He reached the end of the steam-filled corridor and stepped into a massage room. Pashenka lay face-down on the table, a towel draped around his ample waist. A perfectly shaped leg caressed his hairy back, massaging aching muscles. He moaned with pleasure. Apparently, the mobster wasn’t above enjoying his wares.
Cyon, gun in hand, took a step forward. Neither Pashenka nor the masseuse noticed his approach, caught up in their little game. Suddenly, the woman glanced up at him and froze. She didn’t scream. If she had, he probably would have shot her on the spot. Instead, she slowly backed away.
Smart girl. He nodded at her, and she took off. Only then did Pashenka realize something was wrong. But it was too late.
Cyon pressed the barrel into the back of the man’s neck and hissed, “What do you know about Lamia Crull?”
Pashenka talked. Boy, did the fat gangster have loose lips. He knew Lamia existed but did not understand where she was or what name she used nowadays. He could only share rumors. Word on the street was that the cult had returned under new leadership.
Cyon gnashed his teeth. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Pashenka’s terror was real—he was telling the truth. Cyon would have detected a lie. The man would be of no help. He cursed. The first name on his list was a bust. The process of tracking down former associates of the cult leader would take time, valuable time he didn’t have. Worst of all, there were no guarantees of success.
“What are you going to do? Are you going to kill me?” the man yammered.
The gangster was no cultist, but he was far from innocent. Touching his fleshy neck, Cyon caught psychic flashes of Pashenka’s dark memories. A parade of the unavenged dead dominated those thoughts. The man had been a mob hitman. Killing might have been his profession, but he would never take a life again. Hell would greet him with open arms.
He drilled a bullet into the mobster’s head. Pashenka sported a stunned expression in death, almost like he couldn’t believe someone would have the audacity to murder a murderer.
As Cyon made his way out of the bathhouse, two armed goons tried to stop him. He rewarded their efforts with two bullets apiece to the head. Cyon felt liberated without Raven looking over his shoulder. Benson, meanwhile, had retreated to the far recesses of his mind, horrified at what was happening.
A tiny sliver of guilt pricked Cyon’s consciousness, but he ignored it.
Cyon strode toward the Charger and tried to keep his disappointment in check. Dealing with Pashenka and his thugs had been a detour he couldn’t afford. As he took a seat behind the wheel, he glanced at Benson’s reflection and saw a red spot on his shirt. Blood. Not his own. Something about the scarlet stain disturbed him, and suddenly Cyon’s throat tightened as he recalled the mobster’s terror when he pulled the trigger. What was wrong with him? With such a soft attitude, he wouldn’t have lasted a minute back in Hell.
But you’re not in Hell anymore, a voice inside of him spoke up, and it almost sounded like Raven. He sucked in a lungful of air. No, the voice didn’t belong to Raven—it was his own. The younger, more idealistic version of Cyon who had hunted witches and monsters four hundred years earlier. A man who would never have taken joy in killing the way the demon did.
I don’t have time for this bullshit! He raged, trying to silence the voice. There were more people he needed to visit. It was getting dark, and he did not doubt that the guests of Lamia’s auction were already on their way.
And that’s when his cell phone rang. Well, technically it was Benson’s cell. Weird, how those lines blurred so quickly whenever he took control of a new body.
He eyed the phone. His first impulse was to ignore the call and turn off the ringer. But then he saw the name of the incoming caller: Jane Archer.
15
4 Hours Earlier
Archer parked her bike a few hundred feet away from the church. She figured she would draw less attention on foot. The few people she ran into eyed her with surprise. Strangers rarely visited the ghetto.
The crumbling gothic church overlooked a desolate intersection, a rundown tenement building casting a large shadow behind it. A chain link fence surrounded the property, and trees and wild shrubbery covered much of the building. Ivy tattooed the building’s stony hide in wild patches. The place looked haunted, and Archer understood why locals kept their distance. Back in the day, the church had offered hope to its congregants; now it served as a glaring example of the area’s encroaching poverty.
