Hellsbane 01 - Hellsbane (6 page)

I spun. The dagger sliced down my back, ripping my T-shirt but missing my skin. The momentum of my turn carried me around, and with me, my sword. The upswing caught him across the chest, opening a line of black ooze from hip to shoulder across his checkered shirt.

Arms open, the demon spared a surprised glance at his chest. I didn’t think, I just acted and drove my sword deep into his gut. He doubled over, his hand grabbing the blade, eyes wide.

An instant of regret tightened across my shoulders, knotted my stomach. He looked so human, so pained, and I’d caused it. Dammit, this wasn’t me. I couldn’t do this; I couldn’t hurt people.

And then the demon’s sorrowful eyes turned cold, his lips snarled back. He grabbed the bottom hilt of my sword, just below my hands, holding it so I couldn’t pull it free from his body. He raised his dagger and swung. I let go of my sword and stumbled out of reach.

The next thing I saw was Liam’s blade slicing through the demon-man’s neck from behind. His head wobbled for an instant, a ring of black ooze growing just above the folded collar of his shirt. Then suddenly, the head tumbled off his shoulders and the body collapsed, quickly disintegrating into a smoldering pile of goo.

“Took your sweet bloody time getting your sword,” Liam’s words huffed between labored breaths. “Keep that feckin’ thing on ya from now on. Damn near met me end waitin’ on ya.”

“Me? The thing practically got in the car with me. Look what he did to the back window. Where the hell were you when I came out?”

“I was waitin’ ta see if you had any natural fight in ya,” he said. “Seein’ if you could take the bastard on your own.”

“Really? You could’ve just asked. Sheesh.” I sighed. The guy
had
saved my butt. “Thanks, though. Y’know, for stepping in.”

Liam gave me a wink and a nod. “No trouble a’tall, lass.”

I grabbed my sword from the pile of melting demon goo and turned back to my Jeep. Liam was right about one thing. I’d have to keep the sword on me from now on. Apparently, demons weren’t apt to schedule their attacks at my convenience.
Rude
.

I unlocked the back—pretending hard that the plastic window wasn’t ripped to shreds.
Crap
. It was gonna cost me a fortune to fix.

The special sheath was shoved in the corner, under the backseat. I assumed Eli put it there; I don’t know how or when. I grabbed my jean jacket from the backseat, shoved it on to hide the rip in my shirt, then grabbed the sheath. It was more of a plain leather pocket than a sheath, wide enough to hold the hilt with its cross of metal where the blade would form, deep enough so only the top, rounded pommel and an inch of handle would stick out to grab.

With a simple thought the blade disintegrated, dissolving into a million sparkling particles that expanded outward, fading to nothing until only the hilt remained in my hand. The leather sheath pocket had loops on it and I slid my belt through so it sat at the small of my back.

With my belt fastened again and my hilt attached, I propped my hands on my hips. “Okay, leprechaun. Spill it.”

Liam leaned against the car next to mine and smiled. A breeze ruffled the wild, kinky strands of his hair. “Spill what, lass?”

“Well, let’s start with how you were able to move so fast in the restaurant. You were a blur,” I said.

“Aye. Pretty awesome, wasn’t it?” he said.

“Yeah. It was. How’d you do it?”

“I told ya, we’re the best of both worlds. Whatever they can do, we can do.” He shrugged. “Or damn near it, anyway.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Isn’t this something your magister should be answerin’ for ya?” he said. “Or better still, he should’ve told you from the start. Why do you think he didn’t?”

“I didn’t ask him. I’m asking you.” My gut told me I could trust Eli and Tommy. But hearing Liam imply my gut might be wrong bugged the crap out of me.

“Fair enough. I’ll do for you what no one saw fit to do for me.” He stretched his arms out to the sides. “You have the knowledge of thirty-one years of battle at your disposal. For exactly ten minutes.”

“Thirty-one years. How old are you?”

“I was twenty-five when I was marked,” he said. “Been looking for the fiend that seduced me blessed mother for thirty-one years since then.”

I did the math. “Fifty-six? You’re joking.”

“Naw. Why would I?”

“How? You look my age.” My stomach knotted. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

“We don’t age, lass,” he said. “Bloody hell, he didn’t even tell ya that much?”

I shook my head. It required too much brainpower to form words.

