The Holy Dark

by Kyoko M

  “Jor?” she asked.

  I spoke up. “Give us your word that you won’t kill me or her before I get there.”

  He sighed. “Must you always do that? There are other ways to bind me to you, much more pleasant ways, I might add.”

  “Just do it, you pompous bastard.”

  “Very well. You have my word as an archdemon that I will not harm either of you. Satisfied?”

  “By you? Never,” Myra snapped, and it made me feel better. “Get moving.”

  “By your command,” the demon said with plenty of sarcasm. He lowered his hand from around my neck. His fingers trailed down my throat, my collarbone, almost to my breast before I realized what he was doing and batted his arm away. He chuckled, his firm body still aligned with mine, and it made me shiver and blush. God, how I loathed him.

  Mere minutes after we trotted back towards the cave, my phone blasted the lyrics to Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida”—Avriel’s ringtone. I cursed myself for forgetting to put it on silent considering we were being hunted by crazy Germans and answered it.

  “Heading your way. Myra’s here. Almost done?”

  “Finished entirely. Any sign of Michael?”

  “I think he and Faust created a distraction for us. The necromancers and some of the ghosts fell for it. Get ready. Belial’s with me.”

  “What? Are you—”

  “—long story,” I said, exasperated. “I’ll be outside in a second.”

  When we reached the base of the hill, Avriel appeared with Myra’s M16 out and pointed at Belial. He was still gangly and cute, but the expression on his face was all warrior. “Step away from her, hellspawn.”

  Belial held up his hands in surrender. “Tsk, tsk. No need for rudeness, Scribe. It is simply business, nothing personal.”

  “My ass, it’s business,” I muttered, absently rubbing the spot on my chest where he’d almost stabbed me.

  Belial cocked his head, dropping his gaze to the aforementioned body part. “Well, I tried to make your ass part of my business, but you said no.”

  I groaned. “Shoot him. In the head, preferably.”

  “As you wish,” Avriel said, aiming, but before he could pull the trigger, a gunshot ripped through the air. It grazed the former angel’s left shoulder, drawing our attention to the woods once again.

  The necromancers raced towards us with guns drawn, and three of their poltergeists trailing in their wake. Avriel and I took cover in the mouth of the cave, hidden from view, but not for long.

  “A ghost army and automatic weapons? No wonder everyone’s afraid of ze Germans,” I grumbled as I checked over Avriel’s injury. It bled freely, but the bullet thankfully hadn’t gone through his arm. I tore off the sleeve of his suit jacket and tied it around the wound while he laid down cover fire. Belial had disappeared for the moment, mostly likely to regroup and change tactics.

  “There are only three spirits with them,” Avriel told me. “And one of their bracelets is missing. I believe we have Michael and Faust to thank for that.”

  “Any sign of them?”

  “Not yet. Get inside the sigil. I’ll cover you.”

  “Like hell,” I growled, grabbing him by the collar to yank him out of harm’s way. He stumbled, stunned by my actions until I yelled over the sound of gunfire.

  “Myra!”

  Another ear-shattering shot echoed around us. The male necromancer flopped on the ground like a sack of potatoes. The girl screamed as she spotted the quarter-sized hole in his temple and the blood leaking from the back of his skull. She flattened herself against a nearby tree, swearing in German.

  Infuriated, she pointed a finger at me and snarled, “Reißt sie auseinander!”

  Rip her apart.

  Oh, boy.

  The last three ghosts locked their empty eyes on me and stretched out their hands. Avriel and I ran for the sigil, just barely stumbling into the roughly drawn dirt as the spirits tore after us. They clawed and slapped against the invisible shield, their eyes rolled back until the whites showed, their mouths foaming. My skin crawled at the sight of them; empty husks who used to be people, driven mad with dark power. Mother of God. I’d seen that face before. The creature that chased after me all those years ago, when I was eighteen, had looked just like them. Pale fingers stretching for my throat to rip it out and watch me bleed to death. Shark-like eyes. So much blood.

