The Huntress and the Collared Demon

Prologue

It was busy and loud inside the barrier wall. Elsie watched a dozen soldiers training in a field behind a fence. They shouted with every repetition, and another group belted out a cadence song as they ran the track. She scowled, innocently unaware that her thoughts were broadcast all over her face.

She already didn’t like it here. It smelled bad, and the energy was all wrong, making her uneasy. It felt dark, angry, and unfamiliar, and that wrongness buzzed beneath her skin. She’d been in hell dimensions with a friendlier atmosphere.

Her mother squeezed her hand, and Elsie looked up, squinting to see her face against the bright sunlight.

Long, dark hair curled out from under the hood of Santa Muerte’s robe; the fabric cut so generously it brushed the ground.

The goddess exuded confidence in everything she did, and it calmed Elsie’s discontent.

They’d traveled to more dimensions and worlds than the girl could ever hope to remember, but none like this. If Elsie had learned anything in all her seven years, it was that her mother could be unpredictable. Santa Muerte must have a reason for coming here.

A raven stood unnaturally still nearby. Twice the size of a regular raven with a ten-foot wingspan, Stolas was the prince of a thousand hell dimensions, and her mother’s favorite pet.

He was uncommonly wicked, and nothing she asked of him was too depraved or cruel. It had earned him a place at her side.

Elsie didn’t see the other one, but she didn’t look for him either. The demon without a name. The Shadow King, who took the form of a wolf. He was even scarier than Stolas, and he wasn’t the Goddess of Death’s companion by choice.

“I don’t like this place,” Elsie complained. She’d rather spend the day playing with the bat demons they’d spent the past week with. At least they’d been friendly.

Stolas quorked in response, his usual scolding. He scolded her a lot. Santa Muerte crouched down to Elsie’s level.

They looked a lot alike. Santa Muerte had passed her thick, silky tresses down to her daughter, but where her mother’s hair shifted from red to purple, then black to blue, Elsie’s stayed a constant blue.

Her pale lavender eyes and soft tan skin were traits gifted from her mother, along with a Latin accent from a time before human society had come crumbling down. The magic had come from her, too.

“We’ve talked before about your father trying to find us,” Santa Muerte said quietly, and Elsie nodded.

It was a serious subject, and it frightened her, but Santa Muerte had not spared her the details.

The goddess believed it was better to prepare her child rather than hide the truth, so she told the girl everything. “He’s getting closer.”

Elsie looked over her shoulder, expecting to see the mad fae king looming over them. He’d been a dark figure in their lives since before she’d been born, tricking and then holding her mother captive in the months it took to forcibly impregnate her.

Her father had expressed interest in Elsie while she was still in her mother’s womb, but Santa Muerte escaped before he could set eyes on her. He spread his seed among witches far and wide, and had a reputation for killing the bastard children that were not up to his standards.

He’d relentlessly hunted her mother, who was the only woman who’d dared to defy him and live. Kings, especially fae kings, were a prickly, pride-filled sort.

“Are we hiding here?” Elsie asked, thinking it unlikely. They rarely spent time on Earth, where other ravens prowled the skies, searching for Elsie and her mother, each vying to bring news of their location back to her father.

Too many fae on this planet were looking for the redemption that granted passage through the many doors, gates, and connections to Underhill, where he lived.

“I must face him, Elspeth,” Santa Muerte said. Elsie’s eyes widened. Her mother had fought her father once before, as a diversion until Stolas had gotten Elsie safely away. “You need to be somewhere safe while that happens. You’re too precious to be lost.”

Her mother was always saying that.

“Am I going with Stolas?” she asked. Santa Muerte never left her alone, and the girl spent any time apart learning the ancient language and her family history from the raven prince. Her mother insisted that it was important for her to learn.

“Not this time, mija. I will need Stolas and the shadow wolf. I’ve made arrangements for you to stay here with the hunters until I return. They’ll keep you safe and hidden until then,” Santa Muerte told her. Elsie’s eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head in denial.

“The demon hunters? I don’t want to stay with these people, Mamá, they’re not like us,” she whimpered as her mother stroked her long hair softly.

“I know, my love. But he will not give up this vendetta, and he will use you to his advantage. That man will not hesitate to take you from me, but he will not think to find you here, among the hunters,” her mother reasoned.

