Of Blood and Monsters

by D. G. Swank

  “Good thinking,” I said, then took off in a sprint for the station, dodging the bodies of several dead police officers in the lot.

  The glass doors were busted out, so I ducked through the empty panes, nearly passing out when I saw the devastation inside.

  “Oh my God,” I gasped, and I felt David’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Did Abel do this?” he asked in disbelief.

  “I don’t know,” I said, trying to catch my breath. I wasn’t even sure how to get through the sea of dead bodies. The floor was slick with blood. “If this was him, then where is Piper?”

  He took a few steps deeper into the room.

  “Ellie, are those angels?” he asked as he started picking his way across the room. He reached a hand back to me, helping me find my footing as we passed through an open door into another room.

  When we entered the large room full of desks, I saw the angels, their massive black wings bent and broken, their heads removed. More police officers lay in grotesque and unnatural poses, some with limbs ripped off. Some looked like they’d been shot. All of them were dead.

  “I don’t think Abel killed all of these humans,” David finally said. “The angel’s hands are covered in blood. I think they were the ones to rip some of them apart.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I asked, shuddering. We were in so far over our heads I wondered how we were still breathing.

  “Let’s find Piper and get out of here,” David said, his voice tight. He headed deeper into the building, passing through an open hallway that appeared to have several holding cells.

  “Piper!” David called out as he led the way, walking past a burnt body in the middle of the hall.

  “What the . . . ,” I said, walking around it, past several empty cells with closed doors.

  The last one was open and the floor was covered with blood.

  “Oh God,” I gasped. “Do you think that’s Piper’s blood?”

  “I don’t know,” David murmured, pointing his sword toward the corner of the small cell. “But I have to wonder why there is a blue hand on the floor and who it originally belonged to.”

  My gaze traveled to it. “I have no idea.” I quickly scanned the room. “I think she was in here, so the question is where is she now?”

  “I don’t know,” David said. “But we need to find her if we want Tsawasi’s help.”

  Well, shit.

  My phone rang in my pocket and I pulled it out, surprised to see Rhys’s number.

  “Rhys,” I said. “Did you find Jack?”

  “It’s Olivia,” the voice said, and I could hear Rhys in the background counting to five in a broken voice.

  “What’s going on, Olivia?” I asked, my heart in my throat, turning on the speakerphone.

  “Jack . . . we found him.”

  Rhys’s voice was counting again between sobs.

  “He told us that a ghost is coming to kill Piper, but there’s even worse news than that. Jack . . .” Her voice broke.

  “Jack’s dead.” I hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but I wasn’t sure how much more death I could take.

  “Rhys is trying to save him, but he’s lost too much blood.” Olivia’s voice broke. “He said the ghost stabbed him.”

  I looked up at David with wide eyes. “They can do that?”

  “You’d know more about this than I would,” she said. “But I have more bad news. A demon army emerged out of the hill while we were there, and they are on their way to downtown Asheville.”

  “We really need to find Piper,” I said, fear tightening its grip on me. We needed Tsawasi’s army if we had any chance of surviving this. The stakes were impossibly high.

  “She’s still in the holding cell?” Olivia asked in surprise. “Abel didn’t get her out?”

  “We’re standing in her cell right now and she’s not here,” I said, “and Abel’s fighting off the demons that were sent to take her back to Okeus.”

  “Where could she be?” Olivia asked in shock.

  “Perhaps Abel convinced her to go to a world,” David said. “Especially if she was injured.”

  “Why do you think she was injured?” Olivia asked, but she sounded strained.

  “There’s a large puddle of blood in her cell,” I said.

  “It could be someone else’s,” David said. “After seeing the rest of the station.”

  “Are you talking about Lawton’s burnt body?” Olivia asked. “You need to be careful around Piper. She’s the one who killed him.”

  “What?” I asked in disbelief. “How?”

  “I brought her the demon hand she’d cut off last week, wondering if it could help her. When she took it, a blue flame appeared on the demon’s palm then shot out of the cell, down the hall, and made Lawton erupt into flames.”

  My mouth dropped open. “She murdered him.”

  “I don’t think she did it on purpose, and I know she felt remorse after, but when she was in the middle of it . . .” She paused. “It was like she was possessed.”

  “The picture in Tommy’s notepad,” David murmured.

  “What picture?” Olivia asked.

  David shook his head, warning me not to mention it. “Nothing important.” But I had to wonder if he was wrong.

  She hesitated, then said, “We were going to head to the hospital, but we’re coming straight there.” I heard Rhys shout her protests, but Olivia’s voice remained firm. “It sounds like you need the help and there’s at least some chance of helping you.”

  She hung up before we could talk her out of it.

  “Do you think Piper’s becoming the monster in that picture?” I asked David. “Tommy said the monster ate her, and honestly, I was worried she’d be possessed, but maybe it’s not quite that straightforward.”

  “What are you proposing, Ellie?” he asked cautiously.

  “What if she already became the monster, and that’s why she’s not here?”

  “Again,” he said slowly. “What are you proposing?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, my head beginning to ache. “But we really need to be on guard.”

