Chapter 19
Iris
Apparently, hell has a basement. And I just fell through it because working alongside Veronica is torture times infinity.
We’re only an hour into our shift, and I already feel the urge to drive a rusty fork through my eyeballs.
This is going to be the longest week of my life.
If everything that has happened before with Erik didn’t rattle me enough, this might be what pushes me over the edge straight into a boring human life.
“Yeah. Have you seen how much weight she put on? I don’t know what Liam sees in her, I swear. She looks like a cow. And Liam’s soooo hot. Why do all the uglies snatch the most gorgeous, mouth-watering men?” She throws me a dirty look, courtesy of Noah, I’m sure.
I roll my eyes so far that I can almost see the back of my head.
Aside from having the emotional intelligence of a pet rock, her brain is frozen at fifteen, too, because who the fuck talks like that?
She clearly hasn’t outgrown her bully phase.
Liam is a hellseeker who is married to one of the accountants at the compound.
She is gaining weight because she’s pregnant.
And aside from being drop-dead gorgeous, the woman is glowing. Veronica is a bitch.
And don’t worry, she’s not speaking to me.
This is how she and her pack of hyenas work—they talk on the phone for the duration of their shifts.
At least she’s wearing headphones. When I asked how the hell she stays under the radar to follow demons, she snarked that I would know if I had any friends or a social life.
“But how could a troglodyte like you ever understand that?”
Not throttling her is proving to be the feat of my life.
“Maybe he’s going to finally realize she’s a whale and ask you out, Tess.
I can lend you that lilac dress I just bought.
But you need to drop a few pounds to fit into it.
Don’t think I haven’t noticed your thigh gap is not as big anymore.
And you started to get some cellulite on your ass.
You can even see it through your leggings. ”
Holy fuck! She even bullies her presumed besties.
I have the sudden urge to buy a bottle of bleach on the way home so I can marinate my brain in it.
I didn’t think I would be so grateful for demons to be back on the streets of Ashville, but it gives me something to do aside from listening to their mean chatter.
And it keeps my mind off him. It finally feels as though I got a semblance of my old self back.
At the end of last week, we caught two lesser demons, and then on Sunday, we sent back to Hell two ghouls cornering a couple in a back alley.
Even though Tessa’s a catty bitch, she’s a ruthless fighter. I can respect that.
I guess it’s been long enough since the incident at Shadow Lake that the demons aren’t afraid of getting blasted by illum or coming face to face with an archangel anymore, and that’s why’ve they started to crawl back out of their hiding spots.
That’s the only theory I have so far for their reappearance.
I never did get the chance to ask Kaiden about the state of the forest, about the illum, in the national park after the night he saved me…
Ugh. I would kill for a little bit of wind right now.
Hell, even a slight breeze. The worst heatwave in years hit Ashville, and despite it being the middle of the night, I feel like I’m breathing air coming out of a hot oven.
I’m sweating in places I don’t even want to talk about as we patrol our assigned area.
The soles of our boots falling against the pavement and Veronica’s annoying voice are the only sounds in the creepy silence.
It’s one of those cookie-cutter neighborhoods situated right at the edge of Ashville’s residential area—the border before you enter the slums. The people living here are middle class, most of them working in the factories at the edge of town.
We rarely encounter demons on these streets since demon activity is mostly concentrated where lust, gluttony, and greed engage in a promiscuous dance of carnal urgency and illicit substances to dull or heighten your senses.
That’s why the Raven district is their favorite playground.
Demons are attracted to people who live fast and dangerous, not nine-to-fivers who go to sleep before ten p.m.
However, there have been some strange disappearances in the last two weeks.
According to the police, ten children have vanished without a trace.
And they were all living in this neighborhood.
When cases become inexplicable to law enforcement, they usually pass them along to the Order to check if they’re demon related.
So, this week, Grayson also assigned us the mission of finding the missing children to see if a demon is responsible.
You can never know for sure until you find the demon.
I’m trying my best to tune out Veronica when something catches the corner of my eye—a little body and blond hair vanishing in a blur on the next street to the right.
What the hell is a child doing past midnight on these abandoned streets where a possible serial killer or demon might be on the hunt?
Without a second thought, I tap into the hellseeker speed to zip after the kid.
“What are you doing, you weirdo?” Veronica hisses from my back, but I don’t pay her any attention.
Soles pounding fast on the asphalt, I finally reach the road juncture and turn to the right, where I saw the child disappear. There’s nothing here—just more houses. I slow my run to a swift walking pace while I swivel my head. But again…nothing.
Veronica reaches me in a jog. “What happened?”
My eyebrows knit as I answer. “I thought I saw something.”
She huffs. “Of course you did. I can’t believe I hung up on Brit and Tess for this.” Then she mutters under her breath, “That dirty blood must be rotting her brain.”
As soon as she finishes saying that, the swing set on the front lawn to my right starts swinging by itself, making a low, creaky sound.
All the hair on my body stands on end as phantom fingers brush across the nape of my neck, followed by a child’s laughter.
It resembles an echo—as if coming from a dream.
The street lampposts flicker to the rhythm of the giggles.
Veronica throws a nervous sidelong glance at the swing set, which is still swaying forward and backward in the absence of wind. “That’s kinda creepy, right?”
I don’t get to answer because a blond girl wearing overalls and holding a teddy bear blinks into existence in the middle of the road. Her form ripples like the sun’s rays reflecting off the water’s surface. She beckons me with a finger.
