by T. F. Walsh
“Fuck your welcome.” She tapped her finger into the cancel button. “Give me back my card.”
The cash machine didn’t respond. Wonderful. It just ate her card, and she bet her life that Brent was screwing with her. Taking a deep breath, she smacked the cancel a few more times, then hurried to her car before security guards arrived.
Don’t panic. Each breath tripped over the next. She had a bit of cash in her wallet to carry her over until she sorted out her situation. Would Brent freeze her assets? Months ago, she remembered a paranormal tracker saying another hunter had theirs frozen by Brent after he broke into a store to steal cash. Shit! Levi was a possibility to help her out… Yeah, and then he’d try to cleanse her or something worse. No, she wasn’t calling him.
Blinkie howled, his heated breath steaming up the car.
“Easy for you to say.” She’d hide and use protection runes to stay undetected by demons, until she got her head straight. Yes, good idea.
Only one solution remained. Track down Thomas, her dad’s friend. He might know something.
“Hold on, boy. We’re going on a road trip.”
Chapter 16
Levi trudged down five flights of steps from his studio apartment, unable to ignore the panic squeezing his lungs because he still hadn’t heard a word from Cary, despite leaving several message on her cell. He held the phone to his ear, calling a place she’d mentioned staying at one time, and a woman’s voice answered.
“Good morning. This is Sunset Motel, how can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Cary Stone. Can you put me through to her room?”
He listened to the tapping of fingers on a keyboard. “Sorry sir, but Ms. Stone checked out early this morning. Anything else I can help you with?”
“No, that’s fine, thanks.” He hung up. So, she had been staying there, but skipped out on him, and then checked out on the same day. What was the rush?
The previous night, Cary softened in his arms and purred under his kisses. If only she’d stayed the morning, then he’d have one less problem to worry about. He called her cell again. It went straight to voicemail.
“Where are you, Cary? Call me A.S.A.P.” His voice echoed in the cemented stairwell. He hung up and pressed the phone into his pocket.
Calm down. She had a mind of her own and rarely took anyone’s advice. Okay, never. But it didn’t change the situation. If the rogue demon left this morning, what if it bumped into Cary?
With all the fucking shit that went down last night and then this morning, his instincts were going haywire. Nothing felt right.
On top of that, the elevator in his building had just broken down. He’d have to get it fixed before his tenants complained. Could he catch a break already?
Levi bent down to pick up an empty soda can when a chill washed over him. His breath turned to mist in front of his face, and the hair stood up on his arms. He heard moaning behind him.
He turned around and glanced up to see his elderly next-door neighbor perched precariously on the top step of the next level, her shoulders and head curled forward. She wore a thin, blue, floral dress with a matching belt, and her white hair was in curlers; she didn’t seem to notice the cold at all.
“Mrs. Smith, are you all—” Levi stopped, his words fading away, when he realized she had a silvery aura. His insides iced over. When her head shot up, he didn’t see the eyes of the sweet old lady from next door–he saw a demon.
He jogged up to her, two steps at a time, intent on getting her demon-free, immediately.
She opened her mouth part-way and growled, deep and guttural. The side of her lips twisted into a grimace, pure hatred in her expression.
“I swear I’ve become a demon magnet,” he said. “No need to track them down anymore. Just leaving my apartment does the trick.”
Mrs. Smith, or the thing possessing her, chuckled.
“I gotta tell you, Mrs. S. This shit has to stop. I do the hunting, not the other way around.” As he reached for Noose, Mrs. Smith swung her walking cane out from behind her, lightning fast, and whacked him across his head.
His hands flew out to catch the cane, but he lost his footing, lurched back, arms shooting out to try and catch the railings of the stairwell. Another hit across his neck, and he tripped down the stairs. His butt smacked against the steps, and he grunted with pain.
Levi pushed himself to his feet, gritting his teeth through the excruciating sting shooting up his spine. Tasting blood, he wiped his mouth, red smearing the back of his hand.
