by Terry Spear
“If none of the stuff works to prove they’re demons though, we can’t be sure. We can’t kill one just because we think one is. If we kill a human, we’ll be in trouble.”
Yes! But Celeste wasn’t willing to be the guinea pig so they could learn what would prove she was a demon, or not, if Mikey wasn’t Bengal and she was just confused in thinking he was. Her head was still splitting in two, and she had to be mistaken. If she could move beyond the circle, maybe they’d realize she couldn’t just disappear, and she couldn’t be one. They hadn’t even given her a chance to come up with a good story to explain the demon business she’d been discussing with Alana.
She rocked the chair until she was able to plant her feet on the cement floor. Then she tried hopping until she reached the edge of the circle, and fell outside of it, hoping to break the chair, but it was too sturdy. At least she was outside of the circle. That would prove she wasn’t a demon, wouldn’t it?
But if it was Bengal, he knew very well what she was.
She’d made such a racket, the door to the basement creaked open.
Her heart was pounding like she’d run ten miles in a marathon. Surely, Alana and the rest of her friends would know she’d disappeared by now and was in trouble. She guessed she needed to let them know she was going to be gone and for what reason, now that she was part of the team. She’d been alone for so long, dealing with all these issues, that she wasn’t used to sharing with others.
“She’s outside of the circle!” Anna said.
They didn’t come down the stairs like she’d anticipated, maybe afraid that once she was outside the circle, she could do terrible things to them. Like she could do anything to anyone while tied to a chair, her mouth still gagged? Get real.
She just hoped if they didn’t aggravate her any more than she was already pissed off that her eyes wouldn’t start glowing red.
“What do we do now?” Anna asked Mikey.
Run for your lives, Celeste wanted desperately to tell them.
“We can’t reach her now, or she could eliminate us.”
Good, so go!
She smelled smoke and heard the crackling of flames. She tried to wrench her wrists free from their confinement, but she couldn’t. She kept trying, knowing that even if she hurt her wrists, she’d heal quicker than humans, but she couldn’t get loose. Were the ropes loosening a bit? Or was it her imagination? Mikey was a dead human, or demon, if he really was Bengal.
She vowed never to go off on her own again, without informing her friends! If she survived the fire…which she realized she was envisioning…and it wasn’t happening just yet. No smoke. No crackling.
* * *
“Okay, we’ve tried all the places we know of that Celeste goes to when she skips school and has to get away from it all.” Alana didn’t know how Celeste could manage having future visions on a daily basis and live with it. But she knew that sometimes Celeste had to get away to someplace quiet. At least that’s what she told Alana. If Celeste’s demon type sought danger, that didn’t fit. Unless, she had to get away to somewhere quiet to figure out what her psychic visions meant and what she could do to change the future.
Was that what had happened? She’d seen something and had run headlong into danger?
Without telling them?
“They have to have taken Celeste,” Alana said. “Okay, we have to learn what Mikey’s last name is and where he lives. Who his friends are. Actually, if we go after his friends, they’d probably be more likely to fold under pressure than he would.”
“Then that’s our next mission,” Hunter said.
Jared was on it. He passed out the addresses to everyone.
“Everyone pair up. Alana’s with me,” Hunter said.
“I’m Alana’s—”
“Don’t say it, Samson. You’re with Jared.” Hunter looked at the list. “We’re going to take this half of the list. Send it to me, Jared.”
“That includes Mikey.”
“Right. We’ll go after a couple of others first. Anna, first, and then go from there,” Hunter said. “Let’s go.”
“Anna’s one of the girls who solicited us to join the group. We sat with her at lunch,” Alana said, going to Hunter’s black pickup.
Jared and Samson went in his neon yellow Jeep, but Jared didn’t look happy about going with him. He and Hunter had worked so long together that he didn’t like that Hunter wanted to do as much as he did with Alana.
