by Kim Faulks
A click came from the Glock in her hand, but she wasn’t done, throwing the steel weapon like a dagger through the air. It hit a Vamp in the middle of his face, tearing open pale skin before the bastard curled his lips at her.
But she was ready, her hand dropping to the waistband of her jeans as she drew the Nephilim blade free.
The steel shimmered in her hand, sending a vibration through the air. A thousand ants raced across my skin, biting as they went. I glanced at a table in the middle of the office, where the pulsing call of Hell came from.
The case was the same as those at the Varday office, only there was one difference. This one was broken. The end was smashed in, and the destructive energy of Hell poured out.
The keys had a life of their own, tearing this mortal world apart. They needed to be back where they belonged, controlling and confining the Soulless to the levels of Hell, and not out in this frail realm.
I scanned the darkness, desperate for a break between the mercenaries and the Demons, and lunged. Movement came from all directions.
“Irael!” one of the Demons screamed.
My heart froze at the name. I swung in that direction, catching a glimpse of the towering leader of the Demon army in the dark.
Hate curled my lip. I fucking knew it…knew there was no way they could get Hell’s keys without the powerful leader. He turned his head, and black rage spilled from his bottomless eyes as he found me.
He was a mammoth immortal, towering over those under his command. His pale, hairless scalp shone as it caught the truck’s headlights through the torn-open door. He looked just as deadly in the mortal realm as he had in Hell. But there was one difference…this wasn’t Hell.
The keys pulsed with the kind of raw power that was created to destroy, and every second they were exposed to the air meant the hole in the mortal realm was growing. But what was even scarier was what other realms were out there waiting for a chance to push through.
A blood-curdling scream cut through the air outside. Goosebumps raced across my skin as Irael followed my gaze to the bitter cold night outside.
Redemption froze, arms raised, one hand outstretched in a claw, and turned his head. A creature slithered through the torn-open doors of the mechanic’s workshop. And at first, my mind couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing.
This…thing was unlike any creature I’d seen before. Tentacles reached from its body like thorny snakes. It stood upright, but still slithered on the mass of tendrils it used for feet. It had a human upper body, stomach, chest and arms. But its skin was the whitest thing I’d ever seen. Whatever this was…it terrified Redemption.
The Unseelie warrior turned his head, and our gazes connected. Terror echoed in his unfathomable midnight shine. Whatever this creature was that had slithered in from the Unseelie world…wasn’t good.
There was a small shake of Redemption’s head as the Wolf in front of him swung a cocked fist. But the Unseelie warrior was ready, turning to catch the bare knuckles in one hand and counterpunch with the other.
But that dark, slithering creature had the warrior on edge. He shoved the Wolf, and went for the holster across his chest with the other hand, drawing out a silver Sig Sauer, and fired.
But the keys were all I wanted. Everything else was a battle in the making. I lunged, sweeping around a Vampire who grabbed for me, and raced toward the table in the center of the room.
Hands and fists were everywhere. Purity lunged and sliced the air like she was born for this. But the Vamp wasn’t giving up on me, pissed that his strike had missed its mark. Instead, the undead spun, dragged a dagger free, and hurled it through the air. All I saw was the broken side of the case…and all I felt was agony as the dagger found its mark, right in the top of my thigh.
“That should slow you down a little,” the Vamp snarled, and strode forward.
“Melkor!” Redemption roared. “Get down!”
I had a second to trust. A second to grab the hilt of the dagger in my thigh and tear it free as I hit the ground, and the Unseelie creature lashed the air.
Tendrils cracked like a whip. One half of the Vampire went one way, and the other half another. I grasped the blood-covered dagger and held it to my chest as the garage was filled with unmerciful screams.
Tentacles lashed the air over my head. I turned, scanning the mass of legs for Purity. Redemption had her on the ground, protecting her with his body. Still she screamed, my little mortal Hellion.
