“I thought I told you to leave Lana alone,” Elijah said, his fangs dropping from his gums.
Kyle’s laugh was deep and menacing. “You can’t kill me, vampire. It doesn’t work that way.”
He waved goodbye, disappearing quickly. Elijah fell forward, bracing himself against the wall.
Aiden crossed the street, meeting Lana at the corner of the building. He opened the back door of his truck for her, helping her inside. They left the city, leaving Elijah behind to deal with the demon hunter.
Chapter 12
Lana was quiet, Aiden watching her in the rearview. She’d killed him in her house, the day he tried killing Elijah. He should never have come back. Unless that’s not how to kill a demon hunter.
“Are you alright?” Aiden asked.
She remained silent as they drove, unsure where Aiden would take her but glad to be away from the city.
“Take a left here,” Lana said when they approached Clover Lane, the road to her home. She didn’t care if he knew where she lived, he didn’t seem like the type who would stalk her.
A mile into the road her home came into view, Aiden pulling into the driveway. Elijah had driven her car home for her and was waiting in the driveway. The truck came to a stop a few feet behind the car, Lana hopping down from the truck.
She pushed past Elijah, Aiden stopping in front of him.
“Thank you for bringing her home,” Elijah said.
“No problem,” Aiden said, taking his hand. They stared at each other for a moment before he spoke again. “How do you do it?”
“I’m sorry?” Elijah asked, dropping the handshake.
Aiden’s eyes glanced at the door, closed off from the conversation. “How can you be around her? She’s perfect, and I can’t begin to imagine what her blood must smell like to you.”
Elijah dropped his head, kicking at loose stones on the driveway. “It isn’t easy, but she’s my best friend. I would never do anything to hurt her. Besides,” he looked up. “I eat animals.”
“That’s not healthy,” Aiden said.
“But it keeps me from eating her,” Elijah laughed. “Thanks again. I don’t know what happened, and she probably won’t tell me, but you probably saved her life today.”
~
Lana filled the tub, spilling half a bottle of bubble bath into the water once halfway full. She let the warm water take over, relaxing her body until she was fully submerged. She exhaled the air in her lungs, fighting the urge to return to the surface.
This wasn’t her first attempt and it wouldn’t be her last as she would survive. She always survived. A few weeks after Dimitri had told her what she was and what her purpose was, she’d gone to the basement where they had taught her how to wield weapons, grabbed the neared dagger and split her arm open, taking the tip of the blade from the beginning of her wrist to the crook of her elbow on both arms. She’d lost a lot of blood, but Dimitri knew somehow and had her wounds treated and bound. They’d healed in twenty-four hours.
A few years later, she found herself on a dock listening to the horns of naval carriers long into the night as they docked and set sail. Lana made her way up the coast until she found a small fishing dock, toting two cinderblocks. She walked out to the edge of the dock, taking a step too far until she was submerged in water, both cinderblocks hanging on her arms like jewelry.
Her feet planted firmly in the soft mud beneath the water the moment her lungs ran out of air. She gasped and gasped until she could gasp no longer. She mistook a blue flash of light for the light at the end of a tunnel, but could not feel the arms of a man wrapping around her small frame, pulling her from the water. She woke in the infirmary once more with Dimitri and Wiley, the Water Fury who found her this time, by her bedside.
By now, she’d lost count of the amount of times she’d attempted suicide. She had jumped off bridges into water with blocks of cinder around her arms, tied herself to train tracks, jumped off abandoned or condemned industrial buildings. She’d even traveled to Chernobyl.
When Elijah entered the house, a banshee’s scream deafened him.
To his right, the doors to the living room were closed, smoke rising from beneath them. He bounded up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time, until he was at the top of the staircase. The door to Lana’s room was locked, Elijah throwing himself against it. In the bathroom, he saw no one except a bathtub overflowing. She’d left the water on.
“Lana?!” he yelled, looking in the walk-in closet before noticing a dark figure in the bathtub beneath the water.
