Into The Void (Vampire Hunter Book 4) (8 page)

“Nicholas should be here by now,” Lucas said, glancing, towards the door
for the umpteenth time. We’d been waiting over twenty minutes and everyone had
given up on small talk.

Henry was engrossed in the book, reading the specifics of the spell he
was casting tonight – that is, if Nicholas ever arrived.

‘The one Emmett looked at used holy water; is yours the same?” I asked
Henry.

He looked up briefly. “Yeah, holy water is part of it.” Henry held up a
science beaker and shook it. “Don’t worry, it’s only a few drops per person. We
don’t have to bathe in it or anything.”

I turned to Lucas. “Didn’t you tell me that stuff hurts like hell?”

“It’s entirely possible I said something along those lines. A few drops
will just leave a burn mark for a day or so. It’s fine,” Lucas assured me.
“It’s hardly a reason to call off the spell, but I appreciate you thinking
about me.” Lucas’ eyes were twinkling.

I wanted to say something flirty back, but Henry was right there within
earshot, and besides, I wasn’t very good at flirting in the first place. I just
smiled instead.

Finally
, there was a knock at
the door.

Without waiting for an answer, Nicholas pushed it open and poked his head
around the side. “Ah, I see I’m the last one here. You must be Henry.” Nicholas
came into the room, locked the door behind him, and walked over to shake
Henry’s hand.

“Nice to meet you,” Henry replied. “I heard about your excursion last
weekend. Rory said you kept her safe, that she couldn’t have done it without
you there.”

Nicholas grinned. “Thanks for the props, but it wasn’t all me. Aurora did
a hell of an acting job. I’m just glad it’s over. I’m not too eager to try our
luck at one of those meetings again…not anytime soon, at least.”

“So, I assume Lucas mentioned what I wanted to tell you guys,” Nicholas
said, turning to me.

“He did,” I replied.

“And you didn’t rush me the second I got through the door, tackle me to
the ground and threaten to beat me up if I didn’t tell you,
like
, yesterday.” Nicholas was joking
with me, but I could barely force a smile.

Seeing my expression, he immediately apologized. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying
to make you feel bad. I was just teasing you because of your enthusiasm about
everything. I thought for sure you’d be more excited about this.”

“Don’t apologize,” I said to Nicholas. “It’s me being funny about it. I’m
just nervous. But of course I want to know!”

“Yeah, we all do,” Lucas added. “I can get some pillows for us to sit
on,” Lucas offered Nicholas. “Afraid I’m all out of furniture.”

“Floor’s fine with me.” Nicholas sat down cross-legged on the opposite
side of the room. Lucas did the same.

“So since I’m hanging around with you guys for awhile, I thought I should
try to get some paid jobs,” Nicholas said. “The agency I work for back home is
affiliated with Lucas’ agency, so it was no problem to let me do some hunting
while I’m here.”

“Last night, I got a call for a routine job,” Nicholas continued. “Some
asshole demon was possessing a human and had killed the human’s husband.
Normally, I’d take the opportunity to send a demon back to Hell even if he
wasn’t
causing problems. I really don’t
know how these demons justify possessing innocent people.”

“Anyway, I’ll get off my soap box. Suffice to say I’m not a demon fan,”
Nicholas said. I glanced over at Lucas, who was smiling and shaking his head.

“But this one last night had killed once and would likely kill again, so
I had to act fast. I had him tied up and was ready to pull the demon out and send
him back to Hell. He was begging me to let him stay on earth. I wasn’t even
listening to what he was saying – they all beg so you learn to tune it out. Then,
just as I was about to extract the demon-“

“How do you extract a demon?” I interrupted Nicholas.

“Oh, I forget you guys aren’t familiar with this stuff. Okay, so we have
this really handy device that looks like a long tube; the only trick is you
have to get it positioned at the right angle in the possessed person’s mouth.
It’s a demon vacuum. Once extracted, the demon gets trapped inside, you say
some words in Latin, and back to Hell he goes.”

“That’s really cool,” Henry commented.

“It made our jobs a lot easier once someone invented it. Unless the demon
has just completely trashed his host’s body, the people are usually still alive
while they’re possessed. The demon vacuum is painless for them,” Lucas
explained. “Once the demon’s out they’re in control of their body again.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I just had to ask, especially since, well…
I
was possessed before I died.”

“I know what happened with that, too,” Nicholas said. “I’ll get to that
part in a minute. I had started to tell you before, just as I was about to
finish off the demon, who was screaming like crazy, something he said caught my
attention.”

We were all leaning forward, hanging on Nicholas’ every word. “The demon
said that Lord Leon had become an even bigger tyrant since learning about the
living dead girl.”

“Who is Lord Leon?” Henry asked.