Her eyes shone with battle fever as she searched the space. “Melkor!”
“I’m here!” I called as the Shadowed creature screeched.
I kicked the bottom half of the Vamp aside and kicked my boots against the filthy floor. Blood splattered the floor in front of me as I crawled forward, driving my body toward them.
Still the Unseelie creature raged, tearing limb from limb and, with a shearing of metal, the wall from the side of the garage.
“What the fuck is that thing?” I roared as I came closer to Redemption and Purity.
“The Unblessed,” he shook his head. “It’s not just a goddamn creature…it’s part of her…part of Unseelie.”
Purity paled. “You mean she’s real?”
Redemption jerked his gaze to her and nodded. “Very much so.”
A chunk of torn metal flew like a frisbee through the air to embed into the wall with a thunk as Purity closed her eyes.
“Purity?” I shoved closer. “What is it?”
She shook her head and then met my gaze. “I think I know what it wants.”
And with one hard shove, she pushed her body upright, first to her knees, and then to stand. “It wants me.”
“What the fuck?” Redemption snarled, and reached for her.
But she stepped to the side as a Demon flew through the air to slam against the unused hoist in the middle of the space and, with a slow step forward, she lifted her hand. “You want me, right?”
The Unblessed creature stilled, tentacles wrapped around a Wolf’s throat as the immortal choked and danced mid-air.
But the creature stared at her, mesmerized.
A flare of jealously burned in my veins. I shoved from the ground as the thing dropped the Wolf and turned toward her. Something unspoken passed between them as Purity took a step closer.
“Purity, no,” I warned, stepping toward her.
She turned her head, and the black Unseelie marks had covered the side of her face.
“Mistress have mercy,” Redemption murmured as he shoved to stand.
I glanced over my shoulder to the case on the table as the rest of the mercenaries scattered.
Shadows descended under the brutal beat of obsidian wings, and the heady scent of sulphur filled the air. Arrow descended, dark eyes scanning the mania, to find Purity walking toward the Unseelie beast.
“Wait!” Redemption roared and shoved forward. “Do not attack. You don’t want her tearing this world apart.”
I glanced at the case once more, to find the table now empty. What the fuck? Movement caught my eye from the other side of the wall. Irael lifted his gaze through the open wall. His lips curled into a sneer. I caught Deimos at his back. They were gone in an instant, taking the case with them…leaving the mass of Demon bodies.
A hand clasped around my mouth, red eyes blazed from the Vampire at my back. “Looks like you’re coming with us, Hound.”
I tried to lift my hands to fight, struggling to turn as a Wolf grasped my hands and lifted my feet from the ground. I thrashed, bucking under their grasps as they dragged me backwards.
Whoop…whoop…whoop. The thunder of Arrow’s wings muffled my sounds. Panic burned in my chest as I was hauled out the side of the torn-open garage and into the night.
But I saw her…saw my Purity standing there, facing the Unseelie beast.
And in my heart, I knew she was right.
I’d played a game with death…
And it seemed I lost the one thing I’d fought for.
Chapter Seventeen
Purity
My heart leapt at the sight of midnight wings. A smile followed. “About goddamn time!”
Lucifer followed, striding into the workshop, already covered with blood. I dragged in the air…foul blood…Demon blood, and more, and in an instant that smile faded as the world turned cold.
There was an edge about him, a hardness I’d never seen before. He lifted a hand, motioning for Arrow to close in on the Demons running for their lives.
The Lord of Hell was here…
And he came for revenge.
With a savage battle cry, Arrow sliced the air with his sword and plunged to the ground. But the Unblessed didn’t care about the Nephilim, its focus was on me.
“Purity,” Lucifer growled, turning to the monstrous Unseelie creature. “You okay?”
I sucked in hard breaths, my arms, my chest…I lifted my hand and my fingers trembled as I touched my cheek…even my face was coated in blood.
“The keys,” Lucifer urged.
