Death of a Demon

by Lacy Andersen

  “You!” She stomped toward me. “You! This is your fault.”

  My mouth fell open. I wanted to argue, but frankly, she could be right. The Prince probably hated me for sealing away his armies. He might’ve taken Gabe to get to me. The thought brought angry tears to the corners of my eyes.

  “That’s not fair,” Adam interjected. He stepped in front of me, blocking me from view. Once again, my mouth hung open. Anyone could’ve knocked me over with a feather at this display of brotherly affection. “You don’t know what happened.”

  “I know what’s happened in the past,” Georgia replied, trying to get around him.

  I sidestepped Adam to see her pointing a shaky finger in my direction.

  “Ever since Gabe’s been involved with this girl, he’s been in danger. I don’t like it.”

  “Every day of our lives as warriors, we’re in danger.” Adam frowned down at her, his hands on his hips like some cartoon version of a superhero. “You know that. Gabe accepted the risks.”

  “He’s right, Georgia—” Luke began.

  She cut him off with a sharp wave of her hand. “That well may be, but has everyone forgotten the parasite she houses inside of her? Evil attracts evil and look at what this girl has brought us. Nothing but horror.”

  I took a step back involuntarily, the weight of her words hitting me like a two-ton truck. The blood drained from my face.

  All the healing, all the reparations I’d done in the past year suddenly meant nothing. It was like facing Silvia and Oscar all over again—and my execution.

  “Mom...” Adam growled.

  “Now, Georgia, you listen to me,” Luke began at the same time.

  I didn’t feel the need to stand around and listen to them defend me. Turning on my heel, I sped from the ballroom about as fast as my feet could carry me.

  Gabe was still alive. I could feel it in my chest, in every beat of my heart. But for how long, I didn’t know. We had to find him.

  I had to save him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Hot blood soaked into my socks as I hoofed it wearily over the last half mile toward the manor. My skin had rubbed raw inside my boots over the last twenty hours of searching for a sign of Gabe in the forest. Any sign. But there was nothing to be found. Not a drop of his blood or a sign of struggle. No ferals to speak of. It was as if they’d become invisible.

  I couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it. It had been over forty-eight hours since he’d disappeared and time was running out.

  I paused to listen for any disturbances in the darkened woods. Nothing. Not even the chirp of insects. Just the cold, deep black of twilight waiting for the sun to crest over the eastern horizon. With a sigh, I trudged on. My belly ached for a bite of food. A quick meal and a new pair of shoes, then I’d be back out here, searching for him. Luke knew he couldn’t stop me. I had to do this. I had to find him.

  My breath rattled in my lungs as the warming sight of the manor came into view. Amber-lit windows smiled at me and beckoned me to come closer. Peeling my fingers from around the hilt of my trusty silver dagger, I stashed it back in its sheath and made my way toward the lobby entrance. Maybe, I’d be lucky and breakfast would already be on the tables in the dining hall. The slightest scent of grease and maple syrup on the wind seemed to hint that I was right.

  Walking into the hall, I nearly fell over as someone launched themselves at me. It took a tense moment for me to realize it was only Raquel. She pulled me into a tight hug, her long arms wrapping around my chest so I could hardly breathe.

  “He’s here,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve been waiting for hours for you to get back. Gabe’s home.”

  I gaped at her, my empty belly suddenly forgotten. “What do you mean?”

  “Gabe’s here.” Her green eyes stared unblinking into mine. “He wandered out of the forest at about two this morning. Luke sent a few guys to find you, but I guess you missed them.”

  My heart soared, melting away the aches and pains of my long hike through the woods. “Take me to him.”

  Her head bounced on her long neck like a bobble head. “He’s resting in the med hall. I’ll take you there.”

  We sped through the mansion as fast as my injured feet would allow me to travel. It might have been the very early hours of the morning, but many Nephilim were already up and roaming the halls.

  The threat of war on the horizon had everyone anxious. There had even been talk of evacuating the mansion and regrouping in the nearby city of Spearfish. But the board had put the kibosh on that idea.

