The Hunter

by Theresa Meyers

  “No. I let a demon beat me once and nearly lost my brother because of it. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it happen again.”

  Colt fixed his gaze on Rathe’s yellow eyes. “What do you want?”

  “It’s really more a question of what you want,” Rathe replied, stroking his long, pale fingers over the front of the open vellum page of the Book. “You’ve caught me on a good millennium. I’m willing to negotiate with you, Hunter. You can leave. But Lillith and your portion of the Book of Legend stays with me.”

  Colt gazed at the fine network of angry red scars on her skin and realized how much she’d been tortured in his short absence. “No deal.”

  “You wish to counter my offer?”

  “Yes.”

  Rathe leaned forward. “I’m listening.”

  “I’ll stay. You turn Lilly human again and let her go with the Book. You get me, and a shot at the other two pieces of the Book when my brothers come looking for me.”

  “Tempting ...” He paused as if truly considering it. “But no. I’d consider letting Lillith or the Book return to your realm if you stay, but not both.”

  Colt pondered that. There had to be another way around this.

  “Think it over, Colt. Lillith or the Book? Which will you choose?”

  Colt’s gaze connected with Lilly’s. She could see the thoughts flitting across his mind as if they were said aloud. He’d made a promise. He was going to get her out. She had no doubt Remington and Winchester would come for him and the Book. He probably thought he could endure anything Rathe could throw at him until his brothers got him out. But Lilly knew better.

  She’d seen the particular enjoyment Rathe got from torturing souls—the barbed blades, the slicing razors, the hooks, axes, and acid he used. There was not a shred of doubt within her being that Colt would be tortured long and hard before he died and became yet another lost soul under Rathe’s control.

  Colt’s brow bent in determination. He’d made his decision. And she could already tell it was the wrong one. He turned to Rathe and set his shoulders. The muscles along his jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth. “I choose Lilly’s freedom.”

  No. Lilly gasped. He’d gone mad. What difference did it make if she was left to Rathe’s torture? At least the world would be safe. “What are you doing?”

  He caught her gaze and held it. She was stunned; his eyes were so cool, so hard and focused, they looked like deep river ice. “I’m doing what I have to. I made you a promise, and I’ve never broken my word.”

  Rathe clapped in a slow, measured beat as if applauding a theatrical performance. “How very touching. Now, if you don’t mind, I should very much like to conclude our business.”

  He pointed a long finger at her, the fingernail extending and becoming a long, dark talon. “Lillith Marie Arliss,” his voice boomed and echoed like thunder off the rock walls, “you are henceforth freed of your debt to me. I take back what I have given you.”

  A bolt of invisible fire speared her through the chest, knocking her off her feet as it spread like acid through her veins, eating away at her from the inside out. She let out a bloodcurdling scream and collapsed to the floor writhing, arching, unable to stop it.

  “You said you’d free her!” Colt shouted, tensing against her.

  “And so I have,” Rathe replied, his tone dripping with sadistic pleasure. “No one said becoming human again would be painless.”

  Colt wrapped his strong arms beneath her and tried to lift her, but the burning only increased. She bucked and thrashed, trying to escape the pain. She tried to scream and a billowing cloud of blackness poured from her mouth instead, shooting up and out, spiraling through the air and into Rathe’s open maw. In a last blinding flash, whatever warred inside her consumed her, leaving her feeling charred and fragile. She collapsed on Colt’s lap as he sat beside her. His strength, his warm, loving touch were all that kept her tethered to her consciousness.

  If only I could help him, she thought. But she could tell by how badly she hurt in every muscle and tendon of her body that she was nothing but a mere mortal now. Not a demon with powers. Not even a strong woman with a weapon.

  Colt had given up everything for her to become human once more, and she could do nothing to save him.

  Hot, fat tears streaked down her cheeks, and she whimpered. Colt gathered her up tightly in his arms and held her, kissing her hair, which only made her regret more acute.

  “I’ll find a way back to you. I promise,” Colt whispered fiercely as they locked hands.

  But she knew even if he believed that was possible, it could never, would never happen. Once Rathe took, he rarely, if ever, gave back.

