Demon Hunter (Hellfire Academy Book 2)

by C. L. Coffey

  An explosion ignited somewhere behind us, interrupting our conversation. Water shot upwards and outwards, sending a tsunami in every direction. It was far enough away from us that I only got covered in water, but I watched as several docked boats in the Thames broke their ties—one went flying onto the bank, taking out the pier it was tied to.

  My attention dropped to the fallen angel at my feet. Without thinking, I handed Siobhan my sword and leaned over. One hand grabbed the jacket, the other, his belt. With less effort than I expected, I lifted up the body from the ground.

  The fire inside me was still in control as I spun on the spot a couple of times, then like I was competing in a hammer throw at the Olympics, I let it go.

  If tossing decapitated bodies were an Olympic sport, I’d have nailed that gold medal. The body soared over the bridge, landing almost exactly in the middle of the Thames.

  With the threat of that body exploding gone, I dropped down in front of Siobhan.

  She was still looking at me like I was insane. “How did you do that? He was a fallen angel.”

  Somehow, telling her about the fire still burning away inside of me felt like the wrong thing to do. “Are you okay?” I asked as I took my sword back from her.

  As police sirens started sounding, I turned back to Gabriel, ready to help him before the cops showed up. Judging from the sound, they weren’t far away.

  “Kennedy, Siobhan. Run!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ponytail was lying face down on the bridge, maybe six feet from us, with a sword sticking out of his back.

  On the other side, about ten feet from him, Gabriel was fighting Isaac, his back to us.

  Before I could work out what was happening, Ponytail’s body exploded, taking half the bridge with it.

  I turned, flinging myself over Siobhan just as the blast knocked me over, sending me skidding along the ground. Pain shot through my leg, and my ears were ringing, but I ignored it all.

  Gabriel was closer to the blast than me.

  I sat up.

  My vision swirled like I’d had too many shots.

  There was a hole in the footbridge. Bricks, metal and concrete fell into the river around us, and the bridge with the train tracks was crumbling in front of me.

  I couldn’t hear any of it.

  Looking down, my hand was still holding onto my mom’s sword. Beside me, Siobhan was slumped on the ground, still bleeding.

  And then there was a third explosion back in the middle of the Thames.

  As a wall of water fell down on us, Gabriel appeared in front of me. Glancing between Siobhan to me, his eyes grew wide. His mouth was moving, saying something, but I couldn’t hear that either.

  Gabriel reached down and grabbed my jacket, grabbed Siobhan, then we weren’t on the bridge anymore.

  The next minute, we were somewhere in the Vatican. I didn’t recognize the room, but there was a Swiss Guard standing at a door. When he saw us, he opened the door, yelled words I still couldn’t hear into the corridor, and then he came running over.

  Getting to my feet, I staggered backwards. Gabriel was in front of me in an instant, mouthing my name as he swayed in front of me.

  After that, everything went black.

  My eyes fluttered open, and I stared up at a canopy above my head, at dark blue fabric with golden swirls and tassels. It wasn’t the bed I’d slept in previously.

  I turned my head to discover the room was illuminated by a small lamp, just as ornate as the canopy. With a deep sigh, I sat up slowly. The covers fell down, and I found myself looking at my clothes. These weren’t the wet clothes I wore in London, but a Gabriel-sized T-shirt.

  Lifting the fabric to my nose, I sniffed. The scent of Gabriel was there.

  “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”

  Looking past the end of the bed, I found Gabriel standing from a large armchair then walking over. Instead of answering, I quickly pulled up the covers.

  Stopping by the side of the bed, Gabriel’s eyes quickly scanned my covered arms. “I’m sorry,” he said, quietly. “I wanted to put you in something that wasn’t going to restrict you, and I didn’t want to leave your side to get clothes for you.”

  “You stayed with me? How long have you been here? What happened?”

  Gabriel sat on the edge of the bed. “What do you remember?”

  Screwing up my face, I thought back. “Isaac and three fallen angels on a bridge in London. The bridge being blown up, and then coming here, which I’m assuming is your home in Rome?”

