by Julie Kenner
“Father,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I was with Stuart, and—”
“You must not worry, child,” he said, switching to English for my benefit. “I understand.”
“So what can you tell me? Who’s after me?” I moved across the room and shut the door. If I knew Stuart, he was on his hands and knees investigating the plumbing. But even so, I didn’t want to risk him searching me out and getting an earful. “And what’s the Sword of Caelum?”
“I am afraid my conclusions are not good, Katherine. You have many enemies, including one from whom you pulled the key to invincibility at the last possible moment. It is he—the Destroyer—who is seeking his vengeance.”
I shivered, fighting a whimper as memories flooded through me. My dorm-mate, Cami. The catacombs. And that mysterious ice-cold fire.
I’d been fifteen, newly partnered with Eric, and we had set out with five other teams into a crypt that snaked deep beneath the ancient city of Rome.
We’d come with a single purpose—to stop one of hell’s vilest demons, Abaddon. He wasn’t known as the Destroyer for nothing, and on that day, he’d been gearing up for a ritual that would allow him to walk the earth indefinitely in his true demonic state, corporeal and damned near indestructible. That kind of situation is what we in the demon-hunting biz like to call a Very Bad Thing.
As a general rule, demons don’t often appear in their true form. Hollywood’s representation of demons as snarling, scaly, fanged-and-yellow-eyed killing machines might be dead on the money, but it’s not a form that a demon can sustain for any length of time outside hell.
As Level Two Demon Hunters with Forza Scura, a secret arm of the Vatican, we had the job of making sure this particular demon never got the chance to alter that status quo.
We won that day. But at a heavy price.
“Katherine?” Father said gently, his voice low and full of understanding. “You are still there?”
I blinked, forcing away the image of the demon slicing through Cami’s neck, the way her head lolled forward in defeat. “Yes,” I whispered. “I’m here.”
“I am sorry to be the one to bring such memories to the forefront. But—”
“I need to know,” I said, dully. “I have to know what I’m up against.”
“There is power in your memories,” he said. “Even the painful ones. I would not have you—” He cut off abruptly, and I heard the rattle of the phone as he shifted the handset in his hand, then muffled voices in the distance. “Katherine,” he said, his voice sharp and curt as he came back on the line. “Forgive me. I will be but a moment.”
“Yes, of course. All right.” I drew in a breath, not certain I wanted to be quite so alone with my memories, but not willing to ask him to stay with me on the phone. I was no longer six, after all, and Father no longer tucked me in and promised I would be safe in my bed.
The truth was, I knew that I was never really safe. I think I’d known as much all my life, but that one basic truth had really hit home during that one mission. We’d lost ten Hunters on that vile day, and it was only by a miracle that Eric and I hadn’t joined the body count. These weren’t memories I wanted to revisit, and yet I couldn’t prevent them. Everything came rushing back as I fell pell-mell into the past. The terror. The absolute certainty of knowing that we were going to die. That there was no way out.
But we had gotten out. We’d survived.
To this day, I didn’t understand why.
The mission had Started typically enough—creeping along the dark, dank catacombs, searching for a demonic lair. We’d separated from the others, each of the six teams traveling down different paths, looking for the secret entrance to Abaddon’s ritual chamber. We carried our weapons and something else—a shard of the blooded stone of Golgotha. The relic—retrieved for this mission from the deepest recesses of the Vatican archives—had been broken into six pieces centuries before. For hundreds of years, each had lain innocuously beside its brothers in a velvet-lined box of carved ash.
According to centuries-old lore, brought together, the reconfigured blooded stone had the power to banish Abaddon to the darkest chambers of hell, foiling for eternity his efforts to find form. Assuming, of course, that we could get close enough to Abaddon to use them. After hours of creeping through the catacombs, I remember thinking that our chance might never come.
Like so many ancient catacombs, these had been crafted to house the dead in a time when cemeteries had overflowed and disease had oozed back toward the cities. The archways, walls, and ceiling were lined with skulls, femurs, and hip bones. A macabre piece of architecture, but practical at the time.
