She squeezed my shoulder but didn’t speak, seeming to understand that I was still working up to something.
“An operation to take down Mal—Hugh—failed a decade ago. It was in Seattle, where my family lived. It was one of the biggest ops the Venators have attempted in recent history. We operate in small groups because we work best that way, and because we’re harder to pin down and ferret out.”
“Not to mention that you all don’t seem to do teamwork well.”
A grin tugged at my lips. “True. But demons like this are almost impossible to take down with a normal-sized cell. Luckily, they aren’t that common. To be honest, Venators try to avoid the big dogs in most cases and concentrate on keeping the population of normal demons down. But a decade ago, a group came together to try to take Hugh. They failed.”
“That’s when he…” she asked, voice catching. She already knew what I was going to say, but I had to get it all out.
“They managed to take out the three demons Hugh had working for him. A good takedown, that. Hugh was injured, but he got away. On his way out of town, he stopped at my parents’ house to recharge his batteries. I came in after he was already done, passing him on the way in. He smiled at me. Wearing my father’s fucking suit.”
“How did you know it was him?”
“I didn’t for sure—I felt it. Just knew it in my bones. It wasn’t until Franklin showed me a picture that we confirmed it.” I swallowed the hard lump in my throat. “I tried to track him on my own after seeing him, but I got nowhere. Luckily, Franklin found me not long after I started looking. Trained me. I picked up his trail a couple of years after that, but I couldn’t gather a team to try to take him out. I almost went after him myself, and would have if I’d known where he was that first year, but Franklin stopped me. Saved me from myself.”
“Remind me to thank him for that,” she said, her voice rough.
“Ava, promise me. Promise me that you won’t do something behind my back.” I could practically see the wheels turning in her mind. Her intentions weren’t in question—but her methods certainly were. And I couldn’t think straight about any of it if I thought she was sneaking around, doing heroic things without me to keep her safe. “I have to know I can trust you.”
Her face fell. “You can trust me. I just—we need to talk about this. Whatever they’re planning at that gala—”
“I don’t want you in there with him, unprotected and out of my sight.”
“That’s fine—okay. I can agree to that, if you can agree that something needs to be done. Even if they’re not acting on whatever scheme they’ve got going at the gala, they’re not inviting all those important people there just for the fun of it.”
It felt like a trap, but she sounded so damn reasonable. “That demon, Hugh”—I spat out the demon’s name and she flinched—“he’s strong, Ava. And smart. He’ll be harder to take down than Thomas. And the two of them together will be tough as hell.”
“All the more reason to suspect that what they’re planning is big.” She reached out and brushed her hand across my hair. “I don’t know if it has to do with a legendary necklace that can let them possess people, like Caleb thought, or something even more sinister.”
“Knowing a demon like Hugh is with him opens up a whole other realm of possibility. I’ve never heard of a demon—even one as strong as Hugh—being able to use their mental powers to force someone to become possessed, but he could be marking them for use later.”
“Marking?”
“Venators are able to harness the power of runes, but what we can do with them is limited. My runes aren’t quite as powerful as Franklin’s. Caleb’s aren’t as powerful as mine.”
Her eyebrows scrunched. “What makes the difference?”
“Some of it is practice—our ability to use runic power develops the more we use it. But a large bit seems to just be a given. Genetic, maybe. But regardless, humans don’t vary much, and we’re all restricted in what we can do with the power.” I thought about telling her about the demon blood. How my tattoos were full of the stuff. How it was what made me unworthy of her, regardless of how this shit turned out. But I couldn’t get the words out. “There are more powerful runes, but most demons don’t even have the power to fuel those.”
A paleness settled over her as my meaning became clear. “But demons like Hugh—”
“Are much more powerful. He could carve a rune into a few high-level party attendees and be able to call them to him, force them to do things. He’d be able to control them and then blur their memories when he needs someone important. It’s not something he’d be able to do constantly, but enough to do some real damage. Enough to cover up crimes when need be. To make missing-persons cases get shoved under the rug. Whatever else they need. It’ll help him cement his base of power in this city.”
She shook her head, denying my words. “That kind of power doesn’t seem possible.”
“Like I said, he couldn’t do it willy-nilly, but it’s a hell of an ace in the hole. Hugh isn’t a demon to take lightly.” My voice gentled. “And that’s why you need to leave this alone.”
“But it’s our responsibility to do something about it.”
I shook his head, resolute. “My responsibility, as a Venator.”
“No, Karson. Our responsibility—as human beings who can make a difference.”
My stomach twisted and she stepped closer. She was right. Damn it all to hell if she wasn’t. Even if I wasn’t entirely sure I was still a human being.
Her finger slid along my jawline. Her beautiful green eyes were touched with fear, but there was strength there, too. More strength than a tiny non-Venator had any right to.
“You mentioned being able to call in other Venators before—your sister cell. I think we should do that. And together, we’ll take them both down,” she said, her voice soft but powerful. “Hugh and Thomas. And I think you have to take down Hugh. To be able to have any chance of…moving on.”
“That won’t change our future, Ava. Vengeance isn’t a magic key to get me out of this world.”