“From the moment we’re marked our lives stop,” he said. “From that instant on, we live only to send the Fallen to the abyss. The last one we send will be the one that spawned us, and then our lives will be our own again.”

My throat closed. I swallowed hard. “No matter how long it takes?”

“Aye,” he said. “But don’t look so gobsmacked. It’s not all bad. It’s not bad a’tall.”

“Not bad?” I laughed, bitter…and maybe a little manic. “I was marked yesterday. Yesterday! Since then I’ve fought four demons. And one of them actually grew horns and cloven feet. What’s not bad about that?”

“True. The demon attacks can be a wee troublesome.”

“Troublesome? Right. And the Enron scandal was just a bad day at the office.”

“But there’s a silver lining in that cloud you’ve anchored over your head,” he said. “The things we can do. We’re no longer bound by human weakness and the laws designed to make all men equal. We’re outside the human world now. We’re in
their
world, the world of angels.”

“Uh-huh. And that means what, exactly?” I was starting to think he might be more than just a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

“We don’t age, for one,” he said. “But I told you that. We can read thoughts, understand any language, and travel at the speed of light.”

“I can’t do any of those things.”

“It takes time to fine-tune your abilities, but I’ll wager you’ve had inklings.”

I shrugged, thinking. For as long as I could remember, I’d been able to read people’s emotions. Sometimes, if I tried hard enough, those emotions could be pretty specific. Had I always known it was more than just a special gift?

“So what? All those abilities only make us stand out,” I said. “I have a life, a family, friends, a business. I’ve never had to hide who I am before, and I don’t want to start now. How am I going to explain why I’m not growing older? How can I explain any of it?”

“Aw, lassie, don’t ya see?” Liam said. “None of that matters anymore. You’re one of us now, not one of them. You’ve got to cut ties with your human life. Walk away from your emotional bonds.”

“No. Nobody said anything about cutting ties. No way.” I snagged my purse from the ground where I’d dropped it and walked to the front of the Jeep. “Everything that’s happened the last few days is hard enough to accept. I’ll never get through it without my family, without something normal in my life.”

He pushed from the car and followed me, stopping to lean a hip against the hood. “So be it. But know this: every minute you stay with them, every time you’re seen with them, you put them at risk. They’re cannon fodder, lassie. Demons don’t give a damn who gets in their way. And the Fallen? They’ll use the ones you love against you. Mark my words.”

The truth itched through my subconscious. I knew Liam was right—I could feel it—but I wasn’t ready to fully accept it. I just couldn’t.

“I need my old life. It’s not fair. They can’t expect us to give up everything. Besides, the logistics of survival demand we keep some semblance of normalcy. I’ve got bills. I like to eat occasionally. What’re we supposed to do about the basics?”

“Bills?” He laughed. “You’re nephilim, woman. The child of angels. The world is ours. There’s no such thing as bills.”

I gave him the once-over. He clearly wasn’t a slave to the latest fashions, so his wardrobe probably didn’t drain his finances. But he still had the everyday expenses of survival. “So what do you do for food, shelter?”

He puffed his lean chest. “I take what I want, eat what I like, and sleep wherever my head falls to rest.”

“You’re a thief,” I said.

Liam straightened, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword, his orange brows tightening over the flash of green fire in his eyes. “I’m an illorum, warrior of God, executioner of His Word. I rid the world of those judged and sentenced so their wickedness no longer pollutes His Creation. And for that, humans should be grateful.”

“Ya think?” I shrugged, refusing to be intimidated by a prideful leprechaun. “From what I heard, God didn’t give us this assignment because we’re His go-to guys.”

Liam’s offense seemed to ease a bit. He shook his head. “Speak English, woman. You’re makin’ no sense.”

“It’s Emma,” I said, because if he called me “woman” or “lassie” one more time, I was gonna slap him.

“Emma.”

I nodded my approval. “I mean, this gig isn’t so much a reward as a punishment. He gives us this crappy job that forces us to abandon everything that matters to us. The power we get is only enough to keep us from being creamed. Everything else we care about is stripped away. Call me crazy, but I don’t think acting like the angelic assholes we’re hunting is going to get us off His divine shit-list.”

For three solid heartbeats Liam stared at me, his brow tight, his expression unchanging, and then he suddenly shook with an explosion of laughter. “Aye, lass—sorry, Emma. You are a crazy bird, I’ll give ya that. But you’re a woman, so I suppose that’s explanation enough.”

