Hounds of Light: An Urban Fantasy Series (Cursed Night Book 2)

by Justin Sloan

  “Figures,” Daniel said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Triston asked, coming to her rescue.

  “It means,” Daniel said, dropping his fork on his plate and standing, “that we already have Allie, we don’t need any other heroes.” He turned and walked out of the dining hall, leaving Katherine to stare after him in confusion.

  “Sorry about him,” Troy said, after a minute. “He’s just upset because Allie’s off hunting down some demon or something, and he wasn’t allowed to go.”

  “I’m sorry, but Allie who?” Katherine took a long swig of apple cider. “You two are throwing that name around like it’s supposed to mean something.”

  “Right.” Troy laughed. “Around here, that name means everything. She’s saved the world more times than I can count.”

  “The Eleventh Worthy,” Triston added. “The one Mauro was talking about.”

  “Oh…” She nodded, as if that was supposed to make it all make sense, and went back to cutting her meat. But after a minute of eating and watching Mauro heatedly talking on the other side of the table with Merriam and Gabe, she turned back to Triston. “Okay, we have this Allie person out there hunting down a demon, we have portals or whatever, and… we have our kind. Anything else I should know about?”

  “Only them,” Triston said, pointing at the far end of the hall, where several men and women in black special forces gear had just entered.

  Katherine immediately stood, grabbing her knife and taking a defensive position.

  “Get behind me,” she hissed, but noticed Troy looking at her like she was a nutjob. She frowned at Triston. “Something tells me they aren’t the same group that was following Aldrick.”

  “Not at all,” Triston said, smiling at her reaction. “Similar style, I guess, but notice the patches on their chest?”

  She looked closely and saw one of them glance her way, so she turned back to Triston. But she had noticed the patch, an image of a flaming sword, behind it a shield with a Celtic knot formed into a tree.

  “What is it?”

  “That’s the sign of the Bringers of Light,” Troy said. “Basically, they’re the elite force against darkness. Allie leads them, though more in name than anything else. She’s more often than not going off on her own.”

  “And their role in all this?”

  “You’ve heard of Seal Team Six?” Troy asked. “All those special operations teams? Well think of that, but on a spiritual level. These guys are out there taking down the worst of them. You got a demon army, send them in. Right now, I hear they’re putting together intel on where the different werewolf groups are rising up.”

  “So you’re aware of that?” she asked, but caught a slight shake of the head and a cautious eye from Triston.

  “Werewolves?” Troy asked. “We’ve been briefed. Nasty creatures, for sure. If I get my hands on any of those bastards…”

  “You know they aren’t all bad, right?”

  Troy looked at her like she’d just bit off his toe. “Um, let’s see. Werewolves and vampires, bad. Us good. I think it’s pretty simple.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but this time Triston gave her a very pointed glare, so she got the message. Though she meant to ask him about his secrecy later, she imagined it had to do with the fact that he was now also a werewolf.

  Her brow furrowed, suddenly not liking this Troy guy so much, even if he was Triston’s brother. Then a realization hit her.

  “Oh, so that’s why we’re here, because they’re going to help us find the different werewolf packs that are forming.”

  “And the stragglers,” Mauro said, overhearing as he approached. He stopped just behind Triston’s shoulder and said, “Come now, it’s time we got you situated.”

  “We’re staying here?” she asked.

  “At least until the intel’s reliable,” he said. “And in the meantime, we can learn a lot from Merriam and Gabe, and the others.”

  She cast a doubtful look in Troy’s direction and said, “Yeah, sure we can.”

  He rolled his eyes and turned to the next table over, picked up his plate, and went to join them.

  “So, this new world growing on you yet?” Mauro asked.

  “Right…” She gave him a very serious look and said, “just get us out there to stop all this before the full moon. Unless this Allie character plans on doing it for us.”

  He shook his head. “Allie Strom has her own demon she’s tracking down, one with its own agenda, from what I understand.”

  The special operations folk had moved over to speak with Merriam, and Mauro noticed Katherine glancing over.

  “They’ll be our closest allies in this, so… play nice.” Mauro stepped back at the look she gave him. “I’m just saying, you can be a bit rough around the edges at times.”

  “How so?”

  “Best not answer that,” Triston warned Mauro with a clap on the shoulder as he stood.

  Katherine didn’t let up the glare, but she let the issue go when Mauro smiled, nodded to the door, and took off to lead the way to their next destination.

  “You get the feeling we’re just pawns in some larger game here?” she asked Triston as they followed Mauro out.

  “The feeling? Kat, that’s exactly what we are. This isn’t about us, it’s about stopping suffering in the world, defeating evil once and for all.”

  “Wow, you… you sound like one of them.”

  “That might be because I am one of them.” He shrugged. “Just saying.”

  “I keep forgetting.” She pinched him gently and laughed. “But remember, you’re on my side first and foremost, got it?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  They exited the dining hall through the back door, where Mauro stood waiting for them. Several buildings lined a grassy field, wide balconies held up with marble columns. She saw an old cannon across the field, and a fountain carved to resemble a winged warrior fighting two serpents.

