Gideon's Promise (Sons of Judgment Book 2) (34 page)

Gideon got the harness on his own dog quickly and held firmly on the leash. They left Jonas to lock up and walked out of Eden.

“We’ll meet back here in four hours,” Magnus decided, checking his watch.

Gideon glanced at his own watch and nodded in confirmation. “Watch your back,” he said.

With a final nod, they parted ways.

Gideon was unclear what people saw when they looked at the hellhound following noiselessly next to him. He knew they didn’t see it for what it was; humans were endearingly blind that way. To them, it might have been a normal dog, or maybe even invisible entirely. But he knew they saw him, which was fine so long as he didn’t flash them with his weapons.

He slipped into an alleyway and pulled out the papers crumpled inside his pocket and held out the first one for the hellhound to sniff. Its fat nostrils flared as it took in the scent of the demon’s blood. Its glassy, slit-less red eyes swam with shadows the way he always imagined a gypsy’s crystal ball would.

Birthed by the flayed flesh of humans, hellhounds were blind by nature and relied solely on scent. But once they had it, there wasn’t a place on heaven, earth, or hell the person could hide that the hound couldn’t find them. Gideon had a sneaking suspicion that was where the expression, a dog with a bone came from.

The hound let out a low snarl that exposed fangs as long as Gideon’s pointer finger and as sharp as a serrated blade. The hair along its back quivered and rose on end. Gideon tightened his hold on the harness and held his breath, prepared for the worst part of the job.

It started slow. The hound began to vibrate, faster and faster until it was nearly a blur. The leash connecting him to Gideon shuddered and started to fade as the beast did. When it reached Gideon’s hand, he gritted his teeth; the sensation was one of numbness, as though his hand had fallen asleep and the bristling tingle was climbing up his arm, his shoulder, and across and down his chest. The worst was when it reached his nether regions. There was nothing more disturbing than the sensation of losing feeling in one’s private area. It might have been pleasant for a woman, the vibration, but Gideon wasn’t a fan.

It was purely his training that kept him from shutting his eyes as the alley vaporized in a swirl of smokes and a newer, grayer backdrop took its place. Gideon braced his feet to keep from swaying as the numbness faded and he found himself standing at the top of a staircase going down. There was another set going up and there was a door behind him. The plaque behind him held a number eight followed by a series of division, ICU, X-Ray and Burn Unit. So he was in a hospital. That wasn’t so unusual. But the figure at the bottom of the stairs ... was. Very.

Gideon stole a peek at the paper in his hand. Arturo. Shierk demon.

Rail thin in a way that wasn’t natural with a long, oval face surrounded by straight, black hair, Arturo greeted Gideon with a wide leer. There was something not quite right about the demon’s appearance. Gideon couldn’t put his finger on it, but it may have been that his lipless mouth was too wide across a too narrow face, or the fact that his almond-shaped eyes were black and pupil-less. Or maybe it was the fact that he worse a shapeless brown coat that was buttoned from the very bottom all the way to the collar. Whatever it was, standing before him, Gideon felt the urge to recoil.

“Caster.” Raspy like a snake hiss, Arturo’s voice carried up the stairway. “I was wondering when you would come for me.”

A nurse in pink scrubs hurried up the stairs, straight past Arturo without noticing him, but she cast Gideon a curious glance, probably wondering why he was standing on the landing between floors. She never even glanced at the hellhound standing against Gideon’s left leg, which made him suspect that she couldn’t see it. The door banged shut behind her. Gideon wondered how long he had before she called security. Damn meddling humans.

“You knew the penalties for not returning,” he told Arturo. “You signed the contract.”

Light shimmered across the dark pools of Arturo’s slanted eyes. “It must have slipped my mind,” the demon said. “Time is so different here and the food is so ... delicious.”

Arturo was the demon of plague and sickness. He fed on the health of humans, sucking away their wellbeing until they were dead. Haunting hospitals was like living in a banquet hall that never closed.

“That’s no excuse.” Gideon started down the stairs to where the demon hovered three inches off the ground. “You have two options, come with me and return to hell, or die. Which will it be?”

“Are those my only options?”

“Choose,” Gideon snapped, feeling his patience weaning. “I have other demons to hunt down.”

