Hunter of the Damned

by Jennifer Martucci

  The Demon Hunter:

  Hunter of the Damned

  (Book 3)

  By Jennifer and Christopher Martucci

  THE DEMON HUNTER: HUNTER OF THE DAMNED (BOOK 3)

  Published by Jennifer and Christopher Martucci

  Copyright © 2015

  All rights reserved.

  First edition: July 2015

  Cover design by Indie Designz

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  ̴ Agares ̴

  Thin jets of light cut through the shadow at intermittent spaces. Agares allows his eyes to sweep from left to right as he walks unhurriedly down a dimly lit alleyway. Much has changed since he last visited. Mostly technology and small details of the landscape. But the nature of man remains unchanged. Of that he is certain. Evidence exists in the form of prostitutes, drug dealers and those soliciting their services milling about in the distance. Undesirables by the standards of the general population, they will be the ones who inherit the planet when he has completed his mission, his sole reason for returning. Before long, the world will be identical to the alleyway.

  For far too long, the meek have prevailed. Nestled in their homes and slaves to mundane tasks and responsibilities that deprived them of pleasure in life, the docile majority will perish. The rightful rulers—those brave enough to prey on the weak—will conquer.

  Passing a slumped form with a needle protruding from a vein in the crook of his elbow, Agares continues down the alley. The sound of his dress shoes, polished to a high shine, clacks rhythmically upon the concrete. Rats scurry among trash bins. And not a single member of the world’s cowed population lingers. They are all home hiding behind locked doors and alarm systems, and rightly so. This stretch of pavement is not suitable for them. The gloomy, dank path has been designed with purpose. He forgot such channels even existed on earth, and how roaming one alone with the faint echo of water perpetually dripping evokes emotions in feeble-minded humans. Panic. Fear. An increased heart rate. If he listens closely enough, he swears he can hear the pounding melody of terror, and a slow smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. How he’ll savor the day they all fall!

  A woman, dressed in a skin-tight dress that reveals the mottled skin of her lopsided cleavage and legs with bruised knees, staggers by, crossing his path. Her pulse rate doesn’t speed, and instinct warns her not to make eye contact with him. She is a survivor, hearty and resourceful. She, and others like her, will endure. Others that he passes follow suit, evading any and all forms of connection with him. They know better.

  Reaching the end of the alley to where he is forced to turn right down a longer passageway, darker and danker than the first, Agares inhales deeply. The fetid stench of rotting food and flesh permeates the air. Lined with trash and the occasional article of clothing, it appears abandoned. A sodium vapor streetlight flickers in the distance. It acts as a jaundiced strobe light, sure to strike fear in the hearts of most humans, hence the lack of their presence. Agares chuckles to himself, the notion of fear at something as simple as lighting and shadows caused by it almost too amusing to bear. He continues along, searching with all of his senses, and immediately feels the presence of humans. And not just any humans, ones whose ill intentions toward him announce themselves like a beacon. Before long, the sound of purposeful footsteps shuffles behind him. Agares, anticipating their arrival, feels his muscles tense in anticipation, yet his heartbeat remains steady, calm and controlled. Regardless of who approaches, he will dominate them. No mortal being stands a chance against him.

  Agares breathes deeply, closing his eyes for a fraction of a second as the vision of the first man to approach him precedes his arrival. Then, seconds later, a towering man looms before him, his body solid and clad in a long sleeve T shirt and jeans that hangs so low on his hips they exposes his underpants. “What’re you doing down here? You lost?” the man asks. His words are simple, but his tone is venomous, and laden with threat.

  Appalled equally by his tone as he is by his underwear-baring outfit, Agares trains his eyes on the man in front of him, studying the deep brown of his irises. “Walking and no.” He answers both questions succinctly, and didn’t bother to mask his irritation.