  “What the hell is this place?” Katherine said, caught off guard by the sight before her.

  “Think of it like a military base,” Mauro said. “Only, it’s a different type of military. Those soldiers you saw in there, they’ve infiltrated the right circles to find out what’s going on out there in the world, and when they say it’s time, we move.”

  “But it was clearly night outside when we got here. The fact that everyone’s acting like this is so damn normal is starting to freak me the hell out!”

  “It’s okay,” Triston said, apparently sensing her growing frustration. “We’re here together.”

  She shot him an angry glance and then turned to Mauro, hands on her hips, waiting.

  With a lick of his lips, he nodded. “It’s not another dimension or anything like that, more like… another plane. One where we can train and strategize without interference. This is the hub, headquarters, if you will. If we want to stop the werewolf armies Aldrick put in place, this is where we need to be.”

  That was what she wanted, after all, so she shrugged and said, “Fine, just point me in the right direction so I can get some sleep.”

  Chapter 10

  Matthew ran as if his life depended on it, even though deep down he knew it was really his sanity that was on the line here.

  He had met others who had survived the Realm of Shadows, some who could still talk about it, others who had devolved into mindless beasts, vampires who attacked without conscious or clear thought. The vampires of stories.

  It was a punishment of sorts, but also a test.

  In his case, the test was meant to break him. He refused to let that happen.

  Candelabras flared to life to reveal tall, stone walls that formed as he ran, not there moments before, and he found himself in a tall castle. Stairs appeared under his feet and he didn’t turn back, knowing that one thing held true here above all else—fear was the destroyer.

  You doubt yourself in the Realm of Shadows, it just gets stronger, and then you might as well
kiss your sanity goodbye. So he kept walking, wanting to shout for the demons behind this to bring it on, to get it over with.

  A clash of swords sounded from the castle battlements, but he knew they were simply glimpses of the past. Screams filled the night. He paused, hearing too many familiar voices in those screams.

  A dark passage lay before him, but it was that or turn back. Never turn back.

  He pushed on, finding the darkness heavy, like walking against a strong wind that did not move.

  Silence.

  Everything became still. Faint lights appeared in the hallway, and then a voice, distant.

  “No, no!” a woman screamed, and something fell, crashing.

  He ran forward and to the light that was now a door, peering in to see his mom, just as she had been all those years ago, hair pulled back and in that flower dress she always wore. One hand lifted to him to tell him to get out of there, while another went to the figure just beyond the doorway.

  Matthew stepped forward and nearly vomited at the realization of what this place was about to show him.

  There was Aldrick, the man he had watched Katherine kill, only he was young again, unscarred. His hair was slicked back and wavy, his piercing eyes lacking the fierceness they held later in life. In fact, they were almost sad to see his son standing there, and that’s what Matthew was, for that moment—a scared boy again, Aldrick’s son, come running to see what the problem was.

  “Go back to your room!” Aldrick shouted, and then doubled over with a spasm. When he looked up again, his eyes glowed red and fur had begun to sprout from his skin. The transformation came fast, Matthew staring as his father grew sharp teeth and claws, and then the werewolf was on his mother.

  When he was younger, he had looked away, run and hid. Not this time.

  No fear, he told himself.

  Unlike when he was young and had witnessed this really happen, this time Matthew was ready for the temple and what it had to throw at him. He closed his eyes, steeled his nerves. Looking up, he imagined none of what he saw was real, then ran for the man he knew to be dead.

  He plowed through the scene and it exploded into a burst of dense fog that smelled of candles being extinguished.

  “What have you done?” Aldrick’s voice came from the fog that hovered around his head, but Matthew was still running, charging through, knowing the owner of that voice was long gone. “Tell me why?”

  Matthew reached the far wall and an arched doorway in the stone, then paused, looking back at the fog. Its swirling tendrils formed the face of the man he had grown to hate.

  “I brought you justice,” Matthew said, and then blew into the fog, scattering it so that it was no longer there.

  He turned and walked on, only to come to an immediate halt.

  Not her, anyone but her. This woman in her red, flowing dress, her hair tied up but falling in delicate strands around her perfect face.

  Rosita.

  She stepped forward, smiling with red lips that revealed her fangs.

  “You survived?” he asked.

  “One never can tell in here, isn’t that right?” She approached him with slow, deliberate steps, her dress trailing behind her. “The day you left, I wept until the sun set. How could my Matthew abandon me?”

  She stopped less than a foot away, so close that he could smell the sweet aroma of her breath, like a fine merlot, see the subtle rise and fall of her breasts, pushed up by that red dress.

  Her hand reached up and, with one finger, she caressed the side of his cheek. Just barely, as if making sure he was really there.

  “How…?” he asked.

  The gentle caress turned into a fierce scratch across his face, and as he stumbled backward, she advanced. “How did I survive? After you burned this place to the ground, the temple that gave you such power, the woman you loved?”

  “You are a demon,” he shouted back. “No woman!”

  She screamed at that and ran for him, picking him up and flying into the air with him, eyes glowing fiercely and teeth exposed. “The only way to survive was to escape to the Realm of Shadows! This whole temple now is merely a husk of its former glory, a reflection, pulled from the shadows to exist in our world.”

