She didn’t disappoint him. Leaning over the counter, Selena whispered in his ear, “His wife.”
Pulling away and turning her attention to the door, she welcomed the newcomers. “Cade, it’s so good to see you.”
“Selena, I'm sorry it’s late. We tried to call. We thought you’d be upstairs in bed, but when we saw the light…”
With his back still turned to them, Jonah Hall’s blood ran cold at the sound of Cade’s voice.
Selena stepped around the counter to hug the visitors. “It’s no problem at all. Your timing is perfect. I was visiting with Jonah here. He’s had an interesting week. Anyway, how are you holding up?”
It all clicked, the secrets, the protection of Cade, the sympathy in Selena’s tone. His wife. Jonah thought. Holy hell, his wife? Frustrated that he missed such a big detail, Jonah turned to demand answers. That intention died in his throat when he realized Cade wasn’t alone. Jarrett, Tracy, and James had entered the little shop behind him.
“Detective, it’s good to see you. What brings you this way?” James asked, casually offering his hand in greeting.
Still a little dumbstruck, Jonah shook the offered hand halfheartedly. “Uh, just had to clear up a few inconsistencies.”
“What? What exactly are you here to clear up?” Tracy challenged.
Selena put a hand on her friend’s shoulder in comfort. “Few people bother to seek answers, but instead are content to blanket themselves in the lies that create a stilted version of reality. He’s one of the rare humankind with open eyes, and they are coming whether he is ready or not.”
Humankind? Jonah thought, but exhaled heavily and shook his head. “I didn’t come here to upset you, Tracy, but you can’t hide from this forever. I want to do the right thing, and the law is the law. I believe in those laws, and right and wrong are real things. Please tell me what happened, and I’ll do what I can to help you avoid the consequences.”
Tracy’s expression widened with indignation.
“Dude,” James chuckled, “I’m no expert on women, and even I know that was the wrong thing to say.”
Unbothered and ignoring James’s attempt to ease the growing tension, Jonah shifted his attention to the twins. “What really happened to Jeffery Garrison? What happened to your wife?”
The question sliced to his heart, but he pushed it back. With venom in her eyes, Tracy stepped forward in his defense. Cade was sure she intended to clock the detective with a right hook, and a small part of him wanted to let her. However, he squashed it. Stopping the exchange before it started, he put his arm out blocking her path. By now, Cade was certain he’d been the only one to catch on to Selena’s warning. Tilting his head, he turned his focus to her. “What do mean the answers are coming for him?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but Jarrett interrupted, “I know you from somewhere.” Trying to place her, he examined her features.
“Do you? I’ve not met you formally yet,” Selena offered.
“I’ve seen you before, and I can tell you know who I am.”
“I’ve told her about you,” Cade tried to explain. “She’s a seer. I went to her looking for you once.”
“That’s not it. There’s something…” Jarrett shook his head.
“She’s a what?” Jonah asked. “What are y’all talking about?”
“None of your business, Hall. You can go home now,” Tracy urged rudely.
Jarrett moved past Cade to stand right in front of Selena. He gently pulled her face up toward him, and when she smiled, his expression grew tight as the memory came back to him. “No. No it can’t be.” Shocked, Jarrett backed up a step. “How? He said you were dead.”
Selena smiled sadly and took a step forward to place her hand upon his chest. “Not yet anyway. You know he’s a liar. You learned this early on,” she insisted. “Jarrett, you’ve learned so much from him. Remember those lessons.”
Loud crashing noises echoed from the back room. Jonah drew his gun. Jarrett yanked Selena back automatically and put her between Cade and himself.
“Uncle Cade?” James asked.
“Selena, what’s coming?” Cade questioned.
“You’re going to need those swords,” Selena told the brothers, indicating she knew why they had come in the first place. “What you carry are swords of light.”
Cade and Jarrett turned their heads to pin her with their unnatural eyes.
“Like Excalibur of legend, they are weapons forged specifically to vanquish demons, not banish them. Those swords will obliterate the essence of a demon.”