Alana wished Jared or Samson would get interested in Celeste the way that Hunter was interested in her, but Celeste had to be around more too. She thought Celeste still didn’t feel part of the group yet.
“Do you think Jared is all right?” she asked Hunter.
He gave her a dark look. “About what? We have a mission to complete, and he knows it.”
“Yeah, but he’s worked with you for years.”
“He’ll have to get used to it. We work together, sometimes separately, sometimes with other team mates, whatever the situation calls for.”
“All right. Just saying that sometimes I think his feelings get hurt.”
“He’s full demon.”
“He’s not a Matusa. But even they have feelings.”
Hunter snorted. “Are you still trying to reach Celeste telepathically?”
“Yes. And I keep calling her cell.” Alana was looking at the demon tracker also. “She has to be some distance away as we can’t…wait, I’m seeing a signature! It’s a Camaran’s signature!”
“And there’s an old house on fire straight ahead.”
“That’s…that’s where she is! It’s got to be her.” Alana’s heart was drumming in her ears, and she quickly contacted Samson. “I found her. I believe. But a house is burning, and I think she’s at the same location.”
“I was using Jared’s tracker, and we finally saw her signature, and yours too. We’re not too far behind you.”
As soon as Hunter slammed on his brakes in front of the abandoned house, Alana was jumping out of the vehicle.
“Wait, Alana!” Hunter wished he had more control over her.
She immediately began using a water spell to douse the burning house.
“These people are vicious,” Hunter said.
“If we can get their ring leader, that might be the end of it.”
Jared slammed on his brakes, his Jeep skidding to a halt. Both he and Samson jumped out of the Jeep. Hunter raced toward the burning house.
“Hunter!” Alana shouted.
Now she had to know how he felt when she did crazy stuff that put her life in danger.
She doused him with water, and he ran into the burning house.
“Celeste!” he yelled out, but she didn’t answer. He pulled out his tracker and in the smoke, the light of the tracker helped him to see she was down in a basement. “I’m coming!” The place was filled with smoke, and he raced down the stairs, barely able to see. Staying low, he saw a window. As soon as he saw it, the glass shattered.
Jared hollered from the broken window, “Are you in the basement, Hunter? That’s where she is.”
“Yeah.” And then Hunter saw her tied to a chair. She’d better not be dead. “Celeste! I found her!” He cut the ropes binding her and pulled off her gag. “Celeste.”
Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t open them. Her heartbeat was faint. He needed to get her out of the burning house. Some of the roof collapsed, and they heard sirens. He needed to get her out of here before anyone discovered they were here. After all the business last time with Alana being found in the vicinity of a murdered man at the zoo, they really didn’t need to be found at the site of a burning house.
“We’ve got company,” Jared hollered.
As if Hunter didn’t know it already.
Mist sifted in through the house and suddenly Samson was there. “Let me help you.”
Hunter had Celeste in his arms, and he didn’t need Samson’s help at this point. Unless he knew CPR.
“I’m good.”
/> The house was in flames, but Alana was concentrating on casting water on the part of the house where he and Samson were so that when they ran outside with Celeste, they were dripping with water and black soot.
“Get her in your pickup, and I’ll do what I can,” Alana said, hurrying to jump in the back seat of his pickup.
He laid Celeste back there with her, and Alana began to give her CPR.
Hunter jumped into the driver’s seat. “Go, go, go!” he shouted to Jared and Samson, both of whom were running for Jared’s Jeep.
The two vehicles tore off away from the house, and he hoped no one caught sight of their license plates before they disappeared down the road. Jared’s Jeep was way too conspicuous.
“How is she?” Hunter asked, praying they had reached her in time.
Celeste began to cough.
“She’s going to be fine, but we need to take her home, now.”
“Not to an emergency room?”
“No. We’ll take care of her. She’s suffered from smoke inhalation, but we can’t take her to a hospital or they’ll know that she’s been in a burning house. Recently.”
“Can you take care of her?”
“I’m a healer, remember?”
