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

  Fouet was a busy, soul-reaping weapon, whipping and snapping back and forth, spitting fire and sucking blood. Epée defended against claws beyond the reach of the whip. Every death made the Hanta that much stronger. It would take dozens of these nubile demons to kill her now.

  And by the dozens they came hobbling out of the rift.

  Denny wondered if Peyton had run into her own trouble. She hoped not, because without Hélène, there would be virtually no way to close the door on these relentless sons of bitches, and without help, Denny would eventually succumb to the sheer number of demons crashing through the opening.

  She put her head down and kept fighting—whipping and slicing until she heard Peyton yell, “Got her!”

  Backing up while still swinging, Denny made her way over to where Peyton held tightly to Hélène’s arm, both swords now in her possession once more.

  “Close the rift, Voodoo witch,” Peyton said in that gravelly voice.

  “Not possible. You wanted this, Farquar. You begged me for it. I couldn’t open it for you then, and I can’t close it for you now.”

  “Bullshit, Hélène! Let’s see if you sing a different tune when I start cutting off pieces of your son.”

  Hélène narrowed her gaze. “You and the marked one cannot possibly hope to win.”

  Denny managed to cut a wide swath to keep the demons back, but her arms were tiring. Even with the Hanta’s extra strength, she was beginning to fade.

  “Then you won’t mind if I just kill your son.”

  “Farquar, I could move this rift, but I cannot close––” her final word caught as she stared at something exiting the source.

  Both Denny and Peyton followed her gaze.

  Lumbering toward them was a figure that appeared to be Wynn Devereaux. It was hard to tell because he was grotesquely deformed—like a hairless Sasquatch—his fingers inches from the ground as if his arms had been stretched. He sported a hump on his shoulders like he belonged as a gargoyle on Notre Dame, and his brow was thick and heavy like a Neanderthal’s.

  “What the fuck?”

  “The true form of a Dybbuk, Rookie. Hideous, isn’t it?”

  The face was clearly Wynn Devereaux’s, but the body was unlike anything Denny had ever seen. It moved like a gorilla and was hobbling right toward them.

  “Kill him,” Peyton said, standing at the ready. “And fast, before he calls the others.”

  Denny started whipping Fouet over her head when Wynn leapt well above them, landing behind Hélène. She twisted, holding her hands up protectively, but she was too slow to prevent the inevitable attack.

  Denny turned just in time to see Wynn snap Hélène’s neck. She crumpled to the ground in a heap of bones, a marionette whose strings had been cut by the puppet.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Wynn said, his voice deep and scratchy. “You all high and mighty legacy hunters in your fucking elite club. Always thumbing your noses at the rest of us because we don’t have what you do.”

  “You...you killed her. Why?” Denny looked around, realizing the other demons had stopped attacking. It was as if—

  “I lead them, Silver. They are my minions now. With a Dybbuk, I control a vast and powerful army!” He sounded far from center and more than a little insane.

  Peyton chuffed and started toward him. “Not on my watch, asshole.”

  “Peyton, wait.”

  “Naw, Rook, not this time. I’m putting this son-of-a-bitch down.”

  “Evil is winning, Silver, and you two are barely making a dent. All you’re doing is wasting your lives playing a dangerous game you can’t win. Can’t win. Won’t win.”

  “You fucker, Devereaux. You couldn’t get mine so you let a low-life piece of demon trash like a Dybbuk possess you, with promises of what? An army?” Peyton raised both swords up. “You better bring your A-game, because Golden Silver and I are going to kick your motherfucking ass into tomorrow.”

  Peyton glanced over at Denny. “Right?”

  A small smile crawled along Denny’s face. “Oh, count on it. And Wynn, it’s gonna hurt. Really, really bad.”

  Wynn motioned for the demons to keep coming, which they did.

  Denny and Peyton whirled around and started hacking and slashing, limbs fell and heads rolled.

  “Peyton, we have to close it or we’ll be fighting this forever!” Denny’s arms were coated with blood and felt like lead.

  Wynn took a swipe at Peyton’s back, tearing through the leather and ripping four eight-inch gashes across her back. A dozen of the tiny knives fell to the ground.

