Chapter 3
3
I only knew one demon worth talking to, and I really didn’t want to put that on my agenda for the week.
“It is some sort of concoction, a mishmash of creatures,” Marge said, pulling a picture out of the pile of papers on the ground. “It is fast and dangerous, and magic does not affect it, as I said. At least not any magic I am aware of.”
Fantastic.
“What is it? I’ve never seen anything like it.” I stared at the drawing, taking in the long limbs, the long claws, and the horns on its head that curled out in all directions. Hard to tell how big it was just from the picture, but good sized. “Gran?”
She shook her head. “I do not know. I recognize that there. It’s a piece of wendigo. And that is a piece of gargoyle. There are other things that look familiar, but I’ve never seen them all together.”
“Ugly,” Alan muttered from over my shoulder. “Everything that has to do with magic is ugly and this is more proof.”
“You’re wrong about that.” I didn’t look at Alan as I spoke. I couldn’t look away from the drawing. “So the demon wants us to kill this thing before it’ll give us information? That’s the price.”
“Apparently this thing, it can kill demons.” Marge shook her head. “It is the same creature that killed my Homer. I arrived home, and…when I stepped through the door, the beast already had killed Homer and was fleeing.” Her lips tightened and a look of pure fury washed over her blue face.
“Remind me never to piss her off.” Feish took a step back and I had to agree. Marge was even more formidable looking when she was angry. “Maybe she be okay to go into hell with,” Feish continued. “Strong. Angry.”
Marge blew out a slow breath. “The Sentinel of NOLA is missing too so—”
“NOLA has a Sentinel?” I’d done a true double take. “Where was he or she when I was there?”
“Dealing with monsters, apparently, and now is missing as well,” Marge said.
She gave me the drawing to keep. “If you think your demon friend will help you, then…we can go that route. But don’t wait. The other one is waiting on my answer. I must give it by midnight.”
Midnight was not that far away. A little more than fifteen hours.
So I hustled to Jackson Square, and the house of the only demon I knew sort-of well.
Stavros was doing his best to live as a human. He had a human wife, children, lived in a nice little house even. He’d helped us stop Joseph from making an army of zombies, keeping the city safe and his children protected from being revealed as half-breed demons.
But would he help me by telling me how to get into hell? Marge had told me that only a demon would know the active entrances in and out of hell. It made sense, and I felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner. But of course, I’d been looking at things from the death angle, not the we-summer-vacation-there-every-year-to-see-our-cousins angle.
Around me, the world was brighter. Hope was blooming in my chest. “Gran, that dampening spell, would it wear off that quickly?”
“Soon as you and I noticed it and told the others,” Gran said. “You are feeling more lively?”
“Very much so.” I had a tight smile on my face. Ducking cousin and her damn meddling.
I walked fast. Feish was hopping a bit to keep up, and Kink was doing loop-de-loops through the air just in front of us on a gentle breeze. Energy was a thing we’d all been lacking, but here we were, with hope driving us harder than ever before, the dampening spell no longer in effect.
The chance was there in front of us to find a way to Crash, and I would take it.
Altin’s words notwithstanding, this was the path in front of me and I was walking it. Rapidly, and with a slight limp—damn sore toes.
“What if he says no?” Gran said as she strode alongside me. “You said he wasn’t interested in helping you the last time you went to him.”
I pushed past a big peony bush, the light pink flowers heavy in bloom, their scent sticking to the back of my throat. “This time I’m not asking him to put himself on the line. I’m just looking for information, so yes, there is a strong chance he might not help, but there is also a chance he might. And it’s worth asking. If we don’t have to take out some weird monster, or deal with a demon that is asking us to do the impossible to get what we need, all the better.”
“What we need is a map,” Feish said. “I mean…I’m assuming we need a map? I mean, I’ve never been to hell, and I’m thinking that if any of the stories are even remotely true, we could use all the help and maps we could get our hands on.”
I grimaced. I didn’t want to say what I was thinking—what we really needed was a guide, someone who’d been to hell. But how did we get a guide to bring us into hell when we ourselves couldn’t figure it out?
Well, you’d ask a demon. And that was again asking them to put their lives on the line for me.