Together, Eric and I had followed one tunnel until it hit a dead end, staying only one step ahead of a horde of approaching demons coming not for us, but to join Abaddon in his ritual. Their purpose didn’t matter, though. If they stumbled across us on their way to their destination, the result would be the same, and any element of surprise we might take with us into the ritual chamber would be lost.
Trapped there, we danced the beams of our flashlights over the ancient bones as we frantically searched for a way out that didn’t require us to go back the way we came. Louder and louder, the footsteps grew, and the intensity of our search ratcheted up until we finally located a skull embedded in the wall about five feet up from the ground. The bone had darkened, presumably from a combination of age and the soot from torches that had once been used by monks traveling these winding underground roads.
I could still remember how I peered closely at the mishmash of scrapes and gouges. Then, as if I were looking at one of those optical illusion drawings, the lines seemed to shift, all unnecessary marks fading into the background as the scratches formed a now-familiar pattern of interconnecting circles topped and underscored with wavy lines suggesting a hieroglyphic letter—the symbol of Abaddon.
But what to do with it?
Behind us, the demons drew closer, the light from their torches flickering in the tunnel and telegraphing their imminent arrival.
“Maybe it works like a doorknob,” I said, shining my flashlight on a crusty sliver of metal that protruded from the nasal cavity of the nameless skull. I peered closer. A razor-sharp piece of iron had been embedded in the skull, set to protrude by about one centimeter. The crusty substance was—
“Ceremonial blood,” Eric said, flicking a bit of the dried, red stain with the end of his dagger.
Behind us, the demon hordes continued to approach. We were in a room with no way out, trapped and waiting there, all nice and pretty like a little Hunter prize for the demonic masses. We needed out of that room, and as far as I could tell, the only way out was through that wall.
“Here goes nothing,” I said, then slammed my left palm against the jagged piece of metal. I remember ignoring the way my palm burned and throbbed, interested only in the wall. I don’t know what I’d expected to happen, but I had definitely expected something. All I got, though, was a big fat nothing.
“There’s more,” Eric had said. “An incantation, maybe.”
"I could try ’pretty please,’” I said testily, "but I don’t think it’ll work.”
Eric shot me a withering look. “Try pressing your palm against the mark.”
I glanced at him, then quickly looked away, not wanting him to see my hesitation. I was being foolish and superstitious. I’d heard story after story about Demon Hunters in the throes of battle. I’d drafted fifty-page research papers on battle techniques. I’d read biographies of the most famous Hunters going back to the Middle Ages, even before.
And in all of that, the only time I ever got queasy was when a Hunter’s soul was tainted. When faith faltered and a hint of darkness edged inside. That was the stuff of my nightmares, the images that had me waking up even before matins.
The thoughts that haunted me still today.
And even though I knew—really knew—that no demon was going to enter through my blood simply by touching the mark of the beast that I intended to battle
, I couldn’t stop the foolish, cold chill that ran through me.
Even so, I did it. I tempted fate, ignored my superstitions, and pressed my hand against the demon’s mark.
All that—and not a damn thing happened. Except, of course, the demons drew closer.
We turned to fight, and it was only an afterthought that made me suggest that we try Eric’s blood, too. I don’t really know what I expected, but he sliced his palm as I had, then cupped it over the skull etched with the mark of the demon. For a moment, nothing changed. Then a low groan split the silence, as if the world itself were being rent apart.
The wall was dissolving—the portal into the ritual chamber opening.
Not fast enough, however. Because before we could enter the chamber and stop Abaddon, we had to battle the approaching demonic minions. And that, I have to say, had been one hell of a fight. With two against dozens, we’d come near to being killed more times than I could count. More than that, we’d lost the stone when it had tumbled into a dark crevice that only moments before had swallowed a demon whole.
The loss of the demon had been a cause to celebrate. The loss of the stone? Not so much.