“The current ruler of Hell,” Nicholas replied.

“Like the devil?” Henry looked confused.

“I asked the same question before,” I told Henry. “Apparently it’s a
constant power struggle down there. There’s not a devil that runs the show.
Right?” I looked to Lucas and Nicholas for confirmation.

Lucas shrugged. “Sometimes you hear the current ruler referred to as the
devil, but it’s usually just demons who’ve managed to gain control; it’s not a
red guy with horns and a pitchfork.” Lucas and Nicholas started laughing.

“I thought Magnus was king of Hell?” Lucas questioned Nicholas.

“He was, right up until Aurora died,” Nicholas said.

“What have I got to do with Hell?” I whispered. This didn’t sound good.

“Leon had been trying to overtake Hell for years. He went to a
soothsayer, asked her to look into the future and see if Leon ever became the
ruler of Hell. The soothsayer told him that his future could go two ways. There
was a sixteen year old girl he had to kill in order to take over Hell; if he
didn’t kill her, he was going to die.”

“What?” I shrieked, finally losing my cool.

“Wait.” Lucas looked confused. “The soothsayer said Leon was going to
die
? Have I missed something? Demons
can’t be killed; that’s why we send them to Hell.”
 

“That was my response,” Nicholas said. “Lucky for me, this demon was
loose-lipped. He told me
everything
he
knew, and it was quite enlightening.”

I was perched on the edge of the couch, my hands gripping the cushion so tightly
that I thought I might poke a hole in the fabric with my nails.
How is my future wrapped up with Leon?
I
wasn’t a bad person before I died. I didn’t even know supernatural creatures
existed back then.

Nicholas was speaking again. I willed my mind to stop spinning and focus
on his words.

“He said, according to the soothsayer, this girl was going to become a
hunter.
But not just any regular old hunter.
Of
course, the demons on earth hate hunters because they don’t want to go back to
Hell, but the ones already in Hell don’t particularly care one way or another.”

“What was so special about this hunter, the demon told me, was that she
had
a way to kill demons
,” Nicholas
continued. “As in, she was going to make the demon population extinct. No
demons on earth. No demons in Hell. So it wasn’t just Leon she was going to
kill, it was
all
demons.”

Everyone was looking at me. Trying to gauge my reaction to Nicholas’
announcement that I was going to exterminate the demon population.

“Are you okay?” Henry asked. He reached out to touch my arm, to comfort
me.

But I didn’t need comforting. I had never heard anything so insane in my
life!

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could start talking, I dissolved
into laughter. I pitched forward, placing my head on my knees, and laughed so
hard that my whole body was shaking. Surely I had heard Nicholas wrong. Or the
demon gave him bad information.

I could have laughed all evening – literally – considering a person who
doesn’t breathe also doesn’t have to stop to gasp for air.

Forcing myself to sit upright, I tried desperately to gain control. I
didn’t need everyone deciding that I’d finally lost my mind from the stress of
everything. I looked around the room. There was a sea of faces staring at me
with worried frowns.

Just their expressions alone almost sent me back over the edge, but I
managed to only let out a few giggles before I clamped my hand over my mouth.

Lucas was the first to speak. “I could understand you having a strong
reaction to Nicholas’ news, but I didn’t think you’d find it quite so funny.”

“Don’t you find it hilarious?” I asked. “I can’t believe I’m the only one
laughing here! Do you realize how utterly ridiculous this is? Someone’s lying –
or they got their facts confused and killed the wrong person. I was a normal
sixteen-year-old girl, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t even know hunters existed.
How, pray tell, was I going to make a leap to
demon killer
? Something normal hunters haven’t even figured out!”

“I think she’s going through the first stage of grief – denial,” I heard
Emmett say.

“
Arrggh
!” I said in frustration. “Can’t you
people see where I’m coming from here?”

“There’s more, if you’re ready to hear it,” Nicholas said softly.

“Yeah, can’t wait to hear what other lies this soothsayer spun,” I said
sarcastically.

“I can stop there,” Nicholas offered. “If it’s too overwhelming for you.”
He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. “Your choice.”

Nicholas was calling my bluff. Of course I wasn’t going to let him stop
there, even if I was 99% sure I didn’t believe
any
of it so far. Well, maybe 75% sure. After my laughing fit, I
was starting to think a little clearer, and honestly, compared to everything
else that had happened, this wasn’t the most bizarre thing.

“No, go on,” I said. “I’m calm now. I want to hear what else the demon
said.”

“Leon was skeptical as well, until the soothsayer let him look into her
crystal ball. This demon said that, even a year later, Leon won’t speak of what
he saw in the crystal ball. But it made him believe the soothsayer without
question.”

