by D. L. Armillei
Text copyright © 2017 by D. L. Armillei
Diamond Cove Publishing
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For more information regarding permission, write to Diamond Cove Publishing, ATTN: Permissions, 17888 67th Court North, Loxahatchee, FL 33470.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-9986720-0-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017901625
First edition, April 2017
In loving memory of my mother
Gail Armillei,
an inspiring teacher of the arts and
encourager of my imagination.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Thursday Night: Latitude 44.8542° N, Longitude 93.2422° W, Earth World
Michael Cross scanned the restless crowd but couldn’t find the demon. Families—humans of the Earth World—had lined up, waiting for the Mall of America to begin its Midnight Madness sale.
The filthy terrigens, he thought. They had camped in front of the mall for days. Crisp pop-up tents dotted the crowd like a virus, along with a clutter of beach chairs, blankets, and pillows. Most of them had food-and-drink-stocked coolers. Toys and trash littered the ground. Their need for more, the greed, oozed from the crowd. Yeah, this place would definitely attract a demon.
He continued to survey the terrigens, wondering what had possessed him years ago to take a job that required spending time in this world, hunting demons. I guess I had ideals back then. And earning a spot in the elite sector of the Lodian military impressed the ladies. His chest tightened, as he remembered the exact moment when his life went bad. His rookie partner, Tilly, sidled up to him, interrupting his thoughts.
Tilly stared at her palm. A dot flashed on her Multi-Trac. “I’m picking it up over there.” She pointed through the crowd to an area dense with shadows.
Clusters of adults bundled in bright spring jackets held cups of hot coffee on the cool June night. They chatted with one another like old friends, oblivious to the danger that lurked nearby.
Michael snapped his hand over her Multi-Trac. The last thing he needed was for terrigens to see something resembling the newest smartphone, which they’d ask about and want to buy. “Terrigens can’t see demons. But they can see us.” Does she think wearing hot, heavy pea coats to hide our uniforms is for fun?
What he’d told Tilly wasn’t exactly true. Terrigens could see demons. They just didn't know it. Demons liked to appear in a form that enabled them to hide and move easily in the darkness. They were usually camouflaged to the point of invisibility, but occasionally terrigens glimpsed their movement as a wisp of smoke, the flicker of a shadow, or a blur. All of which terrigens brushed off as a trick of the eye.
Tilly looked away, abashed.
“Rookies,” Michael mumbled with disgust. They come charging into the field fresh out of training, high on adrenaline and ready to be a demon hunter. They never seem to grasp that it takes years to become a competent Grigori. A protector. This last thought made his stomach clench. Reflexively, he ran his fingers along the scars on his jaw and neck.
Tilly glanced at him, mistaking his movement for a command.
Irritably, he moved forward, motioning for her to follow him.
Demons were too cowardly to appear in their true form to terrigens, which gave the Grigori an advantage. Demons feared that if they were seen, the Earth World humans would try to kill them and that the Grigori would then target these demons for exhibiting more aggressive behavior by showing their true selves. Demons were also lazy. It took a tremendous amount of energy and strength to hold their true form on the same higher vibrational frequencies as terrigens.
And showing their true form proved not as effective as seeping. Michael shuddered. Demons found seeping easy.
Michael and Tilly dodged as several kids careened by, laughing and playing. Lights from a massive storefront cast a forbidding glow over the crowd. That, along with the light of a near-full moon, created many hiding places in the shadowy gaps among the crowd.
As Michael and Tilly edged across the line, the nearby terrigens tensed and shifted their bodies, as if preparing to defend their spots. The terrigens calmed after realizing the interlopers had only crossed the line, not cut in, and again became entranced by the mindless vigil of the sale.
Michael noticed Tilly wrinkle her nose, as they inched their way down a delivery alley between the towering yellow brick of two mall walls. It stunk like week-old garbage.
And sulfur.
“The demon is near,” Michael whispered. He tensed, as a faint rustling sound came from behind the trash bin ahead. His hand snapped into a halt position. He nodded to Tilly, who understood the unspoken command to use her Multi-Trac to anchor the demon.
Tilly hesitated and whispered, “It smells like sulfur, and the demon is holding itself at one of the highest terrigen frequencies. That’s odd, right?”
“Stronger demons sometimes emit sulfur,” Michael replied. “And can hold at higher frequencies.”
“Don�
��t they usually lower their vibration to try and slip away from us?” Tilly asked.
“Usually,” Michael grumbled. “Could be a Class II.”
Tilly tensed.