  The man before him cocks his head to one side. A smile cuts his features, the white of his teeth a sharp contrast to the deep, natural tan of his flesh. He narrows his eyes and his face twists into a mask of arrogance and fury. The look, meant to be frightful, would be enough to quell many. But not Agares. Agares feels no fear. Instead he studies the man like the predator he is. Ready for the kill. Silent, and with an undercurrent of lethal power.

  Sensing he is, in fact, the hunted and not the hunter, the man’s eyes widen slightly and the steady drumming at the base of his throat becomes fitful. In the dark recesses of his being, the primal part of him that exists and reminds him that he, like all humans, is just an animal, and warning howls through his cells. But his pride forbids him from running as instinct warns he should.

  Foolish man, Agares thinks. Even the dumbest animal has the sense to heed instinct. Humans are the only ones arrogant enough to stay, to challenge when they know they are outmatched. It all boils down to pride. Pride, a useless emotion responsible for more trouble than can be quantified is the motivating factor. It keeps the man in front of him rooted to the concrete, his over-inflated sense of status prohibiting him from fleeing, and living.

  Advancing a step, anger sizzles through Agares’s veins. Stupidity of this magnitude is intolerable to him. He plans to teach the foolish man a lesson.

  “Don’t take another step if you want to live.” The man makes an attempt at feigning strength. The faint tremor in his voice betrays him, and so does the fact that he continually grazes the bulge at his left hip with his forearm the way a child rubs his face with his security blanket. Weakness. Agares spits the word in his head. Weakness offends him the way pride does. Both useless states of existence that never serve a being. “You hear me?” The man leans in, challenging Agares to move and spraying him with spittle in the process. Little does he know, that gesture just sealed his fate. No being that roams any planes of existence is pardoned from a transgression as insolent as disrespect. Agares bows to no one, accepts commands from no one.

  Notching his chin slightly, Agares drills the man with his gaze as he steps forward.

  The man’s eyes dart from left to right, to the other two who accompany him and attempt to interfere with Agares’s mission. The act, though subtle and fleeting, is yet another sign of weakness and fear. Still ignoring the warning that undoubtedly shrieks through his core, the man reaches into the waistband of his pants and produces a firearm, which he promptly turns sideways as he aims it at Agares.

  Standing just a few feet away from the gun-wielding man, Agares glances left then right, quickly assessing the faces of the men on either side of him. Though their friend brandishes a weapon that typically signifies dominance, their expressions did not resemble those who were victorious. To the contrary, their silence is infused with panic.

  “You must want to die,” the man aiming his gun at Agares growls. His words are low and threatening, but the small tick at the right hand corner of his mouth reveals that every cell in his body senses that what he is doing is a grave mistake.

  Leveling the man whose gun is trained on him with a lethal gaze, Agares allows a sinister smile to tilt the corners of his mouth. “Why don’t you try to kill me?” he snarls, daring the man to act.

 
The man licks his lips then purses them. “I’m going to wipe that smile off your face,” he says between his teeth before he squeezes the trigger.

  An explosion of sound echoes between the buildings and through the ether just before a bullet lodges into Agares’s chest. Absorbing the impact, as well as the bullet, he remains where he is, unmoving, and still wears the smirk on his face. Immediately, a gaping hole forms and hot moisture rises to the surface of the wound. But before it mars his designer shirt, the hole tightens, closing and healing until all that remains as evidence of the gunshot wound is the hole in his shirt, a detail that vexes him.

  Seeing Agares, smiling as he is and watching the wound heal before his eyes, the man with the gun, who seconds earlier believed his weapon would end the conflict, allows his mouth to fall open. His eyes round in shock. “What the—” he starts then squeezes the trigger again, delivering another bullet that penetrates the space between Agares’s eyes.

  Agares’s does not rear his head on impact and he does not stagger backward even a fraction of an inch. Multiple curse words volley among the men on either side of him and he ventures a guess that the man before him was about to soil himself, all three men realizing their fate. The two flanking him bolt, holding fast to their drooping jeans as they race headlong toward the anemic yellow light at the end of the alleyway. Agares doesn’t bother chasing them. He lets them go. The score that needs to be settled was between him and the man with the gun. One soul will be claimed.

