The Dark-Hunters (689 page)

“They were reinforcing. You want me to let them have you next time?”

“Depends on how long this migraine lasts. Damn it, woman, just stab me through the skull next time.” Zeke flexed his jaw as if trying to clear his head.

“Don’t tempt me.”

Shaking his head to ease his own pain, Fang stood up and surveyed the black birdlike bodies around them. Blood ran thick on the sidewalk as a few of them twitched from death. He dissolved his sword and caught his breath.

Zeke and Ravenna turned to face him. “Nice work,” Zeke offered.

Fang nodded in appreciation as he continued to survey the bodies. “What caused this?”

Ravenna patted him on the chest, right over his heart. “You have Phrixis inside you, buddy.” She gestured to the demon remains. “They want his powers, which means if they kill you, they get your powers and his. You’re the Star of India, baby.”

Fang couldn’t accept that. It didn’t make sense. “How can they be here?”

Zeke held his hand out and shot out a stream of fire to consume the bodies. “They’ve always been here. You just never saw them until your unfortunate journey into their domain and you had your eyes opened. The doorway between this world and theirs is barely guarded, so coming and going really isn’t all that hard for certain species such as these.”

Fang narrowed his gaze as he finally understood. “So you’re Hellchasers too?”

Zeke snorted as if Fang had just insulted him. “No. We work for the right side of this equation.” He all but spat those words.

And Fang didn’t? What exactly was Zeke implying? “People, speak a language I can understand because right now, I’m lost. Last time I checked,
I
was one of the good guys.”

Zeke shook his head. “You might be one, but the asshole you work for certainly isn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I answer to the archangels Samael and Gabriel. While Thorn is supposedly on our side, he is the blood son of our bitterest enemy and therefore we don’t know where his real loyalties lie. He says he’s with us, but I don’t trust him at all. Given his father and his past, it’s just a matter of time before he switches sides and leaves us with our pants down.”

“Bitterest enemy?”

Zeke’s features turned to stone. “Lucifer.”

Fang gaped in disbelief as that reality smacked him hard in his gut. Thorn was Lucifer’s son? Why hadn’t he seen that?

Because you were desperate.
Aimee’s life had been threatened and nothing else had mattered to him. No wonder Thorn had been so secretive.

“What have I done?”

Ravenna clapped him hard on the shoulder. “You sold your soul to the wrong side, bud. Congrats.”

Fang still refused to believe that. “But he fights the demons.”

Zeke let out a long breath. “He has so far. Who knows what tomorrow brings. One thing I’ve learned while doing this is that people change, people betray, and the only one you can truly trust is yourself.”

Ravenna gave him a harsh stare.

Zeke snorted. “Like you wouldn’t cut my throat if someone gave you the chance.”

She nodded and laughed. “Oh, well, that’s true. I really do hate you most days.”

Fang ignored them as he tried to understand what was going on. “Wait. Could you explain all this to me? Thorn hasn’t been forthcoming with information. What exactly do we do and how do you fit into this equation?”

“C’mon, Fang,” Ravenna said as if talking to a toddler who had no higher cognitive functioning. “You didn’t really think the Greek and Atlantean pantheons were the only ones still fighting the good fight, did you? Or that the Daimons were the only demons? You know about the Charonte, the gallu, the Dimme, Harvesters, and Reapers. Slug demons like Misery.… There are thousands of classes and all of us, regardless of pantheon or power source, have soldiers to fight them.”

Fang looked at her suspiciously. “What are
you?
”

“Half human, half Kalios demon.”

Kalios were benevolent demons. He’d learned that in the Nether Realm. The only one of their kind he’d met had been torn apart by a Harvester while trying to help him.

He narrowed his gaze on Zeke. “You?”

“Born human. Classified now as a Necrodemian, which loosely translates as death to demons or demon executioner. Unlike a Hellchaser, I have the ability to kill demons without consequence as long as I follow certain protocols, which really, really blow most days.”

“While we just send them back.”

Zeke gave him a sarcastic salute. “You’re getting it.”

Fang put his hands on his hips. “I still don’t understand how I got dragged into all this.”

