by TW Knight
His Soul to Hold
By
TW Knight
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, including photocopying, recording, or transmitted by any means without written consent of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, establishments, names, companies, organizations, and events were created by the author. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, companies or organizations is coincidental.
Published by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing
Text Copyright 2016 held by TW Knight
Edited by
EAL Editing Services
Cover by
Rue Volley
Dedication:
To Mom and Dad, for teaching me the love of reading and for always believing in me.
Acknowledgements:
My sisters from another universe (Claire A., Rose M., Linda M., Danielle G., Donna B., Margaret D., Laurel N., Elizabeth P., Anzia C., Heather V., Debbie S., Renee M., Teresa W Miguelina P., and Ms. Gypsy,) for never letting me give up and giving me the faith to keep going, the Washington Romance Writers for teaching me, and for all of you seeing the potential in my stories. Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing, SJ Davis for taking a chance on me— thank you all.
Chapter One
The sword blade sang through the air, cutting off Breanna's next breath. She twisted. The point skimmed her shoulder. A sliver of fright splintered in her chest.
"Damn it, Bree!" Her brother pointed his sword at her. "Where's your head?"
"Still on my shoulders, asshole. Not that you didn't try to take it off."
What is his problem? They weren't supposed to go for kill shots during practice. Sam's aggression was getting out of hand. Swallowing the anxiety-filled lump in her throat, Breanna lunged, her sword held high.
Sam side-stepped the blow, spun away from the next attack, and kicked his sister's legs out from under her.
Landing face down with a loud whoof, she lost her grip and the sword skittered across the cold cement floor. Sam moved her hair aside with the sword and tapped her nape.
"You're dead."
An impish grin teased her lips. Breanna pulled her legs under her chest as though she meant to stand. When she no longer felt the cold steel on her neck, she took a deep breath, braced her arms, and mule kicked her brother, knocking him on his backside. "The dead don't always stay dead." Jumping to her feet, she offered him a hand up. "Demons are tricky that way."
Sam smacked her hand away and remained on the floor, his wounded glare cutting like ice.
Bree let him pout and went to retrieve her sword.
"You know," she said, swinging the blade. "It's been about two months since we've seen any of those monsters. Do you think they're gone?"
"No." Sam rolled, bringing his legs over his head and shoulders in a perfect backward summersault to his feet, and brushed the dust from his butt.
Letting out a long slow breath, Breanna recited, "I can't kill him. He's all I have left," ten times, letting her annoyance fade. Sam's emotions were a pendulum, forever shifting between childish brat and over protective big brother.
Her brother leaned against her shoulder. "I know you're tired of this," he said softly.
"We're twenty-three, Sam. We should be living in a house, going to college, dating, and working." A normal life would be nice, but since the morning after their parents' deaths, there was no way they were going to get it. "Well you can't say I'm not trying," she said more to herself than Sam. "At least I'm still taking those online college courses—"
"And what are you going to do with that fancy degree?" Sam pushed her playfully. "Not like you can get a job where you can just take off whenever a demon comes to town."
"I'm not looking for a career, ass-hat. I'm doing this to learn about the enemy. Besides, I doubt I could get a job with this degree. Really, how much call is there for someone with a major in paranormal and religious studies?" Although lately she'd toyed with the idea of writing a book regarding her adventures. Hunt or be Hunted, she'd call it. A random thought sent panic through her heart. "Hey, do you think our stalker gave up? We haven't seen him since the whole demon explosion a few months ago." The stalker's disappearance made Bree nervous. He'd followed them since they were kids. No matter where they went they caught glimpses of him watching or a whiff of his stench, yet no one else noticed him hanging around. A fact which made it difficult to convince anyone they were being stalked. "You don't think he's just laying low, do you? A trap, maybe. He's already tried to kidnap you once."
"We were kids then, Bree." Sam rubbed his sleeve over his sweaty face and retrieved his sword. "I think we have another problem. I know I should have told you sooner, but there were strangers in town asking about that bear attack. Then about a month ago, they were back, asking questions about who lived outside of town, who kept to themselves.
"That doesn't mean—" Breanna's mouth clamped shut, her jaw grinding as she chewed the string of curse words lining up on her tongue. Good thing they stopped sword practice. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't want to worry you until I had a plan." A shadow of concern darkened his eyes.
Bree sheathed her sword and slid it into her storage case. "Do you think they'll be back?"
"Don't know. But the fact that they were here, twice now, makes me think we need to move on."
That's why Sam hadn't mentioned either visit from these strangers, or the questions they asked the residents. He knew she wouldn't want to leave— not with things being quiet on the demon front over the past month.
"If you don't think they're an immediate threat—" Bree played with strap on her sword case, "—do you think we can put off leaving for another week or two? My philosophy mid-term is next week and I need to study. I can't do that if we run again."
Sam grumbled under his breath about asshole-know-it-all-sisters before answering. "I don't know why you're taking that class."
"Because it's a Theology requirement. Did you know almost every religion includes some form of angel or demon?" The last two words ended almost an octave higher.