I turned to Melkor, but he was gone. Bodies lay tangled on the ground, arms and legs, some missing torsos…some missing heads. But he wasn’t fighting on the ground behind me…he wasn’t anywhere.
And neither were the keys.
The Unseelie beast lashed the air with a tendril, and a wolf howled in pain a second later. But it was the bare office desk that gripped me more than any beast could. “The box was right there. I saw it…it was right there.”
The wall was smashed inwards, a hole big enough for an arm to reach inside. I turned to scan the empty garage, Mel was nowhere to be found. But he wouldn’t just leave me…he wouldn’t just…
“Redemption,” I jerked my gaze toward the Unseelie as he wrestled with a Demon.
He cast his gaze toward me, and then the empty desk in the office.
“Have you seen Melkor?”
The Unseelie creature snagged the Demon’s ankle and, in one sudden jerk, snatched the creature from Redemption’s grasp.
“He was just here,” he snarled and wiped black blood from his face.
“The case is broken, and the keys are tearing apart this mortal realm,” Lucifer barked. “We need to find them now.”
As he finished, a pulse of power tore through the gaping hole in the side of the building. Hell’s keys called to their master, and he was right there. “Arrow, over here.”
Purity! Melkor’s voice tore through my head. But it didn’t come from the direction of the keys…I turned to the gaping hole in the side of the garage left by the bomb blast. “Wait…wait, something’s wrong. Melkor isn’t with the keys…” I lifted my hand. “He’s out there.”
I turned to Lucifer as he lifted his gaze toward the trees outside. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the keys.”
His words were a punch to my chest. “It doesn’t matter?” I took a step toward him. “It doesn’t matter? This is Melkor…this is my Melkor.”
Lucifer clenched his jaw, muscles bulged, but I saw the truth in his eyes. He’d sacrifice Melkor if it meant getting the keys back to Hell.
He’d scarified any of us.
And with a thunderous beat of his wings, Arrow touched down beside his Lord.
I wasn’t having this…no fucking way…no fucking how. “Melkor is out there.” I stabbed the air toward the side of the garage.
Purity, nooo!
Agony ripped across my chest with his scream. There was nothing more I could do now. No more pleas, no more desperate attempts to make them see what they were doing.
Arrow’s steely gaze told me he understood his Lord all too well.
They’d use us…
“Goddamn you both to hell,” I snarled and then turned from them.
“He’ll never make it,” Lucifer growled. “But we have a chance to make this right. Come with us, find the keys, return them to their rightful place.”
I never even turned my head. I gave him exactly what he deserved.
My middle fucking finger. “Fuck you…fuck the both of you.”
And I left them behind.
The Unseelie beast screamed its rage and turned toward me. But it wasn’t here to hurt me…I knew that now. That voice inside my head was strangely silent. But the pounding in my chest told me all I needed to know.
There was no battle for the keys without Melkor.
And there was no me.
I left Redemption and the Unseelie beast behind and stepped beyond the twisted metal wall and shattered concrete floor. Bits of bodies squished under my boots as I took a step outside, and tried to adjust to the dark.
Trees and distance spread out in front of me. I felt him…felt his desperation. I felt his fight. The night carried its own telltales of terror, the faint scent of blood and fur.
Vampire.
Wolf.
And behind me, that Unseelie creature slithered with entangling stems peppered with gruesome thorns. I glanced over my shoulder as Arrow took flight, racing in the direction of Hell’s keys, with Lucifer right behind him.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, Unblessed,” I murmured at the beast as it closed the distance to stand alongside me.
Tendrils slithered and lashed the air. I reached to my belt and dragged the Nephilim blade free, as Melkor’s scream cut through the night air.
“Let’s go hunting,” I snarled, and together, we raced into the night.
Chapter Eighteen
Melkor
A hand over my mouth, a deep snarl in my ear. “Shut it, Hound, or we go back for the bitch.”