Ravenna patted him on the shoulder in sympathy. “The last Malachai has been tapped and with it, the oldest dark powers are uniting again to take over the earth. Our soldiers are being rallied and you, my friend, have stepped straight into this battle.”

“I was only trying to protect Aimee.”

“And that emotion is what has damned many a good soul.”

Fang supposed so. But it still didn’t lessen the fact that he’d seriously fubarred his life. And all this because he’d wanted a beer.…

And ended up wanting a bear.

“So is Thorn evil?” he asked Zeke.

“He’s the son of one of the darkest powers ever known. And his father was a trusted soldier for good until he turned. Unlike his father, Thorn has resisted that temptation most of the time.” Zeke let out a tired sigh. “In the end, we really don’t know. Many members of his army have been known to turn and had to be put down … usually after making the same mistake you did when you killed Phrixis. When the demons kill the Hellchaser, they’re made more powerful and harder for
us
to kill. Which begs the question, does Thorn fail to warn his Hellchasers about the demons on purpose, wanting the demons to get more powerful for his father? Or is he just that forgetful?”

Ravenna let out a derisive snort. “Or as I suspect, he’s just a mentally twisted fuck who likes head games.”

Fang would like an answer to that himself. “Bet if I asked—”

“You’d get the same answer we get. He’d either put you through a wall or set you on fire.” Zeke smirked. “The fire part really hurts, by the way. I don’t know what that bastard has in his fist, but it burns like nothing you’ve ever felt. For the record, stay on his good side.”

Great. Just great. Stay on the good side of a man sired by pure evil. “So I’m no better off here than I was in the Nether Realm.”

Ravenna laughed. “Are you insane? Of course you’re better off. You can actually sleep here without fear of being brutalized, and there is real food that is worth eating. But … you have a crosshair on your back that looks like the mighty Target sign off I-10. Because the demons are all about gathering more power, you’re extra-appealing to them. A possessed Were-Hunter … you’re lucky I’m not trying to kill you.”

Fang ignored that last bit. “So how do I get it off?”

Zeke scratched his chin. “Well, my bosses aren’t much more forthcoming with information than yours is. We can try to resurrect Phrixis out of you, which could really suck and not work. It could also kill you. Or we could find the one who summoned him and break the chain she used. That should eradicate the little bugger.”

“Why didn’t Thorn tell me that?”

“I told you, we don’t really know what side he’s on. You’ve got to figure either he wants a demon to eat you and get more powerful to fight us. Or he wants you to be more powerful to fight them. Since we don’t know if Good Fang or Bad Fang will win, it’s a dangerous game he’s playing.”

“Personally, I want the demon out. How do we find his summoner?”

Ravenna arched a brow at him. “We’re in N’Awlins, boy. Any idea how many people here that could be?”

“Well,” Zeke said, “there is a third way.”

“And that is?”

“An act so purely good and selfless it drives out the demon.”

Fang liked the sound of that one. At least it had the most likely prospect of working and not getting him killed … maybe. “What is that? Saving an infant?”

Zeke shrugged. “Don’t know. The PTB aren’t big on specifics.”

“PTB?”

Ravenna answered for him. “Powers That Be.”

“Great. So what do I do? Just hang out and hope the demon leaves or that his summoner just happens to fling himself under my bike?”

Ravenna let out a sinister laugh. “Fasten your seat belts, buddy. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

“Thanks, Bette. I personally would like something a little more concrete.”

Zeke picked his helmet up from the ground. “Well, that’s the best we can do for now. Sorry.”

Sorry? That was a word Fang would love to make that man eat. “You mentioned a Malachai. What is that?”

Zeke kicked to scatter the dust of the Reapers who’d finally stopped burning. “Easiest explanation is to think of them like an army of fallen angels. Demonic, coldblooded, and capable of tearing apart anything that got in their path.”

“But you said there was only one left.”

Zeke nodded. “At one time, there were two armies. The Sephirii, who fought for good, and the Malachai, who were pure evil. Now we’re down to one of each. The last Sephiroth is enslaved and the last Malachai vanished. We assumed him dead until a few months back when there was a rupture in the ether.”

“A rupture?”

