Demon Hunter: Demon Guardian Series

by Terry Spear

  Jared crossed the bridge to take the second baby in his arms. Even removing the baby from the carrier was dangerous as they all balanced on the bridge. But Hunter had to admit he felt a lot more respect for his dad as he held onto Hunter so he wouldn’t fall while he pulled the baby free of the carrier. He passed her to Alana, and she handed her off to Jared, who carefully made his way back across the bridge to another waiting woman.

  “What do you want me to do? I can’t climb down there,” Alana said.

  “I’ll bring the people up, one by one, and you can levitate them over to the land. If they can manage the bridge, you could set them down on it. But they maybe in shock, or too terrified to navigate it.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ll carry the children up first, and then we’ll work on the adults together.”

  Before Hunter could climb back down the cable, the Matusa finally chanced climbing up on his own.

  Bentos laughed. “You’ve been down there all this time and finally got the courage to try it on your own, Viton?”

  The Matusa’s eyes widened when he saw Alana. So did Alana’s.

  “If you ever think of grabbing me again, I’ll—” she said.

  “I’ll take care of you,” Hunter warned the Matusa. “I’m her mate.”

  “And Hunter is my son, so you don’t want to aggravate me,” Bentos said.

  Viton looked at Alana and said, “You could have done so much better.” He gave her an evil smirk, then made it across the bridge.

  Hunter gave him a dark look, then headed back down the cable.

  Someone had made a makeshift harness for a four-year-old that would work for a couple more young ones, a man told him. After taking the last baby up, he began carrying up the next older children. Hunter strapped on the next child and began the climb again.

  After carrying the last of the small children up, the last two kids were twelve-year-old twins. Hunter said, “My mate is going to levitate the adults over to the land mass, unless any are fine with crossing the train bridge. It’s covered in snow and a little slippery. You’ll have to watch your step. After taking the twins, I want to take the moms of all the children.”

  “She can levitate us,” the one girl said.

  “Yeah, sure.” Then she frowned. “What kind of demon does that?”

  “My demon. All right, girls, one at a time. Then the moms.” Hunter helped the first of the girls up to the cable, and once she was there, Hunter said to Alana, “She wants you to levitate her.”

  “Over there. I don’t trust the bridge,” the young girl said.

  “You got it.” Alana called on her ability to levitate the girl over to the snow bank where several of the other passengers had gathered to help anyone from this car. Then she did the same for her sister.

  Afterwards, Alana levitated each of the moms. They were so happy to be reunited with their children.

  Hunter felt good about that. That was his mission in life: take care of demons and return them to their own world, but taking care of them here worked too.

  Alana managed to levitate fourteen more adults. All that were left behind now were the injured and family and friends who wouldn’t leave them behind until they were taken care of first. And the train conductor. He wished he could bring Alana down here to see if she could use her healing magic on them. But with her broken arm in a sling, she wouldn’t be able to manage the climb down, or to be able to hold on, if she could manage to levitate herself into the car. Not when it was standing on end and swinging in the wind.

  One female Matusa with a broken hip didn’t have anyone to help her so Hunter took her first. “Viton, that snake, left me behind at the first chance he had. I can’t believe he could have left before this and had to wait to see you manage first with a couple of babies. I will kill Viton for leaving me behind when I’m feeling better,” she promised.

  The train conductor wouldn’t leave until the last of the passengers had been helped out. Some of the men had climbed out on their own. Some couldn’t make it up the cable and Alana assisted those.

  The train conductor was suffering from a dislocated shoulder. Hunter and the man braced themselves until Hunter could put it back in place for him. “Alana will help heal it when we reach the safe place.”

  “She sounds like a real wonder,” the conductor said, slowly making his way to the top, groaning with pain.

  “She is.” And all Hunter’s. “How many cars were in front of this one?”

  “The three engines all made it before the bridge collapsed. Another passenger car fell into the ravine. It’s sitting right-side up on the ground. I’ve shouted to see if there are any survivors, but no response. We were afraid our car would join them and end up crushing them. Rescue operations will have to send mountain climbers down to see if there are any survivors.”

  Or maybe Alana could levitate Hunter down there to check for survivors. He didn’t want to leave anyone behind if they didn’t have to.

  * * *

  “You want me to do what?” Alana asked Hunter.

  “Listen, what if the car that’s hanging by a cable breaks away and lands on top of the other one down below? What if there are people trapped in there, injured, in shock, with no way to get help. Maybe not for hours? They could end up perishing. If you could levitate me all the way down there, I could see if anyone’s alive still and even needs rescuing. We still have no idea when anyone is going to come for us.” Hunter wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close. “Let’s do this.”

  “What if I drop you?”

  “You won’t. But if you did, I’d come back and snuggle next to you, just like Indigo does. You’ll never get rid of me.”

  “Oh, that would be just great. I’d be in a constant refrigerator zone. Okay, all right. Let’s do this.”

  He kissed her mouth. “Okay, send me down.”

  “If you’re going for hero of the demon world award, I believe you’ve already earned it.”

  “Not me.”

