Immortal Hunter

“It’s not typical for me to have premonitions about upcoming demon activity, either, not since I quit hunting. But somehow, in this case, I did—to the point that it woke me up from a drug-induced coma. That means I’m supposed to be involved somehow. If you were in my position, you’d want to be involved, too.”

She had a point with that one. He would definitely want to be a part of the investigation. Well, “want” was the wrong word. No one wanted to be involved with demons, but they did so because they needed to, because they felt it was their duty. Allsún had given up that duty long ago.

“What happened to ‘It can be somebody else’s job’? You told me that it wasn’t my duty to protect people from demons, despite the fact that I was born with this gift. Now, just because you have a feeling, that means that you’re meant to do this? You’re being a hypocrite.”

“Quit dredging up the past.” Allsún pushed past him and marched down the stairs before he could stop her. When she reached the bottom she turned and surveyed the side of the basement that had been blocked from her view before. David heard her breath escape in one large gasp. Shit.

His bad leg burning at every step, he hurried down the stairs as fast as he could.

As he reached her side, he saw that tears were rolling down her cheeks. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close to him. Though the sight of her tears made him ache inside, he relished the feel of her in his arms. God, he had missed holding her like this, being this close to her. They stood together for a few moments before she pulled back, wiping vigorously to erase the streaks from her tears.

He cleared his throat. “I told you it was a horror show.”

Horror show. Talk about a massive understatement. The things the demons had done to the humans before their deaths were sick and despicable, twisted. Only pure evil could have been responsible for something like that. Anyone with an ounce, even a shred, of humanity, would have shown at least some mercy.

She looked toward him. The barest quiver still shook her lip. “So, what do we do now?” She was fighting to get hold of herself. He could see her face visibly change as she transitioned into work mode.

She took a deep, steadying breath. “Back when it was me and you, we would have taken the evidence we needed, called the cops and then continued the investigation ourselves, but...you know. Now that you’re part of the Execution Underground and all...”

“Similar protocol,” David said. “We take photos of the crime scene that will be processed and sent off to Headquarters, if necessary, but in the meantime the Rochester division begins the investigation. We need to be quick, though. We’ll take the samples and leave. We don’t want to hang around in case a neighbor heard something and contacted the cops.”

“I doubt they’ve been called, since they haven’t shown up yet.” She lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “So, once you gather the evidence, then what? Do you take me to your meeting place, too?”

“Yeah, and I debrief the rest of the hunters.”

Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “The rest of the hunters? How many of them are there? Jace and you make two, obviously.”

He’d forgotten her bias against hunters. While Allsún was all for hunting demons, her natural enemy, as a supernatural creature herself, she was wary of the Execution Underground and its policies. That was one of the many reasons why she hadn’t wanted him to join. “There are six total, me included.”

Allsún’s eyes widened slightly, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I wasn’t surprised to find out Jace is one of you. I knew you two would eventually find your way on to the same team, or whatever your unit is called. I know he played a part in getting you to enlist.”

“Don’t be bitter toward Jace. It’s not his fault I joined the Execution Underground.”

“He and Frankie are together now, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, they’re together.”

Allsún nodded in return. “Good. I’m glad he’s making her happy. Frankie has been a good friend to me.” She paused, carefully considering her next words. “I don’t feel any resentment toward Jace. It’s been...what? Five years now.”

He opened his mouth to tell her exactly how many years, months and days it had been, but she lifted her hand to silence him. “Don’t give me the exact count. Just get your evidence. I don’t know how much longer I can stand to be here. These poor people.”

He closed his mouth and swallowed down the words he’d been about to say.

David scanned the scene. He wasn’t even sure where to start. As awful as the thoughts would be, he needed to re-create the events in his head. The way in which the demon had carried out the murders might give him some insight into its sick motivations. Part of him felt it would be like reading tea leaves—trying to understand remorseless violence was hardly ever fruitful—but on the off chance that something, anything, might give him a hint that would help him catch this murderous hell-crawler, he needed to do this.