  The Nephilim were put here to be a first line of defense for humankind. We couldn’t allow the demons to infiltrate the human populace. That would be the first steps to an Armageddon. We had to stay and fight. Even if that meant death for all of us.

  The medic hall door was in view. Instantly, I had a flashback to when I’d fought with the deceiver demon, Margaret Thatcher. I’d woken up in this very same room after nearly losing my life. I never dreamed I’d be the one on the other side, hoping and praying that Gabe was fine. That the demons hadn’t destroyed my angel warrior.

  “I’ll wait out here for you,” Raquel said, holding the door open for me.

  “Gabe?” I swept into the room, my eyes scanning over every bed. They were empty. “Gabe? Where are you?”

  “Here.”

  His steady voice drew me to the farthest bed. He was sitting up, a pillow wedged behind his back. I ran to him and he stretched out his arms. Skidding to a stop just out of his reach, I scanned him over from head to toe.

  “Did they hurt you?” I demanded.

  There were no visible marks on his face. No scratches or injuries on his hands. When he looked at me, the same vibrant green eyes gazed back, his lips pressed into a weary smile.

  “I’m fine.” He tilted his head impatiently. “Come to me. I need you.”

  Sighing, I took the last step and folded myself into his waiting arms. They wrapped me in a warmth that I vowed to never give up. When his arms dropped, I pulled the sheet from his bare chest and began my own examinations for signs of injury.

  The palm of my hand skimmed over his muscular chest. His skin was smooth and unbroken. The black tattoo on his chest was unmarred. My hand sunk further, investigating his abdomen. His muscles trembled under my touch and he caught my hands in his before I could finish.

  “I’m fine, Lizzy.” He stared into my eyes, his gaze burning with a desire that I knew only too well. “And if you keep this up, I’m going to have to throw you on that bed and tear off all your clothes. I don’t think the nurse would like that.”

  My cheeks burned bright as my stomach twinged with excitement. Still, I kept my cool and managed to kiss him softly on the cheek.

  “I just had to be sure,” I told him. “You really had me worried. What happened out there?”

  He sighed and rolled his shoulders. Uncertainly flickered in his eyes. “The alarm went off during the Games. Noah and I were the closest to the training facility, so we sprinted over there to grab weapons. By the time we got them out, the ferals had surrounded the bleachers full of people. We had to slice through them to keep everyone safe.”

  I nodded my head. They’d done a great job. Not one casualty that day because of their bravery.

  “But I got overconfident,” he continued, wincing at the memory. “Chased the last feral into the edge of the forest. Five more were hiding in wait and they overtook me. Dragged me to their command center.”

  My hand moved to cover his and he squeezed it gratefully.

  “Did you meet the Prince?” I asked.

  The image of that shadowy man standing in the forest still burned bright in my memory.

  His eyes darkened. “Yes. He calls himself Seth.”

  “I’ve met Seth.” I said the word aloud, letting it slip from my tongue like a bad omen. “That name sounds so normal, so human. Not like it belongs to an evil beast from Hell. What did he want from you?”

  “I didn’t know at
first.” He took in a large breath of air, his chest rising. “They put a bag over my head and threw me in a dark room. My hands and feet were tied together. I tried to escape, but they had demons on watch at all hours. I thought they were going to kill me.”

  He didn’t say it with an ounce of regret or fear. He had probably accepted his fate at the time and would’ve met his death with honor. I mourned to think of Gabe sitting in the dark alone, believing that he was about to die. Grabbing his hand even tighter, I pulled it to my chest.

  “But they didn’t...” I said.

  “No, they didn’t.” He shook his head, his hair falling in his face. “A pair of ferals dragged me in front of Seth. When we got there, I overheard him talking to one of his deceivers. He wants something. Something ancient and powerful. He said they’d failed to retrieve it during their attack on the manor.”

  “Psyche's Urn?” I nearly jumped from the bed. That sounded right.

