INTO THE ABYSS
Brenda K. Davies
Copyright © 2018 Brenda K. Davies
All rights reserved.
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BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
Books written under the penname Brenda K. Davies
The Alliance Series
Eternally Bound (Book 1)
Bound By Vengeance (Book 2)
Bound by Darkness (Book 3) Coming summer 2018
Hell on Earth Series
Hell on Earth (Book 1)
Into The Abyss (Book 2)
Kiss of Death (Book 3) Coming late 2018/2019
The Road to Hell Series
Good Intentions (Book 1)
Carved (Book 2)
The Road (Book 3)
Into Hell (Book 4)
The Vampire Awakenings Series
Awakened (Book 1)
Destined (Book 2)
Untamed (Book 3)
Enraptured (Book 4)
Undone (Book 5)
Fractured (Book 6)
Ravaged (Book 7)
Consumed (Book 8) Coming summer 2018
Historical Romance
A Stolen Heart
Books written under the penname Erica Stevens
The Captive Series
Captured (Book 1)
Renegade (Book 2)
Refugee (Book 3)
Salvation (Book 4)
Redemption (Book 5)
Broken (The Captive Series Prequel)
Vengeance (Book 6)
Unbound (Book 7)
The Fire & Ice Series
Frost Burn (Book 1)
Arctic Fire (Book 2)
Scorched Ice (Book 3)
The Kindred Series
Kindred (Book 1)
Ashes (Book 2)
Kindled (Book 3)
Inferno (Book 4)
Phoenix Rising (Book 5)
The Ravening Series
Ravenous (Book 1)
Taken Over (Book 2)
Reclamation (Book 3)
The Survivor Chronicles
Book 1: The Upheaval
Book 2: The Divide
Book 3: The Forsaken
Book 4: The Risen
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to all the butterfly chasers in the world.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Adhene demon
Absenthees - Center of the Abyss and its main focus of power.
The Abyss - The Abyss is another plane. The jinn can open a doorway into the Abyss and enter it. Absenthees is at the center of the Abyss and main focus of power in the Abyss.
Akalia Vine
Barta demons
Calamut Trees
Canagh demon
Ciguapa (see-GWAH-pah) - Female demon with backward feet.
Craetons
Crantick demon - Crazy. Often run head first into walls and throw themselves off ledges for fun. Howl in a pack. Like to fight but mostly innocuous.
Drakón
Erinyes (furies)
Faerie/Fae - Empath demons who were slight in build, fast, and kinder than the other demons. The fae bloodline still exists in mixed demons but the purebred fae died out thousands of years ago.
Fires of Creation - Where the varcolac is born.
Forest of Prurience
The Gates - Varcolac demon has always been the ruler of the guardians of the gates that were used to travel to earth before Lucifer entered Hell.
Ghosts - Souls can balk against entering Heaven, they have no choice when it comes to Hell.
Gobalinus (goblins)
Hellhounds - The first pair of Hellhounds also born of the Fires of Creation, with the first varcolac who rose. They share a kindred spirit and are controlled by the varcolac.
Jinn (Singular form is jinni) - 90th seal. Beautiful creatures. They’ll grant a wish, make it more of a nightmare, and tear out their victim’s heart as payment. Feed on the life force of others as well as on wraiths.
Lanavour demon
Leporcháin
Macharah - 103rd seal. Creature with 30 plus tentacles at the bottom.
Manticore - 46th seal. Body of a red lion, human/demon head.
The Oracle - The oracle is a lake of fire, deep in the bowels of Hell, where earth could be looked on. Few made the journey as the lake was also the central focus of all the heat in Hell.
Ouroboros - 82nd seal. Massive, green serpent.
Palitons
Púca
Skelleins
Spiny Clackos - demon who is known to have spikes in every part of their anatomy.
Tree Nymphs - Live in the Forest of Prurience. Men and women. Striking and very free sexually. Smaller than wood nymphs and live in the trees.
