by JL Madore
Copyright © 2018 by JL Madore
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
JL Madore
www.jlmadore.com
Cover Design: Fiona Jayde Media
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Watcher Untethered/ JL Madore -- 1st ed.
ISBN 978-0-9916763-9-2
Dedication:
To the brave souls who keep us safe at night.
For all you do that we’ll never know about.
May the evils of our world never take you down.
Thank you
CHAPTER ONE
“This asshole’s head is mine. I mean it, Tanek.” Zander swerved the truck down a shadowed side street, the squeal of rubber on road echoing off brick buildings. The dark fury in his blood had him lit to explode. That he could even drive astonished him. He couldn’t believe any Otherworlder—Dark or Light—could be so massively stupid.
“He’s headed for that alley, Z. Get closer.” Tanek popped the passenger door open and swung out onto the step bar. “Man, this one’s quick.”
Quick? The pro-wrestler build of their bad-guy was deceiving as hell, because boots to asphalt, the daemon ran Usain Bolt fast—even with the added weight of an unconscious blonde slung over his shoulder.
A growl rumbled deep in Zander’s chest. Nothing ranked lower in his playbook of evil than daemons who preyed on innocent females, except maybe a daemon who preyed on innocent females who happened to be at his nightclub.
Zander strangled the steering wheel as his foot ground harder on the gas. As the Navigator’s engine revved, he banked a hard left down the alley. The tires screamed into the night and he almost lost Tanek. The space between the buildings was tight, the walls zipping past on both sides of the truck in a blur.
There wasn’t much in life or death Zander cared about—except maybe pissing people off. Celestial guardian. Soulless assassin. Despised bastard. Meh, all one and the same. He was Nephilim, and this daemon would be schooled in what it meant to provoke a Soldier of the Choir.
“My club is a safe zone, Tanek. My house. My kill.”
“Victori spolia,” Tanek said, launching off the side of the truck. His size fourteens landed heavy, his momentum pitching him into a run.
“To the victor goes the spoils, my ass.” Zander stomped the brakes and slammed the shifter into park. He bailed out and tore down the alley after his commander. The guy’s leather vest flared like a cape behind him, the Nephilim runes etched into the back, glimmering silver under the lights of the sleeping city.
Lost in the shadows, Tanek unsheathed his blade and Zander followed his lead. Three a.m. in an industrial section of Toronto’s fashion district left few humans to witness the excitement, but it only took one industrious looky-loo with a cellphone and the Otherworld was exposed and going viral on the internet.
“She isn’t human,” Tanek said, over his shoulder. “Could be worse.”
Zander checked the sightlines from the rooftops and wondered how Tanek did it. The guy still spouted optimism and he’d been trapped in this thankless existence longer than any of them. They barrelled through another back alley and spooked a pair of scavenging raccoons. The rotund little bandits scattered in a flurry of hostile chatter.
Yeah, human would be worse.
One tenet galvanized all members of the Otherworld. It had nothing to do with character alignment or their feeding needs, whether blood, flesh, spirit, or fear. It had everything to do with the food source.
Humans must remain oblivious.
The two of them hurdled overgrown boxwoods, their boots propelling them through backstreets, around graffiti-covered dumpsters and over broken wooden skids littering their path. Most nights, obstacles kept the chase interesting, but tonight Zander wanted to skip the calisthenics and get straight to the decapitating part.
Shit. They’d lost visual.
Tanek vaulted over a concrete barricade and signaled for Zander to flank left and cover the next building. Zander changed course. They weren’t out of this. The only place the daemon could take cover was in the cluster of dilapidated, two-storey warehouses ahead. Working a quick and dirty grid, they melted into the overcast night, cranked door handles and eyeballed what windows they found.
Zander focused his energy and summoned his gift. With a low-level current arcing within his cells, he scanned the area, his senses heightened. He itched to detect the acrid scent of daemon. He strained for any movement shift or the faintest rustle in the distance. He sensed—nothing.
August air hung deathly still and heavy in his lungs, no breeze to carry scents and no sound of movement to point them in the right direction. He wiped a wrist across his brow and cursed. The storm brewing over Lake Ontario flashed angry strobes and threatened its wrath.
As he ghosted across the next loading ramp, his electrical mojo did its thing and his head cranked around. Zeroing-in on a piece-of-shit factory two units over, the hair on the nape of his neck stood at attention. Gotcha.
Zander whistled for Tanek to follow and pistoned forward.
The building stood an inspired tribute to post-war ramshackle and as he back-flatted against the red brick, clay detritus crumbled onto the walkway. He sidestepped toward the metal door and sucked in a lungful—
Fuck. The stench of death and ode-to-campfire tunneled into his sinuses—the all too familiar mix of rotting human flesh, terror, and brimstone. A daemon kill-zone.
Now, the trip into industrial-landia made sense. Isolated after dark. No nosy neighbors to hear baleful screams from within. And no way for him and Tanek to guess how many of Hell Realm’s army lurked inside.