“I know,” she said, but her face fell. “But I still think this needs to be done.”
She wasn’t going to leave this alone. “You’ll stay behind me. You’re not going near either of those demons. You’re not going in that house. Deal?”
She went to her tiptoes and gave me a hard, quick kiss on the lips before her mouth curled into a grin. “Deal.”
A squeal of delight escaped her when I picked her up to carry her to the shower, and the sweet floral scent of her filled my nose. Tomorrow, I would avenge my family. But tonight, I was going to make love to the only woman in the world who mattered.
Chapter Eleven
I dressed quickly while listening to Ava hum to herself in the bathroom. How she could manage that with a toothbrush in her mouth, I wasn’t sure. The scent of her shampoo clung to the room, and I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. In the night, with Ava in my arms, anything had felt possible.
Daylight brought reality.
Convincing Franklin to bring in other Venators had proven more difficult than I had imagined. But after a hushed argument over the phone about whether I could “manage my shit” around Hugh, Franklin agreed to call in a favor with our sister cell. He couldn’t guarantee how many would show, but we’d have a better idea by the afternoon.
A quick glance at my cell phone showed that it was very nearly afternoon already. We had to get on the road. No way was I letting Franklin plan this out without me. Hugh was my demon. My kill.
The drive to the Venator apartment building went far too quickly, even with the roundabout route I’d driven to ensure Ava and I didn’t have a tail. The afternoon sun had settled into the middle of the sky and my open window let in a fresh breeze, almost cool for June.
“I’m surprised you don’t use a concealment spell all the time,” she said when we pulled into a parking spot across the street from the actual building. “Seems like it would sav
e you a lot of mileage on your car.”
“The kind you need to hide a whole person is an exhausting rune—depletes your energy quickly.” I offered her a quick smile to remove the sting of my next words. “A day with one of those on you, and you’d be drained completely.”
“What would happen, then?”
“You’d die.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she reached out to touch my shoulder softly. “I didn’t realize they could kill you.”
Rune magic could kill far too easily, and the tattoos I wore reflected centuries of accumulated Venator knowledge, which was the only reason I could wear several without being harmed. Well, without severe consequences. The edge they gave me in a fight cost me in the rages I had to fight, the anger fed by my past and my job.
And even some of the runes I wore permanently as tattoos were tiring when I needed to use them often. Luckily, the types of enhancing runes Venators wore didn’t drain the wearer’s strength unless the skills were called upon. Until then, most lay dormant.
“Only if they’re not balanced properly. Or if a person gets power hungry and pushes it.”
She chewed on that information for a moment. “Seems like that wouldn’t be that unusual. For an organization full of people obsessed with revenge.”
The words hit me in the gut, and I was thankful she didn’t glance my way before exiting the car. That she didn’t mean it personally didn’t lessen the sting. It was still the truth.
Vengeance drove me. I was honest enough with myself to call it what it was—unlike some hunters who insisted they wanted “justice.” Sure, a few had a better handle on it, had moved past their anger, but decided to stay in the fight anyway. Others had been raised by Venator parents. They were driven by purer causes—some of them. Like keeping people safe. Protecting humanity from evil.
But I wasn’t one of those people.
And, hell, the tattoos got most of us eventually. We burned out. Sometimes we turned dark and had to be killed by our own. But mostly, we killed ourselves by pushing things too far and getting our asses handed to us by the demons.
We walked into the apartment building, and the old, musty odor of the place made me feel almost at home. Ava trailed behind when we entered the apartment the cell used for office space.
“Ah, there you are,” Franklin said, giving me a quick nod. “Karson, this is Mateo and Kevin. I think you know Walker.”
I’d met Mateo once, a few years ago. He stood taller than me by an inch or two, putting him around six foot four. But he was bulkier and wore the haircut of a military man, along with the accompanying neatness and perfect posture. He wore confidence—like he was one hundred percent certain he was the baddest mother in the room.
Unlike the other man.
Kevin looked like Mateo’s opposite in every way. He was on the smaller side, maybe five foot six and lean. His dirty blond hair hadn’t been washed in a day or three, and he skulked defensively, eyes constantly searching for danger.
Then there was Nikki Walker. I’d met her before, too. The diminutive woman was deceptively delicate looking, with sun-dusted skin and dark hair she wore pulled away from her face, secured by a braid. She was also a tough son of a gun with no tolerance for anyone who didn’t take her as seriously as she took herself. And with rune-enhanced strength and speed, she could back up her attitude.
I’d witnessed her skills when she had hunted a demon in our territory a year back. The woman was damned efficient. Less than two weeks and she had her kill. Another notch in the hilt of the knife she carried around in her boot.
Walker nodded to me, as did Mateo. Kevin simply watched me with narrowed eyes, radiating suspicion. I could respect that.
We weren’t here to make friends. None of them were green, that much was obvious. And that was all that mattered.
“All right,” I said to the group. “Here’s what I’m thinking.”
