Demon Dawn (Shadow Detective Book 4)

by William Massa

  I looked down at my arm and instinctively snatched at the winged creature that had dared to take a bite out of me. I glared at the writhing, winged serpent in my hand, blood dripping down rows of piranha-like teeth. I vaguely recalled that winged serpents were a symbol of the gods of Egypt. They occurred in other cultures, too, including tales of the legendary continent Atlantis. (I have a few tales to tell about that place, but that’s a story for another time.) This was my first direct experience with such a creature, and hopefully the last time I’d come across one of these nasty buggers.

  The beast snarled, trying to bite my hand, and I sliced off its head with my demon silver blade before tossing the body aside. The air vibrated, alive with shrieking motion, almost as if I had stepped into a cave full of bats. A mass of ravenous winged serpents cut through the air, rushing straight at me to avenge their comrade. Fantastic! One winged piranha snake had been a nasty surprise; a swarm would overwhelm me by sheer force of numbers. As the swirling cloud of death descended on me, duking it out with a mummy suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

  Instincts took over as I leapt into the open sarcophagus that had birthed this madness. As soon as I was inside the box, I pulled the heavy lid over me. The sarcophagus shook, but the winged beasts were unable to breach the heavy lid.

  Talk about irony. The mummy’s original prison had become my refuge. The winged serpents kept slamming into the sarcophagus in a steady, focused bombardment. I could almost sense the winged creatures’ frustration. Their human prey was so close yet out of reach. For the moment, I was safe. But I had merely bought myself a few minutes. All too soon, the air would run out inside the coffin, and I’d be forced to open the lid. And then there was the mater of the SWAT guys in the next room. How long before the winged serpents would turn their deadly attention to them? I had to find a way to fight back.

  My mind worked furiously in the dark coffin as I ran through all my options. I was still trying to put together a plan of attack when the barrage of the flying serpents ceased. After the steady patter of their bodies tearing into the sarcophagus, the silence was unnerving. Who or what could call off the winged attack? There was only one possible explanation. Khafet had recovered sufficiently to deal with me himself.

  Almost as if the reawakened pharaoh could sense my thoughts, the lid was torn off and the looming figure of the decaying mummy leered down on me. He looked pissed--after all, I had appropriated his final resting place.

  “Sorry, bud, your winged friends left me no choice,” I muttered. A beat later, his bony fingers closed around my neck and lifted me into the air. The mummy had to be about seven feet tall, a giant among men.

  I struggled to breathe. The mummy’s iron grip was even worse than the animated bandages. The world slipped away, grew hazy.

  Somewhere in the darkness I caught glimpses of the winged serpents. The bat-like monsters were perched on coffins, display cases and mummies as if they were reenacting a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds. These creatures were merely waiting for their master’s command to strike. To kill. And in the darkness, I suddenly spotted another figure.

  For a beat, I thought I was hallucinating from lack of oxygen. Lurking in the long shadow was my old buddy Cyon, the demon I had accidentally released when I was searching for Jane Archer a month earlier. He stood at the far end of the exhibit floor, his sharp-boned features unreadable.

  What was the demon doing here?

  Cyon had saved my life last time we worked together and helped me send the vampire-demon Marek straight to Hell. I had thought that was the end to our uneasy alliance. Had he come here to gloat as the mummy killed me?

  To my surprise, the demon briskly strode toward the mummy, the winged serpents watching him in stony silence. As he advanced, he snatched a dagger from one of the display cases.

  The mummy’s grip on my throat weakened, as if he sensed the approaching danger from behind. The brief reprieve allowed my fingers to close around my silver knife. With a furious cry, my own blade came up, and I rammed it with all my strength into the mummy’s throat.

  The creature let go of me, and I landed on the floor. I gasped and massaged my bruised neck as the mummy reared back. Bandaged hands reached for the knife sticking from its throat. A bestial roar filled the display floor as the Egyptian sorcerer pulled my silver dagger from its desiccated flesh. At the same time, the winged serpents sprang into motion.