  “You had a piece of metal in your leg,” Gabriel told me.

  Forgetting about the fact that I’d just tried covering up all the scars on my arms, I pulled the covers back down. Seeing nothing but the Lichtenberg fractures on my right thigh, I got to my knees to peer at the back of my legs.

  Nothing.

  “Where?”

  “Exactly.”

  I looked back to Gabriel with a frown. “I’m half angel. I heal quickly.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “Not possible. The injury you had would’ve taken weeks for a human, and maybe a couple of days for an angel to completely disappear. I don’t have much experience with nephilim, but I would expect that to take longer than an angel. Either way, what happened in London happened only a few hours ago.”

  Sinking back down, I stretched my legs out in front of me. “How come I can heal in hours, but these are still here?” I pointed at the Lichtenberg fractures.

  “I don’t know.”

  Staring at the scars made my stomach churn. I hated seeing them. Quickly, I pushed them back under the covers. Finally I looked back at Gabriel. “Maybe nephilim just heal faster?” When Gabriel didn’t say anything, I shrugged. “How is Siobhan? And how are you? What happened to Isaac?”

  “Isaac?”

  “He was the fallen angel you were fighting. He was the one that got away from my mom’s when we were attacked in Seattle.”

  “Isaac escaped again. Siobhan is resting in another room. She was injured by a tainted blade, but it’s healing.”

  Shuffling back, I leaned back against the headboard and sighed. “Good. I’m glad we stopped the Watchers and the Fallen from getting to her.” I opened my eyes and looked at Gabriel with a frown. “So, are the Watchers working with the Fallen? Or are they . . . why are you looking at me like that?”

  Gabriel’s eyes hadn’t left me, but as I spoke, they turned sad. Pitying.

  “The Fallen weren’t after Siobhan.”

  I stared at Gabriel. “Me? You think they were after me?”

  “Do you remember when we went to Kansas to look for Abaddon? The three that attacked us. I didn’t remember it until we were back on the bridge when Isaac said not to hurt you.”

  I cocked my head. “He said that?”

  “The fallen angel you were fighting was on top of you.” Gabriel reached out to take my hand. “But when we were in Kansas, I was on the ground and Jonah—I think that was his name—said he was there for you.”

  “That makes no sense. Isaac was from Seattle, not Manhattan. He was after my mom. Why would they be after me?”

  Taking a deep breath, Gabriel gently squeezed my hand. “I don’t know why, but the thing that seems to connect the two is you. Maybe they were after your mom in Seattle. Maybe they went after you to get to your mom?”

  “How would they know that we were going after Abaddon?” I asked.

  Gabriel gently shook his head. “I don’t know how it’s connected other than with you. But we’ll work that out.”

  All of this made my head swim. I still had no idea who my father was, but apparently he knew who I was. And he was after my mother.

  Crap.

  My mom.

  I sat upright. “My mom.”

  “I think your mom is safer than you think,” Gabriel told me. “She’s spent all this time hiding from your father and hasn’t been caught yet.”

  Catching my lower lip between my teeth, I stared at Gabriel. “Yo
u think being with me will put her in danger? What about when we were in Vegas?”

  Gabriel let go of my hand to reach over to the lamp. It was then I realized my phone was beside it. He handed it over to me. “Call her.”

  Amazed the phone was still intact after what we just went through, I took the phone from him and glanced at the clock. “Is this on local time?” It was a little after one in the morning.

  Gabriel leaned over to look, and then nodded. “We’re in Italy. It’s late afternoon there.”

  But would she answer? I pulled up her number and hit call.

  “Hello?”

  “Mom?”

  “Dora?”

  I nearly burst into tears from the relief. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just . . . I think you were right about someone being after you.” I didn’t want to admit that, not because I was wrong, but because I didn’t want my mom to panic and disappear again. “I don’t want to scare you, but you need to be careful.”