Without preamble, the ghost girl turns on her heel and breaks into a run.
There’s a second of hesitation as my gut screams in warning that something isn’t right about this.
But what if the little girl knows where all the children are, and that’s why she’s trying to get my attention? Ignoring my gut, I follow in a sprint.
Veronica mutters something snarky again, but she jogs right behind me. “Are you going to tell me what the fuck we’re doing?”
“I want to check something.”
“Are you freakin’ kidding me?” she snaps, but she still hasn’t stopped. I guess the moving swing set creeped her out since demons can sometimes make lights flicker. I don’t think she heard the laughter, though.
The houses pass in a blur as we dash on the ghost’s heels, the cadence of our footfalls mingling with our heavy breathing.
We pass street after street until we almost reach the slums. Here, the lampposts have stopped working altogether.
Trash is scattered all over the street, and the houses are ramshackle.
The blond girl halts and flickers out of existence, only to reappear to my left, where the last house in the neighborhood is. She throws me a poignant look over her shoulder before disappearing through the front door. As if on cue, my onyx choker warms up.
“I think that’s where the missing children are,” I tell Veronica, who has been weirdly quiet.
She throws me a confused look. Surely, her onyx choker is also alerting her of a demon presence. “But how—how did you know?”
I shrug because telling her the ghost of a little girl led me here is out of the question. “Just a hunch.”
Snorting, she says, “You don’t say.” She purses her lips. “Well, how are we going to do this?”
“We’ll each take a floor? I’ll take the second.”
“Fine. But you’ll go in first. If I’m lucky enough, the demon will eat your ugly face, and then I won’t have to stare at it all week.”
I almost laugh at that because I can only hope the same thing happens to her.
Even though the whip is my preferred weapon, it’s not as efficient in confined spaces. So, I take out the sword from its holster at my back before striding to the house. Veronica follows close behind.
The smell of sulfur hangs heavy in the air, and the ground on the front lawn is cracked, the grass long dead as if something sucked all the vital force out of it.
These are clear signs that a demon—a powerful one—has been here a while.
Lesser demons don’t affect the environment.
In fact, there are only a few that can do this.
The onyx stone becomes hotter with every step.
Light on my feet, I climb the decaying stairs, careful not to make them groan.
It’s futile looking through the windows since it’s pitch black inside.
When Veronica joins me on the front porch, I square my shoulders and try the door handle.
It’s unlocked, so I push it open with the sole of my boot. The hinges screech ominously.
“Well, if the demon didn’t know we were coming, it sure does now,” she mutters.
I brush her jab off my shoulders. Adrenaline buzzes beneath my skin as I enter the house with measured steps.
The first thing that hits me is the unmistakable putrid odor of death: a combination of rotting flesh, sulfur, and something sickeningly sweet.
Lungs freezing up, I fight to death my gag reflex.
That fucked up sonar in my head? It makes its presence known again, telling me there are fourteen dead bodies in this house.
I pass the stairs while I let it guide me through the cramped hallway toward the back of the house.
“You said you were taking the second floor,” Veronica whisper-yells at my back.
I ignore her as I forge on and enter what seems to be the kitchen.
The empty, decomposing husks of what I assume were once a man and a woman sit at the table.
Blowflies buzz in the air above their heads while roaches scamper all over the table to get a bite of the spoiled food in front of them.
The couple look as if something drained the life out of them—which is weird because when a demon consumes the soul completely, the bodies still have some vitality. It’s what transforms them into zombies.
Veronica gags. “Fuck, that’s vile. Weren’t they supposed to turn into zombies?” she muses, coming to the same conclusion as I did.
I can’t help but compare these bodies to the way Erik looked when I rotted him to death.
Only, they don’t have the black vines. And he resembled a shriveled prune—as if he was being mummified.
Shaking my head to rid myself of the memory, I finally say, “Yeah.” The death radar is telling me there are a few bodies on the second floor, while the rest are in the basement.
We still need to check the entire house, though. “I’ll go search upstairs.”
Veronica nods, and I leave her in the kitchen so she can do the rounds here.
The inside of the house doesn’t look as bad as the outside.
Sure, the furniture is old, but judging by the photos I pass as I ascend, a family used to live here.
Two boys, not older than seven, smile at me from one of the framed pictures.
I already know what awaits me once I reach the second landing.
But I still hold a tiny spark of hope that maybe those kids grew up from when that photo was taken or weren’t home when the demon murdered their family.
Please.
Taking a deep breath—which I quickly regret because of the foul stench—I push open the door of the first bedroom to my right.
Fuck.
A small body is lying on the bed in the same condition as the man and woman in the kitchen, hugging a Batman toy to his chest.
Over the years, I’ve seen some really bad shit.
Still, nothing affects you like the death of a child.
And dying at the hands of a demon is a horrible way to go.
Gritting my teeth, I turn on my heel and enter the second bedroom, only to find the same macabre image.
Tears stab at the back of my eyes, but I shove them down.
There’s no place for sadness right now. I focus instead on the rage crackling like lightning beneath my skin.
I hone it. Let it burn through me until the thirst for vengeance is my only drive.
A terrified scream slices through the eerie silence. Veronica.
I zip down the stairs but don’t make it far because a clawed, monstrous hand shoots from below, shattering the wood and wrapping around my ankle. My fingers clutch the railing in a death grip, but it’s no use. Something pulls me down in an explosion of splinters right through the stairs.
Shitshitshitshitshitshit.