Death Eater Complete Collection

by Catherine Stovall

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Gerald grumbled. “The war came, inevitable as it was, and when the red coats marched, they brought death with them. A creature named Eurynome had followed their blood lust from England to the colonies. He’d latched himself onto a band of rogue soldiers, driving their need to kill into a frenzy.

  “They broke away from their general and spread carnage across the state. The demon guided them until they pillaged, raped, burned, and killed anything in their path. When they reached the fields outside of town, they were met with resistance. The people had gone out, some armed with guns and others with farming tools, to face their enemy.

  “The battle was brutal, and many innocent lives were lost. At the heart of the battle, a young man fought with fierce devotion. His aim was true, and his strength was unmatched by any grown man on the field that day. They say it was because he fought for something greater than possessions, freedom, or himself. They say it was because he fought for love.

  “This young man had a girl, and she was the most beautiful among the women in their town. Her vibrancy and vitality has been described as watching the sunrise on the darkest night a man has ever known. And the boy would do anything to protect his fiancé from the hands of marauders who would have done far worse than kill her.

  “When he left to fight, he made the girl promise to hide or run. Knowing her well, he knew she would come after him, so he made her swear on their love she would not.”

  Vega laid her head on Zane’s shoulder, and he pulled her closer, saddened and honored by the beautiful story history had told about them.

  “In the story, it is said the girl broke her promise, unable to allow her true love to face certain death. She went to the field to beg him to run away with her, but when she arrived, her worst fears came to life. The battle had already begun.

  “Before her very eyes, the leader of the rogue red coats cut down her young man. The soldier drove the tip of his bayonet into the boy’s chest with such vengeance, they say the girl felt it inside herself, and her wails of anguish could be heard by every soul in the battle. As the boy fell, and his enemy prepared to finish the kill, the girl ran to him.

  “Mad from her loss, she grabbed up a discarded rifle and stormed up behind the man she’d watched murder the love of her life. She drove the bayonet through him, screaming in pure hatred as she did. The man died instantly, but the rage inside of her as she pulled her lover’s head into her lap could not be quelled so easily. The young woman couldn’t bear to watch the final light go out of his eyes, and she picked up the rifle once more.

  “In a final, desperate moment, she wrenched the bayonet from the top of the gun and drove it into her chest. With tears of sorrow dripping from their cheeks as the men and soldiers continued to battle, the lovers held each other. The cries of the wounded and dying became their requiem.”

  Gerald paused, allowing Vega and Zane a moment of silence to recompose.

  “Death brought the devil to the field that day, and the glimmer of love still shining from the young couple brought hell down upon their souls and the town. Given the opportunity to save her true love, the girl made a deal with the demon. She promised him thirteen lives in return for her young man’s salvation. The boy lived in purgatory, and the girl was destined to be reborn again and again until the curse could be broken. If she failed to meet the demon’s terms, their souls would be forever his.

  “Once the battle was over, the women, children, and clergymen came out into the field to care for the wounded and cart away their dead. Though the red coats had been defeated, most of the town’s men had died in the fight. As he stumbled through the battlefield, sick and frightened, a young priest came upon the lovers’ bodies. His heart broke at the sight of their sacrifice, and a powerful force came over him.

  “The priest called his congregation together, telling them he had been privy to a vision from the very depths of Hell. He had seen the demon. Not in its manlike disguise, but in its hellish true form. He had born witness to the evil Eurynome had done by controlling the soldiers and orchestrating the fall of so many innocents.

  “The creature had ordered him to take the lovers’ bodies and burn them upon the hottest of pyres, or else the town would be cursed and fall to ruin. Sickness, war, and all matter of ill things would befall all those who descended from the people who did not obey Eurynome’s order.

  “Of course, the townspeople believed in their priest, and they vowed to deny the devil his due. Instead of burning the two youngsters, they created a shrine for them in the form of two statues, and the priest snuck their bodies away. He left the town and all he knew, becoming the lovers’ sworn protector. In their own way, the people and the priest had given the two their first chance of beating the devil.”

