Demon Hunt (22 page)

* * * *

The various law enforcement branches of the Pike’s Peak region were winding it up when the first fireball rolled though the sky. A brilliant white ball of flame wound its way through the heavens to explode in the middle of an empty cruiser sitting off to one side of the icy gravel road.

The chief had been reviewing paperwork in his truck, trying to ignore the work of his men as they painstakingly picked up pieces of people.

The flare of the first meteor to hit gave him some warning and he glanced up in time to see the other meteors streaking through the sky. Some headed towards the lights of town, some hit in the forest, setting snow-covered trees aflame. He paused for a second to digest this newest shock and hit the siren. The Baptist fundamentalists who protested gambling in the mountains were proven right. Hell had finally made its way to town. He reached for the phone again.

* * * *

Rhi writhed in her sleep as her fear, anger and newly awakened powers fueling the flame storm in the sky. She couldn’t wake up. She was chained to the nightmare.

The drip of the condensation on the walls of the cellar was almost a homey sound. The thirst for the one little drop of water sliding down the wall where she could see it out of the corner of her eye was agony.

She prayed for death. God wasn’t listening to her today. Death should be easier, she thought, if one was already so far along the road. Her body, mind and soul were a pile of rubble her husband’s brother tore his way through looking for answers to his questions.

She faded in and out until small filthy hands held her down on the cold stone and a metal cup was pressed to her lips. Why they felt she needed held down was beyond her. Raven Blackthorne could barely lift her head, let alone rise to smite her captors. She fought to keep from swallowing, but a larger hand held her mouth shut and the hideous red liquid made a burning path down her throat. Enough to keep her alive for a little while longer. The thinned demon’s blood they fed her was not strong enough to provoke the change. The noxious stuff just kept her breathing.

Her husband’s brother stood nearby. The lust on his face made her want to retch but there was nothing in her stomach to bring up. How many times could he take her unwilling body before he tired of her pain? She wanted to scour herself until her skin bled because of Manius’ touch but she knew she would never truly be clean.

The crystal skull sat on a pedestal in a wall niche behind her tormentors. The torchlight of the stone dungeon lit the quartz crystal to an unholy green sprinkled with a purplish red. A flare of hope sparked in the one eye she could still open. She extinguished the thought before Manius noticed.

A small dragon fluttered nearby and Raven called to her captor’s creature silently. After days of forced trances, she knew what the skull was capable of and, unfortunately for the most part, so did Manius. But he kept pushing, demanding more information. She managed to hide in her heart one vital fact: the only person in the huge house capable of opening the gate was Raven herself. She doubted Manius could find anyone else with the special attributes needed to open and close the gate. She wondered for a moment who Solomon used to open and close his gate and what he did with the demons he freed to build the temple in Jerusalem. Killed them? Sent them to his mines in Africa and worked to death as they dug for treasure?

As her bloodied mouth babbled obscure bits of arcane knowledge, her mind wove the spell. As she watched, the small dragon flew unnoticed to the skull and lifted the relic in its claws. The creature fluttered up a nearby staircase. She placed a picture in the mind of the dragon and a command. As she lost consciousness, the sounds of shouting and clashing swords rang in her ears. Her husband had come.

She awoke in a white room, lying in an old iron bedstead. The large Bible she had begged for in an earlier moment of lucidity lay nearby on the night table, its cover marked by droplets of her blood. It seemed that blood was everywhere. The final coughing fits of her life were leaving their mark. Her lungs had very little left to give.

Jack knelt beside her, holding her hand in a tight grip. Pearl sat in a nearby chair, clad in a demure gray wool dress. Her neck was heavily bandaged and her arm was in a sling. The madam’s ravaged face was paler than usual and her vivid eyes filled with tears.

“
Raven, God forgive me.” Jack clutched her hand as he rocked back and forth. For the first time since she had met him, he looked helpless and lost. “Take the blood, darling, it’s the only way.”

“
No.” Something in the darkness of her mind spoke sharply, demanding something terrible and unfair. She ran her tongue over her blistered lips. “Jack. You can’t follow me into death. You have to stay.”

He shook his head violently, almost crushing the bones of her hand in his grip. “No, if you won’t take the blood - I’m going to die with you.”

Raven hardened what was left of her heart. “I can’t take the blood, you know it. I’m too weak. But by my blood, I curse you. You can’t choose death until you make this right, Jack. This is not over.” Her command held a gossamer strand of iron. “It’s not fair but God doesn’t have to be fair, does He?”

“
I love you, Raven,” he protested in a whisper.

She wanted to die so badly. “Love isn’t enough, Jack. There must be honor. Swear.” Raven’s free hand clutched at the coarse white sheets provided by the Sisters of Mercy.

He hesitated.

“
Jack, I need to hear you swear.”

He stared back at her angrily. “How can you ask this?”

“
Swear, Jack …”

He dropped her hand and turned away. “I swear.” Then Jack Blackthorne got up and stalked out of the room, past a shocked Pearl and away from his wife.

Raven heard him swear and groped about on the sheet, searching for his hand. She needed him to understand. She found Pearl’s slim, smooth hand instead and held on, trying to speak.

“
He’s gone, Raven,” the madam told her. “But he loves you …”

Pearl’s voice was getting further away.

Then Raven passed from her body, upward, the tendrils of her sorrow clinging to her spirit like cobwebs of light.

* * * *

As Rhi slept, tears ran down her face. Outside, the skies opened, pouring more snow onto to little mountain town, following the meteor shower so closely that people who witnessed it later said that the snow was on fire.