  “Go,” Rathe waved a clawed hand dismissively.

  And with that her hand dissolved into a dark mist that dissipated between Colt’s fingers. There was nothing left to grasp and hold on to. He was gone, and she’d never told him she loved him.

  Chapter 25

  For a moment Lilly couldn’t breathe. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed at the blinding glare spearing red through her eyelids. Lord. Was she dead?

  Would she know if she were dead?

  She lay very still. Death was cold, wasn’t it? But the light was warm, gentle. Tentatively she let her eyes flutter open, squinting as her eyes adjusted. Sunlight. Brilliant blue sky. The enormous brown eyes of Colt’s inventor friend.

  She gasped, scooting back crablike on the ground to get away from him. “Wh-what do you want?” she stuttered. The last thing she needed was to fight off a demon Hunter when she no longer was one.

  “Are you hurt?” He held a red and white Navaho-style wool blanket out to her. Lilly waited for a moment, then grabbed it close, covering the tattered, stained remains of her undergarments, suddenly aware of how exposed and truly awful she must look.

  His question took her by surprise. She frowned as she took mental stock of herself. There were aches and pains, but nothing abnormal, nothing she couldn’t breathe through if she tried hard enough.

  She looked around. The rugged brown rocks near her swept down into a valley with a little town at the bottom. She appeared to have landed at the top of a zigzagging path that led up the hill. The air smelled desert sweet, and the sagebrush near her head rustled and crackled with the breeze. “Where am I?”

  Colt’s inventor friend, his white tuft of hair askew, studied her through his elaborate multi-lensed brass and leather goggles. Lilly pressed a hand to her temple. Her head hurt so badly all her thoughts were fuzzy. What was his name? Merlin, Martin, Marley? Yes, Marley, that was it. Marley Turlock.

  “Where am I, Mr. Turlock?”

  “You’ve somehow landed, quite unexpectedly, in my front yard, Miss Arliss.”

  “Your yard?” She glanced around at the rocky patch of cactus and the strange squat wooden house with the multiple articulated arms with pincers and telescopes, magnifying glasses and cannon-like barrels, which extended from the roof like the appendages of an enormous insect.

  “Where’s Colt?” She sat bolt upright and groaned at the bruising pain in her solar plexus. It felt as though she’d been kicked in the chest by a horse. She tried to take a deep breath, but it knifed into her lungs, leaving her gasping and panting.

  Mr. Turlock crouched beside her and put a hand on her back to steady her as she swayed. “Colt didn’t arrive with you.”

  Her heart stopped for a moment, then picked up the beat to twice as fast. “Then he’s still with Rathe!” She grabbed hold of the lapels of Marley’s pale brown laboratory coat and shook him so hard his brass buttons rattled. “Mr. Turlock, we have to help him. You don’t know what Rathe’s capable of. I’ve got to go back to Hell. Now. Right this very minute!”

  He covered her trembling hands with his own and gently removed them from his coat, pulling the slipping blanket more securely about her shoulders. “There, there, Miss Arliss. You haven’t known the Jackson brothers as long as I have. If there’s any way for Colt to return, he’ll manage it.”
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br />   Lilly shook her head violently. “You know the Jackson brothers, Mr. Turlock, but you have surely never come face-to-face with the archdemon Rathe. There is no way Colt will be set free. He’s up against more than you can possibly imagine.” A sob strangled in her throat, she hiccupped, but the hot pricking sensation behind her eyes wouldn’t be stopped. “And there’s nothing I can do now to help him.”

  The inventor glanced down at his utility belt and quirked a thick, dark brow, which barely arched above the edge of his brass goggles. “My word,” he breathed, so it came out a fascinated whisper. “I thought it was a fluke, but it appears to be true.” He peered intently at her, and Lilly had the ridiculous sudden urge to reach up and touch her face to make sure none of her features had been rearranged in transit.

  From his leather utility belt he pulled out a long cylindrical copper tube with a crystal attached in a hollowed-out cavity in the middle of it. For a second Lilly held her breath as he passed it back and forth over her. It did nothing. No flare of red light. No shot of electricity, and she was immensely relieved.