The old woman leapt down the stairs, cane in hand. Her mouth stretched into a toothy grin. She drove the end of her cane to his stomach, shoving him backward again.
His hands curled into fists. Time to play. Except, as he stared down his five-foot neighbor, he couldn’t bring himself to attack. He didn’t hurt women, let alone sweet old grannies.
She swung her can at the side of his face again, barely missing.
An inferno spread through Levi’s veins. His vision blurred with rage. “Enough!” he yelled.
The woman, or the demon, burst into an eerie laugh.
Levi grabbed the cuffs from his back pocket and lunged forward, snatching her arm. She thrust her fist into his gut and spat in his face. He squirmed. A fist smashed into his gut, throwing him up against the wall. The back of his head hit cement. His knees folded under him.
Wonderful. He’d been beat up a couple of times already in the last few days, so badly that now he was letting an old lady beat the crap out of him.
“Listen. Mrs. Smith, you’ve got to stop hitting me,” Levi said, dodging blows. “You’re infected by a demon, and I have to exorcise you, or you’ll die.” She hit him again, harder than should be possible, and the raw hatred flared through him. Focus on the problem and get rid of the blasted thing! He flicked open the cuffs.
She growled so loudly the sound from her throat echoed up the stairs. They were on the second floor, and he didn’t need other tenants coming out to inspect the sound.
The demon stepped closer, cane lifted high. Froth dribbling down the old woman’s chin.
Goddamn freaks. He dove forward, using his weight to shove her backward, and threw his foot out behind her ankle. She stumbled.
He seized her hand and snapped the handcuff around her wrist. He hauled her across the floor to the railing and locked the second cuff to the metal frame. They’d keep the demon locked inside Mrs. Smith, giving him plenty of time to interrogate the beast.
Stepping back, he paused a second to catch his breath and dabbed clean his bleeding lip. A twitch inched up his spine.
The old lady tugged against the restraint, her snarls booming in the stairwell, the handrail shaking from her wrestling with the handcuffs.
“You’re not going anywhere until I let you.” He massaged the throbbing bump on his head.
She froze. Her head twisted toward him unnaturally. Hell if it didn’t freak him out.
“I’m happy to negotiate.” He inched closer. “Tell me where the demon with the target on its ass is, and I won’t hurt you pulling you out of there. Much.”
The demon stood there, watching him, licking her lips. Yep, the creeps were back in full force.
“Let’s start with an easier question: What did the rogue demon do to deserve all this attention?” He wiggled Noose in front of the old woman’s face, who pulled as far from him as her restraints allowed. “This little weapon can make your stay here a lot worse. Spit it out.”
The woman’s eyes rolled back, and her whole body quivered. Then in an instant, she leapt onto the railing and crouched low, her wrist still chained.
Levi lunged forward, but the demon hurled the host’s body off the railing and now dangled by an arm. Her hand seemed to almost lengthen.
Fuck, it was going to break Mrs. Smith’s arm.
He flicked Noose open and hurled the lasso over the edge, around the old lady’s neck. The demon growled and convulsed, her free hand raking up toward Levi’s face. He flinch
ed back but tightened his hold.
“Speak.”
“Spotted leaving this m…morning.” Its gurgling, dark voice didn’t belong to Mrs. Smith.
“So, it speaks. Quickly, what else?”
“It’ll get caught. Being tracked.”
A sudden string of beeps belched from the phone in Levi’s back pocket. Priority alert and chime—unique to Argos’s urgent messages. He hadn’t had one of these for months.
He leaned toward the demon. “What else?”
Only a few seconds to go.
The beep continued, and his curiosity overwhelmed him. Such alerts were ultra-urgent, life or death urgent.
“Release me. I’ll tell you more,” Mrs. Smith whispered, while Levi pulled the cellphone from his pocket, tapping open the message. Just a quick look.
