her a demon was nearby.
Standing, Denny turned back toward the boy. He and the young man who’d been talking to him were gone.
“God damn it.”
“Excuse me?”
Scanning the length of the park, Denny barely caught sight of them as they rounded the corner to one of the small, narrow surrounding streets.
Taking off in a sprint, Denny made a beeline for their exit, searching for the nanny who’d managed to lose her charge.
Yep, there she was, her face in her phone, texting away.
The Hanta’s spirit came to life within Denny; blood pumped to her muscles as she flew across the grass, her feet barely touching the ground.
Fifty yards.
A white, unmarked van stood at the curb with the side door open.
Forty yards.
The little boy now held the hand of his abductor as they approached the van.
Thirty yards.
A second demon rolled down the driver’s side window and stuck a rifle out.
She knew by the glint of red in his eyes he was either possessed or was a straight up demon.
He took a shot. It went wide.
Twenty yards. Denny didn’t break stride as she pulled one weapon out and tossed the cylinder as hard as she could at the shooter just as the boy reached the van.
A second shot rang out just as the cylinder entered the van and clocked the shooter in the forehead. His head rocked backwards.
Ten feet, and, as the boy got into the van, Denny used the Hanta energy to propel herself the rest of the distance in a single leap.
The door slid closed but she managed to get her hand on it and, with strength borne of being possessed, she shoved it back so hard it broke. Then she came face to face with the young demon trying to abduct the boy.
“Not today, fellas.” Denny yanked the abductor from the van and tossed him ten feet away. Then she snapped her wrist and her long, scimitar-shaped sword, Epée, roared to life, sizzling with purple energy and wanting blood.
One slash of Epée and the shooter’s right arm fell to the ground. He howled as he stared at his severed limb.
“Oh for crying out loud, you big baby.” Denny put him out of his misery by cutting his head off.
Demons explode upon death—this one was no exception. Demon guts went everywhere, splattering the inside of the window, the radio, the steering wheel. Some even landed on Denny.
Kneeling down, she gazed at the frightened little boy. “Hey there, it’s okay. No one is going to hurt you.”
He trembled as he backed away, eyes wide with fear.
Maybe it was her red eyes—she had no control over them when the Hanta was awake. Or maybe it was her six-pack-a-day whiskey voice that came out when under the possession. Or maybe it was the fact that she’d just cut a guy’s head off and he’d blown into a million pieces.
“It’s okay, really. I won’t hurt you.”
Her tingling spine alerted her to impending danger. She whirled around and saw a large dude whom she punched so hard in the chest, he flew back to where he’d landed before.
“Come with me,” Denny said, reaching for the boy. He continued backing away. Epée vanished into its cylinder.
Once more, she felt the Hanta warn her that an aggressor was fast approaching. This time, he had a board of some kind and swung it at her head. Denny barely managed to get her arm up to take the brunt of the blow. The board snapped in half; the flesh of her arm split open from the impact, blood spurting everywhere.
“Fuck!” she yelled, cracking open Epée once more. “What the hell are you doing, you moron? Stealing a kid in broad daylight is like the dumbest act in the world. It’s almost like you want to get—”
A third demon came at her from the other side of the van, two sidearms pointed right at her.
He wasn’t shooting.
Denny opened her second weapon, Fouet. Fouet was an electric whip with small, scalpel-like blades. It was a vicious weapon that could slice through any demon as well as any number of organic and inorganic materials.
It also had a reach that Epée did not.
“A gun? How boringly unoriginal.”
She felt the other demon come up behind her.
She’d faced way worse odds before, so these yahoos were minor leaguers compared to others she had faced.
“Golden Silver, right? Badass of the Southlands? Demon of Darkness, etcetera, etcetera.”
Fouet sputtered around her, desiring the same blood Epée had tasted.
“If you’re going to shoot, shoot,” Denny said.
“Not you.”
“Shut the fuck up, Orland,” the other demon said.
With a flick of her wrist, Denny brought Fouet to life, where it severed not one but both wrists of the gun-toting demon, who screamed as he watched his hands fall to the ground.
“If not me, who?” Denny demanded in her gravelly Hanta voice.
The demon stared at his stumps.
“Focus in, asshole. If not me, who are you after?” Denny dropped to the ground and did a leg sweep to knock the demon behind her to the ground.
“What the hell is going on here?” Denny demanded as she stood over the demon. Something wasn’t right. He tried scrambling away, and as Denny reached down to grab him, the little dog named Killer hurled itself at her face. Denny managed to bat it aside before returning her attention to the demon now rising to his feet.