Ugh.

“Think what ye likes, missy. But mark me words. If you don’t break ties with what you hold dearest in your heart, they’ll all pay the price.” He walked past me, then stopped and looked back over his shoulder.

“We’re chosen, Emma. There’s no question on that. If you want to live out the year, you’d do well to see it as a blessing.” And then he was gone, a blur of movement, a gust of wind. Pretty impressive for a man who looked like a leprechaun.

I turned, heading back to the restaurant. Too bad he wasn’t really one of the magical green men—I could’ve made him grant me a wish. I’d have given anything not to be the one to have to tell my mother she’d cheated on my dad without knowing it.

And I was the proof.

CHAPTER SIX

Mom and Lacey, my older sister, were already sitting at a table when I came back into Primanti’s. I checked my watch. They were a half hour late—right on time for my family. They’re not perfect, but they love me.

My mother was a petite beauty in her day. Now she was just Mom. Her hair, once a thick coco-brown, was thinner now, but the same color, although it came from a bottle to cover the gray. Her bright, greenish-blue eyes were half-hidden by sagging lids and by the bifocals balanced on the end of her nose as she read the menu.

Lacey spotted me first as I made my way to their table. My sister was seven years older than I was, and I don’t think she ever really forgave me for ruining her chance to be an only child.

She was the perfect combination of my parents. Lacey had my late dad’s height and thick, wavy hair. She’d inherited Mom’s curvy shape, her full lips, and her stunning green eyes. At five-foot-six, with naturally straight, white teeth and hair the color of sugar cookies, she’d always been the favorite of both our parents.

“Where have you been?” Mom said. “Your sister has to get back to pick up Nicki from preschool.”

The rest of the world’s tardiness is utterly unacceptable to my family. Which is understandable, right? I mean, when you’re already running late, anyone else behind schedule can really muck things up.

Nicki is the youngest of my sister’s three children. Lacey and her lovely family live in Upper St. Clare—an affluent suburb of Pittsburgh. They have three cars, and an enviable three-thousand-square-foot home. She has the perfect life, and yet still manages to worry our mother senseless every other week with her so-called problems. I think I could probably top her in the problems department now. Not that it’s a competition.

“Sorry, Mom.” I kissed her cheek, and hooked my purse on the back of my chair. “Sorry, Lacey. I forgot something in the car.”

“How ironic, a psychic forgot something,” Lacey said, snickering at her own humor.

I threw her a squint-eyed smile, mustering years of sibling discourse in a single expression, and sat. “I told you, I’m not a psychic. I’m an intuitive consciousness explorer. There’s a difference.”

“What’s that?”

“A psychic would’ve foreseen this conversation and remembered to grab her phone out of her car to avoid it.”

“Oh. Well, that clears that up.” Her smile brightened, scanning her menu. “You’ve always marched to your own drum, Emma.”

“You hear that pounding too?” I asked and made her smile again. My cell phone clunked against the table when I set my purse down a little too hard, and the hilt of my sword poked me in the back. I winced and resisted the urge to reach around and adjust the sheath.

My mom shook her head, her face wrinkled with frustration over her sniping daughters despite the fact we were just teasing each other—mostly. I knew Mom loved me, but sometimes I felt like a perpetual disappointment to her. I guess I couldn’t really blame her—it wasn’t like I hadn’t given her good reason. After graduating high school a couple years early, I’d gone to college and gotten a degree in psychology. But instead of continuing on for my doctorate, I’d used it and my gift to land a job as a telephone intuitive consciousness explorer—okay, psychic. Although as a consciousness explorer I could charge more for in-person readings from my home. Mom thought I’d thrown away four years of college and a perfectly good degree to basically sit at home and talk on the phone. Which I kind of did, but at least they paid me to do it.

I mulled over how best to get the answers I needed from her. What could I ask? Whatever angel had done this to her wouldn’t have left the memory of it. But if she couldn’t remember the affair, maybe she’d remember the events leading up to it.

My mom and Lacey already had their sandwiches, busily tweaking them with mustard, salt and pepper. I scanned the crowd for our waitress despite having no idea what she looked liked. Two seconds later I decided I’d never find her, and I pushed to my feet. “I’m just going to go order something at the counter. Be right back.”