  Peyton dropped to one knee. “Fuck me.”

  Denny knew if she went to Peyton’s side, she couldn’t get the drop on Wynn. If she went after Wynn, the other demons would get to Peyton.

  She had a split second to choose.

  Standing over Peyton, Denny whirled Fouet over her head, creating a ten-foot diameter safety zone around them as the demons stopped just outside of the bite of the whip.

  “You can’t keep that up all night, Silver,” Devereaux said. “The moment you stop, you’re both finished.”

  Peyton tried to rise.

  “Get your breath back,” Denny said to Peyton. “I need you in this fight.”

  “Can’t. No time. Make a run for it, Rookie. I’ll cover you.”

  “And let you take all the glory? Hell no. You’ll tell everyone I ran away like a little girl. I think I’ll take my chances here with you.”

  “Rookie––”

  “I know. No worries.”

  Peyton looked up at her. “I wasn’t apologizing. I was gonna tell you to take care of Valeria. She’s taken really good care of your mom. And no matter what you think you know about your family, you need to keep digging for the real truth. We all do.” With that, Peyton took off running, the demons following right behind her.

  “Peyton!”

  Turning to Wynn, Denny felt the blood flowing through her like hot lava. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”

  Wynn Devereaux may have been a hunter, but he had no experience in being possessed. He rocked back on his heels as Denny leapt up to him, Epée raised above her head.

  With one swipe of his huge paw, he knocked her sideways, where she landed on her back, the breath knocked out of her.

  Wynn picked up a rock the size of a basketball and held it over his head as he prepared to crush Denny’s head. “Nighty night, legacy hunter.”

  As she rose and stared into his red, glowing eyes, Denny couldn’t believe she was going to die at the hands of another hunter.

  And at that very moment, she saw movement to her right and realized she might not.

  Someone tackled Wynn and body-slammed him to the ground.

  The final Vodouisant boy, Hélène’s son.

  “You. Killed. My. Mother!” The boy cried, smashing his fists into Wynn’s face.

  The rock landed and rolled away.

  “My mother, you son of a––”

  Wynn answered by shoving the kid so hard he landed next to Denny, who had Epée raised over her head.

  Before Wynn could get up, Denny cut one of his legs off below the knees. He fell like a broken tripod. “That’s for Peyton, ass-wipe.”

  Horrified, Wynn screamed as he looked at his bleeding stump. Then, maniacal laughter erupted from his contorted mouth. “You can kill this body, Hunter, but I’ll just leap into the boy, or anything else close enough. You are out of your league. You are out of options.”

  Denny whipped Saugen out, and in her mind, heard Ames telling her she could not do this alone.

  But right now, she didn’t have a choice.

  As Wynn returned to the consciousness of his body, he screamed at his cauterized wounds and the leg no longer attached to his body. “Silver, help me. Please. I don’t want to die. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. You have to believe me! I never meant––”

  “Neither did Louis, you piece of shit.” Denny jammed Saugen against his chest and held on as the Dybbu
k fought and cursed before slowly rising from the top of Wynn’s head.

  Then it stopped fighting. “That’s right, Hunter, free me from this dying man so I can jump into any number of other beings here. You can’t do this, and you know it. It is well beyond your limited capabilities.”

  Denny ignored the taunts and kept pulling the Dybbuk out, her eyes frantically scanning the area for someplace else to put it.

  “Here, DH!”

  Denny turned to her left to find Iris holding a bird. “Here!”

  With the last of her energy, Denny yanked the demon’s spirit out of Wynn’s body and pitched it into the bird. It cawed and struggled as the spirit disappeared inside it.

  “Hold onto it Ir––”

  But the bird pecked hard enough to draw blood, and Iris released it.

  One beat of wings.

  Two beat of the wings.

  Three beats...and before a fourth flap of the wings could carry the bird and its dark passenger away, Denny expertly snapped Fouet, and the tiny scalpel-like barbs took flight as well, impaling the bird several times before it landed on the ground, dead.

  Iris threw her hands out and cast a binding spell on the dead creature. “I got this, DH. Help Peyton!”

