Hellsbane 01 - Hellsbane

by Paige Cuccaro

“There’s an admission coupon in there. Everyone who attends one of his sermons gets a brochure to spread the word,” Kyle said. He wagged a finger at the paper. “You can have it.”

  “Thanks,” I said, folding the brochure along the same worn seams and shoving it into the back pocket of my jeans. It might come in handy if I couldn’t find the guy who’d promised to get Tommy into the sermon.

  I sighed and took Sherry’s hand again, refocusing on the task. I was sure with their strong-willed determination and the powerful medical regimen they’d committed to, Sherry would eventually get pregnant. That was as close to predicting the future as I’d ever been able to do. I smiled and opened my mouth, ready to give my reading, when another voice tickled through my mind.

  The power is in me. I believe. The power is in me. The voice was softer, barely there, like a shadow following so close behind Sherry’s thoughts it was nearly indistinguishable. Every notion flittering through Sherry’s mind echoed in the thoughts of this other voice. As though this other mind shared every contemplation and emotion Sherry had, knew and thought only what passed through Sherry’s mind first.

  My gaze dropped to her flat belly. A tiny little voice, an unfinished mind, cocooned in silence except for the thoughts and feelings of the one that surrounded it. Holy Cow. “You’re already pregnant.”

  Sherry’s thoughts stopped cold and with it the echo of her baby’s thoughts. Her smile trembled at the corners of her mouth before taking hold.

  “I am?” she said.

  I am? her baby’s thoughts echoed.

  “I hear…” I stopped myself before I spoke crazy out loud. “I mean, I get the strong sense of another life joining yours and Kyle’s. And I believe that life is already with you.”

  Sherry turned to Kyle, his eyes wide, his chest stiff with his held breath. “I’m pregnant,” she said. “We’re pregnant.”

  I’m pregnant. We’re pregnant, the wee voice mimicked. The sweet sound of it puttered through my mind, and I closed the door between us.

  Sherry laughed, tentatively at first, before the emotion rolled through her body like a runaway snowball, shaking her slight frame and infecting Kyle. His breath exploded, his laugh bursting out of him like a champagne cork. They threw themselves together, hugging and kissing, utterly confident I was right.

  I was.

  How powerful was this ability? I’d tapped into the mind of a person who was barely a person at all. What more could I do? How far was my reach? The possibility sent a cold rush across the back of my neck. I shivered. A blanket of goose bumps tingled over my skin.

  My powers were only a shadow of what the angels could do. These powers were new to me, mostly uncharted, untested. But there were illorum out there who’d been at this for decades, maybe longer. Who knew how much more there was to discover, how much more those seasoned illorum had learned?

  The Fallen had sinned and continued to do so, but we, their children, were their most devastating offense. What kind of monsters had the Fallen unleashed on the world? Our fathers had to be stopped.

  “I have to go,” I said, turning my back to the couple and heading around the front of my Jeep. “It was nice meeting you. Good luck with the baby.”

  A warm breeze swept across the lot as I opened the Jeep’s metal-framed door. The heady scent of gasoline, mixed with the teasing aroma of French Fries and burgers from the neighboring fast food joint, flavored the summer air. But underneath, like decaying wood beneath the pretty plastic siding on a house, was the rancid odor of rotting eggs, ruining the sun-warmed scene.

  “Brimstone.” I scanned the lot again, my vision touching for a moment on the two cars parked near a pay phone next to the exit. Two people sat in the front seat of one, though I couldn’t make out details. The other car looked empty. There were a few others parked in front of the store and at the far pump. Nothing out of the ordinary. I shifted my gaze to the street, to the people walking by, to the traffic stopping at the light, then driving on.

  The hairs at the nape of my neck tickled with the feel of being watched. My heart thumped faster and faster by the second. The demons were close, whether I could see them or not. The risk of witnesses was all that stopped them. I was relatively safe in the busy convenience store lot, but cowering by the gas pumps wouldn’t get me any closer to Tommy’s Fallen. I had to get home, where I could safely surf the Internet for answers.

  I climbed in behind the wheel and slammed the lightweight door closed. Kyle and Sherry waved as I pulled onto the main road.

