Chapter 8
EIGHT
I try to act nonchalant, but underneath,
I’m chalant as fuck.
—T-shirt
“ You shouldn’t be here, Traveler .”
One of them spoke to her—or maybe all of them—and the surprise that shot through Amber almost knocked her out of the dive, but she had fallen inside and didn’t know how to get out. She searched frantically but couldn’t find an exit, so she faced them. Hordes. As far as the eye could see.
“ What did you do to him? ” she asked, her voice a mere hiss. And yet, she hadn’t spoken. Not out loud.
“ We sought refuge, Traveler. The one named Quinn gave it .”
“ That’s not his name .”
“ It is, and you know it .”
She did. That was his birth name. But how did they know that when even Quentin didn’t? She’d researched for years and found his birth parents.
“ You do not know what he did for us. ”
She raised her chin. Metaphorically. “ Then tell me. ”
“ How about I show you? ”
Before she could agree or disagree, the smoke and shadows parted, and memories rushed past her so fast, she could hardly keep up. Running. Fighting. Inhuman screaming. And then everything went silent. They had jumped into another dimension. One they called the House of the Founding Fathers. Washington DC. They lived there for centuries, but they were starving. Buildings rose and fell around them. Humans lived and died.
And then his face. He was different. Born of this world but from another. Quentin, only not. He absorbed them, not the other way around. He took them into his breast. Sheltered them. But it’d almost killed him. He ended up in the hospital. Rune remembered Amber being there, but those early days were disorienting. They could not see clearly. But they were nourished. For the first time in centuries, they were no longer starving.
Once Quentin was better, they returned to his school with him, but he started suspecting that they were there. He felt them. A twitch. A rustle. Until one day, he was out with his friends and heard one of them speak. He could talk better than the others, and Quentin heard him. He’d thought he was going crazy. Why could he suddenly hear?
“ He’s hearing through you, ” Amber said to them, astonished.
“ Yes. But there is more, Traveler. Pay attention. ”
She started to chastise them—she did not like being told what to do—but they showed her the nightmares that would leave him sweating and disoriented until he saw her face and calmed. He only wanted to get back to her. To finish out the semester and go home.
He’d already decided not to return to Gallaudet. He would go wherever she was. He would get a job. Take classes at night with an interpreter. Whatever it took to be with her. But, somehow, they found out about him. La Guardia Segreta . They came like thieves in the night.
Amber gasped as Rune showed her what they did to him. They knew he was possessed. They just had no clue that there was more than one entity inside him. Even Quentin didn’t know it at the time. They flew him halfway across the world and took him to an underground lab. It looked like a basement with both ancient and modern forms of technology. They tried to get the demon out. They wanted it alive. They wanted to study it.
A doctor named Tinari headed the project, and he was willing to kill Quentin to get to the demon. But then he discovered Quentin’s healing ability, and Tinari decided he wanted to study that, too. He and his team pushed Quentin to his physical and mental limits. How much pain could he take? How fast could he heal from a bullet wound?
Amber closed her eyes, but she could still see. The beatings. The starvation. The constant torture. All in the name of science.
After several weeks, they finally extracted a demon. Quentin and Rune were both dying and, in their weakened states, the men working on them were able to extract one of the entities with a compass similar to the one Quentin carried. But something went wrong. The extraction killed the massive beast. It died almost instantly and crumbled to dust.
That was when Quentin had had enough. He broke the metal cuffs securing him to a stainless surgical chair and killed every person in the room in a matter of seconds—five total. He saved the doctor for last. The one who’d tried to run but was so scared that he couldn’t get the code right on the keypad.
Alarms blared and lights flashed as Quentin towered behind the doctor. Quentin reached around the quivering man and said, “Here, let me help you.” After typing in the code, he stood back.
The door opened, and Tinari gaped up at him, his eyes like saucers. He started to make a run for it when Quentin grabbed him from behind and snapped his neck. The man crumpled to the floor, and Quentin looked at him for a long moment before glancing up and seeing his reflection in a stainless-steel paper towel dispenser.
His eyes were solid black like wet ink. His hair, tangled and unkempt, hung in patches, and he had the beginnings of a sparse beard over a purple, swollen jaw. His lips were cracked and bleeding, and his nose had been broken numerous times.
He didn’t recognize himself. Amber didn’t recognize him either, and she almost blacked out from the pain the image caused.
Quentin grabbed a handful of the demon’s dust and sat back on the chair they had tortured him in for weeks as though it were his throne. He curled the dust into his fist and held it to his mouth as tears slipped past his lashes.
A small army dressed in full tactical gear filed into the room. The guards pointed their entire armory at him. Thirty guns aimed right at his head as he waited. And grieved. Finally, three men in suits came in. The guards parted for them but kept their aim steady. The men looked around, and the one who was clearly in charge, a fair-haired man who spoke with an Italian accent, said three words to Quentin: “ Name your price .”
And from that moment on, Quentin worked for the very men who had kidnapped and tortured him, but he got to keep Rune safe. And Amber. He got to keep Amber safe because if Rune could take over in the span of a heartbeat and kill so mercilessly, he could not risk her life by going to her. At the same time, he would not be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent entities who had never harmed a human in their lives.
