Hell Is Coming (The Watcher's Series Book 1)

by N. P. Martin

  Hell Is Coming

  (The Watcher’s Series Book 1)

  By

  N.P. Martin

  Copyright © 2014 by N.P. Martin

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  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

  About The Author

  Before You Go…

  “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

  William Shakespeare

  Chapter 1

  Weirdness has followed me my whole life so it was no surprise when I started seeing monsters.

  Sounds crazy, right? Monsters? Who sees monsters except scared little kids and the mentally unhinged?

  I’m eighteen—not a scared little kid anymore. Countless foster homes have since knocked that out of me. As for being mentally unhinged—well I don’t think I’m any more disturbed than any other person my age.

  Not all the time anyway.

  I was pretty sane at the time I started to see the demons. Actually, I was the sanest I had ever been in my life. I was fast becoming a “normal” member of society. My unhealthy obsessions and behavior had been put aside (mostly), and I was focusing on being a good girl—you know, one who doesn’t spend all her time messed up on prescription meds indulging a morbid preoccupation with the occult and paranormal.

  I was ready to move on with my life, to finally start afresh.

  And what happens?

  People start turning into monsters everywhere I go.

  That’s just something a girl can’t ignore, especially given my family history.

  It was a cold and dull October afternoon in Mercy City and I sat in my twin brother Josh’s black 1969 Mustang, the car he bought for his eighteenth birthday. He felt he deserved it, being a hardworking entrepreneur and all—a weed dealer, but just until he turned pro at MMA, which according to him wasn’t far off.

  Whatever. It didn’t bother me.

  “So this apartment,” I said as Josh drove us through congested, noisy streets. “I can’t wait to move in. It feels like we’re getting out of jail after so long.”

  “Yep, it’s gonna be cool,” Josh said, nodding his head slowly. “As long as you don’t bring all that occult shit with you. I don’t want that stuff in there.”

  I took mock offence at that. “What occult shit? You know full well I’ve left all that behind me.”Sort of.

  “You still have all those creepy fucking books lying around Diane’s place. It baffles me why you read that shit, Leia. It’s just nonsense.”

  Answers Josh, I’m looking for answers.

  Diane was our foster mother. We’d been staying with her for the last year. She was a regular angel compared to most of the foster moms we’d been lumbered with in the past. I credited her with helping me get my act together. It was her idea that I apply to art college, which I did, something I never thought I’d accomplish. Diane was good that way. As a high school teacher, bringing out the best in people was kind of her thing. “I don’t even read those things anymore. I keep meaning to get rid of them.”

  Not quite true. Maybe before the demons appeared. Not now.

  “So why don’t you?” Josh asked. “I thought we agreed you’d put all that shit behind you, start over.”

  “And I did—Jeez Josh, gimme a break. It wasn’t easy for me to let all that go.”

  Had I really let it all go though?

  More or less. It was hard mainly because I never found answers to the boatload of questions that still haunted me over what happened to our parents. Now that my life had taken a dark turn, it was even harder for me to stay in the light where Josh and Diane wanted me. It was starting to feel like I would never escape the darkness.

  “I’m not saying it was, but you know my views on it all.”

  I did. Josh didn’t share my opinion that some kind of demon killed our dad and took our half-dead mom God knows where. Josh didn’t know what he believed about that night eleven years ago, but it sure as hell wasn’t what I believed. He seemed content to let the events of that night remain ambiguous, mainly because he wasn’t there when it happened. In his mind, our parents were dead and there was nothing he could do about it. I wish I shared his outlook, but I didn’t, not by a long shot. “I get it, you’re concerned,” I said. “I’ll get rid of all the books, don’t worry.”

  “And the rest of the shit,” Josh said. “The black candles, whatever weird crap you have in those jars. All of it.”

  The spell ingredients. Not that the spells worked.

  I couldn’t blame him for being so adamant. My foray into the dark side took its toll on me. It led me down some scary paths that ended in drug addiction and a mind that wasn’t exactly healthy by most peoples’ standards. Part of that was due to not finding any answers to the questions that niggled away at my brain like tiny, annoying worms. The pills I took were the only things that put the worms to sleep for a while.

  I looked out the window at the downtown crowds. People in impeccable business suits were rushing around carrying leather brief cases, smart phones, and expensive cups of coffee. My eyes gravitated towards a face in the crowd for no apparent reason—a man in his thirties, tanned and flawlessly groomed in a light gray suit was what my eyes settled on. He was just another businessman, probably on his way to some important meeting, but the fact that I picked him out of the crowd told me there was more to him. Sure enough, as I stared at the man, his tanned face began to flicker like a dodgy digital image as it changed into something inhuman.

  His eyes started to glow a deep red, his skin changed to a dark green color, taking on a scaly, reptilian appearance. Three thick twisted horns curved back over his skull like bony cornrows. The businessman’s face stayed that way for a few seconds while he spoke on his cell phone, then his features flickered and became human again.