For the city.
For Crash.
“One step at a time,” I muttered. I was almost running now. I didn’t even care that I’d agreed to work with Marge.
Yup, I’d done that. She was my best shot at getting to Crash right now, and I was going to take it. Also, I had to agree with Feish, an angry Marge was a scary thing. Far scarier than a chubby forty-something woman, a river maid, and an autumn-colored fairy with a limp to her flying.
As far as I could tell, it was a price that was cheap to pay as Marge was putting herself on the line too.
We’d shaken on our agreement. Sharing information and sharing the burden of whatever tasks the demon would put in front of us. Including taking out that monster. Did I trust her? Not further than I could throw her. But here I was, trying to make this work.
My feet slowed as we approached Stavros’s house. Historical, beautiful, well kept, freshly painted and very, very normal. His wife Alexandra was a beauty and he had at least two children—the perfect family, in the perfect house. If you discounted his children being half-demons.
Would the fear of keeping his family safe be enough motivation for him to help? My plan was to point out that with Crash at my side I’d have a better shot at stopping the Dark Council, and stopping the Dark Council kept everyone in Savannah safe. Including his children.
I wasn’t sure it would be enough. I didn’t even have something to offer Stavros like I did the first time I’d approached him.
I lifted the bottom of my shirt and wiped my face, taking away most of the sweat.
“You aren’t going to turn into Cinderella now,” Feish said. “Might as well get it over with.”
I was doing my best to catch my breath, but Feish was right. Not much was going to change how I looked—a sweaty mess, desperation written all over my round-ish face, a question on my lips.
Steeling myself, trying to find the right words, I hurried up the steps to the front door, lifted my fist, and knocked sharply against the wood, stinging my knuckles.
And waited. Nothing. I knocked again, this time putting my ear to the door.
There was no sound of children screaming or calling, no sound of Alexandra hushing the children and hurrying to the door like last time. I frowned and knocked a third time. “Stavros? I need to speak to you, please.”
Nothing.
Licking my lips, I put my hand on the knob and turned it. Locked.
“They could have gone on vacation?” Kinkly fluttered around the windows. “The curtains are pulled, I can’t see in.”
I put my hand to the knob again, jiggling it hard while I leaned against the door. Not that it did anything, but…I caught a whiff of something that made my nose wrinkle and my throat tighten.
“What is that?” Feish asked. “That smell is something I almost know.”
I agreed with her. I didn’t like it though. I stepped back, fear trickling through me. “We need to get in there, something’s wrong.”
“Are you seriously thinking about breaking in?” Kinkly was suddenly there at my ear, and I jumped.
“Maybe?” I blew out a hard breath. “Look, I’m not sure what to do here. Marge said we’d need a demon, and Stavros is the only demon I know how to find who definitely won’t attack my soul. But he’s not here and…I just can’t see him leaving. He wants this place for his kids. It’s why he fought at our sides at the Fort.”
“Another demon then?” Gran offered. “Not that I approve, but there are others you could try.”
Feish nodded and clapped her hands with a sharp snap. “There was that one demon by the hanging tree…” She trailed off and I knew why.
I shook my head. “Absolute last resort. I don’t want to go that route. He’s a psycho who jumps into bodies every chance he gets.”
A wash of fear whipped through me, chased by the certainty that I needed to get into the house. I put my hand against the door as if I could just push it open. “I don’t know where his other friends live. What if there’s a phone number or address for one of the others inside? That would help us.”
“Damian would help, I bet,” Kinkly said, referring to one of the other demons in their group. “He was the one who healed my wings. And he was gentle about it, incredibly kind, his fingers were deft. I mean…I know where he lives, if that helps.”
I looked over at her to see her blushing. I raised an eyebrow. Just kidding, I raised them both, the weird draft of fear leaving me briefly. “Deft?”
“Means she liked how he touched her,” Feish supplied. “I read that in the last Swank book, something about deft fingers on skin.”
I took a moment to just kinda let that sink in. Kinkly had a crush on a demon, and Feish was still getting her love life advice from romance authors. I mean, who was I to judge? I wasn’t, that was all there was to it.
