by Jenny McKane
Creepy.
Up close, Beleth was actually kind of pretty. She had snow-white skin and ebony hair. Her lips and eyelids were purple and blue and when she spoke, Sunny saw puffs of frost in the air, despite the fact that they were in the desert Southwest.
But, damn, she was angry.
“No thanks,” Sunny said, not giving any ground. “Last chance. We’ll bury your ass on sacred ground right here and you’ll never see the light of day ever again—especially if I’m killed and the ring gets destroyed with you still bound to it.”
Sunny was making it up 100 percent, but Beleth didn’t know it and from the way her eyes narrowed, Sunny could tell she was considering her words. When Beleth looked to Talos, who was holding her suspended above the ground with his magic, Sunny knew that Beleth believed the words.
“I’m going to try to kill you every chance I get, Solomon,” she seethed, though for some reason, Sunny thought the words felt a little empty. Beleth was angry, that much was certain, but Sunny wasn’t necessarily convinced she was angry at her. Sunny just happened to be the current target.
“Vow to do no harm to me or my friends, help me defeat Death, and be free to act like whatever miserable little shrew you want to, Beleth, I truly don’t care,” Sunny pushed, knowing they needed a decision soon.
Beleth ground out a sound that was somewhere between a scream and a growl, all rage, between clenched teeth, obviously at war with herself. The moments drew out longer and longer the more she made them all wait for her decision until Asmodeus stepped forward.
“I will help you get your vengeance against him myself, Beleth, I make a vow to you,” Asmodeus said, surprising her.
The vow seemed to surprise Beleth, as well, as she blinked up at Asmodeus’ words and was silent for a long moment.
The next words she spoke weren’t nearly as angry or vicious as the previous ones.
“I don’t trust you, archdemon,” Beleth said and Sunny held her breath.
“Nor should you, but this Solomon is worth your trust and will free you,” he said.
Was it true? Did he really think Sunny was trustworthy and someone that this obviously damaged demon should place her fragile wellbeing with? Sunny tried not to frown at the thought.
“I will have my revenge,” Beleth said, a bit of the emotion returning to her voice.
It was as though Sunny just witnessed the fight leaving her and returning in another form.
“We all shall,” Asmodeus said.
It was all cryptic and gave Sunny pause, but there were so many layers to what these demons had experienced before most of the world had come into existence, that Sunny didn’t think too deeply into it. She could ask questions later. Or she could just move on and save the world.
Either way, their business here looked to be wrapping up.
“I’ll do it.”
Beleth said the words and with them, was released to her feet, free from Talos’ hold.
Chapter Fourteen
Beleth was given her temporary freedom from not only her imprisonment, but from the sacred lands of the Coconino Forest and she promptly disappeared into thin air.
“Not even a goodbye?” Sunny was half joking, but Asmodeus just gave a tight nod.
“I’m not convinced with that one,” he said quietly as they walked back. “She’s telling me what I want to hear, just like she did back then.”
Asmodeus was having a discussion in his head and Sunny felt like an intruder, so she stayed quiet the rest of the ride back to the house. Once there, they all went in their own directions and Sunny was on her bed thumbing through the grimoire in an attempt to flesh out just who Beleth was when Plaxo arrived in the center of her room, materializing out of nowhere.
“Lady Hunter,” he said, his voice more quiet than usual.
She looked up from her book. “Hey there,” she said by way of greeting.
Plaxo shifted uncomfortably. “We have guests,” he said.
“Guests?” Sunny frowned, knowing the next few sentences could take them in any number of directions at this point.
“May Plaxo take you? It would be much easier.” The dream demon held his hand out.
Sunny considered it a moment before heaving herself up with a bit of a dramatic sigh and grabbing the dream demon’s small hand for a trip to who-knew-where using her least favorite travel method of all time. Portal jumping.
Plaxo’s powers had gotten stronger since Azrael’s fall and he’d gotten better at not only jumping from known portals on the human and demon sides, but by creating his own mini portals as he went. He was at the point now where if he had a clear enough vision in his mind, he could likely jump to that location using a smaller, less permanent portal created as he moved.
Plaxo used the new ability more and more to keep watch, as he called it. He actually made a good scout and Eli and Gabriel were constantly sending him here and there to try to get a read on the situation around some of the major cities.
Between the lack of outside communication she found herself experiencing in Japan, and even here in Sedona, and the recovering she was doing, she hadn’t been keeping up with the world’s status as far as the feral demons were concerned. Asmodeus and Gabriel told her as much as she needed to know, but for the most part, she let them stew about things they couldn’t directly control while Sunny worried about making the next best decision that she could. One at a time.
The jump was a fast one—Plaxo had told her that long jumps took a little more time and that he was still adjusting to the time spent in limbo, neither here nor there.
“Plaxo has a hard time not getting sick,” he had admitted.
Lucky for Sunny, they were standing in a nearby desert in almost no time at all. She blinked a bit at the powerful shift from indoor light to Arizona desert afternoon and had a hard time with her eyes. Plaxo had landed them in the shade of a high butte of rocks with plenty of trees and vegetation, so the adjustment didn’t take too long.
