by Raven Steele
The Devil
The Devil Series Book 4
Raven Steele
Contents
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Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Part II
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
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* * *
Prologue
EVE
* * *
My memories are a river, slipping through my mind's eye. At first, I try to grasp them, for Lucien's sake at least, but the force and speed of every remembrance nearly crushes me. I tell myself that it wasn't me who had killed all those people, it was Alarica, but I had chosen to wear the necklace again. I knew the scope of Alarica's evil, and it hadn't stopped me. Maybe if we had waited a little longer we could've found another way to destroy Boaz. Maybe people would still be alive. Maybe even Charlie.
It doesn't help that I still have all of Alarica's memories. I see the faces of those she tortured and hear their cries. In these images that flash like an old movie reel, it is my hands causing all their pain.
I endure what I can, waking several times a night screaming and drenched in sweat. Lucien is always there to hold and comfort me, but after awhile, even his gentle touch cannot soothe the raw wound festering inside.
It doesn't even matter that we are on the other side of the world in Fiji living on the beach in a small condo. My memories will not be tricked by distance or a change of scenery.
Poor Lucien. I can tell he doesn't like it here. It is too hot and sunny, but he never complains. We walk the beach each night, sometimes three times. He always grips my hand tightly like I might disappear.
Only losing the memories gives me the peace I need. I want to embrace that blackness, that heavy stillness where there is no Boaz, no Alarica, no bloody bodies, and most of all no Charlie.
So I'm making it happen.
My only regret is for Lucien. He is trying so hard to hang on to me, but I know he can feel me slipping away. Sometimes he will force me to talk of the past, all the many good times we had, and we did have many, but they are not enough to ground me.
My mind is clear at the moment. It's nearly sunset. Lucien fell asleep on our bed minutes ago. It had been almost a week since he slept, but I assured him I would be okay. The steady rise and fall of his bare chest makes me sleepy so I release his hand and stand from the soft chair next to him. I need to stay alert for what I need to do next.
A warm breeze blows in from the open windows, ruffling the sheer curtains. It brings with it the smell of the ocean and freshly baked pastries, sweet and salty. I will miss it here.
I quietly creep from the room, glancing over my shoulder at Lucien. I doubt he will wake. In the spare bedroom, I reach under the bed, way in the back, and pull out a shoebox. After I remove the cardboard lid, I touch several stacks of money, almost fifty thousand dollars. I've been saving ever since we left Wildemoor over three months ago. As often as I could sneak away, I would go to a bank and withdraw the max amount from an ATM. It should be enough.
I dig beneath a stack of bills until I feel a small bundle. I pull it in front of me and undo the rubber band holding it all together. A birth certificate, social security card and passport. I open the passport and stare at the woman on the picture. The face is mine, but the name isn't: Reina Swenson. I run my fingers over the image. Her eyes are so haunted, so sad.
This will change soon. Reina will no longer be tortured because she will no longer remember the past. But most importantly, Lucien will be free to live his life without my darkness threatening to take him down with me. He was meant for so much more than the life he was currently living with me.
I grab the final item from my bundle, a one-way plane ticket back to the States, to a place where no one will find me, where I will no longer be Eve. The spell I am casting on myself will eventually fade, but not for decades, I think. A long time ago, when I was mortal, decades would've felt like an eternity, but now the passing time is nothing more than a breath slipping through a raging wind.
A tingling sensation spreads across my mind, but I push it back for just a moment longer. I can't lose my memory quite yet. I need a few more moments before the spell is complete.
After tossing my freshly packed backpack over my shoulder, I go to stand at Lucien's door. He still sleeps peacefully. I take in everything about him one last time, as if I might be able to hold the memory with me. His strong jaw, his dark, arched eyebrows below a mop of black hair, his full lips that warm me whenever they brush my skin. He is the only thing I wish I could take with me, but for the spell to work properly, I need to leave everything behind.
My heart nearly crumbles, and I have to catch myself on the doorjamb to steady myself. I love him fiercely, but I'm so full of darkness right now that I could never give him the kind of love he deserves, the kind of love he shows me every second of every day. I need to heal. But when the time is right, I will find him again. I only hope that his feelings toward me will still burn as bright. It's a chance I have to take.
Using all my strength, I turn away from Lucien and walk heavy-footed toward the front door. The doorknob is cold against my palm as I turn it open. The coolness races up my arm and to my mind.