“Tracy, James! Get them out of here!” Cade ordered, guiding Selena into James’s arms.
“Come on, Hall. Time to go,” Tracy urged, pulling on his arm.
“You can’t. It’s too late,” Selena explained. “They followed your pain, and they shadowed the detective. There are too many, and all the exits are covered, even the windows.”
Pulling out of Tracy’s grip, Jonah reached for his cell phone. “I’ll call it in.”
Yanking the phone out of the detective’s hand with deceptively quick fingers, James threw it across the room. “Trust me when I tell you that’s a bad idea. You don’t want to bring your blue brothers into this fight.”
As if in a trance, Jonah Hall watched the twin brothers simultaneously step past him, remove their long, black coats, and drop them to the floor. Strapped to the men's backs were long, leather scabbards with shining hilts peeking over their shoulders. The sound of scraping steel rang with a deadly tone when each man drew a silvery blade. Jonah’s eyes went wide. “Whoa! Hold on now.”
Cade turned his head back, his expression dark, and pinned Jonah with a hard glare. “You wanted the truth, Detective? Well, you’re about to get it.”
Another crash came from the upstairs apartment as windows shattered. Jonah saw a large man ambling down the stairs, grunting as he did. More intruders came from the store’s back room fully armed with medieval-like weapons of spiked balls on chains, a barbed whip, and long daggers.
Holding tight to his version of reality, Jonah observed the criminals had to be the ugliest men he’d ever seen. They were extremely bulky, had a dirty, greasy appearance, and were covered in tattoos. As they entered, the intruders stared at Cade and Jarrett with strange, opaque eyes.
Coming down the stairs, another man actually hissed when it sighted the brothers. Then, with a breathy voice, it started giving orders, “Killss the Hunter and hisss brother. Killss them all.”
Jonah suspected if a snake could talk it would sound a lot like that guy, but he had little time to think on it as the intruders hooted weirdly and attacked. Tracy brushed past Jonah, stepping in front of him.
“What are you doing? Stay behind me, I have the gun,” the detective demanded, grabbing her arm.
Scoffing, she jerked free. “You’re in for a rude awakening, Hall. In this arena, you’re the weakest link. James?”
“I’ve got a few things. Don’t worry about me,” James told her as he looked for a place to stand away from Cade and Jarrett.
The ugly bunch acted oddly, and Jonah’s instincts screamed warning bells in his head. There was a strange slowness to their attack, as if they were assessing for a weakness or maybe waiting for something.
“Make sure you hit them between the eyes with that gun,” James advised over the noise. “It will stun the demons for a minute. You got a knife, Hall?”
“Huh?” Jonah replied, confused at the sight before him.
“A knife, dude. Do you have a knife?” James insisted.
“Uh, yeah, I have one. In my boot. Do you need it?”
Grimly, James pulled two combat Bowie knives out and shook his head. “No, but you’re going to.”
“Don’t hesitate or you’re dead,” Cade called over his shoulder. “They're not human, so don’t treat them like they are. Things aren’t always what they seem.”
With wide eyes, Jonah looked to Selena and recalled her earlier warning. Jarrett and Cade rea
lized, too late, the trap that was set. The noise in the back and upstairs, and the slow approach had been a trick. With their sensitive hearing, the brothers heard more demons at the front door.
“The front!” Jarrett and Cade yelled together a split second before the present demons rushed them at the same time the heavy, wooden door tore from its hinges and threw Jonah and Selena to the floor.
Chapter 22
Jonah’s breath escaped his lungs in a painful whoosh as he crashed to the floor, and the door fell on top of him. He dimly heard a gunshot, but hitting his head hard enough to have his ears ringing, he barely registered that he’d fired the shot. “Son of a—” the rest fell away with a grunt when a human-like creature came through the opening and stood on his chest. Ribs cracking, Jonah struggled to breathe as the substantial weight of the intruder crushed him.
The demon he figured for a man at first, leaned over him with a macabre smile baring a mouth full of sharp, serrated teeth. Jonah was so stunned he could only look up in horror as the creature readied to kill him.