  “And if she’s truly evil?” he asked.

  So much death. My psyche ached with the responsibility. “If Piper has become one of the demons we fight, we need to remember our duty—to protect humanity from evil forces. Even if the evil is my cousin in disguise.”

  But first we needed to deal with the advancing army.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Collin

  “Need some help?” Collin asked Abel after Ellie and David had made it into the police station. He took the fact that he hadn’t heard gunshots as a good sign.

  “Where is the other curse keeper?” Abel asked, sounding breathless, which caught Collin by surprise.

  He was an immortal demigod. While he could be wounded, he wouldn’t die. But the sight of his blood-covered shirt gave Collin a moment of hesitation. He was counting on the demigod’s strength to help them fight off the demon army, but that wasn’t looking like a great bet just now.

  “They went into the station to get Piper.”

  “She’s not there,” Abel said, then charged the middle demon.

  The creature on the right tried to make a break for it, so Collin advanced, striking and partially detaching its clawed paw with his sword. The Botageria were bloody and weakened, but their drive to get around the two men was daunting. Collin suspected he would wear out long before the creatures did. But his immediate concern overrode his other worries. “Then where is she? Tsawasi won’t send his army until she’s up and fighting.”

  Abel shot him a dark glare, and the lack of concentration cost him a large gash on his arm from the middle demon’s claw.

  “Where the fuck is she, Abel?” Collin demanded. “Did you send her to a world?”

  “She is close to going to another world, but not in the way you think.” His words were heavy with grief and rage, and the demigod’s attack took on a new ferociousness.


  Panic jolted through Collin. “Where is she, Abel?” he shouted.

  “She’s in my car. Dying.”

  “What?” Collin took off for the car, resheathing his sword and tossing his spear to the ground, frantically looking in the front seat. Nothing. Then he saw her in the back, slumped over, her eyes partially open, her shirt drenched in blood. So much blood.

  He jerked open the car door and slid in next to her, reaching for her wrist to feel for a heartbeat. It was there, but faint and slow. Abel was right—she was dying.

  “You can’t die,” Collin grunted in irritation as he lifted her shirt up to search for her wound. Fuck. There it was on her breast, a slash that oozed blood. Who the hell had stabbed her? Given the location, so close to her heart, and the amount of blood she’d clearly lost, he couldn’t believe she was still alive. What the hell did he do now?

  A glimmer of fear for her life bobbed below his consciousness, but his need to save Ellie was his main concern. And if Piper was dead . . .

  He pulled her T-shirt over the top of her head and pressed it to her wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but it was a Band-Aid effort when she obviously needed a hospital.

  “Tsawasi!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, and to his amazement, the little man appeared in the front seat. “She’s dying!”

  The little man looked her over as though she were a dead leaf blowing across the yard. “Yes.”

  “This is not what you told me would happen if I followed her into this. This is not what you promised!”

  “You are like a child with your impatience.”

  “You call this impatience?” Collin demanded. “How can she save us if she’s dead?”

  “She’s a savior for a reason.”

  “You promised me an army to fight Okeus, but you hinged it on Piper fighting because you knew that she wouldn’t be fighting.” Collin shook his head in disgust. “You’re just like Okeus and Ahone, full of tricks and half-truths. You told me she’d save Ellie, and at the moment, she’s putting Ellie in even more danger.”

  Tsawasi stared at him in disgust. “You never learn, son of the land. This is about far more than you and the daughter of the sea.”

  “That’s right,” Collin sneered. “You want us to save your asses while you put in as little effort as possible and we take all the risk.”

  “It’s about your humanity,” Tsawasi barked. “She dies in front of you, yet you have no compassion. You care only for how this will affect you and the daughter of the sea. You feel nothing for her at all.”

  The little person was wrong. He wanted to save her, he wanted to care, but he’d spent most of his life purposely not caring about anyone or anything until Ellie . . . His heart couldn’t afford to be hurt anymore.

  “I told you that Piper is your salvation, Collin Dailey,” Tsawasi said. “But what I didn’t tell you was that by saving yourself, you would also save Ellie. This was a test of your humanity, and you failed. Your lack of compassion has doomed you and, in turn, Ellie. This is on your head.”

  The car door opened, and Collin felt himself jerked backward out of the car, landing on his ass on the pavement.

  Chapter Thirty

  Ellie

  When we exited the station, I could hear the demon army. They sounded like a horde of locusts descending on the city, and the sound was growing louder, drowning out the sirens and screams in the distance.

  Where was Piper and Tsawasi’s army?

  Then I saw Abel’s car door open and Collin fly out backward onto his butt. The car door slammed shut behind him. He scrambled to his feet and pulled a paper from his pocket, then crushed it with his fist and threw it to the ground, his face contorted in rage.

  What the hell? Why wasn’t he helping Abel? I ran toward him in complete confusion. “Collin?”

  I turned to look in the car and saw an unconscious Piper, her head tipped back on the seat, her chest and stomach covered in blood.

