by Box Set
Each stood four feet tall with skin that glistened like oily green snakes. Their eyes were small and beady. They had two slits for a nose, and a large mouth full of black, razor sharp teeth. Their tails were lined with spikes, like thorns on the stem of a rose.
Peter fought with two of them while Steven, Leif, and the others battled the underlings.
Except for Wendy. The Envy demon had Eric cornered and she fought four mid-level demons on her own, trying to reach her boyfriend. The markings on her hands were lit up bright red.
Wrath, I thought, impressed by her ferocity.
I realized as I watched the scene unfold that the only Moths in real peril were Peter and Eric. The underlings and mid-level demons weren’t delivering lethal blows. It looked more like they were toying with them, keeping the trainees occupied while the Envy demon went after Eric.
A quick appraisal told me Peter had his demons under control, but Eric had suddenly vanished. I ran over, using my shield to get past the mid-level demons. They shrieked as my shield fried their skin.
“Alice,” Wendy cried, sounding relieved I was there to help.
The Envy demon had grown to more than eight feet tall. He turned when Wendy spoke my name. His face changed into something not at all human. He had the same sharp black teeth, like the mid-level demons, but they were much larger. His mouth took up most of his face.
It was with shocked sadness that I noticed a hand dangling from the demon’s teeth. “Alice Blackburn,” he hissed, pitching the rest of Eric’s hand into his mouth. It crunched down, grinding the bones as he chewed.
Wendy screamed from behind me and I guessed she’d seen what I had.
The remains of Eric sagged in the demons clawed hands. His head was still in tact and his eyes were open but lifeless. It looked like Eric had died in the middle of a scream.
“No,” I whispered, unable to believe what I was seeing. It wasn’t that the rest of the trainees and I were close, but they were all the family I had. Seeing Eric killed in such a gruesome way infuriated me. I ran forward with no weapon but my hands and dove for the demon’s neck.
The Envy demon dropped Eric and tried to swat me aside, but I grabbed hold of his hand and twisted, listening to the bones in his wrist break. At the same time I sent my elbow into his windpipe. He gasped as I spun in the air, moving my hands to his mouth where I took hold of his upper and lower jaws, ripping them apart. There was no pain when his teeth dug into my fingers. I felt nothing but white-hot rage as I tore him apart.
Green blood covered me like I’d bathed in it. As the demon went down, his voice hissed inside my head: You’re stronger than the others. Seven times seven. But that means when your sire comes after you, the pain you’ll endure will be seven times seven. Remember that, Alice Blackburn.
“Who is my sire?” I shook at how close the answer was. The demon’s body turned to ash. With the Envy demon gone, the lower demons vanished as well. I guessed they’d gone back to the Underworld where they’d come from.
“How did she do that?” Leif asked, his voice filled with awe.
“I thought Dark Moths could only kill a greater demon after they’d killed their sire,” Steven added.
“Does that mean the Envy demon was her hear old dad as well as Eric’s?” Pam asked.
“Did you see that shield around her? It protected her from even the mid-level demons,” Georgia said. “It was incredible.”
I didn’t want to listen to anymore. Killing the Envy demon felt good, right, but that didn’t mean he’d been my sire. The demon had said seven times seven. Which demon was that?
I didn’t have the answers, but at least my years of training had finally come to mean something. I’d experienced what destroying an upper-level demon felt like. And I knew the reason for my existence: to rid the world of every last demon.
I turned my attention to Wendy, worried about what she might do. She’d gone over to what was left of Eric and had his face in her hands. Sobs tore through her.
“I’m so sorry, Wendy,” I murmured. For some reason I felt responsible for his death.
She shook her head. “I can’t believe it. He’s gone. No. No. No.” She seemed on the verge of a breakdown. I didn’t know what to do.
Thankfully Peter took over.
Seven
A Wraith Party
The ride down in the elevator was beyond somber. Wendy cried quietly against Peter. Leif and Steven carried Eric’s remains. I stood in the front, near the doors. Between the stench of death and the Envy demon’s blood, it was hard to breathe.
When the door pinged open, I stepped out.
“Take the remains down to the infirmary. Heathcliff will know what to do,” Peter said as he practically carried Wendy.
“Yes, sir.” Steven and Leif headed toward the hospital wing.
“Leif? Let Heathcliff know I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“You got it.”
Georgia and Pam quietly turned toward the dorms.
“Alice, you coming?” Pam asked.
“In a minute.”
“Go on,” Peter urged. “I’ve got Wendy.” He gave me a once over. “And you need a shower.”
I nodded dully. “Okay.” I entered my room after Pam. As I walked past the bed, a part of me longed to fall on it and sleep for a week. But that would be gross since I was covered in demon ash. So I edged into the bathroom, closing the door.
After I showered and dressed, there was a knock on the door. “Alice, it’s Peter.”
“Is Wendy okay?”
I opened the door. “Yes, Heathcliff gave her something to help her sleep, but that’s not why I’m here.”
“Oh?”
“It’s Wrythe. He would like to speak with you.”
