If life had taught me anything, it should have been that pure contentment could always be viewed as a warning—the ominous swell of music before a brutal and merciless attack. Looking back, I realize my time with Celeste softened me and muted the edges of my prickly memories. Turning the corner of the final bend that led to her residents’ hall, I peered down at her, wishing I could pause that moment and live in it forever. Had I listened, maybe I would have heard fate’s conniving snicker at such a school boy fantasy.
Time slowed as my head turned.
A demonic shudder skittered down my spine, whispering of a nearing darkness.
Chest swelling protectively, I tightened my grip on Celeste’s hand and pushed her behind me.
The body swung overhead, alabaster legs riding the night’s gusts and thumping against the flagpole.
“Rowan, what are you—” Struck by a potent surge of my influence, Celeste went limp. Catching her in the cradle of my arms, I swept her up before her skull could crack against the pavement.
Horitz appeared from nowhere; charging toward me, spikes sprouting across his heaving shoulders. His lips split into four quadrants and peeled back to reveal row after row of tiny, razor teeth. Black smoke churned into Kat’s shape behind him. Joining his pursuit, a dagger slid from her wrist.
No time for the war the pair sought, I commandeered control of their minds and ordered them to stop.
“How dare you harm our leader,” Horitz snarled, spraying the sidewalk with saliva. Thrashing against my hold, he gained no ground.
In lieu of explanation, I lolled their heads skyward and tensed at the masks of horror that stole over their features.
“You … found this?” The words trembled from Kat’s lips, her shoulder deflating.
“The Conduit didn’t see it.” Forcing the words through clenched teeth, ragged breaths heaved from my chest. “I made sure of that. Get her back to her room and stay with her until I come for you.”
Releasing my hold, I gave Horitz a moment to regain his footing and holster his demon attributes before easing Celeste into his bulging arms.
“It’s horrifying.” The mammoth fiend gaped up at the spectacle one final time as he accepted his savior into his loving embrace. “What shall I tell her family if they ask questions?”
“I don’t care!” I snapped. “Just keep her safe or what I will do to you will make this look like a mercy kill!”
Kat placed a comforting hand on Horitz’s rippling bicep. “We will die before we let anything happen to her,” she assured me.
In a blink, the trio vanished.
Bile rising in my throat, I pivoted back to the gory display. It had been gift wrapped in painstaking detail. The bathrobed beauty I met that very night was secured to the flagpole right outside Celeste’s building. Hands bound behind her and tied to her ankles made her back arch as if she were an enchanting mermaid whittled into the front of a ship. Moonlight glistened off the ruby gouges of her bountiful slashes and wounds. Empty eye sockets stared off into the oblivion. What was left of her skimpy dress flapped behind her like a sail. It was the mark on her mid-section that made this offering specifically for me. Carved into her gut—in deep, vengeful strokes—a skull and crossbones mocked my failure.
Fighting against tremors of rage, my first call was to the police.
My second, as sirens wailed in the distance, was to the Glee Clubbers.
Pulse pounding in my temples, I didn’t know or care which of them answered the phone.
“Bearded Sex Symbols R Us, we hair because we care. How may I direct your call?”
“Find me Caleb,” I growled. “Keep your distance, but do not lose sight of him. He’s the Hellhound.”
I clicked the line dead just as low beams of three cop cars illuminated the tragically macabre act. Craving violence, not conversation, I removed myself from the scene in a cloud of seething, billowing smoke.
Chapter 7
Swaying metal twanged beneath my pounding fist. From the other side of the door, a slide-lock hissed free. Rusted steel squealed at the rolling door being forced across its aged track.
Beard Face greeted me with heavy, red-rimmed eyes. His button down shirt was half untucked, his hair stabbing from his head in greasy spikes, as if he had just woke up. Urgency overpowering courtesy, I shoved my way into the shoebox-sized apartment that reeked of stale beer and ball sweat.
“Where is he? I trust the four of you treasured your limbs enough to pool what competence you have to find him.” My lip curled from my teeth, every muscle in my body set on a hairpin trigger for violence.
