Blood of the Demon (The Silver Legacy Book 3) Read online

  “There is nothing little about what we are trying to do here, and your strength is nothing compared to the power of the rift.”

  Denny tried to make eye contact with Wynn, but he would only stare into the fire as if hypnotized or drugged.

  “He’s an old man, Hélène. Leave him alone. His hunting days are almost over.”

  She surprised Denny by laughing. “Oh my. I have misjudged you so. Here I thought you had a clue about what was happening, but you really don’t, do you?”

  Denny’s eyes scanned the area. She was missing three of the Vodousiantss...but...what was it she was feeling? There was something else, some other supernatural force at play here. Her Hanta was fighting for control, but the Vodouisants were too close to Wynn for her to whip Fouet safely at them. What was it he was sensing about this situation?

  “Put your weapons away, Hunter. You do not need them. No one is your enemy here. There is no fight to be had.” She signaled to the boys. “If, however, you choose to fight...”

  The boys standing next to her produced two handguns they pointed at Denny.

  “You are my enemy, Hélène. You sent me to Enobaria’s with this fucked up tattoo on my face, hoping she’d take me out. You sent me with a target on my face. That makes you more than my enemy. That makes you someone who must now die.”

  “In the supernatural world that you know so little of, people are pawns to be moved around at our whim. We are not they, Hunter. We are so much more than the sum of their parts. Look what the people of New Orleans did for Enobaria. Chased the poor thing to the swamps. I am merely giving someone that which he’s always wanted in exchange for fealty.”

  Denny let Fouet whip back and forth in one hand while Epée glowed menacingly in her other hand. It sizzled occasionally when her blood rolled off her arm and onto the hilt and blade of Epée.

  “Fealty? You’re just a hack priestess, Hélène. No one but these kids will ever bow down to you.” Denny leapt forward, taking the legs out of one of the Haitians holding Wynn. His shot went errant as he cried out.

  “Run, Wynn!”

  But Wynn didn’t move.

  Denny brought her arm back to strike the second Vodouisant when someone tackled her from behind. They tumbled forward, end-over-end, until Denny landed on her back, wrists pinned. She barely managed to hold onto her weapons.

  Not in a million years did she expect to see this face on her attacker.

  “Peyton?”

  Red eyes glared into hers. “You wish, interloper.” The inhuman voice was all Hanta. If Peyton Farquar was in there, she was buried too deeply for Denny to reach.

  But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.

  “Peyton, you don’t want to do this. You don’t have to do this. You can control this!” Denny understood what had happened to Peyton Farquar now, and if she wasn’t careful, she would become one of Peyton’s pages in the Book of Kills.

  Peyton released one of Denny’s wrists so she could pull her fist back to punch her in the face...which she did with jarring force. Denny cried out when her nose crunched beneath Peyton’s fist, blood instantly flowing. She tasted the warm metallic blood as her own Hanta rose to fight for control.

  She was in trouble, and her Hanta knew it. It shoved her spiritual essence out of the way and took complete control of Denny.

  With a huge thrust of her hips, Denny catapulted Peyton over her head, where she landed face first with a loud thud. Both hunters leaped to their feet, weapons drawn, facing each other.

  The Vodouisant boy standing with Wynn started toward them.

  “I’ll kill him,” Denny said coldly. “Without batting a fucking eye, I’ll take his head off, so Back. The. Fuck. Off.”

  “I got this, Priestess,” Peyton snarled. “Leave the nubile one to me. I have always wondered what another Hanta’s spirit tastes like. This is as good as any to find out.”

  Hélène nodded to the kid, who returned to guarding Wynn, his gun pointing now at the older man.

  “You could have just walked away, Rookie. This was never any of your business.”

  Fouet snapped and bit at the air. “It is now, motherfucker.” Denny kept her eyes on Peyton’s swords, determined not to become their prey.

  “I’m older, tougher, smarter and better than you’ll ever be, Silver. I’m gonna give you this last chance to leave here alive.”