It's time. Time to forget who I am, and what I've done. At last, I will be at peace. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and on my exhale, whisper: "Obliviscor!"
Part I
LUCIEN
Chapter 1
Lucien searched the apartment with Henry, looking for any signs of where she might've gone.
"There's nothing," Lucien said. "Not even a suitcase. They must've grabbed her within minutes of her arrival. How did they know she was here?"
"I'm not sure, but we need to find her." Henry turned away from the window where he had been scanning the streets. He crossed the room to the door. "Whatever they want from her must be of great value, otherwise they wouldn't have come with so many. I sense at least four magical imprints on this place, including hers."
If Lucien concentrated hard enough, he too, could tell that there had been several supernaturals here. Two of them were vampires, one witch, and a—he sniffed— werewolf.
"What do you suggest?" he asked.
"Come with me." Henry exited the room.
Lucien followed him out of the building and to the street. "How do you expect to find her?"
The two men who had been sitting on the curb earlier were gone. Lucien and Henry were all alone.
"We
split up. You go to the facility on Daisy Hill, and I'll go to the one on Farr Road. They would've taken her to one of those places to ascertain her threat level before transferring her to Bodian Dynamics."
Lucien curled his fingers into fists at the mention of Bodian Dynamics. They were the medical corporation Aiden, his psychotic and thankfully deceased vampire brother had been working with to create a plague that would've destroyed millions, had Lucien and the Deific not stopped him. Lucien had every intention of bringing Bodian down, but then they had aligned themselves with the government when they vowed to help with supernatural situation. Now they were protected, and no supernatural wanted to end up at Bodian's "reassessment" facility in D.C. It was rumored that they were experimenting on people there.
"Do you want me to engage if I find her?" Lucien asked.
"Absolutely not. We go in together."
"See you soon." Lucien launched himself into the night.
Daisy Hill was less than a mile away. He'd been to this facility once before, but only to gather information, never to break someone out. It wasn't a large building, but it was well fortified with three guards protecting the entrance. A ten-foot-high barbed wire fence surrounded the small compound. Beyond the fence, he would find more guards, standing alert and holding guns with specialized bullets meant to stun any supernatural creature. And by the looks of it, as Lucien flew over in a swift cloud of gray, the guards numbers had doubled since the last time he had been here, which meant they held someone important.
He landed just outside the fence, hidden within a grove of trees, and called Henry.
He answered on the first ring. "There's not a lot going on at my location. A couple of guards, but everything appears quiet."
"I think I have something here," Lucien said. "More guards than usual. Lights on."
"I'll be right there." The phone went dead.
He stepped toward the fence and focused his hearing. There were muffled voices coming from within the compound. He sniffed the air. Smoke. It had to be the Fury.
"You believe she is here?" Henry said, appearing behind him.
Lucien jumped. "I hate when you do that."
Henry sniffed the air. "I think you’re right."
"Of course I'm right. It's annoying as hell."
Henry ignored him as he walked along the fence, his eyes scanning the building. "I can appear inside, but I don't dare without knowing what I'll be up against. We need to go in together."
Lucien sighed and followed after him. It didn't used to be that way. Henry was extremely powerful and could overtake just about anyone, but ever since the DSRD came into the picture, everything changed. The department was full of supernaturals, all equipped with special guns. Because of this, Henry made a new rule for all Deific employees: no one fights alone, including himself.
"I know it's cliché," Lucien said, "but we could take out two guards and pretend to be them. It would at least get us into the building to see what we are up against."
"Too risky. The others will sense us." Henry approached the fence and linked his fingers through the chained metal, focusing on the guards in the distance. "What have we become? Remember the good old days when it would take just one of us to destroy a small army? Now supernaturals have joined the enemy, using bullets that kill us. I hate this new world."
"We need to adapt," Lucien said, joining him near the fence. "Be smarter than they are, create our own tech to combat theirs."
"I have a gentlemen in Rouen doing just that, but I do miss the old ways."
Lucien stared ahead, focusing all of his senses, including the sixth, on the guards. His body surged with magic. The power left his body in long, invisible tendrils, stretching through the air until they reached the men. Three of them were new vampires, but one was fairly old. And full of rage. It pulsed off him in great waves that made Lucien's magical tendrils recoil. He would have to stay away from that one.
