Wolf Moon: Lia Stone: Demon Hunter - Episode Two (Dragon-born Guardians Series Book 2)

by Austin Hackney

  I hadn’t even gotten as far as the door into the corridor when I doubled up as if I’d taken a punch in the guts. There was no-one there, but it was just as if someone had physically pounded a fist into my belly. Closing my eyes against the pain, I pitched forward and slammed down onto the floor.

  Holy crap, that hurts. I spluttered out the words of a spell of protection and let the light flood into my aura, pushing back the darkness until I could stand again.

  Where was Joe? After that psychic attack I’d have expected to see him sprawled on the floor, too. I shoved the fire door open, but the corridor was empty. As far as I could tell, all the apartment doors remained closed.

  I turned to the elevator. The doors were open. Joe sat on his haunches inside, his head in his hands. I rushed to his side, crouching down beside him.

  “Joe?” I shook his shoulder. “You okay?”

  He looked at me, his face contorted by pain, his eyes glazed. “Lia?” he said, confused. “Make… make it stop!”

  I slammed the button that holds the doors open and jumped to my feet. Closing my eyes I summoned my energies, stirring the power in my Dragon blood, and performed the banishing ritual, forcing the dissonant vibrations back.

  I helped Joe to his feet.

  He shook his head and blinked, sighing. “Thanks,” he said. “That was like having a migraine on a hangover and some.”

  “It was a psychic barrier. I don’t like it.”

  “I didn’t think it was much fun either.”

  “That’s not what I mean. To set up a barrier as powerful as that, and to bind it to a place, you need to know what you’re doing. The last time I encountered anything like it, was back in the old Harcourt Theater.”

  “Ah,” Joe said. “Not good. You think our old friend Dr. Moratu is behind this?”

  “I don’t know. If not him, then someone with real power, for sure. Now let’s find Sam.”

  “You’re thinking it’s already too late?”

  But I didn’t wait to answer him. I pushed through the door and trotted down the corridor until I stood outside number 13. Joe jogged up behind me.

  “Yikes,” he said.

  Deep scratches scored the door. And the scratches weren’t made by a knife, or a key ring, or anything mundane. I’d have been hard pushed to convince myself a dog had made them. I didn’t waste time trying to figure it out. Someone had busted the lock, the wood splintered and torn. The door hung open on hinges which could only have been twisted by supernatural force.

  I took a deep breath and clenched my fists.

  “After you,” Joe said, subdued.

  “Always the gentleman,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. I drew a deep breath. “Wait here, Joe.”

  And I kicked the door open.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I RAISED MY FISTS, ready for a fight, but there was no attack.

  I’d expected to find the place a mess, but everything seemed in order. So whoever, or more likely whatever, had broken in had met with no resistance. And a messed up place was usually the sign of either a burglary or intimidation. This was neither.

  A muffled voice, strained and struggling to speak, sounded from another room over to the right behind a closed door.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Joe. “Stay here,” I said. “Guard the door. Don’t let anyone in.”

  “Yessir!” He saluted.

  I stuck my tongue out at him as I dashed over to the other side of the apartment and tried the door handle. It opened outwards. I slipped through, no idea what I would find.

  At first the room appeared to be empty, the shutters closed, and the drapes drawn across the windows. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. It was the bedroom. The muffled grunts came from the other side of the bed.

  I walked around the bed, fists raised and at the ready. But as soon as I looked down, I dropped my hands.

  A young man lay face down on the floor. Someone had tied his hands, knotted behind his back, and wrapped duct tape several times around his head. Original, no, I thought, but effective, yes. Geez, that’s gonna hurt when it comes off.

  I pulled back the shutters, yanked the drapes open, and turned back to the figure on the floor. Kneeling beside him, I rolled him over onto his back. He looked back at me with as much astonishment in his eyes as I must have had in mine.

  “Dan! What the freak…?”

  He shook his head, trying to speak through the layers of duct tape.