“My father wants to take you away from me,” Elsie said bitterly, hating him all the more because he was hunting her mother.

The woman who’d shown her countless worlds and always had time for games and conversation.

Elsie loved their life together. She had friends in dozens of universes. She was loved, and never lonely.

Her father was a constant threat to that life.

“Yes, and he will use you against me if he can. You are my final daughter, the last of the reapers. You are my legacy, Elspeth. Your name will become legend. You will be the greatest of my children. It is your destiny to outshine them all, and the only way you can fulfill that destiny is if I keep you out of your father’s hands,” Santa Muerte pressed.

“I know,” Elsie grumbled. The fae king had many bastard children, just like Elsie. Any progeny that survived inspection were cast out of Underhill. Sentenced to a life on Earth as half-breed nobodies. Most of their mothers were dead, her father finding them useless after he’d gotten what he wanted.

She called on her ethereal magic, letting it pool in her hands until she held warm, eerily glowing blue power. The magic that would one day allow her to travel between dimensions on her own.

“Can’t I hide somewhere else?” she asked.

“I’m afraid not.” Santa Muerte shook her head. “We cannot risk what he might do to those found hiding you. His malice grows, and he will inflict deep suffering on anyone who helps us. I can not stand by while he tortures people in my name. This ridiculous game must come to an end.”

A wisp of black smoke appeared behind her mother, and Elsie shivered.

The shadow wolf had arrived. Santa Muerte glanced his way as the smoke shifted and swirled, thickening before forming a massive, solid black wolf with shaggy hair and glowing red eyes.

His lips were drawn back, showing pearly white fangs the length of her mother’s forearms. He gave her nightmares.

“Very well,” her mother said in response to whatever the wolf had told her.

Elsie had never heard him speak. He communicated only with Santa Muerte.

Her mother had forged a contract with the demon hundreds of years ago, and she wouldn’t let him out of it.

She’d watched his attempts to kill her mother on many occasions, though success meant ending his own life as well.

“I cannot stay with you much longer, and unfortunately, mija, there’s something I must do before I go,” Santa Muerte said.

She placed her palm on Elsie’s forehead, her fingers stretching over the top of her head.

Elsie looked up to see that her mother’s skin had taken on a translucent appearance.

She could see the bones underneath. When the goddess of death used magic, her true form was revealed.

“Close your eyes, Elspeth,” she soothed.

Elsie did as she was told, but almost immediately opened them again, struggling to break free.

Santa Muerte’s magic reached into her with such force that it dropped the girl to her knees.

It invaded every space within her body and dove into the depths of the magic reservoir at the very center of who she was.

Elsie whimpered as her mother’s spell spread and overpowered her natural defenses, attacking and gathering up every last drop of her ethereal magic, delving deeper until it reached the source. Once contained, Elsie’s magic was locked tight in a box, insulated and separated from the girl’s mind.

Santa Muerte’s palm tightened on Elsie’s head as she muttered the words that would form the knot of an impenetrable seal. The goddess’s fingertips touched the base of the girl’s throat. Her fingers moved, tracing a pattern as Elsie’s skin burned.

“It hurts!” she cried, but the mother of death ignored her pain, continuing on.

“Cerrar eteria,” Santa Muerte muttered, and Elsie’s eyes widened. The pain doubled, scorching through her insides, but it was the fear and trust shattering like jagged, tearing glass that hurt the most. The betrayal twisted in her chest as her whole being filled with anxiety.

“No!” She struggled against her mother’s touch, but a pair of strong hands held her in place. Stolas had changed to his human form. There was no point in fighting him, but Elsie struggled harder than ever before. It felt like she was fighting for her life. “Please don’t do this!”

It was too late. There was a sickening, throbbing hole inside her where magic belonged.

Elsie slumped to the ground, muscles weak and slack.

Her stomach roiled, and bile rose in her throat.

Something was very, very wrong. Santa Muerte’s hands turned to ice, and she used them to soothe the heat from Elsie’s skin.

“Be calm, mija,” Santa Muerte urged her. “It needed to be done.”

“You took my magic!” Elsie cried. Touching her throat where the burning had been the worst, she found raised marks there. She hadn’t misunderstood. Her mother had cast a sealing spell. “Why? Why would you do that?!”