As for the other guards, he sensed a few werewolves but the rest were all humans. They reeked of fear, and their eyes kept shifting nervously to the supernaturals near them, despite the weapons they held tightly in their hands. Humans should never have known about their kind. It was just a matter of time before they rose up against supernaturals. They had the numbers, and now that Hansen was making all supernaturals register with the DSRD, humans would know where to find them if they chose to.
Could that be Hansen's end game? Lucien didn't think so as Hansen was also a supernatural, but not one either he or Henry recognized. He seemed to be part vampire, part witch, part demon, and who knew what else. Henry had anonymously leaked information to the press about this, but the story was never reported. Either no one believed it, or Hansen had used every means possible to bury the story.
"There's only one good way to get into that building," Henry said.
"What's that?"
Henry turned to him. "You're going to have to do it."
"How? Like you said, they will sense me. Especially the old vampire and probably the werewolves."
"Not if you change your bodily composition. I've seen you when you fly. You dematerialize into a light fog. It will be perfect for what we need."
Lucien stepped back, shaking his head. "They only way I'm able to do that is by speed. We need stealth for this."
"You just need to control the power. Speed makes it easier, but that's not what is allowing the transformation. It's you, your magic. Just concentrate, and I have no doubt you'll be able to do it. Maybe start by going fast, then try slowing down."
Lucien's lungs filled with air. He didn't tell Henry, but he had already attempted this before with little success. "It's not going to work."
"Because you won't let it," he said, his voice suddenly full of steel. "Ever since Eve disappeared, you haven't grown. I've tried to put you into situations where you would expand the magic inside you, but you seem satisfied with your current state. Your abilities are like a muscle. They must be exercised or they atrophy. You're stuck, Lucien."
Lucien glanced over his shoulder and stared into the never-ending darkness of the forest. He was stuck, but he didn't care. How could he move on without Eve? It felt treasonous.
Henry pointed toward the building. "There is a girl inside there who needs our help. Eve wouldn't have hesitated."
Lucien glanced up to the night sky where starlight pushed through the black. He's right. Eve wouldn't have hesitated, but she wasn't here. Only he was. His chest filled with air, and he exhaled slowly, thinking of the girl. Was he really going to let something happen to her? Especially someone who knew Charlie? "I'll try."
He lifted upward with a giant leap, punching through the night air. His body hummed with power that exploded through his muscles until he felt them vibrating. A short breath later, he was zipping through the air as if a ghost that had broken free from its grave.
Skimming the tops of the trees, he concentrated on his body movements. The cool wind chilled his molecules, but it was a good feeling, like diving into a pool on a hot summer day.
After circling the complex a few times, he tuned into the way his body was responding to the air and his movements. He thought of the girl trapped inside, which made him think of Eve again. She had been trapped most of her life. First by her parents, then Boaz and Alarica and finally her own memories. Memories could be a powerful enemy. He knew this, having buried his own painful memory of what he had done with Aiden during the Black Death, the pandemic that wiped out much of Europe. Maybe he and Eve weren't so different, yet he couldn't imagine ever leaving Eve, no matter how bad things became.
He took a breath and forced his mind in a different direction, one that wouldn't hinder his progress. Instead, he thought of all the wonderful times he had with Eve. This focused him enough that he was able to slow his body down.
It took a few times and a lot of concentration, but eventually he managed to keep his smoke-like form together while hovering near the tops of the trees. He drifted downward through leaves and branches and snaked al
ong the forest floor moving over and under the foliage.
"Good," Henry said when Lucien reached him at a slow pace. "Now I'll find you a way in."
Henry turned his attention back to the compound. "There." He pointed toward a window on the second floor.
Just as Lucien looked, the glass cracked.
"Give a small push on the bottom right corner. It will open. Search the inside then come back and report. We save her together."
Lucien floated back into the air. He hovered a few seconds, determining the safest route. None of the guards had moved from their position. The older vampire, however, looked more agitated than before. He was opening and closing his hands into tight fists.
Lucien chose a path closest to the ground. He flew across the grass, careful to keep his pace steady as to not draw attention. He was almost to the side of the building, when the older vampire snapped his head in Lucien's direction. Lucien darted behind a nearby shed, his pulse racing. It took almost a full minute before he felt safe to proceed.
Moving even slower this time, he drifted to the side of the building and slid up the bricks to the window. After making sure no one was watching, especially a camera that might've been turned in his direction, he crept up the side of the brick building until he reached the broken window. With just a little pressure, a piece of the glass fell inward onto carpet. It barely made a sound.