Brolach (Demon #1) (5 page)

Those from
above
, as well as those from
below
, did not possess enough females for true procreation. It was only now, that numbers grew so scarce that the rogue demon or angel, who eschewed their lineage and bred with humans, had laid their seed high and wide in the human realm. It was this illicit spawn of the groups that allowed a chance to repopulate both realms,
below
and
above
.

It was a race to grow enough numbers of warriors from
below
to finally defeat those from
above
. An age old equation in need of solving, in Lucas' opinion. The likelihood of a part-blood demon female roaming the earth who also possessed angelic blood was so rare that Lucas had never encountered one. In fact, as long lived as full-blood demons were, in his three century lifespan, he had not heard of it.

Yet, here she was. The proof was in her flesh as Lucas hopped a last time, twenty paces from where Ruby stood and watched her hand reach for the twin halos, half moons which were welded midway into the door, perfectly intersecting each other in a loose X formation. 

Lucas waited for her untried blood to coat that knifed edge. He licked his lips as Damon halted as well, his chest heaving with exertion, though Ruby's did not.

Lucas had received the report, she was a dancer at Fred's human club of decadence (though well outfitted with choice demon minions). Apparently, that made her in excellent shape as she flashed her deep wet sex and upturned pink nipples at the demons who so often flocked to such places.

“There is no escape female,” Lucas said in a mild voice and hissed when she flipped him off. It was not a hand gesture the demons used.

It simply took too much time. If a demon wished to fight with another, they simply did. If they wished a duel to the death, the tail tip would be taken from their adversary as the trophy it was, then hung from a spiked nail in the wall of their quarters to remember the victory.

However, Lucas had been in the world of humans enough to correctly interpret the insulting dismissal.

He strode closer to Ruby at the door, casually backhanding Damon so that he fell back against the heated wall, his chest a disaster of blood from the talons that had just shredded his skin.

“Fool,” Lucas said and his angry exhale scalded a path across the wound he'd just laid on Damon. He spared a glance at his minion. “She is but a slip of a girl. And your blooded kin. Could you do nothing?”

Damon began to bleed out of his mouth, it opened and closed like a fish out of the sea. Dark blood welled from his nose and fell into rivulets that poured down his face.

Lucas turned away in disgust.
Let him heal human-slow
, he thought,
for I have more important things to tend to.
Like angelic pussy wrapped in a demon shell.

When he turned his attention back to the girl, her hand was not pierced and bleeding, but glowing with a white light that stung and burned Lucas' eyes. He shrieked into the confines of the entryway to hell as Ruby's hand curled around the handle made of halos.

The razors had bowed to her blood, they lay flat against its surface, like a cat's fur rubbed to lay down. Unruffled and perfect, she threw the door open and fled outside as Lucas recovered from the blinding heat of the interaction.

Apparently, her angelic blood aided her escape. After all, angels were not part of
below
. But neither were demons allowed to be
above
. A mixed-breed? He did not know how they would fare.

The demon female effectively had no home, welcome neither
below
nor
above
.

But she could be kept below, of that Lucas was sure. He wiped his eyes free of the leaking as though fire lived there. When he was rid of it all and could see again, he turned to the door and saw that it was now closed. The halos softly glowed in blue-white brilliance, the residual touch of angel lighting them from within, centuries later.

Lucas reared back his head and howled his fury into the chamber and it bled all the demon's ears who heard it. They plunged to their knees wherever they were, their tasks forgotten to the pain-induced rage of the right hand of the devil.

Lucas dropped his hands and assumed his human form. He could do nothing for the ruddiness of his complexion. He was full demon and he would barely be within human norms. But he must get the female.

For her insolence... her blood.

For breeding.

For all those reasons. He was demon so he did not have to embrace the greatest reason of all.

Pride.

For pride was a sin, but only if you were from
above
. If you were from
below,
it was a virtue.

Lucas went forward, his hand latching onto the halo. He welcomed the pain as the razors sliced through his skin, searing and burning.

Branding him for what he was.

He tore the door open and of course, the female was nowhere to be seen.

The halo barbed his flesh and Lucas hissed in agony. There was naught other he could do.

He tore his hand off the halo and kicked the door closed behind him, leaving Damon to his slow healing as punishment.

Lucas cradled his hand against his naked flesh. It resembled raw hamburger, the barbs having torn out large chunks of his flesh. Lucas would find something terrible and sinful to do and his skin would fill in, becoming whole once again.

He would do this deed while he sought the demon female that dared to escape his kingdom. A pulse of dark warning beat inside his skull at that last thought and he kneeled on the ground where he stood.

“Not
my
kingdom, my dark lord, but the one in which
you
allow me to govern.” Lucas stayed there on the earth of the human realm with his forehead pressed to the ground for a full minute and when the weighted evil lifted from his mind, he knew true penalty had passed him by.

For now.

He exhaled, shaken. It had been a near thing. A demon had best remember that even their musings hold the seeds of no mercy if they be against the dark lord.

Lucas knew that
he
took no prisoners, only executions.

The devil did not abide subterfuge, only everlasting death.

*

Ruby

Ruby became aware in jagged pieces of consciousness, her mind protecting her body, allowing only what she could handle to infiltrate her as she ran from that horrible place, every fiber of her being on alert to run, to scatter herself to the four corners of the earth.

