Devil Hunters (Tales of the Crypto-Hunter Book 2)

by Rick Gualtieri

  “But when?”

  “When I say so, boy.” He raised his claw hand in Noah’s direction, and the devil actually flinched.

  Rather than smack him, Adam placed the hand on Noah’s shoulder in an almost affectionate way. “You’re a good boy. And you will be rewarded for your diligence. But for now, there’s work to do. You must have patience. Can you do that for me, boy?”

  The devil nodded to his father and turned away, but not before giving Danni one last covetous glance. It lasted barely a second, but it was enough to make her skin crawl.

  If she thought that was bad, though, she was quickly proven wrong as Adam latched his hand onto her arm and squeezed. He was dreadfully strong, and Danni had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out.

  He pulled her close, his rancid breath making her gag.

  Adam’s one eye drank in the sight of her. Without turning to the other two, he said, “That’s enough squawkin’. You both get out of here. Me and Sarah need some time alone to get to know each other, and I expect there to be no interruptions.”

  Noah grunted in affirmation while Ezekiel simply nodded once, a smile upon his face.

  Then they were gone from her sight as she was dragged into Adam’s room and the door slammed shut behind them.

  CHAPTER 29

  Danni was shoved forward as Adam turned to lock the door to the bedroom. The action was deliberate on his part and sent her pinwheeling across the room, stopping only when she hit the edge of his bed.

  At one point it had been a stately full-sized four poster bed, but that was seemingly long ago. She wouldn’t have been surprised to find this had been pulled from a landfill somewhere. It sagged in the middle and only two of the four posts remained, both of those ending in jagged points where the tops had apparently been snapped off. Oddly enough, the mattress appeared to have a freshly washed sheet upon it, the discrepancy standing out like a sore thumb.

  She had only a moment to get her bearings, noticing that the rest of the room had a similar odd cant to it. Everything within seemed old and beaten down, but it was neat in an almost fastidious way, as if the owner were trying to make the best of what they had to work with.

  “You like it?” Adam asked from behind her. She heard him take a step closer as he continued. “Out here, me and my boys make do with what we can. I try to raise them right, give them an appreciation that we’re men, not animals, but boys will be boys, as I’m sure you know.”

  Here, away from the others, he sounded different, almost thoughtful. For a moment, Danni hoped that perhaps this was someone who could be reasoned with. She turned to face him, but before she could say anything, he grasped hold of the front of her shirt with his normal hand.

  “But girls will be girls, too,” he said, grinning. “And right now, we have a powerful need for them.”

  Danni’s eyes widened as he bunched his hand in the fabric, straining it against her skin. Her moment of hope evaporated in an instant and all she felt was fear – a primal, paralyzing terror as this mockery of a man leered at her.

  “You have to understand,” the big man said, stepping forward and forcing Danni back until her legs hit the bed again, “we don’t do this because we want to. I prefer my boys to win their wives the old-fashioned way. That isn’t an option for all of us, but so be it. The Lord will do as He will. But the clan must continue. It simply isn’t an option for me to let our bloodline end. I will not stand by and watch my family die out.”

  The hand tightened again and Danni felt something give as the frayed fabric of the shirt began to tear.

  “I only do what I have to.” Adam grinned down at her and yanked, ripping the shirt from her body in one quick move, exposing her to him. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy myself in the process.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Are we ready to go?”

  “Mostly,” Mitchell replied. “We’re just missing the bulletproof vests.”

  “We don’t have bulletproof vests,” Derek pointed out.

  “I know that. But maybe we should requisition a few.”

  “You do realize the things we hunt usually don’t fire back at us, right?”

  The medic shrugged. “Yeah, but if nine-hundred and ninety-nine monsters aren’t carrying guns, that still doesn’t make me feel much better about the one that is.”

  “If the next squatch clan we encounter is packing you can say ’I told you so,’ but for now, let’s hope these guys are an anomaly.”

  “An interesting way of putting it,” Mitchell said, strapping on his sidearm. “By the way, you almost had me worried for a second there.”

  “Come on, man. How long have we worked together? You really think I’m going to bail on our own because some blowhard gets a bug up his ass?”

  “No, but you’ve got a hell of a poker face when you want. Once this is over, maybe we should hit the tables at Caesars ... assuming we’re not all being fitted for orange jumpsuits at Leavenworth.”

