The Hunter

by T R Kohler

  “The Sword of the Spirit,” Typhon whispered, every word dripping with bitterness.

  “What?” Ember said, all movement on the opposite end pausing as she asked the question.

  “The weapon that Micah used,” Typhon said. “They call it the Sword of the Spirit.”

  Not sure how sharp the woman was on her Biblical history, it was stated in the original text that the Sword of the Spirit was the word of God. That it was a tool great enough to overcome all.

  Only those who had been in the trenches knew that it also held a much more literal meaning, becoming the weapon of choice for the opposition.

  Not that he felt inclined to be teaching a Religious Studies class at the moment.

  “Huh,” Ember replied. “Does ours have a fancy name too, or does Flaming Bullwhip work?”

  In no mood for such debate, Typhon moved right past the comment. “Where is Kaia now?”

  “Best guess?” Ember said, “Either dead – if that blade is strong enough - or in their possession. She wasn’t going anywhere on her own, that’s for sure.”

  Typhon nodded. He had figured as much, such a state being the sole reason she would have sent Ember away.

  “And where are you?”

  “Back at the motel,” Ember said. “I ditched Bob, drove here, and am trying to put myself together again. Anytime you want to send in the cavalry, we’re ready.”

  Whether the woman chose to use the term cavalry in jest or not, Typhon had no way of knowing. Rising from his chair, he raised a hand to his forehead, rubbing with his thumb and forefingers.

  “Doesn’t work that way,” he said.

  “What doesn’t?” Ember asked. “You wanted the mirror, I’ve got it. You come get it, we go get Kaia, tomorrow I wake up here with that damn song blaring again.”

  What song she was referring to, Typhon didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care to. How his employees dealt with their charges was up to them.

  His greater concern was with the admissions Ember had just made.

  “There are rules,” Typhon began.

  “Oh, I’m plenty familiar with your rules,” Ember replied. “Getting awful sick of the damn things, too.”

  Unable to argue, having felt the same way many, many times, Typhon pushed forward.

  “Yeah, well, there’s nothing we can do about them. And they say I can’t just send in an army and have an all-out holy war there on Earth.”

  A moment of silence passed, loud breaths on the other end the sole sound. “So what can you do?”

  “I’ve already done it,” Typhon said. “Each side is allowed to send in one team per incident. There can be hundreds of them going on at a time – and usually is – but they can’t overlap.

  “The only people who can end this are you and Kaia.”

  A loud sound burst through the line, something akin to a glass being smashed against the wall. Holding the phone an inch from his ear, Typhon waited to ensure nothing more was coming before adding, “Believe me, it’s not like I want you to be the only one left to handle this right now. That’s just the way it is.”

  Not wanting the most junior woman in Hell flying solo on a case like this was a massive understatement, but Typhon didn’t see the point in belaboring it.

  Already, the woman was in quite a state.

  “So how do I get this box back to you?” Ember eventually asked.

  “When the case is over.”

  “Which is when?” Ember asked. “I have the damn mirror here with me.”

  Lowering his hand from his brow, Typhon returned his gaze to the opposite wall. Sometimes, working within all the damn rules stripped away any of the fun in what they did for a living.

  “But that wasn’t the original objective, was it?” Typhon asked. “Nothing is over until you find John Lee Tam and bring him back home.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  When the door opened again, John Lee Tam expected to see the young man from before. He figured they would subject him to again seeing the gnarly wound covering the side of the man’s head. Or that something else would have magically appeared – a burned arm or a second broken leg.

  There were certain things that Tam had made peace with over the years. Working for Hell had a certain way of doing that, eroding a person’s standards little by little. What one day was nothing short of appalling was later merely shrugged off, just part of how things were done.

  The list of such things was longer than Tam wanted to admit, each one further illuminating his own tenuous grasp on anything resembling humanity.

  Still, torturing mortals, seeing their pain, was more than he could abide. That was his one thing, the one final line he refused to cross.

  People like Tam, or the ones he worked for, or even most of who he did business with, they had all had their chance. They had started out in life with their own blank slate, left to do what they chose.

  And they had chosen the situation they now had. Whatever happened from then on was their own responsibility, a reckoning for their decisions.

  The young man they had dragged in might be flawed, he might be on a bad path, but he wasn’t irredeemable. There was still time for him to figure things out, and he deserved every opportunity to do so.

  He didn’t know who was responsible for what had happened to the young man, and he didn’t much care. Either way, it had occurred.

  And he couldn’t allow it.

  Giving up the location in Oceanside would likely land him in a heap of trouble, but he was okay with that. Typhon and the various handlers he encountered knew that was his single weakness. He’d never tried to hide it or claim otherwise.

  If that meant they levied unimaginable punishment on him as a result, so be it.

  When the door opened a second time, Tam steeled himself to what he might see. He felt wrath and venom well inside of him, the situation fast becoming unwieldy.

  Snatching him was one thing. Torturing him, even. But grabbing mortals, making them a part of this, was too much.

  He had shared everything he knew. It was time for Jonas and his men to look elsewhere.

