“But Ben was no help, and I don’t have anyone else. And you’ve got the resources. So you’re going to use them. Do you understand me? You’re going to use your magic secret society powers to find Sassy for me.
“Because I love her, Ash. And she needs me. And I am not giving her up.”
He tried to swallow and couldn’t. The lump there was too big. What could he say? Even if she was wrong about everything, how could he refuse her? She appealed to him on love – love for Sassy. That was something he understood all too well.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll help.”
Five
I came to, gasping for air. For a second, I thought someone was trying to smother me. But there was no one there, no one on top of me.
My heart hammered in my chest as I struggled to get enough oxygen. After several seconds, my panic receded. I could finally breathe. I was still in the shitty motel I’d rented. Sunlight filtered in through the threadbare curtains.
I was about to relax, when I turned my head and saw Mr. Trench Coat sitting in the ugly-ass chair that came with the room, watching me casually.
“Jesus!” I cried.
I threw myself off the bed, banged my knee, but rolled to my feet anyway, searching for my katana. Shit! Where the hell was it?
“Your sword is on the other side of the bed,” he said.
My eyes flew to it. Yes, it was sheathed and leaning against the bed within easy reach. At least, it would have been if I’d not flung myself off the other side.
“Relax,” he said. “If I had meant you any harm, I could have inflicted it on you while you were unconscious. Or I could simply have let the poison continue its paralytic work until your lungs could no longer draw air.”
I struggled to understand what the fuck he was talking about. Then the memory of the fight with the demon returned. Oh, yeah. This dude had arrived just in time to save my ass from that ugly fuck. I cleared my throat.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, unable to come up with anything better.
“You were poisoned by the demon,” he answered. “You needed antivenin if you were to survive. But the salve is a strong sedative. Since you were unconscious, I thought it best to watch over you, just in case more demons were hunting you.”
Okay, that made sense. I suppose I owed this guy my life twice then.
I studied him. He’d removed his coat. He wore a black, collared, button-up shirt. This guy definitely liked the black aesthetic. A gold chain adorned his neck, and the hint of a tattoo lurked just above the first button of his shirt. His hair was long and shiny. It was so straight, it was as though there were weights on the ends of it holding it down. He had a thin goatee, and his skin was pale. His hair may have been black, but this guy was definitely of Celtic descent. His eyes were blue, and they smoldered with some fiery purpose that drove him mercilessly.
Shit! This was the guy from my dream! His eyes had flamed in the vision as he blocked Ephraim’s knife.
Speaking of which, his staff leaned against the chair within his reach. Runes were carved into it from one end to the other, and it appeared to be made of some light wood – ash or honey oak, maybe. Lacquered, it shone in the light of the motel lamps. Both ends had silver caps, and these, too, were stamped with sigils.
So. I’d dreamed of this guy. He’d rescued me from Ephraim. And Big Brother Asshole commanded an army of demons. I suddenly wanted to puke. This guy’s appearance could only mean the rest of the vision was true somehow too.
Great. Just fucking great.
“Thanks,” I said, trying not to think too much about the implications.
“You’re welcome.”
“How long was I out?”
“Eighteen hours.”
Jesus. It hadn’t felt like that long. I didn’t think I was ever going to need to sleep again. With all the rest I’d been getting, it seemed like I should be good for months.
Except, of course, it hadn’t really been rest.
“What the hell was that thing?” I asked.
“A carthaax,” he replied. “Basic predatory demon. They like to stalk their prey for days, sometimes weeks, to build up their fear. They find terrorized flesh more delicious.”
I shuddered at that thought. Fucking demons.
“But how could it have been stalking me for that amount of time?” I asked. “I just got here.”
“I’d been tracking it for several days,” he replied. “I first picked up its trail in Indiana. I discovered it was on the train. I boarded at Lafayette, looking for it.”
Another memory blasted into the front of my mind. Mr. Trench Coat had been on the train.
“That’s where I know you from,” I said. “I saw you get on.”
“Yes,” he said. “I saw you too.”
Shit, this was the polar opposite of good. I’d dreamed about this guy rescuing me from Ephraim. Then he’d gotten on the train. Then he’d actually rescued me from a demon that would have killed me. What exactly was happening to me?
“I didn’t see any damned demon,” I said. “I think I’d have remembered that nasty piece of shit.”
“The carthaax conceal themselves in the ether just outside our world. They project disturbing thoughts into the prey’s mind to build the sense of dread and fear.
“When I first detected it, I couldn’t determine whom its target was. And the demon stayed on the train all the way to its terminus at Union Station. So I had no idea whom it would follow off. I had to wait.”
I thought about that. Maybe that explained why my dreams had been so fucked up. And why my dad kept telling me I was in danger.
“I dreamed of this little, old lady on the train,” I confessed. “Her tone and manners were really sweet. But she kept telling me how ‘they’ were going to torture me and eat me.”
“That would be consistent with a carthaax’s methods.”
“I had another nightmare with her in it right before that thing burst in here and attacked.”
“It was that psychic energy I was tracing,” Mr. Trench Coat said. “Because the carthaax wanted to torture you a bit more, I was able to locate it before it could finish its business.”