I needed time to think, anyway, to get things straight in my head before I could figure out how to broach the subject to my mom without making her worry I’d completely lost it. Liam had me on edge, wondering if I was taking stupid risks. But what choice did I have? I had to figure out who my real father was, so I could put a stop to all this craziness.

My mother and sister both nodded without looking up. So I got in line at the counter and ordered a new Coke and one of Primanti Brothers’ famous all-on-the-sandwich sandwiches—roast beef topped with coleslaw, fries, and tomatoes. My mouth watered just placing the order.

By the time I sat back at the table I had it all worked out. “Mom, do you…believe in angels?” It was as good a place as any to start. “I mean, I know you believe in God and the Bible and all that. But what about angels? Do you believe they exist, that they talk to people, interact with us?” I glanced at her across the table, then dropped my gaze to my soda, took a casual sip.

“Yes,” she said. “I believe in angels, but no, I don’t think they hang around, talking to everyday people.”

“Why not? I mean, they did in the Bible. Why not now?”

“What are you getting at, Emma?” my sister asked.

What was I getting at? What did I want them to say?
Yes, angels exist. We’ve seen them, talked to them, had sex with them. Let me tell you where to find your real father.
I turned my wrist over, and stared at the illorum mark.
If only
.

“What if God sent an angel to Earth, and that angel said he was here to seduce you? What then?”

“Who, me?” Mom said.

I didn’t look. I just nodded and said, “Yeah.”

“That wouldn’t happen,” she said, confident. “God wouldn’t send an angel to seduce a human.”

“Okay, what if the angel did it on his own?” I looked at her, tried to read her expression. She looked like she thought I was joking.

“It still wouldn’t happen. God forbids angels from…” She leaned close and whispered, “Having
sex
with humans.”

“But what about nephilim? I mean, do you know about them, what they are?”

“Of course. I’ve read the Bible, dear,” she said. “As well as the wild interpretations some people have come up with. The myth is nephilim were children of angels and humans. But angels are…well, they’re angels. I can’t imagine them doing something so…” Again, she leaned close to whisper. “So deviant.”

“What if they did it, anyway?”

She blinked, and something flashed behind her eyes, some emotion she banished nearly as fast as it had occurred. I opened my gift to her. Maybe I could sense it—some buried truth she didn’t realize was there.

The virtual doors opened in my mind and a wave of confusion crashed into me. My heart raced and my throat went dry, my emotions swirling, trying to fight, to deny a shadowy ghost of feeling. What was it?
Guilt?

The thin wisp of emotion was so faint I couldn’t connect with it, couldn’t bring it to the surface to examine it. Every time I tried to focus on it, the emotion slipped away like smoke on the wind.

An instant later, doubt tingled across my shoulders, pinched through my gut. There was something there, something she couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with. My question had sparked something deep inside her, and despite her confident tone and expression, my mother wasn’t sure.

“What’s this all about, Emma?” she asked.

This was pointless; there was nothing she could tell me. Whether she was blocking the memories and emotions herself or the angel who’d seduced her had done it, she wasn’t willing to push to remember.

“Nothing. Forget it,” I said. “I had a client today who insisted she’d been seduced by an angel. She said he got her pregnant, and then tried to make her forget the whole thing. It just got me thinking. Wondering if it was possible.”

Lacey snorted. “That’s some clientele you’ve got there, Emma. Why don’t you just use your little trick to figure out what she really wants you to say, and say it?”

My sister’s always given me grief over my gift, except when she wanted me to use it for her own benefit. When she was in high school, she’d ask me to meet her boyfriends so I could read them to see if they really loved her or just wanted sex. Most had just wanted sex. Teenage boys. Go figure.

When I’d called her on the contradiction between making me feel like a freak and making me feel useful, she’d punched me in the arm and told me to shut up.
Ahh, sisters…

“I think she’s telling the truth,” I said. Mom didn’t know about my ability. The few times I’d tried to mention it, she’d smile like I was telling her about some crazy dream. She’d rub my back or give me a hug, and then tell me not to think about it and it’d go away. After a while, I’d stopped trying to clue her in.

Mom leaned toward me. “You think she’s really been with someone and suppressed the memory? Why? Is it possible she was raped?”