  With his lower lip quivering and his heart hammering his ribcage so hard, Agares can hear the frantic pound, the man with the gun tries to run only to find that his feet are bound to the concrete beneath them. “What’s happening?” His voice pitches up an octave and eyes pleads with Agares. His expression, cocky moments earlier, has transforms to one of abject horror and fear.

  Grinning so hard that his cheeks ache, Agares suppresses the burble of vicious laughter that bubbles behind his lips. He closes the distance between them and reaches out a hand, grabbing the man by the face. He applies vise-like pressure, his grin turning to the snarl of a beast as the sound of bone yielding resounds all around him, a sound that gives him a stir low in his belly. The man cries out in agony. Agares squeezes harder still, the crunch and crack of bone crumbling intensifying. Unable to tear his eyes from the man’s now-distorted features, he delights in his work. He forgot how enjoyable it was to take a life, especially the life of one too blinded by pride and stupidity to know his limitations.

  His pleasure is cut short, however, when a distinct wailing sound, accompanied by flashing blue and red lights, pierced the night. A vehicle stops at the far end of the alley, white and marked with an emblem designed to imply order and justice. Nonsense if you ask him. Mortal beings cannot impose order on other mortal beings. Such a system in place is the epitome of the blind leading the blind.

  Two uniformed men exit the vehicle and, with their weapons drawn and twin beams of light shining on him from their flashlights, they make their way down the alleyway. “Freeze!” one shouts. “Drop him and put your hands where we can see them!”

  Doing as he’s told to draw the pair closer, Agares’s eyes never leave them as he allows the man to fall to the ground with a thump. He focuses on the uniformed man closest, reading in his demeanor sense of righteousness and a belief he has the power to make a difference in the world. His overblown sense of self-worth infuriates Agares. Humans with that type of attitude need to be crushed. Looking to the other man, Agares senses something different, his feeling confirmed when eyes as black as volcanic glass stare back at him.

  “Hey! I said hands in the air now!” the man closest to him barks.

  The man with the black eyes unhinges his jaw just before he drops to one knee and bows his head.

  Catching sight of his partner in his periphery, the uniformed man leading the way turns to look over his shoulder. “What are you doing?” he yells.

  Agares advanceds with his hands extended in front of him.

  Pulling a pair of handcuffs off his belt, the man advancing continues forward, all the while keeping his weapon trained on Agares. He allows his gaze to flicker to his partner, still kneeling. “Joe, get up!” But Joe doesn’t stand. He doesn’t even raise his chin.

  Gaze hardened and jaw set determinedly, the armed man reaches out and grabs Agares’s wrist. Agares glares at the point of contact then at the face of the man who dared touch him.

  Whipping his hand forward with lightning fast reflexes, he grabs the man’s hand, breaking the grip and twisting it in a single motion so swift the human eye would miss it. Bone snaps at his act with the ease of a dried twig, and with his free hand, Agares grabs the man by his throat and breaks his neck with ease. Face a mask of eternal shock, life escapes the man before his body collapses to the ground.

  Agares smoothes the front of his shirt, frowning at the small, singed spot where a bullet entered his flesh. “You may rise,” he says in his whiskey smooth voice.

  Joe, as Agares had come to learn, is his comrade’s earthly name. Pursing his lips and shaking his head at the notion of such a pedestrian name for a being superior to the best humanity has to offer.

  Joe rose to his feet, careful to not make eye contact as he was well aware that such an act would be insolent. “You’re back,” he says, his voice ripe with eagerness.

  “Yes.” Agares squares his shoulders and lengthens his spine. He allows his eyes to roam the alleyway where two corpses now join the refuse littering it. “Our time has come.”

  A faint breeze stirs, kicking up an old and yellowed newspaper, and carrying on it not just notes of urine, trash and death, but the scent of change. A new day was dawning. His reign on earth is upon him.