Cary’s face stared back at him. “What the fuck!” he exclaimed. He read the bulletin carefully:
URGENT
Bounty warrant issued for Cary Stone, former employee.
Possessed and attempted infiltration into Argos.
Last seen in Detroit, MI, today.
Jumper and host must be delivered intact.
Paid on Delivery: $100,000
A flutter of black moths exploded in his face. “Son of a bitch.”
He glanced down to find a limp Mrs. Smith, free of the demon. There went his chance for further interrogation.
He raised the old lady over the railing and unlocked the handcuffs. Then he removed Noose and sat her on the steps for a moment. She might have a fractured wrist, but she would live.
His mind was a whirl, unable to get the Argos warrant out of his head. It nauseated him.
Another glance at the phone screen, hoping the picture and the information would somehow change, but he hadn’t misread the notice… It was Cary.
“For fuck’s sake.” He curled his free hand into a fist as dread clung to him. Cary got herself possessed! The last hunter who got taken killed his family before others stopped the jumper inside of him. Demons that hung on long enough learned their hosts memories, habits, tricks... That had to be why Argos insisted someone return Cary with the demon intact inside her—to ensure they extracted the fiend and exterminated it correctly, with no chance of it slipping back into Hell with all of that intel on her family and friends.
For a few moments, Levi couldn’t bring himself to move, ignoring the time that passed. Breaths grew shallow, all the while his mind drowned in images of Cary. Her smile, the softness of her touch, the sound of her laughter. Despite being a hunter, she had an innocence about her, and if a demon was inside her, it would break her. Rip away the part of Cary that Levi adored. His pulse raced as he thought about his fear for her safety, nestling beneath his breastbone, ready to detonate.
He had to find her.
And with the unbelievable payday of $100,000, every bounty hunter in the state out to track her down. Perhaps even the retired ones, and with all of the competition, they’d be in a rush to be first. Somebody could hurt Cary too much, trying to claim the demon and paycheck. Getting to her first was his priority, too.
He stuffed the cell into his pocket, hoisted Mrs. Smith over his shoulder. His arm ached with pain, and the guilt of getting his neighbor possessed was minor compared to how worried he was about Cary, so he put it out of his mind and hurried up to the fifth floor.
Where would Cary go if she was on the run? Last night, at his place, she mentioned a small town called Watersmeet, and her family home. Levi was accustomed to demon patterns, enough to recognize that fiends used their victim’s memories to pinpoint special locations in a person’s past, such as family homes or parents or siblings. It used the host to get into those places, in with those people, and then it would kill them. He might have a little time to catch up with her before that happened.
He’d scour the entire country if it meant hunting down Cary before anyone else could hurt her.
Watersmeet was a good place to start.
The worst-case scenario dawned on him then: if Cary had been possessed in Ann Arbor, she only had a few more days before her soul would be devoured.
Cary’s smile haunted him, and goose-bumps prickled his skin. He needed to get Mrs. Smith to her husband, make up some kind of cover story, and get out before the authorities showed up, or he’d never catch up with Cary.
Letting Cary stay possessed wasn’t an option. No way would he allow a demon to take someone close to him again.
Chapter 17
Cary pressed her palm flat on the weather-beaten door of her family home in Watersmeet. At her firm push, the front door opened, setting the rusty hinges into a high-pitched squeal. A cold draft caressed her face and memories rushed to her, tugging on her heart.
“Hello?” No response. “Anyone here?”
Several floorboards lay broken and buckled. Spider webs hung from the corners. She used to play hide’n’seek with her dad here, and she’d always get covered in webs.
Her stomach ached at the memory of her last visit home, seven years ago. After her dad had abandoned her.
Why hadn’t he taken her with him rather than bolt out like that and leave her behind? Together, they could have faced anything.
She had learned to forgive him in his absence mainly because she didn’t have a choice, but now that she discovered he was in Hell, her insides wrung tighter. She had no right being mad at him for all those years. Instead of resenting him, she should have known something was wrong. She should have known he wouldn’t abandon her, and she should have spent every second of the past seven years tracking him down. Her queasiness escalated, threatening to bring up the bag of chips she’d snacked on in the car on her drive here.