From somewhere nearby, he heard Tracy shout, “Cade!” Seconds later, a burst of light encompassed his line of sight, forcing Jonah to close his eyes. The weight pressing on him vanished, and it sounded like rain was falling on the door. Desperate for air, he sucked in a deep breath, and pain lanced through his chest. Feeling the resistance in his ribs, Jonah settled for shallower breaths and opened his eyes. The floor around the door was covered in a gray, ashy substance.
“You still with us, Hall?” Tracy asked. Leaning down, she eased the broken door away.
“What was that?” he rasped, tucking one hand to his rib cage as she helped him gain his feet once more.
“They're demons.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement, and instinct took over. Raising his Glock, he fired to his left. His aim was true, and he struck the creature between the eyes. It froze in its charge, and for a second, Jonah could do nothing but stare at the bizarre sight before him. “This is not happening,” he mumbled.
A sword blade appeared in the creature’s neck, and it turned to a cloud of dust, leaving Cade standing in its wake. He gave them a tight nod and turned away to attack another target.
“Look, I need you to focus,” Tracy said, grabbing his attention with a hard shake. “You said right and wrong are real things? Believe me when I tell you, these are wrong in every possible way.”
Jonah turned and shot at another creature running for James. The young man wasted no time and stabbed the frozen demon in the heart.
As it disintegrated before his eyes, Jonah forced himself to accept this new reality. He nodded, letting it sink in. “Okay. Tell me what to do.”
“Like James said, hit them dead center in the head and it buys you a minute or so. If they’re right on top of you, use whatever you’ve got to stab them in the heart.”
She paused, chanted a strange rhyme under her breath, then thrust out her hand. Something flew from her fingers, and an attacking demon stumbled before it disappeared. Jonah targeted another one that came in at Jarrett’s back and pulled the trigger.
Tracy called out, “Don’t get close to them unless you have to. They are extremely quick and ridiculously strong.”
As Tracy said the last part, one of the shelving units flew over their heads, and they both ducked to avoid decapitation. Glass from the shop windows shattered and showered them with stinging shards. When the pelting storm ebbed a second later, Jonah met Tracy’s eyes. “Strong. Got it. Anything else?”
“A bullet to the heart will only piss them off, avoid it, and stay alive, will ya? It will piss me off if you don’t.”
“Understood. Selena?” he questioned looking around.
Tracy pointed and shouted over the cacophony of battle, “In the corner. She crawled over there. I think she’s hurt. I can’t get to her yet.” Jonah yanked on Tracy hard, pulling her to him. A knife whisked past where she had once stood. Immediately chanting again, she flicked her fingers, and this time something small flew out and fell to the floor between Jarrett and the two demons he battled. “Jarrett! Eyes!” she warned.
Trusting Tracy, Jarrett obeyed. Another bright light exploded, blinding the knife thrower and his partner. Jarrett decapitated one and kicked out at the other.
“Keep them away from me as best you can. We’ll figure out a way to get to her,” Tracy instructed Jonah.
He nodded tightly, letting her go. Turning, he lifted his weapon. Ignoring the protest from his injured body, Jonah began to take aim, hoping to make every shot count.
Another fiend rushed them with gleeful cruelty in its eyes. Jonah fired, and James was there to finish it. Looking across the room, Hall watched a creature rake Cade’s back as he battled another face to face. Jonah fired again.
“Six,” he counted to himself, remembering the first bullet he fired. He wondered what he would do when he counted to thirteen, knowing he would be unarmed. It’s not like he brought an extra weapon, or even an extra clip. When Jonah had come looking for answers tonight, he had no way of knowing this is how he would get them.
Cade banished the stunned demon, and Jonah nearly panicked when he saw the red, glowing eyes of his supposed ally. Adrenaline pumped through his heart as confusion raced through his mind. He glanced at Tracy, but her focus was elsewhere. She was doing that weird mumbling again, and her eyes were almost white.