Though we’d lost our primary weapon, we were determined to soldier on, convinced by youth or hubris that we would somehow find a way to prevail. Fear and fury drove us, and somehow, we managed to battle our way through the now-open doorway. And the moment we stepped over the threshold, we were free. The demons didn’t follow, instead waiting like lap-dogs on the other side, watching for their master.
Watching and waiting for him to come and destroy us. Or, at least, to try.
Six
I Shivered, Standing by the window in that dimly lit room overlooking the San Diablo cemetery. I hugged myself, the walls of the Greatwater mansion seeming to press in against me as much as the memories.
I could still recall the damp chill that filled the air, along with the orange glow that permeated the cavernous room into which Eric and I had stepped. The glow came from seven pedestals that lined the circular room, each topped with a bowl of oil, burning bright. A huge brass urn stood in the center of room, with six heavy chains hanging immediately above it. Of the chains, four disappeared into the urn’s depths. The last two hung about three inches above the lip of the vessel.
An ornate tapestry hung against the far wall, the intricate weaving depicting the serpent tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden. As I watched, the tapestry was ripped apart, the two halves flung aside by an invisible force to reveal Cami, naked and bound to a post. At her feet, nine huddled forms lay lifeless on the floor. Our friends and colleagues, now dead.
Cami looked up, saw us, and uttered a single word: “Run!”
And that was all she said. As I watched, horrified, a tall, skeleton-like man stepped from the shadows behind her, took a knife, and sliced through her jugular.
I reacted instinctively, as did Eric, and our knives flew across the room in tandem, each burying itself deep in the demon’s eyes.
The body sagged to the floor, the demonic essence departing. I raced toward Cami, my face hot with tears, even as Eric called for me to stop. I clung to her body, still strapped to the post, but there was nothing I could do. She was dead, her blood staining her clothes, the stone floor, and me.
“Get away from her,” Eric said, his voice as taut as a bow. “Right now.”
I jumped back, but it was too late. Cami’s arms broke their binds, then clutched me with superhuman strength. She moved away from the post, then slammed me against it, twisting my own arms behind me and binding me fast with the frayed ropes.
“No,” Eric cried, racing forward. But Cami’s body turned and held out a hand. That was all it took, and Eric went flying backwards. I’d never seen anything like that, and I gasped as he landed hard in front of the archway. Behind him, the demon horde cackled, but made no move to enter the room or attack.
“Oh yes,” Cami said, her voice deep and unnatural. “In human form, the ritual has thus far endowed me with the ability to control the elements. In my own form, though, I will have so much more power.”
She turned to me, then actually winked. “In other words, my pretty little one, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
I struggled uselessly against my bindings, my eyes on Eric. He looked wild-eyed around the room, his gaze fierce, and I saw in his eyes an almost suicidal need to attack this demon, this thief who had taken our friends, and would soon take me. My hands were bound, so I couldn’t flash any of our usual signals, but I blinked furiously, praying he was paying attention. Praying he realized the message I was sending in old Morse code. Stop. Wait. Think.
“Now, you two,” Cami’s body said, this time in her familiar voice, only slightly wetter because of the blood pouring out of her neck. A human could not have spoken at all. For that matter, most demons taking a human form couldn’t manage. This demon, however . . .
I was beginning to learn that this demon was different from others I’d battled. And that realization sat hard in my gut, a heavy knot of fear.
“Welcome to our little party,” the demon gurgled. “I’m so glad you could come. You’re late, of course. Everyone else is all partied out.”
She smiled at me as blood spurted from the wound in her neck.
“Don’t look at me like that, my darling. I so hoped we could stay friends.”
I turned my face away, disgusted when she drew her tongue down the side of my face and then laughed, the sound wet and gurgly.
“It’s not Cami,” Eric said, and though I knew that—I truly did—I still appreciated the reminder. It’s one thing to understand how demons work. It’s another to face their tricks and taunts up close and personal.