Celeste looked pasty gray. He hoped Alana knew what she was doing. So far, they hadn’t lost one of their team mates. They’d been lucky. He didn’t want to lose any of them now. And since he was in charge of them, he was the one who was ultimately responsible.
Alana reached over the seat and rubbed Hunter’s shoulder. “We’ll get the people who did this.”
“Yeah, we will.” Hunter had every intention of going after them. Now.
“Listen, I know you well enough that I’m sure you plan to tear after them on your own. You can’t. Look at what happened to Celeste when she was by herself. Yeah, yeah, before you say anything, I know that you believe she’s just a Camaran and you’re a deadly Matusa, so she didn’t stand a chance, but you do. We need to learn who did this to her before you take off after them. And you need to take Jared and Samson with you. I’ll call my mom, and she can help protect us, if you’re worried anyone might come after us.”
“Yeah, I am, and Samson is supposed to guard you.” Hunter didn’t like it, but he could run into more trouble than he bargained for, if he went off on his own. Alana was right that they needed to know just who had done this to Celeste.
Celeste coughed again.
“I’d rather you take both of them with you.” Their breaths frosted and she said, “Indigo’s with us.”
He was totally useless most of the time, but Hunter didn’t voice his opinion this time out loud. For once, he wished the ghostly Matusa could help them out, but he knew he would still have wanted Alana for his own.
He parked at Alana’s home and hurried to carry Celeste into the house. Alana was already rushing to the door to unlock it, and she was on the phone to her mother. “Yes, yes, can you come home now? We might need some of your spells in case we have trouble. No, not against bad demons. Against bad humans. So, it shouldn’t be that difficult a job. Celeste was hurt bad.” She followed Hunter into the house, and he hesitated, not knowing where to carry Celeste.
“Her room—”
“Living room,” Celeste choked out. “I don’t…want…to be…alone.”
“Let me get a blanket to wrap her in,” Alana said.
He figured Alana didn’t want Celeste making a mess of the couch, her clothes no longer dripping water, but she was damp and sooty.
Jared and Samson barged into the place. “How is she?” both asked at the same time.
“I’ll live,” Celeste said, her voice raspy and barely audible. She coughed some more.
Alana spread a blanket out on the couch, then wrapped Celeste’s wet hair in a towel. She covered her with another blanket. “Who did this to you?”
“Mikey. Anna was with him. But she was against…” Celeste coughed. “Against hurting me. Unsure if I was a demon.”
“They didn’t see your red eyes?” Jared asked.
She shook her head. “Mikey’s…” She coughed again, tears in her eyes. “He’s an Elantus demon.”
Everyone stared at her like she was nuts.
“He looked human when we saw him,” Jared said. “Why would he try to kill you?”
“Ex-boyfriend. Apparently, he can cloak his demon heritage so he looks like a human.”
Hunter swore under his breath. “Okay, so he was hiding his demon aura when we met him. Like you can do.”
“Yes.”
“Has he always lived here?” Hunter asked.
“Years. I met him…when I was thirteen. He’s not…like me, exactly. Not like…Jared. Why would he hurt…a human? Unless the teen somehow…knew he was a demon?”
Hunter rubbed his chin in thought. “Because the kid angered him, maybe? Why would Mikey start up a demon hunter group?”
“It amused him?” Celeste coughed, then closed her eyes. “He has a dark sense of humor. Darker than most of us.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“He…he set fire to the place. I…freed a teen they had tortured.”
Hunter crouched before her, frowning. “Who was the teen?”
Celeste opened her brown eyes, filled with tears. “Someone…wearing one of our…school T-shirts, but he appeared…younger than us.”
Hunter ran his hands through his hair. “Okay, so the teen got away. Who’s to say they won’t grab him again and try to kill him. This has to stop.”
“What do you plan to do?” Alana asked.
“He wants to find demons and question them? If he pretends to be a demon hunter when he knows just who is a demon already, because he’s already one, I’ll give him the opportunity to identify all the demons he wants,” Hunter said.
