by H G Lynch
I closed my eyes, thinking, She wouldn’t. Would she? I wanted to smack myself. Of course she would. “Shit!” I tried the door handle, but she’d locked it from the inside. Growling, I took a step back and lifted my leg, ready to kick the door off its hinges.
“Whoa, what the hell?” Angus said, coming out of his room and gawking at me.
I lowered my leg, glaring at the locked bathroom door. “You showed her how to climb out the bathroom window, didn’t you?”
His eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, shit.”
That was answer enough. I spun away from the door and pelted down the stairs with Angus hot on my heels. I grabbed my sword on my way out the front door, and I scanned the street. I thought I could see a faint figure stumbling away at the end of the street, and I cursed. What the hell was she thinking? She’d just found out there were demons walking the streets at night, that one of them had been following us earlier, and she’d decided to go for a late-night stroll? Was she insane?
Or was she just that desperate to get away from me?
I shook the thought away, feeling pain grasp my heart in a vice grip. Jesus, the girl drove me nuts! As soon as I got her back inside, I was going to spank her so fucking hard she wouldn’t sit for a week. Then I’d punish her for running away like an idiot.
Grasping my sword, I sprinted after her, my legs pumping hard and eating up the pavement. She hadn’t gotten very far, and as I caught up to her, I saw why. She was limping. Probably twisted an ankle jumping out that damn bathroom window. Crazy girl.
“Islay!” I called after her.
She glanced back. I saw her mouth from a curse, and I smiled. She knew she was busted, and I was going to haul her sweet ass back to the house if I had to throw her over my shoulder to do it.
Still, she was determined to get away, even though she was limping, and I could outrun her on her best day. She ducked suddenly around a corner and into a side street, heading for the industrial district, going the opposite way from her house. I shook my head, hearing Angus’s footsteps pounding the pavement behind me. She wasn’t going to lose me that easily.
I whipped around the corner and came to a halt. She was nowhere in sight. She’d vanished. But something else had appeared. Alarms suddenly screamed to life in my head, and a shiver went up my spine as I caught the scent of sulphur on the breeze. My gut turned over hard. The demon was back, and I couldn’t see Islay. Shit.
“Islay!” I yelled, my voice cracking.
Angus rounded the corner behind me and almost stumbled into me. “Where is she?”
“I don’t—” I started to say, but I was cut off by a shrill scream, and my heart squeezed so hard, I thought it would implode. “Islay,” I breathed, my lungs contracting in panic and terror.
The scream had sounded as if it came from up the street. If I remembered correctly, that road dead-ended into the back of a warehouse, which meant Islay was cornered. She had nowhere to go, no escape.
I was running before I even knew I was going to move, my entire being focused on getting to Islay before it was too late. I skidded around the corner at the end of the street, and immediately saw Islay backed into the warehouse wall, the demon towering over her with its claws raised. I knew in that instant that I would see that moment in my nightmares for months to come. The girl I loved cornered by the demon who’d killed my father, her face full of fear and anger as she held a broken piece of wood over her shoulder like a baseball bat.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as Islay swung the plank of wood at the demon’s head with a shriek of outrage. “Get the fuck away from me!” she screamed at it, and the demon hissed as it ducked back, barely avoiding getting clipped by the splintered end of the wood.
At my shoulder, Angus chuckled under his breath. “She seems to be holding her own,” he murmured.
I grimaced. She may have had a weapon and some serious guts, but I knew Islay was only alive because the demon didn’t want her dead—yet. I had to step in before it decided it was bored of playing with her. I pulled a dagger from my hip and handed it to Angus without looking at him. I was too afraid to take my eyes off Islay for one second. I knew how fast that demon could move. Islay could be dead in the time it took me to blink.
“You remember how to use one of these, baby bro?”
He snorted. “Like riding a bike.”
“Good. I’m going to distract it. I want you to get Islay out of there and take her back to the house.”
“I’m not leaving you alone to fight this thing, Ru.”