  “What happened to the priest?”

  “What happened to the town?”

  Vega and Zane spoke in unison, her concern for others eking through as he stayed focused on their situation.

  “The town dwindled and died. Just as the demon had warned, all those who lived or descended from those who had lived there perished. Small pox, battles, murder, influenza. The graveyard is filled with names and dates, their history lost to the world.

  “The priest left the town. Some say he was killed on his way to hide the bodies, falling victim to the demon’s long reach. Others say he was never truly human, but a guardian angel sent to stop Eurynome. Some say he still visits this graveyard from time to time.”

  “How are you still alive if you are a descendent?” Zane’s skepticism made his voice sharp.

  Gerald smiled, but the gesture did not meet his haunted eyes. “I was a young man when I took over the job as caretaker of this cemetery. I did not believe in curses, demons, or ghosts. The stories I’d heard growing up were no more than childish tales to me. Then, one day, that all changed. Something happened to protect me from the fate all others have suffered.

  “I had a drinking problem back then. Whiskey was like water for me. I never went anywhere without a flask in my pocket. It was summer, and the temperatures soared. Still, I kept drinking away as I worked to scrub red paint from the tomb. I was sure teenagers were responsible for the graffiti, and as I cursed them, my blood pressure rose. I spent hours scrubbing away the word scrawled on the wall.

  “The next thing I knew, I was lying on my back and sweating like a pig. My head spun and pounded from the heat. The first thing I did was reach for that flask, but I was already three sheets to the wind. I could barely unscrew the top. When I wrenched it free, I brought the bottle to my lips.

  “Then the man appeared. A priest, dressed in the robes they wore long ago. With a long finger, he pointed to me, and shook his head. The bottle fell from my hand. Though he never spoke, I heard his words in my head. He told me the young lovers would return, and when they did, I would be their guide. Then he vanished.

  “I put that flask in the tomb, a gift for the couple and a tribute of my determination to live up to what was asked of me. I haven’t had a drop since that day, but tonight, I think I might drink until the sun comes up.”

  Vega laughed. “And why is that, Gerald?”

  He looked at her with knowing eyes for a long moment, and said, “Because you are finally here.”

  Stunned, Vega stared at the man with wide eyes. She had thought he was just a man, and his story, while enlightening on the history of that day, was just a fable handed down through time. The idea he’d known who they were the entire time was as shocking as the idea that he might be the very person who could help them save Zane.

  “You knew the whole time?” Vega asked.

  “I thought so, but I wasn’t positive until I saw the pain on your faces. Those old memories still sting.”

  Zane leaned back, huffing out a breath of exasperation. “Then we’ve got some question for you.”

  Gerald nodded and motioned for them to follow him. As they talked, they walked from the cabin back to the tomb, and Gerald gave them the final ans
wers he had to give.

  “I’ve worked here all my life. Many people fear graveyards, but I find them peaceful. No one here to bug you, and you get to spend a lot of time alone with your thoughts. I’ve only been scared two times in my life. The first was the day the priest came, and the other was years later.”

  Vega turned to look at Gerald. Tears sparkled in the man’s eyes, and her skin puckered as if she were suddenly cold. “Tell us about it?” she asked with a quiet voice.

  “It must’ve been ten years after I had spoken with the priest. I came up here one night to watch out for vandals. It seemed to me, every year on the same night, they would spray paint the tomb, your tomb. One word, in a foreign language. I was determined to stop their butts.”

  “So, there I was, propped up against that monument over there.” He gestured to a large statue of the virgin standing twenty feet away. “My gun loaded with buckshot, I’d come prepared. I must’ve dozed off because, the next thing I knew, I opened my eyes to see a young man by the tomb. I shook my head to clear my vision, but I wasn’t just seeing things.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “Shh.” Vega shushed Zane and looked back at Gerald to hear the rest.

