by Erik Lynd
The Demon Collector
Book Three of the Hand of Perdition
Erik Lynd
Broken Gods Press
To my family, both old and new.
Contents
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Also by Erik Lynd
Newsletter
About the Author
1
The coffee shop was warm and inviting. Christmas music played quietly over the speakers, the rich, earthy smells of coffee and pumpkin spice hung strong in the air. The store was crowded with shoppers taking a break from hectic malls and shopping centers. They talked loudly, as though they were at a bar, not a small coffee shop catering to the wealthier clientele of this area. For Christopher, however, the cozy scene could not cover the rotten stench of his prey.
Christopher might have looked a little out of place. He wore a simple outfit: jeans, t-shirt and a hoodie, his brown hair, a little too long, sticking out from under that hood. His college kid home for Christmas break look contrasted starkly with the hip well-dressed young men who sat around him. And maybe he looked a little too serious, maybe people would think he was having trouble with his classes or a break up with a girlfriend. He was certainly too young to have serious problems, problems that most people only found in nightmares.
The thing most people would have noticed, if any of them even bothered to look at him, was that on such a cold winter night he did not appear to have a coat. Nothing hung from the coat hook just above his head, nor from the back of his chair. It was too cold to not have a jacket; the weather was verging on a blizzard.
It was not that Christopher had no coat; he simply had no choice but to leave it outside—it was the outside. It was the shadows that kept him warm at night. It was the dark that had become his new home.
It had been his new home ever since he had opened the Book, ever since he had accepted the Weapon. It had become his home the moment he had become the Hunter of Lost Souls, the Lord of Damnation, and a hundred other titles his predecessor had been called. Now he hunted souls escaped from Hell. A bounty hunter so to speak, only he wasn't paid, not with money; his only reward was knowing if he did nothing, the world as he knew it would be destroyed as evil seeped back into the world a thousand times stronger than when it left.
That and vengeance. He had been paid in blood when his new gifts had allowed him to take vengeance on those who had killed his family. If he had to admit it, that was the coin that had sealed the deal. Revenge. But now he knew, as much as he loved his family, it was a steep price to pay. An eternity of hatred and anger.
He held the coffee close to his face, breathing in the scent the way a detective might have smeared Vicks under his nose at a particularly grisly crime scene. Unfortunately, the coffee had little effect. This wasn't a physical smell, this was a rot of the soul.
His eyes swept over the crowd, his vision awash in the color of auras. He had gotten better at it, learning to read the souls of others. This woman was happy, her kids were coming soon, home for the holidays, it would be the highlight of her year. Her husband, sitting next to her and grinning like a madman, was happy, but not because of the kids; he was anticipating the next encounter with his side chick, his mind full of sexual delights.
Another woman smiled and laughed with her friends, a pile of packages next to her. All the while lines of stress permeated her aura as, in the back of her mind, she tried to figure out how she would pay for all this.
An older, well-dressed man sat by himself slowly sipping a coffee, trying to decide if this would finally be the year he killed himself. He couldn't decide if anybody would care.
It was draining sometimes. Christopher could see the happiness in them vaguely, sadness he could see with great detail, but the evil, the evil he could feel. Evil was his stock and trade— understanding it, knowing where it led, what it did. These were the tools that let him do his job.
It wasn't just sight; in fact, that was the least reliable of his senses. He could smell evil. Not the little wrongs—petty thefts, little lies and abuses—at least not enough to matter. Death, murder, hatred, torture—these were the things he could smell, and they stank.
The worst was the scent of a dark soul. These were the most malevolent of human souls, condemned to Hell on their death. The strongest of them sometimes found a way out, escapees from the eternal prison, but only the strongest could claw their way back to earth. They came changed, twisted even worse than before, bringing with them dark powers and mysteries. These were his prey.
And he had the scent.
His prey stood up from his table, where he had been reading the newspaper. Calmly sipping his coffee. He too was a little different from the crowd. He wore a puffy jacket and filled it out with his large and roly-poly shape. His hair was inky black and sat on his head like a helmet. His eyebrows were thin, his nose pointed, his mouth small as though his overall face was too small for his head. He wore round wire rim glasses. His skin—what little was exposed, he wore gloves, so that left just his neck and head—glistened in the low light as though he was sweating. All in all, he looked disgusting. But that was nothing compared to how he smelled.
His soul was rotting inside him like a maggot devouring an apple core. Christopher could see that the black smear of his soul lacked any humanity. This was his prey, his bounty.
He should have known what the mortal had done to be condemned to Hell, but for some reason, that piece was still locked away from him. The journal that gave him his targets had left that page blank. But there was no doubt this thing, returned from Hell, would kill, torture, and spread his suffering to any who crossed his path.