  “I’m not leaving here without Peyton, asshole, so you better just settle in for the fight of your long and miserable––”

  The sword came so fast Denny barely had time to get Epée up to deflect it. With a loud clanging sound, the two swords bashed into each other, with Peyton’s sword flying off in another direction

  One sword down, one to go.

  “Jesus Christ, Peyton. Wake up!”

  The demon inside her laughed. “She is far, far away, Hunter. Where she belongs. Nothing and no one can help you now.”

  Denny realized the futility of fighting this battle. The demon knew she wouldn’t hurt Peyton, and Denny was all too clear that Peyton’s Hanta would kill her. She would need to take another tack, another angle if she was to get both of them out of this alive.

  Pulling Saugen out while still holding Fouet was tough, but she managed to withdraw the cylinder and unleash it. “You’re not getting Peyton Farquar without a fight.”

  “This is how stupid you are, Hunter. It is not Farquar I want. As a matter of fact, you can have her as soon as I take my leave.”

  “Take your leave? Where would you go? She’s the best hunter there is.” A slow realization of what was transpiring here crept into the outer reaches of Denny’s mind.

  The demon laughed just as Denny felt more people behind her. She had lost any chance at being able to strike now, and was perilously close to being outnumbered.

  “She is when she wishes to be. She wishes to be no longer, but, as you well know, she doesn’t possess the ability to kill herself.”

  “You can’t live without her, demon fuckwad.” Struggling for control over her own demon, Denny needed full access to her own mind if she was to flesh out the rest of the story that remained hidden in the shadowy recesses of her mind.

  This wasn’t about Peyton at all.

  “I’m afraid your time is up. We have a ritual to see to. Leave and live, stay and die. Your decision, but this is happening. Tonight.”

  Denny shoved Saugen back into her vest and whirled around. To her utter shock and dismay, Wynn Devereaux now stood behind the three Vodouisants who had been missing from this picture when she arrived.

  Wynn was laughing. He was actually laughing.

  Denny struck the first boy down with a low cut of the blade below the knee. He cried out as he fell to the ground, his lower legs severed, blood spurting everywhere.

  The second one, wielding a long ceremonial sword, swung it with both hands at her. It made a whooshing sound as it missed by a long shot.

  The rift started to open once more as Hélène began her chant.

  Denny took the second Vodouisant out of the mix by chopping his head off. Fouet was merciless as it sliced into his neck with the precision of a surgeon. His head rolled to one side, mouth open as if surprised by this turn of events.

  The third retreated as the rift opened more, the light growing brighter. Denny half turned to look at the rift, giving Peyton the half-second she needed to charge.

  Peyton grabbed Denny’s hair and slammed her face into the dirt before rolling her over and placing her sword at Denny’s neck.

  Denny’s already broken nose began bleeding again. As she fought to stay conscious, she felt the cold steel of Peyton’s sword on her neck.

  It was over.

  She wasn’t getting out of this one alive.

  “You’re done, Hunter. Relax and let it be.”

  But Denny wasn’t out of tricks yet. Snapping Fouet behind Peyton, she released the shards of metal from the whip into Peyton’s back. Three dozen scalpel-sharp blades embedded into her skin.

  “Mo
therfucker!” Peyton grimaced, dropping her sword from her right hand as she fell forward.

  Denny rolled onto her side and shoved the smaller woman off her. Peyton fell on her side, her red eyes glowing. Blood seeped from thirty small gashes in her back. “I’m going to enjoy killing you, Silver.”

  “We’re on the same side here, Farquar! Fight, God damn you. Fight!”

  Peyton bowed her head as she rose to her hands and knees. For a moment, Denny though she might collapse right there, but she didn’t. Instead, she looked up at Denny and shook her head. “No, Rookie, no we’re not on the same side. You want that thing inside you. She does not. She would kill me if she had her way, and that, I cannot allow.”

  “Let go of her, demon. That’s not the deal.”

  The Hanta Raya laughed. “Deal? Being a legacy demon is no picnic for us, either. This only works when both parties want it to work. She no longer does. That makes her a threat to my very existence. That makes her my enemy. End of story.”

  Then Peyton’s Hanta did something that surprised the hell out of Denny: she grabbed Saugen and tucked it in her own vest. “You won’t be needing this. Your days of sucking demons out are over, Silver.”