"Sheesh Bree, calm down. Only dogs can hear you when you get like that."
Bree crossed her arms over her chest, resisting the urge to stick her tongue out like a child.
Her brother rolled his eyes. "Yes. You've told me all of that before. Look." Sam sheathed his sword. "I'll give you next week, but as soon as your exam is over, we leave. Not a day more."
An extra day or two wouldn't matter, but she was in no mood to board the old argument train again. "Where do you think we should go this time? How about California?" She'd had enough cold and snow in the Alaskan wilderness. She was sick of living in an abandoned hanger. And she was tired. Really tired. Of everything.
Sam hesitated and looked away, avoiding her gaze.
"I hear Vancouver is nice."
"Uh, hello? No passports."
"Ah, come-on. How hard can it be to slip into Canada this far up north? It's all wilderness."
"Into Canada? Oh, probably not hard at all, but how do we get back into the States?" Bree let the Duh hang unsaid in the air.
"Canada's a big country. It could be years before we‘d need to come back."
"Sam!" Breanna pinched the bridge of her nose. "Nope, I'm not doing it. Living on the run has been bad enough already, but I'm not going to become an international fugitive." Grabbing her sword case, Breanna stomped out of the storage-slash-close-quarters practice room, the door slamming behind her.
"We wouldn't be fugitives." The door burst open, slamming
against the wall.
"Are you sure? Haven't you had enough running?" Breanna's voice echoed through the empty hanger. The abandoned airstrip alongside the equally abandoned mining camp was the closest thing they’d had to a permanent home in years. Fairly secure, isolated, but no more than an hour's ride on snowmobile or dirt bike to town for supplies; out in the middle of nowhere if the demons came calling.
And eventually the monsters would find them. They always did.
The explosion of evil four months earlier, the second in nine months, was proof.
They should have left then.
They should have left after the so-called bear attack which killed the two hunters.
"I get this isn't the life you would have wanted," Sam offered. "But it's all we've got for now."
Breanna went to the office she used as her room and slammed the door. She threw the sword case on the cot and turned on the space heater. Out back, the generator rumbled softly. A glance at the wall calendar confirmed they were due to make a fuel run soon.
She shook her head at the insanity which described their lives for the last ten years.
The night of their parents' murder began the crazy race they still ran. She didn't remember much from that night, just blurred images and sounds. Fighting, screams, monsters roaring. And silence. Utter and complete silence. Silence broken when sirens filled the night.
The second attack came during the police investigation. No one would believe monsters crashed through the back door, that monsters killed their parents.
They were thirteen. Kids. In their agitated states, they were considered unreliable witnesses. Bree remembered the countless hours she and Sam sat, forced to listen to police detectives, social workers, and therapists explain that their parents were killed by "drugged-up" people wearing masks, not real monsters. There was no such thing as monsters.
Six blissful weeks of quiet with their grandparents followed that horrible night. A chance to forget and maybe, just maybe, believe the police were right.
Wishful thinking.
Along with their stalker, there were the shadows. Shadows with teeth and claws. Shadows always at the edge of their vision. Shadows which sat panting like sick dogs outside their grandparent's house at night.
Bree moved around the cot to the window and pulled back the old tarp she used as a curtain. Nothing to see except snow swirling around pine trees.
Not a shadow in sight. Just white and grey shifting, swirling.
Then the universe decided to shit on them yet again, taking their grandparents within weeks of each other.
A month after the funeral, the monsters came back with a vengeance.
Two of their classmates were killed in what the police ruled a freak animal attack.
Bree snorted a laugh remembering how she wanted to tell the police they were wrong. Again.
Those deaths served a purpose. Drove her to research monsters, led her to the truth about demons. Set her on the path to her new life. She and Sam took up martial arts and fencing to give them a sense of security.
As adults, they applied that training to fight back against the creatures which destroyed their childhood.
Bree continued to stare at the snow drifts. Her body buzzed, sensing something out there. Something watching, waiting, calling to her. The longer she stared, the stronger the hum. Whatever was coming signaled change. What she didn't know was if that change would be good or bad.
Chapter Two
Darkness.
Burning cold shattered his bones.
Screams cut into his brain.
Was he the one screaming? Bass struggled to regain consciousness, clawed through the cobwebs strangling him.
The darkness tightened around him, filled his lungs, tore out his heart.
The screaming grew louder.
Gasping, Bass sat up.
He wasn't in a grave. He hadn't died— he'd dozed off with a pillow over his face. With a grunt, he pushed the cushion to the side.
Alarms screamed in the hall outside his door. The villa shook, pounding footfalls rushing toward the main hall.
The prospect of a battle made Bass want to do cartwheels. Not having anything to fight made him crazy. Made him think too much. Not a single rogue vampire to harass or were-beast to pummel in weeks. Patrols were monotonous, boring time-sucks. Add in the trauma of not getting laid in two months and he was about ready to drive nails into his arms, anything for a distraction.
"If this is another drill, I'm going to hurt someone." Bass yawned as he staggered down the stairs in nothing but his boxer shorts and a sword over his shoulder.