  No one was following; I was almost positive. Glancing back between the long strips of electrician’s tape that patched the slices in my back window, I kept an eye on the cars leaving the lot behind me. None pulled out after I passed. None of the cars nearing behind me looked like any I’d noticed in the gas station. I was away, clean.

  More than halfway home, I made the left into Sycamore Park out of habit. It was a little after three, and the sun was bright, but the twisting road through the park was lined with thick trees, branches arching over the pavement like the roof of a tunnel. Sunlight dappled through like a strobe light. I knew the road by heart, and during the flashing instances when my vision was obscured, I drove by memory.

  Almost at the end of the park, the road made a long, blind bend to the right around a steep hill. I turned the wheel just as the street began to straighten out, and a blur of movement caught my eye to the right. Before I could think, something shot down the hillside beside me and onto the road. I stomped the brakes and the clutch together, screeching to a stop, but not before I plowed into the large, solid obstacle.

  God, what was that? What had I hit, a dog, a deer? I could taste my heart at the back of my throat. My hands clenched so tightly on the steering wheel, my knuckles whitened. I peered over the hood and saw the mangled bicycle in the middle of the road. Oh God, oh God. I’d hit a kid.

  Despite my foot on the clutch, the Jeep had stalled, but I turned the ignition off to make it official. I didn’t want to look. I knew I’d hit him hard. My windshield was shattered, my hood dented in the shape of his shoulder and torso. I unhooked my seat belt and opened the door, slipping out.

  My feet hit the pavement, though I couldn’t feel it. My chest squeezed, making my racing heart work harder, as I walked around to the front of my Jeep.

  The right headlight was broken, and so was the blinker on that side. Glass and yellow-orange plastic littered the blacktop, glinting in the sunlight that speckled through the trees. The bike was at least ten feet ahead, and when I reached it I could see the red paint from my Jeep on the handlebars and the flattened pedal. The front wheel was bent in half. The frame looked like a giant hand had tried to wring it dry.

  Like a dream, a warm breeze swirled through the leaves overhead, ruffling my hair, skittering twigs and forest debris along the road to make scuffling sounds that echoed through my ears. The noisy silence was deafening.

  Where was the kid?

  The thought hit me as hard as I’d hit him. I spun on my heel. He had to be somewhere behind the car. I ran, my gaze scanning ahead, searching the sides of the road. How far had he flown? Dear God, how could he have survived it? What if he hadn’t?

  I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t sure how I was moving or even thinking. Cold sweat wet the back of my T-shirt, tracing down my spine and under my arms. Stumbling over nothing, over my own sneakers, I ran down one side of the road scanning the hillside, behind trees in tall clumps of grass, and then back up the other until I reached the Jeep.

  Where was he?

  “Stupid nephilim.”

  I spun, glancing up, following the direction of the voice. There he was, sitting on a low branch of the overhanging tree, his right leg bent wrong, his right shoulder sloping, dislocated. He held the branch in front of him with his left hand, though black ooze seeped from between his fingers and gashes on his forearm.

  He looked twelve years old. His head was dented, as though the bone was shattered under his hair, and demon blood darke
ned his forehead and trickled in a slow stream down his cheek. His smile was everything wicked, his boyish face scratched and dirty. His eyes glowed yellow in the shadows of the thick leaves, the pupils black vertical slits.

  “You’re not human,” I said, relieved for a half second before I realized the alternative meant I had a battle on my hands.

  “Neither are you,” someone said from behind me. The stench of brimstone swamped over me, churning my stomach.

  I turned, using the momentum to draw my sword and call the blade, swinging blind and hitting nothing. When I’d stopped my spin, my gaze landed on another boy, maybe sixteen, with ash blond hair and the same creepy yellow eyes. They weren’t bothering to hide their demon features. There was no one besides me who’d see. Not good.

  The demon in front of me chuckled, having jumped clear of my swing. He pulled a red bandana from the back pocket of the jeans sagging halfway off his ass and tied it around his forehead. He adjusted the shoulders of his long-sleeved shirt, a picture of an ugly scarecrow’s head stretching across his chest. As casually as if he were picking up a dried leaf, he bent to pull a switchblade from his sock. A flick of his wrist opened it.