“Who are you?” I said. I feared I knew, but I wanted confirmation.
“I?” Cami asked, pointing to herself with an expression of utter innocence. “I am who you seek. Who you came to defeat.” She smiled then, and my heart broke a little more. Cami was dead. My friend was gone. And this thing remained.
It was a crime. A horrific assault on Cami’s body, but I reminded myself that it was only her body. Cami’s soul had left as soon as death had taken her. At the same time, Abaddon had slipped from the ether into her still form, filling her limbs once again with life.
A puddle of blood pooled at her feet, and I knew the body would be useless to the demon soon. Demons invaded the dead—it was their most common modus operandi. But where the human’s death was caused by a mortal wound, the demon’s squatter’s rights lasted only as long as the body itself could remain alive. Here, with nothing to stanch the flow, Abaddon would be kicked back to the ether once sufficient blood drained from Cami’s body.
Somehow, the short duration of Abaddon’s lease on Cami’s body didn’t make me feel any better.
“Do not mourn, little one,” Abaddon sneered. “I think perhaps your Cami would have liked it this way, sharing her body with me even for so fleeting an instant. Surely she did not have faith enough to keep me from taking refuge within these long, lithe limbs.” He stroked her body as he talked, moving his hands as if Cami were pleasuring herself. “Nor, for that matter, did any of your ilk.”
“Bastard,” I said.
“Cami’s faith was strong,” Eric said, his voice loud and firm, yet clearly meant for me. A demon can’t possess the body of the faithful. As the human soul leaves the body, it fights. And those with faith have the strength to ward off the evil. “If her faith wavered at the end, that only means she’s human.”
“It means she was stupid,” Abaddon said. “Foolish and unprepared, not to mention uninformed. Much like you two,” he added in a sickly polite voice that seemed to come not from Cami but from the room itself.
In front of us, Abaddon pressed his hand against Cami’s jugular, temporarily stanching the flow of blood. As he did, I saw what he held there—the shard of the Golgotha stone.
I whipped around, my gaze going first to the chains overhanging the urn and then to Eric, his expression as confuse
d as I felt. His eyes still searched the room, though, and I realized he’d gotten my earlier message. He was waiting and watching, searching for a way out of this mess.
I hoped he found it soon. Not only was I out of ideas, but even if I had a brilliant one, I wasn’t exactly in a position to implement it.
“You really must insist that your researchers do a better job,” Abaddon said, continuing to speak in that haughty, affected tone. “You’re right, boy. Her faith never wavered.”
The demon took a step closer, eyes fixed on mine. “Does that make you feel better?” Abaddon said, now in Cami’s voice, the tone simpering. “Make you feel all safe and secure knowing Cami kept her faith until the end? Faith in what, Kate? Oh, yes, I know your name. Katherine Andrews, so eager. So ambitious. Will you retain your faith when I slit your throat? And I will kill you. You know you have no chance. What use can faith possibly be against me when I have command of all the dark power of the occult? Forces powerful enough to circumvent faith and find a stronghold in your young, lithe limbs.”
“The Golgotha stone,” I said. “Forza was wrong. It doesn’t prevent your ritual—”
“Oh, no, child. Your pitiful leaders were right. The blooded stone of Golgotha earns both my respect and my fear. But Kate, my darling little poppet, neither you nor yours have the stone. This stone,” he said, holding the shard high above his head, “has no name. How fortunate I learned of its existence. How fortunate it came into the light so that I could draw it back with me into the dark.”
The demon spread his arms wide, as if inviting me close for a hug. I managed to hurl a wad of spit right at the demon’s feet.
“So sullen,” the demon said, again in Cami’s voice. “Katie, I thought we were friends. Best buddies.”
She moved away, finally reaching the urn. She released her hold on the wound in her neck, and allowed Cami’s blood to spill into the vessel. Then she slipped the shard into the last link of the fifth chain. Once it was secured, she gave the chain a tug and it slowly descended until the stone was no longer visible.