by Julie Hall
We watched the creature pass by the front of the house two more times, but didn’t see any other activity.
It appeared the reports had some merit to them, but rather than a horde of demons, there was only a single one preying off the unsuspecting high-schoolers who thought they were having a night of silly fun.
“There’s only one,” Morgan said in a low voice a touch above a whisper, “It’s not even that big. We can take it, between the two of us.”
I couldn’t say the thought hadn’t crossed my mind as well, but dispatching the demon would be against our orders.
“That’s not what we’re here for.”
“Yeah, I know. But it’s just one. And I’m kinda itching for some real action.”
I glanced back at Morgan. His face was serious and his eyes blazed. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission?”
“Easy for you to say when it’s my neck on the line with Shannon when we come back covered in demon blood.”
“Might be worth it just to see the look on her face.”
I shook my head, wanting to be responsible and follow-through with our orders.
“Oh, come on Logan. Look, it’s just a little one. I only see two spiked tails. You know we can easily take it out. Then, ta-da, demon issue gone. We return conquering champions, knights-in-shining-armor, blah, blah, blah. We’ll be heroes, mate!”
I shook my head again. Why he and Alrik didn’t get along was a mystery to me. Maybe it was because they were too similar; although, while Morgan had Alrik’s humor and charm, he took hunting very seriously and trained hard. Maybe Alrik had been in the game too long and it was getting to him. Or maybe it just wasn’t his personality to take anything too seriously. Either way it didn’t matter. I’d accepted Alrik for who he was.
As if I couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing, Morgan slowly crept forward. I could’ve stopped him, and probably should have. But I hadn’t spilled any demonic blood in a while, and this creature appeared to be easy pickings.
I pushed down the nagging feeling in my gut and moved forward with Morgan.
“Okay, fine. But if we’re doing this, we’re going to do it the smart way,” I whispered my plan of attack to Morgan and he nodded in understanding.
I was going to engage the creature first, and while it was distracted, Morgan would swing around and attack from behind. Strategically speaking, it was a sound and simple plan, and I had zero doubts we’d take care of the problem quickly.
Had we stumbled across one of the greater demons—who used to be warrior angels before their fall from grace—I never would have entertained the idea of a fight without at least a full unit of hunters and even perhaps a few angels, but this creature appeared to be some sort of underling. A bottom feeder in the demon hierarchy.
It even appeared to be sickly. Its dark, scaly skin was stretched tight over its distorted features. This one was somewhat humanoid in appearance and its appendages that mimicked arms and legs appeared devoid of muscle of any kind. Like flesh wrapped around bone.
How did a demon even become that emaciated?
My subconscious issued a warning, but at this point, I’d already stepped into the clearing in front of the dilapidated house and drawn attention to myself.
The shriek the demon let out upon spotting me was one of the loudest I’d ever heard. What this thing lacked in girth it made up for in noise.
Something warm trickled down the side of my neck and I wondered if the sound had ruptured one of my eardrums. No time to check, I lifted my weapon and rushed the blackened form.
I slashed my sword up at the creature a moment before its claws reached me. I aimed for its midsection, but my blow was deflected by one of its boney upper limbs. Hitting it was like striking my sword against a piece of hardened steel, making my weapon shake and the vibrations travel up my arms.
The demon swung at me again with its sharp claws and I rolled out of the way. I kept the creature busy, making sure its attention stayed on me while I waited for Morgan to sneak up behind it.
I managed to get in some superficial hits, which did minimal damage and only seemed to make it angrier. The longer we fought, the more the creature’s energy flagged. It was obvious in the decreased speed of its movements and its clumsy attacks. Something else was going on here; this wasn’t how demons usually behaved, but I couldn’t focus on the mystery at the moment.
I’d spotted Morgan as he sprinted straight for the demon from behind. I kept it engaged and then with one powerful thrust, Morgan’s blade punched through the demon’s midsection. It howled again and pawed at the sword protruding from its gut, cutting itself as it tried to push the blade back out the way it had come through.
With as much strength as I possessed, I brought my own sword up and across its neck, cleaving its head right from its body. The pieces of broken demon—head and body—fell to the ground and crumbled to ash.
Morgan looked up at me with a broad smile and then retrieved his sword from the mess at our feet.
“You see mate, that’s what I’m talking—”
“Down!” I shouted at Morgan, who despite being mid-sentence heeded my command. A barbed demon tail sailed through the air where Morgan’s head had been a moment before.
Having trained together, we worked like a well-oiled machine. Morgan rolling and shot to his feet, quickly taking position behind my back..
“Where did they all come from?” he asked. Whether the question was meant for me or just for himself, I wasn’t sure.
“This was a trap. We’re surrounded,” I answered him anyway. “That first demon was the bait.”
“What do we do then?”
“We fight.”
I lost track of time as Morgan and I slashed, hacked, and fought against the onslaught of demons. They landed a few blows on us, but our armor had taken most of the beating. Morgan now fought with his left arm because the right one was most likely broken.