  “This is gonna hurt, okay? But there’s no other way.”

  I fingered around the edges of the tape. He tensed, screwing his eyes up, bracing himself against imminent pain. “One, two…” I ripped the tape off of his face.

  Dan yelled, cursing. His lips bled. His eyes watered as he gulped in air.

  “They’ve taken Sam,” he said, fear cracking his voice. “She’s turned into one of them!”

  They’d seriously freaked him out. He grabbed my arms in his trembling fists, his eyes wild, and his skin pale as a marble tomb. Before I could ask anything, he rattled on, panicking, “How’d you know to come here? How’d you get here? What the freak’s going on, Lia? If this is a prank, it’s totally messed up and no way funny. Is she crazy? What’s with those girls? Are they on drugs?” His voice quieter, less urgent, he said, “Bloody hell, Lia.” He slumped back onto the floor. “Untie me, will you?”

  I said nothing, taking in everything he’d said as I untied the ropes binding his hands and feet. I helped him up onto the bed.

  “Stay here,” I said. “And don’t move. I have to check there’s no-one else around, okay?” He was shaking. He didn’t argue, just sat on the bed, breathing hard, with his head in his hands. Judging by the way his shoulders moved, he was crying; with fear or relief I didn’t know. Maybe both.

  I made a quick survey of the rest of the apartment, but there was no-one hiding or anything unusual at all.

  As I emerged from the kitchen, I found Dan standing in the main room, looking across at the door: the door blocked by his worst friend and adversary, Joe Summers. Now he had jealousy added to his grimace, along with anxiety and relief. Actually, the relief was pretty much washed out. He was embarrassed too; his eyes were ringed red from crying. He stood, clenching his fists and grinding his teeth.

  “Joe,” I whispered. “We’re good in here. Get back down to the car. See if you can squeeze any information from people nearby. Ask if anyone saw anything unusual, okay?”

  “Sure,” Joe said. “I’ll be right back.” He paused a moment, looking uncertainly at Dan, and then said, “er… I’ll get back down there without a headache, will I?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It's gone. Sorted. Have no fear.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  I closed the door behind the detective. Dan had slumped into an armchair and looked at me as if he had seen me for the first time. Or maybe as if he never wanted to see me again.

  “Lia, what’s going on? Why are you here? And who the hell is that guy?”

  “He’s called Joe Summers, and he’s a policeman.”

  “You and he… you’re not, like…?”

  “No, we’re not. It’s a purely… professional engagement.”

  “Professional? You’re a student. You’re studying literature and classics.”

  “Maybe professional isn’t exactly the right word.” I sighed. “Look, let me explain later. Right now we need to find Sam.”

  “I guess if he’s a policeman, then there’s no need to call the police.” Dan's eyes had glazed. That happens to humans all the time. They have a low resistance to shock coupled with an ability to phase out when things get too weird. There's only so much a monkey can take, I guess.

  I crouched down in front of him and took both his hands in mine. Whatever else came out of today, our relationship had just become impossible.

  It wasn’t the time for thoughts like that, but the thoughts came anyway, as I bounced there on my heels, holding his hands and talking to him like he was a small child w
ho’d grazed his knees in the yard.

  I pushed the idea away. I could deal with that later. Right now there were lives - and possibly more than just lives - to save.

  “Dan,” I said. “I want you to take a few deep breaths, okay? And then tell me exactly what happened. And why you’re here at all.”

  “I came here after I left your place,” Dan said with his eyes closed. “I was pissed off and jealous. Anyway, I drove around a while and I thought I’d call in on Sam. I knew she wasn’t doing anything tonight, and I thought maybe we could go out to a movie or something.”

  And I guess you thought if you went to hang with an old flame that might make me jealous and give me a taste of my own medicine? I thought.

  “Go on,” I said, keeping my voice calm and encouraging.

  “Sam said she was happy to see me, that she’d been missing me. She said she didn’t want to go out but we could download a movie and she’d fix us a pizza. Just like old times. So that’s what we did. Until…”

  He shook. And he was working the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other.