Arturo splayed long, spidery fingers. “I am afraid I cannot comply. I have enjoyed my time here far too much to return to the other realm.”

Gideon sighed, his irritation thrumming behind his eyelids. “Man I hate it when you guys say that.”

Arturo began to shimmer and turn translucent. Gideon cursed and relinquished his hold on the leash.

“
Zitas
!” he commanded.

The hound bounded off the stairs, catapulted through the air and slammed into the demon. They crashed into the wall and tumbled to the ground. Arturo screamed as his forearm was punctured between razor sharp fangs. Toxic green blood sprouted from the gashes, soaking his brown coat and sizzling. The hound dragged him towards Gideon.

“You should have cooperated,” Gideon said over Arturo’s howls as he flicked back his coat to reveal his blade. “We could have gone back, had a cup of tea, and you could have returned home to your little hell spawns. Now I have to get your stinky blood all over my knife.”

Arturo raised the hand the hound wasn’t tearing off and green smog billowed from his palm. The foul stench of it impregnated the air and soured the contents of Gideon’s stomach. It rose up to circle his esophagus, choking him in the bitter tang of his own vomit. He fell to his knees. The metal platform cut into the flesh of his palms as he retched. The silver handle of his dagger slipped from his sweat slickened palm. It slid between his fingers and cluttered to the ground next to him. He fumbled for it as his lungs seized, gasping for air that was putrid and polluted.

It wouldn’t kill him. Nothing, except fire killed an immortal. Fire was the ultimate tool of destruction for most things, except maybe dragons, giants, and Nephilim. There were others, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care in that moment.

The hound relinquished its hold on Arturo’s arm and lunged for the demon’s throat. Unlike Gideon, the hound didn’t breath. It didn’t die, not even by fire. The beast was beyond death.

Arturo tried to fend off the glinting, blood stained teeth gnashing by his face by using his injured arm while wielding Gideon off with his good one. That didn’t seem to be working too well for him. The wounds were deep and the hound was caught in the bloodlust. It chomped at any bit of the demon it could reach, ripping fabric and flesh alike. Green ooze spattered as its talons caught Arturo in the chest, tearing long, jagged gashes. Arturo shrieked and thrashed, attempting to jam his forearm under the hound’s snapping jaw. After several minutes of fighting and failing, he twisted his torso, possibly trying to throw off the hound.

Toxic gas abating, Gideon made his move.

The dagger felt ice cold in his grasp as he lifted it over his head. “
Zeata
!”

The hound relinquished its hold immediately and jumped back. Arturo, freed, fought to untangle himself from his coat, but Gideon was on him. He drove the blade deep into the demon’s chest.

For a full heartbeat, time itself seemed to freeze. Arturo’s liquid black eyes bore into Gideon’s with shock and disbelief. Then, right there on the landing, Arturo collapsed, falling limp across the cold metal.

Gideon exhaled. Then sucked in a huge gulp of fresh air now that it was clean again. His lungs burned as though he’d inhaled too much smoke. He coughed and wiped the back of his sleeve under his nose. He looked towards the hound, sitting patiently a few feet away, watching him.

Gideon sighed. “Good boy.”

The hound’s tail thumped from side to side and its tongue lolled out.
Cute
, Gideon thought with a slight twitch in his lips. He’d always wanted a dog, but hellhounds made lousy pets, simply because Gideon worked in a bar that catered to demons. Hellhounds ate demons. It was just bad for business.

Dusting himself off, Gideon rose. He wiped the green blood off his blade onto his pants and stared down at the dead demon.

“
Stipendium peccati mors est
... the reward of sin is death.” He muttered absently. He took another deep breath, knelt once more and pressed the tip of his two fingers to Arturo’s brow.
“Sious meto sonto sum.”

The cleanings chant was one their mother made them say over every kill. Gideon couldn’t fathom why ... they were demons. Praying for a soul that didn’t exist made no sense to him. But he did it and stepped back as water swelled throughout the body and gushed out from every pore and orifice. It washed over his boots and trickled down the stairs. The hellhound lowered its head, sniffed and began lapping at it.

Gideon grimaced and looked away.

Demon juice. Yuck.

He peered at his watch. One demon down, four more to go.

He looked to the hound. “You know what to do.”

