Unholy (Dark Delights #2)

1. Luke

Chapter 1

Luke

Most children were taught not to fear the night. They were told nothing in the dark could hurt them, that the innate fear they harbored of the unknown was just their imagination.

As a child, Luke Morgan learned the opposite. The night was dark and full of evil, but there was no reason to be frightened. With the right tools, one could learn to protect themselves and others. Adopted into the Paladin Guild of Los Angeles at age two, he grew up knowing the truth. He’d trained all his life to be a warrior for good, clawed his way to the highest rankings of field agents in the guild. He spent his days at HQ training and honing his skills and his nights putting them to use, fighting. It was what he lived for. It was all he had.

Now, he crept from room to room through an abandoned warehouse. The scent of rotting paper and old leather lingered in the air, and a droplet of sweat trickled down his back, soaking into the fabric of his shirt. He’d chased a demon in here, and now it was hiding, waiting for the moment to strike. His holy blade was a comforting weight in his hands, gleaming in the low light that filtered in through the dirty windows. He’d attached a hands-free flashlight to his tactical vest, and swirls of dust twinkled in the light’s narrow beam.

Up ahead, quiet shuffling caught his attention. His silent steps slowed, his focus narrowing.

It came from his left, screaming like a banshee as it lunged toward him. The creature, a crex demon, was all skin and bone, pale and emaciated but with the strength of three men. Long, scraggly hair hung in front of its uncomfortably human-shaped face, but it walked on all fours. Spindly fingers ended in razor-sharp talons, swiping at him with dangerous speed.

He dove out of the way, adrenaline burning through his veins. He came up swinging, his blade slicing open the crex demon’s vulnerable belly. Black blood splashed on the concrete floor, and an earsplitting warble left the beast. He pounced while it was down, piercing its side and pinning it to the floor with his knees. It convulsed, its flat black eyes going wide as more blood leaked from its wounds. At an angle so he wouldn’t damage his sword on the concrete, Luke brought his blade down, piercing bone and sinew and destroying whatever the creature had where a heart should be.

It was already decaying as he pulled his weapon free. The blood flaked from the blade, turning to dust as the body collapsed in on itself. It was the one good thing about demons—they disappeared quickly after they’d been killed.

Dusting himself off, he sheathed his sword on his back and traced his steps to the side door he’d kicked open during his pursuit. The crex had leaped through a high window to get in, and glass crunched under his boots as he passed it. Outside, he took a deep breath of the cool night air. The moon was a lopsided orb hanging in the sky. According to his watch, it was nearing three AM. He should probably head back to HQ and call it a night.

He didn’t have a squad to wait for, which was a mixed blessing. After losing his last squad during a patrol gone wrong, he’d talked Sloan into letting him patrol alone. It meant he didn’t have to worry about anyone else, but it also meant he was on his own if something went sideways. It was a risk he was willing to take. Better to be a little lonely than to watch any more of his friends die.

Blowing out a breath, he turned toward the mouth of the alley. He’d chased that demon several blocks. It was going to be a long walk back to his car.

“Impressive,” a smooth voice called from behind him.

Luke whirled, closing his hand around his sword but not drawing it yet.

A man emerged from the shadows beside the broken door and into the golden glow of the streetlights nearby. He wore black skinny jeans tucked into black leather boots, and his abstract band T-shirt with the sleeves cut off revealed pale, muscular arms and lean sides. His glossy black hair fell past his shoulders, with one side shaved and the other side long. There was a slight dusting of facial hair on his chin and under his nose. He had a chiseled face, with high, artful cheekbones and a strong jaw.

His eyes were the most striking thing about him—they were red .

“Halfling,” Luke said, relaxing somewhat. Halflings were strong, but they generally kept to themselves. A few of them were also good for information about the underworld, if given the right incentive to share. Luke had never directly interacted with one before. As far as he knew, they didn’t like to seek fights, and they avoided paladins like the plague. Why was this one here now? Had he been waiting for him?

“I prefer Malachi,” the demon replied, drifting closer.

“I don’t care,” Luke replied.

The demon smiled faintly. “You’ll care when you hear what I have to say.”

“I doubt that.” He backed away. There’d been more hostility than usual regarding halflings lately after what happened with Paladin Hawk. Ex-Paladin Hawk, he supposed.