The church, like the whole neighborhood, felt abandoned and desolate, and God seemed far away.
As she approached, the air grew heavier, each step becoming more difficult, almost as if gravity itself was different near the oppressive structure. That was ridiculous; still, she couldn’t shake the sensation that evil permeated the old church. Raven had told her about the mark on his chest, which flared up with pain whenever he confronted the paranormal. Well, she didn’t need a magical scar to know this place was bad news. Her hand instinctively reached for her Witch Whip and the Glock loaded with silver bullets. Bloodslayer, the silver stake Skulick had gifted her, remained strapped to her back in a leather scabbard. The stake could stop both vampires and other supernaturals, but she hoped it wouldn’t be needed.
She studied the church for about a minute. Nothing suggested that anyone was lurking in the former house of God. Giving herself an internal push, she swiftly climbed the fence with athletic grace. She landed in the overgrown stretch of grass that separated the church’s main entrance from the sidewalk. Drawing closer, she discovered that taggers hadn’t branded the place. Most derelict buildings became the canvas for enthusiastic graffiti artists, but not the church.
Strange.
Maybe respect of the Almighty kept the street Picassos at bay. Yeah right. No, the only logical explanation was fear. The locals knew the sordid history of this place and stayed clear.
If you were smart, she told herself, you’d do the same.
She wasn’t some thrill seeker or urban explorer out for kicks. She was here for a reason. If Ronny’s intel was to be trusted, this church was about to become the next auction site. She fought back the temptation to call Raven before going inside. She had to make sure the Crimson Circle was really here.
Archer opted for a simple plan. She would enter the church and snoop around. If she saw evidence of the cult, she would call Raven for backup. This wouldn’t be the first time she set foot in some creepy abandoned building alone. And those other abandoned structures had brimmed with bloodsuckers. She could do this.
She willed herself forward and shoved her weight against the church’s wooden door. The entrance gave way with an ominous creak.
“Ooh, spooky,” she muttered. The place would have to try a lot harder than that to scare her.
A moment later she was inside the former house of God. She couldn’t imagine anyone in their right mind wanting to turn this church into a club—but different strokes for different folks, and all that jazz. She absorbed her surroundings and almost forgot to exhale. The place vaguely reminded her of the chapel where she had gone head to head with Malcasta’s hideous witch-nuns, but there were several crucial differences. For one, the nave was empty of any pews, which made sense since the church had been converted into a nightclub. Dead spotlights looked down at her from the cobwebbed ceiling.
As she edged into the structure, she noticed the dust-covered couches in the shadowy alcoves. Why hadn’t the club owners removed this stuff? Or perhaps they were recent additions for the upcoming event? The real shocker was that she saw no evidence of squatters. The church made for an ideal crash pad. Still, the homeless population stayed clear of this place.
She continued her search. Pale daylight seeped into the church through the stained glass windows as she moved toward the stone altar up ahead. It had been turned into a DJ station during the church’s club days. This is where club promoters had reigned over the dancing flock, whipping them into a frenzy. The patrons, devoted to drug-fueled pleasu
re and selfish abandonment, hadn’t cared about anything but the beat. Despite the rundown appearance, Archer could picture it all vividly. No wonder this place had become a beacon for dark forces. Prayer and devotion had given way to sin. If a priest had deconsecrated the church, maybe the restless spirits would have moved on.
Archer bit her lips, a sudden shiver creeping up her back. She could feel it now. Evil had become embedded in the stone walls and now seeped into her bones. The Crimson Circle couldn’t have selected a better place for their unholy gathering, if they were truly planning to use this space for their auction.
Her eyes widened. Previously cloaked in shadow, she now made out a giant inverted pentagram positioned behind the altar. The five-pointed wooden star stood upright and was about seven feet high. The presence of the occult symbol erased whatever last vestiges of doubt she held: the Crimson Circle had claimed this church as their own.