  “Until…?” I prompted him.

  “Until they came.”

  “Who came, Dan? Who came?”

  “They rang the doorbell at first and Sam said she didn’t care who it was, we should just ignore it. She snuggled down into my arms and said it was like we were in a nest and she didn’t want to share me with anyone.”

  Spare me the gruesome detail, boyo.

  “But the bell kept ringing. I said maybe it was urgent, and she got up to go answer the door, but she hadn’t even got there when I hear wood ripping and tearing apart. They clawed down the door, almost twisted it off its hinges… and then they were in here, surrounding us.”

  He was panicking at the memory. The blood had drained from his face and he shook violently. I rested my hand on his forehead and transmitted golden light into his mind, counter-balancing his fear.

  “Who were they, Dan? Were they this new girl gang I've heard about?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But… they were wild, Lia. Weird and wild. They sniffed all over and they were growling and… it was so weird. It sounds crazy now I’m saying it, but I was crapping myself, Lia. That’s how scary it was. But they didn’t want me. That’s not who they’d come for. They said… they said…"

  “Dan, what did they say?”

  “They said they needed ‘a thirteenth’ and they’d chosen Sam. She thought the whole thing was a stupid prank and – well, you know she's not exactly timid - she told them where to stick it; said she wasn't interested in joining their stupid punk gang or whatever it was. She asked them to leave.”

  “But they didn’t leave.”

  “They circled round her. I tried to stop them. I said I’d call the police. But two of them turned on me. They were like dogs. They were literally snarling at me, and they were so strong. Who’d have guessed they could be as strong as that? They shoved me into a corner and then one pulled a knife. I wanted to help Sam, but what could I do?”

  “So, she went with them? Or they forced her to go? Did they abduct her, or what?”

  “They surrounded her. Then one of them, I guess she was like their leader, she had two of the others hold her by the arms. They pulled up her skirt and then she - the leader – she…”

  “What did she do, Dan?”

  “She had insane nails, Lia. Long. They were sharpened to points. Weird thing was they didn't look like those things you sometimes wear…”

  “Extensions.”

  “No, they were like as if they were her real nails.”

  “Nice. And what did she do with the nails?”

  “She stuck out three fingers like a kind of claw, and she scratched three deep lines in Sam’s thigh. And I don’t mean just scratched. She dug the nails right into her flesh. It was savage. Blood welled up and spilled over. Three lines scratched into her skin, into her muscle, I don’t know how deep it was but I remember thinking that’s not a game, that’s not a scratch, that’s an assault, that’s a wound, you know what I mean?”

  “And Sam?”

  “That’s the weirdest thing. She didn’t scream or kick or cry or try to get away. She took it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so calm. She locked eyes with the leader and wiped the blood from the surface of the skin. The wounds healed up fast. When I looked again, she had three scars and she was smiling.”

  “And she left with them of her own accord?”

  “I guess so. She and two others tied and gagged me and dumped me here in the bedroom, and they left. I didn’t know what was going on. You believe me?”

  “Yes. I do, Dan. I'm sorry."

  It was my fault. Well, it wasn’t my fault the Freak Club paid a visit, but it was my fault Dan had gotten involved. I’d forgotten about our study date and insisted on coming here first instead of answering his call.

  “Lia, who are you?”

  “You know who I am.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know just yet.”

  “How come you’re with that policeman?”

  I held his face between my hands and looked deep into his eyes. “Listen, Dan,” I said. “It’s pretty freaky, but now isn’t the time to ask these questions or expect me to answer them. I’m sorry, okay? Really I am, but right now you need to keep it together and trust me.”

  He reached up and yanked my hands away. An instant later, he was on his feet, his face red with fury.

  “No! Freaking hell, Lia! You’re always up to some mystery crap and I’ve always got to trust you and you’ll always explain later. I’ve had it up to the neck with this. Now you tell me what the freak is going on and you tell me now!"