Grigori classified demons by their behavior. Class I demons were weak and cowardly. Class II demons were strong and aggressive. All demons were cunning and evil but had no interest in killing terrigens. They needed terrigens to produce negativity that generated new demons and to feed the ones already here, which allowed them to become stronger, to become Class IIs. The Grigori aimed never to let Class I demons linger long enough to become Class IIs.
“I gave you a command,” growled Michael. He hated training rookies. “Anchor the demon!”
He scrutinized Tilly’s fresh, young face to see whether the demon’s whisper had influenced her. Demons used silent words to seep into the subconscious of any unsuspecting human’s mind, causing the person to succumb to “brain rot,” as Michael liked to call it. Brain rot corrupted the mind of the victim, prompting unsettling, negative conscious thoughts that led to depression, intolerance, anxiety, and ideas of violence. Eventually, the thoughts became so disruptive that the humans acted on them and performed atrocious deeds, committed violent or immoral acts, harmed others, or harmed themselves. This, in turn, created an environment of fear, terror, and darkness—an environment where demons thrived, accumulated, and created more demons. Grigori referred to this process as seeping and underwent training to be unaffected by it. Still, Michael wondered about his rookie.
He pulled back his pea coat to grab his own Multi-Trac, when a wisp of smoke, swirling like a mini-tornado, emerged from the shadows.
Tilly sprang to life and thumbed the switch on her Multi-Trac to secure their own and the demon’s vibrational frequency and lock it in. Then she pressed a button that took both demon and hunters to a lower vibration and out of the terrigens’ sight.
“Use the net,” Michael commanded.
Tilly swiped her finger on the Multi-Trac, and a web-like net shot forward, trapping the swirling demon. Stronger demons had the ability to change frequencies after being locked in, taking both themselves and the Grigori on a changing frequency ride. The net provided extra insurance that the demon would be held at the Grigori’s desired frequency and not the other way around. This allowed the Grigori to hold the demon steady and kill it. Killing was protocol. Their job was to keep the demon population under control.
Sometimes, due to fear, demons “popped” back into their true form when confronted by a Grigori; if not, then Grigori had been trained to force demons into their true form using the Multi-Trac, so they could get a visual description to put in their reports.
But staring at Michael from under the net wasn’t a horrible creature. It was a little girl.
She stood alone in the alley, trembling from fright. A ray of moonlight draped her, highlighting the girl’s white-blonde hair, flawless porcelain skin, and pretty blue eyes.
Horror tore through Michael and twisted his gut—the demon had replicated his daughter at age five, right down to Van’s favorite outfit at that time—red bow-tie shoes and a white-ruffled, tailor-made dress.
“I snagged a terrigen! I’m so sorry.” Tilly shook her Multi-Trac and slapped it against her palm. “Is my MT broken?”
The little girl started sobbing. “Daddy! Let me out of the net!” it said, in a sickening echo of Van’s sweet voice. “Daddy, don’t you love me?”
The muscles in Michael’s shoulders tightened. His stare remained on the daughter-like demon, as he grasped the hilt of his ritualized scythe.
“Grigori Cross, sir, it’s one of the kids waiting for the sale,” Tilly said. “She’s mistaking you for her father. The demon slipped away. I screwed up.”
Michael answered by slowly unsheathing his scythe.
“Remember our Grigori oath?” Tilly said, wide-eyed.
Michael understood her nervous tone. He had been back in the field only a short time, and with his sordid past . . . well, it was no wonder.
“To protect the terrigens at all costs?” Tilly said, an octave louder.
Michael grunted. That was only one of their oaths. And this was no terrigen. In truth, he had never seen a demon take human form, and he didn’t know what class they were dealing with, but it didn’t matter. It had to be killed.
“It’s a demon,” Michael growled, raising his scythe.
“Demons can’t take human form.” Tilly darted over to the child. “We have to be sure.”
“Stand down!” He stepped forward, ready to elbow Tilly out of the way and then strike.
The demon-girl turned her eyes toward Michael, as Tilly tore off the netting. Its stare flashed a phosphorescent violet sheen just like Van’s, making Michael pause.
Tilly swiveled to block his attack and, in the process, turned her back on the enemy.
“It’s a terrigen gir—”
A dull, wet sucking sound cut Tilly off, as the demon’s stick-like appendage pierced her torso. Its tip dripped with blood and chunks of tissue.
The demon-girl retracted its spiked arm and placidly watched Michael with eyes now so dark and empty, they made his soul shiver.