“Solomon,” a voice from a few yards away spoke and Sunny cursed her light-blinded eyes for not noticing the tengu so close.
“Could have just told me,” Sunny muttered to Plaxo, who said nothing.
“Yama-sama,” Sunny said and gave a low bow.
She was addressing the Buddhist demon with the highest level of respect, same as she did for Kiku. It was a bit of a learning curve for Sunny, ever the casual American who was used to addressing all creatures, even archangels and archdemons, like school chums. But in cultures like Yama and Kiku’s, showing due respect was of utmost importance.
The human-bird demon gave her a more shallow bow in return, as much as Sunny could make out, that is.
“We watched the capture of the Guardian earlier this morning,” Yama spoke while one of his talons pawed the ground. “That could have gone badly, knowing the Guardian of the north.”
Sunny gave a weak nod.
“She got the jump on me, that’s for sure,” Sunny admitted. “I suppose I’d been fairly warned, but she still got me.”
Sunny’s ego burned at the admission, but she knew that there was something about the way the tengu was leading the conversation that told her this was some sort of test and the only way to pass was to be honest—even if it meant putting her faults on full display.
“And the Skinwalkers,” Yama continued. “Did you find them to be helpful creatures?”
Sunny didn’t imagine that the tengu, Japanese demons, would know much about the Skinwalkers, hailing from the desert Southwest of the United States.
“They struck a bargain at the last minute,” Sunny replied. “They’re definitely shrewd negotiators.”
Yama flicked one of his wings out away from Sunny and she stepped back.
“And what was the bargain?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but bit her lip at the last moment. Sunny wanted to walk a fine line between being someone the tengu wanted to side with, but she was also dealing with an entity that she knew very little of—and whose
relations with other demons she knew even less of.
What if the tengu and Skinwalkers were ancient enemies and she gave something away that would put their new allies at risk?
“I don’t believe it’s my right to say, Yama-sama,” she said, her heart rate spiking in fear of offending the demon. “I am not trying to offend you, but I feel if it might somehow put the Skinwalkers at risk to speak of what they asked for, it is best for me to stay quiet altogether.”
Sunny braced for the blowback, but it never came.
Yama lifted his head and let a chortle-like sound rumble out of his throat. It was some sort of call because, like last time, the response came quickly after.
He glanced over his shoulder and stayed silent for a moment while reports came in from different locations across the desert.
“Is everything okay?” Sunny couldn’t help but ask.
Yama turned back to her and angled his head this way and that, suddenly looking very avian. He took a large step forward, suddenly eating the space between them and the tengu inhaled deeply.
“Test number one,” Yama said. “An ally’s ability to hold secrets. Well done, Solomon.”
Without saying anything else, Yama spread his wings and took to the sky in one giant flash of his wings, lifting higher and higher until he was hard to track against the sun, despite Sunny trying to follow his movements (and those of his fellow tengu) against the bright sun.
In a few moments, they were gone, leaving Sunny and Plaxo alone in the desert.
Sunny blew out a breath and leaned back against the red stone boulder she had been standing near and sunk to the ground. Her knees felt like jelly and her stomach was roiling a little, the nerves of the encounter with Yama and the tengu leaving adrenaline spiking through her system.
“What was that?” she said a little breathlessly.
Plaxo came to sit next to her as he studied the scenery around him.
“The tengu are notoriously hard to get to know, so Plaxo can hardly give you any good information about what just happened,” the dream demon said. “Plaxo thinks whatever just happened, however, Lady Hunter did well.”
She just shook her head, not really believing him. Just as with everything that happened lately, she’d barely gotten through another scrape by the skin of her teeth.
“What do you know about the tengu, Plaxo?” she said after they sat in silence a few moments longer. Neither seemed to be in a rush to head back to the house just yet.
Plaxo was playing with a rock near his foot, pushing it in a small circle.
“Not too much, Lady Hunter,” he said. “Rumors mostly. There’s a discussion among our kind about their origins—which might make some of their behavior make more sense if any of them are true.”
“Like what?” Sunny pressed.
“One theory is that they’re demon/bird hybrids, just as they appear. Like Plaxo is as he appears,” the dream demon said. “But there are others who say that the tengu are punished Buddhist priests who were not what they appeared to be. Proud. Greedy. Violent. Because they broke the faith of their people, they were punished by being turned into the tengu as a warning to future priests and followers—there was a price to pay in hypocrisy.”
Sunny considered his words. Was Yama a fallen priest?
“More outlandish than that,” Plaxo continued, “is the thought that the tengu are former Shinto deities who fell from grace.”
Even more curious.
“What do you think, Plaxo?” Sunny was curious.
Her friend didn’t answer right away, just paid more attention to his rock and the breeze on their skin.
“Plaxo doesn’t know what to think,” he said finally. “But there’s enough power coming from the tengu that it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine that they have the powers of gods within them still.”
And there it was, the likelihood that they weren’t just dealing with a demon or even a fallen angel—but there was a chance they were entertaining the possibility of an alliance with fallen gods.
Sunny blew out a long breath before standing up and looking back at her friend.