My heart jumped into my throat. “Why?” I threw my towel into the hamper and sat on my bed, pulling on my black boots that matched the rest of my outfit.
“I’m guessing he wants to know what happened tonight.”
“So what do I tell him?” I grabbed my leather jacket and threw it on.
“The truth, of course.” Peter smiled and put an arm around my shoulder. “He isn’t as scary as he seems.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.” I gave him a sideways glance. Wrythe wasn’t a Moth I would ever want to cross in a dark alley. He made me more nervous than the demon I killed tonight.
“Wrythe has been around a long time. He’s killed more demons than anyone. He knows how to protect regular Moths as well as the rest of our kind. So don’t shut him out. Tell him everything.”
We came to the door that led to Wrythe’s personal chambers. Peter knocked.
“Enter,” Wrythe commanded.
“Remember what I said.”
“I will.”
The door swung open. “Hello, Alice.” Wrythe sat on a large leather couch. He wore a pair of board shorts, flip-flops, and a tee shirt. He didn’t look like the leader of the most dangerous league of assassins the world had ever not known about.
I bowed, my eyes trained on my boots. “Hello, sir.”
“Have a seat.”
I scoped the room and took the leather chair that matched the couch.
“Would you like a drink?”
“No, thanks.”
“So you want to get right to it?” He sat up and leaned forward. “Tell me what happened tonight.
For the next ten minutes I explained everything. Well, nearly everything, just as Peter told me to. When I finished, Wrythe picked up a glass that sat on the marble coffee table. “Do you think the Envy demon was your sire?”
It was the moment of truth. Did I confess what the demon had said about the seven times seven? It felt like nothing and too big a secret at the same time. I needed to research and mull it over. I respected Wrythe as the leader of our society, but I didn’t trust him. I didn’t even know him. I shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems likely given the fact I was able to kill him.”
Wrythe leaned back. “Our kind has existed for ne
arly as long as man has walked the Earth. As soon as demons realized what they could do, they began the awful game of creating and then killing their half-breed offspring. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. As with most evil in the world there doesn’t have to be.” He took another drink of whatever was in his glass before setting it back down. “I was one of the first to be born with the markings on my hands.” He turned his hands so they faced me. They were still red, the mark of Wrath, but they’d faded over the years. “I first realized I had powers about a week after I turned twenty-one. There was no society back then. I didn’t even know other Moths existed. My demon came after me with a vengeance I’d never seen. He was hungry for my murder. When my powers manifested it was a complete surprise to him as much as it was to me, which was how I was able to beat him.” He clasped his hands together.
I crossed one leg over the other and waited for him to continue. His story was one I’d learned before I could read or write, but never had I heard the story from his own mouth.
“Over the centuries others like me started to find each other. Instead of being chickens in a coup full of more chickens awaiting the inevitable fox to come and kill us, we finally became our own breed of fox, and we could kill just as easily.”
“Why do you think certain Moths began to receive the markings and powers?”
Our histories were full of theories and ideas, but nothing had ever been confirmed.
Wrythe continued, “I believe it’s because life always finds a way to go on. We’d been nothing more than play things to be toyed with and consumed, but our will to survive caused us to evolve.”
I liked that philosophy. Life finds a way…
“Perhaps you’re our latest evolution, Alice. A Dark Moth that can kill any demon.”
Tell him what you know, my mind shouted. “Maybe you’re right,” was all I said.
“Alice?” He came over to my chair. “You can tru—”
There was a sharp knock on the door.
Wrythe straightened. “Enter.”
Two warriors came in. Between them slumped the guy who jumped into the car I’d been trying to steal.
Eight
Social Skills and Stitches
“We found him in the parking garage near the elevator,” one of the warriors said.
Wrythe checked the backs of the guy’s hands. “He has no marks. Why would you think to bring him down here?”
“He had this blade on him, not to mention all of the demon blood.” The other warrior produced a sword that had the marks of the Dark Moth on them.
I felt compelled to add the information I had as well. “He was also able to see the demons. And he told me they would be able to get through the car… Maybe he’s a regular Moth who knows how to fight?”
Wrythe smiled. “I believe you might be right.” He went back over to the couch. “Boys, take him to Heathcliff.”
As they carried him out the door, Wrythe said, “Alice, I’m making this boy your responsibility. Once he’s healed, find out his story, discover what you can about him.”
I shivered internally, even though I didn’t know why. But I wanted to decline. Instead, reacted like a good little soldier. “Yes, sir.”
“Good girl, now get going. Your mission starts now. Don’t leave his side until I instruct otherwise.” He went to the door and held it open, waiting for me to leave.
“Thank you, sir.” I followed after the warriors and held open the double doors to the hospital wing.
“Heathcliff!” one of the warriors shouted.
The physician had been sitting at his desk looking into a microscope. At his name, he jumped with surprise and let out a very unmanly yelp. “Issac. Neeko.” He brushed his graying hair out of his face. “What have you brought me?”
“We think he’s a regular Moth, but he’s wounded and unconscious.”
“Well, get him on the table so I can have a look.”
They got him up, laying him on his back.