This was no ordinary demon ambush. I’d been a hunter for almost a year and a half and had never seen or heard of demons behaving this way. Demons were a little like sharks around hunters. It was something we often used to our advantage. They were easy to work into a frenzy in their desire to chomp down on us, and that made them sloppy and marginally easier to fight.
But this group of demons was different.
I’d witnessed demons fight and injure each other to get to a hunter first, but these ones fought as a unit, and seemed uninterested in taking us down.
They were trying to wear us out—which was working—but for what reason I didn’t know. Since the fighting never ceased I didn’t have a chance to think through the logic of it.
“The house!” Morgan yelled to me.
We’d found ourselves herded at the front of the abandoned house we’d been scouting earlier. It was now fully dark, and with no electricity inside it was hard to see, but with demons around us on three sides, and an empty building at our back, there was one obvious choice of retreat.
We’d already missed our rendezvous for our transport back to the realm, but if we could somehow manage to free ourselves of this mess, we could still get home.
“Go! I’ll cover you until you get the door open. I’ll follow after.”
Morgan didn’t need any more encouragement. He lifted a foot and shoved the demon he’d been fighting off him, then sprinted for the warped door at my back.
The snap and groan of wood splintering reached my ears.
“I’m in!” he yelled a moment later.
I swung my blade in a wide arc to give myself as much room as possible to make a run for the door. Once inside, I wasn’t sure what we were going to do. I just prayed there was a back entrance we could escape from that wasn’t surrounded, or that a group of hunters had already been dispatched to find us since we’d missed our rendezvous window.
I dashed up the rickety steps, expecting to either feel the slash of a claw at my back or for my foot punch through the decaying wood beneath me, but by some miracle, I
actually made it into the house safely.
Slamming the door shut behind me and pressing my weight against it to stop the demons from entering, I scanned the room for Morgan.
There was a thud at my back and my whole body jarred as demons struck the door from the outside.
My eyes darted around the room, but Morgan wasn’t there.
Morgan was as loyal of a person as I’d ever met, so the idea that he’d left without me only flitted through my mind. He had to be around here somewhere.
“Morgan!” I yelled as the door behind me shook violently with the force of demons’ bodies being thrown against it.
“Logan, run!”
Morgan’s muffled shout came from somewhere below, to the right. I jerked my head in that direction and barely made out an open doorway in the dim light. It was pitch black beyond the threshold.
Why in the world would Morgan have run into the basement when we should have been leaving the house?
The door behind me shook again, reminding me I was running out of time.
If there were living humans in the area, the demons wouldn’t have been allowed to slam into the door like they were now, but seeing as we were alone in the middle of nowhere, without any witnesses, they could bring this house to the ground without repercussions.
I couldn’t leave Morgan, so there really wasn’t a decision to be made.
I pushed back on the door, only then noticing the deadbolt—the lock on the handle having been busted by Morgan upon entry.
Stupid, why didn’t I check for another lock sooner?
I was bending under the very pressure I’d been trained to endure. I twisted the deadbolt. That wouldn’t keep the demons out for long, but it might buy me a few extra moments.
I gritted my teeth and suppressed the urge to punch my hand through the wall.
How could I have been so reckless? I let this happen. This was all on me.
Shoving off the front door I sprinted for the black hole in front of me and was swallowed by the darkness.
Author Commentary: Chapter 8
JulieHallAuthor.com/logan-8
Chapter 9
I awoke to yelling. Loud agony and despair-filled shouts.
They were my own.
Blackness filled my vision and pushed its way into my being. Hatred and fury rolled in my gut in merciless never-ending waves. I was emotionally undone, physically restrained and out of my mind at the same time.
And then the agony stopped.
Had I just imagined it?
My eyes slowly adjusted to the dimly-lit room at the same rate as my mental haze dissipated. It was only when clarity returned, that I fully appreciated the horror that had befallen us.
My arms were spread wide overhead. My wrists locked in chains that were attached to some old, rusty pipes in the basement of what I assumed was the house we had entered. My shoulders ached from having my full weight on them for who knew how long. My toes brushed the floorboards, bare feet scrambling for purchase on the floor below me, only to slip in something warm and slick.
I shuddered when I realized it was my own blood, which had poured out of the gash on my shoulder.
Stripped of my body armor to the waist, the shirt underneath was shredded to rags. I tilted my head far enough to recognize the shoulder wound for what it was. Not made from the slashing of claws or weapons, but distinct bite-marks gouged deep into my flesh.
I’d been fed on. And I probably would be again soon.
A moan from the other side of the room drew my attention. I squinted, barely able to make out the figure across from me. He mirrored my position.
Morgan, from what I could tell, wasn’t fairing much better than myself—worse in fact. A rope looped around my gut, like a lasso, and tightened. Dread locked in my chest and spread its icy tendrils throughout my whole body.