  My gaze combed the display area and found my glowing green pistol. It was in the same place where I’d dropped it earlier when the winged serpents first attacked me.

  I rolled toward the gun. The sorcerer had to sense what I was up to. It cried out in the ancient tongue of Egypt, a language few had ever heard spoken aloud.

  Ignoring the cloud of snapping mouths rushing toward me, my hand found Hellseeker and brought it up in a fluid motion. I squeezed the trigger the same moment the winged serpents slammed into me. I was aiming for the mummy’s head–headshots tended to be effective against zombies and all sorts of revenants—but it was hard to aim through the winged brood.

  My first shot went wide, but the second found its target. A cyclopean third eye sprouted from the sorcerer’s bandaged skull, the bullet stopping the resurrected pharaoh in its tracks.

  As a wave of the bat-serpents engulfed me, Khafet pitched forward like a felled tree. I collapsed a moment later, crumpling under the winged onslaught. Razor sharp teeth were coming at me from all directions.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw the mummy land head-first on the floor and explode into a cloud of dust particles. The weight of the serpents suddenly quadrupled, and I struggled to heave them aside. Lifeless statues rolled off my body. The serpents had turned to stone. Khafet’s unholy black magic must have brought the displays to life in the first place, and with the sorcerer defeated, the mass of winged serpents had reverted back into statues. Made perfect sense. At least in my crazy world.

  For a moment I just lay there, my eyes gazing at the ceiling. A shadow swept overhead, and I saw Cyon looking down at me. There was a hint of a smile on the demon’s long face. In the distance, I heard the SWAT team approaching. I turned to look, and when I glanced back at Cyon, the demon was gone.

  3

  My mind was still reeling as I drove back to the loft. Had Cyon truly interceded on my behalf during my battle with the resurrected mummy? If so, why put in a sudden appearance only to follow it up with another disappearing act? What game was Cyon playing? More importantly, what did he want from me?

  About a month ago I had accidentally released the demon from the magical prison Marek, an unholy vampire whose diet of demon blood had turned him into something even more monstrous, had placed him in. We’d joined forces to defeat our common enemy. If it hadn’t been for the demon, I would have followed Marek straight into Hell. After saving my life, he’d walked away.

  We’re even now. The next time our paths cross…

  Those had been the demon’s ominous final words after our battle with the master-vampire. So why return now and help me defeat a resurrected Egyptian sorcerer? A demon working on the side of the angels, so to speak, was unheard of in my line of work. He had to be working another angle…but what?

  I pushed all my whirling questions aside as I returned to the warehouse loft that doubled as my home and base of operation. I never told Skulick about how I’d teamed up with the demon, and I didn’t want my partner to find out that I was holding something back from him. He had an uncanny way of sensing what was on my mind. I guess that’s what had made him such a great detective. Now, it just made him a pain in the ass to live with.

  I should have just come clean and told Skulick the full story. After all, I’d resorted to such a desperate measure to save his skin. But I doubted that it would make a difference to him. I was in no mood to be scolded for my behavior, especially not by a man who’d voluntarily consumed the blood of a vampire. Who in their right mind transforms themselves into a creature of the night? Skulick was desperate and had tried to leve
l the playing field, but still. His plan had backfired in a pretty spectacular fashion.

  As I stepped into the loft, I was surprised to find the bank of computer monitors abandoned. Where was my partner?

  My hand reached for Hellseeker as I prowled into the warehouse. I found him nearby in his wheelchair in front of a window, staring out at the Cursed City. The sight of the forlorn figure peering out at the rainy urban sprawl made my heart sink.

  The battle with Marek had changed all of us. Becoming a vampire, albeit temporarily, had deeply impacted Skulick. The angel blood had restored my partner’s humanity, but he wasn’t quite the man he used to be. Before Marek’s defeat, Skulick had spent every waking moment combing newsfeeds and police bands, determined to battle the forces of darkness at every turn. Nowadays, it felt like he had stopped caring about our war, almost as if Marek’s death had robbed him of his drive to carry on the fight.

