by Geri Glenn
Rolling my eyes at Joey’s text, I stuff my phone back into my pocket and reach for my cup. She can hunt all she wants, but what the fuck does she think she’s going to find? I’m the one blending in. I’m the one actually being productive by talking to people. She thinks she knows so much, but she doesn’t have the first clue about fitting in with humans.
I turn back to the group I’m with and fake another sip of my drink, hoping that nobody is paying attention. I’d decided on the way over that I would not be drinking tonight, but instead, nurse the same drink until it’s time to go. Being hungover isn’t something I’m interested in trying again. I’m also kicking my own ass for blacking out like I did. I’m a fucking hybrid. Who the fuck knows what could’ve happened last night?
“Yo, Cy!” I see Trent approaching from across the bar. “I thought you were bringing that hot sister of yours.”
I know he’s teasing me, but hearing him talk about Joey like that pisses me off. My nostrils flare as I take a deep breath before forcing a cocky grin on my face. “Fuck no. I’m staying as far away from her as I can.” I point a finger at him. “And my sister in not hot.”
“Bro, you need your eyes checked. That bitch is fine.”
I keep staring at him, all humor gone from my face. “She’s also off limits.”
He looks at me for a moment. I can sense the anger and the challenge there, but he erases it with a phony smirk. “Fair enough.” Flinging his arms out, he motions around the room. “I have enough bitches in this room to last me all year.” I can’t help but laugh when he gives me a mischievous grin to tell me that he’s joking.
“You play pool?”
I shake my head. “Never.”
“Well, time to learn, pretty boy.” I follow Trent over to the pool tables and I’m amazed at the number of ladies that follow us. Of course, Mandy is among them. I’ve been avoiding her ass all night, but she refuses to be ignored. The girls line up around the table and watch as Trent gives me a rundown on the rules of the game. It sounds easy enough, and I know instantly that my powers will make this game very easy for me.
Trent proves to be a good pool player, but I win each time. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had. Being able to kick back, let loose, and not have to worry about training, hunting, or demons, for even just a little while, is refreshing. Trent’s a funny guy. I’m almost envious of his natural charm. People seem to hang on his every word. His confidence is infectious.
Turning to the table I’d set my drink on, I take another small sip of my whiskey. The drink is just about gone now, but nobody seems to notice that it’s the same one. Why the fuck would they care? They’re all here to have fun, not watch me.
I pick up my pool cue, turn back to the game and approach the table. Finding myself a little off balance, I have to reach out quickly to grab onto the ledge to steady myself. The room spins slowly as I look up. What’s going on? Trent is across the room, talking to a group of girls, paying no attention to me. I take the opportunity to take a deep breath and calm my suddenly clouded mind. I don’t understand. I feel drunk, but that’s impossible.
A warm body presses itself up against me. I look down and directly into the heavily made-up eyes of Mandy. “Hey, Cy. What do you say we get out of here?”
Frowning, I attempt to take a step back, but stumble instead, bumping up against the table. She uses my clumsy move to her advantage, pinning me between herself and the wood ledge.
“Come on, baby. I can make you feel real good,” she purrs. She lays her hand on my chest, slowly sliding it down. I tilt my head back when her lips find their way to my neck. I can feel her tongue trailing across my skin, and close my eyes to stop the out of control feeling of disconnection I feel. When she cups my dick through my jeans, I snap out of it.
Standing tall, I gently grab her shoulders and push her back. “Not tonight, Mandy.”
Anger fills her features, and my body locks solid when her eyes meet mine. They’re no longer the eyes of a human. They’ve turned completely yellow. Whipping my head towards Trent, I see him and several others watching me, their eyes the same yellow color. Still feeling dizzy, I close my eyes and call on my training. This can’t be real. And if it is, they can’t know I saw them. Nausea roils in my gut, the urge to vomit making my mouth water and my gut clench.
Popping my eyes back open, I look back to Mandy. Her eyes are back to normal and carry a look of anger and hurt. Reaching back out, I place my hand on her shoulder. “I’m just not feeling well, okay? Maybe next time.”
She smiles, and I feel the bile in my throat rising. Placing my cue against the table, I push my way past her and run to the restroom where I empty the contents of my stomach. Moving to the sink, I place my hands along the edges and take several deep breaths, praying that this strange feeling passes. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I see dark circles surrounding my eyes and the pale tone of my skin.
After splashing some water on my face, and taking several gulps directly from the faucet, I turn and head back out into the bar. The music is still playing, and there are several people milling about, but everyone I’d come with is gone. How fucking long had I been in the bathroom? Moving to my coat, I grab it and get the hell out of here.
I spend the next couple of hours wandering the streets, going over the events of tonight in my mind again and again. I don’t get it. Why did it feel like I was drunk when I’d barely even finished a single drink? Why the fuck were everyone’s eyes glowing yellow? Was it a hallucination?
I go to the frat house where Trent lives, hoping that talking to him will help put my mind at ease, but he hasn’t come home yet. Things with Trent aren’t looking promising. I like the guy and I hate to admit it, but his lack of aura and his possible yellow eyes has moved him up to the list of suspects. It’s time to talk to Joey. I need to tell her everything.