The Wall - Blocks off all of Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Blocks parts of Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas. Similar wall blocks off parts of Europe.
Wraith - A twisted and malevolent spirit that the demons feed from. On earth they only come out at night.
Varcolac demon
DEMON WORDS
Mah lahala ˈMɑ:
Mohara
Paupi
Unshi
CONTENTS
Books by the author
Dedication
Glossary of terms
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
&n
bsp; Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Where to find the author
About the author
PROLOGUE
“Sometimes….”
“Sometimes?” the woman prompted when the man’s voice trailed off.
The paliton camp was only half a mile away, but they were alone out here in the woods, which was just the way she liked it. The woods were a place of peace, and she didn’t want anyone to interrupt them.
The rays of the sun filtering through the trees danced across the ground around them. When the barren branches swayed and clacked together overhead, they made a sound like dancing skelleins. Not that she’d ever seen the skeletal demons dance, but she’d heard them charge into battle, and their teeth clacked when they got excited, and their bony feet clicked on hard surfaces.
The man’s fingers dug into the rotting log they sat on as he stared at the forest. When bits of wood broke away beneath his hands, the scent of rotting wood, moss, and earth rose around them. He seemed not to notice any of it though.
She batted her lashes at him in the hopes he would look at her, but it seemed as if he were caught in another world when all she wanted was to catch him up in her.
“Sometimes?” she prompted again.
He shook his head as if he were clearing it. “Sometimes I wonder if things could have been different in this world.”
“Oh, me too,” she replied with a sigh. “Every day I daydream about how this world should have been, how it once was. It’s all so… so terrible now.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
A bird fluttered between some of the branches above them. It chirruped before taking flight. Beneath her ass, the damp log leeched the heat from her, but she didn’t move. “What would you change?” she inquired.
“What wouldn’t I change?”
She chuckled. “True.”
“What would you change?”
“All of it.”
“Hmm,” he murmured, and his pinky finger brushed her hand.
She glanced down as he continued to rub the outer edge of her hand. He may have been lost in his thoughts earlier, but she had him now. She gave him a sultry smile from under her half-lowered eyelashes.
“I think,” he said. “I would change it so demons never came to Earth.”
“Oh, what a difference that would have made.” She leaned closer until she smelled the mint on his breath. “I think about it often.”
“Think about what often?” he asked.
They were so close now she could feel his breath on her lips. His hand stilled against hers.
“What it would have been like if the demons never came to Earth,” she said.
“I often wish….”
“For?” Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips, and his gaze fell to her mouth as she’d hoped it would. Sliding her tongue over her mouth again, she teasingly licked the edge of her full bottom lip to entice him further.
“I don’t know. There are so many things I’d change that I don’t know where I’d start or what I’d wish for.”
Disappointment filled her when he leaned back a little and bowed his head. So close! She’d been so close!
Then he leaned closer again, his hand sliding over hers once more. Gotcha. Excitement hummed through her when his fingers dipped between hers.
“I know what I’d wish for,” she said.
“And what is that?” he asked as his lips brushed her forehead before moving lower to her temple and down her cheek.
“Every day, I daydream about what it would have been like if the gateway never opened and we were all anywhere but here. Every day, I wish we could all experience the lives we want most, the lives we were supposed to lead before Hell came to Earth.”
“Who is all?” he inquired.
“All the people in the camp and the demons too, I suppose. I bet some of them would like their old lives back too.”
“Oh, how perfect.” Placing his finger under her chin, he lifted her head until she gazed into his striking, electric blue eyes.
“And you? What would you wish for?” she asked.
“I know better than to make wishes, but your wish is my command.”
She giggled, but when she leaned closer, he abruptly rose and wiped the bits of bark from his mouthwatering ass. Confusion swirled through her as she watched him step over the log and stroll further away from her. She’d been so certain she was about to get laid by this delicious man.