  “I think so.” His eyes narrowed. “He sounded scared of it. As if he didn’t want us to figure out how it worked. But that was all I could overhear before he realized I was there. Then he had the nerve to try and smooth-talk me into joining him and his cause. I told him I’d rather die. He said that it could be arranged and sent me out to be killed.”

  “But you got away.” I bit on my lower lip, thinking about how close to death he’d come.

  “I got away.” He smiled softly. “Before they could slit my throat, I overpowered them and ran for it. I had to take a roundabout way back to the manor to avoid their scouts, but I made it. I had to make it back to you. You were the only thing on my mind.”

  Closing my eyes, I leaned into his chest and once again he wrapped his arms around me. We sat like that for several minutes as the sun began to shine brightly through the window panes. It felt surreal. After two days of pure panic, I had him back. My heart hadn’t quite caught up with my head yet. It was as if I was going to wake up from a dream and find him still missing. I snuggled in closer to ward off the feelings. Finally, Gabe took a deep breath and pushed my hair behind my ear.

  “There’s one last thing I haven’t mentioned.” His eyes flashed with an unease. “When I overheard Seth speaking to his demons, I think he mentioned someone working for him inside the manor.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “What do you mean? There are no demons inside the manor.”

  Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I had one living inside of me, like Gabe’s mother had so delicately pointed out. But she was tucked safely away in the dark corners of my mind—for now.

  “I know.” He hesitated. “But it sounded like he meant there was a warrior working for him. A Nephilim. He was certain that person could obtain the box for him.”

  I gasped. “That’s impossible. No one would do that!”

  “I hope you’re right. But what if it’s true?”

  There were over two hundred Nephilim living under the roof of the manor currently. I had to admit, I didn’t know half of them very well, especially the newcomers. To say it was impossible was a bit naive. Evil had a way of infiltrating the tightest of security. Maybe it wasn’t crazy to believe Gabe’s story.

  “But who?” I asked, looking around at the empty hall. “How can we know?”

  “I don’t think we can at this point.” He pushed himself up higher on the bed. “But there’s one thing we can do to make sure they don’t complete their mission.”

  “What?”

  “Hide the box.” He smiled grimly. “From everyone. Even Luke. That’s the only way to protect it. The only way to know for sure.”

  My heart thudded dully in my chest. I didn’t like the idea of not letting Luke in on the plot. I’d spent much of my time here fighting battles by myself, trying to do things my way and resisting any outside help. Still, I had Gabe on my side. And if he thought we should hide it, that was what we’d do.

  If this box truly was something so powerful—enough to scare a Prince of Hell into action, it had to be protected. Maybe, just maybe, we could figure out how to use it against him and finally put this thing to rest.

  I was so tired of fighting. Tired of clawing my way back to the surface, only to be dragged down again by demonic forces. I wanted a normal life. As normal a life as a Nephilim could have. I wanted it with Gabe. We had to protect that weapon.

  “Tonight,” he said, pressing his lips gently against mine. “Tonight, we’ll move it. Until we know it’s safe, we can’t rest.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I hugged my knees as I sat on Gabe’s bed, watching him pull on a soft gray t-shirt and lace up his shoes. Doubt whispered in my ear. We should be discovering what that box did, not hiding it from Seth’s minions. Something about that box was important.

  The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that Psyche’s Urn was a weapon of utmost power. It would be the turning of the tides in the war against Hell. If only we could discover what lay inside.

  Every minute we delayed, Seth built his armies stronger. The scouts reporting back today said that at least a hundred more demons in human skin had joined the camp. They were milling about, only a few miles from here, while we hunkered down in terror.

  Word had been sent to the remaining Hell Gates. They were sending as much reinforcement as possible, but travel from their countries could take days. Seth and his army might attack any day. We couldn’t rely on their help.

  As Gabe strapped a dagger the size of his palm to the inside of his ankle, I wondered about the possibility of the Prince of Hell having a man on the inside at Westward Manor. Surely, he wasn’t telling the truth. I thought about the friends I’d made in my short time here. I trusted each and every one of them with my life.

