The Hunt (11 page)

She pulled in a deep breath and forced herself to contribute. ‘He said that he commanded forty legions of demons. He said he was the Prince of Hell and he was going to rule the world.’

Payne’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I find it difficult to believe a demon of that power was on Earth and my order didn’t know about it. And we knew nothing of
a Deepdene Witch.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought … We thought we knew everything about demons. Now it seems there is much more to learn.’

‘Lots more. You didn’t know there was another way to kill a demon either,’ Jess pointed out. ‘You thought only one of your swords would work. But Eve can do it too, with just her hands. I’m right that that’s why she has the demon stink, aren’t I?’

‘All the members of the Order have killed demons. I’ve never felt the pull of a demon from them, never sensed evil,’ Payne answered.

‘But you don’t kill demons the same way,’ Luke said. ‘Maybe that’s why.’

Payne shrugged. ‘We will have to discuss it when I return to the Order,’ he answered. ‘Now, tell me this, where did Malphas come from?’

‘Ohio, I think,’ Jess offered. Eve, Luke and Payne all stared at her. ‘Oh, duh! That wasn’t really true. That’s just what Mal told people as his cover story. You know, I never realized that before!’

‘I meant what portal.’

Eve could tell Payne was struggling to control his impatience, but she had no idea what he was talking about. ‘I don’t know anything about portals,’ she said. ‘There was nothing about them in the papers our old
minster hid, at least not in the parts Luke’s translated so far.’

Payne gave a sigh of frustration. ‘How to explain it? Are any of you familiar with the television show
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
?’ he asked.

Now they all stared at him, and Eve couldn’t help laughing. This scruffy man with a huge sword, who hunted demons and sensed evil … he watched TV?

‘Sure. We love
Buffy
,’ Jess said. ‘When we were in sixth grade it was on every day after school, and we were in front of the TV!’

‘I’ve seen it a few times,’ Luke agreed.

‘Well, it got almost everything wrong,’ Payne told them, ‘but what the show called the “hellmouth” is a portal, a place where demons can pass from their world into this one. There are many such places, mystical centres where the boundary between worlds is thin. Did Malphas seem to have a home base?’

‘The Razor place,’ Eve said, just as Luke said, ‘The old Medway mansion.’

‘Which are the same house,’ Jess explained. ‘What you call it usually depends on how old you are. But it was the Medway mansion first.’

‘Take me there. It’s the most likely location of the
portal,’ Payne instructed them. ‘This is something I have to investigate.’

‘We will. But not tonight,’ Eve said quickly, before either of her friends had a chance to reply. ‘I’m … I’m still really shaken up. I did almost get killed.’ She gave Payne a pointed look. ‘I need to wait until tomorrow, when it’s light and I’m not so freaked.’

‘Let’s meet at Java Nation in the morning,’ Luke suggested. ‘Then we’ll all walk over there together.’

‘Nine.’ The way Payne said it, it wasn’t a question.

‘Nine,’ Eve agreed.

Payne left the church without another word, shutting the door behind him with a sharp click.

‘Wow.’ Jess shook her head. ‘That was – wow.’

‘Let’s give him a few minutes so he won’t see us,’ Eve said.

‘See us what?’ Luke shoved his fingers through his hair.

‘See us go to the Razor place. What else?’ Eve asked.

‘But you said you were freaked and you didn’t want to go over there when it’s dark,’ Jess said, confused.

‘True and true. But I also want to find the portal when the psycho – possible psycho, at least – with the sword isn’t around,’ Eve explained. ‘I don’t trust him. Obviously. So are you coming or not?’ she asked,
already knowing the answer. They were going with her.

‘Like we’d let you go by yourself,’ Jess said.

‘Let’s move it out.’ Luke started for the door. ‘We have a portal to find – a portal that leads to hell!’

‘This place truly feels haunted now,’ Eve said when they reached the Medway mansion, or what was left of it. As she stood on the sidewalk looking at it she could almost see Mal in front of her. She could picture all the renovations he’d made to the place, restoring the sunken tennis courts, the formal gardens and every detail of the huge Georgian house. When she’d smoked him, the mansion had immediately begun to crumble, reverting to the ruin it had been, the gardens returning to wildness. Had all the work been nothing but illusion?

‘Do you think the portal could be the reason there’ve always been ghost stories about the mansion?’ Jess asked.