“You’re going to send him back to the demon world,” Alana said.
“Yeah. Perfect justice. He doesn’t belong here. He’ll go back. He’s full demon, right, Celeste?”
“Yes. As far as I know.”
“And the others?” Alana asked.
“We’ll see if they continue to pursue this business with the demons. If they lose their leader and don’t go any further with this, then we can let it go. But if they continue with demon hunting, we’ll have to take care of the new leader or leaders,” Hunter said.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Jared said.
“I should stay here with Alana and Celeste,” Samson said.
“No. You go with Hunter and Jared. My mother will be arriving soon. We’ll be fine. Go. Get him. Before he can hurt anyone else.”
“Maybe you should clean up a bit, Hunter,” Jared said. “Or he might figure we were at the burning house. Keep him guessing. If he is a demon, we don’t want him to know that we know. If he thinks you might have saved Celeste, and she might have figured out who he was, we wouldn’t have the advantage.”
“Feel free to use the guest bathroom, Hunter. I’m going to help Celeste wash up once she feels better,” Alana said.
Hunter walked into the bathroom, shut the door, and looked in the mirror. He couldn’t believe what a mess he was. He looked like he’d been in a firefight and barely made it out alive. He stripped off his clothes and took a shower.
When he came out of the shower, his clothes were gone.
“Where are my clothes!” If Alana thought to steal his clothes so he wouldn’t go after Mikey, she was mistaken. He wrapped a towel around his waist and opened the door.
Jared headed into the house with a change of clothes for Hunter. “The bag you always keep in your truck.”
“Thanks.” Hunter took the bag and closed the bathroom door. He’d learned long ago to always carry extra clothes in the line of work he did. Though being covered in soot was something he’d never considered. But he’d fought with a Matusa who had poisoned him once and his claws had torn up his shirt, and he’d bled all over it. So a change of clothes had been essential for difficult jobs.
After dressi
ng, he came out of the bathroom and was glad to see Alana’s mother had arrived home. She was fussing over Celeste who was cleaned up now and wearing fresh clothes.
“Alana told me what happened. Go get him,” her mother said.
“We’re on it.” Hunter pulled Alana into a hug and kissed her. “Stay safe.”
“I will, Hunter. You too.” She kissed him back.
And then he released her and headed back outside to his pickup.
“Two vehicles?” Jared asked.
“Yeah, show of force and to track him better if he runs. We’ll use his parents’ address to see if he’s there,” Hunter said.
They drove off, headed for Mikey’s house, ready to show him what a Matusa demon could really do.
6
Alana worried about Hunter, just as much as she knew he always worried about her, when they had to deal with something like this. Well, maybe not exactly something like this. It was a shame that Mikey’s parents would lose a son, but if he was truly a demon, and one with evil intentions, they were better off without him.
“So, the teen you rescued wasn’t a demon?” Alana asked Celeste, who was drying out her long hair.
“No. He was just an ordinary teen. Unless he can cloak his aura also. I didn’t have time to ask him why they thought he was a demon when I freed him. He escaped, and they took me down too fast after that,” Celeste said.
“What if he lured you there?”
“I had a future vision.”
“Oh. And you tried to change the future?”
“I saw the burning house, the teen. Oftentimes my visions are confusing. Disjointed. I thought the teen was going to die in the burning house. After I rescued him, I wondered if I was the one who was going to die in the burning house, not the boy. Did I change the future by freeing him? I don’t know.”
“Hmm, sounds like you might have.”
Alana’s mom was erecting barrier spells so that they would be warned if anyone tried to breach the place without an invitation. She had the barrier spells fine-tuned so that certain people would be able to enter at will—Alana’s friends, for instance.
Alana had used her healing abilities on Celeste’s throat and lungs, ridding her of the smoke that had filled them earlier. Celeste was still coughing some though. Alana had helped heal the trauma to the back of Celeste’s head also.