Rhi finally awoke with a start as two large, scarred hands shook her silly. Caught in the nightmare, she gasped for air – a few rusty squawks came out of her throat.

Slapping at Blackthorne’s hands, she scuttled to the other end of the bed where Ellie Mae stood at attention. The hair on the dog’s neck was on end but she hadn’t interfered.

Rhi clung to the dog’s huge neck, finally getting enough air in her lungs to sob. The clean smell of linen and warm hound filled her head, replacing the sulfur stench of the dream. But the metallic taste of her own blood lingered in her mouth. She couldn’t bear the thought of the man who sat by her bed staring up at her, his face grim.

Stumbling out of bed, she padded down to the kitchen, ignoring Blackthorne.

The dog observed Rhi’s departure guardedly from her perch atop several snowy white pillows, the folds of Ellie Mae’s face more wrinkled than usual.

Water would wash away the taste of blood. Rhi’s hands shook as she clutched the glass and opened the tap. Blackthorne appeared beside her to reach for the glass as his other bare arm steadied her body. She purposefully dropped the glass and lunged at him.

A satisfying yelp escaped Blackthorne as her hands tore at his face. He struggled with her as she spit and snarled at him, catching her before she could do too much damage. He carried her, struggling, to the opposite counter, away from the pile of glass.

Ellie Mae pounded down the steps of the loft to stand in the entry to the kitchen. The dog’s body tensed, the fur on her neck standing on end. A low growl issued from her throat but she didn’t attack Blackthorne. Instead she gave the couple a look, walked into the living room and turned around three times to lie facing the other direction.

“
Damn it, Rhi … stop it! God’s ears, what the Hell is wrong with you!” Blackthorne shouted, holding her arms against her sides as she tried to kick her way free.

“
I hate your brother for raping me - I hate your brothers for letting him live and I hate you for bringing me into this again, you bastard!” She kept fighting, almost dislocating an arm trying to pry free.

His face whitened. “You don’t think I’ve spent the last hundred years thinking about what he did to you?”

“
If you hadn’t broken your oath, none of this would have happened! Tell me, did you tell innocent little Raven what you were? Did you tell her,
me
, whatever, what you were? God, men are all alike even hundreds of years apart!”

Panting, she finally stopped her struggle. Blackthorne let her go and backed off with his hands in the air, palms towards her. Non-threatening?
This
guy was trying to appear non-threatening?

“
Get out,” she hissed.

“
No.”

“
Get out or I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

“
I’ll be with you when the skull surfaces, Rhi, whether you like it or not. Unlike you, I’m tired of this world and am ready to seek another.”

She pulled a hand back to strike. He caught the arm and wrenched it behind her back, forcing her against him.

Her soul blazed as she stared up at the familiar lines of his face. He said nothing but the look of fury he gave her made her think suddenly that this was a good time to consider running.

Blackthorne lowered his mouth to hers as she struggled in his arms. “A hundred years of needing you, Rhi.” Then he kissed her and she felt like he was inhaling her into himself. Half hating herself, she closed her bruised lips against him. He paused and pushed her away. “Go to bed Rhi. You’ll have a long day tomorrow, whether you want to or not.”

“
We’ll both have a busy day, Blackthorne,” she replied, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as he stalked away to clean up the mess. “The skull is close. I dreamed of it and I don’t think it will stay hidden long. The skull is calling me - I can hear it. And the damned thing wouldn’t know my soul if not for you.”

The skull was closer than he could ever imagine, trapped in a Bible Rhi bought in a junk store on a whim two days before. She banished the thought before he could pick up on it. The thing might as well be in Timbuktu since she had no idea how to release it. And she had no reason to trust
either
of the Blackthorne brothers.

She stood in the kitchen staring at the wall for ten minutes as she sipped a new glass of water. Finally, she felt her emotions become cool to the touch, the fire in her belly sparked by his kiss burning down to a pile of embers. She’d go to bed, go to sleep, wake up and this would be some kind of nightmare brought on by too many books full of tales from the 1800s.

He didn’t say a word as she crept past where he stood at the living room window, staring out at the night. Blackthorne had taken his sweater off and wore only jeans. His chest glistened in the dim light of the room. Rhi could smell the scent of him, clean sweat and mossy woods. A surge of heat rose again as she examined him, imagining his hands on her body.

So much for that fire going out,
she thought ruefully. If it weren’t for the nightmares, she could have walked away. She needed his touch to wipe the memory of the dream away. She stepped towards him and stopped.

“
What the hell am I doing?” she whispered.

He turned to face her in time to see the tension lighting her frame.

“
Make up your mind, Rhiannon. I can’t take this, I’ve waited too long.” His raw voice forced her a step closer.

“
I just need tonight, Blackthorne. No more.” She broke off when he stepped across the room in one stride and crushed her against him. Heat flowed and when he kissed her again, the world stopped. It wasn’t a soft kiss … it was hard and feral. She clutched at his arms as superheated blood raced through every vein in her body. She squeaked in terror when he pulled her head back to expose her neck.

“
Rhi, damn it, I’m not going to drink your blood … okay?” He groaned and lowered his head to gently nibble, while his hands slid over every available inch of skin the t-shirt left exposed. “I might eat you alive, though,” he muttered against her breast before taking a cloth-covered nipple in his mouth.

“
Uh … I’m okay with that,” she managed to gasp, lost in a wave of sensation.

“
You know, there’s too much fabric here.” He pushed her against the wall beside the stairs, trapping her against the hard lines of his body. He ripped the shirt away like tissue in a swift movement.