  I must have been hyperventilating because Avriel grabbed my shoulders, shaking me out of the horrific memory. “Jordan, stay with me! I need your help. Jordan!”

  “I-I’m okay,” I said hoarsely. “I’m okay.”

  My entire arm shook, but I held it out anyway. Avriel mirrored me and we both recited the same incantation, immobilizing the spirits on the spot. Now all we needed to do was get that enchanted bracelet from the murderous necromancer outside and kill Belial and we’d be home free. Piece of cake.

  I could still hear gunshots and shrieks of German obscenities outside, meaning that the woman had taken cover well enough that Myra couldn’t hit her. She was firing wildly into the treetops with her Uzi. If she were close, Myra would have to stay hidden or move to avoid getting grazed. Time for the direct approach.

  I peeked around the edge of the cave wall, spotting her about twenty feet away behind a hulking tree with an equally huge canopy of dead branches. I motioned to Avriel, signing for him to try to approach from behind while I got her attention.

  I retrieved my energy from where I’d buried it inside me and threw up my best defense shield as I strode out into the bitter cold, raising my voice.

  “Hey, Frau Blücher! Anyone ever tell you that you shoot like a Storm Trooper?”

  She whipped her head around the tree and fired at me. My shield held, pinging bullets off in various directions, but the impact shoved me back several feet. I held up my forearms, pouring everything I had into it as she kept shooting.

  “That all you got?” I shouted from behind my arms. “The bad guys in A-Team have better aim than you!”

  I heard the distinctive click of her reloading the magazine and then yelped as she lit me up again, marching towards me. I couldn’t last much longer like this. Shields were like the sigil—temporary and only used for emergencies. Gabriel was the only person I knew who could sustain one for more than a couple of minutes. Each bullet felt like an invisible punch to the gut, winding me, snatching out chunks of my energy. My eyes watered and my breathing got shallow. Come on, Amador, hold it together.

  She stood about a foot away, her pale face livid and almost inhuman with rage.

  “Zur Hölle fahren.”

  Avriel spoke quietly from behind her. “You first.”

  He slammed the butt of his gun against the back of her skull. She crumpled to her knees, dropping the Uzi. I kicked it away and stood up, nodding gratefully to him. He snatched the bracelet from her wrist, addressing her with a tone colder than the ice around us.

  “Pride breeds the tyrant, violent pride, gorging, crammed to bursting with all that is overripe and rich with ruin—clawing up to the heights, headlong pride crashes down the abyss—sheer doom!”

  The woman spat at his feet, her lip curling in a sneer. She spoke English brutishly, as if every syllable sickened her. “Quoting dead men will not help you, fallen angel. You and your kind will pay for what you have done.”

  “Maybe so. But not this day.”

  A gust of air swirled above us. I looked up to find Michael overhead with Faust hanging on to his arms as he flew. They landed neatly in front of us, smelling faintly of smoldering ash.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Michael said, folding his elegant silver wings against his back. “Faust had trouble finding the proper spell to send the souls back to rest. I’m a little rusty in the area myself.”

  “Apology accepted,” I said, glancing over my shoulder to see Myra and Ace approaching in the distance. “Any sign of Belial?”

  “I can’t sense him. He must have flown the coop, so to speak.”

  He
held out his hand for the bracelet and Avriel gave it to him. Michael stepped back several feet and closed his eyes, lifting it above his head. Thunder crashed in the sky and clouds swirled over the frosted treetops. The wind kicked my ponytail up into the air and the atmosphere around us crackled with energy. I shielded my eyes as the lightning strike came down and connected with Michael.

  The bracelet glowed white-hot for a moment and then he dropped it on the forest floor. It burst into flames and began to disintegrate. Faust made a cross sign in the air and recited a passage from Ephesians in Latin, undoing the forces that trapped the spirits, but he didn’t get to finish.

  The woman shoved past the semi-circle we made around her. I tensed, expecting her to go for the Uzi, but she didn’t.