“Leon already had some power in Hell, he just wasn’t top dog,” Nicholas
continued. “Like Lucas said, Magnus was running the show. Leon rallied some of
the demons together and repeated what the soothsayer had told him. The
soothsayer he visited – although she lives on Earth – is greatly respected in
Hell. She’s not a demon herself, but she has a soft spot for them – why, I’ll
never figure out. Tries to help them out however she can. So she wouldn’t lie
about it.”

“Anyway, there was no time to waste. For all Leon knew, Aurora could discover
how to kill demons the next day or in the next twenty years. But Leon and the
other demons weren’t about to wait around and find out.”

“You’re almost to the part where I died, aren’t you?” I asked nervously.

Nicholas nodded. “If it’s too much, just tell me to stop, and I will,” he
offered again.

“Thanks.” I smiled gratefully. “But it’s better to know the truth.”

I locked eyes with Lucas briefly. He smiled and gave me a reassuring
look.

“There was a new demon in Hell that had never possessed anyone on earth
before,” Nicholas continued. “She was begging to go to the surface, said she
would make him proud. Leon reluctantly agreed to let her do the job. The plan
was for this demon to come to Earth, possess Aurora – and this is the truly
awful part – commit suicide. So Aurora’s body would be dead and the demon could
leave it and go back to Hell.”

I shuddered. “That’s terrible. I can’t imagine anyone would have believed
I killed myself, though.”

“We wouldn’t have,” Henry said. “But don’t think about that now. It’s not
important.”

“Don’t worry,” Nicholas interjected. “The demon who took over your body
got what was coming to her. It was supposed to be a quick job. But the demon
found out she liked being in a human body a little too much for her own good.”

“Didn’t Leon know what she was up to?” I asked. According to Emmett and
Henry, I had been possessed for days before my murder!

“She told Leon the job was done, and he didn’t question her,” Nicholas replied.
“Said she could stay on Earth for a few extra days before returning to Hell.
Reward for doing such stellar work I guess.”

“So Leon just assumed some random demon from Hell followed through on his
orders? Leon sounds like some kind of moron for not double checking,” I said.

“When he realized this demon was camped out in your body, he was livid,”
Nicholas explained. “He sent his right hand man, Richard, to take care of the
situation. There was a very bloody, very violent fight between the two demons –
while they were in their human hosts. Unfortunately, your body got so cut up during
the fight that you really
did
die.”

I gulped. Now I knew. I actually knew the point at which my heart had
stopped beating, the point I had stopped breathing, when all life left my body.
I had died from stab wounds during a demon fight, inflicted by some demon named
Richard.

“You doing okay?” Henry asked. “This is crazy.
So much
to take in.
I can’t even begin to imagine if it were
me
we were talking about. You’re holding
up really well.”

“I think I’m in shock,” I admitted. “But I want to know the rest – we all
need
to know what happened.”

“The plan to make it look like you had committed suicide went out the
window. Richard doused the body in gasoline and set it on fire.” Nicholas held
up his hands. “That’s all I got.”

“The demon didn’t say anything else?” Emmett asked.

Nicholas snapped his fingers. “That’s right. I
am
leaving something out. When Richard got back to Hell and
announced that the demon killer was dead, everyone started worshipping Leon for
saving them. That’s when they started calling him Lord Leon. The majority of
the demons wanted Leon over Magnus, so Magnus was overthrown and Leon became
the new king.”

“Is the demon who told you all of this still here? On earth?” Emmett
asked. “I was thinking we could ask him some more questions.”

Nicholas shook his head. “Sorry, I sent him back to Hell. But I think he
spilled his guts before he left; I doubt he’d have anything else to say. He
really
wanted to stay on earth. No
loyalty to Leon and he’d have told me every detail about Hell that I had wanted
to hear. But I was more concerned with getting him away from humans and back to
where he belongs. Besides, I wanted to meet up and tell you guys what I’d
learned.”

“Geez.” Henry raked his hands through hair and let out a long sigh. “So
is the power she was supposed to get when she was living the same one Tobias
expects her to develop now?”

Nicholas shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, man.”

“But Tobias thinks your power is going to kill
Senara
,
and
Senara
isn’t a demon,” Lucas said to me.
“Something still doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe Aurora version 2.0 can do both.” We all turned to look at Emmett.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Let’s just say the soothsayer told Leon the truth about you killing
demons. So he kills you to stop it. But you can’t ever really change what’s
fated to happen. Then, someone
else
brings
you back – we know it wasn’t Leon for certain, and Tobias said at the meeting
it wasn’t him.” Emmett paused.

“I still don’t follow,” I said.

“Perhaps if you hadn’t died, you
only
would have had the ability to kill demons. But since you died and came back
to life, the course of your fate wasn’t completely
altered,
it was just thrown off track a bit. Maybe the power was magnified by your
resurrection, making it strong enough to kill demons
and
Senara
.”