You need to get in there, Sentinel. It was as if Altin’s voice was speaking inside my head, sudden and demanding. Combined with the weird sensations I was experiencing; I took it as a sign to listen to my instincts.
But I wasn’t fool enough to go running into a demon’s house without some sort of back up.
I bent and tapped the ground. “Robert, I don’t know if you can hear me, I know you’re all the way back at the house, but if you wouldn’t mind showing up, that would be great.”
My undead horse, Skeletor, had a knack for finding me, and Robert had come to my aid over a distance before too. Fingers were crossed he could find me today.
“You think there’s going to be trouble?” Feish flapped her gills. “In this house?”
“It belongs to a demon, and I can feel death hovering, so I just don’t know. What I do know is that Robert is good to have close when weird shit is going down. And this is weird . I should never have left him or my bag behind.”
“That was the dampening spell,” Gran said. “It makes you feel as if nothing matters.”
“Yeah, well. That dampening spell and Bramble can kiss my ass.” I hurried back down the steps and circled around the left side of the house, trusting that if Robert was able to show up, he would.
First obstacle was a small fence, but I scaled it. Yeah, no not really, I sort of flopped over it, landing on my butt on the other side, the sound of fabric tearing making me shake my head. “Let’s try the back door first.” I pretended that I hadn’t been so shitty with my moves and tried to spring to my feet, but just kind of made it upright without falling again.
“Delicately done.” Kinkly laughed as I dusted myself off. Feish hopped over the fence like it was nothing to her, landing lightly without a single wobble.
Regardless of how I’d done it, I was back on my feet and moving, albeit with bruised pride and torn pants. The back yard was full of the kids’ toys—ride-on trucks, a swing set, a section with brightly colored plastic buckets and shovels set up in a pile of sand.
That sense of unease stole over me again, making me consider what might be going on. What if something had happened to Stavros and his family after the fight at the Fort? Did demons have someone they answered to? Nope, scratch that, I didn't want to know who might boss a demon around. The truth was, I’d never looked in on Stavros and his family—I’d kind of assumed that he’d come find me if he needed help.
But did demons ask for help?
“Please be okay,” I whispered as I made my way toward the back entry.
Up the back steps we went, and this time the door was open. And I don’t mean unlocked. No, the lock had been torn from the door, and the door itself hung loosely on just one hinge, deep gouge marks etched into what had been the front of the door.
A series of curses flew from my mouth. Gran stepped in front of me. For a second, I thought she was going to get on my case for swearing, but instead she said, “Bree, this is…I can feel death here.”
Exactly what I’d been picking up on. I held a hand out behind me but didn’t dare take my eyes off the house in front of me. My skin crawled and danced, and not just because of my gran’s words. I could feel the death too. It was, after all, one of my strong suits.
“Feish, on your guard. You too, Kinkly. Stick close, both Gran and I are picking up on death having happened here or dead things being here.” I deeply regretted not wearing my leathers or bringing my knife with me and promised myself I wasn’t going to be so dumb again. I couldn’t afford to let my emotions—spell or no spell—to get in the way of making good choices.
I blew out a slow breath and stepped through the doorway. The kitchen was immediately off to the left—dark counters, white cupboards, food left half chopped on the counter as if Alexandra had left it in the middle of cooking. The oven was on, and I flicked it off. Moving slowly and quietly, I scooped up the biggest chef’s knife they had and took it with me as I started through the house.
Moving slowly, I let Gran go ahead of me to each room. She’d clear it first, then Feish and I would carefully peer in to see if there was anything to see.
The lower level didn’t look like anything had been disturbed. There were no signs of fighting that I could see. Other than the items left in the kitchen and the stove left on, there didn’t seem to be anything amiss.
“Smells funky,” Kinkly whispered as she flew in tight circles around our heads and close to the ceiling. “Do you smell that?”
I sniffed the air, but whatever I’d been smelling outside was gone. “Nothing to me.”
“I smell it, a bit briny,” Feish said. “Ocean meeting fresh water has a distinct smell. That’s what I smelled from outside.”