Raking his fingers through his scraggly facial hair, Beard Face shook his head. “Really, the threats aren’t necessary.”
I whirled on him in a blur of speed no human could muster. Seizing the fabric of his shirt, I yanked him to me, nose-to-nose. “An innocent girl was torn apart tonight. Her body strung up for all to see. Caleb walked out of the pub with that very same girl. In my book, that makes threats very necessary.”
“There was a time when you counted the lives of innocents as prizes.” Beard Face instantly cringed his regret for letting the words slip out.
Dropping my voice to a menacing whisper, I felt the deadly calm of mayhem snaking through my veins. “Can you imagine the power of a soul-sucking Hellhound combined with a Titon demon? Cal would become an unstoppable force of nature … literally! Our only advantage is that with the Counsel’s memory wipe he doesn’t know he’s a monstrous badass. We need to find him and put him down before he figures that out. Now, I will ask you one more time nicely, then I start texturizing that metal door with the back of your skull. Where is Caleb?”
“You lads know there’s a whole world outside, yeah?” a familiar voice drawled from the next room. Rooted in that spot, I tipped my chin to my shoulder to listen. “With real people ya can talk to and far fresher air tah breath.”
Wetting my lips, I blinked back the red haze tinging the edges of my vision. “Is he here?”
“Has been since we left the pub,” Beard Face peeped.
Hands balled in tight fists, I spun on my heel. The only coherent thought I could form was the deep desire to rip my once dear mate’s head from his shoulders. My hell-bent charge made it all of two strides. Snagged by the back of my shirt, the ground was stolen from beneath me. Forehead bumping the ceiling, I kicked and flailed for my freedom. Rotating his wrist, my captor turned me to face him.
It seemed somewhere in my fury it slipped my mind that Beard Face could go full Hulk.
The floorboards creaked beneath his sizeable mass. Formerly loose skin pulled taut over his colossal form. The button down shirt he wore hung from him in shredded ribbons. Either merciful luck or unfortunate proportioning on his part kept his skinny jeans in place from the thighs up. As his facial features swelled, his two eyes joined into one bowling ball sized optic nerve. Patiently, he blinked my way and waited for me to stop kicking like a cartoon coyote falling off a cliff.
“If you’re about done,” Beard Face boomed, the vibration of his voice rattling my bones to the marrow. “Caleb couldn’t have killed anyone. He walked that girl to her car, said goodnight, and came back in to watch our set. He left the pub with us and has been here since. You’ve got the wrong guy.”
Losing a bit of my vigor, my legs dangled loose beneath me.
“I’m gonna put you down. But, if you go on another rampage, I’ll texturize the floor with your puny head. Got it?”
Nodding, my agreement knocked my male bravado down about six notches.
Slowly, the floor rose to meet me and the titanic cyclops granted me freedom.
Grinding the heels of my palms into my throbbing eyes, I rubbed my hands down my face and peeked around the corner that separated the Glee Club’s foyer from the rest of their loft.
There he lounged, my would-be murderous monster, in a rickety folding chair adjusting the strings of his guitar. Concentrating on his task, the hair that fell across Cal’s forehead hung ther
e unchecked. My cursory sweep of the rest of the room found Red seated on the floor polishing off a pizza, while Eddie and Lone Twin submerged themselves in a video game world that transpired a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Ducking back behind the dividing wall into the foyer—aka the roosting spot for their pungent foot wear—I pressed my fist to my lips. Even though Beard Face had returned to his more manageable size, he maintained a smug smirk of warning.
“All those times when Celeste was openly hostile with you guys, I thought she was overreacting,” I muttered, my hand muffling my voice. “That despite her dating choices, she secretly harbored demonic prejudices. But … now? Now I think she had the patience of a saint for not pounding each of you into the ground in her own private game of Whack-a-Mole. That guy,” I stabbed an accusing finger toward Mr. Dreamy McDreamerson in the next room, “was the last person to be seen with a girl that was killed in a horribly psychotic fashion. Yet, here you all sit, doing God only knows what!”
