by Terry Spear
When they reached the clearing in the woods where the group of “demon hunters” were meeting, they eyed the newcomers with suspicion.
A large fire was glowing, flames licking the chilly air. The trees surrounding them were mostly leafless, just dark branches silhouetted by the fire, the ground covered in a blanket of red, yellow, brown, and orange leaves.
"Okay so we're demon hunters," a brawny kid said, black hair, his dark eyes narrowed as a group of ten kids—other than the ones who had the real demon heritage—met in a wooded area beyond a housing development. "Wait, who said all these guys could join the team?" Yet he looked intrigued that he would have more minions to rule. Especially when he caught sight of Alana. Then his mouth curved up with wicked interest.
Hunter glanced at Alana, her blond hair in curls resting on her shoulders, and if he hadn’t known she was a half Kubiteron demon, he would have thought she was the prettiest girl there anyway. She was smart, good at killing demons, healing others, and he had to admit that she’d saved his life at great risk to her own when she hadn’t thought very highly of him. Which all had to do with his Matusa demon heritage. They were the highest order of demons, Kibiterons being beneath that, and Jared’s Elantus demon beneath that. Then there was the ghostly Matusa that was hanging around close by. Even now, Hunter could vaguely see the demon in a shimmering ghostly aura, when before he couldn’t.
Hunter knew it had to do with Alana’s abilities somehow. The longer he was with her, the more he seemed to have more new abilities too.
As a ghost, Indigo walked through the leader of this rabble of so-called demon hunters.
"Hey, Mikey, they were talking about hunting demons. That's what we do, all right? Sheesh," one of the girls said.
Celeste, a Camaran demon, who could cloak her demon aura, and poison a Matusa’s blood with her own, hadn’t made it to the party tonight. They hadn’t been able to get ahold of her, never saw her at school the rest of the day, and so they figured she had other business. She would take off sometimes like that, and not tell the rest of them where she was going or what she was up to. She sometimes foretold future events, which would or wouldn’t come in handy, depending on the trouble they found themselves in. But sometimes, she could change the future. Though they’d never seen any indication of that.
Alana was a witch and could deal with poltergeists, except for Indigo. If Hunter could have banished the annoying, full-blooded Matusa, he would have done so.
Samson, Samuria demon, insisted his job was to protect the Kubiteron gate guardian, which was Alana, but Hunter had assigned him the task of watching over Celeste. Not that Samson ever listened to him. In fact, there’d been a lot of insubordination when Hunter was the top demon kind and shouldn’t tolerate any of it. He guessed it was his human half that was giving him all the trouble in allowing it.
"So, you know what we're looking for? Had any experience?" Mikey asked.
How could anyone take the kid seriously with a handle like that?
Hunter cast Alana a look.
"A little," Alana said. "Do you have a…summoning book or something?"
It was the demon hunters’ mission to destroy summoning books whenever they heard of their existence. Then go after the summoner because some of them would memorize the summoning spell and wouldn’t need the book any longer.
"You mean like Dean and Sam Winchester have?" Mikey asked.
"Who?" Alana arched a brow.
Whoever they were, if they had a summoning book, they needed to destroy it. The kid had lost Hunter too. He wondered just who these Winchester guys were and figured they’d have to go after them next.
"You know, they go to the crossroads and bury a box, say a spell, and it summons a demon. Or they mark on a floor to capture the demon and do the same thing. They used to use a book, but they've captured so many of them, they've memorized the spells."
Which was always a real worry.
"Do you have a box like that?" Hunter asked, getting interested. But he also had to know more about these Winchesters.
"Yeah. But we haven't found the right crossroads, yet."
Alana glanced at Hunter. He shook his head. He hadn’t ever heard of such a thing in all the time he’d been hunting for the summoners, freeing the demons who wanted to return to their world, and eliminating the volatile Matusa who wanted to stay and rule Earth world. But it didn’t mean it didn’t exist. They were always running into new troubles.
"Why would you want to summon a demon?" Alana asked, sounding both perplexed and irritated.
"Duh. We're demon hunters. We hunt demons. If we summon one, then we can make it tell us where the others are."
"In the demon world," Alana said. "Not here. Not unless they happen to run across one another. Bringing them here is crazy."
She was right. The summoners usually brought them here, thinking they could use them to do their bidding. And they could—unless they accidentally brought over a Matusa. They wouldn’t be enslaved by anyone. And the summoner who thought so would learn quickly how fatal their mistake was.
"Haven't you ever watched Supernatural? Don't you know anything? The demons all group together and work as a team. Their eyes turn completely black and the whites of the eyes disappear and—"
"What?" Alana frowned.
"Okay, look, if you don't watch Supernatural, which is your way to learn how it's done, then you're not demon hunters. Watch the show. Learn something. Then come back, and we'll give you the initiation. If you pass that, then you can join the team. But you’ll have to be tested for six months before you’re officially in," Mikey said.
Alana shook her head. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
"What's the initiation?" Hunter had to ask.
Alana glanced back at Hunter’s pickup and looked like she was ready to leave, figuring the kids would never get anywhere with really summoning a demon if they were basing it on some T.V. series.