  “He didn’t look real. There was a light about him, an eerie sort of glow that can’t ever mean anything good. He had long blonde hair wore a long black coat. He had his back to me, but I could see him moving his hand up and down as if he was tagging the outside wall.

  “I jumped up and yelled at him. When he didn’t move, I raised my gun. I wasn’t going to shoot him, mind you, just pepper the ground by his feet and give him a good scare. Well, anyway, I lined up that barrel and looked through the scope, and he was gone. Simply vanished into thin air. I was too close, he couldn’t have run.

  “Confused out of my cotton-picking mind, I walked up here and took a look around. The door was closed. It hadn’t been touched. On the wall, he’d left a dripping red mess, the same gibberish as always. Head shaking like a dog fresh out of water, I decided to go back to get a bucket and some soapy water to scrub away the graffiti again.

  “I didn’t get two steps before I heard his laughter. When I spun, gun drawn, my eyes fell on the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen—man or woman. Now, mind you, I don’t go around sayin’ men are pretty, but this one was. All but the mean glint in his eyes. Oh, how they burned.

  “Anyway, I leveled that shotgun on him, and I asked what the hell he was doing. He looked at me, and just as the priest had, he spoke into my head. He told me his name was Eurynome the Greater Demon, and if I wanted to live to see another day, I’d not wash his blood from that tomb until sunrise.”

  “Why?” Vega demanded. “What did it mean? What was the word?”

  Gerald pushed his shoulder against the tomb door, causing the loud scream of the metal to echo in the silence. He pointed a gnarled finger toward the statues.

  “I looked those words, and the one that demon wrote on the tomb, up after that night. I waited until the sun came up, and I wrote it down before I scrubbed it away. Seen it ever year for most of my life now, couldn’t forget if I wanted to. That inscription says, Anonymous: They lived, loved, and died according to their own demons. The word that demon writes on the tomb means Ronwe.”

  “Do you know what Ronwe means?” Zane ran his hand through his dark hair as he spoke, and his lips pulled into a grimace.

  Vega squeezed his hand, silently willing him to stay strong.

  “It is the name of a lesser demon. I have learned much about this demon and his tricks since that day. The greater demon must renew the bond each year, by placing the sigil upon the resting place of his victim. Because your bodies are gone, he does so in all the places where you are remembered, and the binding is no weaker than if you laid inside.” Gerald studied Zane for a moment, his eyes squinting against the sun. “He all right?”

  “Yes—”

  “No—”

  “Look, Zane, he needs to know.” Without waiting for him to agree, she turned to Gerald. “We haven’t escaped the curse, not completely. Zane still has a death eater trapped inside of him. We came here looking for his name, and I think we’ve just found it.”

  Chapter Five

  An excited sort of exhaustion settled over Vega and Zane as they climbed back in the little Volkswagen. They’d spent the afternoon talking and planning, trying to uncover what the inscription meant and map out their next move. Afterward, they’d had a light supper of homemade stew and said their goodbyes.

  In the fading light of the warm day, they waved to Gerald from the dusty windows, and headed back the way they’d came.

  “Zane.” A soft blush crept up Vega’s cheeks. “I thought of something. Something I don’t think either of us had considered before. I, well I—”

  “Honey, if you got something to say, say it.”

  The gentleness in his tone gave her a shot of bravery. “I don’t think we should make love.”

  “What?” The car swerved into the other lane as he gaped at her.

  “It’s just that…passion…. Passion is very exhilarating. It’s one of those emotions, like anger or fear. It could wake the demon.”

  He growled low in his throat, and her eyes widened, unsure if it was the demon. Twisting until her back was against the door, Vega slid her arm behind her, fingers hesitating on the handle.

  “You okay?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  Zane shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, his hands tightening on the wheel. “I think I need to feed.”

  She’d misunderstood him. She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “We just had dinner with Gerald. Are you still hungry?”

  He growled again, and her fingers tightened on the handle.