“Big mistake, Hunter.”
Denny felt the Hanta’s power fi
ll her. “My only mistake was not killing you right out of the gate.” She retracted Fouet and gripped Epée with both hands. “But that’s a mistake I can easily remedy.”
The voice was deep and gravelly—all Hanta now. Denny relinquished all power to the Hanta Raya.
As Denny lifted Epée to strike, the handless demon charged her and knocked her over with his shoulder. With one demon on top of her and one below her, Denny struggled to get enough room for Epée.
“You’re slipping, Hunter,” came a silky, sensuous voice belonging to the blonde owner of Killer. “You should have seen me coming.” The blonde pulled out a gun and leveled it at Denny’s knee. “This is gonna hurt like hell.”
Before she could pull the trigger, a hand shot out from the shadows and grabbed her wrist. “The Hunter may not have seen you coming, succubus, but I certainly did.” Out of the shadows came a tall, striking woman wearing a long black cape with a hood. She towered over the shorter blonde, her fingernails digging into the young woman’s wrist.
The gun clattered to the ground. “Fuck off, witch,” the blonde sneered just before the witch grabbed her around the neck.
Denny heaved the headless demon off her, rolled over, and cut him in half before he landed. Guts sprayed everywhere, with body pieces hitting signs and benches. Then she rolled to her knees, held Epée like a baseball bat, and beheaded the second demon.
It, too, exploded.
“Hunter, I believe you have questions for the succubus.”
Sheathing Epée, Denny wiped the demon detritus from her face. “You bet I do. What the hell is this about? Abducting a kid in broad daylight? Attacking a Legacy in the open? What the hell do you want?”
“Not...you...” the succubus grimaced.
“Then who?”
The witch squeezed harder. “I have no compunction about killing you here and now, you seductress bitch. This hunter is under my protection, so you’d better speak now or I shall let Silver pull you through this filthy mouth of yours. Am I making myself clear?”
The succubus blinked and nodded.
Denny nodded at her ally. “Thank you, Cassandra, but I got this.”
“No, Hunter, I don’t believe you do. This succubus has come for you—to seduce you.” Cassandra grinned. “You either have shown great restraint or you have given your heart to another and are unaffected by this bitch. I’m impressed, Hunter.”
“Don’t be. I knew what she was the moment she sat down. I just didn’t know she was connected with these assholes.”
The succubus started choking, so Cassandra released her. “Move your hands toward me or the Hunter and you’ll be like stump boy over there. Capisce?”
The young woman nodded. “Please. Don’t. They said—”
“Don’t care what they said,” Denny said. “Just care about who they were after. It wasn’t me. So, who?”
The blonde checked Cassandra before answering. “A witch. A really special witch.”
Cassandra shot a look to Denny.
“Not this haggard bitch. Someone younger.”
Iris.
“Give me a name.” Denny stepped forward. “And be very clear. You call the witch another name and I will kill you.”
The succubus shrank back. “I...I don’t know. My job was—”
“I Need. A. Name.”
“It was...it was a flower, or a—”
Denny punched her in the face and down she went. Then she pulled out her third weapon, the Saugen.
She placed the tip of the hose-like apparatus on the woman’s chest, and it started to suck the demon from the woman.
“Oh, Hunter…” Cassandra murmured. “Are you certain you wish to destroy it? We could learn so much more.”
“Fucking succubus. Yeah. I’m certain.”
When the writhing and twisting demon was nearly out of the woman, Denny whipped out her Epée and slashed through the spirit as it rose.
The succubus exploded, leaving the human host dazed and confused, but otherwise all right. “What? What happened?”
Cassandra whispered something to her and pushed her back toward the park, where the now frantic nanny was yelling the little boy’s name.
Denny looked at Cassandra helplessly.
“Fear not, Hunter. The boy will have no memory of these events.”
As Denny watched Cassandra perform a spell on the little boy, she dug into the pockets of the shredded jeans left behind by one of the demons. She pulled out a bloody business card and shook her head. “Some demons are just so stupid.”
Cassandra sent the little boy back to the park before bridging the gap between her and Denny. “I knew they would send someone after her. I can’t believe it’s so soon.”
Denny took Cassandra’s hands in hers. “Her is Iris. I got that memo, but who are they?”
Cassandra brought Denny’s hands to her lips and kissed them softly, letting her lips linger. “They, my fierce little demon hunter, are witch hunters, and they’re coming after your witch.”