  “How are things looking out there?“ I asked.

  Skulick stirred and looked disoriented for a beat, my words pulling him out of whatever daydream had occupied his mind. He looked up at me, his face a giant question mark, and I knew he hadn’t checked the feeds in hours.

  “How did it go at the museum?” It was a perfunctory question lacking any real interest.

  “Let’s just say the mummy case is all wrapped up.” My partner didn’t even crack a smile at my intentionally groan- inducing pun. He merely nodded absent-mindedly and didn’t probe for more information. This was way out of character. Skulick normally wanted me to spill every single detail.

  “Alright, I’m exhausted. Just going to take it easy,” I said, realizing that this one-sided conversation was depressing me. If you need something, just give me shout.”

  Skulick nodded, his attention shifting back to the swirling patterns of rain water pearling down the window. Shit, I hated seeing my partner like this. I prayed he would snap out of it soon. I never thought I would ever say this, but I kinda missed the cantankerous, critical Skulick who did his best to keep me on my feet. The old man had basically raised me after a demon killed my parents, and he was more than just my partner. He was family.

  I stepped into the kitchen, snatched myself a beer and headed for our occult library. I was dead tired and felt ragged, but I figured a beer and some light reading—perhaps some arcane tome on ritualistic murder —would knock me out cold and guarantee a good night’s sleep. Skulick didn’t comment on the beer. He didn’t even seem to notice that I’d left the room.

  It was another reminder that Skulick wasn’t his old self. But then again, I too had changed in the wake of my battle with Marek. I still allowed myself a drink or two after battling some nightmare creature—a man needs to decompress somehow—but I avoided dive bars, with their cheap booze and sleazy bar flies, at all cost. Instead of wasting my time in some rundown watering hole, I spent most my free time studying up on the occult, deepening my knowledge and expertise. For years, I’d relied on my partner for his uncanny knowledge on the subject. Almost losing Skulick made me realize that one day, hopefully far in the future, I would have to face the forces of darkness on my own.

  It was long past time I started getting prepared for that day. I needed to be able to do this on my own. I’d always known that one day I’d no longer be able to rely on Skulick to have all the answers, but I’d never thought it would come to pass like this. After the fall that had broken his back, I’d become all too aware of how fragile my mentor was. His role in the fight had changed…but until now, he had never given up.

  As expected, I barely made it past a few pages of the Latin door stopper before the mind-meltingly boring text and the beer lulled me into a deep sleep.

  I had no idea how many hours I’d been out when I awoke in the library, the massive volume on witchcraft propped up on my chest. I groggily heaved the book onto the shelf and shuffled toward my bedroom located on the other end of the loft before making an abrupt detour toward the kitchen. It was almost four a.m. and I craved coffee. Too bad a cup of joe at this hour would keep me up the rest of the night.

  Deciding I needed something to occupy my mind, I headed for Skulick’s desk. Hopefully, listening to the feeds would put me back to sleep in no time. To my surprise, Skulick had beat me to it. My mentor faced the bank of flickering monitors, as awake as myself. This is where my partner belonged. The Cursed City needed both its guardians. I took a seat next to him, the screens painting us a spectral green.

  “What’s new?” I asked.

  “Check it out for yourself,” he said grimly. And suddenly I was on edge. Skulick’s earlier indifference had been replaced with a grave intensity which could mean only one thing: trouble of the supernatural sort was brewing.

  I quickly scanned the headlines, my mood darkening with each new story Skulick presented me with. The headlines announced that a number of bodies had been found with stakes buried in their chests. The blood rain had turned many of Marek’s vampire brood back to humans but, some of his undead followers had been too old to be affected by the angel blood.