Until now.
Amber felt tears on her face and didn’t know if it was real or not. On this plane or hers. The sadness emanating from Rune—or the single entity talking to her—stole her breath. “ You knew the one they killed. ”
After a long moment, he answered. “ My son. ”
More tears slipped past her lashes. “ I’m so sorry. ”
“ You call us demons. We call you monsters. ”
She nodded. “ That’s fair. ”
“ That’s fear. Nothing more. We are sorry we almost killed you earlier. ”
She shook her head. “ Did you? ”
“ Your throat. We took over. Quentin was bleeding to death. We had to stop it. ”
“ Then I’m grateful .” She looked out at the sea of faces. Yes, they were the stuff of nightmares with razor-sharp teeth and large, glistening eyes, but they didn’t want to kill her any more than she wanted to kill them. “ Rune, do you know anything about this demon he’s been tracking? What it wants? ”
“ Besides us? No. ”
“ You? ”
“ It is starving. It could live for centuries off our essence. And now it has seen us. It will kill Quentin to feed. ”
“ That’s why he was attacked. ”
“ Yes. Please don’t worry, Traveler. We will relinquish our lives before that happens. ”
“ What? No. Rune, we’ll figure something out. ”
“ Perhaps. But we will not let Quentin die for us. He has done so much already. ”
She thought about it. If she could talk to this entity like she was talking to Rune, maybe… “ Rune, can you keep Quentin here for a little while? Like, under your thrall? ”
“ I can, but he will not be happy about it. ”
“ Good. Let him sulk. ”
“ Traveler, have you ever heard of a demon hunter sulking? ”
“ No. ”
“ That’s because no one has ever caused one to sulk and lived to tell the tale. ”
She laughed and mentally lowered her head. “ Thank you, Rune, for saving his life. ”
“ And almost taking yours in the process? Any time, Traveler. Be careful. This demon is furious .”
“ Yes, I could tell. ” Amber didn’t know if she rose out of the dive of her own volition or if Rune had released her, but suddenly she was back at the Tavern.
“Are you getting anything?” Dora asked.
Amber blinked and glanced around, waiting for her pupils to adjust. Quentin was staring at her, but his eyes were pitch-black. “Son of a bitch.” She patted the jacket and felt the sunglasses she’d found in a pocket earlier. She unfolded them and pushed them onto Quentin’s handsome face—the one that had taken so much abuse—then she looked at Dora. “How long was I out?”
“Out? What do you mean? You just flipped over two coasters.” She sat back in disappointment. “You’re not getting anything, are you?”
“Oh, I got tons. Did I ever. If Quentin comes to, tell him I went to the bathroom.”
Kyle panicked and stood when she did. “Wait, where are you going?”
“To the bathroom. That way, you won’t have to lie. I’m just going to do it at Dora’s house.”
“Oh, good heavens.” Dora covered her eyes like that would somehow stop Amber from leaving.
Amber laughed softly and then remembered what she was about to do. This could be the biggest mistake of her life. And her last chance to do something she’d been wanting to do since that morning. Risking Quentin coming to, she cupped his scruffy jaw, bent over, and brushed her mouth across his. He was warm and slightly feverish, a fact that spurred her into action.
Sarah brought their food just as Amber grabbed the coasters and turned to leave. “Wonderful, I’ll be right back. Don’t take my plate away. Oh, and Quentin is taking a quick power nap. But really,” she said as she rushed out, “don’t take my plate. I’ll just be a minute.”
She tore out of the Tavern and ran all the way to Dora’s house, gasping for air when she got there. She went around to the back door to find Kyle blocking it. Literally. He held his arms across the doorframe, clipboard in one hand and pen in the other. “I can’t let you do this, Ms. Kowalski. If anything happens to you, I’ll be out of a job.”
“Your concern is touching, Kyle,” she said between gasps. “And it’s not like I pay you.”
“But you do. In other ways.” He pushed his round glasses up his nose then returned his hand to the frame.
“Kyle, look… Wait, what ways? Have you seen me naked?”
He bit his bottom lip and shook his head.
What the hell? “Never mind. You realize I can just walk through you?”
“Yes, I do. But that’s rude, and you would never…”
She walked through him and opened the back door. Kyle gaped at her, appalled.
“Sorry, Charlie. I’m on a mission.”
“You’re going to get killed.”
She narrowed her eyes and looked up toward the attic window. “I don’t think so.”
“And how many demons have you befriended lately?”
The grin that crept across her face could not be helped. “Hundreds of thousands.”
He scoffed, then said, “Wait, really?” before dropping his ghost clipboard. It didn’t make a sound.
Amber stepped into the house, careful to stay inside the black salt lines. She walked to the center of the small kitchen. Having no idea how long she had, how long Rune could hold Quentin, she drew in a deep breath and stepped out of the circle. Then she closed her eyes and waited.