Denny pulled Cassandra into her embrace. “Over my dead body.”
“Don’t say such words, Hunter, because that’s exactly what they’ll do.”
PRESENT DAY
Iris managed to get them access to a dark storage room at Madame Tussaud’s by using her magic. As they made their way through the storeroom, Denny felt the familiar tingle at the base of her skull.
Iris felt it, too. “DH?”
Before Denny could pull out a weapon, someone grabbed her and tossed her over a couple of wax figures. She landed on her back with a thud as Barbara Streisand had fallen on top of her.
“Son of a bitch.” Pulling Epée out, Denny released the Hanta. “Come on, big guy. Time to go on the offensive.” Immediately, she felt the legacy demon come to life and take her body over.
Bowling over wax figures, Denny called out, “Iris, you okay?”
No response. Where was she?
“You harm her in any way, demon, and there’s nowhere you can hide that I won’t find you.”
The demon landed behind Denny, wrapped an arm around her neck and started choking her. Flipping the demon over her shoulder, Denny started to plunge the sword into its chest when a second person tackled her from behind.
A human.
The Hanta got really pissed as Denny landed amid boxes. The human on top of her punched her twice before she grabbed him by the hair and drove his face into a wooden crate.
“Get the fuck off me,” she growled as she beat at the human’s face.
The demon rose and flew at Denny, but something knocked him out of the air, slamming him against the far wall.
“Iris?”
Again, no answer.
Leaving the human a beaten and bloody mess, Denny made her way to the demon and yanked him to his feet. Iris was nowhere to be seen.
“Where. Is. She?”
“Fuck you, Hunter.”
Denny pushed her face into his. “Fuck me? Fuck me, you piece of shit? I am going to pull your intestines out through your mouth if you don’t tell me—”
The demon pulled a gun out from his waistband and would have shot Denny had someone not yanked her out of harm’s way.
The demon exploded.
Exploded?
The lights suddenly went on overhead to reveal a large man dressed in a three-piece suit and wearing a top hat.
A top hat?
He held in his hand a weapon similar to Epée. It was a sword, like Excalibur, and it had the same purplish glow of Epée.
He was a Demon Hunter.
“The battle is over, hunter. You are safe.”
Denny glanced around. “Where is my witch?”
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Sebastian McNab. At your service.” He took off his top hat and bowed deeply.
“One more time. Where is my witch?”
Putting the top hat back on, he smiled, showing rows of very white teeth. “Your cunning witch is safe. I removed her from the area while you dealt with thes
e rapscallions.”
Denny stared at this oddly dressed man. “Denny Silver.” Denny extended her hand. “Nice meeting you. How did you find us?”
“I did not. My witch did. She felt the power of your seventh and bade me come lend aid. It appears I came at precisely the right time.” His voice reminded Denny of a British butler.
“Yeah. Thank you for that. These guys have been following us for a while.”
“I see. Well then, where there’s one witch hunter, there will be others to follow. Come, we must leave this place. My car is out back in the alley.”
Denny glanced down at the human. “Since when do humans and demons work together?”
Sebastian grinned. “What makes you think they are?”
“Look, Sebastian, I don’t really have the time or the patience to deal with more people coming after the women in my life.”
“May we discuss this at my home, Ms. Silver? We really must get out of here.”
Nodding, Denny followed him to a back exit. Once out the door, she found Iris sitting in the back seat of a stretch limo with another woman.
“DH!” Iris burst from the car and hugged Denny. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, Iris. Fine. You?”
“Well, Felicity’s been explaining everything to me. I think there’s a whole lot more we need to know before we go off half-cocked.”
Denny opened the door and slid in next to Felicity. “Golden Silver.”
“Just Felicity. You and your witch are setting off alarm bells everywhere. Come. Get in. Both of you. We must leave here at once.” Felicity looked close to sixty years old, her hair dyed a deep black, her eyes piercing the darkness.
When Sebastian was inside, he took off his top hat.
“What’s with the hat?” Iris asked. “You look like you belong in Olde England.”
“Edwardian England, to be exact. It was a time of real gentlemen and real ladies. When manners mattered and a man’s word was his bond. I wear the hat to remind me that mankind was once good and decent.”
“You’re a Legacy hunter?” Iris asked.
“Indeed I am. Long line of British hunters, but enough about me. Has Felicity caught you up?”
Denny shook her head. Iris nodded.
Sebastian shot Felicity a look.
Coven Betrayed (The Silver Legacy Book 4) Page 2