“I suppose it’s time,” she said finally and the dream demon nodded. “They’re probably wondering where we got off to.”
“Lady Hunter will do the right thing,” Plaxo said quietly, looking away from her. “Plaxo has believed it from the beginning and still does.”
She managed to smile down at him. “I appreciate it, friend,” she said. “I’m not sure I always believe it myself.”
“The moment Lady Hunter does finally start to believe it,” Plaxo said as he reached for her hand to do the jump, “will be the worst day of her enemies’ lives.”
Chapter Fifteen
The next night, they had a visitor.
Ronnie Zavala was a shaman in the area and knew Gabriel from a few demon run-ins over the years, namely when demons up to no good crossed sacred grounds onto tribal lands. One of Ronnie’s main jobs was to keep the sacred lands clear of unauthorized and dangerous demons. And he was damn good at his job, as Sunny came to realize.
Ronnie, a small man with a silver braid that reached down his back and who wore a leather vest over a button up denim shirt, was the friend who clued Gabriel into the potential summoning stones. He’d cleared their use with tribal council members (there was such a thing when it came to tribes policing their own land against rogue demons) and had known what Sunny was going to do the day before.
He’d also guessed correctly that the Skinwalkers might make themselves known with that much activity in their backyard and with a Solomon heir fully ringed up and waking Guardians.
Ronnie, over a Coors Light, was having a good laugh at the part of the story where Sunny got knocked out of the line of salt and was basically used as a stepping stone for Beleth to gain a little temporary freedom.
“They’re tricky, those demons,” he said good naturedly and went on to share a couple of his own less-than-spectacular run-ins with demons, including the time a demon stole his truck and left him stranded in the middle of nowhere a few minutes before midnight.
“This was before cell phones, mind you, so I had to hoof it back,” he recalled with a laugh. “Let’s just say I used obsidian that day when I saw what the thing had done to my truck and my dog. Evil bastard.”
Sunny liked Ronnie. He looked like he’d seen some shit in his life, he looked like he’d probably earned a lot of his knowledge the hard way, but he also laughed easily and didn’t look too worse for the wear.
“You get used to it,” he said to her when she mentioned that he seemed incredibly normal for someone his line of work. “You also learn lessons the hard way real quick—never to repeat mistakes again. That’s the key to success in this game. You don’t have to know everything right away, but you can’t be a slow learner. You probably won’t survive learning a lesson the second or third time.”
Sunny knew that to be the truth, given the amount of times she’d been certain she wasn’t going to make it out of a run-in alive.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it,” she said. “Each demon is so different. And that’s not even the angels. I have less working knowledge of them and can’t seem to get my run-ins with angels right. Last one nearly killed Sin and I.”
Sin nodded in agreement and stared into the dancing flames of the fire pit they were sitting around. It was a clear, crisp night and Sunny was wearing not just a hoodie, sweatpants and her fuzzy boots, but a giant comforter over her lap as well. But it was perfect with the fire blazing and giving off enough heat to make her cheeks warm.
Eli was opposite the fire from her and would talk to Gabriel or Ronnie off and on. Metatron was already asleep and Asmodeus was inside using up as much WIFI as a demon could, given the spotty connection. He was researching their next move and something told Sunny that Metatron was probably doing something similar under the guise of sleep.
“It’s rare that a Skinwalker would make himself known to an outsider,” Ronnie said, br
inging her attention back to him. “And had they not intervened and made themselves part of the fight, I would not give you their story—it is not mine to pass out as I please. But now that you’ve all seen them and interacted with them, it’s important you understand what sort of demon you’re dealing with.”
When she’d gotten back yesterday from her little interlude with Yama and the other tengu, she’d immediately gotten back to her grimoire and to the Internet to look up Skinwalkers—initially just to see if there were any historical problems between the two races that Sunny might need to be aware of. But, just as she’d figured, they had no interaction with each other thanks to their geographic distance and spiritual ties. Tengu belonged to the Buddhists and the Skinwalkers were a Native American demon, mostly belonging to the Navajo people but who were given extra wide berth in service of the native peoples to patrol the sacred lands across New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, if they were acting as protectors and not victimizers.
Their swath of land was called the Four Corners area and Sedona wasn’t traditionally in their jurisdiction—only recent events had made it possible for them to travel freely to be where Sunny and the team had found them at the summoning stones.
“They’re called many names but originally, to their people, they were yee naaldlooshii, or those who travel on four feet,” Ronnie began. “They were regarded as witches and persecuted for most of our histories, but when three of them saved an entire village 100 years ago, there was a thin truce established that has held to this day—thin, but durable it seems.”
Ronnie took a few deep breaths.
“The yee naaldlooshii are hard to define and elders have been trying for generations. Are they demons? Are they witches? Are they evil? Good? The best we can guess is—yes. To all of it in varying degrees,” Ronnie said. “For the most part, the two that you met are the ones who serve as sentinels for the council in the Four Corners area. A few have showed up in the past and done violent, wicked deeds—but from everything we can tell, it was not the ones who made the pact with us. Talos and Coyote, and a handful of others, are our allies.”