Instinctively, Ruby understood where she'd just been. She had felt the horror from her own father as he'd somehow taken them there together. Then her mind blew up the image of the horrible creature inside that stinking and heated place and she shuddered.

Ruby knew hell when she saw it. And that's what that guy had been, hell. He hadn't been human. Sure, he'd looked human but he had horns, and red eyes, deep scarlet skin and was huge, like some kind of WWF guy without the fake. Yeah, there was nothing fake about that dude. He'd been
real
focused on her.

Ruby stopped, bracing her palms on her knees, still in her ridiculous scrap of a costume. Her natural humor came and saved her sanity by a millimeter and a little laugh slipped past her lips, slightly hysterical but still- a laugh. Her costume was in tatters and out here in the open forest near Seattle, she felt a little like Jane of the jungle. Her tits and female bits were covered but so immodestly that there'd be no way she could go anywhere and not get an assload of attention.

The kind of attention she didn't want.

Ever again.

Ruby looked around, trying to gauge where she was. She'd need supplies, more clothes. Something. Her stomach rumbled angrily at the lack of food and water in the last twenty-four hours. Ruby clamped down on her needs, telling her stomach to shut the hell up. It was about surviving. Finding clothes was the first priority. How long could she survive in 40 degree weather with a slutsuit from her exotic dancer job?

The answer was simple:
not long.

And, she sure as shit couldn't go back to the dump and get her pack, though she wanted to go back to her home at the pier in the worst way. It's where she'd been hidden and safe. It's where she felt at ease. By the sea.

Ruby began to walk again, instinctively honing in on where the ocean was. If she could just get back there, where no one knew she lived but her, then she could get some food, grab clothes and a shower. She bit her lip, rolling it inside her mouth and biting hard. The pain brought her back to center, because God knew, she needed something to keep her awake. Away from that fine line of hysteria that roamed unheeded in the corners of her mind.

It wasn't every day a girl went to hell and lived to talk about it.

Ruby walked through the woods and after about a half mile or so, came to a strip of black pavement and a sign that read,
Seattle waterfront, 5 miles.

Ruby's head hung... 5 miles. That was too long for her to walk in the cold, at night. Without food and water.

Fuck.

She began to trudge on. One thing filled her mind, temporarily erasing the image of the enraged demon.

Brolach. Ruby wanted to see him again. He'd made this horrible fire inside her feel quenched. He'd saved her.

He'd also made her feel protected for the first time- alive.

More than existing.

Living.

*

Lucas

Lucas hated being in the human realm. The scents were a muddled combination of the sheep of this plane mixed with the diverse nature of the place. Give him the fire and brimstone of the bowels of Hades any time and he was happy. Ecstasy came through simplicity. Something the humans could learn by.

Lucas could not hop and lunge here either; miserably cold, he ran at a light jog, resting every ten minutes or so to allow his throbbing hand to rest. The miserable appendage did nothing but bleed and ache. He was in a rage he could not heal it because of his current location. He was even more livid that the she-angel had caused his torture. For the barbs sprouted as a second defense to protect.

To protect one of their own. Even centuries after the dispatch of the angels slaying, the halos still struggled to protect those of like blood. Blood that the once-living weapons recognized as their own. Why those halo sentries had ignored her demon blood puzzled Lucas. It lent credence to the possibility of dual entry both
below
and
above
.

Lucas was ten shades of pissed as he jogged, then stopped, then ran some more. He was slow and klutzy. Yet... determined.

He would have this female.

Lucas almost missed the innocent ones who were camping. Then when he caught their scent his relief was profound, cloaking him. If he could but taste of the females, without their consent, then his hand would heal itself and their energy would bolster his own in this place that was not conducive to him. It was better to be half-demon amongst the humans instead of full. It was best to be full in Hades. But here, where the humans ruled, he had only mild influence. It was all that the demonic were allowed. It was excellent that so many humans were cooperative to the dark whispers so many of them murmured beside them.

The mild autumn breeze that blew caused Lucas to shiver momentarily then his eyes took in how the wind bit and hollowed out the side of the two man tent that stood flanked by two huge evergreens. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the cedar, rich and dank of the forest that ruled here- alive. Lucas hated that smell, it assaulted his nostrils, was an insult to them as well. But for the scent which rode underneath he would have turned away from the noxious burn.

Females were in the tent.

Ripe and ready for him to plunder. His hand gave an especially sharp pulse of writhing pain, the tendons and muscles jumping and moving with the struggle to heal outside of Hades.

He needed this decadence. For without the task of sin against flesh, this wound would disallow his reign of terror against the female he sought. Lucas could not come against her without this advantage.

Lucas moved toward the opening of the tent as his fingers met the cold metal of the zipper. It slid along its pathway, meeting the arc at the other side and he surveyed the interior where two women lay curled against one another.

He had that moment of perfect clarity that only true silence and stillness of time can give.

Then the screaming began.

Lucas grinned and stepped inside the tent.

He didn't bother with closing it.

Heather's eyes popped open, sleep struggling to keep her like reluctant fingers. She was floating that in between; somewhere in the first two deep hours of sleep- where reality and consciousness are uncertain. That's why Heather didn't react quickly at first, her eyes trying to make sense of the creature that filled the soft entrance to their tent, a finger that appeared so dark a red it was a black stripe of color against the side of the hole he poured himself through.