Feeling better, and no longer dizzy, I climb into my truck and head home. My head aches and the hungover feeling I’d felt earlier returns. When I pull up, I see the bike in its parking space, along with all the lights in the house on. This isn’t going to be easy. Joey can be impossible to deal with when she’s pissed.
Sliding my key into the lock, it opens with a loud click. I push the door open and freeze at what I see inside. There sits Joey, on our brand new couch, with that creepy fuck from the office. Both of them have their eyes on me, and both of them look pissed.
Anger rules over reason, and I instantly summon my favorite sword and slam the door closed behind me. Someone has some fucking explaining to do.
-
Joey
-
After following Merrick to Emersyn’s dorm, I watched on the sidelines as he packed up some of her things and proceeded to take her to some sort of a safe house. It didn’t seem right to leave her there, so I told him we should take her to my house. It would be safe there, and we could keep an eye on her while we talked. I still have so many questions, and I guess a part of me would feel better knowing she was under my roof until I questioned Merrick. I already know he’s a demon, or at least part demon, but what side is he on? I need to know what his motives are and why he was there at the right time tonight to save Emersyn. I guess he sort of saved me too, but I’m not going to let on to that.
Walking with Emersyn between the both of us, we make it to my house without incident. Leaving Merrick downstairs, I lead her up to my room to get her situated. She’s dirty and tired. Showing her where the bathroom is and telling her to help herself to anything she needs, I head back down to the living room to the all too important chat with Merrick.
I find him sitting on my couch with one arm slung over the back, like he’s here for a social call, and not because he just slayed a demon in front of me to potentially save a girl who is important—which is another thing I need to ask him about. Stopping just inside the door that connects my dining room with the living room, I look at him for a moment. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside at the sight in front of me. It’s like Merrick belongs her
e—in my house, with me—but it’s strange and unsettling at the same time.
Snapping out of my strange thoughts, I walk into the room and stand directly in front of him. I won’t be able to sit down until I’m one hundred percent sure that he’s on my side, against evil.
“Talk.” I cut right to the chase.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he mumbles before rubbing his hands down his tired face.
“How about you start with the fact that you’re a fucking demon.”
My comment has his head snapping to attention with an angry scowl on his face.
“Half-demon,” he growls.
At the way he responds, I want to both giggle and swoon. I like that I pissed him off, and hearing him growl is so cute and funny, but most of all, it’s sexy. There is definitely something wrong with me.
“And half...” I let the sentence fall off, waiting for him to fill in the blanks.
Clearly exasperated, he leans back on the couch and stares at me. “I’m half-demon, half-human.”
I don’t know why I’m not surprised. I mean, it’s not like there are very many options. He was either going to be half-demon, half-angel, or half-human. Or maybe there’s something else out there that I don’t know about.
“My father was a soldier of the Underground. He worked with a small team hunting down rogue demons, or prisoners that had escaped to earth. That’s how he met my mother, or saved her, actually. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and happened across my father, who was trying to drag a demon back into the depths of Hell. Her presence was enough of a distraction that the demon got away from my father and went after my mother. He was able to get his hands on her and try to use her as a bargaining chip, and my father said he didn’t care either way if she lived or died. He was a demon, so what was a human to him?”
Merrick stands and begins to pace, looking like a caged animal. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this story is hard for him to tell. I can relate. I’ve only been told what Father Martin knows, or what my parents shared with him, but it would be hard for me to talk about their story as well. It may have happened years ago, and I may not have any memories of my parents, but it’s still a raw wound. They were taken when they shouldn’t have been.
“But when the demon holding my mother started slashing at her chest, neck, and face, it bothered my father. So, long story short, he killed the demon and saved my mother. She thought of him as her saving grace—her guardian angel. She knew he was a demon, he told her time and time again, but she never looked at him that way. He had saved her and she loved him. He loved her too. And so began their love affair.”
I’ve only known of one demon ever loving someone, human or otherwise, and that was my father. Father Martin has never heard any other stories of any other children like Cyrus and I, but there are. Maybe not just like us, but he is in his own way, a Hybrid.
We spend the next hour talking about his parent’s relationship, and how they were killed, just like mine. Then I tell him a little about how my mother and Father met, and their ultimate demise. The way that he describes it, the group of demons that were dispatched to kill his parents were the same that killed mine, only there’s one small difference— they knew about my brother and I, but they had no knowledge that Merrick was ever born.
“So after your parents were killed, where did you go? How did you come to know of your heritage, for lack of a better word?” Seeing him save Emersyn and killing that demon, I know he’s got some sort of a purpose—a higher calling—but I don’t know what it is or who sent him. Someone must have taken him in once his parents died and told him about Angels and Demons, teaching him how to use his powers.
