Days of New: The Complete Collection (Serials 1-5) (16 page)

There was no Clark right then. He was pressed down deep inside, huddled into the corner of his being. From the inside, he watched the demon manipulate his body, forcing his limbs to move, using his mouth to speak. Clark had fought it at first, but it’d only made him sicker. Now he just let the demon have its way with his body when he couldn’t keep the creature at bay anymore.

“Clark! Calm down, man!” called Bailey, the captain of the Descendants’ police force, as he came through the sea of guards descending the dungeon’s stairs and stopped in front of the bars. His hand rested on the gun at his hip.

The demon shouted and cursed at Bailey, sputtering words as it launched itself at the bars.

“You’re going to hurt yourself!” Bailey shouted over the hissing sounds the demon made.

The demon caught a flash of white from its narrowed vision. It craned its head toward the back of the group of guards, where Camille entered, watching the demon with quiet green eyes. The demon licked its lips, taking in her leggy body and lush mouth, picturing her tongue lapping at its scales. The demon felt a satisfying hardness between the angel mutt’s legs.

Clark roared from inside, pissed off at the demon’s dirty thoughts about the angel whore. Sure, the demon was just here to unlock the secret to Clark’s magic, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t have a little fun in the meantime. It used its grip on the bars to climb like a monkey until it was at the very top of the cell, well above the guards and peering down at hot-as-sin angel.

“The wh-whore! The dirty a-angel whore!” the demon screeched, pointing through the bars.

Camille didn’t react as everyone turned and looked at her. Instead, her eyes lanced into Clark’s soul, shoving aside the demon and seeing him pinioned to the depths inside. The guards didn’t quite know what to do with her in the dungeon, and their eyes roved between her and Clark.

“Camille, you’re not supposed to be down here,” Bailey said quietly, almost comfortingly.

“Spread yo-your legs, bitch!” the demon squealed.

Instead, Camille unfolded her wings, filling the entire width of the hall outside Clark’s cell. It was like unleashing an atomic bomb in the small chamber. The guards flinched away as the pure white light exploded into the creeping shadows, extinguishing the torches along the wall and plummeting the dungeon into a new dark world, where Camille was the sun. She radiated the blinding luminance until she resembled a falling star streaking across the night sky. Her blond hair lifted off her shoulders and twisted around her face. Her eyes glowed neon; the air sparked with tiny bolts of lightning.

Her magnificence dizzied the demon, and it hissed in anger, hating nothing more than a righteous holy angel. All the guards, including Bailey, fell to their knees and covered their eyes. The light was too great, too pure. Sensing that it had been outranked, the demon released its grip on the bars and fell to the floor of the cell, where it scuttled back into the shadows.

Camille kept her eyes on the demon as she folded up her wings. The light receded as she did, returning the dungeon back to its normal darkness. The ethereal glow of her eyes flickered out, and, with just a blink, returned to their normal catlike condemnation. The torches flared back to life. The guards stood, dusting off the knees of their pants, looking sheepish in the face of an angel.

“Camille…” Bailey said.

“He’s possessed, Bailey. He needs help.”

“I k-killed him!” the demon sing-songed as it rose from the floor. “I’ll kill y-you all!”

“Are you confessing?” Bailey asked, his eyes narrowed on the demon.

“This isn’t Clark. It’s the demon.” Camille stepped through the guards so that she was next to Bailey. She touched his arm. “Come on. You know this. Liam was possessed. Clark killed him in self-defense.”

“He just confessed to murder,” Bailey growled, shifting away from Camille’s touch.

Her jaw tightened and she dropped her arm, leaning in close to Bailey, her lips snarling. “You better get straight on this, Bailey. Because Lucifer is back. And I hope you’re looking into the right fire when he shows his face.”

With that, Camille turned and left, striding up the stairs without looking back.

“I w-will kill you all!” The demon laughed, the sound shrill and clicking.

Bailey surged forward, gripping the demon’s neck through the bars and crushing its face against the cool metal. The demon lost itself in a fit of coughing and cackling laughter, but the cop ignored it. “Maybe there really is something in there with you, but I hope you can hear this,” Bailey whispered in the demon’s ear. “If you killed Liam, I’ll see you hanged for it.”

Bailey shoved the demon away and sent it crashing back against the rock slab. Its head bounced off the back wall and stars danced across its vision. The rattling in its mind quieted the demon, and Clark felt himself fill out his body once more. He blinked as the darkness in his vision receded. Pushing himself off the slab, he felt as if he were waking up from a deep sleep. He shook his head and focused. The guards were leaving. Bailey was halfway up the stairs, leaving a new guard on duty.

“Wait!” Clark shouted, but his voice came out more as a rasp. “Bailey, wait! I ne—”

“Save it for your trial,” Bailey called over his shoulder.

Waiting until Bailey was out of sight, the new guard pulled out a chunky piece of equipment from his belt and turned toward Clark with a mean glower. “This is for Liam, asshole.”

Clark was too weak and stunned—the pain from battering against the bars sneaking up on him—to move away as the guard pointed the stun gun at Clark’s chest and pulled the trigger. Two thin threads exploded from the barrel and hit him with 150,000 volts of electricity.

Clark collapsed to the damp floor in a twitching heap. The electricity coursed through him in waves, starting from his toes and ending in the back of his mouth. His jaw clenched and his head banged against the stone floor. His legs were rigid, the muscles contracting until cramps settled deep into his bones. The guard yanked the prongs from Clark’s chest and retracted them into his gun with a satisfied grunt.

When Clark finally stilled, his entire body was limp from exhaustion. He didn’t bother trying to move; he didn’t really know if it was the demon or him who had control at the moment. And he couldn’t handle the crushing disappointment if it wasn’t him.