  Alana levitated Hunter and began to move him slowly down to the snowy ground next to the train car. She wanted him to hurry. The car swinging from the train tracks sounded worse by the minute.

  Hunter shouted out, “Any survivors?”

  She heard cheers from inside the car, and people who were able to, began climbing out to greet him. Until they saw he was a Matusa. Poor Dark One. He pointed up to Alana, she waved and smiled, and he explained what she was going to do.

  People on the land mass by the bridge cheered the people down below, and it was heartwarming to see the comradery.

  “How many of them are there?” she hollered to the conductor.

  “Forty-two,” he said.

  “Hunter, I’ll take two at a time. We’ll never get this done before dark.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. If I don’t, I won’t make it. I can do more, if it’s a couple of adults and a child.”

  While she was transporting small groups of people, Hunter and other uninjured passengers were carrying out the dead and injured and getting them ready to transport.

  She was ready to collapse, she was so tired. Hunter was the last one to be lifted, but he hollered, “Wait just a second!” Then he dashed back into the train.

  “Hurry, Hunter. This cable is fraying up here!”

  Then she heard it snapping. “Hunter!”

  He dashed back outside. “Okay, do it!”

  She began to levitate him, moving him toward the canyon wall where the rest of the people were waiting for him in anticipation.

  The cable snapped to the car where she was standing, shaking the bridge. She lost her footing on the slippery bridge and fell off it. Breaking her concentration on the levitation spell, she was horrified when Hunter fell also. In freefall, she quickly levitated the two of them at different points, not having thought she could do that, but her witch’s skills were improving, the more she practiced them. Something her Uncle Stephen always reminded her.

  She p
ulled Hunter up to where she was waiting for him mid-air, then went to hug him before she levitated them the rest of the way to the secure area. But something was meowing inside his parka, and she frowned down at it.

  “Stowaway kitten,” he said, smiling at her.

  “You are so…human.”

  He smiled again. “Hurry and get us to the top of the cliff. The kitten has claws that could rival a Matusa’s.”

  She laughed. “I will remember this always.”

  “About saving all the people, with your help. It was the only way we could have done this.”

  “About rescuing the kitten at the last.” She noticed a woman taking pictures of them and wondered how long she’d been taking them.

  The doctor and another healer had taken care of the injured as much as they could. And everyone shared what they could with each other, while Hunter gave the kitten to the twin girls to take care of.

  Hunter was going to give such a bad name for their kind, Alana was thinking, smiling at him. He sure could be cute. Alana thought maybe she could help everyone move two of the cars right-side up to make it easier to stay in them until they were rescued.

  “Hey, if we could do it, we’d have a lot more comfortable quarters, and it would make it easier to move in and out of the cars if they were right-side up,” she said.

  With the men and older boys, and a few really hardy women helping, and Alana’s levitation spell, they managed to right two of them. A third was on its top, and would have been impossible for her to flip around. Though maybe someday, if she needed such an ability, she could. But even with these two cars, she’d had a lot of muscle to help move them.

  * * *

  “Your Dad’s steaks sure sound good about now,” Hunter said, snuggling with Alana in their cabin, a blanket over the broken windows as he and his friends accommodated the Elantus woman and her child. Her room was being used by some of the people who’d been in the cars they’d lost in the ravine.

  Jared sighed. “You know what, I’m ready for the steak too. We can go to East End some other time to learn where a portal would lead. After we’ve well-recuperated. Besides, if I find my parents, then what? I’d need one of you to help get them back.”

  Samson agreed. “We work well as a team. We should stick together.”

  Celeste nodded. “Well, I mean, I’m not going anywhere until I can walk again.”

  Wendell sat next to Celeste. “Want to rest your head on my lap?” She was stretched out on one of the seats to accommodate her broken legs. Samson and Jared were sitting on the floor. The Elantus woman and her daughter were sharing the seat with Alana and Hunter.

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Hunter wondered if Wendell really liked Celeste because she’d saved him and she was a Camaran demon like him. But Samson watched them warily, looking as though he wished he’d offered first.

  They all napped as much as they could in the cramped quarters. Four hours later, they heard shouts from the other train car behind them.

  That’s when they heard a train pulling up on the tracks above them where their cars had once sat.

  Hunter was on his feet in an instant, ready to warn the train that the bridge was out, but it pulled to a stop.

  Everyone who could, climbed out of their cars, and medical staff and police officers were on hand, helping load the injured first, and then allowing everyone else to load into the remaining cars.

  The journey back to West Station was quick while police officers took everyone’s statements. Hunter was irritated when his friends wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise.

  “You should have seen the two of them. Between Alana’s ability to levitate the passengers from the two cars, and Hunter’s aiding all of them to navigate the cars, the two of them saved lives. You should have seen when the one car crashed into the other,” Jared said. “It looked like a tin can crushed under the weight of someone’s boot.”

  “And he saved a kitten,” Alana said.

  The policeman smiled, but then lost the smile when he looked at Hunter’s dark expression.