Damn. I’d been lucky. If this guy hadn’t come along . . .
“You saved my life,” I said. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“By the way, who the hell are you?”
He smiled broadly. My heart skipped a beat. I suddenly realized this guy was hot. I’d been so freaked out by his being in my motel room and in my dreams, I hadn’t really paid attention to how good he looked. Now that he smiled, well, it was kind of obvious.
“Forgive me,” he said. “Amid all the explanations, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Alistair Devlin, Demon Hunter.”
Demon hunter, huh? So this guy knew about the magical world. I mean, of course he did, since he used some sort of sorcery on the CarFax or whatever the fuck that thing was. And he’d just told me he’d been tracking it. At least I could let my guard down a little about the whole Secret World of the Supernatural.
“And who are you?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m Sa—”
I stopped myself. I was trying to disappear. It was the magical world that had me on the run. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to tell this guy who I was. After all, he might be a demon hunter, but I didn’t know whose side he was on.
The man with the staff has a secret he can’t tell you.
Oh, shit. That’s right. The little girl in my last dream specifically mentioned this dude. Damn, what the hell was going on? I’d dreamed of my father a whole bunch of times since the night he died. And he was always telling me I had a destiny I couldn’t deny and shit like that. But I’d never thought of them as visions. Dreams were just weird-ass movies your subconscious thought up while you were sleeping. They didn’t actually portend the future or whatever.
But now, I’d had three in a row that seemed super-fucking important. Ephraim’s got a band of demons he
can turn against me. Mr. Trench Coat rescues me from him. But he’s got a secret he can’t tell me.
What the actual fuck was happening to me?
One thing was obvious: I needed to be damned careful. I couldn’t trust anyone – at least not until I knew more.
“I’m Sarah Connor,” I said.
“Well, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Connor.”
“‘Ms.’,” I said. “Not ‘Miss’.”
“My apologies. I have . . . Old World sensibilities. I sometimes forget things have changed.”
I nodded. Some kind of palpable guilt passed across his face. This guy had a backstory, that was for sure. I didn’t need some eight-year-old girl from my dreams to tell me that.
“If you’ll pardon me for asking,” he said. “How did you do that?”
“Do which?”
“Kill the carthaax.”
“What do you mean? I drove my sword into its heart. Unless this demon has different anatomy or doesn’t need to have blood pumping through it, that’s usually pretty fatal.”
Mr. Trench Coat smirked. Okay, that was definitely sexy. This guy was some sort of a demon-hunting badass. I respected that. And he had secrets, which made me worry. But he was smoking hot. I needed to be careful, or he was gonna charm me into letting down my guard.
“In addition to stabbing the demon with your sword, Ms. Connor, I witnessed a blast of magic erupt into the carthaax. You must have done something. But I’ve not heard of this ability, or at least not seen it used.”
I frowned. How much did I tell him? If I explained how my power worked – at least how Ash thought it worked – I risked identifying myself. Maybe. I don’t know. I was totally confused about what to do here.
“Listen, Mr. – what did you say your name was again?”
“Devlin.”
“Yeah, thanks. Mr. Devlin. I—”
My brain stopped cold again. Another memory exploded like fireworks.
“Wait, Alistair Devlin?” I prompted.
“Yes, I told you that.”
You must find Alistair Devlin.
“Okay, I know this sounds strange as all fuck,” I said, “but my father appeared to me in a dream and told me to find you.”
Devlin cocked his head in surprise. A look I couldn’t identify as worried or confused flashed across his face.
“Why would he tell you that?” he asked.
“How the fuck should I know?” I said. “He pulls this shit all the time. I never knew him in life. My mama hid me from him. But since he died, he won’t quit showing up in my dreams. He tells me all kinds of cryptic shit, that rarely makes any sense.
“But this time, he said, find Alistair Devlin and have him train you.”
Devlin leaned closer. He laced his fingers together and rested his elbows on his knees.
“Train you to do what?” he asked.
Good fucking question. I tried to remember the particulars, but of course, they were sketchy. The waking mind and the dreaming one don’t spend a lot of time talking to each other.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Use my powers, I guess.”
“But why would he or you think I can train you?” Devlin asked. “I don’t even know what you can do.”
Shit. I was kind of stuck in it. I could drop it and tell him, “Never mind.” But if I did that, whatever my dad thought I needed to know wouldn’t be there. And since other pieces of my dreams were coming true, I had to assume that Dear Old Dad actually had something important he wanted me to know. Which didn’t seem possible since he was, you know, dead.
But what the hell did I know? I’d only been aware of the magical world for six months. I might be a total fantasy-lit fangirl, and a D&D nerd, but that didn’t mean I knew shit about how real magical creatures worked. Hell, I’d never even heard of a Nephilim before The Order told me I was one when they first brought me in. So there had to be a whole shitload of things I didn’t know about. And since Dad kept appearing in my dreams, trying to tell me things after he died, maybe there was something to this whole vision thing.