Three months ago, Alex Hawk was banished from the guild for disobedience and ‘fornicating with a demonic entity.’ It was the first case of its kind in guild history. Since then, things had been tense at HQ. People were confused and angry about Hawk’s motives. He’d grown up in the guild, and his exit felt like a particularly painful betrayal to a lot of people.

Anyone caught associating with a demon was likely to receive equal or even harsher treatment than Hawk had. It wasn’t exactly something Luke wanted to risk.

He cut a hand through the air. “We’ve got nothing to say to each other, halfling.” The sooner he got away, the better.

“There’s a child-killer in the area,” the halfling said.

Luke halted, half-turning to look back at him.

“That seems like the kind of thing a holy warrior would care about.” He affected a shrug. “Unless you’re not as devout as you pretend to be. ”

Luke scowled. “Why would you tell me something like that?” This halfling had no reason to help a paladin. It was either a trap, or he wanted something.

His red eyes gleamed in the soft beam of Luke’s flashlight. “Because you do care about it. Don’t you?”

If it was true, then yes, he did. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

The halfling shrugged. “You don’t. But you can investigate it for yourself, can’t you?”

“Where do I start, then?”

The halfling slipped his hands into his pockets, and Luke tried not to watch the way the muscles in his pale arms flexed at the movement. “Go to the local hospital. Ask around about kids who went missing there. If I’m lying, all I’ve done is waste a couple of hours of your time, and if I’m telling the truth, you have the chance to stop some kids from being eaten.”

Luke swallowed hard. That was why he did this, right? To protect people. This demon undoubtedly had his own motivations, but if his intel was good, Luke could stop a bad thing from happening.

“Fine. I’ll look into it. But if you’re playing me, you’re the one I’ll hunt down next.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I would never .” He smirked, his red eyes raking down Luke’s body in a way that brought heat to his skin.

Luke turned away without another word, keeping his steps careful and measured. He wouldn’t let this demon see him rattled.

Showing up in the middle of the night in tactical gear to ask about missing kids would raise a host of red flags for the hospital staff, undoubtedly, so Luke went home to shower and get a few hours of shuteye. He didn’t know if that halfling’s intel was good, and he knew better than to run himself ragged on a possibility. It was more dangerous to hunt while he was tired, so he set an alarm and forced himself to rest.

With three hours of sleep under his belt, he woke, brewed a pot of coffee, and dressed in nice jeans and a polo. People responded to random questions best when someone clean-cut and personable was asking them. He couldn’t do anything about his intimidating size or the scars on his face and arms, but hopefully, they wouldn’t be too off-putting. He’d practiced disarming smiles and soothing tones of voice over the years, and he knew how best to present himself as a trustworthy person.

He gave himself one last once-over in the mirror before he left. Short brown hair, faded on the sides, a short beard. He was tall, and because of his physical job as a paladin, quite muscular. Pale scars peppered his sun-browned arms from his years fighting. Some were small and barely noticeable. Others were larger, ropy and criss-crossing his skin. Small slashes, deep punctures, oval bite marks. There was a burn on his elbow from a fire-breathing demon that had taken months to heal.

The worst was on his face: four slashes that ran from his left cheekbone to his jaw. Even the beard wasn’t enough to hide them, because hair no longer grew in the scar tissue, but it was better than shaving over them and having them bare. He could barely stand to look at himself in the mirror most days. They were a constant physical reminder of everything he’d sacrificed for the greater good. Most days that felt like a worthy cause, but that didn’t make it any easier to live with the grief. And it didn’t quiet the memory of their screams.

Blowing out a breath, he carded a hand through his hair—and then quickly fixed the mess he’d made of it—and walked out the door.

The hospital was bustling with activity when he arrived. It was easy enough to slip into an elevator as long as he looked like he belonged. Many of the staff—those not wearing scrubs or white coats—wore polos similar to his own, so most people’s eyes passed right over him.

When the elevator doors opened with a cheerful ding on the pediatric floor, he came face to face with a bulletin board on the opposite wall. He stepped out absently, his eyes roaming the busy board. Most of the postings were positive things. Artwork drawn by kids during their stay on the floor. Thank-you notes from children and their families. Lost-and-found notes from the staff.