  Denny could hear Hélène chanting behind her. Whatever ritual they’d come to perform was still going on.

  “Don’t do this, Peyton. Fight, damn it!”

  “I gave you a chance to walk away, to save yourself. But time is of the essence now and you are just an obstacle.” Peyton came at her with her sword whirling.

  Denny barely managed to get Epée up in time. Peyton was the more experienced fighter, to be sure, and Denny knew, in the end, she would either have to kill her or die trying not to.

  “Give it up, Rookie. You haven’t got a fucking chance.”

  Their blades clanged once more before Denny made her decision—the only decision open to her at the moment. The one decision no one would expect her to make.

  She turned and ran.

  Leaping over Vodouisant corpses, logs, and rocks, Denny hit the ground running until she saw an outcropping of rocks. Feeling the muscles in her legs getting stronger, she leapt up on the boulders and whirled around, weapons at the ready.

  No one had followed her.

  There she stood on a boulder in a park in the dark, wondering how she was going to get Peyton out of there alive.

  And that’s when she became clear-headed enough to wonder—what had Peyton’s Hanta done with Iris and Valeria?

  “Oh no. No no no.”

  She leapt off the rock and sprinted back to the ceremony and the source. Six demons stepped out in front of her: two lower, two mid, two higher, two pointing guns at her, the rest wielding daggers and tire irons like the thugs they were.

  “I don’t have time for this shit.” Denny pulled the Sig Sauer out and shot the two higher levels who were holding guns just as the other four rushed her, daggers and claws raised.

  One swipe clipped her chin, cutting it open. A dagger punctured her leather jacket, barely missing her ribcage.

  “I tire of battling you scrawny pieces of shit.” Putting the gun back in her waistband in case she might need the weapon later, she fought off all four with just Epée.

  It was over as quickly as it started––her Hanta showing just what it was capable of. She mopped up the floor with them less than a minute later.

  With her chin dripping blood onto her chest, and dried blood from her nose caked on her face, Denny imagined she looked like a battle-torn soldier. She raced to the clearing and watched in horror as Peyton’s Hanta painfully rose from the top of her head. Her body began to shake.

  Peyton was holding Saugen on herself.

  “Peyton! Stop!”

  Hélène continued her chanting, but waved one hand toward Denny.

  “Let her go!” Denny yelled just as she smacked headlong into an invisible barrier.

  Denny fell back, as Peyton’s Hanta lifted out of her and was sucked into Saugen.

  That was when she understood why Wynn had been laughing, and why he wasn’t even attempting to run away. He wasn’t a prisoner at all, but a willing participant in this charade.

  “Go now, Wynn Devereaux, and lay claim to that which you wish to be. Farquar will accompany you to complete the transition.” Hélène lay her hand on Wynn’s head before he slowly turned from her and started, trancelike, to the rift.

  “Peyton!” Denny yelled, trying to find an edge to the invisible barrier.

  “After you embed the Hanta into Devereaux, Farquar, he will end your life swiftly. Go now, Peyton Farquar, find the peace that has eluded you.” Hélène turned Peyton toward the rift. “End your misery tonight. Be at peace. Release your tormented demon from your bones.”

  As Peyton stared at the rift, Wynn got to within ten yards of it, plodding along like a sleepwalker.

  And it all fell into place for Denny.

  Wynn Devereaux wanted Peyton’s Hanta. Whatever deal he’d made with Hélène and the Vodouisants included not only exorcizing Peyton’s Hanta, but eliminating her as well so that he could be the host. He would kill Peyton and then Chick...

  Chick.

  The only thing Denny had seen Peyton care about.

  Denny slashed at the unseen wall, tearing it open so she could run through. Five feet from the rift, she flung herself upon Wynn Devereaux, who landed with a loud oof, Denny landed square on his chest.

  “That’s not your Hanta, asshole.” Denny pulled her fist back and punched him in the face.

  He was unfazed.

  Whatever spell Hélène had on him made him single-minded in his pursuit of the Hanta he so wanted.