  “Miss Arliss, are you aware that you aren’t a demon any longer?”

  Lilly gave a short brittle laugh as she pressed a fist to the very real ache of regret lodged deep in her chest. “Very.”

  He shoved his goggles to the top of his forehead. Without them, his soft brown eyes looked normal-sized and full of wonder. “You actually managed to become human again? But how?”

  “It was none of my doing. The demon lord I made a bargain with in the first place revoked my powers.”

  “But you haven’t aged a bit. It’s quite remarkable.”

  Lilly pulled the rough wool blanket closer around her shoulders. There was a cold, hollow feeling invading her bones that she couldn’t stop. “And it couldn’t have come at a worse time. There’s nothing I can do now to help Colt escape Rathe.”

  Marley tucked his demon detector away in his belt. “I think you’ll find our Colt is far better equipped to deal with a demon lord than you think.”

  Lilly didn’t miss the part about Colt being ours, as if Marley was now including her in their close-knit Hunter group. Too bad it was too little, too late. “So you’ve said. Tell me, Mr. Turlock,” she cocked her head to one side and looked at him, “now that I’m human again, am I more acceptable to you?”

  The inventor had the decency to splutter. “Well, I, you see, I say, really—”

  She closed her eyes for a moment and shoved her snarled hair away from her face, then took a deep breath and locked gazes with him. “Can you help me get Colt back?”

  “I must say, she played her role even better than I imagined possible,” Rathe drawled as he leaned back in his black throne, a picture of a wealthy gentleman at ease after a night at the opera.

  Colt knew the demon was baiting him. He’d seen the truth in Lilly’s eyes, felt it in the way her body shuddered when he’d held her close. The last thing she’d wanted was for him to exchange himself for her.

  For him there wasn’t even a choice. He’d promised. And he still had one more promise to keep. He would return to her.

  “I don’t believe you.” Lilly would have never betrayed him.

  Rathe chuckled, the sound grating and mirthless. “I suppose you wouldn’t. The two of you have gotten fairly close while she’s been with you, haven’t you?” He paused, the vertical slit of his pupils widening slightly like a cat sighting its prey. “She’s human now,” Rathe said. “In exchange for bringing me the Book, and serving up one of the Chosen, I gave her her heart’s desire. She got what she wanted. And I got what I wanted. You—” Rathe’s mouth split in a parody of a smile. The black talons retreated into his fingertips once more and he brushed his hand over the folds of his snowy cravat, fingering the stickpin with the blood-drop ruby within the white folds. “What do you get, Hunter? You could go to her. Give up hunting, settle down, have the perfectly human,” he shuddered in revulsion, “life you were born to lead.”

  Colt snorted. “I fail to see how that could possibly happen at this juncture. I’m stuck here.” He gestured to the rock walls of Rathe’s lair.

  “Ah, but you don’t have to be.” The yellow in Rathe’s eyes turned more poisonous as the pale skin around them tightened. “There is a way to have your heart’s desire, Colt Ambrose Jackson.”

  Curiosity curled in Colt’s belly, urging him to ask, while reason and every ounce of his Hunter instinct shouted at him to ignore the archdemon. Curiosity and his desire to see Lilly won out. “How?”

  “Leave the Book.”

  Colt gave a bitter laugh. “That’s amusing. Just the Book? I’m not that green. What else?”

  Rathe’s mouth split his face in a dark red line, a ghoulish grin that crinkled his waxy skin and exposed his sharp, angular teeth nestled in black gums. “Well, there is the matter of you taking my youngest daughter from me.”

  Colt tensed. Shit. He knew that was going to come back to bite him like a stepped-on rattler. Didn’t matter if it was an accident or not. “I killed her in self-defense.”

  Rathe’s golden eyes bored into him. He didn’t give a damn what Colt’s puny human reasoning had been. The end result was Colt had killed his youngest daughter. The demon wanted more than the Book, he wanted retributi—

  There was no warning.