  “You ready to throw down, illorum?” he said, though his smooth voice and articulate speech made the vernacular seem out of place.

  “Throw down? What’s that…gang-slang?”

  “You could say that,” a third boy replied, stepping from behind the thick walnut a few yards in front of my Jeep. He wore the same kind of red bandana tied around his wrist, his upper body bare except for a maroon, down-filled vest.

  Three. Yeah, that could constitute a gang.

  This third boy looked older than the other two, maybe eighteen or nineteen. His head was shaved, leaving only a dark shadow of new growth. His darker, tanned skin made me think Hispanic. Though in truth, nothing about him was real. This was just the body he’d chosen when his Fallen had called him forth from the abyss.

  He reached behind and pulled a foot-long dagger from the sheath strapped to his back. A beam of sunlight hit the blade, and the demon twisted his wrist to make the light flash off the gleaming metal.

  “You may think of us as…the cleanup gang,” he said, his refined, eloquent tone belying the young streetwise persona he’d chosen. His thin lips curled to a smug grin. “Our deliverer detests messy ends. You see, our brothers erred in only dispatching your ignorant boyfriend. It now falls to us to repair their mistake and send you to join him.”

  My boyfriend? They meant Tommy. “Your deliverer is the same one who sent the demons to the library after us?”

  The boy gave me a courtly bow. “It matters not. Your male companion is no more, correct? The command now stands that your life be forfeit as well.” He shrugged as though my death couldn’t be helped. “Our deliverer wishes you removed from the planet.”

  And there it was, the target that had been on Tommy’s head had officially shifted to me. I was out of time, and I still hadn’t seen the Fallen Tommy was after with my own eyes. I opened my gift to touch the twisted mind of the oldest boy. Uzza and I will distract her so Neria can jump down and take her head from behind.

  The thought swirled along the top of his mind and his yellow eyes flicked to his blond compatriot across from him. Their gazes met, and I knew without listening in, the blond understood the plan.

  The young men closed in on me, dagger and switchblade brandished for the attack. Their smiles were mirror images, the glints in their yellow eyes reflecting the excitement swelling inside them. Vivid thoughts of slicing my skin from my bones swirled faster and faster through their rotting minds, taking more and more of their conscious thoughts. I’d bet their gang brother wasn’t any different.

  They were losing it. Their lust to hurt me, to cause me excruciating pain, warmed their bodies and fogged their judgment. I held my ground, my stomach roiling, knowing the pleasure they’d take in hurting me. My hands trembled, legs wobbly, but I kept my sword in front of me, double fisting the hilt, point up and ready, trying hard not to breathe in the thickening stench of brimstone.

  These weren’t the demons that’d killed Tommy, but they worked for the bastard who’d ordered his death. The thought rolled around in my mind, gaining speed, kicking up friction, stirring anger. They were an extension of the Fallen, his eyes and ears, his weapon. As surely as if the Fallen wielded the switchblade and dagger himself, these demons were under his control. His will was theirs. Killing them wouldn’t be like cutting off his arms, but it would feel almost as satisfying.

  Determination as cold as iron hardened my spine. I wanted them dead, gone, and the cool, steadfast desire flicked some sort of switch deep inside me. Like freeing a wild animal, some long-suppressed part of me stirred through my veins, triggering instincts I hadn’t known I possessed.

  A soft thump sounded behind me, and my breath caught in my chest, my heart pounding like a drumbeat in my ears. It took all my willpower not to flinch. I knew the boy, the demon I’d hit with my Jeep, had jumped down from the tree. He was behind me, ready to strike just as the other demon planned.

  I didn’t look, but I’d bet money he’d already healed his broken leg and dislocated shoulder. Their plan would work if I didn’t do something fast. I had to move or be moved upon. All that was human inside me suddenly gave way to those strange instincts.

  I spun, judging height from memory, distance from the sound of his feet shuffling toward me. My blade met cloth and flesh, slicing deep across the child-size gut. He stumbled back, his arm clutching across his belly, his other hand holding what looked like a three-pronged meat hook. Holy crap, what had he planned to do with that?