  “Piper!” I shouted, jerking on the car door handle, trying to get in to help her. “Piper!” I jerked the handle several more times before I shouted at Collin, “Did you lock the door?”

  But I didn’t wait for an answer. Using my sword hilt, I pounded on the window. “Piper!”

  David moved to the other side of the car, using a fire extinguisher he must have found inside to pound on the driver’s window.

  “It’s too late,” Collin said, grabbing my arm and trying to pull me away.

  “She’s dead?” I asked, starting to sob. “She can’t be dead!” I cried. “I only just met her. There was so much more . . .” My anger rose, choking out my grief. “No!” I started to kick the window with my shoe, putting as much force into it as possible. My efforts had no visible impact on the car. David’s strikes with the fire extinguisher hadn’t even made a crack.

  “What the hell?” I shouted in confusion.

  Another car screeched to a halt. Olivia ran toward us then stopped, her mouth dropping open at the sight of the devastation in the parking lot and inside the station.

  “We have to go,” Collin insisted, grabbing my arm and giving me a hard jerk.

  I turned to him, shaking my head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  His face hardened with anger, but also panic. “Tsawasi’s not sending his army, and we will die here. We have to go.”

  I couldn’t believe what he was saying. “He told you that?”

  He started to say something, his eyes filled with grief and regret, but seemed to change his mind. He finally settled on, “He said we’re doomed.”

  I took a step back, taking in the horror of the army of creatures descending toward us. There was no earthly way we could fight that many demons. Not just the five of us. Not even if Tsawasi and the Nunnehi helped.

  But what would happen if we didn’t even try?

  “Ellie, we have to go!”

  I slowly shook my head, staring up at him with profound sadness. “You always took your role so seriously, even as a child. You had the Manteo mark tattooed on your chest, and you knew every nuance of the curse. So when you met me, it disgusted you that I was so ignorant. You always considered yourself the superior curse keeper, but right now, I realize that it was all empty ritual and rules for you.” I held my fist to my chest. “I was willfully ignorant, I won’t dispute that, but once I accepted that role, I took it to heart, Collin. My job is to fight the demons to save humanity. You’ve never accepted yours.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said bitterly, his eyes filling with tears. “Once I realized what I’d done, my sole purpose was and has always been to protect you. I will never apologize for that.” Anger filled his eyes. “I’ve accepted my guilt and accepted my penance.”

  I sucked in a breath. I knew how he felt, but he’d never said it with so much fervor. “I’m not leaving, Collin,” I said, the certainty of my impending death settling over me. The rightness of my decision filled me with peace. “I will die trying to save the world.”

  His jaw ticked and his eyes hardened. “And I’ll die trying to save you.”

  I realized David was standing off to the side, the look of hopelessness on his face tempered by firm resolve. “We all have to die sometime.”

  Screaming caught my attention, and I realized Rhys was beating on Abel’s car window. “Piper! No!”

  The agony in her scream brought fresh tears to my eyes.

  Abel released a loud shout, his anger filling the air around us with a heaviness that made it difficult to drag in a breath.

  So be it.

  I turned to face the demon army, determined to take out as many as I could before I drew my last breath.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Piper

  I was caught in the same hazy grayness I’d been in before, but this time Jack sat with me, cradling my injured hand.

  “Jack,” I said in surprise.

  He gave me a sad smile. “Piper, you don’t have much time, so listen. You have to access your power.”

/>   “I tried,” I said, still confused at seeing him. “How are you here? Are you dead?”

  “That’s not important. You have to listen, okay?”

  “Jack,” I said, starting to cry. “No. I can’t lose you too.”

  I lay back in the nothingness. It was all too much. So many people I cared about had died, and every single one had died because of me. The heaviness of my guilt made it difficult to pull in a breath.

  “You have to find your power, Piper. You have to save them.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t. Adonis put this bracelet on my arm, blocking my power.”

  “Your witness to creation magic cannot be blocked,” Jack said with a reassuring smile. “Find it. Use it.”

  Easy to suggest, but I had no idea how to access it. An orgasm had brought on that soul-deep memory, something that certainly wasn’t repeatable at the moment.

  Suddenly I was back in Abel’s car and my pain was so intense I nearly passed out again. My breathing was ragged and shallow, and I was so, so cold. Outside I saw Ellie, Collin, and David standing in a line, their backs to me and their weapons at the ready as a demon army approached, so deep I couldn’t see the end of it. There had to be a thousand of them.

  Abel stood in front, fighting two large creatures, while another lay on the ground.

  “If you die,” Jack said, sitting in the front seat, transparent like the first ghosts I’d seen. “They die too.”

  “I don’t know how to find it, Jack.”

  “The magic is in your soul.”

  Then Hudson appeared next to him, his image flickering as my eyesight dimmed.

  I cracked a grin. “You look funny.”

  “And you’re delirious from blood loss. Focus, Piper. Why haven’t you saved yourself yet?” Hudson sounded pissed.

  “Abel . . . ,” I started to say, my voice trailing off.

  Hudson turned in the seat to face me. “Newsflash—Abel’s not gonna save you. He can’t even save himself.”