  Denny did not get to complete a second swing as a dozen demons flooded the area from within the rift and attacked her. They swarmed around her, punching and kicking at her. The last thing Denny saw before they closed completely around her was Peyton putting the tip of the dagger to her own eye. Without her Hanta, Peyton could now, quite easily, kill herself.

  “You die and you take Chick with you!” Denny cried out as the demons held her arms back and prepared to pull her apart. “Chick and your brother will have to die with you, Peyton! Is that what you want?”

  Wynn Devereaux rose, his face bloody, and sauntered into the rift.

  “Think of Chick!” Denny roared. “She needs you! She has always needed––”

  One demon punched her in the gut, another was trying to break her neck. Three were attempting to pry her fingers off Epée.

  The Hanta filled her completely now. Wynn had gone into the rift to await Peyton’s Hanta and the demons around her, though weak from the trip through the rift, had numbers on their side.

  What deal had Wynn made with Hélène and the Vodouisants? How many people would be sacrificed in order for him to take on a legacy demon?

  And how?

  How was it even possible?

  As Denny kicked out with her legs, she knew this was it for her. Hélène would see to it they were all killed.

  “He’ll kill Chick! Snap out of it, goddamn it!”

  The Hanta threw off two of the demons as easily as one might toss a kitten. As Hélène faced the newly created opening, Denny watched Peyton drop the dagger and race toward the rift, stopping to pick something up. It looked like she was making a run for the rift or for Wynn. It was too hard to tell with all the demons around her.

  “Peyton, no!” Denny fought against the mob punching and kicking her. She struggled to maintain her grasp of Epée as well as her tenuous hold on her consciousness. She wrestled for a life that had become worth living.

  Still, even as she struggled, Denny knew one thing very clearly: they were beating her to death.

  “Goddamned mother fucking ass-kicking good for nothing pieces of steaming dog shit!”

  The Hanta filled Denny with such rage and such fear, her left leg struck out and snapped the kneecap of one of the demons, who collapsed. Then her right hand shot out, her fist connecting with an Adam’s apple that made a crunching s
ound. She took several kicks in the ribs before head-butting the two closest demons. Her Hanta would not give up without one hell of a fight.

  Still, it wasn’t enough. There were too many. Too fucking many...and they would just keep coming until she was dead.

  She prayed the Hanta would find Quick in Alaska and leave Pure alone. She hoped her mother chose to return to the land of the living, and that Sterling...poor Sterling. All of her Catholic guilt would––

  “Get the fuck up, Rookie! You just gonna lay around all day and make me do the heavy lifting?”

  Denny heard the Hanta voice of Peyton before she saw demons flying twenty feet away from her like rag dolls crashing against various tree trunks.

  Peyton had joined the battle once more.

  “Peyton?”

  Peyton’s red eyes flashed. “No. Santa Claus. Get up, man, we’ve got a shit load of demons to put down and you’re just lying here. Get the fuck up!”

  More demons were flung away as Peyton tossed them aside, finally forging a path to Denny.

  Peyton cut off the heads of the two demons holding Denny arms, then held out a hand to help her up. “You okay?”

  “Been better.”

  “Looked better, too. You’re a bloody mess. We’ve got to clear this area and then close the rift.” Peyton flipped Denny the now empty Saugen, the item she had bent down to get when she ran off. “Piece of shit weapon you got there, Rookie.” She grinned. “Come on. We got work to do.”

  Denny pulled Fouet free. Her ribs were sore, her chin hurt like hell, her ear throbbed, her nose beat to the same rhythm as her heart and... and...were those fucking teeth marks on her wrist?

  “Let’s kick some ass.”

  Back-to-back they fought, but the demons kept coming.

  For her part, Denny was impressed by Peyton’s fighting abilities. She was quick, brutal, and lethal, seldom needing more than one hack or slash to take out a demon.

  “There are too many! We have to close the rift first.”

  When she looked over to where Hélène had been, she was gone.

  “Fuck,” Denny said. “Hélène!”

  “I know where she went. Stay on your toes, Rookie. I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t kill her.” Denny waited for a reply, but only heard “noob.”