After the man passed his table, Christopher rose to follow his prey. Once outside the coffee shop the man, despite his large size, strode quickly off down the street. Christopher followed, but he didn't have to stay too close, he had the scent and could have followed the man from a mile away.
At a moment when no one was watching Christopher reached out for the shadows and pulled them around him into the long, hooded coat that had become his uniform. He hated that the shadow coat was so warm and comforting to him.
He also reached out through the shadow looking, feeling. Then the hellcat was there, also strangely comforting. She hid in the shadows, not taking form yet. He commanded her to hide when they were out in the city. It was hard to remain discrete with a huge black panther walking at your side.
Christopher followed him for a few blocks. It was bitter cold and the snow was coming down hard, but it was no blizzard as the weatherman had suggested. Otherwise that coffee shop would never have been so full. He was moving away from the hustle of the shopping area, which was good; fewer people meant less chance of innocents being hurt. And less chance of him being recognized. Not that he worried about revealing his true identity; his uniform and the depth of shadow inside his hood hid his face. No, the last thing he wanted was to be recognized again as the hero of the Brooklyn Zoo. The YouTube video of him defeating the werehellhound was still one of the highest viewed and had the most likes, despite critics complaining that it was all fake.
Christopher didn't know where the dark soul was headed, but it didn't matter; he would never make it. The man made an abrupt turn down a little used alley. This was unexpected and Christopher wondered if he had been noticed. This also didn't matter; he had to strike now anyway, it was the right moment. It would be nice, to be prepared for an ambush.
Christopher entered the alley ready for anything. The man had stopped mid-way along the narrow street. It was a true alley, there were a few windows in the walls, a couple of little used fire escapes and a handful of dumpsters near loading doors. It was deserted. Perfect. But his prey had paused, obviously waiting for him. Not perfect.
The large man turned slowly to face Christopher.
"So, you are the one they warned me about," the man said. His hissed his S's and Christopher thought it was the way a snake would sound if it could speak.
"They?" Christopher asked. "Who are they?"
The man just smiled and slowly removed his coat. Underneath his coat four other appendages curled up against his torso. As the coat was removed they stretched out, elongated and thin like the legs of an insect, and had an extra joint not shared by anything human. His arms, which had been covered by the puffy coat looked the same, now that they were uncovered. At the end of each glistened a long knife.
He was not fat; the coat had just concealed his folded arms. In fact, he was quite slim. His shoulders had been slumped forward, but now he stood up straight, his torso fully stretched. His legs kinked backward under his pants, like his knees just decided to fold the other way. He looked like the result of a spider mating with a human. The freakishly long appendages stretched out until they filled the alley. Each arm moved independently, snaking a blade back and forth.
This was new, sort of. Christopher had only starting hunting, but usually his targets were humanoids. Creepy as shit, but human shaped. Only the werehellhound he had fought had been a monster, and that was because it was dark soul fused with a Hellhound.
Christopher pulled out the Weapon. In his pocket and when not needed, it assumed a non-threatening form. Usually a Swiss Army knife. As soon as he pulled it out, as soon as it sensed a soul to consume, it transformed into the most effective weapon Christopher could use at the moment. The only problem was that Christopher didn't have direct control over it; it made the decision to become whatever it thought it needed to be. But since it had been doing this a lot longer than Christopher, he was okay letting it call the shots.
This time it became the sword he was becoming used to. The pocket knife twisted in his hand, but never enough to cause him to drop it, and exploded into a large blade. Bands of power, like bolts of lightning, traveled up and down the blade. Energy poured off of it in waves. Despite the bright illumination coming off the weapon, the shadows of the alley deepened as the Lord of Damnation unleashed his weapon.
Even the spider creature took a step back when confronted with such raw power. The hatred in the Weapon rose up and threatened to consume Christopher, but he was ready for it. This was not his first rodeo. He had learned how to ride it, though not to control it. The fury of Hell could not be fully controlled; there was no spigot he could turn off and on when needed. But he had learned to direct its flow through him and put it to use, rather than simply killing anything with a soul in a five-mile radius. Still, it was a constant battle inside him, and several times he had almost lost it. He had learned since his initiation, but he was no master like his predecessor.
"That is a pretty thing you have there. But do you know how to use it?" The monster asked rhetorically. He didn't wait for an answer before charging at Christopher like a Ginsu-wielding Cuisinart.
Christopher brought his blade up just in time. He felt a quick tinge of pain from his shoulder, the one the Hellhound had taken a bite out of weeks ago. Unlike all his other wounds, it had never completely healed. Despite the old pain he was able to block two of the knives, but it was impossible to stop all six arms. He felt a slice across his abdomen, another across his non-sword arm. They weren't deep, but they weren't just flesh wounds either. The weapon itself was of no use, preferring to only be on the offense, despite the danger to the wielder.
