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

by N. P. Martin

  “You sound just like a politician,” I told him. “Full of shit.”

  His eyes flashed orange at me. “Don’t test me,” he said. “I could kill you right here. Better yet, I could have Josh kill you right here and he would do it without hesitation because I asked him to.”

  Fear did its best to overcome me in that moment but I fought it back down and defiantly held his gaze, which wasn’t easy, let me tell you.

  “I know what you’re thinking. I can read your thoughts. You want to kill me, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good luck with that. There is only one thing in this universe that can kill me and I doubt you’d be willing to trade your soul to get it.” He looked away from me and leaned once more on the railing, surveying his recruits like some sort of demonic despot. “I’m giving you a choice. Rule with me or be ruled. That’s it.” He looked at me as if I was going to give him an answer right there and then. I just shook my head.

  “You know I won’t join you. Why are you even asking?”

  “Because I’m a fair demon .I don’t dictate, I give people choices.”

  “And bringing Hell to earth, that’s giving people a choice?”

  “Humans have already made their choice. They chose chaos. They chose disorder. They chose freedom not knowing they were actually choosing the bonds of slavery. It’s too late for humans now. It’s not too late for you, though. I could show you how to use that power inside you. I can show you how to put it to good use.”

  “In helping you?” I said. “No thanks. I’ll take my chances with the rest of humanity.”

  “Such a waste.” He shook his head in disgust. “I tried.” He took a deep breath before speaking again. “In three days time the gates of Hell will be opened and Hell will spill onto the earth. That’s how much time you have left. Enjoy it while you can because the world as you know it will soon be no more. Goodbye, Leia.” He clicked his fingers and a split second later I found myself back at the cabin, standing in the cellar with Frank and Eva, who both looked at me with dazed expressions. I didn’t think either of them expected to see me again.

  “What happened?” Frank asked me.

  “We’re all screwed,” I said.

  Chapter 22

  “Three goddamn days!” Frank paced around the cellar in the cabin, rubbing at his stubble and shaking his head. I’d just informed him and Eva about my meeting with Abigor, about the training camp at the warehouse, the demon’s plan to bring Hell on earth and the most depressing fact of all—that we couldn’t kill or stop the architect of Hell. The two of them seemed to be in shock as the information sank in.

  “He can’t really do that, can he?” I asked Eva, a glass of whiskey in my hand that Frank had poured for me from his stash down with the weapons. . “Can he really bring Hell to earth?”

  Eva sipped from her own glass. “He talked about opening the gates of Hell?”

  I nodded. “In three days’ time.”

  “There are gates of Hell all over the world. It could be any of them.” Eva shook her head and started her own pacing, a look of deep concern on her face.

  “So how do we find out which one?” Frank said. “And how do we know he isn’t planning on opening all of them?”

  “I doubt that,” Eva said. “All the gates were sealed a long, long time ago by the angels. For every set of gates there are six-hundred and sixty-six seals to be broken before the gates can be opened. As there are rumored to be at least twenty different gates, that would be a lot of seals. Abigor only needs one gate open to fulfill his plan. It would take him long enough to break the seals for just one. He’s evidently been working on this plan for a long time now. How did we not hear of this before?”

  Frank shook his head. “I don’t know. Strange things happen all the time. How could we know to connect them to that?”

  “Wait,” I said. “What are these seals and what happens when you break them?”

  “Every seal is different,” Eva said. “And they involve lots of different things, lots of events occurring, like freak weather, earthquakes, strange deaths, unusual paranormal activity…anything really. It’s a broad spectrum of things and hard to find any kind of pattern in.”

  “But there has to be some kind of pattern though.” I said. “If we can find a pattern happening in a certain area then we could pinpoint the gate that Abigor is trying to open, right?”

  “I suppose,” Eva said. “But what do we do when we find the gate? How do we stop him? He can’t be killed and he has a whole army on his side.”

  “You have a point,” Frank said. “How the hell do we stop him?”

  Eva shook her head. “I don’t know. You’ll have to let the other Watchers know, see if they can help. At the very least they can give us back up if we have to fight.”

  I slammed my glass down on the bench underneath where the guns were hanging. “Is that the best you guys can come up with? Leave it to the other Watchers? I can’t just sit around and wait for all this to happen without doing a damned thing to stop it.” I glared at them, making sure they felt the measure of my rage.

  “So what do you suggest?” Frank said, the tone of his voice clearly conveying he didn’t expect any decent answer to that question.

  “Everything can die,” I said, ignoring Frank’s sarcasm. “Even God can die if some people are to be believed. Abigor must be able to die. He said there is only one thing in the world that can kill him, and he doubted I would trade my soul to get it, which means there’s something out there we can use.”

  “And what if there is?” Frank asked. “Do we just trade our souls to get this thing? How do we know he isn’t lying so we waste time looking?”

  “I don’t know, Frank,” I said throwing him a scornful look. “I’m trying to be helpful here. Fuck you and your fucking cynicism, alright?” I barged past Eva who sighed and called after me as I left the cellar.