  Seated in the corner of the room, he raised a finger before him. His mouth opened wide, ready to unleash a torrent of obscenities, his eyes large and angry.

  But not a sound passed his lips. His finger never so much as wagged. Not once did he even try to rise, his bottom remaining in contact with the floor, confusion flooding over his features.

  “Another one for you,” the man said. Filling the doorway, he was so tall the top of his head was blocked from view.

  Dust and blood spotted his clothes in equal amounts.

  Turning to the side, the man grabbed someone with a single hand, tossing them onto the floor.

  And without another word, or even a passing glance, he was gone, slamming the door in his wake.

  Tucked into the corner of the room, Tam sat stunned, trying to make sense of what had just occurred. The man that had presented himself wasn’t Jonas, but someone new, somebody he hadn’t encountered yet. Looking to be an enforcer, his massive frame hadn’t been used for intimidation, merely making a deposit before disappearing again.

  With it came no attempts at interrogation, no long-winded diatribes about the fates of mankind and Tam needing to do his part to help.

  Nothing more than dropping another person inside and departing.

  Which was in and of itself the most surprising part of all.

  “Kaia?” Tam whispered, his focus drifting from the prone form on the floor to the door and back again.

  Only once before, decades ago, had Tam encountered her. A somewhat routine affair, the two had worked together on a particular task for no more than a couple of days before parting, never to cross paths again.

  As a singular incident, it was nothing special. The demon was young, cocksure, liked to play to the stereotypes of her chosen avatar, but on the whole she was far from the worst he’d encountered.

  And he had a hard time imagining she deserved t
his.

  “Kaia,” he repeated, rolling forward onto his knees. Crawling across the floor, he could feel the cushioned padding against his feet and palms, the material giving just slightly as he made his way over.

  Lying facedown, the girl was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with the sleeves and bottom cut out. Originally black, the shirt had faded to a state closer to dark gray, making the dark stain covering most of it all the more obvious. Centered in the middle of her right shoulder blade, a circle of dark blood covered most of her back.

  Almost black in the middle, it grew steadily lighter as it moved outward, culminating with a few faint streaks along her neck and arm.

  “Kaia,” Tam whispered, placing a hand on her shoulder. Feeling the skin cool and clammy to the touch, he used his thumb and forefinger as pincers, tugging on the edge of the shirt where the sleeve would have been.

  In some spots, the shirt was stuck to her body, dried blood holding it tight. In others, it came away easily, the saturated cotton almost crunchy.

  Knowing there was no point in checking for a pulse, Tam released his grip on the T-shirt. He slid both hands under her arm, using them to gently lift her body, her entire weight limp as he rolled her onto her back.

  Easing her down as softly as possible, he positioned her flat in the center of the room, brushing the straw-blond hair from her face.

  And confirming beyond a doubt that it was Kaia. Twenty or more years might have passed since their last encounter, but that hardly mattered considering neither of them had aged a day.

  If not for her complexion, pale from blood loss, and the matching puncture wound on her front side, she would be a mirror image of the girl who had strode into his shop all those years before.

  Leaning back onto his heels, Tam cast a look around the room. Silently cursing himself for having finished the water so quickly, he stared helplessly, knowing there was absolutely nothing he could do for the girl.

  All they could do was wait.

  Casting his gaze toward the door, Tam felt the anger he’d harbored earlier return to the surface. Jonas might have been telling the truth before, that things really were dire, but this was fast becoming absurd.

  Nothing could warrant this level of harm, the people that were being kept already at three, bound to rise before things were finished.

  Flexing his hands into balls, he wanted nothing more than to move forward. To pound on the door until they opened it, and then come out swinging, flailing at them until it was over.

  There had to be something that could be done.

  Even in his weakened state.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  The interior of the motel room was destroyed. Pillows and blankets were pulled off the bed, tossed into piles or strewn about. The alarm clock was smashed against the door, a smattering of broken plastic pieces covering the floor. The night stand was turned on its side.

  Standing in the center of it, Ember looked around, the initial hostility in the wake of her talk with Typhon having finally receded.

  The news he had imparted was nothing short of bullshit. She was only just beginning to learn the strict rules that governed her new existence, and already she could see that they were binding to the point of paralysis.

  Nothing should be so rigid that it couldn’t be adapted on the fly.

  Take her situation, for instance. Just days into her post-life career, she was in no way ready for such an undertaking. She was given an assignment to track down a deadbeat that wanted to welch on a contract.

  Not go head-to-head with a team of angels, all fighting for a rare artifact that could tilt the balance of Heaven and Hell in the middle realm.

  And damned sure not do it by herself.

  Taking out her frustration on the limited surroundings she had, she had attacked the room with as much wrath as she could muster. An intense fury lasting no more than a few minutes, by the time she was done, fluids seemed to be leaking from every pore.

  Sweat covered her body. Tears underscored her eyes. Blood seeped through the wrap covering the slice on her arm.