  Skulick accessed a police database and revealed autopsy pictures of the staked victims. Their mummified features stared back at me from the monitors, an eerie, disturbing vision of vampire death. These weren’t innocent victims that some crazed maniac had targeted. These were real vampires. And that meant only one thing: there was a new monster hunter in town who had declared war against the remaining vamps.

  And judging by the numerous eyewitness reports that placed a hooded, dark-haired female near the scene of the killings, I had a dark suspicion who this new monster hunter might be.

  4

  I knocked on the door of Archer’s apartment and waited for her to let me in. It was five in the morning and I knew she had to be home.

  Unless she’s still stalking the streets, a voice inside me piped up.

  If the battle with vampire-demon Marek had changed Skulick and me, it had completely transformed Archer. She was still on leave from the force, but I doubted if she’d ever return to her duties as a homicide detective. Unlike Skulick, Archer had taken at least one life we knew of while she was a monster. Even worse, the video of the murder was out there on the internet. The evidence of her misdeeds would live on the web forever. It had been pulled from all the big websites, but mirror sites kept virally spreading the clip. There was no escaping what she’d done. No way for her to return to her old life as one of the city’s sharpest detectives.

  No way for her to go back to being the Jane Archer I had fallen in love with.

  We’d barely spoken since the blood rain had reversed the effects of her vampirism. Before her transformation, I had avoided Archer after our one night together, afraid of the depth of my feelings for her. Her reasons for dodging me were a bit different, but I didn’t blame her. I was the one who’d given her the vampire blood in the first place. Sure, I’d done it to save her life—and, to be fair, I’d been under the influence of the cursed chalice’s dark magic at the time—but that wasn’t the kind of thing that was easy to forgive.

  Maybe it wasn’t even possible for Archer to forgive me.

  But the reports of the vampire killings had forced my hand. It made sense that Archer would try to work things through using her police training. She’d always been a direct, action-oriented woman. But unlike Skulick and me, Archer wasn’t a trained monster hunter. She might think herself capable of facing the creatures of the night, but this was no business for amateurs.

  No one answered the door, and I became convinced that Archer was indeed out there, roaming the early morning streets for vamps. Should I wait for her to return? And what would I say when I did come face to face with her? How have you been, sweetie, killing any bloodsuckers of late? Most likely she would deny her involvement and tell me to buzz off. Hell, she might even punch me. After all, I was the guy who had ruined her life.

  Still, I needed need to make certain that she was the one behind this recent string of vampire killings. I hated myself for what I did next
, but I before I could even play out all the potential consequences of what I was doing, I had picked the lock of her apartment. The door snapped open and I tiptoed into her shadow-drenched dwelling.

  The kitchen was filled with unwashed dishes and discarded takeout containers, a faint stench of rotting food in the air. A mountain of pizza boxes spilled out of the trash cans. It looked like the lair of a deeply depressed woman. But that didn’t necessarily mean she was hunting creatures of the night. Right?

  My eyes swept the place and I found her desk, which now resembled a miniaturized version of Skulick’s command desk. TVs and computers had been linked up, and news stories scrolled across the screens. A city map covered one side of the wall, pins growing from the rougher neighborhoods. My gut told me that each pin indicated a vampire kill.

  Moving deeper into her place, I spotted a collection of firearms and a crossbow, not to mention a collection of wooden stakes that would have made Van Helsing jealous. Archer seemed to have fully committed herself to her new mission at the exclusion of everything else.

  God, sometimes I hated being right.

  “Raven, you just took being a stalker to the next level.”

  My blood turned to ice at the sound of Archer’s voice. Being caught in the act of breaking into her apartment suddenly felt far scarier than facing a crazed zombie or blood-thirsty vampire.

  I slowly turned toward Archer and forced myself not to flinch under her withering gaze. I barely remembered the days when those beautiful eyes had looked at me with anything other than scorn. Whatever we’d had—whatever we might have had—was lost. Now there was only vengeance.

  She was decked out in a leather jacket, a solid collar protecting her throat from fangs. She carried a leather case in her hand, and I figured it probably contained crossbows and stakes.