Unbelievable, he thought. Even though he was doing his best to process what he saw, everything was still so bizarre—it was disorienting to say the least. Worried, he sought out James and watched as the youngest of the Williams’s children stabbed, feinted, turned, struck out, and impaled a smaller demon in the chest with a dagger.
He blinked once and shook it off with a literal shake of his head. Aiming his pistol, he thought back to his teenage years when he played Resident Evil. He pulled the trigger, absorbed the kick from his weapon, and considered the similarities. It’s a game, he thought. He aimed again as Tracy released more fiery light from her fingertips. His hand vibrated as another bullet was ejected. “Just a game,” he assured himself out loud, feeling more confident with every shot. Eight, he counted.
Reacting to slashing claws, Cade arched his back, turned, and dusted the demon with a single sweep of Collett’s sword. The blade was impeccable, and there was no resistance as it removed his enemy’s head.
Both Jarrett and Cade were sorely outnumbered as the demons came in mass. Cade fought against the wolf for his old control. He needed a clear head to get them out of this. Cade knew Tracy and James were counting on him.
In the same instant that thought plagued him, Cade sensed a shift in the air. A cold wind brushed past him, and fear coursed through him. He’d only ever experienced a cold like that once before, and he would never forget the presence that followed it.
“Phase demon! Tracy! More light!” he shouted. Light was the only way to see the shadow.
During his experience, the phase demon could not possess him in wolf form. The time Cade had encountered one, the shadow demon had possessed others around him, freezing them in place and controlling their bodies for short times. It was a violation of the mind, and eventually members of his group started attacking each other in an insane attempt to rid themselves of the invader. They killed each other as the demon repeatedly tormented them, moving from one person to the next.
The incorporeal being had tried passing through Cade too, but it never took hold. He had felt the resistance that day and never forgot the importance of it. The theory from the gypsy demonologist he’d consulted years later was the animal instincts of the wolf kept the demon from holding onto the soul.
“Jarrett! Change!” Cade yelled, and letting go of his own reservations, Cade transformed.
Jarrett didn’t hesitate. While he’d never encountered a phase demon, he’d been told of them. Not even Bellig dared call them to service. Bellig had told him to fear the phase demon, and anything that Bellig was afraid of was something to be extre
mely cautious of.
Calling upon the beast within, the bodies of the lycan twins shifted. They continued to fight throughout the grotesque growth of muscle and crack of bones. Clothes tore free, eyes glowed red, and midnight-black fur covered their bodies.
“What the—are you kidding me!?” Jonah said with dread while watching the transformation. He pointed his gun in their direction but hesitated. Selena’s words came back to him full force, and with a steadying breath, he shifted his aim. Pop, Pop, Pop. The gunshots reverberated in the small space as he fired three more successive rounds at the devils reaching for the brothers.
“James!” Tracy screamed, pulling Jonah’s attention from the sight before him. He saw James frozen oddly, his face twisted in pain. Another two demons approached the vulnerable man. Jonah fired at the farther one as the other demon jumped and landed in front of James with its mouth opening wide.
Rushing the short distance, Jonah, a veteran baseball player, executed a straight leg slide, taking the attacker down in a tumble. Remembering Tracy’s instructions about their hearts, Jonah tore the knife from James’s frozen grip and threw it. The demon blew apart in a cloud of dust.
Righting himself, Jonah reached for James, who was cold as ice. His body was rigid, his teeth were clenched, and his brows pinched. Jonah shouted to Tracy. “What’s happening? What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know,” Tracy replied desperately as she struggled to focus on Cade and Jarrett. Hoping Jonah could help her brother, Tracy began chanting again, invoking the light Cade had demanded.
A large demon burst past the twins, who fought furiously to protect their friends. Noting the demon’s direction, Jonah turned and fired again.
Suddenly, Jarrett skated across the debris on the floor next to the detective and the statue that was James. In hybrid from, Jarrett was massive. Jonah had a hard time comprehending the force it must have taken to throw the werewolf.
Jonah twisted, saw the giant again, and pop. His aim was off though, and the beast kept coming.
The Truth of Victory: A Powers of Influence Novel Page 20