He reached into the water, his hand cupping behind her neck. He lifted her, repositioning his hands so he could hoist her from the tub. He placed his hands beneath her breasts, the palm of his hand beneath the base of her sternum and began counting as he compressed.
Thirty compressions.
Tilt the head. Pinch the nose.
Two breaths.
Return to 30 compressions.
Breathe.
He completed these three times before she bolted upright, coughing up water. Elijah heaved her to her feet, throwing a robe for her to put on as he pulled her through her room and down the stairs. Lana clenched her teeth at the banshee screams.
“It’s coming from the living room,” Elijah said. “We need to leave the house.”
Lana fought him, kicking the living room doors open. Thick clouds of smoke escaped, Lana and Elijah choking.
Coughing, they dropped to their knees, hoping to have breathable air closer to the ground. Visibility was sparse as they made their way in the direction of the kitchen.
As they got closer to it, Lana started coughing more frequently, the smoke blurring her vision each time she opened her eyes. She tried blinking the tears away as her eyes watered. Stopping near a three-foot tall table with white roses resting in a vase, her coughing became furious as the doors leading to the foyer slammed shut.
Lana put her back against the wall next to the table, covering her ears with the palms of her hands. She tried to take a deep breath, focusing on the smoke. She felt wisps of hair tickle her cheeks, Elijah watching her intently. Smoke began to swirl within the living area, whipping around as tornado-like winds swept in through the fireplace in the right-hand corner of the room.
The tornado-like winds picked at areas of the room, small flames quickly turning into a blaze that jumped from couch to wooden furniture and then to curtains. Lana pushed Elijah in the direction of the door when something grabbed her, pulling her toward the window at the front of the house. The curtain wrapped around her neck, choking her. Elijah was pinned to the wall by the door, unable to move as the living room became engulfed in flames.
Dimitri and the other Furies appeared in a haze, Wiley and EJ, the Wind Fury, creating a storm cloud spanning the length of the ceiling. The cloud rained on the living room, the fire sizzling. Once Lana was free, she and Dimitri disappeared in a green haze, Wiley grabbing Elijah before the storm cloud dissipated.
Chapter 13
From the balcony of the clubhouse, Lana saw a forest of Pine trees encroaching the backyard.
“What did you do to piss off a Holanshee?” Dimitri asked, leaning against the screen door.
“What is that?”
“The thing that attacked you,” he stated. “A Holanshee is a demon that uses your own power against you. They are identified by their scream, which is that of a banshee, except they are an invisible demon.”
“How do you kill one?” Lana asked, picking at the dead skin around her nails.
“You can’t,” Dimitri said. “Which means you can’t return home until we know for sure it has left.”
“I have to warn Rae,” Lana turned to face him. “She should be going home soon and when she sees the living room…”
“Wiley is taking care of that,” Dimitri said, putting his hands in front of him. He took a few steps toward her before clasping his hands and bringing them to his lips. “I know you’re tired, Lana, and I know this weekend has been rea
lly difficult for you but you can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?” Lana threw her hands out to the side.
“Suicide is not the answer. All it does is deplete your energy and make you an easier target for the Darkness,” Dimitri said.
“Then maybe you should try harder to find the Fire Fury so we can get this over with,” Lana said, pushing past him.
“We already have,” Dimitri said.
She turned in the doorway, her hand on the handle. “And you’re just now telling me this?”
“It’s not that,” Dimitri sighed. “He’s…difficult to work with. He’s a lot like you, actually.”
“Oh really?”
“He wants to be done with all of this,” Dimitri stated. “In fact, he’s wanted to be done with this since the Crusade. We haven’t seen him since, per his request.”
“Does he live here? Have I met him yet?” She stepped away from the door, crossing her arms. “Does he know I exist?”
“Yes,” Dimitri said. “But he doesn’t know your name.”
“Tell him then,” Lana said, putting her hands on her hips. “Tell me his name.”