While his lungs sucked in more incentive to decapitate, Zander retrieved the Moonstone from his vest pocket. In the heartbeat it took Tanek to join the party, Zander brushed a thumb across the feldspar and uttered the words to fire the ancient runes to life. Heaven’s light erupted from the stone and sliced the darkness.
Good to go. Well, aside from having no idea what species of daemon they faced annnnd the fact that this whole snatch-and-chase scenario made his skin tingle. On that thought, he retrieved his phone and messaged Kyrian their location.
Ironically, the bigger the army inside, the better it was for the kidnapped female—cocky daemons were stupid daemons. No matter what flesh-eater species they chased, if that asshole had his entire nest inside, he’d be less likely to open a portal back to Hell and take his vict
im to go. And no way was he making off with his catch of the night.
Tanek grabbed the steel door handle and raised a three-finger count.
Three. Two. One.
The penetration was textbook. The incursion precise. Zander panned side-to-side and pressed forward in a rush. The Moonstone lit a twisted world unlike any he’d seen in two millennia. Human corpses littered the concrete floor and clogged the corners, slumped nine and ten deep. Throats torn out. Blood dried black and caked thick with flies.
His eyes burned from the stench.
Everywhere light panned, it illuminated snapped ribs, chest cavities cracked wide, and gaps where vital organs were missing. He cursed the suction as he walked through the half-clotted aftermath. Gore squished and squelched under the tread of his boots.
Tanek fired up his Moonstone and banked left. He disappeared behind a metal wall that divided the warehouse down the center. Zander took the right—
The attack came fast and low.
Zander’s boots found no purchase as two hundred and fifty pounds of daemon hit like a diesel train. Flying sideways, they landed hard. The tackle’s momentum slid them, as one, over the gory concrete floor. The Moonstone jarred from his hand.
Despite the face full of coagulated human and the sudden plummet into darkness, Zander wasn’t down. Once the plasma slip-and-slide ended, he sliced through the elbow clamped around his chest. The hellspawn’s wail made him smile as the limb detached and he clubbed his attacker in the head. To beat the bastard with his own arm amused him to no end.
“You’ve been dis-armed, flesh-muncher,” he said, clocking him again. Movement had him spinning for the incoming attack. Third man in. He couldn’t see much but lunged with all his weight. His hands and hilt were slick with blood, but he’d experienced it all a thousand times before.
A blade sliced hot into his torso.
The steel penetrated the muscle just below his ribs. The burn of his flesh ramped his incentive to kill. Grace erupted through his bloodstream. The tidal wave of sweet-fire lava refueled his flagging energy and initiated his healing. The only perk to being an archangel’s bastard offspring was the all-consuming high Nephilim got when they embraced the violent duty they’d been bred for.
Grace was fortitude. It was strength. It was power.
With lethal force honed to precision, Zander leveraged his weight. He punched, kicked and tore at his enemy until two severed heads fell with meaty thunks to rest amongst their human victims. Life for life, eye for eye.
He cleaned his blade on a headless corpse and tested the gash on his side with his fingers. Punctured just above the hip, it stung, but no vitals hit. Angel mojo ran hot in his blood. He’d heal within the hour.
He swept his boot against the floor and frowned. His Moonstone was a lost cause. He’d have to scan the warehouse without it. The only break in the darkness came courtesy of a few enterprising rays of moonlight that managed to squeeze through three milky skylights and a couple grime-covered windows on the far wall.
Where was the daemon runner? And where was the female?
Zander hadn’t gotten anywhere with either question when his Watcher’s mark burned ice-hot. The two daemon lives etched their way into his flesh. The filigree history of his kills expanded down his thigh and across his quad. The branding was the easy part, the transfer of power was what sucked. He clenched his teeth as vaporous streams of dark energy rose from the bodies and wormed into his eyes, ears, and nostrils.
The violation was horrid. Every. Damn. Time.
He locked himself down and waited for the malevolent souls to feed the darkness within him. The two were weak. Not much of an addition to his strength, but not much taint to his soul either. Not that he possessed much left to corrupt. As the sting clawed across his skin, Zander adjusted to the burden and tightened the tether on his most violent impulses.
Something shifted behind him. A blast exploded.
Electrical energy overloaded his cells. His vision fritzed and his tracking shut down. Daemons closed in. A blow snapped his head back. A strike to his ribs forced the air from his lungs. Falling to his knees, a brutal bombardment rained down on him. He cursed his weakness.
The blonde would suffer. He’d failed her.
Zander woke in a rush, his heart hammering. His breath came quick and short. Bound and chained, he forced his legs to accept weight beneath him. He felt like he’d been run over by a tank—make that a convoy of tanks. The way his brain pulsed inside his skull, it wouldn’t be fair if he wasn’t at least suffering an aneurysm. He wasn’t sure—because he couldn’t open his eyes at that moment—but there was a good chance some bastard pried gray matter from his head with a hatchet.