I wasn’t getting anything obvious until we started up the stairs and stopped at the first room on the second floor. Gran waved me in after checking it. The children’s room. The smell of baby powder was there, and I finally picked up on the briny scent that Kinkly and Feish were smelling. The children’s room had been turned over—the bed left on its side, the curtains fluttering out a broken window. I hurried in and looked through the window, horror engulfing me. “Who would attack children?” By this point, I wasn’t whispering anymore. Because if someone was here, we’d have heard them. Right?
Yeah, not so much.
My friends shook their heads. Because while Louis and the Dark Council were terrible, I hadn’t seen…no, that wasn’t true. They’d stolen Charlotte, my ten-year-old neighbor. They’d tried to use her against me, so they weren’t above hurting children. But why Stavros? Why his family in particular? What had he done to the council? Was it because he’d helped me?
Duck, I hoped not.
“This way,” Gran said, moving along. “We need to finish going through the house.”
I motioned for Kinkly and Feish to follow me as I crept out of the room and down the hall. The other rooms were similarly thrashed, bedding torn apart, furniture demolished, deep scores in the walls. I stopped and pressed my hand to the gouges in the wall. My fingers spread wide didn’t even come close to spanning the claw marks, and they were deep, all the way through the drywall and even the studs, tearing through two by fours with brute force.
I was afraid to say it out loud but did it anyway. “This looks like it could be from the monster from the picture. The one Marge showed us. She said it tore up her house.”
Kinkly groaned. “I was hoping she was making that up. Trying to fool us into helping her.”
“If we find a monster, we aren’t fighting. We run,” I said quietly. “Understood?”
All three nodded.
Because if something could kill Homer and wreak this kind of devastation on a house, I did not want to be facing it in my jeans and a T-shirt with a kitchen knife as a weapon.
“What if it isn’t the monster Marge showed us?” Feish asked quietly. Even so, her words felt loud in the silent house. “It could have been Stavros himself, protecting his family in his demonic form that caused this kind of damage.”
We were at the end of the hall and the gouge marks were on the ceiling too, in the floor. Everywhere.
As if whatever had done this had flailed hard, slashing at…Stavros?
“I don’t think this is Stavros.” Again, I put my hands to the closest gouges. Based on what I was seeing, the claws of this creature were bigger, nastier even than the forms Stavros and his buddies had taken at the fight in the Fort.
“I think we’re dealing with Marge’s monster.” As horrible as it was, I was almost a hundred percent sure that was the case.
The last room on the upper floor was the office I’d been in once before, and it was the only door in the house that seemed to be shut. Shut and locked. I put my ear to the door.
A low moan rumbled from inside. Not a monstrous moan. A sound of pain and anguish. “Stavros?”
I twisted the handle back and forth a few times.
“Kick it down,” Feish said. “I believe you can do it!”
My confidence was not high. Kicking in doors had not gone in my favor in the past. But we were short on time and the lock wouldn’t be as hard to break as one on an exterior door. I stepped back, lifted my foot, and swung it forward in rapid succession.
The door cracked but didn’t fully open and the moan grew louder. I threw my shoulder against the wood paneling, and the door swung open in a rush that left me on my knees.
I was in the room, but quickly reeled back. The smell of blood was overwhelming, leaving a coppery tang in the back of my throat. I blew out a breath and then stood up and stepped into the room, holding the knife at the ready. Whoever had been fighting, this was where the worst of it had occurred. I didn’t see anyone, not right away.
“Stay out.” I motioned for Feish and Kinkly to stay back. Of course, neither of them listened.
“We go together.” Kinkly set herself on my left shoulder.
Another moan. “Sentinel?”
Adrenaline skyrocketing, recognizing his voice, I ran forward around the large desk. Stavros was propped up against the wall, a gaping wound in his neck showing far too much of his insides. He was bleeding badly, but it looked like he had tried to wrap it at one point. And then had given up.
“Shit fuck damn.” I dropped the knife and grabbed at his neck, pressing on the wound with my palms. “Stavros, who did this? What happened?”
“My family?” he whispered.
“They…aren’t here.” I grimaced. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see them.”
He smiled, his teeth covered in his own blood. “They are safe then. I held it off. Breena. There are some monsters that are worse than any demon. And one of them is here now. Do you understand?”