  None of them would sell their soul to the devil. It wasn’t possible. Even Adam, the man who’d tried to kill me at one time, wasn’t a candidate. He was fiercely loyal to the Nephilim. That only left the newcomers.

  So far, I hadn’t managed to spend much time with many of our foreign guests from Luke’s lab, except for Noah Brown. Any one of them could be the mole. Even Noah, if I had to be honest. There was no way to tell for sure.

  “Ready?”

  Gabe watched me from the doorway. His jaw twitched with tension. I’d spent most of the last two hours laying in his arms, listening to him grind his teeth in his sleep. Our task weighed on him. He loved Luke as much as I did. We both hated to steal from him, but until that box was safe, we had no other option.

  “Yes.” I slipped off the messy bed and stifled a yawn.

  The last few days hadn’t given me much of a chance to catch up on sleep. I was running on fumes.

  “Let’s go.” He headed out the door first, looking both ways down the hall.

  We weren’t going to have much of a problem sneaking down to Luke’s office. The only Nephilim guards on duty stood watch at the manor entrances—an extra security that had been put in place since the recent ambush by Seth’s army. And thanks to the late hour, the hallways of the manor were all ours.

  We snuck down an empty back stairwell. Our footsteps echoed on the bare concrete as we listened hard for any sign that we were not alone. Silence welcomed us. Pushing the door open to the second floor where Luke’s office resided, we glanced down the hall and waited for the moonlight cascading through the tall windows to throw any intruders into sight.

  “As soon as we get it, I’ll take it back to my room,” Gabe whispered at my side.

  The darkness of the hallway threw his face into half shadow. Deep wrinkles appeared across his forehead and around his mouth, as if he’d suddenly aged another six hundred years.

  “We’ll find a better spot for it after that,” he added in a gruff voice. “Until then, at least we’ll know it’s safely in our hands.”

  I nodded. Part of me was excited to get a moment to look at this thing. There had to be some clue on it as to why Seth was so afraid of a silly little wooden box. My fingers itched to touch it, as if simply holding it in my hands would make it reveal all its sec
rets.

  We took off down the hall at a steady walk. I watched the other end of the hall nervously. It might have been three a.m., but that didn’t guarantee us privacy. All it would take was for Luke to get the sudden urge to study something in one of his texts, as he often did, and we’d be caught. I wasn’t sure if any amount of explaining would erase the disappointment he’d have at finding out that Gabe and I hadn’t trusted him with this secret. And I didn’t want to find out.

  “Here.”

  Gabe stopped outside Luke’s office and jiggled the doorknob. Locked.

  “It’ll take me a minute to get in.” He pulled a pick out of his pocket and nodded in the direction of the dark end of the hallway. “Go keep watch. Seth’s inside man might have the same plans as us tonight.”

  Swallowing down the nervous energy swelling in my stomach, I headed off into the darkness. There wasn’t much to focus on, so I paced back and forth, listening for the sounds of Gabe’s pick in the metal lock. I was so distracted by my own thoughts that I didn’t see the shadowy man approach until it was too late and I’d smashed face first into his chest. The pressure on my nose brought a sudden well of tears to my eyes. I shielded it with two hands, crying out in pain.

  “So sorry, love.” Noah Brown’s arms reached out to steady me. “Didn’t see you there.”

  Pale moonlight streamed in through the nearest window, revealing his face. He hadn’t shaved this morning. Scruff covered his entire chin. It made him resemble a beach bum even more. Paired with his long wavy amber hair, he was every surfer girl’s dream.

  “Lizzy?” He leaned over to peer at me. “Is that you?”

  Guiltily, I dropped my hands from my face. “Yeah.”

  “What are you doing, roaming the manor at night? Don’t you know it isn’t safe anymore?”

  He glanced over my shoulder and I prayed that Gabe was safely hidden in Luke’s office.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” I lied, throwing out the first excuse I could make up. “I thought a walk would help.”