What caught his attention, however, was the ‘missing persons’ poster in the center of the board. A six-year-old girl stared back at him, smiling a gap-toothed smile. The poster said she’d gone missing six weeks ago.

A nurse in pink scrubs was walking in his direction, and he met her eyes, raising his hand in greeting.

“Hi, miss, excuse me. I was just wondering,” he pointed at the bulletin board, “is it normal for people to post about missing persons here in the hospital?”

The nurse’s face fell as she looked at the poster. “No, not exactly. She’s an exception because…” She trailed off, her expression conflicted .

“What?”

She glanced around. “She went missing from here .”

Luke shook his head. “What do you mean? She was abducted?”

She hugged her elbows. “That’s the weird thing. She wasn’t. We have cameras in every hallway. There’s zero evidence that somebody walked out with her. She just disappeared from her bed. Her parents filed a police report. They’re completely distraught. We’re distraught. It shouldn’t be possible for someone to leave with a child without at least being caught on camera. I was one of the nurses on-duty the night it happened. We do alternating rounds every hour. When I did my rounds at three AM, all the kids were in their beds. When the other nurse did her rounds at four, that little girl was missing—and the girl’s mom was in the room asleep when it happened.”

Luke gaped. “Mom didn’t even notice when the kid disappeared?”

She shook her head. “Stacy, the nurse that found the empty bed, woke her up thinking maybe the girl had gone to the bathroom. We searched the whole floor—the whole hospital, even. There are cameras everywhere. There’s no footage of the girl leaving that room. She just disappeared.”

That was mystifying, and it definitely sounded like something supernatural was involved. “And nothing like this has ever happened before?” Luke asked in disbelief.

She pursed her lips and shook her head. “No, nothing I’ve ever heard of. We had a police presence on the floor for a while after it happened, but it’s been six weeks. They’re calling it a cold case. People have been taking their kids out of the hospital. Can’t say I blame them. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night and your sick kid disappeared out from under not just your nose but the entire staff’s.” She sighed, hugging her elbows. “I hope they find her, but I know it’s a long shot. The police haven’t been able to find any sort of trail to follow. Honestly, sir, if you have family here? I’d move them to another hospital. At least until they figure out what’s going on.” She shuddered. “I don’t even want to work here anymore.”

“Right. Thanks for answering my questions. I’ll let you get back to it.” He backed away, letting her pass with a little wave.

When she was gone, he took a quick photo of the poster with his phone and tucked it away. He had another stop to make.

Guild HQ was just as busy as the hospital. The training yard was full of young recruits with wooden practice swords being instructed by their seasoned trainer. Kids from the orphanage were playing on the playground. Teens from the boarding school were eating bagged lunches out on the grass. The sound of their laughter reminded him of his purpose. He would do anything to protect their innocence.

Luke made his way to the library in the administrative building.

He’d always liked the library. A cavernous room with a domed ceiling that was painted with scenes from the Bible, Luke had always considered it the most holy room on the grounds. Even the church didn’t hold the same sense of reverence. In this room was a record of all their work as a guild, their history, their creed, their beliefs. He loved the smell, leather and paper and binding glue. There was a balcony that lined the room with a second level of books, the carved wooden staircase tucked in the corner. Soft rugs covered the pale marble floor. Long tables around the room held desktop computers for guild use. A handful of people were scattered around the room, the quiet click of computer keys and the shuffle of pages barely audible. Peaceful. Luke loved it.

Behind the U-shaped desk in the center of the room was a familiar face. Judah was seventeen, with curly hair, warm brown skin, and hazel-green eyes. Young paladins-in-training were regularly assigned desk duties there and throughout the rest of HQ. ‘Character building,’ their instructors called it. Luke always thought it was just a way to palm off the boring jobs.

“Hey, kiddo. How’s it going?”

Judah cast him an amiable smile, sitting back in his rolling desk chair. “Going great, Paladin Morgan. Library duty’s not so bad.”

“Please, call me Luke. Listen, I was wondering if you could look something up for me.”

“Sure. I understand technology is difficult for you older types.”

Luke narrowed his eyes in mock indignation. “I’m not old.” It fell flat, though, because he was literally twice Judah’s age, and they both knew it.

