Chapter 1 #2
Wallace’s squad had tried to kill one of them—Julian Heroux, Nicolas and Daniel’s best friend and former squad member.
He’d left the guild of his own accord. Turned in his ring and demanded to be left alone.
The paladins took that as a personal insult.
Nicolas, Daniel, and others who knew Julian were warned away from him.
Their phones were confiscated, his information erased, and they were told they would receive harsh punishments if they tried to contact him.
He was dead to the guild for daring to leave, and Wallace took that a step further.
He and his squad hunted him down and tried to kill him.
It was no coincidence Wallace and his squad were dead, and Nicolas wasn’t the only one who suspected that the Sentinels were involved somehow. He just didn’t know how they did it. He’d never seen bodies like that before. What kind of demon could do such a thing?
“I haven’t spoken to him since that one night.”
Wallace bragged for days about killing Julian outside the restaurant where he worked.
Sloan congratulated him on weeding out the rot.
And then Julian reappeared on the guild’s radar, making a statement to the police and his insurance company about his burned-down house.
Wallace was humiliated, Sloan was furious, and Nicolas couldn’t stand idly by while they plotted his friend’s murder.
He’d gone to the skating rink where the Sentinels operated, followed Julian and a gargantuan man on patrol until they were well and truly alone, then warned him that the paladins were coming for him.
It was great to see him again, but Nicolas hadn’t risked reaching out a second time.
“I hope he’s okay,” Daniel murmured.
Nicolas kneaded the steering wheel. “Me, too.”
Not long after the bodies were found, Julian had gone off the radar again.
They didn’t know where he was staying, and he was rarely seen outside the skating rink.
They all seemed to be hiding out, or they’d found a way to move around without being followed.
Nicolas had heard a rumor that someone tried to break into the place while everyone was gone, but it was warded and wouldn’t let them cross the threshold.
“When do you patrol again?” he asked, grasping for a subject change.
“Tomorrow night. You?”
“Tonight.”
Daniel looked stricken. “What?”
Nicolas cut a hand through the air. The last thing he wanted was for Daniel to worry about him patrolling with those assholes.
He could take care of himself. “You know what? It’s fine.
I want to eat dinner with my baby brother right now.
” And pretend their world wasn’t falling down around their ears.
Daniel scowled at him, then relented. “Fine. But I want to go to that good Chinese place by your apartment. They make the best sesame chicken.”
“Sounds good to me.”
The drive from HQ to Sector 93 that night was silent.
Nicolas pointedly ignored the other three passengers of their SUV—Jacob, Evan, and Ross.
Evan, in Nicolas’s completely unbiased opinion, was a poor replacement for Daniel.
He spent more time making jokes and scoffing under his breath after everything Nicolas said than actually doing his job.
He also wasn’t half the fighter Daniel was, but that didn’t seem to be an important factor for determining success in the guild these days.
The taillights of the second SUV glowed brightly up ahead as they pulled into a darkened grocery store parking lot.
Nicolas desperately wished they could still pair off and patrol the sector separately—at least then he’d only have to deal with one of them—but Sloan’s orders were explicit.
The squad was supposed to stick together now, which meant he couldn’t escape them.
They met at the back of the two SUVs, and Nicolas waited until all eight of them had their swords and knives strapped on before he spoke.
“Commander Sloan has ordered that we not pair off into teams for now as a safety precaution against whatever demon has been killing—”
“We should go after the traitors,” Rob interrupted coldly.
His thick neck and pug-like nose gave him boorish look, which his personality matched far too well.
“We know they’re responsible for this thing, whatever it is.
They went after Wallace’s squad. That was payback for their attack on Julian. We all know it. It’s obvious.”
Nicolas inhaled slowly. “Nonetheless, those aren’t our orders. Our orders are to patrol Sector 93, stick together, and kill any monsters we find.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re dying to find some action tonight, right, Captain?” Evan said, nudging Jacob, who sniggered.