I gritted my teeth. “Yes, you are. Because, if you don’t, we could all end up dead, and I will kick your ghostly ass if anything happens to Islay. You got me?”
“Ru—”
I glanced at him, just for a second, and said, “Please, Angus.”
He sighed and nodded. “Fine. Just don’t get yourself killed, or you’re going to be in deep shit.”
I smirked. “You going to desecrate my corpse?”
“Nope. But Islay might if you don’t come back.”
I clapped my brother on the shoulder and jerked my head to the side. He followed my silent command and slipped away into the shadows, waiting for his opening to get to Islay. I lifted my blade, put two fingers in my mouth, and let out a shrill, ear-piercing whistle.
As I’d known it would, it got the demon’s attention, and its head whipped around. Glowing red eyes fixed on me, and a gruesome, fanged smile stretched its lipless mouth. “At lassst,” it hissed.
I started in surprise. “Holy shit, you can talk?” I’d never met a demon who spoke English before. Usually they just hissed and growled a lot.
The demon chuckled, turning toward me. I forced myself not to glance at Islay, for fear of reminding it she was there.
“Of courssse,” it said in a raspy, clicking voice that sounded like a dead car engine refusing to turn over. Clearly, its voice box was a bit rusty. “I am asss old as language itssself. There isss no tongue I cannot ssspeak.”
Good to know. I wondered what it would do if I started swearing at it in Irish. “Well in that case, any last words before I cut off your head?” I asked casually, twirling my heavy sword like it was part of my arm. God, I’d missed that thing.
The demon just grinned at me manically, its mouth spreading so wide, I thought the skin on its face would split over the sharp bones. But it seemed to have skin like rubber—it just stretched and stretched. Freaky.
“No? Okay then.” I shrugged, and then I lunged, bringing my sword around in a tight arc.
The demon stood perfectly still until the last second, disappearing when the blade got within an inch of its neck. I cursed and let the momentum of my swing bring me around. The demon reappeared lounging against the wall, mockingly arrogant. If I hadn’t hated the fucker so much, I might have liked its style.
Smirking, I walked toward it. “Nice trick.”
It tipped its head in acknowledgment and pushed off the wall, spreading its arms in an invitation for me to take another swing. I narrowed my eyes as I lifted my blade, bringing it down in an overhead arc, slowing the swing at the very last second. I was watching the demon’s body language, and as the glinting edge of my sword dropped toward its head, I saw its left leg twitch. I knew which way it was going to move, and in the instant it stepped aside, moving so fast it was just a blur in my vision, I brought up my foot and slammed it forward. My boot connected with the demon as my blade whooshed through thin air and the tip smacked into the ground. With an eerily human grunt, the demon stumbled backward.
I didn’t waste any time leaping forward and sweeping its legs out from under it while it was off balance. It almost managed to dodge out of the way of my second kick, but I lifted my sword to block its escape, and the demon roared as it hit the ground on its back. Immediately, it rolled into a crouch, but I’d stunned it enough to slow it down. I slashed my sword down toward its right side, feeling the heavy resistance of its thick, rubbery skin and tough bone as my blade cut through
it. The demon screamed as its right arm flopped to the ground, writhing as black blood spewed from the stump of its shoulder.
Unlike Catchi demons, Obsidian demons couldn’t regenerate body parts. They relied on their thicker skin to protect them. But my sword had been honed to a razor edge, so sharp it could cut through almost anything, including demon bones.
While the demon shrieked in agony over its lost limb, I kicked it square in the face, knocking it onto its back, and leapt onto its chest, planting my boot hard in its ribs. I made quick work of removing its other arm, just in case it decided to claw at me, and the demon let out another ear-shredding wail. From the corner of my eye, I saw Angus hustling Islay away, and let out an internal sigh of relief. But the fight wasn’t over yet. It wouldn’t be over until the demon was a pile of ash under my boots.