Blinkie shoved passed her and burst inside the house, breaking through her maudlin thoughts like a berserker demon tearing through the wall of a church. He stopped halfway down the hall and glanced back as if declaring the place safe.
She stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind her. She could smell the musty smell of years worth of mold. Swinging right into the old living room, she found shards of glass littering the wooden flooring. Behind the shredded lace curtain, she could see the window had been smashed through.
Someone must have broken in and robbed the place. Explained the lack of furniture. But what if Dad’s address book fell into the wrong hands?
Blinkie was by her side, staring up at her with his black, goat-like eyes. He shook himself, sulfur fumes filtering out of his mouth. She might as well have adopted an old rust bucket car that spewed out pollution.
Dust particles floated through the early morning sunlight, streaming into the room. Faded rune marks decorated the dingy, white walls. Her dad had re-painted them when she was eight to protect anyone in the house from being detected by other demons. Silently, she thanked him for his paranoia. If this place wasn’t in a remote part of the woods, she might have stayed, instead of moving on. But how was she supposed to vanquish demons living out in the sticks?
“So what am I supposed to do now?” She exhaled slowly, and at the same time, smoke wafted out from Blinkie’s nostrils.
“I’m in so much shit,” she told him. She knelt down, breathing faster. Nine hours of driving had done nothing to dissolve her panic.
Each time she remembered what happened with her boss, her head spun.
As soon as Brent declared she was possessed, all of Argos and their hunters would go into high alert. If they caught her, they’d exorcise her. If by some miracle she survived, Brent would turn her into a specimen for his experiments. There was no good outcome here.
Regardless of what anyone thought, being a cambion didn’t mean she was a homicidal maniac. If anything, she was more human than a large number of the population, because she never once had the urge to harm anyone. If anything, she threw herself into danger to save people.
But, maybe getting busted was for the best. She’d become complacent and had forgotten her dad’s way of life. Traveling from place to place, helping pro
tect innocents from demonic attacks. Her future wasn’t about turning into little Miss Housekeeper with a normal job and a boyfriend. Despite the pinch in her gut, which she ignored as best as she could, it was time to dust off her old life.
Argos wouldn’t waste any time waiting for their employees to catch her. They’d believe Brent, which meant her coworkers would think this was a major emergency. They’d have everyone out hunting for her: In-house hunters. Freelancers. Anyone who wanted to make a name for themselves. First come, first pay.
Levi! Her chest tightened as she imagined him reading whatever text Argos would issue about her with a damning photo of her, POSSESSED stamped across the screen.
First, she’d find a way to remove her mark, then follow in her dad’s footsteps. She had taken care of herself this long, and there was no reason to stop now.
Blinkie trotted closer and pushed his head into her shoulder.
“Yeah, I know. Gotta stop feeling sorry for myself.” Back on her feet, she rubbed Blinkie’s head. “Ugh, you stink. Feel like a bath?”
His head tilted up, his eyes narrowed, and he released a belch. Smoke floated from the corners of his mouth.
“Eww, you’re disgusting. Don’t worry about helping me track down Dad’s address book. Stay right here.” In the bathroom, she turned on the tap, but nothing came out. The pipes were dry. So much for that idea.
She didn’t have Thomas’ information or where he lived, but was certain it would be in her dad’s address book. He made a point of telling her his notebook had everyone’s information should she ever need it. Thomas was the closest thing to a relative, and while she had no idea if he knew about her being not completely human, her dad trusted his friend enough to spend weekends away with him.
Blinkie walked back to the window, his nails click-clacking against the floorboards, the shards of glass on the floor not affecting him, then lowered himself onto his side.
Cary cringed. “Doesn’t that hurt?” The sun glistened against his black pelt and he didn’t move. Whatever rocks your boat, dog.