‘Maybe,’ Eve answered. The ghost stories had gotten wilder since the destruction of the mansion. Some people claimed ghosts were responsible.
Some thought Mal and his family had done the damage themselves. Some even blamed a freak earthquake, one that affected only that stretch of land. ‘We have to find a way to close the portal fast, before anyone else gets hurt.’

‘Fill me in on what people say about the mansion,’ Luke said. ‘I don’t know all the town stories yet.’

‘Nobody has ever lived in the house for much more than a year,’ Jess said.

‘This is where Razor killed himself,’ Eve added.

‘Razor? As in
Empty Tables
?’ Luke tossed out the name of the rock star’s most famous CD.

‘Yeah, he was the last person to live there before Mal. The place completely fell apart after he died. That’s when talk of the house being haunted was really big, at least according to Megan’s mom – she’s the realtor,’ Jess said. ‘All the other people who took the house before Razor just left, which was weird enough. The software genius who owned the place just before Razor didn’t even bother to pack. Then with a suicide …’

‘No one wanted to move in,’ Eve finished for her. ‘Even though it’s impossible to find places for sale in the Hamptons.’

‘I guess it would be hard for even a brilliant
real-estate agent to spin. Is there any positive way to say “comes with its own portal to hell”?’ Luke asked.

Eve looked at the ruins for a moment more. ‘Let’s go,’ she finally said. She led the way up the overgrown path leading to the mansion.

‘Um, does anyone know what a hell portal actually looks like?’ Jess asked.

‘It was in the basement of the school on
Buffy
. You couldn’t really see it though, right?’ Luke asked.

Eve nodded. ‘I guess we’ll just have to figure it out as we go. Maybe it will smell like wood-smoke the way the demons do.’ She walked over to the wide stone steps that led up to the front door.
Used to lead
, she corrected herself. Now they led nowhere, and were surrounded by rubble. She ran her finger over the top step. It was cool to the touch, but that was all, and that was completely ordinary.

She took out her keychain and clicked on the little LED light. Shining the thin bright beam over the wreckage, Eve thought she spotted one of the orbed feet of the chaise longue where she and Mal had sat together the night he made her dinner, the night she’d destroyed him. She swung the light to the left and saw sparkling shards of glass from the doors that had opened onto the garden. Those doors had given a
beautiful view of the rose bushes and the dovecote.

‘The dovecote!’ Eve exclaimed. ‘Maybe that’s where the portal is. I remember how it looked so cute from the outside the first time I saw it, like a big stone beehive. But then there weren’t doves nesting in the little cubbies inside; there were crows.’ She turned to Luke. ‘And part of what you translated said that crows were attracted to the master demon. Maybe they’d be attracted to the portal too, since that’s where the demon comes from. Maybe the dovecote was over the portal.’

‘It’s as good a place to start as any.’ Luke, Jess and Eve walked to the heap of stones that once formed the dovecote. Eve was glad they were all together. She really would rather do this during the day. But if there was something to find here, she wanted advance knowledge. She wanted to keep ahead of Payne in every way until she decided whether or not she could trust him.

‘So if we find the portal, do we tell Trenchie?’ Jess asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Eve answered. ‘I know he said he was a good guy—’

‘But he tried to kill you,’ Luke interrupted. ‘Maybe it’s because his demon sense told him to. Maybe not. Maybe there’s no such thing as a demon sense. Maybe
there’s no such thing as that order he was talking about. Maybe he’s working
with
the demons and that’s why he tried to kill Eve.’

‘That’s way too many maybes,’ Jess said.

‘I don’t want to tell Payne anything yet. We really don’t know anything about him,’ Eve said.

‘Your call,’ Luke told her. ‘And I agree with you. I’d love to have help going after this demon, but we need proof that Payne is on our side.’

They returned to their search. Eve circled the jumble of stones slowly, trying to
feel
as much as look. There wasn’t much to look at. Besides the stones, there were a few black feathers and some splotches of bird poop. She didn’t feel anything. No tingle in her fingers, nothing to hint that there was something beyond what she saw with her eyes. Maybe that wasn’t one of her powers.

‘Do you think if we step in the wrong place we’ll just go through?’ Jess asked. ‘I’m asking because I don’t think I’m dressed for hell.’

