Immortal Hunter

The nurse stepped toward her again. Her frown twisted into a look of frustration as she reached for Allsún. “Look, I only have so much patience. You need to—”

Allsún lifted her hand and made a throwing motion. A cloud of sparkling faerie dust emanated from her open palm, as if she’d thrown a handful of glitter straight into the nurse’s face. Immediately the woman crumpled to the floor. Her mouth gaped open as she fell into the best sleep she’d probably had in years.

Allsún blinked two times, the movement slow and sluggish from the weight still forcing down her eyelids. “Thass what you get for m...m...messing with a pi...pixie.” She was slurring worse than a college frat boy on a Saturday night.

Concentrating on keeping her balance, Allsún stumbled out of the room and into a long hallway. After what seemed like an eternity of thinking, she deduced that it had to be nighttime. The lights were dimmed, and no one was in sight. She inched down the hall for what seemed like hours before reaching the nurses’ station directly next to the elevators. Her escape.

A night nurse perched at her desk looked up from a mound of papers. “Miss, are you all right?”

Allsún didn’t answer. She walked up to the desk, made a throwing motion with her hand, and watched the nurse slump onto the desktop with a thud in response to her natural faerie dust. She shuffled past the now-incapacitated woman toward the elevator.

Allsún jabbed the blurry elevator button three times until the doors finally opened. Using every ounce of brain power she could muster through her drug-induced haze, she selected the star button for what she hoped was the ground floor.

The elevator closed with a high-pitched ding. After four floors the elevator finally reached the bottom, and as fast as she could, she stumbled out and booked her way through the sliding glass doors of freedom.

When the doors opened, a huge burst of cold air hit Allsún straight in the face, sending a chill racing through her entire body. She wrapped her arms around her torso in a useless attempt to keep herself warm. She needed to get home before she got hypothermia. Her bare feet stung from the light layer of snow still coating Rochester’s streets. The prickling sensation helped clear her head, like what she imagined a sobering cold shower after a long night of way too much drinking would be like. Not that she would know for certain, since she’d never been the partying type. Not too much to celebrate when you’re spending your days chasing after...

Demons.

The scent of sulfur hit her nose as she passed by an empty alleyway. All at once her senses came alive, and she could feel the natural instinct in her Fae blood calling her. She turned in the direction her instinct indicated, the instinct that told her where demonic activity was, the instinct she hadn’t used in years. Not since that night...

Since then she’d found herself capable of ignoring the call. She knew that the city would remain safe without her. Though David couldn’t be everywhere at once, he was the only human she’d ever encountered who was capable of exorcising demons back to hell instead of just killing them. He could save the victims in a way that not even she could.

But somehow this time was different.

The pull inside her, like a rope tugging hard at the center of her chest, compelled her forward. And how could she not listen to such a strong command? She took another step, and then her head began to clear. She was thankful for her supernatural metabolism. It was burning up the drugs nicely, but...

How had she ended up in her current situation? What had put her in the hospit—

She staggered as the memories rushed back to her in one overwhelming burst.

That thing, the monster that did this to her. The thought of his disgustingly handsome face twisted in a look of pure hatred and malice flashed through her mind. Robert. That had been his name, before the hunters killed him.

She’d been in the hospital because that monster had kidnapped and tortured her, left her for dead. And then David had saved her. The memory of his arms wrapped around her warmed her to her core.

No, she couldn’t think like that.

She shook her head, trying to erase both Robert and David from her thoughts. She shouldn’t be thinking this way. Robert was dead now, and she’d done her best to push David from her mind years ago. David had made his choice. When she’d left, he’d never come after her, so that was that. Sure, he’d saved her, but that was his job. Nothing more. She was certain of it.