  Before I could finish him, the two I’d put at my back moved in. The sweaty arm of the blond demon latched around my neck, choking my air supply. The stench of brimstone triggered my gag reflexes. My stomach churned, bile threatening at the back of my throat. A sharp, burning pain stabbed at the top of my thigh. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t get enough air to give it voice.

  “Such sweet, sweet flesh,” the boy demon hissed in my ear. “Female flesh. If not for its wicked temptation, the abyss would be an empty hollow.”

  I dug my nails into his arm, clawing at his skin, but it didn’t do any good. I swung my sword, wild, panicked, but the demon stood at an angle I couldn’t reach. He inhaled long and loud through his nose as though he was breathing me in. He moaned, then nuzzled his face against my cheek.

  I cringed at the smell and feel of his sweaty, rancid skin. Then he opened his mouth and licked me from jaw to temple. I squirmed harder, frantic to get away, my skin crawling. The fat line of his saliva warming against my skin began to burn.

  “Mmm…tasty,” he said. “Think I’ll take a pound of your sweet female flesh for later.” His body jerked beside me, the knife in my thigh slicing up then down. My brain screamed. Pain beyond imagination ripped through my body—stealing my breath, my reason.

  I thrashed against him, against the chokehold he had on me. I couldn’t get free. My mouth gaped, tears stinging down my face.

  My body went rigid, the agony unlike anything I’d ever known. My lungs closed, my nerve endings screaming. I couldn’t get away, and I couldn’t make it stop.

  A final slice and the demon yanked the chunk of meat from my leg. My mind spun, dizzy, pain throbbing with every hard thump of my heart. Hot blood drenched my leg, survival reflexes already numbing the limb, blocking the worst of the pain to keep my body from shutting down, allowing my brain to continue functioning.

  The edges of my vision darkened, and I struggled to stay conscious. The demon bent, tilting me with him to stab the chunk of flesh that had fallen to the ground. His distraction loosened the grip he had on my neck as we straightened again, and that strange new side of me rushed to the forefront, capitalizing on his mistake.

  I had just enough slack to shift my weight, and before I knew how I’d done it, I’d raised my hands straight out, double-fisting the hilt of my sword so the long blade tucked back
along my side. One hard thrust, and the sharp tip plunged behind me into my captor’s gut. I gave the hilt a hard twist, and the blade bored a hole through him. His arm dropped away from my neck, his hand going to grope at his belly.

  A forward step, then I spun, adjusted my grip, and jerked the sword skyward. The unearthly sharp blade sliced through meat, muscle, and bone like wind through trees, breaking free of the demon’s body at the shoulder. My weight shifted, and I swung the sword straight across, my nephilim strength slicing head from neck with ease. The demon collapsed to the blacktop—dead.

  Little of my human half held sway inside me then. I felt the older boy charge. Chin down, calling on the same sense of time and space I used when I teleported, I swung the long blade. I knew where he was, knew where to aim without ever meeting his eyes. I just knew.

  The sword caught him under his arm as he ran at me. The blade sliced up at an angle, breaking through the flesh at the top of his opposite shoulder. The wound wasn’t at his neck, but the effect of removing his head from his body was just the same. He tumbled forward, his momentum carrying him down to his knees, and death crumpling him to the pavement. His top half slid a few feet farther, his dagger skittered past me, the clanking metal sounding loud against the blacktop.

  Nephilim senses hummed, adrenaline thrummed though my veins. I still smelled live demon. The boy I’d struck first wasn’t dead. I turned to where I’d left him holding his nasty three-pronged weapon. He wasn’t there. The warrior angel inside me faltered—I was in demon-killing mode. Finding none, my human half wanted to take control again.

  My arm relaxed, lowering my sword to my side. I scanned the hillside and trees, making my way to where he’d stood when I’d sliced open his belly. Ooze steamed on the ground. He’d bled a lot, but not enough, and the thought stirred the warrior within, pumping my heart, coiling my muscles. Yeah. I wanted to fight.

  The realization jolted through my head and stopped me in my tracks. I’m not a fighter. I’m a run-and-hider. How could I have such diametrically opposing instincts? It was too weird, and the more I thought about it, the more my human half bubbled to the surface. Heady adrenaline seeped away at the same time, leaving me trembling from head to toe in the middle of Sycamore Park.