  “I will not die by your hands!” she shrieked, stumbling backwards up towards the cave.

  “Wait, don’t go up there!” I shouted, running after her. “They’re not bound to you anymore. They’ll—”

  I was too late. The binding spell had worn off. The murderous spirits were loose again. She met them no more than five feet into the cave. Two of them grabbed her arms, the other going for her throat, and they literally tore her apart. She died instantly, her blood soaking the floor in crimson, some of it splattering across my jeans. Then, they stilled and stared at me, saturated in her remains, as their images slowly faded from view. The bracelet had finished burning, releasing them from their bonds on earth. If I’d been faster, I could have stopped it.

  I didn’t remember standing there for a long while, but I must have because Michael appeared behind me, touching my shoulder.

  “There was nothing you could have done,” he whispered. “She wanted this.”

  I stared at the pool of blood creeping towards my Reeboks. “Sure, she did.”

  We burned the bodies and buried the remains in a ditch by the frozen stream. I retrieved my duster, my gun, and my switchblade. There were other things that I took with me from that cold forest, things I’d see in my nightmares for the rest of my life.

  Avriel stayed behind to clean up the trail and remove any potential evidence of what went down. The trudge back to the car was longer than I remembered, maybe because I wasn’t running for my life this time. I expected to feel relief at the sight of the road, but instead I found something else.

  A police car had rolled up to the tree blocking the street and there were two officers there, scribbling on clipboards. The black cop spotted my blood-soaked jeans and shouted for me to stay where I was. Great. Just friggin’ great.

  I held up my hands and didn’t move a muscle as he and his partner hurried down the hill, ordering for all of us to stay still.

  “What the hell is going on here?” he said when he was within earshot.

  I glanced at our rag tag team of misfits and kept a straight face. “Hunting trip.”

  He glared. “This is not a joke, young lady. We got an anonymous tip about gunshots and possibly two dead bodies. Care to explain that?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Too bad. You can all explain yourselves downtown.”

  Michael and I were right.

  We didn’t get paid enough for this shit.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JORDAN

  This was my second time being in the interrogation room of a police station. It still really sucked. The handcuffs around my wrists rubbed against the skin, making me want to scratch furiously to dispel the itch. They’d taken my duster, my bloody clothes, my knife, and my gun. I felt naked without them. Plus, the coveralls they’d given me while they tested my jeans were uncomfortable as hell.

  Truthfully, I wasn’t entirely surprised this happened—not because of my rampant bad luck, but because I’d been warned about this last October. The creepily cheerful FBI Agent Clark told me that I was pardoned for my crime of breaking Avriel out of police custody and being suspected of killing him. He also told me that if I took one more step out of line ever again, he’d “nail my ass to the wall.” Unfortunately, it looked like my rear end would be getting that appointment he made.

  The door opened. Part of me wished it were Detective Kate Beckett and Richard Castle coming in to tag team me and then realize I was totally innocent, but that was just because I watched too much television. After all, I wasn’t even in New York. Instead, I got a short, built brunette cop with her hair pulled back. She was in plain clothes, nothing fancy. No makeup. Just an honest, hardworking officer. Or so I hoped.

  “Mrs. O’Brien, my name is Detective Carter. Do you know why you’ve been brought in?”

  I smiled. “For starters, I’m unlucky.”

  “I’m sure,” she said, sounding nonplussed at my admittance. “But please answer the question honestly.”

  I shrugged, which hurt because my arms were stuck behind my back. “Surprise me.”

  Det. Carter brandished a file that she’d brought with her. “Aside from the disturbance of the peace violation, you were pulled aside because you matched the description of someone on the FBI’s watch list. The arresting officer recognized you from that fiasco last year with a serial killer.”

  “I was pardoned, remember?”

  “By the President, no less,” she added. “Pretty big deal.”

  “So then why am I here?”

  “Aside from the fact that we found you covered in blood in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Humor me.”