I pressed a little harder against his neck, feeling his pulse slowing under my palm. “Stavros. What is it? How do I stop it? Marge…they killed her husband too.”
“Monster,” he whispered. “A witch-made monster. Worse than anything. Kill the witch who made them, and you stop them.”
Witch-made. What the actual duck? I did not need another problem on top of having to go to hell, which wasn’t exactly good. “Okay. Your family, they will be safe?”
“With my brother, far away. I bought them time,” he mumbled and coughed. “Protected now. Safe.”
“Feish, get me a towel!” I yelped as the pressure of the blood increased on my hand. How was that possible? “Stavros, stay with us!”
“Trying so hard, Sentinel. Tell Alexandra…” He slumped a little further, and I did the only thing I could. I reached for my power and plunged it into his body and pinned his soul in place. Well, maybe soul wasn’t quite the right term. I could see the thing that made him who he was, but he was not human, so soul was maybe a stretch of a word to describe it. The darkest of figures emerged, a shadowy depth to it, and clung to Stavros’s chest, a bit like a gargoyle waiting to come to life. Cloaked in fear, like the demons I’d seen trapped in houses. This was who Stavros was underneath it all?
The body of Stavros shifted. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked at me, the dark thing that was his version of a soul sitting on his chest. I looked past it to my friend.
“How did you do this?” he whispered.
“Death is my game, and I can hold you here for a minute,” I whispered. “Stavros. What do you need to survive this? What can I do?”
He smiled and his soul wavered back and forth over his body. “Nothing. What would be required is the death of another. I am not willing to take that track again. But you need me, don’t you?”
I bit the inside of my mouth. “I…I don’t want to ask now.”
Stavros laughed, blood burbling out of his lips. “Ask, Sentinel. You came, you tried to save me, and I know you…you will protect my family as if they were your own after this. Which means I am willing to help you stop the monster. Or give you whatever information you need.”
I drew a slow breath. “I need to get the blacksmith back, Stavros. I…I need him to face the Dark Council, to stop them once and for all.”
Stavros’s smile was soft. “He is dead. Why do you not call him back if you have that power?”
“He is fae, in limbo,” I said. “I have to go after him. I have to physically retrieve him.”
Altin’s voice was still sitting in the back of my mind, telling me to walk the path given to me and not try to get to Crash, but I was here, and it was a chance, slim though it might be. He’d told me to come here, to hurry. This had to be part of the path I needed to be on.
A click of skeletal toes on the hardwood floor turned my head. “Robert!”
“Friend.” He swayed side to side as he walked closer to me and crouched down next to me. “Bad idea.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” I muttered.
Stavros groaned and the figure on his chest swiveled his head side to side. I was not expecting the shadowed one to speak, his voice gravelly, octaves deeper than Stavros’s.
“You wish to go into hell? He will not help you. No demon who holds a body will help you, they are forbidden to speak of it.” The shadow held up a hand and pointed down at Stavros. “He held me in check for many years, and I know his mind. He will not help you.”
I still held a hand to Stavros’s neck, the blood no longer pulsing, the heart pumping but only because I’d demanded death hold back. The drain on my power was not as bad as it could have been. Not by a long shot.
“You know someone who will help me?” I directed my question at the shadow version of Stavros.
“Don’t,” Stavros groaned. “He will send you to a demon of terrible power. One that will want too much from you. Do not go into hell, Breena. There is no way out that is not a fate worse than death, do you understand? It is a bad idea, just like your true friend speaks.”
His hand clamped on mine, and he pulled it away from his neck with a strength that surprised me. “Breena. Sentinel. There is no reason for you to go into hell, not even for the blacksmith. Save our city, that is your calling. Do what you must to stop the monster.”
I stared down into his eyes as they faded once more, my emotions swirling as I fought off what he was saying. Because it was what Altin had told me too.
Follow the path in front of me. Not the one that my heart wanted me to take.
“Would you go for Alexandra?” I asked softly. “Or one of your children?”
I already knew the answer and hated that our last words were harder than they needed to be. I slid my hands over his eyes as the last of his breath left him. “I will look out for them, friend. I will.”