  “Dora, baby. I’ve spent years running,” Mom said, sounding eerily calm. “I’ll be fine. You’re the one that needs to be careful. You’re the abomination they all seek.”

  And there she was.

  My voice seemed to catch in my throat. “Mom? I need you to be careful,” I said again. “Please.”

  “Make them regret it, Dora.” Then my mom hung up.

  With a sigh, I lowered my phone and stared at the screen. “My mom is . . .” I didn’t want to say fine. “Just as she’s always been.”

  “Kennedy—?”

  “Can we talk to Siobhan? We’ve gone to all this trouble to get her safe, now I want to know what she knows about the Watchers.” I started to get out of bed but then looked down at myself. The T-shirt barely covered the tops of my thighs.

  Probably not the most appropriate thing to wander around St. Peter’s Basilica in.

  Gabriel’s eyes met mine before his gaze travelled down my body.

  Slowly.

  Taking his time.

  His gaze travelled back up then met my eyes once more. Swallowing, he nodded. “I asked someone to get some clothes for you. Wait here, and I’ll see if they’re back.” Gabriel strode towards the door and left without looking back.

  How on earth did he just make me feel sexy when I was wearing a T-shirt?

  Gabriel returned a short while later carrying a pile of clothes. “These should fit.” He placed them on the bed. “I’ll wait outside,” he said, before leaving again.

  I dressed quickly, not really paying much attention to the clothes. They were dry and covered my scars, and that’s all I cared about. The only remaining item of mine was my purse. It was left on the floor beside the bed, and when I opened it up, my dagger was inside. After slipping in my phone, I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked out of the room to find Gabriel waiting for me.

  He led me down the corridor past a few doors before we stopped at one, and he knocked.

  “Come in,” Siobhan called from inside.

  Gabriel pushed the door open, stepping aside, allowing me to go first. The room Siobhan was in was very similar to mine, although the bed wasn’t quite as extravagant. Like mine, there were a couple of armchairs at the foot of the bed surrounding an unlit fireplace.

  Siobhan was sitting in one of these, curled up in a blanket as she read a book. Now that her hair was dry, it didn’t look as straggly as it had in the rain. Instead, it hung down past her shoulders in loose curls.

  There was also a lack of eyeliner in the Vatican because there was no makeup on her face. It seemed to have knocked a few years off her because Siobhan looked like she was barely sixteen.

  Seeing me, she set the book aside. “You’re alive then?”

  “Seems so.” I sat down in the spare chair as Gabriel went to lean on the fireplace.

  “Thank you,” Siobhan said. “If you two hadn’t been there, I’d probably be dead.”

  Glancing up at Gabriel, I watched him nod before I turned back to Siobhan. “What are the Watchers?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” Siobhan said, shifting her weight. “It’s that I can’t. I swore an oath to God. I might not be part of a House anymore, but I don’t want to fall.”

  “What if I ask some questions, and if I’m going in the right direction, you don’t answer?” I suggested.

  Siobhan’s lips pouted as she looked up at the ceiling, considering it. “Okay?”

  “The Watchers are nephilim descending from two angels who got permission to have a child.”

  “No.”

  I blinked, and then frowned. “That was what David had said, right?” I asked Gabriel.

  “Archangel.” Gabriel added.

  Siobhan said nothing.

  Huh.

  “Okay, the Watchers are nephilim descending from two archangels—”

  “No.”

  “An archangel and a human—”

  “No.” Siobhan sat watching me, her brown eyes staring at me.

  Until that moment, I’d never considered myself ‘old,’ but as this teenager stared back, I fought to keep my patience. It was me that suggested this, after all.

  “An archangel and a saint,” Gabriel said, softly.

  I glanced over at him before realizing Siobhan wasn’t disagreeing. “Really? Then let’s go and ask them.”

  Gabriel glanced down at his feet. “We can’t. They’re dead.”

  There was only one archangel I knew of that was dead. Raphael.

  In front of me, Siobhan shifted her weight again. The blanket slipped, revealing the edge of a bandage. “Okay, so there was a nephilim baby, but he was special because . . . this is a ridiculous way to do this. Siobhan, what can you tell us?”