Shuffling to the edge of the busy street outside the hospital, she waved her arms, hoping to flag down a taxi. Someone out there needed to be saved, her instincts told her that much, and after the torture she’d so recently been through herself, she couldn’t just leave them to that same horrifying fate. If she could just get a cab to stop, she could follow her instincts. The coldness in the air continued to seep into her body, and slowly her feet tingled to numbness. After several minutes with no taxis in sight, she ran into the middle of the street the minute she saw one barreling toward her. The driver slammed on his brakes and pounded the horn. The sound reverberated in her ears, pulling her further from her drugged haze.

The cabbie rolled down his window. “What the fuck are you doing, lady? Get out of the street.”

She inhaled a deep breath and called back to him over the busy sounds of the city. “I need a ride.” Rushing to the side of his cab, she fumbled her way into the backseat, apparently still slightly dizzy from the remaining Ativan.

The cabbie leaned back in his seat and sighed as he stomped on the gas pedal. “Where to, lady?”

“Listen, this is an emergency, and I don’t have any money on me.”

The cabbie glanced in the rearview mirror, eyeing the hospital gown. “Look, lady. I don’t give free rides. Either you pay or you get out of my—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Allsún shoved her hand in front of his face, releasing another swirling puff of faerie dust. She cleared her throat. “So, about that free ride?”

The man blinked as if in a haze before he said, “Free ride? Sure, I can do that. Where to?”

She smiled. “Head toward the south end of the city, and hurry. I don’t know where we’re going, exactly, but as we get closer, I’ll figure it out.”

The pull deep inside her chest increased with every mile, her senses sharpening the nearer they came to their destination. She marveled at how quickly she had burned off the drugs. Her head cleared more with each passing moment. No wonder they’d had her hooked up to the stuff. She’d probably needed a dosage more appropriate for someone three times her size.

When they reached the edge of the city, the tall buildings and industrial sprawl faded into quiet suburbia. Out here the bright lights of the skyscrapers shimmered from a distance, but the streets were dim, lit only by the occasional streetlight. She directed the cabbie through a series of turns until they were fully surrounded by rows of small brick houses. The view of the city disappeared. She would search all night if she had to. Because maybe, just maybe, she could save someone tonight.

* * *

DISPOSING OF A body was never pretty. The metallic odor of the doctor’s blood invaded David’s nose, and he fought not to gag as the scent mixed with the smell of rotting garbage. The open Dumpster smelled more like decaying flesh than the actual dead guy did. Better get this over with. Lifting the doctor’s corpse, he hefted the limp body into the trash. God forgive him. It went against every fiber of his conscience every time, but he always got the job done. A part of him wished he could call up the guy’s family or at least take him to the morgue, make sure he had a proper funeral, but unless he wanted witnesses, that wasn’t a possibility.

Boy, how much fun would it be to explain to the police that he’d killed a man because the guy was possessed by a demon? That one would really go over well with the cops—about as well as fat-free doughnuts and decaffeinated coffee.

After closing the Dumpster lid, he pulled an old black bandana from inside his jacket and wiped down everything he had touched. He couldn’t leave his prints around. Once he finished, he slipped down the alley, hobbling through several back passageways until he reached his parked motorcycle. A sharp pain shot down his leg with every step, and he winced. Damn it.

He let out a long breath and unlatched the saddlebag on his black 2011 Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide, a piece of perfect machinery, if you asked him, and the one beauty who never failed him. He dug around the inside of the saddlebag, then frowned as he uncapped the bottle of hydrocodone. He shook two of the white horse-sized pills into his hand and dry-swallowed them, then placed the prescription bottle in the saddlebag once again. He hated taking the pills, but they were the only way he could operate with his leg as jacked up as it was. At least the doctor insisted the limp and the pain were only temporary, and he’d be healed soon.

Every four to eight hours, depending on his level of pain and the amount of strain he’d put on his muscles, he was reminded of his most recent failures and misgivings.

Robert, that sadistic skinwalker, had tortured the only woman David had ever loved. Kidnapping and torturing Allsún had been pure fun and games for Robert, and because the sicko had torn up David’s leg, leaving him with a limp, David had been humiliatingly unable to save Allsún himself and had been forced to watch as his friend and fellow hunter Jace McCannon did it for him—but not before Allsún had incurred the kind of physical and mental damage she might never recover from. Sure, he’d been the one to actually get Allsún out of the building and to safety, but Jace had been the one to kill Robert.