  “Dan,” I said. “Please, just stay calm and…”

  “Stay calm?” His voice was at a pitch and volume that could definitely alert the neighbors. “I’ll stay calm when you tell me what the freak is going on!”

  “Dan, you have to stay calm now. I promise I’ll explain later.”

  His face was in mine, livid with rage. That was maybe not the best line to take. Oh Dan, don’t make me do this. But his hands were on my shoulders now and his fingers closing tight. Oh well, I’m sorry.

  He was back on the bed and out like a light before he knew what had hit him.

  I felt pretty bad. After all the trouble I’d brought him tonight, to add a knock-out punch seemed unfair. But I didn’t have time to deal with a jealous, freaked out boyfriend.

  Oh Geez, this relationship is so over and I am so the guilty one.

  My ‘phone buzzed. I whipped it out my pocket and glanced at the screen. I swiped and lifted it to my ear.

  “Grandma?”

  “Is that you, Lia?”

  “Yes. I’m at Sam’s apartment with Joe. The gang of girls has been here. They’ve taken Sam. Or maybe co-opted her. Dan was here. Still is.”

  “Dan? Whatever for? Is he all right?”

  “Sleeping like a baby.”

  “I’ve been doing research.”

  “This isn’t good news, is it?”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Go on.”

  “Did your detective friend, Joe, did he say all the girls have these three scratches on their thighs?”

  “Yeah, he did. And so did Dan. And they scratched the same thing into Sam’s thigh before she went off with them. Why?”

  “Because then we have a demon situation.”

  “Shit.”

  “I beg your pardon, young lady?”

  “Sorry. I mean… oh, goodness.”

  “That’s better. We may fight the forces of darkness, but there’s no need for vulgarity. Now listen…”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I’M LISTENING,” I said.

  “It transpires that the Sign of Three, also known as the Claw of the Gods, is an ancient symbol of initiation into one of the Egyptian cults. As you will recall from your lessons, Lia, many of the so-called gods and goddesses of the ancient world were demonic powers, an
d their priests the conduits of demonic energies. The same with many ancient religions and why so many of the so-called ‘sacred sites’ are what we know to be the Gateways. We’ve been struggling against this for millennia.”

  “So, you think these girls are part of an Ancient Egyptian demon cult?”

  “To be exact, the cult of the so-called god, Anubis.”

  “The jackal-headed guy?”

  “Yes, as you so eloquently put it, my dear, the jackal-headed guy. The Egyptian hieroglyph also translates as wild dog, or even wolf.”

  Things were falling into place.

  “Wolf?” I said.

  “Wolf.” Grandma paused. “And tonight is the full moon. More than that, consulting the Almanac I see it is what the Anubis Cult called the Wolf Moon. This was - and I rather fear, is - the night on which the powers of the demon Anubis are at their peak. The night on which new initiates of the cult, thirteen in number, transformed into werewolves. In this form, they went out to hunt victims for a mass sacrifice – which would empower the demon to manifest. The whole thing was only achieved once before and it was, I mean this literally, a bloody mess.”

  “But how are these girls mixed up in all this? There must be someone else behind it, right?”

  “I think we might know who.”

  “Moratu.”

  “Most likely.”

  “We’ve stopped the Cult of Anubis in the past, right?”

  “Yes. The last occasion was about two thousand years ago when a similar thing happened in Russia.”

  “Do you know how we stopped it?”

  “I can do more research. In the meantime, get Dan to a place of safety and stop the girls meeting. I’ll call you back as soon as I have more information.”

  Grandma hung up.

  So I’m dealing with Egyptian cults, dog demons and werewolves. Grandma had seemed pretty matter-of-fact. She’s been in this game all her life, I guess.

  Personally, I was a little on the freaked side. All the werewolves I had ever known belonged to the hereditary clans; they all took their medicine and went to lock-down centers on the full moon where they could be contained until the worst was over. Otherwise, they had reputations as model citizens.