He breathed deep. An olfactory overload filled his sinuses and settled bitter on the back of his tongue. Daemons. Rotten flesh. The night’s highlight reel began an infuriating playback and he forced his eyes open.
The face of his Rolex glowed against the darkness. He twisted to read the numbers and pain speared his side. Almost four a.m. Hours had passed. Where was Tanek? How the hell had Darkworld scum caught them unaware? He tilted his head to his shoulder and tried to brush a mass of tangled hair from his eyes. No luck. It caked to his face with sweat and blood.
Movement on the opposite side of the warehouse made him tense. Those daemons had another thing coming if they thought he’d play their punching bag twice. He tracked the sweeping beam of light as it grew brighter. The squelch of footsteps grew louder. He tested the hold of the manacles above his head. They didn’t budge. His feet then. He could grapple around the daemon’s waist and—
“Ah, Zander, you’re awake.”
Zander exhaled as Kyrian rounded the center wall. The Moonstone’s beam highlighted his brother-in-arms. The son of a Greek senator and a well-respected general in his human life, Kyrian wasn’t a leather and chains barbarian like the rest of them. He wore his Watcher’s vest over a black button-down and slacks, with New Rock boots to accent.
His pale green eyes shone silver in the dim light. “What happened here, Z?”
Zander went over the night’s events and brought Kyrian up to speed. “And during the Quickening, an energy bolt nailed me. No idea what happened after that.”
“It’s lucky you were even at the club.”
He hadn’t thought of that. Had he and Tanek been on patrol as scheduled, no one would have witnessed the abduction and given chase. If not for a last-minute change in their plans, this daemon would have gotten clean away.
“Why weren’t you on patrol?”
Zander shrugged. Tanek had caught wind of something and wanted to talk in private. The daemon grabbed the female before they’d gotten to it. “Has Tanek checked in?”
Kyrian scanned his phone and shook his head. “When neither of you answered, the twins and I came to check things out. We found two bodies doing a headless horseman impression in a plasma puddle over there and then we found you unconscious and shackled to the wall here with her.” Kyrian shifted his Moonstone’s beam just as the power came on-line.
Zander squinted against the fluorescent lights and his gaze followed the delicate arm suspended and handcuffed to his own. Hello. He scanned the naked, unconscious woman attached to him. “It’s been eons since I woke in bondage.”
Kyrian smirked. “And without the pleasure of a week’s festivities first.”
Zander shook his head and regretted it. He’d taken enough cracks to the cranium over the centuries to know better. While his brains sloshed inside his skull, he wondered how he’d ended up handcuffed to a woman and shackled to a wall. The absence of context felt as if someone had taken the horror novel of his life and ripped out a chapter—or three.
The brunette hung suspended next to him, her head lolled forward. Long, chestnut hair created a veil over her face and chest. Dozens of round bruises marred her flesh. Dozens of rocks lay scattered at her feet. “They stoned her?”
From one heartbeat to the next, Zander’s world shifted. No longer a
warrior, fierce, and lethal, he was a child. An abomination they’d called him. They’d stoned him and his sister. He hadn’t died. Niobe had.
“Z?” Kyrian said. “Zandros? What’s wrong?”
Zander’s attention swung back to the woman. The hair. The skin tone. Impossible. A trick? His sister was dead.
He hauled on the arm bound only to the wall. He yanked past the tearing of flesh against shackle, past the shearing of his muscle. He pulled until his shoulder began to dislocate and then pulled harder. The wall bracket let off a crack as it broke from above. His left arm hung free, his right remained cuffed to the woman and the wall.
Stone chunks rained onto the floor. His fingers shook as he swept back the curtain of hair obscuring her face. Flesh against flesh shocked him. He drew a deep breath. Not her.
An eerie similarity. But different. It wasn’t her.
Kyrian cleared his throat, staring at him as if he’d gone Hydra and grown a couple extra heads. Seth and Phoenix were there too. Had Kyrian said the twins were there? He couldn’t remember. They stared at him too—like a pair of massive Egyptian bookends.
“What?” Zander said.
“Well,” Seth said, his hulking body uncharacteristically still, “you’re glowing, Z. Your mark is throwing off light, like Times Square at New Year.”
Zander looked at his bloody arms and lifted the hem of his soaked, Back in Black-T. The extravagant fretwork that covered his flesh glowed a brilliant blue. Invisible to human eyes, the tattoo served to piss off members of the Darkworld and awe members of the Light.
He’d never heard of it lighting up.
He blinked past the throb rooted deep in his skull and tugged down his shirt. “Maybe it’s the energy bolt that hit me during the Quickening. It overloaded my juice somehow.”
Ignoring the peanut gallery’s skeptical back and forth, Zander focused on business. The female hadn’t moved. He hoped to the Hell Realm and back she’d simply blacked out and wasn’t—Shit. Human.