Judah laughed, dragging his keyboard closer. “Well, I hear it all goes downhill after thirty, that’s all I’m saying.”

Luke snorted.

“All right, what am I looking up?”

“Look up children’s deaths.”

That sobered him. “Okay. Can you give me anything more specific? Am I looking up local news articles? A certain type of death?”

“A child-killing demon.”

Judah wrinkled his nose. “Probably a lot of those. It won’t take long to run a search in the archives, hang on.” His fingers flew over the keyboard. He scanned the screen for a moment, typed again, and then shook his head. After a moment, he blew out a breath of dismay. “There are a lot of child killers out there. That’s disgusting. I’m going to have nightmares, Luke, thanks a lot. Do you have anything else that could narrow it down, or do you want the whole list?”

Luke braced his hands on the smooth wood of the desk, thinking back on everything the nurse had told him. “The missing girl this time is six years old. Maybe her age is significant.”

Judah typed the new information in, and then… “Uh.”

“What?”

“I might’ve found something. But they don’t take just one kid. They take six.”

“ What ?”

He turned the screen so Luke could see. There was a demon, something called a sagdrannon, that stole children from their beds to eat them. Six children, six years old. It only happened every sixty-six years, so very few ever made the connection that the same thing could be causing the disappearances.

“That’s… That could definitely be it. I only heard about one child, though.” That likely meant the missing girl was already dead, but if the thing that took her was a sagdrannon, there would be five more children to share her fate if they didn’t stop it.

Judah’s eyes widened. “Then this one hasn’t finished its cycle. When was the girl taken? It says here they take a child every six weeks until the cycle is complete. Wow, these demons really like the number six.” His mouth twisted with distaste.

“I’ve got to…” He pulled his phone out and went to his pictures.

Luke counted forward from the date on the poster, and the blood drained from his face. “Tonight. It’s going to happen again tonight.”

Judah gaped and then flailed at him. “Go! Go tell Sloan! Get a squad out there and save that kid, man!”

“Yes. Thanks, Judah!” He rapped his knuckles on the desk and turned to go.

“Oh, Luke! Luke!”

Luke paused. “What?”

“Put in a good word for me, would you?”

He huffed out a laugh. “Will do! Thanks for your help, whiz kid!”

“And stop calling me kid!”

Luke rushed to the nearest set of stairs and barreled up them and straight to Sloan’s office.

Luckily, Sloan was there, typing something into his computer. Luke knocked on the open door, taking several deep breaths to calm his racing heart.

He hadn’t spoken to Sloan much over the years, and he vividly remembered the last time he was in this office.

His head hung low, letting Sloan’s voice wash over him.

“This is unprecedented, Paladin Morgan.” His voice was uncharacteristically soft. “But Doctor Maxwell tells me you passed your psych eval, and Father Hawley feels confident in your state of mind, as well. If you’re certain you want to be removed from Elijah’s squad, I’ll allow it. ”

Luke nodded. The scarring on his neck felt tight, and he resisted the urge to reach up and touch it. He’d barely be able to feel it, anyway. Would he ever get used to it?

“Are you still certain this is what you want? It’ll be more dangerous,” Sloan warned. “You won’t have any back-up if something were to go wrong.”

Luke avoided saying how he really felt—that he’d rather die alone than risk watching anyone else die. He’d avoided saying it to Maxwell and Hawley. He wasn’t about to screw things up now that he was finally getting what he wanted.

“I’m sure,” he promised. He’d never forget the screams of his dying squad at the hands of the demons that surrounded them that night. People swore Luke survived by the grace of God, but he wasn’t so sure. Sometimes he thought it might have been simpler if he could have died with them.

If he had to go on without them, he could at least make sure he didn’t have to watch anyone else die.

He shook himself, banishing the memory. He had more important things to focus on right now.

“Hey boss, I’ve got a thing. Can we talk?”

“Paladin Morgan, yes, please. Save me from the paperwork. What can I do for you?” Sloan pushed his keyboard away, focusing his pale blue eyes on Luke.

“I’ve been investigating this case…” He quickly told Sloan about the disappearing kids and the repeating pattern he’d uncovered with Judah’s help. “It looks like the demon will come back for another child tonight. It hunts in the same place each time, according to our documentation in the library. We couldn’t save the first one, but we can save the next.”