  Chapter 2

  ̴ Daniel ̴

  A year has passed since that day at the Hanson Mansion, the day my life was irrevocably changed. The day it was completely destroyed and I lost everything that meant anything to me at all.

  Sighing, I lean forward with my elbows resting on my thighs, bent at the waist and sitting at the edge of my bed with my fingers interlocked. My head is bowed and my eyes are closed. Reflexively, I move to swipe hair from my brow and am quickly reminded that my floppy, youthful hairstyle has been replaced with a simpler buzz cut my mother would become emotional over. She’d swear it makes me look too mature, older than my seventeen years.

  Thinking of my mother causes a pang in my chest so profound, my shoulders curl and my upper body collapses in on itself. I miss her. I miss my sister, Kiera. I didn’t say goodbye to them. I’ve caused them pain they will live with for the rest of their days. But from what I was told, I didn’t have a choice. I was forced to decide between them living with hurt, or dying because of me. I simply couldn’t breathe without knowing my mother and sister are somewhere on this earth alive, though the notion of them suffering torments me daily. Most days I try to ignore it. I try in vain to force it down into the dark recesses of my being. Time is proving my efforts are unsuccessful. I wake everyday with the same pain, existing rather than living and crossing off days on my calendar. Continuing without purpose, much less passion.

  I live in Thorn Court, a small town with a population of under a thousand inhabitants. Desolate by every definition of the word, it is a true reflection of what my life has become: isolated. Dreary. Lonely.

  I no longer have my family, friends, or a future to look toward. I only have myself, and I’m not even sure who or what I am. I pass the time occupying space, filling my days working as a hand at Hickory Hill Farm. Each day I rise before the sun then perform tasks that range from cultivating soil to preparing milking machinery and sterilizing it to shearing and branding animals. All of this done for less than minimum wage, off the books, of course, so that my existence is untraceable. I do whatever my boss, Jack Harness, asks me to do, and do so without complaint.

  Hard labor does little to clear the mind as I’d hoped it would. It doesn’t distract the thoughts that plague my brain. And it doesn’t calm
the restless ache within me. All it does is pass the hours as one day bleeds into the next like a never-ending nightmare from which I cannot wake.

  Who I am and what I’ve become is foreign to me. I am a shadow of the boy I used to be, the one who spent his afternoons playing video games and eating Cheetos.

  Shaking my head slightly before lifting my chin, I unclasp my hands and rub my temples as I think about all the changes that have occurred. Over the last year, I have felt the pull many times, the one that claims every cell in my body as though they were metal shavings being draw to an immense unseen magnet. But unlike times past, I resisted it. I no longer care to acknowledge the force that calls me. I don’t want anything to do with it. I refuse to exist as a puppet to a power that allowed Sarah to die.

  Sarah.

  Her name whispers through my mind like a warm breeze, and I swear if I concentrate hard enough I can smell the sweet vanilla notes of the perfume she used to wear carried on it. Tears immediately sting my eyes and my throat constricts tightly around the lump formed there. I try to fight back the insurmountable sadness welling within, but the feeling overwhelms me.

  My fingertips fall from my temples and land against my thighs with a slap. I squeeze my eyes shut for a split-second and grind my molars so hard the enamel threatens to splinter and ball my hands into fists. Releasing them, I spring to my feet and cross my small, sparely-furnished room. I grab my jacket and head out into the night, my destination the same as it is each evening at this time: Hanover’s, a local bar.

  Armed with the fake ID I bought on my way out here with half of the small amount of cash I had in a bank account started with savings bonds, I go to Hanover’s every day. The driver’s license I have says I’m Tom Hanson and that I’m twenty-one, and the bar smells of sour booze, fried food and desperation. I don’t enjoy drinking. It’s not for lack of trying. When I first came here, I tried each day, anything to numb the pain as I’m told alcohol does. But as life would have it, whatever changes have occurred within me, try as I may, I couldn’t become intoxicated. Now I simply order a mug of draft beer and sip it to fit in, returning each evening to Hanover’s so that I have a place to be that differs from my room.