  “I’m not hungry for food, Vega. I’m hungry…. It’s hungry. I need to feed. I can feel it. The damn thing is waking up in there, and we are running out of time. If I don’t feed the demon, it is going to take over again.” Hands raking through his hair, he uttered, “I don’t want to hurt you, again,” through clenched teeth.

  Zane arms go tense, like a guitar strung too tight, and his knuckles turned white. Her heart skipped and skittered against her ribs, the coppery taste of fear clogging her airways.

  “How soon?”

  “Soon.”

  “Zane, we can’t just kill someone else. We can’t!”

  “I have done it so many times. I’ve done it for you.” The darkness inside of him grew, webbing out in the veins around his eyes and eking out in his voice. He pressed the gas pedal harder, pushing the little car to its limits as he screamed, “Do you know how many people I killed for you?”

  They were at the edge of the little town they’d passed before reaching the graveyard earlier in the day. The scenery flew by, but Zane showed no signs of slowing. His chest rose and fell in rapid succession, and his nostrils flared as he stared straight ahead, hardly blinking.

  “Zane, slow down. Baby, you have to breathe. Just think. You can control this,” she begged.

  As if he hadn’t heard her, he kept going, and the sign at the side of the road told her she had less than a mile to figure out how to stop him. If she failed, someone, maybe lots of people would die.

  “Zane!” Her voice sounded like a shotgun blast in the small confines of the car.

  His head whipped around, and his gaze bored into her face, the darkness having seeped in. “Would you kill for me?” he whispered before turning back toward the windshield.

  “Stop this car. If you are still in control, if you love me, if you want my help, pull over. In the name of all that is holy, stop!” She tried to sound powerful, mastering, in an attempt to yank the chain on the demon’s throat.

  Zane hesitated, his whole body trembling with the effort of pulling his foot off the gas pedal. The car seemed to sigh in relief as the engine whined and slowed. Taking a deep breath, Vega released her death grip on the door handle.

  The car rolled to a stop on the deserted highway, a lone red blotch o
n the horizon. Though it was a risk, she leaned forward and touched his arm. When Zane didn’t jerk away, Vega rose from the seat and softly kissed his cheek.

  “Just breathe, baby. We’ll get through this. Why don’t you let me drive for a while?” She tried to sound soothing, instead of scared, but wasn’t sure she’d pulled it off. Her breath held, and doing some serious shaking of her own, she waited for his reaction.

  After a long minute of impenetrable silence, Zane shuddered and blinked. With a silent nod of his head, he opened the door and stepped out of the car.

  Vega climbed over the seats and slid behind the wheel, unwilling to get out of the car and face him. Somehow, the close proximity of the cab had felt safer than being out in the open with him in the fading day. She waited for him, watching his shadowy reflection in the review mirror, and drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. If he needed time, she’d give him all the time he wanted, but she prayed the demon wouldn’t be the one who crawled into the passenger seat.

  He paced. He growled. He slammed his hands on the trunk, making her jump and squeak. Finally, having exhausted his rage, Zane slid back into the car. He looked hollow—like the battle with the demon had sapped his vitality. A man who’d spent ten years in a dark hole would have had more color.

  Vega didn’t speak. Instead, she turned up the radio and drove. She kept her eyes straight ahead and her face blank, allowing Zane time to settle into himself. The final quarter mile flew by, and as they entered the town, she sighed with relief when Zane took her hand. His skin felt chilled and damp, but the firm pressure of his fingers entwined with hers gave Vega hope.

  She slowed down as they passed the welcome sign, declaring they’d entered Trowbridge—population three-hundred and thirty-six. There’d be no hotel and any suspicious activity would be quickly noted. So would strangers. It was the worst place possible to be looking for a murder victim. Yet, it was all they had.

  “Where should I go?” Her stomach lurched as she recalled Diana, Bill, and Shelley—all dead.

  Dead eyes. Dead hearts. Dead bodies. Gone. Dead because of me. Now, someone else must suffer the children’s sins.