“His name is Gideon, but most know him as Zearron. He used to be a priest, but he was kicked out of his congregation for preaching about a war that was coming. You see, he has visions, and he saw the end of the world. He doesn’t know when it will happen, but he knows it’s coming. He was trying to prepare everyone, trying to teach the humans to fight. The only problem was that no one believed him. It’s funny, actually. People want to believe that there is a God, and that all those stories in the Bible are true, but they don’t want to hear or believe in the Devil, or stories about how he has an army of demons ready and waiting for his command to take over the earth and overrun Heaven. They only want to believe in stories from an old book, but not truths and facts that are happening right in front of their eyes. It’s pathetic, really.”
Being who I am, I know exactly what he’s talking about. I’ve heard Father Martin talk about it. He never preached about it to us, but he showed us the book of God and allowed us to read what we wanted to inside of it. He did tell us stories that served a purpose in our lessons and training, but he spoke of a war once and said that if we did our jobs right, and fulfilled our destiny, that war would never come to pass. Hearing Merrick talk about it now, I wonder if that’s actually true, or if we should be preparing for a war regardless of whatever good we do.
“Anyway, he was dismissed from his duties, so he started his own congregation of sorts for people who believed him and wanted to do their part. It was in this new congregation of his that he heard about me. He didn’t think it was possible for a demon to have a child, let alone fall in love. He tracked my parent’s whereabouts, but when he got there, it was too late. They were already dead. Gideon found me tucked under a floorboard and took me with him. The rest, I suppose, is the same as your story. He taught me about who I was and trained me for the war to come. He told me I had a destiny, and that I was a sign from the universe that this war could be stopped, or won.”
“So has the war begun? Is that why you’re here?”
“As far as we know, the war hasn’t begun...yet, but it’s close at hand. Thousands of demons have been given orders to take posts all around the world. Some are given jobs of killing or capturing certain people, while others are ordered to possess humans to do his bidding until he’s ready to move to the next phase. I’m here because we got word that there were an increased number of demons here. This college is a hot spot for something, and I intend to find out what it is, and kill as many demons in the process as possible.”
Okay, I guess that makes sense. Father Martin heard the same thing, hence our reason for being here, but he must not have heard about the purpose, that they are getting ready for the war.
“Where does the girl fit in to all of this?” I know there’s something there, I’m just not sure what it is. I remember on the trail, he asked her if the demon was able to steal her essence, but who is she, and why would they steal it from her?
“Emersyn is what’s called an angel on earth. She’s human, but she was born with a soul of pure goodness. It’s rare that someone is born that way and keeps it beyond their younger years as a child, but she did. Demons feed off of them—their essence, and that’s why they want her. I knew what she was right away, but she doesn’t have a clue. She knows she’s different, but not how or why. I’ve been tasked to protect her while still doing what I was sent here to do, and that is to find out what the link is to this place and the upcoming war. I have to stop as many demons as I can before it starts.”
I want to ask more about Emersyn, and find out if the reason my brother and I are here has anything to do with this. But, before I can, the door opens and in walks a confused and pissed-off Cyrus. Seeing him brings back all my anger towards him for the way he acted earlier. I almost forget that Merrick is here until Cy summons his sword, his favorite sword at that, and slams the door behind him.
“Joey? You wanna tell me what the fuck this guy’s doing here?” Cyrus grinds out, eyes pinned on Merrick.
“He’s here because I asked him to be. Where the fuck have you been? You’ve been gone all night. I haven’t been able to get a hold of you.” I answer, irritated and pissed at the way he’s acting.
“I told you, I was out with friends. But you, dear sister, haven’t been truthful with me. You said you were going hunting,
yet here you are, getting cozy with this asshole.”
I move to rush towards him and knock him on his ass for being such a dick, but I must move too fast because pain shoots up my side from where I took a knife only a few hours ago. Fuck, that shit hurts!
Cy sees the pain on my face and follows my hands to where I’m holding my side. Blood leaks through the bandage and my shirt. I watch as his eyes widen before turning his attention to Merrick.
“You son of a bitch,” Cyrus yells, raising his sword. “What happened to her?” Merrick smirks, summoning a sword of his own. It’s enough to make Cyrus freeze.
“Cyrus, you need to calm the fuck down.” I gasp in pain. Fucking idiot is not only pissing me off, but he’s causing me more pain just watching him go after Merrick. I don’t even want to think about why that is.
“Calm down? You want me to calm the fuck down when I come home to find a demon snuggled up with my sister, and you’ve obvious been hurt. Are you out of your fucking mind? Did he do this shit to you?”
“Cyrus, stop! He’s not the one who stabbed me, you ass! He’s the one who showed up and saved me, which is more than I can say about you.”
“He saved you? This guy? He’s a fucking demon, Joey!”
“He’s half-human,” I say in way of explanation.
“He’s still a fucking demon,” he argues, glaring at Merrick with hatred.
“And what are we, huh? We’re just as much demon as he is, so if you want to call the sheep black, take a fucking look in the mirror, Cyrus. At least he was there for me when I really needed him.”
Cyrus takes a sharp step back, looking wounded. I know that was a low blow, but he needs to see this for what it is. This is good for us. We have help, and whether he wants to see it or not, we need all the help we can get.
I take a step forward to try and explain this to him, but I’m interrupted by a quiet, scared voice. “What’s going on?”