According to the information Father O’Reilly had relayed to Damon, the mother had called, claiming that her husband had been possessed by a demon. David walked over to the corner of the basement where the woman’s body slumped against the wall. The cell phone with the cracked screen lying a few feet from her hand was evidence of the truth of that assumption. The husband had died last. From the knife lying in his hand, it was clear the demon had made the man slit his own throat, then undoubtedly hightailed it in untraceable spirit form to the nearest human it could possess. He would put his bet on one of the family’s poor next-door neighbors being its latest suit of flesh. Thankfully demons never changed hosts unless they had to. The process weakened them and was painful as hell. In a way, they were like a parasite that grew attached to its host, never wanting to let go.

Knowing the way the parents had died was helpful, but in what order had the children been killed, and was there any significance to that? And why this specific family?

His eyes darted from the disgusting atrocity on the other side of the basement to the teenage boy spilled across the floor. From the things that had been done to the infant, he could tell that she had been the demon’s main focus. The innocence of the child was clearly an important part of the demon’s plan. What else could draw a demon to a child that way? He stood and crossed the room, though it took everything he had in him not to toss the remaining contents of his stomach into the garbage bin again. In fact, he would need to find a way to dispose of that evidence so he didn’t leave his DNA at the crime scene.

Eyeing the surrounding area, he paused when a glimpse of red caught his gaze. A small spot of blood on the edge of a nearby chair. He moved closer to examine it. A small clump of blond hair was caught in the clotting fluid. Yes, this was what he was looking for. The mother was the only blond in the family, but she was several strides away. Crossing the room again, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. No gashes on her forehead, but no one else was blond. He quickly wrapped the fabric around his hand before slowly tilting her head, which fell forward with an awful flop in the way only dead weight can. He tried to ignore the anger he felt on her behalf and focus on the situation at hand.

Leaning forward, he examined the back of her head until—bingo. A bloodied gash on the back of her skull confirmed what he had suspected. Like any mother would instinctually do, she had tried to save her child. The horror of the scene flashed before his eyes. That poor woman, witnessing her husband doing those awful things to her sweet baby girl. The thought made him sick with pain for her, and he all too vividly imagined the sounds of her uncontrollable screams at the sight of her husband hurting her child. She would have tried to save her baby, but with its supernatural strength, the demon had undoubtedly shoved her away with ease, causing her to fall back and hit her head on the chair. But why not just kill her then, when she was trying to interfere? Her body and phone were on the other side of the room, with no smears of blood across the carpet leading to her to indicate she had died elsewhere and her body had been moved, so clearly the demon had chosen not to kill her right away? Why leave her alive?

Because the demon had wanted her to see....

The pieces of the puzzle fell together in his mind as he played his theory out step by step. But another question nagged at the back of his mind: Why had the woman thought her husband was possessed? Undoubtedly she hadn’t wanted to think her husband was capable of such atrocious violence, but she had been so specific. She hadn’t said he had gone mad or crazy. She’d said he was possessed, which meant the demon had done something to give away its identity. It wouldn’t have shown its demonic red eyes unless she’d somehow managed to hurt it, which she wouldn’t have been able to do unless she had holy water or a blessed relic at hand, which didn’t seem likely, even though the family had been religious.

He thought back to all the crappy B-movies he had seen over the years, which had portrayed demons in some of the most absurd ways and most likely would have been the extent of this woman’s knowledge of the demonic. What could the creature have done that would have...

The thought clicked into place. Latin. The demon must have been speaking Latin or some other dead language her husband wouldn’t have known. That was one thing the films got right, and if the demon had been speaking Latin, that meant it had performed some sort of demonic ritual. That explained the desecrated state of the infant’s body. The horror of the situation hit David like a punch straight to the balls.

The point of the demon’s ritual hadn’t been spilling blood, it had been creating fear. The demon had forced the mother—and the father, while he was possessed and unable to control his body—to watch the deaths of their two children so it could feed off their fear.

David shoved his anger down inside, balling it up in a way he was certain would kill him one of these days. He needed to remain focused. He had already taken photos of the crime scene. Now he needed samples to send off to the lab. If he could find some trace of sulfur the monster had left behind, forensics could analyze it and give him some idea of what type of demon fucker he would be torturing. He made quick work of taking the samples. After pulling the small lab kit from inside his leather jacket, he swabbed the victims’ wounds and underneath their fingernails, and took samples of their hair, anything that could give him insight.