Purity filled my head as branches slapped my face. My hands were bound behind my back, muscles pulled taut, straining my shoulders. I’d kill them…kill them all if they touched a hair on her head.
Footsteps surrounded me, snapping twigs on the ground, as they charged through the forest.
“We make a trade.” Someone snarled behind me. “The Hound for the case.”
I shook my head, dislodging the foul fingers over my lips. “They’ll never trade, not for me…not for anyone.”
There was a shift of shadows as a hand yanked on the binding around my wrists. “Then there’s no reason to keep you alive, is there?”
The sharp musky scent of wolf filled me.
I wanted to say, no, there isn’t.
But there was every reason…and she had wild blonde hair and a wicked smile. I opened my mouth, then someone to my right growled. “We don’t know that, keep going. We tracked the damn thing this far, we’ll keep tracking it until the end of goddamn time.”
“Why?” I cut my gaze through the night, finding midnight eyes. “What the hell do you hope to gain? Money…there’s no amount of money that can buy your safety. Fame? You’ll be famous alright, but not in the way you expect.”
The savage snarl against my ear sent goosebumps along my arms. I froze, unable to draw a breath. If this was the end, then I wouldn’t whimper.
I closed my eyes as the hot breath blew against my ear. “There are people far more powerful than us who want those keys, and we intend to deliver them to them…any way we damn well have to.”
They’ll kill them all.
The words filled me. Purity. Redemption…even Lucifer himself. “Who?” I opened my eyes and turned my head, meeting his hard, silvered gaze. “Who is your employer?”
There was a crash through the trees in the distance, and a battle cry the likes of which I’d never heard before. A bestial cry…an Unseelie cry.
But the wolf in front of me just smiled and shook his head, and that sinking feeling consumed me.
He took a step backwards, turning those silver eyes toward the others. “We move out. If there’s a chance for a trade, then we take it. If not, we cut our losses and run.”
“But the Hound and the Demon escaped through the hole in the realm,” one of them snarled. “I saw them step right through it.”
Deimos…and Irael. My pulse boomed in my ears as they jerked me forward once more.
“Move,” the wolf snapped with a br
utal shove, and I stumbled forwards.
Branches snapped in the distance, and trees bowed. The ground trembled under my feet as that sharp, piercing battle cry shattered the air once more.
Only this time, it was closer.
This time, it was headed right for us.
I jerked my gaze over my shoulder as the wolves charged through the trees. The wolf at my side gave an oof, and stumbled to the side. The air around us shifted. The wolf lifted his head to the blur, and the unmistakable feel of the Soulless came.
“It’s those things again!” he roared, ducking and weaving.
I dropped to my knees as screams echoed around me. Wolf, Hound…Vampire, they mingled into one.
Boom! The crack of a shotgun was deafening. I winced at the sound and ducked. Muffled screams echoed all around me. Something wet smacked my face. I turned my head, catching a shifter screaming into a hand-held radio.
He was calling for more.
More reinforcements.
This was my time to run.
I scanned the trees to my right as the air shifted near me. Gunshots lit up the darkness with muzzle flashes. I stumbled to my left, my heart hammering. The distorted boom vibrated my head. It was all I could hear…all I could feel.
Until my Hound let out a warning snarl. I was hit from behind, picked up until my feet dangled in the air, and thrown.
I hit the trunk of a tree with a crunch. Agony tore through my shoulder before I fell, my arms still tied behind my back.
Steel clinked as I landed, the cuffs biting into my wrists. I lifted my gaze to the terror around me.
Wolves and Vampires flailed, unleashing round after round into the air. But they didn’t know the Soulless like I did…they didn’t know it’d only piss them off.
Screams broke through the muffled drone in my ears. I shoved forward, rocking my weight, and pushed to stand. A Wolf swung his weapon, aiming point blank in my face. “Get these off me!” I roared.
A panicked glance into the dark and he shook his head. “No way…”