  Derek chuckled for a moment before he broke down into a coughing fit. His injuries were quick to remind him that, as necessary as this rescue was, it was still a stupid idea. Sadly, they were out of options. If this was going to happen, it needed to be now, before Zeist returned. Any attempt after that might be thwarted, not to mention he was certain the clock was ticking on Danni and Francis.

  He was well aware of how petty some of the players in Washington could be, but to see Yarlberg actually choose his own public image over human lives was unsettling, enough so to make him rethink everything he was doing. As much good as his team did, the thought of being beholden to people like the governor was enough to make him question his life’s choices.

  Derek considered that it might not entirely be a bad thing if the plug was pulled on their operation. It would stink, but at least his conscience would be clear. If something like this happened once, there was nothing to say it wouldn’t happen again. Politics was a game of take and take some more. If someone else got wind of this and it served their political needs, he had little doubt they’d end up over the same barrel again. Precedent was a powerful thing in the law, and it held equal sway behind closed doors. Rolling over and playing dead for the governor was morally the wrong thing to do, but it would also send a signal to others that he and his team were up for grabs as scapegoats.

  He took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts away. It was pointless to think about it now anyway. He had friends in need and it was time to get his head in the game.

  “Which of those peashooters is mine?”

  Derek sighed before turning to face the reporter. “Listen, Julia...”

  She held up one hand and held out her other. “Save it. That’s my sister out there. I’m going even if you slam the door in my face and drive off without me. What else can I do? Sit around and wait for Yarlberg’s goons to arrest me the second they realize you’re missing? At least this way I can do some good before I flush my life down the toilet.”

  “And if something goes wrong?”

  “Then I’ll die doing the right thing.” She smiled. “But don’t go shoveling dirt over my corpse just yet. Besides, you need the help and you know it. Two isn’t going to cut it, not if what you said was true.”

  “It’s not that simple...”

  “I’d just like to say,” Mitchell interrupted, “I’d very much prefer to not drag civilians into our shit, but you remember as well as I do who the deciding factor at Bonanza Creek was, and it wasn’t us. Besides, she’s right. If there’s a small army of these freaks out there, I wouldn’t mind an extra finger on the trigger.”

  Derek considered arguing, but nodded instead. Standing here and fighting was pointless – he knew that the second they stepped out of the building – but he had to try. It would have been the height of negligence if he hadn’t. He was well aware that Julia knew the risks, but it still had to be said.

  But now that it had and those concerns had been subsequently dismissed, he didn’t see the point in continuing. Time wasn’t o
n their side.

  He turned, pulled a handgun from the rack in the SUV, and put it in her hand. “How do you feel about a Glock 23, .40 caliber?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Adam pushed Danni backwards onto the bed. He grabbed hold of her legs by the ankles and shoved them apart before releasing her to work on his overalls.

  The second she was free, she pulled back and kicked out, catching the big man right in his prodigious gut. She might as well have been kicking a brick wall. Adam grunted and backed up a step, but that was all the effect she had.

  “Got a little fire, do ya, Sarah?” He grinned, showing off his sharp teeth, then unbuckled his overalls and let them fall to the floor. “That’s okay. I’ll quench that real quick, make sure you understand your place before I give you to Ezekiel.”

  Danni wasn’t sure what was worse – his casual tone or the sight of his lower half. The patriarch of the Lesterfield clan wore nothing beneath his overalls, exposing the lumpy, alligator-like skin that covered his stomach and thighs. No wonder her kick hadn’t done anything.

  But it was the sight of his manhood, fully erect, that terrified her most – large, misshapen, and only human in the most bastardized sense of the word. For a moment she could only stare in mute horror, which seemed to make him grin even wider. It was the look on his face, the sickening lust in his eyes, that finally spurred her from her shock.

  Danni rose from the bed quickly, hoping to use her smaller size and greater agility to her advantage. Sadly, the room wasn’t large enough for her to sidestep out of his reach.

  He lashed out with his clawed appendage, backhanding her across the face hard enough to see stars. She fell, fighting to shake off the daze even as she hit the floor, forcing herself to remember she’d fought creatures larger and stronger.

  Noticing that his feet were still entangled in his discarded overalls, she rolled and scissored her legs around his, lashing out and kicking at the back of his knees with her heel.

  Large and grotesque as Adam was, even he was not immune to such an attack. He stumbled and fell. She’d been hoping to maybe get lucky and for him to crack his head on the dresser or floor, ending this quickly. However, he merely pitched forward onto the bed. The springs squeaked in protest, but he was otherwise unharmed.