But Hunter worried they'd take this too far, find some innocent bystander and hurt the person, who was not a demon. Or even one of their own teammates accidentally.
"We have to make sure any new initiates aren't demons," Mikey said, his mouth curved in a small smile, almost demon acceptable.
Alana rolled her eyes.
Even though Hunter didn't think these kids could do anything to prove that he and his friends who made up the demon guardian team were demons or part demons, he still didn't like the idea. Though he did worry that if any of his team members got angry enough, their eyes would glow red. Apparently, that didn’t prove anyone was a demon, not according to the television show.
Still, he could envision this bunch of kids quickly reevaluating their demon kind.
A girl tossed water on Alana.
"Hey, what's the big idea?" Alana shouted, and Hunter quickly took hold of her arm in a persuasive, “keep control of your demon temper” way. She turned her glowing red eyes on him, total turn on for him, and he smiled right back at her.
She quickly tamped down her anger, evidently seeing the red of her eyes reflecting off his.
"It’s holy water. If you screamed out and burned up, we'd know you were a demon," the girl said, brows arched.
Alana looked at the heavens above as if she wished to be taken away from all this idiocy.
"Hey, take this seriously or you're not in," Mikey said.
The girl threw something white at Alana, and she frowned as the white stuff stuck to her wet clothes.
"Salt. You would have burned up with that too. And the last test?" The girl pointed at the ground. "That's the symbol that the Winchesters always use to ensure a demon is captured. Then they can get the truth out of them. If you were a demon, you wouldn’t be able to leave." She smiled.
Hunter didn't think the demon circle would hold them, but what if it did? "So you've never actually summoned a demon, caught one, or destroyed one?" Hunter asked.
"Oh, we've done the first two," Mikey said. "We just haven't destroyed it yet."
&n
bsp; "You don't mean us, do you?" Alana wiped the salt off her arms, trying to sound amused, but Hunter swore she was having a time controlling her demon heritage. The way she was clenching her teeth and the way she smiled at them was not in the least bit reassuring. Then again, it could be her witch’s heritage. He never could tell which one was more dangerous.
"No. Not you. We thought maybe the two of you were also. And that guy, Jared, and maybe even Samson," Mikey said looking each of them over.
"What makes you think Jared or Samson is one? They’re both just like the rest of us." But Hunter was getting really bad vibes about this. They said they’d summoned a demon and captured it. Did they mean Celeste?
"Because I'm a master demon hunter, and I know these things. We’re still not even sure about all of you," Mikey said. “You will have to be tested to make sure you’re not one of them. But only after you learn how it’s done. Watch the show and then return in three days’ time.”
“We’ll be back,” Hunter said, almost thinking of dropping the whole lot of them in the demon world so they could figure that out, and at least they couldn’t hurt anyone here. What bothered him though, was that they thought they’d already caught a demon, and since they thought it was a friend of theirs, they had to find Celeste, or whoever the person was, if that was really the case, and free him or her.
They headed to the vehicle, and Alana said to Hunter, “We have to find whoever they’ve captured, if they’re not lying about it. Where do we look first?”
“We need to find Celeste. I’m starting to really worry about her,” Hunter said. “If they believe she’s a demon, and they’ve taken her prisoner, we’ve got to free her and deal with these nutcases.”
“If it hadn’t been for these guys, I might have just figured she was off doing her own thing again. These guys could be a real danger to anyone they thought were demons, when they’re just ordinary humans, Alana said.”
They piled into the vehicle and drove off. “Do you see any sign of a Camaran’s demon signature?” Hunter asked.
Alana glanced at her demon tracker. “Nope. Nothing. How will we find her or whoever they took hostage?”
“First, we look at the paper,” Jared said.
“The paper?” Alana asked.
“For missing persons. The online newspaper.”
“Or we could check at the police station.” Alana kept watching her tracker to see if any demon signature showed up.
“Or I could hack into the police station computers.” Jared smiled and began tapping away at his keyboard.
Everyone shook their heads. Hunter was always awed at all that Jared could do with computers. Though Jared felt the same about Hunter and the way he handled the Matusa demons.
“Okay…” Jared paused. “No one is missing. At least no one has been reported missing.”
“So, either these kids lied, or they took a homeless person hostage? Or someone else like that who nobody would miss?” Alana asked.
“Celeste is missing,” Hunter reminded them.
“She does this. Lots,” Alana reminded him. “And no one would report her missing.”
“Do you think they’d really be able to summon a demon?” Samson asked.
“No. If they had opened a portal to the demon world, it would have called me to it,” Alana said.
Jared began playing something on his laptop. “Okay, the Winchesters really don’t know how to open a portal to summon demons. It’s just a T.V. series.”
“Good, so that means it’s a false alarm,” Samson said.
“Not if they’re taking this seriously, and Mikey has taken Celeste, or someone else hostage,” Hunter said. “When was the last time any of us saw her?”
Everyone looked at Alana because Celeste was now living with her and her mother. “This morning before I went to school. She made me eat breakfast with her. She didn’t say anything about skipping school.”
“Wouldn’t she have had some vision of something bad happening?” Jared asked.