Christopher jumped back, the hell power inside of him carrying him more than twenty feet. Far enough to disengage. He could feel his body quickly trying to heal the lacerations. But the creature was already on him, blades flashing. Christopher's blade wanted souls and darted forward, but there were too many knives. For each cut he blocked, two got through, slicing away at him. In moments he had slices along his arm, gut, and legs. It occurred to him that the dark soul was just playing with him. Any of these cuts could have been deeper. He was holding back.
Christopher had underestimated this prey and was now paying the price. It had him up against the wall, knives flashing, and despite the power of his weapon, he was always a step behind. The raw brute power of his weapon was no match for the skill of this multi-blade wielding monster. Fortunately, the Weapon wasn't his only option.
Though weakened by the myriad of cuts, Christopher leaped into the air and, propelled by his hell power, he soared upward fifty feet. He reached through the shadow and sent out tendrils of power; they caught hold of the walls and pulled him along the alley. Shadows and waves of power surrounded him like a dark fog, and then he was on the ground at other end of the alley.
The dark soul was right behind him. Its appendages stretched out to hook into both sides of the alley, and it scurried forward like a freakishly large spider walking upright. Honestly, Christopher had no idea how he slept at night, given the nightmarish things he had seen. Perhaps it was because his waking hours were so full of them.
The Weapon shifted again in his hands. It became longer and round, still aglow with barely contained power; it had become a javelin. Christopher, wasting no time, threw it. It was a clumsy throw, an attempt at mimicking what he had seen on TV. He had never had any training with the weapon, but improvisation had worked before. Only that time he had been fighting mortal gang members, not an escapee from Hell. Still, the power was there, and the javelin left his hand, streaking toward the many-armed creature.
And missed.
His opponent ducked, and the javelin bounced harmlessly off the wall behind it and clattered to the ground.
"Shit," said Christopher.
It came at him, blades whipping through the air. He was about jump towards the top of the building in a last-ditch effort to get away when he heard a growl. His adversary must have heard it also because he paused. Briefly, but long enough.
Hellcat pounced. The sleek black blur detached from the shadow and transformed into a huge black panther in the air. It landed on the dark soul’s back, its claws digging into the monster’s flesh. Its powerful jaws clamped onto a shoulder, and Christopher could hear the spider thing's collar bone snap.
The creature cried out and fell to its knees from the unexpected blow from behind. All of its knife-wielding hands scrabbled for the giant panther now feasting on its flesh. And more than simple flesh, Hellcat was tearing into its tainted soul. The man bellowed again in pain.
Despite all the cuts and blood loss, Christopher raced around the screaming creature, trying to get to the Weapon. Already the knives were finding Hellcat’s flesh and doing damage. Hellcat was tougher than the animal it took its form from, but Christopher couldn't take the chance that it would outlast this thing. He needed to take advantage of the distraction.
He reached the Weapon just as the man-spider slammed its back against the brick wall, knocking the giant cat off. But eight-legs was too late, Christopher was there.
The Weapon had shifted once more into a sword and sliced through the air, leaving a trail bright with crackling energy. It sunk into the creature’s flesh like butter, and Christopher could feel the pleasure emanating off the
weapon as it gorged on the soul. The being screamed a high-pitched shriek of horror and pain. As the blade left the creature's body, it pulled with it the twisted soul that lived inside. It emerged from the body reluctantly in gooey strings, like rotten taffy. Finally, it snapped free and the Weapon sucked it up like a sponge.
The body that the dark soul once inhabited turned black and rotten, instantly dissolving into a pile of slimy parts that was rapidly turning from a pile to a puddle. The sword thrummed with energy; it wanted more. It always wanted more. Christopher allowed its desire to become his. He felt it rush through him, and subconsciously he raised the sword as lines of power radiated off of it and lit up the alley. Then he calmed himself, and because they were one, the Weapon calmed too.
He used to fight it, wrestle with it and the power and need it drove through him. But Christopher had learned he and it were joined, and it was best to embrace its power and its need. This allowed him to control himself and focus the power in the Weapon. Still, although he was learning how to control this massive power, he had a long way to go and it wouldn't take much for him to lose control again.
As he breathed in and out slowly, the rage inside himself and the Weapon leaked away to a more manageable level. The desire to take souls was not as strong.
Then Hellcat growled a warning and Christopher spun around, the Weapon raised and power surging, but not the mindless soul hunger from before. A boy—really, a young man about Christopher's age—stood out on a fire escape. He wore flannel pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. The window next to him was open, despite the freezing temperature. Christopher guessed that he lived in the building. He had his phone up, taking a video.