The hound raised its massive head. Its ears perked with excitement. It moved over the demon’s body and opened its mouth.

While the beast enjoyed the first course of its meal, Gideon scanned the other pages, mostly so he wouldn’t have to watch, but also because he didn’t want another surprise like the one he’d just gotten. Getting fumigated once was enough.

“Oh look,” he said, studying the next page, “you get to feast on a drokin.” He peered down at the hound. He peered back, licking its chops. “Yum.”

Four hours later, Gideon was exhausted. He’d been stung, burned, and stabbed. His favorite coat had a hole in the sleeve from a venomous she-demon with two heads that shot poisonous spikes from her tail. He was ready for a drink. Maybe six.

Magnus was waiting for him at the front of Eden, a cigarette between his lips. He eyed Gideon with a raised eyebrow.

“You look like a hooker who had a rough night.”

Gideon flipped him off before wordlessly stepping into the pet shop to drop the hound off.

Magnus was still waiting for him when Gideon emerged a few minutes later, void of a hellhound. He pushed off the wall and joined Gideon back towards the car.

“How did it go?”

“I hate hunting,” Gideon grumbled.

“No you don’t.”

No, he didn’t. Still...

“Fuckers wrecked my coat.”

Magnus eyed the singe marks and the holes. “Don’t you have fifty of those jackets?”

Gideon looked at him. “What’s your point?” He fished into the pocket and pulled out his car keys. “How did you make out?”

Magnus shrugged as he rounded the back to the passenger’s side. “I finished three hours ago.”

Gideon stared at his brother a full minute with the key protruding from the keyhole. “There’s something wrong with you, you know that, right? You’re not normal.”

“Unlike you, I don’t give them a choice.”

They climbed into the car and Gideon started the engine.

“Mom wants us to give them the chance to come back quietly.”

Magnus snorted. “When has that ever happened?”

Never, but Gideon didn’t say as much.

They drove back to the manor, all the while discussing the hunt. But the minute Gideon pulled into his usual spot, he felt it—the humming cold of absence. It was as though every drop of heat in the place had been let out. The way an abandoned house echoed with sadness after years of being filled with love and light only to tumble carelessly into disrepair and abuse. The manor itself looked as it always had, dark, foreboding, and endless, but it had always felt like a home. Now it only made his blood chill in his veins.

“What?”

Saying nothing to Magnus’s question, Gideon hurried to the front doors. The bronze plates burned the skin on his palms as he heaved them apart. Inside, a fire had been lit in the upright dais in the center of the room. The warm glow spilled over the room like the first kiss of dawn. A few demons had arrived and were sitting stooped over their drinks. Octavian stood behind the bar, wiping glasses, and talking to Imogen. Riley wove through the tables, a tray balanced on the flat of her palm. His father stood over a table of wraith demons, laughing at something one of them was telling him. There was nothing out of the ordinary and yet, the phantom agitation crawled beneath his skin like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

“Where’s Valkyrie?” he demanded the moment Riley turned towards them.

Her dainty brows drew together in puzzlement. “She said she had something to deal with, but she’d be right back, at least, I’m assuming she’ll be right back. She doesn’t exactly confide in—”

“Where did she go?” he snapped, feeling panic scuttle up his spine like cold, metallic claws.

Riley shrugged. “We’re not exactly that close.”

“When did she leave?” he countered.

“Um...” Riley checked her watch. “An hour? Maybe two. Why? What—?”

Shoving past Magnus, Gideon threw himself back into the setting dusk. Gravel crunched beneath his boots as he ran to his car. It wasn’t until he reached the driver’s side door that he realized Magnus had followed him.

“What’s going on?”

Gideon wrenched open the door. “She’s gone to face her father,” he barked. “She thinks if she throws herself at his mercy, he’ll spare her, or me.”

“So what are you going to do?” Magnus opened the passenger’s side door.

Gideon threw himself behind the wheel. “I’m going to get her back.”

But no sooner had he shoved the keys into the ignition when a high pitched roar filled the night. Light crashed through the clearing a split second before the giant, glinting motorcycle did with its leather clad rider. Gideon scrambled out of his car just as a long, toned leg struck the ground. The rider raised both arms and jerked the gleaming helmet off. Shiny, black hair tumbled in waves down a slender back.