Nicolas pursed his lips. “If you mean to hunt, then yes.”
“Yeah, of course. What else would I mean?” Evan’s mouth twitched, and some of the others badly hid their laughter behind their hands.
Irritation spiked through him. He wouldn’t rise to the bait. Evan was young and overzealous. Nicolas was treated with suspicion because of who his brother was. One day—hopefully—Evan would look back on these moments with shame.
Nicolas wasn’t sure Evan would ever possess the self-awareness to feel shame, but all he could do was hope. Prayer, he’d decided recently, didn’t seem to be getting him very far. Hope was probably just as useless, but it was all he had.
“Let’s head out,” he said, weary already and they hadn’t even begun.
It was going to be a long night with these bullies for company.
He could hardly believe they were the same people he used to laugh with over steaks and beer at Julian’s house.
He barely recognized them now. At one time, he wouldn’t have thought them capable of this casual cruelty. Maybe he never really knew them at all.
The monstrous demons tended to inhabit less populated areas and prey on any who wandered too close, so there was no one around as the group of eight fell into step together with Nicolas at the head.
He ignored the quiet words and pointed snickers at his back.
He wouldn’t rise to the taunting of small-minded men.
His mind drifted as they walked, scanning the darkness absentmindedly for signs of movement.
What was it like, he wondered, patrolling as a sentinel?
They had far fewer numbers than the guild.
Were they a tight-knit group? Did Julian invite them over for cookouts the way he used to invite the squad?
And the demons, what were they like? The behemoth he’d met patrolling with Julian was intimidating at first but nice enough after Julian introduced them and made it clear Nicolas was a friend.
Did they help the humans kill other demons?
Was there no retribution from Hell for their behavior?
It didn’t seem fair that the paladins were treated more harshly by their leaders than literal demons.
A sharp gasp tore him from his wandering thoughts.
“What’s that?”
Nicolas turned, following Jacob’s finger.
Through a chainlink fence, a hooded figure stood on the pavement in a metal-working facility, surrounded by dark warehouse buildings, watching them.
He blinked, and the figure disappeared. The door of the warehouse opened with a bang, as though it was inviting them inside, and a chill went down Nicolas’s spine.
The others launched into motion, rushing toward the chainlink gate, which was latched but not locked.
“Wait,” Nicolas rasped. “We don’t know what that thing was!” That could be the demon that was killing paladins. They needed a game plan. If they just rushed in when it was clearly waiting for them, they could be massacred.
“It’s a demon, Nic,” Evan sneered over his shoulder. “We kill them. Remember?”
Nicolas’s response lodged in his throat, and it didn’t matter anyway, because they were gone.
He drew his sword and chased after them, slowing when he reached the warehouse door.
This building wasn’t abandoned, but at least all the workers were gone for the night.
His boots were quiet on the polished tile floor of the dark hallway.
The others were already far ahead of him, disappearing through another doorway.
Screams pierced the air, and his stomach bottomed out.
He sprinted toward the sound and found his squad scattered across the factory floor.
The room was huge, two stories high and at least as big as a football field, lined with large windows that were currently shut, letting in a meager amount of moonlight.
There was machinery and a smelter, cold and dark, in the middle of the room, but here, closer to the door, the other seven members of his squad were on the concrete floor.
As Nicolas watched, the figure, with glowing orange eyes deep within the shadowed recesses of a dark hood, twisted one coal black hand.
Evan’s legs snapped, and he screamed, trying to claw himself away.
The others were in a similar state, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles.
All of them were trying to get away from the hooded monster in the middle.
“Help us!” Jacob screamed at Nicolas, and glowing orange eyes lifted to meet his own.
Nicolas jerked into motion, his heart thundering in his ears.
But he barely made it two steps into the room.
The figure lifted one hand, fingers splayed wide, and an invisible force sent him hurtling backward.
He expected pain, expected twisted limbs and slamming into the wall.
While he did hit the wall in the hallway, it barely hurt at all, and there was no bone-breaking agony.