It glared up at me with those hellfire eyes, hate and evil shining so strong it made me feel sick. It snarled through its pointed, jagged fangs, apparently losing its grip on the English language it had claimed to know so well. I felt a strange sense of calm wash over me, adrenaline pumping through my veins like hot oil, my heart beating a steady rhythm. I raised my blade over my head for the final blow, and the demon watched me, no longer growling, as if it knew this was the end and there was no escape.
“This is for my father,” I whispered, my biceps tensing as I prepared to bring down the sword.
But the demon suddenly cackled, its red eyes squinting with mirth. “Your father wasss not my target,” it hissed, regaining the ability to speak. “You were! Othersss will come for you, Leanbh Bhais!”
My calm shattered, and I couldn’t breathe, my arms trembling. I was the target that night? My father had died, instead of me. I should have been the one bleeding on the floor that night. It should have been my blood on the walls. Agony ripped through my chest, nausea rolling through my stomach so hard I almost puked.
The sound of the demon’s harsh laughter brought me back to myself, and I stared down at it, white-hot rage boiling in my veins. It was lying. It had to be. Even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter. It had killed my dad, and I needed revenge.
I steeled myself, shoving my storming emotions into a corner of my mind and locking them tight. I lifted my chin and said flatly, “See you in hell, motherfucker.”
I brought my blade down in a hard arc, and blood sprayed over my face in warm droplets, dripping down my chin. My chest heaved with my heavy breaths, and my arms ached, my vision blurring as I stared at the decapitated demon corpse at my feet. But I felt no sense of victory—only grief.
My mother had been right. Killing the demon didn’t bring Dad back. He was still gone, and it was my fault.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
** Islay **
I heard the whistle of the sword slicing the air, and the clang as the blade met the ground. The silence afterwards was eerie. It was the sort of silence that made you hold your breath and made your heart pound. I was gripping fistfuls of Angus’s shirt, my knuckles aching, my face buried in his chest.
He laid a hand on my back and said quietly, “It’s over. You can look now.”
Slowly, I lifted my head from his chest and glanced over my shoulder. Ruairidh was standing over the demon’s body, his shoulders shaking, his sword dangling from his hand. Then he pulled his leg back, and, with a roar of rage, he abruptly kicked something across the alley, where it smashed against the wall and sprayed black goo everywhere. It was only once he’d stumbled backward that I realised it must have been the demon’s head he’d kicked because it was no longer attached to the corpse on the ground.
Breathing hard, he turned around, and my hand flew to my mouth. He looked destroyed. His hair was sticking to his forehead with sweat, black blood was speckled gruesomely over his face, and his eyes, his eyes were haunted. But, aside from a few scrapes, he didn’t appear to be injured.
Relief burst in my chest, and I tore myself away from Angus and ran at Ruairidh. He saw me coming and opened his arms just in time for me to crash into them with a sob. “Oh my God, oh my God, Ruairidh,” I gasped into his t-shirt, my arms wrapped around him so hard, I had to be crushing the breath out of him. But he didn’t seem to mind.
He clutched me tight, dropping his head onto my shoulder. He was shaking in my arms, his breaths hitching. He was whispering something, and I turned my head to hear him.
“Islay. Islay. Islay.”
He was murmuring my name over and over like a prayer.
I stroked his hair, taking strength from the way he leaned on me. I was scared, so scared, after coming face-to-fangs with a real demon, after seeing Ruairidh fight it, throwing himself in front of those lethal claws. I’d just about had a heart attack when I saw him lunge at that monster, his sword pulled back over his shoulder, looking like a fearsome warrior with rage in his eyes.
Now, he was just a boy trembling against me, and my heart beat hard in my chest for him. If it was possible, I loved him even more right in that moment.
** Ruairidh **
I clung to Islay for dear life, distantly aware I was muttering her name like a crazy person, but Jesus Christ, I’d thought for a minute there that I might lose her the same way I’d lost my dad. It would have taken that demon no effort at all to rip her apart in front of my eyes.