The demon laughed inside him, the sound ringing in his ears.
Your little whore looks like a good ride.

Shut up
, Clark thought back, too tired to do much else.

Tell me
, the demon said,
does her mouth feel good on your—

This is between you and me. Leave her out of it.

I wonder what her sweet little—

Stop!
Clark screamed inside his head.
I’ll never use my magic against you, no matter how badly you piss me off. So just leave it alone.

We will get your power
, the demon whispered, shifting tactics.
It will be ours
.
You can’t hide it from me forever.

Clark felt the demon nudging along the edge of his magic, like pulling at a loose thread in a seam. The marks on his arms itched and flared. But Clark resisted, pushing back against the demon as it crept closer. It may be the last task he was capable of performing, but he would not allow the demon into the place where he kept his magic, deep in the shadows of his mind. He would keep it away with all the strength he had.

Lucifer couldn’t get ahold of the power contained in the Watchers’ secrets—no matter what.

They would all be screwed then.

Chapter Two

C
amille was late to the Descendants’ meeting, so she slipped in from the second story loft, where hard pews were lined across the length of the balcony. A draft spiraled down from the ceiling and crept down the collar of her tight black shirt. Though cold, the air was musty and still since all the meetings lately had been private, and the lack of transparency was causing tension and fear amongst the other Descendants and refugees. Camille knew it was a mistake to lock out the public. Liam would’ve known better. Clark too.

Even in her steel-toed boots, her footsteps were silent when she crossed over the ancient wooden planks to the balcony railing. As she looked down onto the meeting, loud voices drifted up to her. Sunlight streamed through the Archangels’ stained glass windows, but Camille ignored the faces there, especially the dark-haired one in the middle. Instead, she turned her attention to the meeting below her.

But it wasn’t really a meeting. There was no Keeper sitting at the head of the table, and there were more empty seats than filled ones. People shouted across the table, pointing fingers and laying blame. In Liam’s and Clark’s absences, both orders of Descendants and Nephilim had fallen into shambles, and this meeting was just another example of the lack of leadership breeding an irreversible form of chaos. Camille had seen it before, watched entire civilizations crumble when there were no good men left to lead. Like they were proving her point, Ezekiel and Dylan leaned across the table and yelled at each other. Dylan’s hand went to the dagger on his belt.

“Do it!” Ezekiel screamed, his unkempt beard twitching madly. His eyes bugged out of his head; his fingers clenched the table. “Kill me now and prove me right! The Descendants are nothing but killers and cowards!”

“You unholy
bastard
!” Dylan shouted back. “I’m not a coward!”

All the Nephilim were standing now. They didn’t take too kindly to being called “bastards.” Camille had killed her fair share of Nephilim throughout the centuries. She’d hunted them down at the Archangels’ orders and flayed Nephilim open from heart to groin to be found by their kin. She had a knack for it, if she did say so herself. But then, she really had a knack for any kind of killing. She was a killer. Born and bred. Raised and trained. The fact that she enjoyed it was just a perk.

“Then why do you hide behind these walls when you should be out looking for more survivors or restoring power?”

Camille shrugged, even though no one could see her up in the loft. The Nephil had a point.

“We are waiting to coordinate with the government officials!”

Ezekiel scoffed. “It’s been six months! There is no government!”

“It takes time to send messengers to Washington!” Dylan clenched the table with his meaty hands.

“Those officials are just bunker rats who come out when all the fighting is over!”

“Oh, right. And you probably did so much fighting yourself, right? Old man!”

“How much did you do, boy?”

More rational Descendants and Nephilim tried to shout for order, for everyone to calm down. But it fell on deaf ears. The anger and ignorance in the room rose like boiling mercury. The unconstrained emotions tainted the air and stung Camille’s skin. She looked down upon the humans and half-humans and curled her lip in distaste. The group was not filled with trained killers, but they would do a decent-enough job of it if she didn’t intervene.

She toyed with the idea of letting them have at each other. It might save her some trouble down the road if the Nephilim and Descendants offed one another, but she knew Clark wouldn’t approve. She unfolded her wings and tore two slits in the back of her shirt. Another cool shirt ruined. She sighed and stepped onto the balcony railing, angling out her wings. The wood groaned in complaint, but Camille was off of it before it could collapse.

She sailed down into the room, her descent made longer by the towering cathedral-like ceilings. She landed with a bang on the table, having slowed her fall just enough to not shatter the ancient table, where hundreds of generations of Descendants had sat. She did leave a mighty crack down its center on purpose though.

Drawing her curving blade from its sheath beneath her arm, she turned toward the meeting’s troublemakers, who registered her appearance with a surprised jerk and yelp. They didn’t have much time for anything else. Dylan was the only one armed, so she spun toward him first, her movements graceful as a ballerina until her boot connected with his face. She heard his nose break before he went flying back against the wall. She pivoted around and lifted Ezekiel by his greasy throat before flinging him through the air. When she straightened on the table, her breathing returning to normal, they were both slouched against the floor, unconscious. She turned to the others gathered around the table. They saw her eyes and stepped back, holding up their hands in surrender.

“Is this how you govern?” Camille growled. “By throwing tantrums and yelling at each other across a table? Is this how you save the world? With futile meetings and words? You worthless cretins. Get those two to their quarters,” she said, jerking her chin toward Ezekiel and Dylan. “There will be no more meetings until I say so.”

“You can’t do that,” one brave Descendant spoke up.

“I just did, asshole.” She turned to the other Descendants and Nephilim. “This is no way to lead. The refugees are scared. Rumors and gossip about food rations and water shortages are spreading like wildfires. Fear is breeding, yet you stand in here bickering about who’s going to lead. Get out there and calm them down. Show them that we have plenty of food and water. If you don’t, there will be hell to pay. Trust me.”