“Of course, of course. How did you come across this kind of demon? This pattern doesn’t sound like an easy one to track.”

Luke hesitated, and it was enough to catch Sloan’s attention.

“Paladin Morgan?” he asked. “How did you find out about this?”

Luke shifted in discomfort. “I was approached by a halfling.”

Sloan stiffened, his jaw pulsing. “When?”

“Just last night during my patrol. I’d never seen him before. He told me about a child-killing demon at the hospital. I went for myself to check it out and see if his intel was good. That’s when I spoke with the nurse about the missing girl.”

“And it never occurred to you that this could all be a ruse to lure our people into a trap?”

Guilt lashed through him. Could that be possible? “I… I don’t know, sir. I was worried about the children. There is a girl missing?—”

“The halflings could have done something to that girl,” Sloan said coolly.

“Halflings couldn’t have made that girl disappear from her bed, sir. They don’t have that kind of power.”

“The black-eyed ones are more powerful. You know that.”

“There’s nothing in our records to indicate they can teleport .”

“You can’t trust a demon, Paladin Morgan. You know that.”

Luke cast about for something to say. “What if he was telling the truth? We can’t leave those children to die.”

“We aren’t leaving any children to die, because the halfling isn’t telling the truth. Demons lie, and I won’t be sending any paladins into an ambush. Not today. It sounds like a terrible thing that happened to the girl, but we can’t change the past.”

“But sir?—”

“My answer is no, Paladin Morgan. The good of the many outweighs the good of the few. I won’t send more people to die on a wild goose chase. There’s a reason that halfling approached you, and this guild won’t fall for it.”

Yes, Luke believed Malachi had motives of his own, but who cared about that when there were real children in danger? They shouldn’t just disregard everything the halfling said because it was a halfling who said it. A girl was still missing, and Luke believed the sagdrannon would return.

“You are not to go near that hospital, do you understand? That’s an order. Go home, get some rest, and put it from your mind. And if this halfling approaches you again, you kill it. I don’t like that they’re approaching you after what happened to Hawk. They’re obviously planning something.” Sloan passed a hand over his mouth as he shook his head, glaring at his desk.

Luke pushed himself to his feet, fisting his hands at his sides so Sloan wouldn’t see the way they trembled with rage. He saluted tersely, turned on his heel, and strode from the room.

This was wrong. It blared over and over in his head like a klaxon as he made his way out to his car. Wrong, wrong, wrong. So what if a halfling was the one who gave him the intel? Children’s lives were at stake. What were they doing here, if they were willing to let children die to save their own skin ?

No matter the halfling’s motivation, the child had to come first.

Luke pursed his lips. Disobeying a direct order would get him in huge trouble, but he couldn’t let this go. The guilt would eat him alive if he did nothing and more kids died. He unlocked his car and sat down behind the wheel, gripping it tight.

He was going to the hospital. Posing as police trying to catch the kidnapper was the easiest way to avoid unwanted questions—and avoid inciting a panic. He didn’t like lying, but he had a fake badge for situations where he needed access to certain places barred from the public. Sloan would normally field any questions from the public in such cases. He’d just have to hope people took him seriously enough without the word of any authority backing him up this time.

Hawk’s banishment had everyone riled, but he never thought Sloan would stoop so low. Ignoring kids in danger was unforgivable. They were all wary of halflings after what happened, but Luke wouldn’t sacrifice the innocent because of it.

It was all anyone could talk about for weeks after Hawk’s banishment. Many had called for retaliation against the halflings and the demon bar they frequented, In Extremis, but so far they’d been given no orders to do so. That was just as well, in Luke’s opinion. He couldn’t wrap his mind around taking a demon for a lover , especially as someone who’d grown up in the guild, learning exactly how nasty demons could really be. But Hawk made his choice, no matter how much they all hated it. At the end of the day, Hawk was still human, and the guild didn’t go after humans, even ones they disagreed with.

His thoughts traveled, rather unwillingly, to the red-eyed halfling outside the warehouse. The flex of pale muscle, the glossy black hair. He had been telling the truth about the sagdrannon, and that made him even more enigmatic. Luke couldn’t understand his motives.

He shook himself, turning his car toward HQ’s gated exit. His motives didn’t matter. All that mattered was the children.