  “Because we have reports of two women driving a truck through a bar in Lawrence, Kansas a couple days ago. One of them was you.”

  “Where is the proof?”

  “DNA evidence. Some hair, I believe.”

  I resisted the urge to tell her it had gotten torn out because a guy was trying to strangle me to death. That would sound awful suspicious. “Great. So now what? You gonna throw the book at me?”

  She found my gaze finally. Blue eyes met brown. “Are you admitting to being there?”

  “Nope.”

  “Very well. You’ll be held in town until you can post bail and then the trial will be held in Lawrence. We’ve got a couple officers combing through the forest for any sign of bodies. They’re bound to find something, which you’ll also be liable for.”

  I dropped my head onto the table in sheer frustration. “I don’t want to be rude, but I really don’t have time for this shit. Can’t you just slap a fee on me and cut me loose? I’m in a spot of trouble at the moment.”

  “I’ll bet,” she said. “In addition to violating the hunting laws in the area, you’re being charged with reckless endangerment and property damage. With your record, it’ll most likely go down as a felony. The FBI seems intent on getting you behind bars either way.”

  “Ain’t it always the way,” I muttered. “It’s like O.J. getting away with murder and then going to jail for stealing his own stuff out of that hotel room.”

  She made a noise, almost like a laugh. “Did you just compare yourself to O.J. Simpson?”

  I sat up. “Yeah. Pretty stupid on my part. Alright, officer. Take me away.”

  She stood and gathered me from my seat. “You can post bail and get out in a few hours before they decide to throw the proverbial book at you. For now, we’re transferring you to St. Johns since we don’t have a holding facility here.”

  “Whoopee.”

  Det. Carter got me up and led me back to the front to sign me out. I thought about asking for my phone call, but there wasn’t much point because everyone I could call was already here being questioned. I’d just have to wait until they were processed out to spring me. As far as I knew, none of them had criminal records, and while Michael had been a person of interest, Agent Clark hadn’t expressed any interest in putting him behind bars. Lucky duck, that Michael.

  After all the paper work was done, the lady cop led me back outside where there was a cop car waiting. As I approached, a cold spot opened up in my stomach. I glanced around the sidewalk, down the street, stretching my energy forth. I couldn’t sense any demons. What the hell
gave me that chill?

  She opened the rear door. I reluctantly climbed in. She shut it behind me and rapped her knuckles on the top. I tensed as I peeked through the wire frame across the window to see the cop driving.

  He turned to look at me over his shoulder, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. His features were slightly off somehow. I remembered seeing that pointed forehead and straight nose on the History channel. He looked like those old statues of long dead warriors, frowning beneath their helmets as they slashed through soldiers two at a time. His hair was grey with streaks of black shot through it and his skin was naturally dark tan. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but everything about him felt wrong.

  “Comfortable?” the officer asked in a sotto voice. Then I saw the hand resting on the steering wheel. His third finger had a gold ring on it with a huge ruby at the center. I knew who he was. I’d read about him in Andrew’s journal.

  Moloch.

  I backed up, pressing against the car door. “You.”

  My hands were cuffed behind me. I threw myself onto my back, yanking my arms over my legs. They returned my things after I checked out, so I grabbed my duster and searched the pockets, hoping to find my holy water. Gone. All I had left was the feather, tucked safely in the lining of my bra as a precaution. There was no way I could stop him, not while stuck in the back of the car.

  I straightened up, squaring my shoulders and setting my jaw. “Fine. If you’re gonna kill me, just do it. I’m ready.”

  Moloch cocked his head to the side. “I have no interest in killing you here, Seer. I still need you.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “You would do well to keep from angering me.”

  Moloch threw the car into gear and pulled away from the sidewalk. Come on, Amador, think. There had to be a way out.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “It would not be an effective kidnapping if I told you,” he said in a flat tone. He kept it short. He wasn’t loquacious like Belial, who adored the sound of his own voice. I probably wasn’t going to get much out of him.