“Yeah, actually, I think it might be,” I said, realizing my fake client might actually be helpful. “But she doesn’t remember much, and she doesn’t really want to.”

“Well, you have to help her, Emma,” Mom said. “You have to help her remember. What if it was someone she’s still associating with? He could try again.”

“Right. But how?” I said. “She doesn’t remember anything. It’s just a feeling she has. How do I figure out who it was?”

“Maybe you should tell the police,” she said.

“Tell them what? There’s no proof except her daughter. She had a boyfriend at the time, but they tested him, and he’s not the father.”

A busboy hurried to clean the table next to us, scooping sandwich paper, cups, and napkins into his big plastic bin, then wiped the table with lightning-fast grace, lifting to clean under the napkin and condiment holder. Before the kid could lift the bucket from the chair, customers were already sitting in the empty seats, another waiting for the busboy to move.

The three of us watched in hypnotized silence, our mouths full. Lacey was the first to swallow. “You should talk to people who knew her around the time she would’ve conceived. See if anyone remembers a guy hanging around. Maybe someone who seemed overly interested in her.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. It was a good idea, but who was close enough to my mother twenty-three years ago who might’ve known she was with someone other than my dad?

Mom had been married for eight years when I was conceived. Lacey would’ve been six. I’d seen pictures. There was one of my parents sitting on a glider at Grammy’s house with Lacey climbing up on their laps. Mom’s sister, Aunt Sara, and her husband, Uncle Greg, were standing behind them.

Maybe Aunt Sara knew who my father was and didn’t realize it. It was worth a shot. Hell, it was the only shot I had. At the very least, she could clue me in on who else I might ask.

“So, how’d the boyfriend take it?” Lacey asked.

“Huh?”

“Your client’s boyfriend. How’d he take finding out the daughter wasn’t his?”

“Oh. Not well,” I said, then I realized this could be another chance to use the fake client to my advantage. “In fact, he was pretty freaked. Yeah, she, um, had to take out a restraining order on him. And, uh, so did I.”

“What?” Mom and Lacey said in unison. They both stared at me, their faces mirror images, both creased with worry.

“Yeah, he blames me for not figuring out who she cheated on him with,” I said, taking a quick swig of soda, giving me time to form a plausible story. “He thinks I’m holding out on him to protect her and the other guy.”

“Well, that’s nonsense,” Mom said. “How could you possibly know? You’re not psych—”

Awkward pause.

“Did he threaten you?” She used her mother lion voice, like she’d tear anyone to pieces if they dared touch her baby.

My mom’s awesome.

“Not just me. He threatened my family, too, unless I told him what I knew,” I said. The lie was beginning to sour in my belly. I had to protect them on the chance Liam was right about demons trying to get to me through my family. But I couldn’t remember a time I’d lied to my mother and it had turned out well.

“You told him you faked it, right?” Lacey said. “I mean, you told him it was all for fun. That you can’t really tell people’s futures or explain the problems in their love lives or any of that junk. You told him you couldn’t possibly know if she cheated on him except for what the DNA test proved, and that wasn’t your fault.”

“Uh…no.”

“Emma,” Lacey said, like she was about to punch me in the arm.

“Lacey, I can’t ever say anything like that and then expect to be taken seriously in this business.” Never mind that it was a moot point.

“Whatever,” she said. Lacey knew the truth. I just weirded her out sometimes.

“Besides,” I said, “I don’t think he’s that much of a threat. The only reason I’m telling you guys is so you can keep an eye out. Just in case. I doubt he’ll bother you, but if you see someone hanging around that seems kind of…off, male or female, don’t let yourself be alone with them.”

“Why female?” Lacey asked.

Because demons can take any form
.
And I like you with a head
. “Because he might…he might use a friend to get around the restraining order. I’m covering all the bases. Okay?”

“We’ll be fine. Lacey has a different last name, and I live an hour away,” Mom said, always the voice of reason. “He’d never find us, even if he bothered to try. Don’t worry about it.”

Maybe she was taking this a little too casually. I didn’t want them to be afraid to leave their homes, but they’d have to be on guard when they did.

“Right.” I sighed. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t tip the balance too far one way or the other. So I just took a bite of my ginormous sandwich.

“So, Emma Jane,” Mom said, and I felt my gut tighten at the familiar tone. “Are you dating anyone new?”

Angels, illorum, and demons be damned, some things never change.