If I came clean with Devlin, I was opening myself to a metric fuck-ton of risk. As soon as I told him what I could do, he might be able to figure out my true identity, where I came from, and why I was in Chicago. He could use that against me.
God damn it.
There was no choice, though. Either I leveled with him, so he could train me like my father wanted, or I demurred and maybe wasn’t ready when Ephraim came for me.
He will train you to fight Ephraim.
Yes! That was the other thing he’d said to me!
I was going to have to go up against Big Brother Asshole. This guy had saved me from him in one dream, and my father had told me he would teach me to fight Ephraim in the second. So, assuming all this Secret-Messages-While-You-Sleep shit was real, I needed Alistair Devlin.
Damn. I didn’t like needing anyone. For the moment, though, it didn’t seem like I had a choice.
“Okay, I told you my mama hid me from my dad my whole life. He was Nephilim, so I am too. But Mama didn’t want me being part of the magical world, so she made sure my father couldn’t find me.
“I only discovered all this shit a few months ago. I have powers like most Nephilim, but mine are . . . different.”
“Different how?”
I sighed. He was gonna make me say it out loud. There was no other way, I guess.
“I’m a magical battery,” I said. “I absorb supernatural energy, and if it threatens me, I can deactivate it. How did my first teacher put it? I can unthread it from its purpose.
“But the energy stays in me until I choose to discharge it. Then I can make it do whatever I want.”
Awe set up shop on Devlin’s handsome face. He’d clearly never heard of that before. He looked on me with new respect. That was kind of hot.
Damn it! Stop thinking with your va-jay-jay, Sassy!
“That explains a great deal,” he said.
“Like what?”
“When I arrived, I bound the demon with sorcery, so it could not devour you. I warned you not to attack it, because you would break the circle, thereby releasing it.
“But even as you penetrated my binding spell, the carthaax was held. That should not have been possible, especially since I saw my magic rush from the demon to you. You must have absorbed the spell and then rechanneled it into something deadly.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” I admitted.
I knew this on some instinctual level. I remembered grabbing the magic and redirecting it into my sword. So it must have been Devlin’s binding spell I sucked away to do that.
“But if you can already use the power, why do you need me to teach you how to use it? You are already making fine use of it.”
“See, that’s just it. I’m not. I do it all on instinct. I’ve got very little control over it. When someone attacks me with magic, I suck it in and then throw it back at them. I killed a vampire by using his charm power to blast fire from my hands and attack with superspeed. But I don’t know how I did that. I don’t know how to control any of it. It’s whatever happens in the moment.”
Devlin leaned back in his chair, steepled his index fingers and put them to his chin in thought. He gazed over my head for several seconds, contemplating possibilities.
“I believe I understand your father’s request,” he said. “I am not Nephilim, Ms. Connor. But I do have a number of innate abilities. If they work similarly to yours, I may be able to help you.”
“Thank God,” I said. “I’m a total fuckup. I need someone who can show me how this shit works.”
Devlin frowned.
“Things have changed,” he commented. “I know the world has grown more profane, but I am unaccustomed to ladies using so much vulgar language.”
“I ain’t no fucking lady,” I said, raising my eyebrows. Shit. Had my father directed to me some misogynist instructor? “I’m a badass. Forget that at your own peril.”
Devlin stu
died me for several seconds. Those blue eyes bored into me.
“Yes, I see that,” he said. “Very well, Ms. Connor, I will teach you if I can. However, I cannot do it here. I was already engaged in another mission when I detected the carthaax and diverted from my course to stop it. You’ll need to accompany me.
“As it happens, I could probably use your help. For someone who claims not to know how to use her powers, you seemed perfectly capable yesterday.”
I smirked. Was he buttering me up? Was he sincere? And what the hell did he want me to do?
“What’s this mission?” I asked.
“Just what you think it is. I’m hunting a demon. I intend to dispatch it.”
I nodded. Probably, I should have told him, “No fucking way.” Hunting demons didn’t exactly sound like smart or safe business.
But I hated those assholes. My whole introduction to the magical world came when a demon tried to assassinate me after murdering the father I never got to meet. Another demon had lured me into a trap that almost ended up with me dead or as some lab rat for the people who wanted to control the Chosen One. So, yeah, demons were pretty much on my shit list.
And besides, Dear Old Dad had told me I couldn’t stay here; it was too dangerous.
“Sounds fun,” I said.
Looking back on my life, it was hard to find an instance of when I’d said something stupider.
Ephraim
F ire seared Ephraim’s skin. The heat threatened to burn away all conscious thought. He screamed for half a second before his armored skin activated. Instead of human flesh, he was now made of steel, impervious to the fire, at least at this temperature. For the moment, he was okay.
But he was far from safe. Assuming the laws of physics worked the same in this realm as on Earth, he needed to do something before the flames consumed all the oxygen. And whether he had enough O2 or not, whether his skin was immune to the heat, smoke inhalation was another killer. He needed to escape.
Think, Ephraim! Find a way out!
But before panic could overtake his mind, the flames vanished. He found himself locked in a circular, iron cell. A door of the same material barred his exit.
Personal Demons Page 6