Her hands shook at her sides, and she almost dropped the coasters. She’d been killed by something from the afterworld once already. She did not care for a repeat performance. When she was still breathing twenty seconds later, and her innards were still…innardly as opposed to outerly, she took a reluctant step toward the stairs. That was when she heard it. The breathing. The raspy inhales and exhales of an injured animal.
Swallowing hard, she started up the stairs, taking them slowly to let the demon know she was not a threat. Then again, it’d killed at least three people—more if Quentin was correct—and as far as anyone knew, it hadn’t actually touched any of them. It could crush her skull with a collectible rattlesnake paperweight or decapitate her with one of the vintage New Mexico license plates hanging on the walls. Any number of gruesome deaths awaited her.
When she got to the top floor, she looked around. The rasps were coming from the same corner the demon had occupied before, hidden by shelves of supplies and inventory.
She sat on the floor, crossed her legs, and took the coasters into both hands. Maybe she could communicate with it, try to understand why it was here, but she couldn’t dive if she couldn’t see into its eyes. Or could she?
Closing her eyes again, she concentrated on its breathing. She could feel its energies in the room—heavy and full of static. It sent electrical currents flickering over her skin.
She focused on that. Its energy. Its breathing. Its presence. Then she flipped a coaster and laid it on the floor as time slowed around her. The air thickened, and her shoulders relaxed.
Its anger washed over her first. Its rage. She let it. Absorbed it and tried to understand it. Why? Why these victims? Why here? Why now? A clicking sounded in the distance, like someone typing on a keyboard. And then faces flashed in her mind like the flickering of a silent film. A rotund businessman in Chicago. A beloved grandfather in Seattle. A pretty senator in Kentucky. Face after face of people it had killed. But it always killed the other , as well. It called its last victims at any given place the other , and part of a face she recognized flashed on the screen of her mind’s eye.
A gravelly voice registered nearby. It said three syllables as though they were foreign on its tongue. As though it were only just learning to say them. “Tra…vel…er.”
Her eyes flew open to find the demon inches from her face. She jumped and scrambled back, her gaze darting toward the stairs. But it was so fast. She didn’t think for a minute she could make it down the stairs and into the circle before it caught up to her.
“Tra…vel…er,” it repeated. Its voice was just as raspy as its breathing. Its eyes almost completely black except for a horizontal green line that ran straight across them. What evolution had in mind there, she had no idea.
It stepped closer and hooked a massive claw over her ankle to hold her in place. She fell back and tried to pull her foot free as it straddled her, bent, and sniffed. It smelled her hair and her face and her neck where its forked tongue slithered out for a taste, and Amber felt the world tumble beneath her.
The demon was an odd pattern of grays and blacks with gold splattered about, and smooth, shell-shaped scales covered its body. It looked similar to the entities in Rune but more reptilian.
It spoke again, slowly, struggling to pronounce the words through its long, needlelike teeth. “What are you doing?”
“I… I’m trying to find out what you want.”
Roughly the size of a rhinoceros and only partially solid—it would not fit in the room, otherwise—it was hunched, slender, and agile. Able to solidify parts of its body at any given time, it took a massive claw and ripped her jacket open at the stomach as the blood drained from her face.
This was it. This was officially the stupidest thing she’d ever done.
The demon focused on her stomach. Bringing its other talon around, it sank a claw into the T-shirt and split it in two. Then it sniffed some more. Nudged. Licked the sensitive skin as Amber fought the darkening of her vision.
“Freedom,” it said, its deep voice like rocks being crushed. “And food.” It threaded his teeth into the front of the jacket and pulled her into a sitting position. She almost blacked out when it added, “Not necessarily in that order.”
It started to walk around her, sniffing her hair and nudging her back.
She decided to negotiate. “We can help each other.”
“Doubt it, Tra-vel-er.”
Why did everyone keep calling her Traveler ? Was that another word for clairvoyant or something?
“Set me free,” it said at her ear. Its tongue slithered out and curled around her jaw for a taste. “I seek the summoner.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she said, her voice more air than sound.
It growled so loud, the rafters shook, and Amber realized she should have done what she said she was going to do. She should have gone to the bathroom.
A container above her shook off a shelf and crashed beside her, spraying an industrial cleaner over her pants, but a couple of drops flew into her eyes. She rubbed them, making them burn even more. Shaking visibly now, she forced herself to stay still. She had seen what those teeth were capable of. Those claws. What they had done to Quentin in the blink of an eye. She didn’t move. Didn’t dare give it a reason to attack. But it was certainly capable of rational thought. She could work with that, right?
When it stopped growling, she gathered her courage and asked softly, “Are you finished?”
It completed its inspection and faced her again. “Just getting started.”
She had been afraid of that. Its mouth peeled back, and its teeth elongated, extending another two inches. “Free me,” it said, as though giving her one last chance a microsecond before she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.
The demon screamed and flew back to its corner as black salt hit it.
Amber closed her eyes and covered her face against the assault, only to feel herself being lifted off the floor. Quentin pulled her up, and she hugged him, literally wrapping both her arms and legs around him and holding on for dear life.
They sailed over the stairs, landed in the hall, and were out the back door before she could even fill her lungs to scream. By the time she did, it was far too late. And more than a little awkward.