  The red-hot sting of a flaming Darkin whip stripped an inch-wide length of shirt and skin from across Colt’s back with the force of a lash, knocking him to his knees and setting his shirt on fire. Colt rolled onto his back to put out the flames, but it did nothing for the wound already puckering and seething at the unnatural fire seeping into his skin. “That is for turning my demon against me.”

  Colt barely had time to suck in a breath before the whip struck again, this time across his chest like a hash mark, crossing over and reopening the nearly healed wounds the shifter had raked across his chest. Colt cried out in agony, slapping out the flames on his chest, his hands slick with his own blood, his shirt falling in singed tatters to the floor. “That is for my youngling.”

  Colt gasped against the pain. Out of the corner of his eye Colt saw the fiery length of the supernatural whip arcing toward him once more and tried to scrabble away. It wrapped around his neck, burning and growing tighter as it dragged him back toward Rathe, slicing through his skin like a wire through clay. Colt pulled at it with his hands, only to have his fingers blister. He couldn’t breathe. The pressure behind his eyes increased, making them feel as if they were about to explode. Darkness crept in on all sides, crowding out Colt’s field of vision.

  “Oh, don’t go anywhere until you’ve heard my offer.”

  And as fast as the whip had appeared, it vanished. Colt gasped, sucking in a great lungful of air tinged with the scent of his own blood and burning flesh. The moaning of a soul in agony filled his ears, and he realized it was his own voice.

  “That’s only a taste of what I have in store for you if you stay with me.”

  Colt panted against the pain, the burning as if all of him were still on fire, his knees and hands and cheek pressed against the cold marble floor. “What the hell do you want from me?”

  “Your soul. Give it to me.”

  He raised his head and gazed at Rathe. “And become your demon? No. Way. In. Hell.”

  Rathe’s eyes pulsed with yellow maliciousness. “You amuse me, Colt Ambrose Jackson. Tell me, would it make any difference if I told you that you can take my generous offer, or Lilly can take your place? I do so enjoy working on her.” Rathe cocked his head like an inquisitive bird of prey inspecting the mouse caught in its talons before ripping off its head. “Your soul and the girl, or you refuse and I torture her while you watch. You must admit it is a tempting offer, though, isn’t it?”

  “Give up the Book and be your slave is what you mean,” Colt panted.

  Rathe held up his hands and gave a little shrug. “Oh, you’ve already lost your family’s third of the Book of Legend.” He leaned forward. “The question is no
t keeping the Book, but rather how you wish to spend your remaining years; here as my personal entertainment, or with her.” He slowly pointed up.

  “Speak plainly. What do you want?” Colt was afraid, deathly afraid, that he knew what this monster wanted. And everything in him fought off the bone-deep terror that was threatening to make him into a jibbering, mindless fool.

  “I want your soul.”

  Pain speared Colt through the heart like a red-hot bullet. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Rathe had a point. He’d lost. Now it was just a matter of bargaining to determine his future. And Lilly’s.

  He counted himself as hard to break, but everyone had a breaking point if you found just the right place to apply pressure. Colt hung his head and sighed, then struggled to his feet, swaying slightly, and locked his gaze on Rathe. “I’ll give you one-tenth of my soul.”

  Rathe picked up the Book and tucked it under one arm, his gaze fixed on Colt’s face as he stepped down from the dais and walked slowly toward him. “Three-quarters.”

  “One-quarter,” Colt countered in desperation to preserve as much of himself as he could.

  Rathe stood less than an arm’s length away, close enough that the sulfur stench of him burned Colt’s throat. “Half. And that’s my final offer,” the demon lord said quickly, his voice holding an edge of anticipation and excitement.

  Everything within Colt balanced on a razor’s edge. His heart seemed to slow, pounding harder, louder in his ears. This was it. There was only one thing he could do. “Agreed.”

  Rathe held out his long, thin hand. “I want your promise, Hunter.”

  Colt hesitated, then took it. Rathe’s cold, dry, dead flesh made everything inside him shrivel. A suffocating blackness, like oily smoke but denser and far more vile, slithered out of Rathe’s mouth and hung suspended in the air between them. They were the two hardest words he’d ever said, and it took everything within him to say them. “I promise.”