  Denny took off, calling over her shoulder, “Keep that demon inside the bird!”

  When the demons saw Denny coming, they turned from Peyton’s still body, teeth bared, claws at the ready.

  This was it...the final showdown. She had just enough energy left for one final battle.

  “Come and get it, motherfuckers!” Whipping and cracking Fouet like a rodeo champion, Denny began picking off the demons in groups of two and three. “Like my hero, Ripley, says in Aliens, ‘Get away from her, you bitch!’”

  Fouet fed greedily on the demons, but there were too many of them for her to win. Without closing the source, Denny knew it was only a matter of time before the sheer number of demons overcame her.

  And then she heard it once more: that foreign and mysterious tongue.

  Haitian Creole being chanted...once, twice, three times.

  She looked up, stunned to see the rift slowly being closed, the light snuffing out. Some of the demons made a run for it and barely managed to re-enter it before the opening became too small. The others continued coming at Denny, but with the Dybbuk out of the game, they had no leader, no direction, and fell quickly to her weapons.

  Denny made quick work of killing those that did not run off, until, at last, she could finally reach Peyton’s broken body.

  “Come on, Farquar...don’t you dare give up.” Denny cradled her protectively. “Don’t give up on me now.” Holding Peyton tightly, Denny felt the world begin to spin.

  Then a soft hand touched her shoulder.

  “Let us take over from here, DH. She’s not dead. Let us help.”

  Denny clutched Peyton tighter, unsure whether or not the woman talking to her was really Iris. So much magic swirling around, she wasn’t at all sure that she was hearing what she was hearing. “Not a chance. You’re not Iris. You’re a trick. Another fucking Voodoo trick. Well you can’t have her! I’ll kill every last one of you.”

  As if sensing her fear, Iris knelt in front of Denny. “It’s me, DH. Iris. No magic. It’s okay. They are all gone now. Easy. You need to let us have her. She’s dying. If you don’t want her to die in your arms, give her to me.”

  Denny wiped blood off her face with the back of her hand. The Hanta slowly receded back into the shadows of Denny’s soul. “It’s really you, right?”

  “It’s me, babe. In the flesh. You gotta let her go. Let us save her.”

  “Us?” The world seemed to spin faster as Denny felt her own flesh weaken from loss of blood. Her gaze followed Iris’s to Valeria.

  And Enobaria.

  “Enobaria?”

  “She closed the rift. Now, let me have Peyton before it’s too late.”

  Slowly handing Peyton to Iris, Denny rose on wobbly legs to cut down a stray demon that had wandered over. Many had escaped into the park, but it would be easy enough to hunt them down in the days ahead. She did not have any energy left to go after them now.

  Instead, she walked over to the bird being held by a binding spell and sucked the Dybbuk up. “You wanna live forever, asshole. Try this.” Placing the tip of Saugen against the stone, Denny released the Dybbuk into the rock. “Have fun, jerk off.” Releasing the demon into the stone, Denny could have sworn she heard it scream.

  Iris looked up at Denny. “We have to get her to a hospital. I’ve done all I can do for her ...and you...well, love, you look a mess. We have to hurry.”

  “My car is shot to––” The world began getting smaller and Denny could feel herself letting go.

  Iris shook her head. “Val called a friend for a helicopter. Should be here any moment. DH, you need to just sit down. You don’t look so hot.”

  Denny nodded, but remained by Peyton’s side as the edges of her consciousness became fuzzier and darker. “I need to...thank Enobaria.” Putting her weapons away, she stumbled over to the two women. Her legs felt like she was walking on someone else’s.

  “Enobaria. Valeria.” Denny nodded to each one. “You arrived...” Denny sat down with a thud. “Jesus.”

  “You are beyond weary, Hunter, and you’ve lost more blood than you realize. I fear––”

  Those were the last words Denny heard before passing out.

  ***

  Denny woke to find herself on the very couch Peyton had been in not twenty-four hours earlier. As her eyes fluttered open, she felt movement by her side.

  When she turned her head, she was surprised to find Annalee holding her hand. Her face, while bruised, was on the fast healing track of dark yellows and browns. Her right arm was in the kind of sling that stabilizes the shoulder.