“Lana, that’s enough,” Elijah said from the house. “I’m taking her home.”
“She can’t go home, we’ve been over this,” Dimitri said over her shoulder.
“Not to her home, to mine,” Elijah said. “Let’s go.”
Lana didn’t argue, leaving with Elijah. At the Jacobs’ manor, Lana sat in the gazebo the remainder of the night, staring out at the moonlit pastures. She couldn’t sleep, afraid she’d see Kyle as a demon. She played with the thought of what demon hunters were capable of. Did they make deals with demons they were meant to kill? Were these deals a way of saving the demon’s life? I won’t kill you if you take care of this person for me. It’s the only way they can die – at the hand of a demon. That’s what the Darkness consisted of, they said.
~
February 28, 1840
A slender figure sat on a bench in the gazebo, the black waves of his hair combed back. He wore a white collared shirt unbuttoned at the neck, with loose trousers and suspenders. The black boots he wore were muddy after working in the barn.
He looked out across acres of land; watching horses run through the pasture and cows graze on fresh grass. A woman in a red dress walked along a white picket fence, trailing her finger along the wood. Her dress was made of a satin material, with black lace embroidery and ruffles at the cuffs. Her hair was pulled back in tight curls and she wore a pearl necklace and earrings to match. White gloves covered her hands as she stopped and stared across the pasture at the horses galloping.
“She’s recovering at a remarkable rate,” Elijah said. The man in the gazebo was startled, looking at the man who interrupted his daydream.
“If you believe three weeks to recover from pneumonia is a quick recovery, something is terribly wrong with you, brother,” Micah said.
“Dr. Adams said it was a miracle she survived so regardless of the time, she is recovering. Micah, why are you watching her so intently?”
Micah, caught off-guard by his brother’s question, looked at him then. “Keeping an eye on a sick person is not a crime, Elijah.”
Elijah laughed, his light green eyes finding the girl in the scarlet dress. “If I’m not mistaken, I would say that you are infatuated with her.”
“I’m sorry, but you are mistaken,” Micah said. He stood, leaving the gazebo. He looked in the girl’s direction but continued walking toward the house.
She continued to stare out toward the horses until Elijah stood beside her.
“You have a very beautiful home,” Lana said. “Thank you for helping me.”
“It was the right thing to do, ma’am,” he said.
“Please, call me Lana.”
“May I ask your last name?” Elijah asked.
“McDowall, Lana McDowall,” she answered. “And yours?”
“Jacobs,” he returned. “It is very nice to meet you formally, Miss McDowall.”
~
Elijah’s voice woke her up. She was on the floor of the worn-down gazebo, splinters poking at her back.
“Rae is at her parents’ house for the time being,” he said. “I think you should go there and explain why she can’t come home.”
“Dimitri said they were taking care of it…” Lana wiped gunk from her eyes.
“She doesn’t know about the demon.”
She looked over her shoulder at the field, the horses galloping and stopping to graze every now and then. She’d taught Rae how to ride last time she was in the Bay. Rae’s family lived in town a few blocks away from the university. She could still picture helping her mom, Cathy, with her garden. They never had a green thumb, so Lana helped her plant flowers, bushes, and landscape a little with lava and river rocks. She smelled roses then, opening her eyes.
Sitting on the stone bench in the corner of Cathy’s backyard, Lana breathed heavy. Had she just transported? She knew she was capable of doing so but she had never tried. She never learned either.
Cathy knew of Lana’s powers, so her showing up in the backyard wouldn’t be a surprise.
She knocked on the back door, Rae opening it. The brunette swung the screen door open, wrapping her long arms around Lana. She pulled her inside to the living area, a small space filled with an oversized sectional and a 32-inch TV. They preferred comfort over the quality of television they watched.
“What happened? Tell me everything,” Rae said, placing her hands on her legs.
Lana tried to find the words, but none came out. She stood, pacing the length of the room.