Zeke nodded. “Adarian, the last Malachai, had a son we didn’t know about. Somehow the little bastard was born off our radar. When he came into his powers, it made an unmistakable clamor.”

“Where is this last Malachai?”

“That’s the kicker. We don’t know. We’re trying to find him, but whoever is hiding him is determined to keep him under wraps and we don’t know why.”

“I’m sure it can’t be good.”

“Yeah … at any rate, you’ve consigned yourself to a tenuous post. Watch your back, wolf.” Zeke tossed his sword into the air. It transformed back into his motorcycle.

Ravenna returned to her raven form and flew off while Zeke started the bike.

“I will try to keep an eye on you, wolf. Just be wary of shadows and keep your eyes open for Phrixis to control you.”

Disgusted over this new turn of events, Fang waited until they were gone. He still had no clarity about last night or his future, but one thing was sure, he had no intention of allowing the police to question him until he knew more about what had happened.

And most of all, not until he knew more about what was going on.

*   *   *

Over the next few months as he avoided the cops and his family, Fang learned exactly what Zeke had meant about having a target on his back. He felt like he was back in the Nether Realm as demon after demon pursued him.

But the worst part were the blackouts he kept having where he couldn’t remember what he’d done.

Where he’d been.

He was still alive, but that was the only thing he knew for certain. And as the blackouts became more frequent, he was afraid to go near Aimee. He would wake up with all manner of injuries that he couldn’t explain. Bite marks, wounds, bruises.

If only he knew what they were from.

More people and Were-Hunters were dying and he was beginning to think he was to blame. Every morning, he woke up covered in blood with no explanation for what had caused it.

Fang moved deeper into the swamp, hoping that if he stayed away from everyone, he wouldn’t hurt them. Thoughts of harming Vane or Bride, or most important, Aimee, tortured him.

Why couldn’t he remember what he did at night? He wanted desperately to go to Aimee and tell her what was going on, but he didn’t dare. For one, he was evading custody. And two, he was afraid he might inadvertently hurt her during one of his blackouts.

He’d come so close that last time he’d seen her. Had she not kneed him …

Fang didn’t want to think about it. He wouldn’t be able to live, knowing he’d hurt her.

What is going on?

“I want you out of me!” he snarled at Phrixis, who was back in his head, telling him to kill.

Why couldn’t he have peace?

Worst of all, he wanted to see his nephew and Aimee. He wanted to have a moment of being held by someone who wasn’t as suspicious of him as he was of himself. But he wouldn’t endanger them.

Not until he knew the truth.

*   *   *

Aimee hung up the phone in frustration as she sat alone in her mother’s office. She wanted to crush the worthless device into a billion pieces.

“You still can’t get him?”

She glanced up to find Dev standing in the doorway, watching her with a concerned frown on his face. “What are you talking about?”

“I know you’re calling Fang.”

She started to lie, but why bother? He’d just be able to smell it on her. “I’m worried about him.”

“I don’t blame you. Body count is mounting and Stu called to say they’ve set up a special task force to bring him in.”

Stu had been keeping them all posted about the killings. Each one had looked like an animal had done it. Like a wolf or a dog.

But the bloodiest kills had been the Were-Hunters, all Arcadians, who’d died. No regular animal would have the abilities to do that. There was another Were-Hunter out there preying on them.

Aimee swallowed the cold lump in her throat as she considered a possibility she really didn’t want to think about. “Do you think he’s guilty of killing them?”

Dev sighed. “Eight of the dead are Were-Hunters. It doesn’t look good for him.”

No, it didn’t. And the fact he wouldn’t talk to her just made it worse. Not to mention, he was no longer staying with Vane. No one knew where he was.

And that made her want to weep.

“Aimee?”

She looked past Dev’s shoulder at Maman’s call in the hallway. She stood up and moved toward him to make room at the desk for her mother. “Yes?”

Dev stepped aside so that Maman could enter. “A special session of the Omegrion has been called. I think you should attend.”

Aimee frowned at the unusual request. “Why?”

“Because it’s about Fang.”

Her heart sank so fast that she was dizzy. Dev caught her against him. “I’ll go with you.”

She nodded, grateful for his support. “Thank you, Maman, for telling me.”

Her mother inclined her head.