She had to get out of here and alert Raven and Father Cabrera. She had to—
The sound of approaching footsteps cut through her panicked thoughts. Adrenaline surging, she whirled, but her reaction came a moment too late. A massive man had snuck up on her. He could have worked the doors as a bouncer during the club’s heyday. And he had no qualms about getting physical with a lady.
Air whistled as she dodged the meaty fist rushing for her head. She swiftly sidestepped the second attack too, but it was only a matter of time before she took a hit. The musclebound cultist could easily crush her. Time to fight dirty.
Her hand chopped at the cultist’s Adam’s apple, but he expertly blocked the punch. The rapid movement made the man’s shades slip off his granite face, revealing a fiery red eyeball tattoo, the mark of the Crimson Circle. Archer had once asked Raven why they had chosen that name, not that fanatics needed a logical reason for anything they did. Raven had said that like most cults, Hell on Earth was their end goal and the first sign of the new utopia would be the sun turning into a crimson circle.
That was Archer’s last thought before the man’s fist connected with her head.
Archer was a formidable fighter, a skilled detective, and a badass vampire hunter. But she was no match for the man’s brutality. The blow sent her flying, and by the time she hit the floor, she was dead to the world.
Reality snapped painfully back into focus. Archer’s skull was pounding. She groaned softly and massaged her throbbing head. She lay on a dusty couch in an alcove, and it took all her willpower to stifle the cough building in her lungs. She inhaled deeply and took in her immediate surroundings. The light streaming into the church through the stained glass windows had grown darker since she lost consciousness. She must’ve been out for hours. She blinked a few times, and her vision cleared a little. Her first impression was that she was alone, but that illusion was shattered when she heard the voice. Looking around, she spotted the man, face averted from her as he chatted on his phone.
Instinctively, her hand reached for her whip and gun and found both of them gone.
She looked around and saw the goon had placed her weapons on the altar right next to her cell phone. Only ten feet separated her from her arsenal, but unfortunately the mountain of a man stood between her and the altar. She had to get past him somehow.
There was only one way. She would have to use surprise to her advantage and strike so fast he wouldn’t even know what had hit him. A few well-placed blows to buy her enough time to reach the pistol.
She drew another deep breath and sprang into action.
With a few steps, she cleared the distance between herself and the goon. The cultist noticed her approach, looked up from his phone just as her arm hurtled toward the side of his neck. Archer was using her forearm as it weighed more than her fist. A blow to the neck could knock out a normal man, but this guy wasn’t normal. Not by a long stretch.
Her blow hit its target, whipping the cultist’s head back but failing to knock him out. On the bright side, it bought her precious seconds. That’s all she needed to leap at the altar and snatch her Glock. Already the big man was stumbling back to his feet and barreling toward her. Without hesitation she squeezed the trigger.
Click, click. Her face fell as she realized the goon had emptied the magazine.
“Shit!” Archer spat. The gorilla’s malformed features twisted with an evil grin, his scarlet eye flashing dangerously. He looked inhuman.
Archer reacted on pure instinct. She dropped the gun and went for her cell and the Witch Whip instead. The leather lashed out at the incoming cultist and drew a red line over his bulging chest. He cried out, more in rage than pain, and Archer knew her time was up. This cultist wasn’t supernatural, and the whip’s magic wouldn’t stop him.
She spun around and ran. Legs pumping, she surged toward the back of the church. Desperate, she made a go for the door she had spotted behind the altar. It led into a small space that at one time might’ve been a changing room for altar boys. Nowadays it served as a storage shed, rotting furniture and other junk crammed into the shadowy room. Heart hammering against her ribcage, she slammed the door closed and snapped the lock shut. A split second later, the man’s bulk crashed into the wooden door, rattling the entire room. The vibrations sent dust into the air, and Archer stifled another cough.
I’m trapped, she thought. Any moment now the cultist is going to break the door down.
Escape was impossible, but at least she had her phone. Her hands quivered as she called Raven. Pick up, pick up. Answer your goddamn phone. After the fourth ring, she gave up and killed the call. And that’s when she noticed that Raven had left a message while she had been unconscious.