They’d just met, but she’d had sex with plenty of men she barely knew or hadn’t known at all since that demon murdered her Ricky. No man would ever matter after Ricky; they were merely a way to forget, if only for a few minutes.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I have what I came for,” he replied with a backward wave of his hand.
She tried to rise, but a wave of darkness slid over her, and she collapsed onto the ground.
• • •
“Your wish is my command, isn’t that a little cliché?” Eron asked.
Olgon smiled as he clapped his younger brother on the shoulder. “It is, but as we’ve learned during our time on Earth, it is what these ridiculous humans expect from the jinn, and who am I to disappoint?”
“At least it finally got us the wish we required.”
“It did. Come now, we have a wish to fulfill for so many others.”
They grinned at each other before separating to sow their misery.
CHAPTER 1
Magnus
“What happened? What the fuck happened?” Corson hissed.
The woman’s dead weight on my shoulder shifted when I grabbed Corson’s arm to hold him back before he could plunge heedlessly into the clearing. I dodged the talons he swung at me when he lashed out. I didn’t blame him for trying to attack me; we’d left his Chosen, Wren, at the camp when we went out to hunt for the day.
We’d found plenty of game, and stashed it in a cave nearby, but it seemed as if everyone who stayed behind at the camp was….
Well, I wasn’t sure what they were, but they definitely weren’t with us right now.
“Easy,” I cautioned, my hand constricting on Corson’s arm as I gazed at the bodies sprawled around the small clearing. Judging by the number of bodies, not everyone in the camp was here, but I suspected we’d find them somewhere nearby and just as unmoving as those here. “Losing it isn’t going to save anyone or help anything.”
Whatever happened to those at the camp while we were gone occurred quickly as none of the affected tried to break their fall before hitting the ground. There were no outspread hands, no one was braced against anything, and just as many lay on their backs as on their faces.
Most of their chests still rose and fell with their breaths, but one man didn’t move at all and his head lulled at an unnatural angle. When he fell, he’d slammed his head on a rock and broken his neck before collapsing across the boulder that killed him.
Usually, there was chatter in the camp, the clink of
plates being washed after a meal, or the shuffle of cards as the players looked to kill some time. Silence hung like a thick fog over everything now, not even the song of a bird pierced the air as they seemed to have taken flight or hidden somewhere.
Typically, there would have been guards to greet us or lookouts spread through the woods. We’d encountered one of the lookouts on our way into camp after storing the game we’d hunted. Sitting in a tree, she was slumped over its branch. I’d removed her from the tree and, uncertain about what happened to her, carried her back to the camp. She remained draped over my shoulder.
What happened here?
My mind spun at the possibilities. Demons and humans alike had fallen where they stood or sat. I didn’t think this phenomenon was spread throughout the Wilds. Otherwise me, Corson, Caim, and Raphael would be napping too.
So it’s something that only took out our camp.
A sinking sensation filled my gut when I realized this was a personalized attack against the palitons who followed and were closest to my king, Kobal. However, if the craetons who followed the fallen angel Astaroth did this, then why was anyone here still alive?
What better time to slaughter them all than when they were so defenseless?
That question brought me back to what happened here and why?
Carefully examining those who slumbered to see if anyone else was dead, my gaze fell on Bale. Her red hair was splayed around her as she lay on her side. To say we grated on each other’s nerves was an understatement, but as much as the two of us would gladly chop off each other’s body parts, seeing her vulnerable like this made my blood boil.
I didn’t know who’d done this, but I’d make them pay for attacking us in such a cowardly way.
Corson jerked his arm away from me, and stalking forward, he made his way through the group of Wilders and demons. I didn’t try to draw him back. He had to know what happened to Wren, and trying to keep him restrained would only result in an unnecessary fight between us.
Bending, I lowered the woman’s body carefully to the ground. I lightly slapped her pale cheeks and shook her, all things I’d already tried, but they had the same effect they as before, nothing. If it weren’t for the rise and fall of her chest, I’d believe her dead. I checked her pulse and found her heartbeat slow but steady.
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