Once it was over, I realised how fucking scared I’d been, not just for Islay, but for myself, for my family. I had no idea how the hell I’d beaten the demon. It seemed impossible that I could have killed an Obsidian Demon, one of the highest ranking and most powerful demons there were, without hardly getting a scratch on me. It was a frickin’ miracle.
It was only as I held Islay against me, feeling her soft body against mine, her fingers in my hair, my heart still beating madly in my chest, that it started to sink in. I thought, I’m alive. I’m still fucking alive, and the demon is dead. I did it. I almost wanted to cry. I did it for you, Dad. I hoped he could hear me, wherever he was.
Finally, I stopped shaking, and I lifted my head from the crook of Islay’s neck reluctantly. I could have stood there forever with my face buried in her skin, her scent in my lungs, her hair tickling my cheek. I looked over the top of her head, refusing to let her go just yet, and met my brother’s blue eyes.
He gave me a small smile. “You okay, Brother?”
I nodded. “I’m good.”
He snorted, clapping me on the shoulder. “I’ll say. What the hell was that, Ru? I’ve never seen anyone move like that. You were going so fast, I could hardly keep track of you.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?” I didn’t think I’d been moving any faster than I normally did when my adrenaline was pushing like that. There were limits to even my speed.
Angus widened his eyes and flapped his hands. “Ruairidh, you were blurring! You moved so fast, one second you were over there, and the next second you had the demon on the ground.”
I blinked. “Seriously?”
He nodded eagerly, grinning. “That was epic, Ru! You took that demon out in less than thirty seconds!”
Wow. If I’d been moving that fast, it explains how I’d managed to kill the demon so easily. But there was a problem with that. Humans didn’t move that fast. No human could keep up with a demon, not even a trained hunter like my dad had been. So what did that say about me?
I shook my head to knock the thought away. I didn’t want to think about it just now. It didn’t matter. The demon was dead, Islay and my family were safe, and I was still alive. That was all that mattered. All I wanted now was a hot shower and a soft bed—preferably with Islay in it. Not for sex. I was too damn tired for that. And hell, never thought I’d hear myself think that.
“Ru?” Angus said, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“I heard what the demon said. About . . . that night,” he said quietly. “Don’t listen to it. It was just screwing with your head. What happened to Dad had nothing to do with you.”
I sighed. I wished I could believe that. “Y
eah,” I murmured, too tired to argue with him about it. I knew better than to trust the word of a demon, but for some inexplicable reason, I had believed it when it had said that other demons would be coming for me.
Islay lifted her head from my chest and looked up at me, frowning. “It called you something weird. It sounded Gaelic. What did it mean?”
“Irish,” Angus said, looking at me. “It was Irish. Leanbh Bhais. It means . . . child something, right?”
I nodded. “Child of Death,” I muttered. I’d wondered about that too. I’d never heard the term before, but I had been called something similar once, back in Ireland.
My dad had had this friend who was a psychic of sorts but not the cheesy kind of psychic with a crystal ball and jangly earrings and gypsy skirts. Anthalia was a true Seer. She could look into your past just by touching your hand, or read your future in your eyes. She knew things that nobody could possibly know, and she was sensitive to the presence of demons and spirits.
Anyway, soon after we’d moved to Ireland after the divorce, Dad had taken me to see Anthalia and had demanded she do a Shadow Reading on me. I’d had no idea what a Shadow Reading was, and I still didn’t. I had little memory of the reading itself. All I could remember was the feeling of Anthalia’s cold fingertips on my temples, the overpowering flowery smell of her perfume in my nose, and the blank look on Dad’s face as she turned to him and whispered, “Your son is Reaper Born, Patrick. There is a shadow on his soul.”
I blinked, and the memory shattered, the shards scattering back into the box in my mind that held the memories of my thirteen-year-old self.
I’d never given the Reading much thought—just assumed Anthalia was a little bit batty. Dad had never treated me differently afterwards, so it had just faded into the back of my mind, filed away as unimportant. But now, I was starting to wonder, what exactly had she meant? What did Reaper Born mean? And was there really a shadow on my soul?