The dark shadow on Stavros’s chest rose above us, lengthening until its head touched the ceiling. There had been a time when a demon such as this would have terrified me to the point of peeing my pants, but now…I’d survived too much for a mere demon to cause me fear on that level. I was just sad for Stavros and his family. Sad for all that had been lost here in what had been a home full of love.
I looked up at the true demon of Stavros. “What should I call you? Shadow of Stavros?”
His laugh rippled the air, bouncing off my skin. “Shadow will do. You would seek out a way into hell? Go to Toltza. He knows the way, and he has never feared the consequences that other demons fear.”
The Shadow slid up and up and through the ceiling until it was gone.
Robert clacked his fingers, drawing my eyes. “Robert, what do I do? Go after Crash? Save the City? Run away to Hawaii?”
Robert grunted, “Friend. Sad.”
I wished he had a larger vocabulary, like when he’d—briefly—been whole. Because whole Robert had been a Sentinel of a city once. A guardian like me.
I’d almost forgotten that Kinkly and Feish were there, waiting for me, until I turned around to see them in the doorway. Feish held a towel and Kinkly sat on her shoulder. Both of them stared at me with eyes wide enough that I was surprised they stayed in their sockets.
“Toltza. That’s the demon we need.” I stood, feeling my knees pop as I straightened. “There will be something in here to take us to him, directions maybe, an address?” I knew the chance was slim, but we had to look.
“That’s a terrible idea,” Gran said. “I’ve told you before that demons are not to be trusted. You survived the encounter with Stavros, and now you want to do the bidding of the very essence of his darkness? Go to the demon who will break even the few rules that demons have?”
I moved around the side of Stavros’s desk and pulled open the first drawer, rifling through the papers. “The simple answer, Gran? Yes. We are close, closer than we’ve been in all this time to finding a way into hell…”
“And what about the city?” Kinkly asked the question I was avoiding. “We can’t let everyone else die, because…because we’re trying to bring a dead man back to life. No matter how we feel about him.”
“A dead king,” Feish said without any sharpness.
Shaking my head at myself, I kept flipping through the papers. “Help me look. The faster we find it, the faster we get this done.”
Feish gave burbling sigh. “I’ll check the bookcase.”
She motioned to the case furthest from Stavros’ body, and I couldn’t blame her. This was not how I’d thought the day would go. Voodoo queens, dead bodies of allies, and shadow demons were something of an ominous start.
“Are you okay?” Kinkly landed on the desk, her eyes averted from Stavros’s body.
“No.” I cleared my throat, feeling it thicken with sadness and grief for a person who’d been one of the good ones, even though I didn’t know him well. “No I am not, but I can’t stop, Kink. We need to find this Toltza, and we have to get him to help us. I can do nothing for Stavros now, and that’s the shit part of this. He’s gone, his children and wife have lost…a good man. And now I have to go through his stuff like a common thief. I am not okay, but here we are.”
Nope, nope, I was not going to cry, damn it. I swallowed hard and leaned on the desk as I caught myself, pulling my emotions in tight. “Gran, I know what you would say, that he was just a demon, but he…wanted better for his family. And he was my friend, as much as he could be in the short time that I knew him.”
I looked up. Gran stood across the desk from me. “You were able to make that connection because he was one of the good ones. There are few of them, Breena. Very few. How will you approach this Toltza? He will not be a good one. And you still have the monster to deal with.”
I made myself open another drawer, nothing but receipts and a few pictures of his children.
“Maybe Damian could take us?” Kinkly offered, and again I took note of the light blush across her cheeks.
“You think he would? According to the Shadow, he would be too afraid to help.”
“But we could ask him about Toltza?” Kinkly pushed.
I stepped away from the desk, away from Stavros. Feish stood with her hand on the bookcase, watching me, waiting for my answer. “Okay. Let’s find Damian and hope that he can help us find this Toltza.”
Kinkly zipped out the door. “We’d better hurry then, because I hear sirens, and they’re headed this way.”
She was right, I could hear them now that I stopped to listen.
But she was wrong, they weren’t headed this way. They were already here. And I was standing in a room with a dead body, my fingerprints everywhere.
“Gawd damn.”