  I stood in the kitchen, glaring out the window, face flushed as I struggled to control my frustration. I picked up an empty glass from the sink and threw it at the wall beside me, letting out a scream as I did so. Tears flowed as I stomped around the kitchen, grabbing plates and saucepans and whatever else I could get my hands on to throw around the room. “Fuck!” I threw a plate at the wall and it shattered into small pieces over the stove. I grabbed another plate and just as I threw it at the far wall in the living room, Frank walked in.

  “What the hell, Leia? he exclaimed, cowering as pieces of ceramic rained over him. “Shit, sorry Frank,” I said, involuntarily laughing at his reaction and crying at the same time.

  He stood for a second, brushing pieces of broken plate out of his hair before he walked towards me. “It’s okay. You’re upset.”

  “I just miss my brother. I don’t think I’m ever going to see him again.” I stood, at a loss as to what to do or how to feel. He put his arms around me and held me tightly. He said nothing, just held me for what seemed like a long time and I allowed him to. It was probably the first real connection I’d had with him. “I’m sorry,” I said pulling away.

  “Stop saying ‘sorry.’ I know how hard you’re finding this.”

  “I’m being selfish. The whole world is at stake and I can only think of one person.”

  He put a rough hand to the side of my face and held it there. “Forget it. I feel just as bad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head, awkwardness creeping back into his demeanour. “I was thinking about what you said the other day…if I’d taken you and Josh after your parents died maybe none of this would be happening right now.”

  I smiled at him, suddenly feeling bad for the way I’d been treating him of late. “Don’t blame yourself, Frank. You made what you thought was the right choice at the time. And anyway, Abigor would still be going ahead with his plan no matter what.”

  He gave a small smile back. “I guess so.”

  In that moment I almost forgave Frank for what he and my mother did to my father. />
  Almost.

  For the next few hours Frank trawled the internet looking for patterns that would lead us to the location of the Hell Gate, while Eva and I looked through book after book trying to find out if anything existed to kill Abigor with. It was a hard slog and as time went on we became increasingly more despondent, especially since we knew that time was no longer on our side. After nearly four hours of research, we came up empty as far as finding anything to kill Abigor. Frank did make some progress, and thought that he had discovered a pattern that might indicate broken seals.

  “Where?” Eva said as we looked at the laptop Frank was sitting by at the breakfast bar.

  “In the city believe it or not,” Frank said. “I thought it was the obvious place to look first. Seems I was right.”

  “Go on.”

  “There has been a lot of activity around the city for the last ten years or so, which is no surprise to us, but on the west side there seems to have been more than usual.” He paused to drink from the beer he held . “Strange happenings, unusual deaths and lately some freak weather activity that no one seems able to explain. Just last year it rained blood for two days straight. I remember that happening, actually, over the old cemetery. People were freaked out.”

  “And you didn’t think that unusual at the time, either of you?” I said.

  Frank shrugged. “I’ve seen stranger things than that. I thought it was some demon trick. They like doing that sometimes to freak people out. They feed off the fear and panic.”

  “There’s a Hell Gate in that old necropolis,” Eva said.

  “You know this for a fact?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “It’s marked in one of my books at home, with the rest of the Hell Gates around the world.”

  “So how many seals are left to break before Abigor can open the gates?”

  “Well, given that Abigor said three days to open the gates, there can’t be many more seals left. Maybe one or two if we’re lucky.”

  “That’s not good,” Frank said. “How the hell are we supposed to stop this from happening if we don’t even know what the seals are?”

  None of this was making me feel very optimistic and I couldn’t shake the sinking feeling I had in the pit of my stomach. “There must be a way to find out what the last seals are,” I said.

  “There is,” Eva said and turned to look at Frank. “You’ll have to contact Rothstein.”

  “Who the hell is Rothstein?” I asked.

  “Rothstein used to be head of the High Council,” Eva explained. “The High Council used to run the Watchers around the world.”

  “Tell us what to do, in other words,” Frank interjected.

  “Until, that is, the whole organization fell apart due to in-fighting and politics.”

  “Good riddance,” Frank said. “Bunch of angel huggers.”

  “Angel huggers?” I said

  “The High Council members would communicate with the archangels,” Eva said. “They would take orders from them. Jack Rothstein did most of the talking, but the angels, they played this little game, where they pitted all the council members against each other, just for fun. Anyway, it all fell apart, but Rothstein apparently still talks to a few of the less nefarious angels on occasion. He may be able to get us the information we need.”

  “Alright,” I said, feeling optimistic. “Call him up then.”

  A while later, Frank got a call while we were still in the cabin, scouring the internet and looking through more books that he had pulled up from the cellar. So far we hadn’t found anything helpful. Eva was gone; she wanted to check her own library at home. I stared at Frank until he put the phone down. “Well?” I said leaning forward in my seat by the fireplace.

  “Fucking angels,” he said scowling. He looked dejected as he slumped down in the seat opposite me.

  “What?”

  “Rothstein found the list of seals for the cemetery Hell Gate. But the last seal isn’t written. Apparently the angels didn’t want anyone to know what it is.” Frank shook his head, his jaw clenched. “I told you, angels are assholes.”