  Standing in the center of the room, Ember had no way to know when or if the place would go back to normal. If Hell had a team of housekeepers that came in when she was gone, or if it just reset itself every morning.

  Not that she cared in the slightest.

  The sole item that had escaped her outburst sat on the edge of the bare mattress before her. The only form of contact she had with the outside world, Ember let out a deep breath.

  Walking forward, she took it up and hit the most recent call in the log, setting it to speakerphone and dropping it back into place.

  Just like their previous call, it rang only once before being picked up.

  “Typhon.”

  The mere sound of his voice sent a ripple of repulsion through Ember. Working for him was going to be so much worse than she previously realized.

  “Can you track her?” she asked.

  “Track who?”

  “Kaia,” Ember said.

  For a moment, there was no response. Typhon seemed to consider it before saying, “What, you think we have Demon LoJack or something?”

  In no mood for his sarcasm, Ember gritted her teeth. “Look, I’m pretty green to this, and the mentor you assigned is currently out of action, so how about we stop picking on the new girl, huh?”

  On the other end, she could hear Typhon breathing loudly, though no response came.

  “So, again, is there any way of tracking her?” Ember said.

  “No,” Typhon replied, his voice low and terse, “not directly anyway. It’s not like a cellphone app or something. I can keep tabs on hospitals, clinics, places like that to see if someone fitting her description shows up-”

  “But she won’t,” Ember said, already moving ahead, putting together what she was being told.

  “Not this time,” Typhon said. “Maybe if you guys were in a wreck or something, but now...”

  Turning to the side, Ember began to move. Random carnage from her tirade crunched underfoot as she walked, her shoes grinding it into the carpet.

  Taking deep breaths, she tried to again return to her roots, to push past the absurdities of the situation, to look beyond the rules and her new employer and everything that could turn things sideways.

  Instead, she had to focus on what she knew. On how she would handle this if she was back in Seattle, trying to track two missing persons.

  “Okay, so we don’t know how to find her, but we know who has her,” Ember said. “Is there any way to put me in touch with Jonas?”

  “Good thought,” Typhon said, “but he’s even more out of touch than Kaia. It’s not like we keep a big Rolodex for every supernatural being roaming the middle realm.”

  Having suspected as much, Ember let the second part of the statement roll over her. In no mood to again get into a battle of snarky comments, she continued pacing, working through things.

  Twice now, Jonas and his team had shown up out of nowhere. If that meant they were nearby or had traveled through some other manner, Ember didn’t know.

  There would be time to ask about that later.

  “Are angels bound by the same rules as us?” Ember asked. Reaching one side of the room, she turned back, oblivious to the sweat streaming from her body, the dull ache of her arm.

  “Depends on the rule,” Typhon replied.

  “Can they hurt anybody?” Ember asked, thrusting the question out before another word was said. “Humans, I mean. Could they be torturing Carlow for information?”

  “Carlow?” Typhon asked, a hint of confusion present.

  “The middleman, the guy that we met in Del Mar when Jonas first showed up.”

  With each word, Ember could feel her cadence speeding up. A bit at a time, her mind was putting things together, her lips just barely able to keep up.

  “Same as us,” Typhon said. “Harming him is a gray area, death is off-limits. No chance Jonas would do anything so foolish.”

  A
t some point, Ember was going to need to request a full list of the rules. She would sit down and delve through them, committing each to memory, providing herself with a framework on how to proceed.

  For now, though, she was stuck with a lot of fumbling around.

  “Which leaves only-” Ember said. Pulling to a stop, she let her voice trail away. Raising her gaze to the far wall, she gritted her teeth, realization and self-loathing both pulsating through her.

  “Sonuvabitch,” she whispered.

  “What?” Typhon asked. “Did they do anything to Carlow when you guys were at the house? Did you see something?”

  Striding across the room, Ember snatched up Kaia’s battered leather bag from the floor, the faint smell of burnt leather wafting up from it.

  “No, but I do now,” Ember said. Turning to the bed, she snatched up the phone and said, “I’ll call you back,” before disconnecting and tossing the device into the bag.

  A moment later, she was back in Bob’s VW Bus, headed toward town.

  She knew how to find Jonas.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Jonas forced himself to look at his leg while Gad worked on it. He refused any sort of medication, any type of salve that might dull the pain, using it to cut through any remaining cloudiness that might have settled in. With his gaze locked on the charred flesh of his lower limb, he watched as the wounds were scrubbed clean, pieces of ashy skin flaking away.

  His foot propped up on a nearby chair, bits of it were scattered on the floor below, dark spots mottling the light surface.

  The smell of singed hair and burnt skin was strong in his nostrils.

  “What did this?” Gad asked. On one knee, he was bent at the waist, a bottle in one hand, a wad of gauze in the other. Pressing the cotton against the top of the bottle, he upended the bottom, soaking the material, before using it to dab at the wounds again.

  On contact, a sharp spasm carried itself the length of Jonas’s leg, his eyes registering what was to come just a split-second before his body did the same. Once the electronic impulse reached his brain, he seized tight for an instant, fingers digging into the side of the chair he sat on.