…
I watched cars line up for the gala at Thomas’s country estate—a large mansion sitting on a great deal of land outside the city—from our vantage point several hundred feet away from the front entrance, doing my best to ignore Ava’s nervous movements behind me. Through binoculars, I could see women in long, shining dresses and their penguin-suit-wearing dates piling out of cars to enter the party. With the smell of freshly cut grass in the air and cicadas humming, the evening didn’t feel deadly.
At least Ava was here with me. Not inside, with Thomas. Although the demon was expecting her to show any minute. She’d called him and agreed to be his date, but had made up an excuse so she had to meet him here. She’d told him she’d be a little late—that way he wouldn’t be suspicious when she didn’t arrive on time.
On the back side of the home, foliage provided needed cover so the rest of the Venators could get much closer than I could. I was stuck on this side, to watch and report. Part of my agreement with Franklin so that he’d call in backup to make this work. I hated it, but I was back here for a reason. Franklin didn’t trust me not to go apeshit when I saw Hugh again.
Franklin probably had a point.
“I don’t understand why we can’t get closer,” Ava whispered. “I mean, we’re runed-up, right? I can’t see anything from here.”
“You shouldn’t even be here. And runes don’t make you the Invisible Woman, which is too bad, because a force field would come in handy.”
“Oh, jeez. You were a comic book nerd before you were a badass demon hunter, weren’t you?”
I ignored her jibe and the flashes of memory it evoked. How quickly life could change. “Runes make people’s eyes slide over you, but they don’t mean people or demons can’t see you—especially if you’re out in the open. We use them mainly so demons can’t sense us.” I handed her the binoculars so she could look. Not that there was much to look at. Just partygoers getting out of their fancy cars.
What I really wanted to do was toss her over my shoulder and drag her back to the motel room. Tie her up to make sure she stayed safe. But Franklin had thought she might come in handy and had encouraged her to come. Plus, she’d threatened to follow us, and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to really tie her up.
“They can do that? The demons, I mean.”
“Yes.” I touched my earpiece and waited for the signal, my muscles tense. I ached to get back there, where the action was almost guaranteed to be. I deserved to be part of it, dammit. Hugh was mine.
“So how exactly are you guys going to get them to come out without getting the attention of the regular, non-demon people, too?”
Loud static blared in my ear, then Franklin said he was ready.
“Pain. They can feel the release of energy that comes from great pain.”
“So, what? You guys have a spell or something that will mimic that? Draw them out?”
“Or something.” Not a spell, but a Venator willing to grit his teeth and bear some pain to bait the trap.
I didn’t like it, but I’d rejected the only other viable idea on the table—Ava going in and trying to lure at least one of them outside. Risking her wasn’t an option. A reality that seemed to irritate her to no end.
Loud noises filled my ear from the earpiece that connected the Venator group.
“God, what’s going on over there?” Ava muttered, pressing her own earpiece tighter to her head.
I shook my head mutely, trying to make some sense out of the yells on the other end of the earpiece. Adrenaline rushed through me, mixing with my tattoos and making it almost impossible for me to stay still. I couldn’t understand the garbled words and noises on the other end, but one thing was certain: it didn’t sound good.
“We need to get over there,” Ava said.
“I need to go over there. You need to stay put.” I gripped her shoulders, and her face showed equal parts worry and determination. “I have to know that you’re safe.”
“There’s no way for you to know that if you leave me here, is there? I could get swallowed by the shadows the second you turn your
back.” As the possibility of that hit her, her eyes darted toward the darkness for a second. “I’ll stay out of the thick of it.”
Shit. She was right. “Fine. But you stay back. And if it looks bad, get the hell out of there. No waiting for me. No trying to play hero.”
She pulled me into a tight hug and I took a deep breath, calming at the smell of her shampoo.
“Don’t worry. I’m not a hero. I’ll run like a rabbit and leave the lot of you to die the second shit gets serious,” she said.
Yeah, right, little liar. But I didn’t have time to argue with her, so instead I grunted and released her. Together we jogged to the back of the house. We kept to the outskirts of the area, as far away from the house as we could get without being swallowed up by the forest.
The scene that greeted us when we came round to the back of the house was worse than I’d guessed. Franklin knelt with a hand braced against the ground. Blood dribbled from his mouth, staining the grass beneath him. He shouted what sounded like gibberish, but I had learned enough rudimentary Latin to know an exorcism spell when he heard one.
He was trying to banish the shadowmen. The four shadowmen. Fuck. More than we’d expected. We’d thought three, at worst. That Franklin was working direct, vocal magic spoke volumes about our chance of success. Vocal magic wasn’t just tricky—it required massive amounts of power. And unlike the runes Venators usually restricted ourselves to, vocal magic didn’t tug slowly at energy—it wrenched it from the caster. Franklin was risking his life.
“Oh my God,” Ava gasped.
“Get to the wooded area back there.” I didn’t have time to offer her false reassurances. To make promises I couldn’t keep. The lifeblood pouring from Franklin was brought from his own efforts. The price paid for a particularly powerful and nasty bit of magic.
Walker fought two of the shadowmen, taking turns between flashing them with the near daylight-bright LED light she carried and slashing them with a knife. They wouldn’t die easily, but every bit of energy drained from them came from their source—their demon masters.
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