"Someone shut that off," Kaz bellowed, storming from the media room.
The alarm cut off, creating an agitated silence. Bass stuck a finger in his ear to quite the ringing left behind.
"Sorry, guys." Hacker's voice crackled from the intercom system. "This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. There's been a breach in the barrier."
No one asked what he was talking about. The barrier between Hell and the world of man, which had been closed for several months, had reopened.
The lull was over.
For millennia, the Knights stood as the last line of defense, protecting mankind from Hell creatures crawling from open portals to spread across the Earth, causing havoc. In modern times, these incidents were glossed over by law enforcement and government intervention as mundane animal attacks, random murders, or terrorist attacks.
A formula of plausible deniability which worked until four months ago.
Without warning, every known portal between Hell and Earth vomited a truckload of demons and then closed tighter than a nun's knees.
For two months, Bass and his brothers ran around the world cleaning up the mess. The torrent of evil stopped.
It was as if the underworld and the non-humans held their collective breath.
"Okay. So, it's not a drill," Bass called, following the others, annoyance dripping from every word. "But can I hurt someone, anyway?"
Grumbling, the Knights and their soul-keepers headed toward the conference room.
The conference room was the newest addition to the area in the villa affectionately referred to as the Moroccan wing, but lacked the lavish decorations and colors. Rather than gilded brass and ornate stone work gracing the indoor courtyard and halls, the room was paneled in rich red and gold wood, carpeted in deep brown plush, and decorated with a mammoth mahogany table, leather chairs for twenty, and a giant wall monitor.
Prior to the last attack, the Knights met in Kaz's office. Once they started including the Aktura— their soul-keepers —in the meetings, things got a little too cozy, inspiring the expansion.
Bass rested his sword against the wall and scanned the room before he flopped into one of the cushy leather chairs. At the head of the table, facing the wall monitor, sat Kaz— leader of the group. To his right sat the second in command, Rail, and his soul-keeper Cassidy.
Although Cassidy Long wasn't the first soul-keeper they'd found and brought to the island compound, her arrival had been the first domino in a long list of changes. First was the bond between Cassidy and Rail— their connection reached a level unheard of outside legend. Next came the way Cassidy worked her way into managing the Knights and their lives. Then she got the other women on her side to press for them to use the internet. Despite his annoyance, Bass couldn't dispute that the computer programs Cassidy initiated to help them locate demons were a thing of beauty.
His gaze fell on the other blissfully bonded couple, Boomer and Gina.
Theirs was a relationship Bass could understand. From day one it was all about the sex. But lately it seemed, like Rail and Cassidy, Boomer and Gina were falling in love.
The thought made Bass itch.
He wasn't capable of real love. Never had been as far as he knew. Maybe he wasn't made for love. Not that he'd ever had the chance to find out. If he was lucky enough to find his soul-keeper, Bass prayed he'd get someone like Kaz found in Serephina;
companionable, but wanted nothing to do with him as far as a romantic relationship. Or maybe a guy— a little brother he could push around. However, as they found more soul-keepers, Bass got a niggling feeling the universe had other plans for him.
Boomer turned to say something to Tam, the big Guardian sitting next to him. Tam laughed loudly, embarrassing the petite lady next to him. Margarite was one of two unmatched soul-keepers living with them, but one wouldn't know it watching how she and Tam interacted with each other. At any moment, Bass expected little singing blue birds to circle them with flower garlands.
Who would have guessed the big man he'd witness rip a possessed Roman soldier in half across the waist outside Trajan's palace was a romantic marshmallow?
Bass shook his head, leaned back, and scratched his balls.
"Ewwww!" Catching his eye, Gina mimed retching.
Boomer growled.
"Overreact much." Bass huffed. Righting himself, he placed his hands on the table, earning another disgusted look from Gina. Mission accomplished. If by some possibility he found his soul-keeper, the women would warn her away from developing any feelings for him.
"Why didn't you flash upstairs and put on some pants," she asked.
"I put on underwear before I came downstairs, isn't that enough?" the warrior grumbled. "I was in bed, you know."
Gina exaggerated a disgusted shiver. "TMI."
Boomer looped an arm around her shoulders. "You could go now, before we start."
"Well excuse me. I think those soul-bonds have killed your sense of humor." Bass glared at his friend.
"Well, your lack of a soul-bond has killed your sense of propriety." Tam smirked.
"Ha! I never had a sense of propriety," Bass answered.
The three men laughed as Kaz called the meeting to order.
The wall-sized screen on the far side of the room facing the table came to life, showing Hacker in the computer lab. "Good news is that it looks like the breach closed almost as fast as it opened." His hands moved over the unseen keyboard and the giant screen split to show Hacker on one side and a copy of his monitor on the other side. "Approximately thirty minutes ago, Elmendorf Airforce Base and Fort Green Army Base in Alaska received alerts of unusual electro-magnetic spikes similar to those reported four months ago when Hell spilled out worldwide. This breach was about a hundred miles north of Anchorage."