“Morgan,” I tried to call out to him, but was hindered by the rasp in my voice. It was as if my vocal cords had been stripped from me. I moved my tongue around to build up moisture in my mouth, but it was in vain. There wasn’t enough wetness to swallow and help sooth my damaged throat.
Putting ever reserve of energy I had into the one action, I called out again. This time creating more volume to wield, but my words were unintelligible.
“Logan?” Morgan’s voice sounded as shredded as my own.
I gulped down what little liquid had accumulated in my throat. “Yeah. Are you alright?”
Morgan made a noise that I interpreted as a humorless laugh.
“Just peachy,” was his sarcastic response, “So, mate, what do the training books say about getting out of a situation like this?” It took him several tries through fits of coughing, to get the words fully out.
There was a rattling sound in his voice that concerned me. I had to remind myself that our bodies couldn’t be destroyed. But right on the tail of that thought was a stark reminder of how badly we could be hurt because of it.
What had happened? How we had ended up in this pit?
“They’ll send a team to locate us,” I assured him, as well as myself.
Yes, this was bad. But the other hunters knew our last known location, and could find us anywhere on Earth through their tracking system. It was only a matter of time before we were rescued.
A fit of wet coughs racked Morgan’s body before he spat something to the ground. Probably a wad of blood, we were both drenched in it—demons’ as well as our own.
The slow creak of a door opening above us gave me a burst of hope. Thank goodness, they’d come for us quickly. But my heart plummeted and adrenaline spiked when the chirping and gurgling sounds of demon communication snaked its way to my ears.
After that the door closed and something came stomping down the steps.
A darkened mass blocked my view of Morgan.
A fire hose of flames shot out from the black mass and momentarily blinded me, forcing my lids closed. When I opened them again, an angel stood between us.
But there was no comfort in that. For this was the one angel every hunter hoped never to meet.
“I have a proposition for you.” His silky voice was a clever disguise. As clever as the false skin that he now wore. For standing before Morgan and me, was the King of Hell himself. And apparently, he’d come to make a deal. But everyone knew you didn’t make a deal with the devil without trading in your soul.
I’d lost track of time and existed in cycles of pain, broken by short reprieves. It had to have been days, yet we still hadn’t been rescued.
They were searching for us though. A group of hunters had passed outside the single window that opened to the basement where we were being held. The glass was small and covered in grime—impossible to see through—but the quiet steps of my fellow hunters still penetrated my fogged mind.
I had strained to yell out to them in my broken voice, but barely a sound escaped.
At least a dozen demons scurried into the basement with us, leaving a few of their companions above to be slaughtered by the contingent of hunters sent to retrieve us.
This was it, this torture would finally end! I’d thought.
We waited and waited through the sounds of battle above us. But they never came.
Despair strangled any joy I had felt, and tears streamed down my face when I realized they were retreating—leaving Morgan and me behind in this never-ending nightmare.
Morgan remained unconscious the entire time, and there was a small mercy in that. It would have been another form of torture having come that close to freedom, only to watch it slip away.
As far as I could tell, Morgan and I were demon chow twice a day. After weeks, our bodies were riddled with scars and torn flesh. Our minds were just as broken—maybe even more so.
Demons were beings filled with everything dark and ugly in the world—they absorbed and churned in all the hate, wrath, lust, greed, jealousy, and just plain blackness out there. Whenever one of the creatures visited us, the empathy link we experienced in our realm sprang to life.<
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Day after day we were forced to absorb what they felt, and it was incapacitating in a way that went beyond physical pain. The demons got some sort of drug-like high in return.
The bite was necessary during battle so they remained latched to our body, but trussed up like this, they could also sink their claws into our flesh to open the link. I didn’t know which method was worse.
The cycle of agony went on and on for days that never ended.
The only thing keeping us from fading into oblivion was the impossibility of doing so after death. Our immortality in the afterlife had become a curse; there was something truly worse than death, and we were experiencing it.
And then one day, the Prince of Darkness came to us again.
He sauntered down the stairs, his pace unhurried. I noticed the difference in his stomping from the claws that normally scraped against the wooden planks leading to our basement prison. A faint rustling of something brushing down the steps reached my ears. Like the sound of heavy fabric being dragged, although I doubted that was it.
When he finally came into view I recognized the noise for what it really was, large black wings—similar in size to those of the archangels—jutted up from his back. But where angel’s wings had feathered layers, his looked to be made of black, membranous leather cloaked in smoke and shadow.
Devoid of any strength, Morgan and I hung listlessly from the chains wrapped around our wrists that bound us to this prison. My body was clothed in remnants alone. Rags hung from a body that had not only lost muscle mass but had stopped healing as well. Old wounds oozed what little liquid still pumped through my veins. In some ways, I had become a creature of darkness.
I hissed at the monster that was a picture of vitality where Morgan’s and my ravished bodies were little more than mostly-drained meat suits.
There was something so unbelievably grating about watching him walk around in his angel disguise, the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing. I supposed he took on the likeness of what he once was, an angel of light.