If only David had been stronger, a better fighter, he could have bested Robert to begin with, and Allsún would have remained safe. He would never forgive himself for all the pain she’d endured. Her suffering was his fault for not protecting her.

He knew nothing good would come from blaming himself, but it didn’t matter. The guilt was enough to hurt him until the day he died. But hell, he had already failed her in so many other ways, what was one more thing added to the list?

A muffled buzzing noise broke his train of thought. His phone was vibrating in the pocket of his jeans. He slipped his hand underneath the edge of his leather bike chaps and pulled out the sleek new phone—courtesy of his fellow hunter Shane Gray. The name “Damon Brock” flashed across the screen. His division leader calling could only mean one of two things: either there was another bitch-fest meeting he would have to attend or a demonic possession had been reported.

Having grown up in Rochester, David had the advantage of knowing all the rabbis in the city, so once he had grown old enough to begin his work as an exorcist, the rabbis had introduced him to the pastors, the priests and the imams, until he had an entire network of holy men aware of the work he did. When people figured out a family member was possessed, their religious leader was always the first person they called. Any time a parishioner reported a possession, someone in the network called Damon or reported it directly to David.

Sure, the system wasn’t perfect, but it definitely helped David find the monsters. He had been called in a few times for some druggies who had taken one too many tabs of the brown acid and were spouting all sorts of demonic bullshit, but for the most part the system worked.

Knowing he couldn’t avoid Damon’s call, he finally hit the talk button and pressed the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

“Father O’Reilly called. Someone needs you,” Damon said without so much as a hello. Cold and straight-to-the-point, as always. He wasn’t one to fool around with pleasantries, especially where the Execution Underground was concerned.

“What’s the address?” David asked.

“South side of the city. Almost out in the suburbs.” Damon rattled off the info.

David quickly committed the address to memory, pulled out the keys to the Super Glide and mounted his bike. “What’s the situation?”

“A woman from O’Reilly’s parish called him,” Damon said. “She’s certain her husband is possessed by the devil. The Father heard her scream, and then there was a gurgling followed by...nothing.”

“Poor old bastard was probably scared shitless.” David shoved back the bike’s kickstand with the heel of his boot and jammed his key into the ignition.

“There’s a meeting tonight. Come here once you’re finished.”

“Anything else?” David asked.

Damon hesitated before he said, “You know I don’t agree with your theory that there are going to be more murders, but O’Reilly said to tell you the family had an infant.”

“Shit.” Without another word, David hung up the phone.

He turned the ignition key, and the engine rumbled to life. Within moments he was zooming through the streets, cutting in and out of traffic. He needed to get there—and fast.

This night was going great. One dead body was bad enough, and now he had another possession and a bitchfest meeting to boot. Somehow he doubted things were going to get any better.

He didn’t care what the other members of the Execution Underground said or that Damon didn’t support his theory; something big was about to go down with the demons in Rochester, and he was determined to find out what that was. It had been two weeks since the infant girl’s murder, and he’d been expecting more to come. Since he’d found the victim, Rochester’s demons had been quiet—way too quiet for his comfort. He’d never seen such a drop in demonic activity in all the years he’d been hunting. Since the decline in possessions, a feeling of dread had been slowly building inside him. Something in his gut told him these past two weeks had been the calm before the storm.

Beyond the sheer horror of the baby’s death, something just wasn’t right about the situation. Demons rode humans like disposable cattle, but they didn’t kill them for sport. They used them for pleasure, to get their rocks off and escape the hellfire for a while, and if the human happened to die in the process of their twisted games, so be it. But they didn’t set out to kill normal humans, and there was no way a demon would have a good ol’ time possessing a sixth-month-old baby. The little girl’s death was more than collateral damage. Demons were sick dipshits to begin with, but it took a special kind of evil to kill an infant.