“You’re suggesting that Leon basically shot himself in the foot by
killing her? Because now she’s back and she’ll be stronger than before?” Henry
asked.

“It’s just a theory.” Emmett pushed his glasses, which had slid down while
he was talking, back up onto his nose. “I’ll probably have to sleep on it. You
know how it goes. I have to wait for things to come to me.”

I turned to look at Lucas. “What do you think about all of this? You’ve
been awfully quiet.”

Lucas sighed. “If you want to know the truth, I’m thinking that I already
wasn’t happy at the thought of you going head to head with
Senara
,
and hearing that you’re also fated to be a demon exterminator isn’t making me
feel any better.”

“Surely it won’t come to that,” Henry insisted. He looked around the
room, searching for confirmation. But no one said anything.

“We could sit here and debate it all night. We’ll just have to wait and
see what happens,” I finally said. My voice sounded normal, but inside I was a
wreck. I felt mentally exhausted from the last hour of my life.

“I guess we should do the spell now?” I asked, changing the subject.

“If you guys are up for it, now’s as good a time as any,” Henry replied.
“It won’t take too long,” he added.

Everyone was nodding and agreeing. It was, after all, what we had come
here to do.

Henry looked nervous. I could see his hands were shaking as he took the
contents out of his bag and carefully arranged them on the floor in the middle
of the room. He flipped the book open to the spell and laid it down next to the
rest of the items.

“Do I need to dim the lights or something?” I asked nervously. On TV, it
was always dark and mysterious when someone was casting a spell. Not the middle
of the day with all the lights turned on.

Henry shrugged. “Go ahead.”

I could tell he was appeasing me, but I turned the lights off anyway.
There was still a tiny bit of sunlight coming through the extra thick curtains
Lucas had hung up as soon as he’d moved into the apartment.

“Okay,” Henry said, sounding much more confident now. “Let me tell you
how this works. I have to read from the book and add certain items to this bowl
at specific times. If the order and timing aren’t
exactly
as the spell dictates, it won’t be successful.”

I glanced at the items he was referring to and stifled a laugh. The bowl
he was using for the spell was part of the Matthews’ fine dining set. I didn’t
recognize the other stuff, apart from the vial of holy water he’d showed me
earlier. I wasn’t sure I
wanted
to
know what all this weird shit was – or how he got it.

As if reading my mind, Henry said, “Aren’t you guys curious about all
these things?”

“Well, yeah,” Emmett admitted, “but if you had to do something horrible
to get a hold of them, I’d rather not know about it.”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that!” Henry held up what looked like a
chipped piece of plastic. “This is a boar’s nail.”

Involuntarily, I leaned away from Henry.

“I didn’t even have to get it myself – I bought this off the same guy I
bought the book from. In fact, he had a lot of this stuff. He told me the spell
I was doing used common ingredients and that it was a beginner’s spell. He said
once I got to the more complex ones – like that one that requires the leave of
a
karava
tree – that I was on my own.”

“So who wants to go first?” Henry asked. No one said anything. “Once I
read the spell, I have to put holy water on everyone who the spell protects. I
need to do it on myself last, since I’m the one doing the spell.” Henry looked
around expectantly. “Well, don’t just all volunteer at once!” he joked.

I was about to reluctantly say that I’d be first when Lucas scooted over
from his seat on the floor.

“I’ll go first. Just tell me what to do,” he said awkwardly.
 

“You don’t have to do anything,” Henry said. “Just sit there. Oh and try
not to move around too much. The rest of you get on the floor and form a circle
with Lucas,” he instructed us.

“How will we know if the spell worked?” I couldn’t help asking.

“If I’ve done it right, all this stuff will start smoking in the bowl.
That’s the signal for the final step - holy water on the people, or vampires,”
he quickly added, then looked at me and corrected his statement again, “or dead
girls. I think I’ve covered everyone. Strange to think that Emmett and I are
the only two actual human beings in the room.”

“Let’s get going,” Henry said. “Please, no talking while I read the
spell. In fact, don’t say anything until we’re done with the holy water.”

Everyone nodded.

In a booming voice, one that didn’t even sound like Henry’s, he started
reading from the book in the strange language that no one could identify. I
watched, mesmerized, as he methodically threw things into the bowl,
then
started reading again.

Henry didn’t look at anyone during the entire spell. He was completely
engrossed in what he was doing. I had a feeling if I waved my hand in front of
his face, it wouldn’t have broken his concentration.

As he dropped the last item into the bowl, we all stared at it
expectantly. At first nothing happened. But after a few seconds, a black
smoke-like mist started floating up from the bowl.