  I looked away, unfazed. Just one of half a dozen other similar faces I saw that day.

  Nothing to see here folks, just another demon face in the crowd.

  A couple of months ago when I saw my first demon, I wasn’t so blasé about it. It happened on the last day of high school while I sat in the assembly hall with hundreds of other students listening to the school principal give a speech on the importance of planning for the future. I was barely listening to him when his face changed as he stood on the stage. It’s disconcerting to say the least when the principal of your high school suddenly grows horns out of his head and continues to talk even though his face has turned scarlet and his mouth is filled with nasty looking pointed teeth. It was all I could do not to run from the assembly hall as the head masters burning yellow eyes seemed to pick me out of the crowd, boring into me as he spoke of making the most of our talents in a digital age. I only realized I was takin
g a panic attack when the guy next to me asked if I was alright. That was the start of it. The principal’s demon face haunted me until I saw another person transform the next day.

  That’s when I knew something was really up and that true evil had made its presence felt in my life for the second time.

  “What are you staring at?” Josh was eyeing me weirdly, a look with which I was well familiar.

  “Nothing.” I tried to sound casual, despite knowing he could see right through me most of the time.

  “You’ve been off lately.” He gave me his brotherly look of concern. “You’re not on those pills again, are you? I could do without you having another overdose.”

  If anyone else had said that to me, I would have punched them straight in the face. Since it was Josh, I let it slide. He was the one who found me a year ago, unconscious from too many prescription pills and too much vodka. He took me to the hospital where I had my stomach pumped. It scared him. Scared me too. I didn’t blame him for still being edgy, which is why I kept my anger down. “I’m still clean, you know that—apart from the weed. My self medicating is all natural these days.” I thumped him lightly on the arm. “Anyway, you’re one to talk. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve been off lately yourself.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  We drove past the old and massive city hall building, with its domed roof and scary looking gargoyles that seemed to stand guard above the main entrance. I couldn’t help but stare at them as we passed by, wondering if they were based on real demons. Their faces looked uncomfortably like the demon faces I saw every day. The people rushing in and out of the building didn’t seem to notice the fierce stone expressions looking down on them though.

  I turned my attention back to Josh. Try as he might, he couldn’t hide the fact that something was up. I could always see through his tough guy exterior.

  Did he see the demon faces as well?

  A few days ago I caught him staring at some random guy walking down the street. I looked and the guy had the demon face, but different, as they all were. This guy had muddy gray skin streaked with brown and huge jaws not unlike the Predator from those movies. Despite looking freaked, Josh said there was nothing wrong. I let it go, but I knew my brother. Something was up.

  “It’s just the Roids,” he said. His voice was quiet, too casual. It was the voice he used when he expected judgment from me.

  “Roids?” I almost laughed. “You’re juicing now? Seriously?”

  “Hey, no one ever got to the top without taking something. All the pros at my gym take them.”

  “But you’re kickin’ ass without them.”

  “Maybe, but if I wanna turn pro I gotta be better.” He slowed the car for a red light. “Besides, it’s temporary, just till I bulk up a bit more.”

  I shook my head. “You’re insane taking those things. They’re dangerous.”

  He gave me a look that said I was one to talk, the person who used to gulp down pills like candy all day long. He refrained from taking the moral high-ground with me. Josh was considerate that way. “Relax, I won’t be abusing them.” He smiled out the window at a pretty blonde girl. The girl smiled back, flattered by the attention. So she should be. My brother was a good looking guy. His brown eyes and almost permanent brooding expression made him seem mysterious. Girls lapped it up. His muscular cage-fighter’s body usually sealed the deal.

  Even though we were twins we weren’t identical. I had the same brown eyes, only they didn’t have quite the same hypnotic power as his. He had more practice in that department than I did. We also both had dark hair and olive skin, although his hair, besides being shorter than mine, was almost jet black. My hair was dark, but not that dark. We looked enough alike to pass as twins though.

  Overall, Josh stood out more than I did. Don’t get me wrong, I could pull off the hot chick look when I wanted to. Most of the time, I preferred a downplayed appearance that didn’t attract too much attention. Blending into the background was something I’d learned to do over the years. I just found it easier that way. Josh took the opposite approach. He cultivated a bad boy exterior so people left him alone, especially back in high school where the potential for getting walked over was so much higher. Other guys respected him, or feared him enough to keep their mouths shut. The ones who didn’t quickly regretted it. Most girls loved his tough guy image though. Very few people got to see the warm and caring guy underneath. “I can’t believe you’re on steroids,” I said as we waited for the light to change. “Are you going to get like,‘Roid rage’ or whatever now? I’m not sure I could live with someone who punched holes in the walls when they got upset over nothing.”

  “Get a grip.” Josh banged both hands on the steering wheel in a rhythmical beat. “I only rage in the cage, baby!” He laughed at his own silliness.