Blam, blam! The door’s hinges were giving way. Any second now.
No time to listen to the voicemail.
She had one last shot at this.
Her body shook with adrenaline as she dialed Detective Benson’s cell phone. Her former boss was the only other person who might help her at a time like this.
The detective answered on the second ring. Thank God for small miracles.
“Hello?”
“Benson, it’s Archer. I’m in trouble.”
The door began to give way. She spoke as rapidly as she could, trying to get the words out before the cultist reached her.
“Tell Raven I found the Crimson Circle. The Assembly of the Saints Church…”
The voice broke off as the phone died. One moment the power bar was at eighty percent, and the next it was dead. What had happened?
The pounding ceased, and the room grew still, almost as if someone had cut off the volume.
Archer turned to the door.
And then, despite the dead battery, the cell rang.
A female voice said, “There is no escape, monster hunter.”
“Who are you? What do you—” Her words broke off as the door finally burst open. The silhouette of a tall man stood outlined in the doorway. The new arrival wasn’t the gorilla she’d expected.
Her eyes widened in shock as she gasped.
“No, it can’t be.”
An all too familiar voice said, “It’s nice to see you again, Jane.”
And as Archer’s world crumbled, the woman’s mocking laughter echoed from her dead phone.
16
I sat in my holding cell and stared into space. Saying that the future looked bleak was putting things mildly. The cops at least gave me my phone call. Archer didn’t pick up, and I left a message. Who else could I reach out to? Skulick was out of the picture. I didn’t even want to contemplate what they were doing with his body while my partner’s ghost remained trapped in some unfathomable limbo. The only other person in my life—and I use the term “person” lightly here—was Cyon. The demon had been riding shotgun in my head for so long now, I could barely remember what it meant to be on my own.
I was all alone now. Just me and my thoughts, no demon commentary to raise my blood pressure. I should be happy. But when a super-cult sets you up for murder and plans a demonic invasion, happiness becomes elusive.
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A shout drifted through the bars of my prison cell, thrusting me out of my grim musings. Another well-adjusted citizen of the Cursed City had found a new home in one of the steel cages lining the basement of the precinct. How could I feel lonely with lowlifes screaming their lungs out all around me?
Damn, I had to get out of this place. I couldn’t stand myself when I was in this mood. I shook my head, feeling defeated. Cyon’s escape offered meager comfort. I felt betrayed by him, I admit it, but I also understood why he had done it. Stopping the Crimson Circle was more important than sparing my bruised feelings. Could Cyon pull it off? He was unarmed, and I bet he was still getting used to his new host. I prayed he wouldn’t get Benson killed.
Anger rose in me at the thought the homicide detective was being pulled into this madness. I couldn’t shake my feeling that this would end badly for all of us. Skulick was already dead. Maybe I’d lose Cyon and Benson next. Or Jane. Damnit, I needed to get out of this cell and away from my own depressing thoughts. Right now, I was my own greatest enemy. Better to go down fighting than drown in self-pity and helplessness. But that’s why Morgal and his cronies had put me here.
The archdemon knew my greatest weakness. I wasn’t afraid to die. Okay, maybe I was a little scared of that. But I was truly afraid to lose those I cared about while being unable to stop it from happening. This jail cell was worse than a coffin for a guy like me.
Metal creaked and pulled me out of my mental downward spiral. I turned toward the cell’s barred door as it swung open as if by magic. Was this some other trick? More mind games to drive me to the brink?
I rose from my cot and approached the open cell door. More shouts greeted me from the neighboring cells. I was tempted to join the chorus. Perhaps screaming would help. Blowing off steam could prove therapeutic, right? My future cellblock besties sure seemed to think so.
As I stepped out of my cell, I didn’t know what to expect.
Shadow Detective Supernatural Dark Urban Fantasy Series: Books 7-9 (Shadow Detective Boxset Book 3) Page 21