Michael held onto his scythe, as he grabbed hold of the rookie. She clasped his arms and attempted to speak. Bits of blood dribbled down the sides of her mouth. She slid from his grasp, slumped to her knees, and crumpled to the ground.
Michael didn’t blame the rookie for her mistake. Demons were more interested in humans’ suffering than in their death, and demons in their true form usually appeared the size of a small dog, with a deranged combination of reptilian-goat features. Michael suspected that given enough time, Class II demons would develop the potential to kill a human. But what he had just witnessed was an unclassified behavior.
Holding the form of a human took a tremendous amount of strength for a demon, way beyond the ability of a Class II. Tilly’s training manual hadn’t covered demons taking human form, because Grigori commonly believed it wasn’t possible. But Michael had recently uncovered information in a hidden ancient scroll that a demon appearing in human form was not unprecedented. It had happened a thousand years ago, during the Great War.
Michael staggered back from his rookie’s body. Not everyone can be saved, he told himself. He could not go back in time and change things. Life is for those who can be saved.
His attention returned to the demon-girl. He wondered why it hadn’t yet attempted to kill him. Its eyes had returned to a beautiful warm blue; its spiked appendage transformed back into a child’s arm. It swiveled its ankle back and forth and smiled coyly at Michael—like Van had as a child whenever anyone confronted her for doing something wrong.
Michael kept his stare on the Van-like doppelgänger, as he unsnapped a salt bomb from his belt, hoping it would have a paralyzing effect, despite the demon’s strength.
He smashed it at the demon’s feet.
The demon let out an unworldly squeal, then lunged and growled at Michael like a rabid animal, forcing him to dart and dodge.
Michael’s jaw clenched. He was dealing with a rare Class III, one with the ability to raise its own vibration high enough to reach the Living World. His world.
Michael struggled to remain composed, as the demon-girl paced and snarled, assessing his weaknesses before pouncing again.
He unhooked the Multi-Trac from his belt. “Screw protocol,” he mumbled and pointed his MT at the demon-girl. Then, rather than attempting to net it again, he toggled a button and raised only the demon’s vibrational frequency—a dangerous, unauthorized way to kill a demon.
The demon-girl let out an ear-shattering shriek of pain before exploding in a fit of vaporous black rage. The smoky mass didn’t dissipate as he had expected. Instead, it took the form of a human-reptilian chimera.
“Damn,” Michael muttered. He stepped back and craned his neck to get a full view of this newest demon, as it stretched its quasi-female body high and spread its reddish-brown wings wide.
None of his Grigori killing tools would be any match for this.
The creature snorted, lowered its angular head, and perused Michael as if wondering whether he was worth eating or not.
Michael dropped his Multi-Trac, gripped his scythe, and met the demon’s eyes.
The demon snorted, so close to Michael’s face that its hot breath ruffled his hair. He braced, ready to fight to the death.
Instead of attacking, the demon grinned at him like a friend, raised its glabrous body, and seeped soundlessly into the earth.
Michael loosened his grip on the scythe. Now, he understood. It was imperative that he get back to the Balish Palace to fulfill his secret plan. Class III demons appearing in the Earth World signaled the first stage of Dishora, a prophesied time when Darkness would gain strength and rise to oppose the Light. It would start with another Great War between the Lodians and the Balish. Everyone would choose a side.
Michael had known this day would come.
Darkness always seeks to destroy the Light.
CHAPTER TWO
Saturday Night: Providence Island, Earth World
“Sorry your father never showed up for the placement ceremony today, Van.” Ken Rose shook his head in disappointment.
Van shrugged. “Who cares?” She noticed how the flickering light from the bonfire picked up the dusty blond highlights in his hair. It was near midnight, and they’d both shown up at an after party in the woods, far from the prying eyes of adults.
“A sophomore has never won an All-Grades Trophy, like you did,” he said. “And for Capture the Flag, too. That’s the toughest event in the Games.”
“Whatever.” Van inhaled the heady scent of the pine forest. She leaned back against a giant oak, hands behind her, anticipating a romantic moment.
Ken nodded, satisfied with her answer. “Catch you later,” he said and bounded off to hang with his friends.
The jagged bark dug into Van’s delicate skin. She sprang forward, angry at messing up her new dress, all for nothing. She brushed off the dirt and bark, as Ken and his buddies gathered around the “Reservation Boundary: Off Limits” sign at the edge of the clearing.
Shock of Fate: A Young Adult Fantasy Adventure (Anchoress Series Book 1) Page 1