  Wasting no time, Danni rolled to her feet and quickly scanned the room for a weapon, anything that might give her the advantage. There was a chair and a lamp, but the former appeared too heavy for her to wield properly and the latter looked likely to shatter the moment she touched it.

  There was no time to second guess her odds against this man. With no hope of victory in sight, she stepped to the door, willing to take her chances running rather than stay here and face what he had in store for her. All at once she understood why Abby had retreated into herself. Her reality had been one of terror in which she was at the mercy of this bastard and his family. Though Danni didn’t know what the poor girl had been like before her capture, she was certain her final days had been spent as little more than a shell of her former self.

  It was a fate she desperately didn’t want to share.

  She grasped the doorknob and tried to turn it. It didn’t budge, and that’s when she noticed the keyhole on this side of the door.

  There came a jingle from behind her and she turned to find Adam standing again, a pair of keys dangling from his hand.

  “You think you’re the first to get past me?” he said with a chortle. “I know damn well I’m getting old and slow, but I ain’t stupid.” He tossed the keys onto the nearby dresser and took a step forward. “And I ain’t weak.”

  Danni thought of Abigail’s fate, but then refocused instead on Sophie. She was still alive. That meant there was hope for her – a chance, however slim. She wouldn’t let that hope die, not if she could help it.

  Biting down on that anger and refusing to let it go, she readied herself as Adam crossed the room, sizing him up as he approached. He was large, strong, and even more thick-skinned than the saying allowed for. But he had one major weakness so far as she could tell. He had one eye, effectively leaving him blind on his left side.

  He reached for her with his grotesque claw hand, but she ducked and sidestepped. His midsection was too tough for her to take him down that way. No matter what some action movies proclaimed, size and strength did matter. But crippling an opponent’s extremities was always a good way to equalize a fight.

  Kicking out low, she tried to drive her heel into the side of Adam’s knee, but he shifted at the last moment and she merely hit his calf muscle instead. Still, it knocked him slightly off balance, enough for her to stay out of his line of sight.

  She knew that dodging and weaving wasn’t going to win this fight, especially in these cramped confines. Were they out in the open, she could have eventually worn him down. But here? It was only a matter of time before he cornered her and it was all over. Once he forced her down with his bulk atop her, there would be little she could do to stop him.

  She had to take the fight to him as best she could.

  Danni stepped in and grabbed hold of his wrist. Before he could pull free, she hit his elbow with an open-hand aikido strike, hard enough to have broken a smaller man’s arm.

  Sadly, his meaty bulk was too much. She barely straightened his arm with the blow, eliciting an annoyed grunt from him as opposed to the cry of pain she’d been hoping for.

  He spun, using his mass against her, and shoved her away, sending her stumbling back to the corner near the foot of the bed.

  “Fucking bitch. Time to teach you some manners.”

  Adam was upon her before she could recover. His claw hand grabbed her throat and forced her back against the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of her. He pressed the rest of his body up against hers – his normal hand groping her breasts while he crushed her against the wall hard enough that she could barely breathe, much less move.

  He bent his head down to hers and ran his tongue, a discolored elongated abomination, over her cheek. “Think I want a better taste,” he whispered in her ear, spinning and practically tossing her onto the bed.

  Danni managed to get one foot up before he could climb atop her, but he was too strong to push away. Desperate, she tried to use his momentum against him, hoping to throw him over her body. She grabbed hold of his wrists and lifted with her leg.

  Come on ... just a little more.

  Unfortunately, he was too heavy and the give of the mattress worked against her leverage.

  She almost had him when his weight became too much and her leg gave out, sending his bulk crashing down atop her and driving the breath from her body.

  CHAPTER 30

  Derek was far from happy. The circumstances of the past day were more than enough to put him in the foulest of moods. He had two missing teammates, had been shot, and was probably well on his way to becoming a fugitive. Now he could add being blackmailed to the growing list.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror at Arthur, who was sitting in the back of the SUV with Mitch and being given a quick primer on proper handgun use.

  That thing had better be empty.

  Following their dressing down by Yarlberg, Derek had dismissed the lab assistant. That part hadn’t been an act. Let the kid think him a monster, but he had no intention of putting a college student in danger. He’d known his chances of ditching Julia to be slim to none, but she was an adult. The choice was ultimately hers to make.

  Offering Danni a place on the team had been an exception, done under extraordinary circumstances. Her competence and bravery had warranted it, but that didn’t mean he planned to make it a habit of putting people not even old enough to drink in danger.