  I threw my head back and sighed. “Why didn’t this Rothstein just ask the angels?”

  “He did, but they told him nothing. You have to understand, angels don’t like Nephilim. They don’t like us having any power and they consider humans to be talking monkeys, including us. I don’t think they’d be bothered if the Hell Gate was opened. It would give them an excuse to come down here and fight a war, which is what they like doing most.”

  I listened with wide eyes. “So what the hell was the point in creating the seals in the first place if they couldn’t care less?”

  “Orders, I guess. Who knows?” Frank shrugged and went and poured himself another drink.

  I fell back into my chair. “This just gets better and better, doesn’t it?”

  “We still have time. We’ll think of something.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Time to do what, Frank? Read every book in this damned cabin? We’re never going to find out how to kill Abigor in these books. We need to do something else.”

  “And what do you suggest, Leia?” He scowled at me, whiskey in hand. “I’m all ears. If you have some brilliant idea that’s drawn from your vast experience in these matters then please, do tell.”

  I looked away from him and said nothing. I wanted to scream at him, tell him what he could do with his sarcasm, but he was right. I had been thrust into the Watcher life not even a week ago, so I wasn’t exactly experienced, as he pointed out.

  Yet our fates felt like they rested squarely on my shoulders for some reason. I didn’t know whether that was because of Josh or because Abigor had chosen to reveal his plan to me, but I somehow felt responsible for resolving the crisis we were in, if crisis could even begin to describe the clusterfuck we found ourselves in.

  “We have to stay calm here,” he said coming to sit back down with a refilled whiskey glass in hand. “Let’s just keep hitting the books. Something will turn up. It always does.”

  I stood up. “I need to rest for a while.” That was a lie, but I needed time alone. I lifted a book from the pile on the floor and tucked it under my arm. “I’ll keep reading in my room.”

  Frank didn’t protest when I left and headed for my room, probably glad to be rid of me for a while. The real reason I left him was because I had decided to take more extreme measures.

  I was going to sell my soul in return for access to the weapon that could kill Abigor.

  The book I took to my room contained the instructions for summoning the crossroad demon to make the deal with. I didn’t say anything to Frank because I didn’t want to argue with him over it.

  When I got to my room I locked the door, sat on my bed, and started leafing through the pages, trying to find what I had come across earlier. After much fretting and thinking I had lifted the wrong book, I finally found what I was looking for.

  According to the book you could use the ritual to summon a demon at a crossroads and that demon would grant you whatever you wanted.

  I had been thinking about going down that route ever since Abigor mentioned it. It wasn’t something I wanted to do but at that point I didn’t see any other choices. Frank and Eva had come up empty so far and there was little time left. Drastic measures were called for.

  It was my soul—one soul—in return for possibly saving the world from literally going to Hell.

  There was no debate as far as I was concerned. Frank would have protested if I’d told him and then we would have debated it for God knows how long, before deciding who was going to be the martyr and sacrifice their soul.

  There was no time for all that.

  I checked the book to see what I’d need to summon the crossroads demon. The items involved in the ritual were fairly straightforward. I could sneak into the cellar where Frank kept all his potions and spell ingredients and get what I needed. I could then sneak out and go find a crossroads somewhere.

  Ripping out the p
age with the ritual on it, I left my room and went down into the cellar where the spell ingredients were. It took me only a few minutes to get what I needed and I kept listening for Frank in case he came down and caught me.

  When I had what I needed, I climbed out the small window in the cellar, barely squeezing through the narrow gap and out on to the gravel, and from there I walked quickly to the Mustang which was parked just a dozen yards away.

  When I got in the car, I soon discovered the keys were not in the ignition.

  What the hell?

  I had left them there so where were they?

  I jumped when I heard a knock at the window. Frank stood outside, dangling the car keys. I wound the window down.

  “Looking for these?” he said. “What’s going on? You thought I wouldn’t see you run out here.”

  “Just give me the keys, Frank. Please.”

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  “I can’t tell you. You have to trust me. Please give me the keys.”

  Frank thought for a moment then shook his head. “No. I’m not letting you go off so you can do something stupid.”

  “Goddammit, Frank. You owe me.”

  He stared at me for a moment and then threw the keys in my lap. “Try not to get yourself killed,” he said and then walked away, back into the cabin.

  Putting the keys in the ignition, I started the car and drove off, Frank’s final words still echoing in my mind.

  I’ll be fine, Frank.

  I wasn’t so sure if my soul would be though.

  Chapter 23

  I drove out in Josh’s car to some farmland not far from the cabin where I knew I could find a crossroads. It was almost dawn when I got out of the car and walked to the middle of the crossroads. On every side of me there were flat fields, with grass to the left and tilled soil to the right. There were no buildings of any kind for miles.

  I was completely alone out there in the cold silence of dawn.

  Assembling what I needed for the spell, I brought the items to the middle of the crossroads and placed them on the dirt road. The last thing the spell required was for me to write down on a piece of paper my request and then burn the paper on top of the rest of the items, which I did.