  With a snarl, she dropped him to the floor and he fell with pain shooting through his right leg.

  As she descended like an angel of death, she held out her hands, and only then did he notice the glowing stones on her wrists. Red and black tendrils, like liquid that moved through the air, crept toward him from her outstretched hands. The necklace at her bosom began to glow a vibrant magenta, and her face lit up in a way that cast deep shadows around her eyes.

  “But you have returned to me, and we can be together forever, can’t we, Matthew?”

  He pushed himself up, limping backwards and away from her.

  She smiled at this and said, “Ah, there is a way to make you retreat in the Realm of Shadows. Cowering at the feet of a woman.”

  He realized it was true as the darkness enveloped him, her laughter ringing out and echoing through the castle walls.

  Chapter 11

  Katherine woke with a start, her hair matted to her forehead with a light sweat, in spite of the chill that sent a shiver through her.

  At first she wasn’t sure where she was. It had been so real, those images of Matthew, and the darkness. Could it have somehow been a message, or simply her imagination getting carried away?

  A pounding came on her door, and a voice said, “Let’s go!”

  She stumbled over to the door and peeked outside, groggily. “The hell is this?”

  A line of men and women stood there in their cammies, including the older teens she had met at dinner the evening before. Triston was at the end, and gave her a bewildered look that told her he was still waking up, too. He had on those same cammies, and she had to admit the outfit was damn sexy on him.

  “Get dressed,” the man in the front said. He was easily twice her size, muscled, and had a shaved head and a stern glare.

  She almost had to laugh at the stereotype, but caught herself smiling, in spite of the unsettling feeling the dream had left her with.

  “Something wrong?” the man asked.

  A woman with dark skin and wavy hair tied into a bun glared at Katherine. “I think she thinks something’s funny. Something about your appearance. Maybe your bald head, eh, Ricky?”

  “Shut up,” he said to the woman at his side, then turned back to Katherine. “Merriam said we’re to keep you on your toes while you’re here, so if you don’t mind.”

  “Don’t mind what?” Katherine asked, still waking up.

  The man looked at her, exasperated, and then nudged the woman and said, “Destiny, would you handle this? We’ll get started.”

  Destiny’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded and stepped out of the line to stand beside Katherine as the rest of them took off at a run, led by Ricky. At the end, Triston held out both hands and looked like he had been betrayed, and Katherine had to laugh at that.

  “You’re chipper this morning,” Destiny said. “But that’s fine. The rest of us are preparing to save the world while you sleep in. No biggie.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I didn’t speak loud enough? A little hard of hearing in the morning?”

  “Hey,” Katherine opened the door all the way now, and the woman frowned to see she was only wearing her panties and a t-shirt. Katherine shrugged it off. “You have no idea what I’ve done for this world already, okay? I don’t see how me guessing that I was expected to go for a run in the morning, when nobody told me, changes my commitment to all this.”

  “Good. Then put some clothes on and get out here.”

  Katherine frowned. “My clothes could use a wash. Where do I get a getup like yours?”

  “Try checking your closet?”

  “Try checking your attitude,” Katherine said as she turned away from the woman to go to the closet. She had passed out the night before, totally exhausted, and hadn’t b
othered to look around at all.

  Now that she had a moment of silence as she opened the closet door and found several pairs of cammies just like the woman’s, images of the dream came back to haunt her. The vampire they had seen the day before, Matthew running, and the image of his father attacking his mother.

  “You okay?” Destiny asked, coming around to Katherine’s side to see that she’d frozen, eyes staring wide at the darkness of the closet.

  “Sorry, yeah.” Katherine checked the drawers to see several sports bras and pairs of underwear in various sizes, and found some that fit. “Do you mind?”

  Destiny frowned but turned around while Katherine slipped into new underwear and then her cammies.

  “You do realize we’re about to go get all sweaty?” Destiny said. “I mean, you coulda changed clothes after instead.”

  “Considering what I’ve been through lately, you’re lucky I’m not telling you no and barricading myself in for a nice, long bath. A change of underwear is the bare minimum at this point.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Katherine went to the door and opened it. Before they exited, Destiny paused in the doorway and asked, “What have you been through?”

  “If I learn to like you, ask me then.”

  Yeah, she felt like a jerk for answering like that, but considering the magnitude of recent events, paired with her crazy dreams and the way these people had come knocking on her door, they kind of deserved it.

  “Try to keep up,” Destiny said, brushing past her and not bothering to apologize for bumping shoulders.

  So that’s how it was going to be.

  If there was one thing these people needed to know about Katherine, it was that keeping up was never a problem. Too bad it wasn’t still night, when her strength and other powers were really strong.

  They ran along a path among the trees, trickles of light splattering the green grass and dirt trail. A bend in the road took them into a clearing with a small waterfall on one side, a field past the trees on the other.

  At first she didn’t see Triston and the other group, but then she spotted movement and one of them popped up, ready for the attack. The man moved for Katherine, but she took two steps back and then leaped forward, rolling to take out his legs.