  “I only rage in the cage!” I mimicked in a deep gruff voice and started laughing. “Dufus.”

  “Good looking though.”

  “Only in your dreams, brother.”

  “Screw you.”

  “And you.”

  I looked out the window and saw some kid—maybe sixteen, dressed in faded black jeans and with long greasy hair falling over a scuffed leather jacket—sprinting down an alley. Thief? Gangbanger? Druggy? Whoever it was they looked seriously freaked out, like they were running from something bad. The kid looked behind him as he bolted out of the alley and ran straight into the side of Josh’s car with a loud thud that made me jump. I flinched as the kid looked in at me. His grubby face looked terrified.

  “What the fuck?” Josh exclaimed at the kid, who peeled himself off the hood and ran off again, nearly crashing into another car as he fled across the street before disappearing up another alley.

  I wanted to ask what the hell that was about when another kid ran in front of the car just as Josh was about drive off. I jolted back into the seat as he slammed on the brakes. A kid in a dirty gray hoody was staring in at us. His eyes were completely black, like he had eight balls in his sockets. A sinister grin spread across the kid’s face as he slammed the hood with both hands before running off, vanishing into the same alley as the other kid.

  “Seriously! What the fuck!” Josh looked exasperated as he put the car into drive.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked.

  “Assholes, that’s what.”

  I frowned at him. “You didn’t notice anything weird about that last guy?”

  “Like what?” A deep scowl was on his face and his hands gripped the steering wheel tight. I wasn’t sure if he was pissed off that someone had ran into his car or if he was just annoyed by the slow moving traffic.

  “I don’t know, his eyes maybe?”

  The weird look again. “What about his eyes?”

  He obviously didn’t see. Or he wasn’t saying. “Nothing. Doesn’t matter.”

  Neither of us said a word the rest of the way home.

  Diane lived on the outskirts of the city in a small wood paneled house built during some post-war boom. I wasn’t looking forward to telling her we’d found an apartment and that Josh and I would be moving out at the end of the week. Diane had been good to us, and while nothing or no one would ever make me have any faith in the foster care system, Diane came pretty close.

  As I got out of the car I happened to look down the quiet street and I noticed a man standing by the corner about six houses down. Dressed in dark clothes, the man was just staring up the street for no apparent reason. If it wasn’t for the fact that my stomach lurched when I saw him I would have thought the man was just waiting for someone, but there was something off about him. My instincts were confirmed when the man smiled up at me and his eyes seemed to glow a deep orange. My stomach churned again.

  Another demon—and in the street where I lived.

  This one seemed different somehow. It was his presence. I can hardly describe how it made me feel. Usually when I saw a demon they ignored me or didn’t realize I could see them. This one knew I knew what
he was, knew I could feel him. His presence reached into me like icy fingers, turning me cold and sick to my stomach, freezing me to the spot. The next thing I knew I was in some black abyss with the sounds of tortured screams all around me, terrible awful sounds of people being tortured in unspeakable ways, and in the background, permeating everything, was the horrible presence. It was pure evil made manifest. Then before I could even scream I was back in the street again like nothing had happened. The demon was still there, still smiling up at me.

  When Josh finally emerged from the car, I ran to him. “What’s up?” Josh asked. “You look spooked. Again.”

  “Down the street,” I said, my body still shaking with fear after experiencing the black abyss, which I felt sure was Hell. What other place could inspire such sickening terror? “That man there.”

  That demon.

  Josh followed my gaze to the man down the street. I noticed the demon’s eyes had stopped glowing. “It’s just some weird dude. Forget him. Come on.”

  Josh didn’t seem concerned. He walked up to the house and I quickly followed after him. As I went up the drive I looked down the street again and the demon was gone.

  Inside the house, Diane was cooking dinner. She was a woman in her fifties who never had any children of her own, and she had been married once until her husband died. With her long silver hair and warm, caring blue eyes, she was a gentle woman, always ready with a sympathetic ear and some sage advice whenever you needed it. She helped me a lot when we came to live with her, got me off the drugs, showed me I was worth more than I thought I was, which given the state I was in back then, wasn’t an easy task.

  “Dinner’s almost ready,” Diane said as I headed up the stairs. “Don’t be long up there.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “Josh has something to tell you, by the way.”

  Josh shot me a look from the living room and I smiled back apologetically. I was being a coward, leaving it up to him to break the news, but I couldn’t face the inevitable tears Diane would shed so I went straight to my room.

  Josh took the bigger room when we moved into the house so I was left with the smaller of the two. Due to the lack of space the room was always cluttered. I had drawings and paintings tacked all over the walls which had the effect of closing the room in, making it seem even smaller, not to mention darker. Piles of books and objects related to the occult—black candles, various spell ingredients in glass jars, a human skull and other items that I hardly looked at—took up what little floor space there was, making the room feel more like a lair than a bedroom.