Initially, he’d had no leads on the case. During an examination of the infant’s corpse, he’d found little indication of what type of demon had orchestrated the murder, let alone its motivation. Demons left messes behind them, but this one hadn’t. That set off more red warning flags than heroin track marks on a cheap hooker. Those warning signs told him one thing: something bad was about to go down. His best guess had been an Abyzu. The awful little shits were known for preying on infants, using their life force for energy and power. But Abyzu’s, who did set out to kill, weren’t common—at least not since the decline of so-called SIDS.

The whole case was a mess. No evidence, no indication of what was to come, just a dreaded gut feeling things were about to become even messier.

CHAPTER THREE

WITHIN FIFTEEN MINUTES David reached the address. Shutting off the ignition and setting the kickstand, he parked his bike on the street several houses away. He quickly jogged toward the house, ignoring the shooting pain coursing through his leg.

As he crept up the porch steps, the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end. His senses heightened, he listened for the sound of screams or yelling from behind the door. Nothing.

He breathed deep, preparing himself, then froze. The smell of rotten eggs hit his nose, and he swore under his breath. David knew that smell.

Sulfur.

Without hesitation, he slammed into the front door with his full weight. It caved in after two hits from his two-hundred-plus-pound frame. Thank God for flimsy locks and no dead bolts. When his leg still functioned well, one kick would’ve done the trick. He frowned at that thought. As he stepped through the broken doorway, he pulled his gun and cocked the hammer, preparing to shoot. He was so ready to try out those new bullets. Holy-water-filled bullets wouldn’t kill a demon, but they would definitely slow it down for a few moments, and that was all he needed.

He listened intently, trying to get a sense of where the demon was.

After a quick scan of the ground floor, he called out, “Is anyone home?”

An eerie silence answered. The quiet was too absolute. No sounds of talking or movement. His stomach dropped, and something inside told him he wasn’t searching for a demon anymore. He was searching for its victims. Its dead victims.

He charged up the stairs. Agony seared through his leg as he climbed the steps faster than his pain-in-the-ass physical therapist would have approved of, but he wouldn’t allow that to hold him back. Not again. Three bedrooms to scan. Slowly he pushed open the door to the first and stepped inside. From the size and décor, definitely the master bedroom, probably where the wife, who’d called Father O’Reilly, and her husband slept. Unlike the rest of the pristinely organized room, the comforter and bedsheets lay in a twisted bundle, as if someone had shoved them off in a rush to jump out of bed. Otherwise, no signs of anything out of the ordinary. But there was no way he had the wrong house, not with the sulfur he smelled. Even old rotting Easter eggs that the kids hadn’t found for months didn’t smell that potent.

He moved to the next bedroom, gun still drawn. He peeked inside: the room of a teenage boy. Sports memorabilia and a game system, but nothing unusual, just another messy bed. Turning toward the last room at the end of the hall, David stared at the open doorway. A shiver ran down his spine. Most people would have run in the other direction. It didn’t matter what dumbasses movies made the average citizen look like; in the real world, when people felt threatened, they ran, which honestly was the smartest thing to do. Instincts served a good purpose. But it was David’s job not to run.

With a deep breath, he stepped inside. Immediately he lowered his gun. He was standing inside a baby’s nursery. He turned on the light and blinked rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. From the pale pink molding on the white-painted walls and the small onesies lying in a neatly folded pile on a changing table near the crib, he could tell the room was meant for a baby girl. His stomach twisted into knots.

Not again. Dear God, not another baby.

Adrenaline coursed through him, and he fought back panic. He needed to find her, find the whole family, but to do so he needed to stay calm, collected, no matter how much the situation primed him to leap into action.

Where was this family? No signs of a struggle, yet they weren’t here, and the disarray of their beds in comparison to the rest of the immaculately clean house suggested they hadn’t planned on leaving. No, David could tell something had woken them and forced them out of their beds.