“Please lower your voice. I don’t want to go mongo again and sit on you, but I will. And,” his bearded chin lifted in a haughty fashion, “if you must know, we were laying down some sick tracks.”
The wheels of my mind whirred, spinning and clicking in search of some meaning to the gibberish he spouted. “Clarity in the form of non-nerd lingo would be appreciated.”
“He was playing his guitar and we were recording it. He is a YouTube star and doesn’t even know it,” he giggled, his shoulders rising to his ears with giddy excitement. “We use it to meet girls. So far it’s been a huge bust, but we’re staying optimistic. Around Valentine’s Day it could be a gold mine!”
Needing silence from his ramblings before I made him hulk out and beat himself to death, I held up one hand in warning. “I’m sorry I asked. I really am. See, I don’t care about your ploys or schemes to get a little touch from someone. The only information I need from you—possibly ever again—is if Caleb was out of your sight for even a minute tonight?”
A beat of silence.
Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Beard Face mulled over the question.
“I’ll take that as a yes. How long?” I barked, taking a threatening step forward.
“I don’t know, we were setting up,” he shot back, his size swelling just enough to make me tip my head to maintain eye contact. “Twenty minutes, tops.”
“It still could be done in that time, especially by supernatural means.” Even I heard the hint of doubt that tainted my once adamant argument.
As if cued by my uncertainty, Caleb’s head peeked around the wall. Offering me a half-smile and nod of acknowledgement, his dimple the ladies swooned over made a brief cameo. “Ev’rything okay out here?”
In place of an answer, I suppressed the glower at Beard Face. “You want proof? Fine. Tomorrow night at the pub, we watch, we confirm, and I make my move.”
“Sounds ominous,” Caleb chuckled. Head listing to the side, he considered me. “Hey, din’t I see you at the club tonight, brotha? You were there with a wee brunette. The two of you make a right handsome couple.”
Reluctantly, I craned my neck his way and bristled at the blatant sincerity slathered across his features. “You … don’t speak of her again, or I will rip your throat out.” While his eyes widened in what I assumed to be insincere shock, I spun back on Beard Face. “Tomorrow, we get our proof.”
Without another word, I disappeared from the flat of the desperate, lonely, and possibly possessed.
“What is he doing?” Caleb muttered to Eddie out of the corner of his mouth the next night at the pub.
Dragging his index finger over the rim of his margarita, Eddie popped his salt encrusted digit in his mouth. “He thinks you’re evil.”
Sitting directly beside Cal, I leaned in with one elbow on the table and glared his way with pressure-cooker intensity. “I know you, Caleb—”
“Even though we’ve only met twice.” Cal nodded, and tipped a long neck to this lips.
“Watching you across the room wouldn’t work,” I continued, whilst ignoring all boundaries of personal space. “You’re too shifty for that. So, I will be right here. Watching ...”
“A complete strang’r,” Caleb filled in, rolling his beer bottle between his palms, “as we all are at some point in the day. Don’t ya have a pretty lil lass you’d rather be with?”
“She would understand, if I could tell her any of this and if she wasn’t having a Matt Damon marathon with her Grams.”
Pivoting in his seat, Cal turned to face me. “Is this a gay thing? Are ya feelin’ an attraction here and don’t know how tah handle it? I appreciate that, mate. I do. You are a very attractive man. I can admit that. But I jus’ don’t have those inklings. If I did,” Caleb clapped his hand on my knee, “I’m sure I would be honored by yer affections.”
“You would be so lucky.” Drumming my fingers against the table, I sized this alternate Caleb up and found him lacking. “You want the truth, college boy? I think you’ve been hurting people, be it consciously or in some sort of Freddy Krueger dream state way. Either way, I fully intend to make sure from this point on you are as docile as a fluffy little bunny.”
Cal dragged his palm over his mouth, his expression darkening. “You think me tah be this horrible beast, yet yah believe ya’r mere presence could tame me? What kind of monster could be squelched so easily?”