The room was clean and sterile. Everything in its place. The walls, ceiling, and floor were stark white. Lights blazed so bright it looked like daytime. Rows of glass cupboards lined the wall on the left. I saw a heart, an ear, and the head of an unknown creature before I looked away. The back wall held two doors and in between them was Heathcliff’s workstation in the shape of a T, complete with three computer monitors, the microscope and other machines I wasn’t sure about. On the wall above the workstation were four rows of bookshelves filled with old books behind glass doors. To the right was a sink, more cupboards, another table, and some machines. In the center of the room was a stainless steel table on wheels. Below it was a drain.
The room terrified me.
“All right, now go,” Heathcliff said, interrupting my thoughts. “I’ve got work to do.” He shooed the warriors from the room.
“You too, Alice.”
“Wrythe ordered me to remain by his side.”
Heathcliff raised his thick, graying eyebrows. “Very well then. You can be my assistant.” He took some gauze from a glass container. “Get the boy’s shirt up. We need to see what kind of damage is under there.”
I went over to the table. The guy’s black shirt was soaked in demon blood as well as some of his own. He looked like a Moth: deep black hair, tanned skin, tall and muscled. His eyes were closed, but I had a feeling when they were open, they’d be gray too. The same as everyone else’s.
Not me though, I thought.
“Hurry.”
“Right.” I rolled the edge of his shirt carefully upward. There was a large slash across his incredibly toned abs. It was bleeding profusely. He had smaller scrapes, welts, and teeth marks all over his torso, arms, neck, and face.
I’d tried to bind my fingers after my shower, but they were still bleeding.
“Good green goodness. What happened to you?” He pulled the bandages from my fingers. “I can’t have you assisting me with your hands like that.” He led me over to the large sink and turned on the water. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I forgot,” I said shrugging.
He mumbled something incoherent as he squirted something that smelled like antiseptic into my hands before moving back to the guy bleeding on the table. “Wash up. Use this towel to dry off.
I rubbed my hands together, forcing myself not to wince. The liquid stung as it hit the places where the demons teeth went in. Fresh blood poured from my fingers as I removed the hardened, old stuff.
“Good. Now bandage up and put on a pair of gloves so you can help me attend to this poor sap. This looks like the work of a mid-level demon claw. It got him good.”
“A claw did that?”
“It did.” As he spoke he dabbed at the wound. Once I had my gloves in place he handed the wad of gauze to me. “Carefully clean away as much blood as you can while I hook him up to a saline drip and blood. He’ll need both.”
I wiped at the blood until the gauze was soaked. Grabbed another and continued until the area was as clean as I could get it.
“My turn.” Heathcliff pushed me out of the way. He held a needle and thread in one hand and a clean swatch of gauze in the other. “This is going to hurt him. I don’t have any anesthetic and even if I did, Moths metabolize too quickly for it to do him any good.”
I’d guessed because of the way the guy fought the demons that he was at least a Moth, but I didn’t know for sure. He could’ve been human.
Heathcliff went on, “I’ll need you to hold his hands.”
“How? Where—”
He shook his head. “Our instructors really need to work on giving you trainees some medical skills.” He pushed me toward the guy’s head. “Go up there, take his hands, and hold them tight until I’m finished stitching him up.”
“Fine,” I said, thinking Heathcliff was right. But I grabbed the guy’s hands. They were large and warm.
“Here we go.” Heathcliff stuck the needle into the guy’s skin.
The guy groaned in pain.
�
��Keep him steady.”
I tightened my grip as Heathcliff fished the needle back through the skin.
The guy groaned again, trying to roll onto his side.
“Do not let him move.”
I leaned over the guy, pressing my elbows into his wrists.
As Heathcliff stuck his needle in once again, the guy moaned. And his eyes opened.
“What the hell are you doing?” His eyes caught hold of mine. I glanced away, but not without first seeing that his eyes weren’t gray, and they weren’t like mine either. They were bright green.
“Trying to patch you up, uh—what’s your name, kid?” Heathcliff stuck the needle that resembled a fish hook through his skin.
“Ahhhh, damn that hurts.” The guy shuddered.
I glanced down at him, trying not to stare, but I couldn’t help myself.
“I’m Kade. Kade Everett.”
“Well, Mr. Everett. My name is Heathcliff.” Doc pulled the thread all the way through.
“Good to meet you,” Kade said, gritting his teeth.
“We’ll see if you still feel that way when I’m finished sewing up all of your wounds.” He winked. “The woman holding your hands is Alice.”
“Hi Alice,” he said.
I smiled, wishing my face wasn’t heating up under his gaze.
“This is going to hurt. Be strong and hold still,” Heathcliff continued.
Nine
Parole Officer
For the next thirty minutes Heathcliff sewed up Kade’s large wound as well as cleaned out and stitched the smaller ones. I was impressed with how still and quiet Kade was. I felt his jaw clench and unclench several times, but he didn’t let out another sound.
Finally, the doctor straightened. He rolled his shoulders, cracking his back. “Done.”
The tension in Kade slowly relaxed. I removed my elbows from his wrists.
He rubbed them gingerly. “You’re strong.”
