by Daniel Gage
I didn’t stop until I could see Vegas in my rear-view mirror. Once I felt we had enough isolation, I pulled over and checked on Jacob.
He his eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving, but I could see him breathing. Good, at least he was still alive. His skin was pale, but it looked like his injuries had stopped bleeding. And I couldn’t be sure, but they even seemed to be starting to heal. I’m no doctor, but that didn’t seem normal.
I got out of the van and checked the back. Thankfully, the driver left a gym bag back here, and it didn’t reek too much of sweat. I found a pair of shorts and t-shirt of the band KISS. It wasn’t stylish, but would get me further than just wearing a lingerie top, thong, and torn up stockings.
I got back in the van and saw that Jacob’s eyes were open, and he had sat up on one arm.
“Are you okay?” we asked simultaneously, which made us both smile.
I answered first. “I’ll be sore for a few days, but yeah, I’m good. We’ve left Vegas, and I haven’t seen anyone following us.”
He nodded. “Good… we need to get as far away from here as possible.”
“No, you still need a hospital. You have at least two new holes in you that you didn’t have before you met me.”
He sat up fully with a groan. “Kathryn, there’s nothing a hospital can do to help me.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “First of all, call me Katie. Only my parents called me Kathryn, and they haven’t been around for years. Second, what the hell do you mean, that a hospital can’t help you?”
He slowly and painfully took off the medical gown that was his shirt. The only thing that distracted me from his chiseled physique was the two scabbed over holes on his chest. He pointed to them.
“I got these yesterday, and they’re almost healed. I’ll be okay, I promise.”
Then I realized where I recognized him from. He was the man from the news, the one that escaped police custody from the hospital.
Isn’t that great? I get attacked by lunatics in red suits, one transformed into a monster, and my hero was a fugitive that can heal from bullet wounds faster than I could from a paper cut?
I felt my hands ball up into fists. “Okay, before we go any further you have some explaining to do. I saw you on the news yesterday. You were shot. You escaped police custody. So I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on.”
I may have turned on the bitch a little too much, because he seemed taken aback. But I held the anger, the frustration, until he gave in.
“Okay, that’s fair, you deserve to know. Kathryn- sorry, Katie… you’re half demon, half Succubus, to be precise.”
“Great. What does that mean? Is that why I can’t touch people without killing them?”
He nodded. “Pretty much. It should be controllable, but your mother would be the only one who could teach you.”
“Well, it doesn’t help me that I haven’t seen her since I was ten.”
He blinked a few times in succession. It was apparently news to him. “So, all those years, you’ve had this power, and didn’t know how to use it?”
I shook my head.
“Then how were you able to share in my knowledge?”
“I thought you did that!”
“No… I offered it, but it was you that was able to take it.”
“So, whenever I touch someone, I can take something they can do, or know?”
“No, it doesn’t work that way. I think. I’ll admit, I don’t know much about Succubi.”
“Speaking of, what are you, Jacob? And who was just trying to kill me?”
He paused, sighing. “Those men were hunters, part of the Order of the Red Hand. They’ve been around for centuries, hunting and killing the supernatural. Vampires, were-animals, and half demons, like you.”
“But that Hanson guy, he wasn’t human. Why didn’t they kill him?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that half demons are exceptionally rare. Most demons can’t have children with a human. So Hell wants you for one of their own, and the Red Hand is likely trying to stop that from happening. And that they are working with a demon like Hanson… I really have no idea what it means.”
“So I’m a half demon. This Hanson guy that you killed with a knife is a full demon? So then how do you fit into this? Why are you helping me?”
“I’m a friend of your father’s. I promised him I’d help you.”
“How do you know my dad? He’s been dead seventeen years. I’ve never seen you before, and now you just show up when I’m getting shot at by a freaking crossbow wielding demon and his human friends?”
He lowered his eyes and shook his head. “That’s… a long story. Not one I’m particularly proud of.”
I wasn’t letting that slide. “I have time. Tell me.”
He looked back at me. “No, you don’t. We need to get out of here. It’s only a matter of time until your influence on that taxi driver wears off, and someone finds us. And we need supplies, too. Food, clothes, weapons. We don’t know when they’ll find us again.”
Shit. He was right.
I let out a frustrated scream as I started the van. Dammit, he was right, but I had so many questions. Who the hell is this guy, and how does he know my dad? How does a poisoned crossbow bolt and bullet wound not make him run to the hospital? And what was so important about a half human, half Succubus who didn’t even know what she was until an hour ago?
I put the van in gear and started driving.
“Katie, I’ll need to rest. Do you have a place for us to go?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I haven’t seen her in almost twenty years. But I know where to find her.”
“Who?”
I waited until the van was up to speed before answering.
“We’re going to pay my Succubus mother a visit.”
I didn’t know what was going on. I had a fugitive from the law bleeding in the backseat of a taxi van I just seduced out of someone I didn’t know. I had men in red suits hunting me, and it seems at least one of them can transform into some type of monster. Well, he used to, until Jacob stabbed him in the neck with a knife.
I knew this road we were going down was going to be long and difficult.
But for the first time, I felt in control. I felt strong. And, finally, I felt like I was going to get the answers I deserved.
Also by Daniel Gage
The Sam Gray Files
Book 1
Cybernetic Sabotage
To The Reader:
I am a self-published, independent author. I don’t have the backing of agents and big publishers, so the only way I can get support for my work is from you, the reader. If you enjoyed it, please, let the world know! If you didn’t, also, let people know. I take all criticism seriously, and I work to better my words and my craft, to give you the best experience possible.
But the best part of being an indie writer is that there are no middle men between me and you. We can communicate directly. You can send me your feedback, and I will read it and respond. And I can give you content faster than a publisher can. If you like a certain series I’ve started but I haven’t given it much attention, let me know. If I need to stop doing something, let me know.
I’m not an expert in this craft. I always want to get better, and to achieve that, I need your feedback.
My email is [email protected]. My website is Daniel-gage.com, and I promise to update it more often (what can I say, I write and publish; I forget about things like a website).
Drop me a line.
Oh, and feel free to check out my other works, I focus heavily on science fiction and fantasy.
About the Author
As long as I can remember I've had my nose buried in books. I grew up in a small mountain town, so when the weather turned bad (which it often did), books were my retreat. We didn't even have basic television until I was a teenager, so my family always did a weekly trip to the library.
But it was the year that I got The Chronicles of Narnia fro
m my uncle and The Lord of the Rings from my dad for Christmas that changed everything.
Suddenly I was in new worlds, filled with magic and monsters. I was hooked, and there was no going back. Dune. Ender's Game. The Wheel of Time. A Song of Fire and Ice. Anything by Jim Butcher. I couldn't get enough of it. And when I was about ten, I decided I wanted to become a writer of fantasy and science fiction.
But, as I got older, I learned about traditional publishing, how difficult it was to get a book accepted by an agent, and even get published. Then you had to hope to make enough from royalties to make a real living, so my dream was abandoned.
Things change, and I was recently turned in the direction of e-publishing and indie writing... I could do things how I wanted, I could release stories as often as I wanted. I wasn't bound by traditional publishing to try and make writing my career. All there could be was me and the readers of my books.
I now live in Arizona with my fiancé, dog, and two cats.
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