“No,” Hunter said. “She told us she doesn’t always have them. She might not have had one before she was taken. If she was taken.”
“Okay, I’m going to try this and see if I can get ahold of her.”
“Telepathically?” Hunter asked. It was a great gift Alana had, though he’d kind of felt special when he was the only one she could contact before.
“Yeah. She can’t contact me back, but if she’s close enough, I could tell her the problem we’re facing, and we’re worried she might be the one who’s being held hostage. If she’s not, she can tell us via a cell phone that she’s not.”
Everyone waited.
Alana shook her head. “I tried, and she’s not ‘picking up.’ Unless she’s lost her phone or is too far away to receive my message.”
“Or is being held hostage,” Hunter said, his voice dark.
5
Her hands tied behind her back around a wooden chair, her legs tied to the legs of the chair, her mouth covered to keep her from screaming, Celeste considered the mess she was in. What good was being psychic if she couldn’t see the visions earlier than they were occurring? Like literally minutes before the guy knocked her out, and she had no time to protect herself?
Yes, her type lived for danger—but that meant calculating the risks too. Didn’t it?
Okay, so the fool vision told her that a bunch of loony teens from her school were attempting to torture another kid, who they thought was a demon. She had to save him. Just her. She knew so because she was the only one who was in her vision. Not her friends.
Why? Because she’d skipped classes again, the kid was near the park she was walking through, and she didn’t have time to call on her friends to help her. It was a simple case of free the kid, and they’d both take off. No one else was around the boy right now. It was just him, trapped in a basement. He appeared to be around sixteen, tied to a chair and gagged, terrified, his dark hair wet with perspiration, his brown eyes wild with fear.
She’d only had time to race into the house, find the stairs to the basement, and free him, when they heard people’s voices. She’d grabbed his hand and led him quietly up the stairs. Or at least tried to. Three of the steps creaked.
She hurried him the rest of the way up, and he dashed out the open front door before she could reach him. That’s all she remembered. Except for something hitting her in the back of the head and making her black out.
She appeared to be in the basement of the same house. Concrete block walls surrounded her, one set of stairs, a single window high above, and no furniture, except the wooden chair she was tied to. There were no sounds up above, and whoever had taken her hostage had hit her in the head so hard, she’d been knocked out. She wasn’t sure for how long, but her head still throbbed with renewed pain. She just hoped the boy had gotten away.
She wished she could reach her cell phone, still in her jacket pocket, but her hands were tied behind her back and no matter how much she tried to wriggle free, she couldn’t. She really wished she had some offensive abilities, more so than if her blood mixed with the blood of a Matusa’s open wound, his would be poisoned and wouldn’t coagulate, so it would run freely until he died. But that wouldn’t do her any good with someone who was human. She wished she could telepathically communicate with Alana, like Alana was now doing with her.
Celeste could cloak her demon type and pretend to be human, but that only worked with demons. Humans only believed she was human. Well, normally. This group of teens thought she was a demon. How had they come to that conclusion?
Unless, she’d said something to one of her demon guardian team while at school about visiting the demon world to find her parents. She’d been so excited about it, she might have said something to Alana and hadn’t guarded her speech like she should have.
Her chair was sitting in the middle of a circle, with salt placed around the outer edge. She guessed it meant she couldn’t break free from the demon barrier they’d erected. Little did they know that
nothing like that would stop her. Not like just plain old tying her hands behind her back had.
Man, she wished she could reach her phone, or turn into mist like Samson could, or become invisible, though when Jared did that, he was still his full solid self, so if she could do it, she’d just be invisible and tied to a chair.
She wished she could destroy the chair or her ropes like Hunter and probably Alana could. Or be able to compel someone to do something like Alana could. She wished the ghostly Matusa could find her and report back to Alana, who could see and understand him, and tell her where Celeste was being held hostage.
She wished she could do anything that would get her out of the mess she was in.
“I swear, Mikey, they could be a help to us,” she heard a girl finally say upstairs, as a door opened and shut and several footsteps followed on the wood floor above her.
“They’re friends of a demon,” Mikey said. “And, you heard them talking about demon stuff. If they’re friends of them, they’re not going to hunt them down. That other kid she freed, couldn’t have been one. He got outside the circle, and he didn’t just vanish.”
His voice…where had she heard Mikey’s voice before? The name didn’t register, but the voice sounded familiar.
“I still don’t know how you know she’s one. We tried all the usual stuff to check her out,” a girl said. “And on that Alana friend of hers too.”
“Yeah, and you heard Celeste. She was going to the demon world for spring break. She’s a demon! She was telling Alana. So, she’s got to be one too.”
“Or Alana’s under Celeste’s control and just human. Once we kill the demon, Alana won’t be under the demon’s control any longer,” the girl said.
“Get real, Anna. Once someone’s controlled by a demon, she or he is always controlled by one.”
Celeste wracked her brain to recall where she’d heard the voice before. Mikey. No Mikey. No…no…Bengal. Bengal? His voice was deeper now, but if it was him, he was an Elantus demon, her boyfriend when she was thirteen, before she was moved again to a new foster home, new city.