  “I told you, I can’t tell you anything.” She folded her arms and glared at me.

  “Fine, but I’ve got a prophecy telling me to beware of the Watchers as a building goes up in flames and people die. So what do I need to know about the Watchers to stop this from happening?” I leaned forward and returned the frown. “And before you say anything, I really am a nephilim myself—Gabriel didn’t lie about that—so whatever you say won’t go up to Heaven. Isn’t that right, Gabriel?”

  He nodded.

  Siobhan looked over at the bed as her fingers rubbed at her throat. “There are more of them than you know. Descendants, I mean,” she clarified as she turned back. “Especially after all this time. Hence why it’s Watchers and not Watcher.”

  “I kind of gathered that,” I muttered.

  “They’re everywhere. Around the world. They want people to think they no longer exist, but they’re more secretive than the Illuminati.”

  Given that everyone had heard of the Illuminati, I’d have to agree with her.

  “The first, and I can’t tell you his name, wanted to help his parents protect the world. Or what was the world back then. This was before America was even ‘discovered.’ Once the New World opened up, that’s when they disappeared. But the only reason they managed to disappear was because they had people in high places.”

  “Then why would there be a prophecy to warn us of the Watchers?” I asked, more to myself than Siobhan or Gabriel.

  Siobhan shrugged, making her wince as she clutched her side. “I don’t know. I didn’t even know they had found me. It’s been centuries since I had anything to do with them.”

  I stared at Siobhan.

  She stared back.

  “That’s it?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea what you expected from me. Yes, the Watchers exist. If you’d caught me before that Watcher earlier, I would have told you they’re probably not even a thing anymore.”

  Slumping back into the armchair, I stared up at the ceiling. We fought four fallen angels, blew up a bridge and risked dying to only learn Watchers existed and who they descended from.

  How was that going to stop Leigh-Ann’s prophecy from coming true?

  A han
d on my shoulder made me jump. “Let’s get back,” Gabriel said.

  “What about me?” Siobhan asked.

  “You are welcome to stay here, as a guest, for as long as you need to recover. There are still cherubim in this House if you wish for some company. If you wish to leave now, you can.”

  “They’re coming after me because of you, you know.” Siobhan’s eyes narrowed.

  I looked up at Gabriel who seemed to read my unspoken suggestion as he shook his head. “That’s not a good idea, Kennedy.”

  “What isn’t?” Siobhan asked.

  “She’s the right age. It’s safe . . . ish. And it’s someone who knows something about the Watchers. Make her do the thing.”

  “The thing?” Gabriel gave me a blank look. When I looked over at Siobhan, she seemed just as clueless.

  “Whatever it is you guys seem to do to keep secrets. Your oath.”

  “If it keeps me safe, I’ll swear it,” Siobhan said, hurriedly.

  Gabriel stared at her. “Not so long ago, you wanted nothing to do with us.”

  “And then you led the Watchers to me.” Siobhan folded her arms and glared at him; her Irish accent became a little more pronounced. “These are the people who disappeared centuries ago. They can make me disappear too.”

  “Why do they want you to disappear?” Gabriel asked her.

  “My guess is because I’m one of the few left that knows who and what they are. Or maybe there’s something else I know that I don’t realize. All I do know is that yesterday, I was going about my business, and today, you two, the Watchers, and the Fallen showed up. Of those three, you’re the only ones that tried to help me.” Siobhan rose to her feet, wincing as she did. “So, if it helps, I swear to God, that whatever you tell me about wherever you take me, I won’t tell a soul.”

  Gabriel exhaled loudly, shaking his head. “I can’t. Not until we have permission as I am also under oath. Stay here, and I will return to deliver the verdict either way.” He turned to me. “Let’s go.”

  I knew the second his hand clamped down on my shoulder that he wasn’t happy. Before I could apologize, we’d left the Vatican City and were in his apartment on the Greenwood campus.