Eve laughed. Somehow Jess could always make her laugh. ‘What does dressed for hell look like?’

‘I have to think about it. But definitely higher heels,’ Jess answered. ‘Probably a really deep-red lipstick. Although maybe that’s a cliché.’

Luke would usually come up with some type of snarkasm at this point, but he didn’t say anything. Eve looked over at him and saw that he was staring at a pointed arch of smooth, pale grey stone amidst the ruins. It looked much older than the Georgianstyle ruins that surrounded it, and it was the only structure that was intact. ‘You think?’ Eve asked.

‘I saw a sketch of an arch really similar to that one in the papers from the church,’ Luke answered. ‘Same Gothic style. Those weird markings carved into it look the same too. What I was reading said they were part of an ancient text that no one has ever been able to decipher.’

Eve squinted at the markings, then moved closer and shone her LED light on them. They were just words, not weird markings at all. She looked over her shoulder at Luke. ‘You decided this was a good time to mess with me?’

Luke stretched his arms out wide. ‘What?’

‘The ancient text on our arch here is English,’ she informed him. As if he hadn’t realized that.

Luke and Jess exchanged a puzzled look. ‘Like really
Old
English?’ Jess asked.

‘You too?’ Eve said. She turned away from them and climbed over the wreckage of the house to get closer
to the arch. She shone the light on the words again. ‘On the hundred-year mark, thy hand or thy blood must the portal open.’

Jess and Luke stepped up beside her. ‘That’s what you see?’ Jess asked, her voice trembling a little.

‘Yes.’ Eve studied her friend’s face. She looked scared. This wasn’t some joke. ‘Oh. You two don’t, do you? You really don’t.’

‘I see … I don’t know what they are. Pictures or hieroglyphs or something,’ Jess said.

Luke nodded agreement.

Eve didn’t know what to say. She’d gotten used to having lightning in her hands, but this weirdness was new.

Jess reached out and took Eve’s hand. ‘I’m so glad we came without Payne,’ Eve said. ‘He’d be pulling out his sword right now. This would convince him I’m a demon.’

‘Or maybe he’d just take it as more proof that you’re the Deepdene Witch,’ Luke told her. ‘That’s the scenario that makes sense to me.’ He began grabbing stones and pieces of wood and tossing them aside, clearing the area in front of the arch. No more words were revealed. Luke tapped the arch. ‘Feels normal. But what do I know? Should I try stepping through?’

‘No!’ Eve and Jess exclaimed together.

‘We need a lot more information – and, according to Jess, some new shoes and lipstick – before we do that,’ Eve said.

‘I thought this was OK for hell casual.’ Luke gestured to his jeans, T-shirt and distressed leather jacket.

‘Probably is. But that’s no reason to go through,’ Eve told him firmly. She grabbed him by the back of the jacket and towed him a few steps away from the arch.

‘I bet this is why the police and the search teams haven’t found anything in the woods,’ Luke said. ‘I bet the demon comes through here, kills someone and then goes back through the portal until it’s time for the next attack.’

‘You know what?’ Eve asked. ‘I’m thinking we should continue this conversation somewhere not so close to the demon’s door. Like back at the church.’ She managed a small smile. ‘Since we can all tolerate consecrated ground.’

‘Good idea,’ Luke said.

They picked their way back over the rubble.

‘Uh-oh,’ Eve said as they started down the sidewalk. Payne was striding towards them.

‘Nine o’clock got here so fast,’ Jess said brightly when he stopped in front of them.

A smile twitched at the corner of Payne’s lips.

‘Good morning to you.’

So he had a sense of humour. Hmm. That didn’t mean he was trustworthy, but it made Eve start to like him. A little. For a person who had tried to murder her.

‘I guess pretty much anyone in town could tell you how to get to the Razor place,’ Luke commented.

‘Yes,’ Payne answered. ‘And the situation is too serious for me to wait until morning. By then the demon could have taken another victim.’

Payne could be lying. Like Luke said, he could be on the side of the demons. But Eve thought she’d heard something in his voice, some of the worry she felt about not being able to protect the people of Deepdene even with her powers.

‘We … yeah. We think the situation is pretty bad too,’ Eve told him. ‘We thought we’d take a look tonight.’ She didn’t mention the arch. She was feeling a little more ready to trust the man, but she wasn’t going to tell him about the strange markings only she could read. At least not yet.