Our eyes locked, daring the other to look away.
On the table between us, my phone vibrated to life, dancing across the table.
Neither of us looked away, but allowed it to shimmy.
Caleb’s mouth tugged back in an arrogant smirk, one raven brow hiked in question. “Are ya gonna get that?”
Cursing under my breath, I tore my stare away to glance at my phone. Celeste’s name illuminated the screen.
Snatching it off the table, I pointed the contraption at the possibly possessed bloke. “I’m going to take this. You don’t kill anyone while I’m gone.”
Scooping up his beer, Cal tipped it in my direction. “I will do my best.”
Dissatisfied, I stabbed my phone in Red’s direction. “You, watch him!”
Red glanced up from his plate of hot wings with wide eyes. “Mmpherify?”
“Like you never have before,” I responded, and tapped the accept button.
“She’s making sexy noises!” my phone shrieked.
“Talk me through it, pet.” With one finger in my opposite ear, I dodged around a mysterious pile—which looked like chowder but smelled like vomit—in search of a more conversation friendly area.
On the other end, Celeste sighed in that way that I knew made her chest swell invitingly. “We’re watching the Bourne movies—the good ones, before Hawkeye—and every time Matt Damon appears, Grams makes sex noises. I shouldn’t know what her sexy time noises sound like, Row! That is not information I should have!”
“You lived with your Grams for years, and she’s a very …” choose your words carefully, pirate, “free woman. Surely this can’t be the first time she’s been open about such things?”
Silence.
“Did you just call my grandmother easy?” my beloved one asked. FYI, guys, such a question is a trap that will lead to days on end of misery. Lucky for me, I was centuries old and had played these games before.
“Heavens no! The woman is one step away from saint-hood!” I yelled over the guitar twangs of the band warming up for their set. “I just meant free with her feelings and emotions, which is an admirable trait that I aspire to myself.”
One should wear boots when slinging shit that deep.
“I know you’re full of crap, but at this point I don’t even care.” Celeste sighed. “What time is guys’ night wrapping up? I need to be spared from the ickiness.”
Stretching out my hunched back, I glanced to the table.
Caleb was gone.
“I’ll be there when I can,” I mumbled, killing the call with my thumb.
Shoving my w
ay through the crowd, I slammed my palms on the table hard enough to make Red’s hot wings jump. “Where is he?”
He gaped up with a face full of sauce. “H-he was just there,” he stammered.
“Did any of you see which direction the alleged murderer went?” I posed the question to the ceiling, the mere sight of the incompetent band filling me with desire to go on my own bloody rampage.
Eddie and Beard Face tore their attentions away from the trivia game on the overhead screen. Lone Twin paused in his endless quest to flag down the waitress—poor lad hadn’t been able to score himself even a glass of water thus far. Between them, they exchanged cringes at their ineptitude.
“I think there’s a chance he may have followed a leggy blonde out.” Lone Twin grimaced, his shoulders rising to his ears.
Throwing my hands in the air, I let them slap to my sides in exasperation. “I blame myself for trusting demons. Our kind can be distracted by a rash of violence or a tinfoil ball. In all of your bumbling incompetence, did you happen to notice which way he went?”
Swallowing hard, he pointed in the direction of the back door.
Before his hand could fall, I forced my way through the pub’s cloud of beer burps and musky sexual frustration to the clearly marked back exit. The wind ripped the door from my grasp the second I forced it open, lashing against my skin in warning for me to turn back. A chilling soundtrack of screams assaulted my ears, riding back on the galloping breeze:
The unmistakable ruckus of a scuffle.
Choked gurgles rising in a distressed feminine throat.
A distressed male voice, with a recognizable brogue, shouted, “Get away from her!”
Falling into a defensive posture, I spun in time to see the flash of blonde from a body being thrown against the brick façade of the neighboring nail salon. Flesh dragged over unforgiving stone as the whimpering lass was yanked down and bent backwards over a dumpster by an enormous figure in a dingy gray hoodie.
Descent (Gryphon Series Book 5) Page 7