  “Don’t think you’re checking out that easily, Skippy. You’ve got friends in high priestess places.”

  Denny wanted to grin her my face felt frozen from the cheeks down. Her nose hurt and her body ached, but she was alive. “Peyton?”

  “Hanging on by a demon thread. She’s in ICU, but I gotta hand it to the girl, she’s a fighter. So are you. That one is gonna go down in the Book as one of the all-time weirdest demon hunter moments, to be sure. How you feeling?”

  Denny closed her eyes. She ached in places she didn’t know existed. Everything was throbbing, pounding, or otherwise angry. “Peyton...is she...critical?”

  “I won’t lie. Yeah. The gashes on her back were filled with some sort of toxin from the claws. Valeria had a tough time explaining that one to the docs, so I think she used a little magic to get him to let it go. It’s the internal injuries. They stomped her pretty bad. Broken arm. Four broken ribs. Cracked collarbone, fractured cheekbone, and of course, all those tiny scalpel-like knives from Fouet. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “Jesus.” Denny could barely remember getting to her.

  “You saved her life, Silver.”

  “Pretty sure it took a village.”

  “Well, the village thanks you. So do I.”

  Denny winced. “How bad is my face? It feels like someone smashed it with a skillet.”

  “You were a bloody mess when you got here. Broken nose, contusions on your cheeks. And...um...did you even know you were shot?”

  Denny nodded. “Early on, before all the shit went down. I think the Hanta blocked it out. I barely remember it.” Denny reached up to touch her nose, but thought better of it. Even that small movement hurt.

  “Well, your witch is an amazing healer. You may have saved Farquar from being stomped to death, but Iris is the one who kept her alive. Amazing hands, that little woman.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Getting you breakfast. It’s two days after yesterday for you. You’ve been out a bit. I recommend eating everything but––”

  “The bread.” Denny started to laugh, but her ribs hurt too much.

  Annalee smiled. “Yeah. Fucked me right up when she g
ave it to me. Look, Silver. I’m not the mushy-gushy type, so I’m gonna deny saying this. You’re one helluva hunter, but you’re mostly buena gente. Good people. I understand what Ames sees in you. Take your witch, go home, and make a new normal for yourself. Strike a balance. Find love. Walk along the beach. Being a hunter isn’t the sum of your parts...it is only one facet of who you are. Remember that.”

  “If she doesn’t, she’ll be force-fed my bread.” Iris walked into the room carrying a loaded breakfast tray with eggs, bacon, hash browns, assorted donuts, oatmeal, and fruit.

  “And on that note, I’m gonna go to the hospital to relieve Valeria.” Annalee rose. “We’ve got everything under control, here, Silver. Just rest. You took quite a beating.”

  “We guarding Peyton?”

  “Hell yeah, we are. A lot of baddies are still on the loose. When you’re better, we’ll clean up so she can rest.” Annalee stepped away from the bed. “You’re many things, Silver. Don’t let the darkness overtake your light.”

  As Annalee walked by Iris, Denny said, “Oh, and Annalee? I never heard any of it.”

  She smiled. “Good, ’cause I never said it.”

  Iris shook her head. “You’re both weird.” Setting the tray gently on Denny’s lap, she tenderly laid her palm on Denny’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like a Mac truck hit me, ran over me, and then backed up to do it again. How is she, really? Don’t sugar coat it for me, Iris. Is Peyton gonna make it?”

  “She’s a fighter, DH. She won’t go gently into that good night.”

  “I need to see her.”

  “And you will, but not right now.” She nudged a bowl of oatmeal toward Denny. “Here’s the status of your damage. We sewed up your chin, ear, and forearm. The chin will have a three-inch scar that will look sexy as hell. You can make up all sorts of stories for the chicks. What we didn’t sew we super-glued together. You were shot, have a concussion, multiple contusions and abrasions, a broken nose we set while you were out. We also plucked what looked like glass from your palm. You fainted because of blood loss, but there are no broken bones.”

  Denny ate a couple of bites of oatmeal, all the while wondering if Iris had drugged it. “Okay. Status update on all the players of this messed-up chess game.”