  It was an inborn trait for a Matusa. He couldn’t help himself. He was to be feared by lesser demons. Not made fun of, though he loved Alana for loving him for rescuing the kitten. And he was glad the girls cherished the fur ball. Though he hoped they really had wanted him and didn’t feel they had to take him because a Matusa gave it to them to care for. After their traumatic experience, he’d hoped the kitten would have helped take their mind off the experience.

  “Bentos was ordering everyone about too, organizing people to assist others. That’s Hunter’s dad. Everybody that could, worked hard to help,” Samson said.

  “Yeah, my Uncle Clyne, the doctor? He was instrumental in aiding a lot of the injured. So was Alana and another healer,” Jared said.

  The policeman finally glanced at Hunter as if he should have asked him for his input first. “I have nothing to add. They said more than enough.”

  The Elantus woman spoke up. “Alana saved me, when here she was concerned about her mate and her friends. She heard my girl crying and even though Alana had a broken arm, she still suffered, just to help me down from my room. The car was flipped on its side. I was unconscious. She healed me and brought me to stay with her injured friend while she went to help others.”

  “Thank you,” the police officer said, turning to Alana to see if she had anything else to offer.

  She shook her head.

  “She levitated the two train cars so that they were upright, and we could rest more comfortably until help arrived,” Jared added.

  “Yeah, but without you and everyone else helping, I couldn’t have done it by myself.”

  “Not me,” Celeste said. “I haven’t been able to help anyone do anything.”

  “You shared all kinds of fun stories with my daughter,” the girl’s mother said.

  Celeste smiled.

  The police officer again thanked them, and then he moved onto the next car.

  Someone else came along with a camera and took pictures of them.

  “Really?” Alana said.

  He just winked, got their names, and hurried on his way.

  “News reporter,” Wendell said. “Cameron Parks. One of our biggest news announcers. I’m sure this is going to make some headline news. And my parents are going to wonder what in the world I was doing traveling in the wrong direction.”

  “You were becoming a hero,” Hunter said.

  14

  As soon as the train reached West Station, Hunter was relieved. Could they get free train transportation to Alana’s dad’s place? If they even wanted to ride the train.

  They began to offload, Samson and Hunter carrying Celeste out of the train while Alana, Jared, and Wendell followed behind.

  “Hey, that’s the mayor,” Wendell said. “News reporters, more police officers, hospital emergency staff, wow, what a circus.”

  Bentos met up with them and said, “I’ve got a van for us.”

  “Us?” Hunter asked, wondering what his dad was up to.

  “Yeah, us. I spoke to the mayor about you being heroes, and he arranged for a van to take us to East End.”

  “Wait, I see my dad!” Alana raced off to meet up with her dad. “Dad!”

  “Alana!”

  Hunter glanced at Jared.

  “I’m going, I’m going.” Jared raced after her to provide her protection.

  “Well, maybe some of you want to ride in the van with me? Pappalios has invited me to dinner to celebrate your mating,” Bentos said to Hunter.

  “I’m riding with Alana and her dad,” Hunter said.

  “A van sounds good to me,” Celeste said.

  “I’ll go with Celeste,” Wendell said.

  “Me too,” Samson said, looking as though he was still supposed to protect Celeste as well as Alana now.

  “Good. I’ll lead the way.”

  “Why were you headed in the opposite direction on the train?” Hunter asked.

  �
�I had planned to go home and change clothes. That sort of went out the window when we ended up in a train crash, now we’re back here, and it’s time for dinner.”

  After Hunter left Celeste in Samson and Wendell’s care, and joined Jared and Alana to ride with her father, he was surprised to hear where the conversation was going.

  “You could have asked me where a portal would open from Seplichus to Earth world. It’s Amarillo. When you return to Dallas, you can take a flight or a car ride, to the city.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us you could come and pick us up?”

  “You said you were going to East End first. Besides, I don’t have a vehicle. I had to borrow this from a friend, and I usually only do so in emergencies. This was definitely an emergency.”

  They soon arrived at her dad’s place and it was a veritable mansion. Nothing like the condo where her mother and she lived. “You live here all by yourself?”

  “It was my family’s estate. They’re gone now. Passed away, so yes, I live here alone. Though I’ve brought your mother here whenever I can.”

  “On those secret trips she’s made,” Alana said.

  “Yes.”

  “Wow,” Jared said, “I thought we’d be sleeping in sleeping bags on the living room floor.”

  “No, that’s why I said everyone was welcome. We have room for everyone.”

  Bentos pulled up in the van behind them.

  Before they could carry Celeste into the house, a couple of men wheeled a stretcher to the van.

  “Oh, great. The royal treatment,” Celeste said.

  “I have a clinic of sorts here. Those of us who are gate guardians bring injured demons here to obtain medical treatment that we couldn’t offer through our healers. I’ve already seen the reports on the news about Alana’s broken arm and Celeste’s broken legs. We’ll have them x-rayed, and reset, if need be. Then, reduce the swelling, if necessary, and put you both in casts.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Thanks, Pappalios,” Celeste added.

  “I guess that means dinner will be delayed,” Bentos said.

  Everyone looked at him like he’d better not be annoyed about it.