Cathy, a middle-aged woman with dirty blonde hair and reading glasses, brought a pitcher of lemonade and freshly made sugar cookies into the room, setting them down on the coffee table.
“Lana what I saw…” Rae started. “You were choking and there were flames.”
Lana’s hand instinctively went to the red, bruising marks on her neck where the curtain had wrapped around so quick she couldn’t put her arm up to deflect the attack.
“Dimitri called it a Holanshee, an invisible banshee-like demon who attacks you using your own powers,” she said softly. “You saw it?”
“Yeah, I tried to call you but your phone went straight to voicemail,” Rae said. “Wiley didn’t say what happened, just that I can’t go home.”
“Banshees are like working dogs,” Cathy said. “When they have a target, they will stop at nothing until that target is eliminated. A Holanshee is similar in the fact they lie in wait until the target reappears. Once they have a set location, that is where they stay until they have completed their task.”
“How do they find their target?” Lana asked.
“They didn’t explain anything to you, did they?” Cathy asked softly.
“I didn’t ask,” Lana said.
“Typically, a Holanshee is summoned by a witch or warlock,” she said. “They are given a location and they stay there until the target has appeared. They are powerful creatures, and almost impossible to kill. The only way to kill them is to find and kill the person who conjured them in the first place.”
“Can a demon hunter control them?” Lana asked, her voice soft and shaky.
“Only if the demon hunter was previously a warlock,” Cathy said. “In that case, vanquishing the demon and the demon hunter are a more difficult task.”
Cathy left the room, descending the stairway in the hall to the basement. She returned with a weathered book like the one Roderick, her childhood friend, had many years ago. She flipped to a page with the picture of a demon hunter sketched on it. It had black hair and pitch-black eyes. The entry read:
The Demon Hunter is a man who has been called to the dark side of his magic. Born a warlock, the Demon Hunter becomes one when he travels to the Underworld during the Dark Passage. The Dark Passage is a ceremony held in the Underworld meant to draw warlocks in to turn them into hunters. The ceremony promises a warlock the ability to see i
nto the demon realm, and to do so, the warlock must drink demon blood while in the Underworld. The corpse of the warlock remains in the Underworld while an apparition of the man takes form in his place.
The only way to vanquish a Demon Hunter is to find his corpse in the Underworld and burn the bones.
WARNING: Destroying a Demon Hunter releases any summoned demons from his hold, but also returns any demons he has killed to their original state.
“So, if I want to get rid of the Holanshee, I must burn his bones,” Lana said. “But if I do, any demons he has killed return in full force…”
“Correct,” Cathy said. “Hence why I said it is a much more difficult task than one would think.”
“And if I don’t?” she asked.
“If you don’t, the Holanshee will remain at your home,” Rae’s mother stated. “It will not harm those who enter the home, so Rae is safe.”
“How would I even find his corpse?” Lana asked.
“I can help with that,” Cathy left the room once more, descending the stairs. She rifled through a box of old maps, crystals and vials of years-old potions, returning with a vial of black liquid, a crystal and a map.
“Typically, a witch can search these maps with a crystal to find the one they are searching for,” Cathy explained. “However, since I do not know the person, it is your job to search for him. To find his bones in the Underworld, you will dip the crystal into the vial, and hold the crystal above the map.”
Lana placed the map on the chaise lounge of the sectional and dipped the crystal in the vial. The mixture burned her nostrils. She held up her hand, letting the crystal dangle over the map.
“Now, I want you to picture this individual in his initial state. This will be either the day you met or one of your strongest memories of him,” Cathy said. The moment she closed her eyes, she saw Kyle sitting in the gazebo of the Jacobs’ property clenching the old photograph of her and Micah. The crystal began to circle the map, taking her hand with it as it pinpointed Kyle’s corpse.
Within seconds it stopped, pulling itself to the map like a magnet. Lana knew the forest better than most Clover Bay residents and had often gone to the exact location the crystal now rested on.
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