Tucking his gun back into its holster at his hip, he limped over to the baby’s crib and peered inside. A single bloodied thumbprint dirtied the white-painted wood. Shit.

As quickly as he could manage, he jogged down the stairs. There had to be something he’d missed. He stopped as he reached the bottom of the staircase. Light shone faintly underneath the door of what he’d initially thought was a closet. He wrenched the door open.

Carpeted stairs descended down into a basement. Several drops of blood stained the tan carpeting. One painful step at a time, David negotiated the stairway. His heart thumped against his chest. The sound rang in his ears in the silence.

Though he’d known as soon as he reached the porch steps that something was wrong, nothing could have prepared him for the sight before him. A large lump crawled into his throat as he surveyed the gore-covered scene. The basement looked as if someone had taken the contents of an entire blood bank and used them to set off an explosion with a messy homemade bomb. Blood soaked the walls, ceiling and floor, seeping into the carpeting.

The whole family...slaughtered.

David stood for several long moments, surveying the scene. There was something not right about this on so many levels. Demons were assholes, and they loved to use humans and leave them for dead, but this? The carnage in front of him made the victims Robert had left in his wake look as if they’d died in their sleep. But the lingering smell of sulfur mixed with the overpowering odor of freshly spilled blood told David he wasn’t imagining things. This was demons’ work.

If someone had told him that a demon had murdered an entire family in cold blood, he wouldn’t have believed it. He scanned each of the family members. The mother lay slumped against the corner of the far wall, her throat slit. Blood covered the front of her nightgown. Her mouth remained open, and her lifeless eyes stared upward to where her attacker would have stood. The cell phone she must have used to call Father O’Reilly sat a foot away from her outreached hand, the screen covered in cracks like spiderwebs.

Across from the wife, her husband lay facedown on the floor, the murder weapon still clutched in his hand after he’d slit his own throat. The wife had been right. From the looks of the scene, the demon had possessed her husband, who’d murdered her and their children before he’d turned the knife on himself.

A sharp pang of sadness hit David in the heart at the sight of the couple’s teenage son. A gaping hole in the middle of his chest showed the brutality of what the demon had done to him. The sulfur-sucking monster had slung the kid’s intestines around his corpse as if they were nothing more than sausage links. This had to be the most sickening scene he had ever laid eyes on, and he had seen some seriously messed-up shit during the year he’d served in the Brooklyn division.

The next thought that came to his mind made him cringe. Where was the baby?

Cautiously, David rounded the staircase to another section of the basement. His stomach flipped. Bile rose in his throat and burned his esophagus. He ran to the nearest trash bin and hurled the contents of his stomach into the small plastic bag. He didn’t have a weak stomach by any stretch of the imagination, but even he couldn’t handle the sight of what had been done to the once beautiful infant girl. He blinked back tears on the family’s behalf.

A dangerous mixture of sadness and pure unadulterated rage rushed through him. He would find the demonic piece of shit that did this. He would find the bastard and painfully torture it for days, weeks, until it was begging to be put out of its misery. Then he would do more than send it back to hell, where it had the potential to crawl its way out again decades later. He would find some sort of spell, some ritual, something to ensure it was tortured in the most painful way possible for the rest of eternity.

David stood in the middle of the basement amidst the dead bodies and the lingering smell of sulfur mixed with the metallic scent of the family’s blood. With robotic movements, he removed his phone and snapped photos of the crime scene for HQ to process and analyze. One step at a time.

He would get the job done, just like he always did, and each time he emerged as a stronger, better hunter...and less of a human being. A normal person wouldn’t have been able to handle seeing something like this and still function. And that was exactly the problem: he could.

* * *

EVERY FAE SENSE Allsún possessed blazed to life when the cabbie finally turned the corner on to the correct street. Immediately she knew they were in the right place, the exact house. Her Fae senses rang like a sounding school bell, alerting her that she had reached her destination. Peering out the front window of the cab, she eyed the broken-in front door. She leaned forward from the backseat. “Stop here,” she said to the driver.