Beloved (Heart Hunter Series Book 1)

Chapter 5

The rain hit the hood of the black rental car like bullets, making a noise similar to open fire from a military weapon. The weather had turned disastrous the closer they’d gotten back to the ocean town. In the mirror, Kara watched the lonely light of Megan’s motorcycle on their tailgate.

James muttered something about the time and Kara glanced at the digital clock on the dash, reading five forty in the morning. If she was tired, he had to be worse off from jet lag, but how could they sleep while Josh was in the hands of all things evil and demented?

The car hit a large puddle and Kara pushed herself away from the window as the spray of water slapped the side of the vehicle. It had startled her and it shouldn’t have. James glanced at where his phone sat in the console with the GSP mapon. “We’re still an hour away, why don’t you try to sleep?”

Her heart thumped and her eyes shut from guilt. “No, I can’t.”

“You can’t find Josh either if you’re this exhausted.”

No matter how right he was, she wouldn’t admit it. The thought alone of Josh still out there made her want to start rampaging around the whole town. What stopped her was his logical and prudent mind. Without him there, she would have gotten herself killed that night, no doubt about it.

Leaning her head back in the seat, she watched him drive. His hands moved with a sureness over the steering wheel that affected her. She wanted that level of certainty and confidence in her life. Her body had been withering away, starving without their connection and then there he was, breathing life back into her and proving to her just how much she had missed him.

Her eyes got heavy watching him and she’d fight it, until she couldn’t.

“Kara.”

She startled awake, remembering where she was and looking to James next to her as he drove. The rain hadn’t stopped but the sun had started to rise above the storm clouds.

“We’re almost there but I’m not sure which driveway it is.”

She rubbed her eyes and looked out the windshield to the passing country homes as the properties got further and further apart. “It’s the last one before the road ends. On the left.”

James slowed the car as they neared the end of the gravel road. As he pulled the black car into the driveway, the old willow trees bowed in the gusting wind.

He leaned forward onto the steering wheel. “Are those bones in the trees?”

Kara’s stomach churned. “Yeah, it’s my grandparents’ way of warding off anything. I think it works.” The branches displayed random bits of carcass from Demons her grandparents had killed and collected from their years of hunting. It sent a chill down her spine every time, just like she was sure it did to any Demon thinking of trespassing on the property.

The biggest tree right before the old farm house was the one Kara had the most memories in. She had played with Josh in it as kids, they’d always been careful of the skull nailed to its trunk though.

Kara looked between the willow’s long branches as the car was touched by their length and she saw the stained skull with twirled and rough ribbed horns. She’d never asked about the story around that particular skull and she never would.

The car stopped and Kara took the door handle, looking to James.

“Their house is a bit different.”

“And that means?”

She took a breath as her arms prickled with goosebumps. “Weird.”

“We live in a world where Demons exist, how weird can it be?” He stepped out of the vehicle into the rain and she paused to let that sink in. Even if it did not justify her grandparents’ oddities. Megan pulled up next to the car and shut the bike off as she complained about the rain and winds to James. How she’d survived the long drive there Kara did not know.

Just when she got her courage together to step out of the car and join them, the door opened for her and her eyes moved up to him, waiting for her to exit.

She blinked through the rain and wind and he took her hand to help her stand when she wasn’t quick enough. His long fingers gripped her and pulled gently, making their eyes lock. She got out with his help but couldn’t dodge the butterflies that erupted in the moment and dissipated when his hold let go.

“Let’s get this over with.” Her bottom lip quivered in the cold and wet weather and her eyes went to the porch of the house as the light turned on. The door opened just a crack and her grandfather ’s face, illuminated by the

flickering bulb above, appeared.

“Who’s there!”

She squinted through the rain. “Grandpa, it’s Kara.”

The door swung open and the old man stepped out with his cane in hand, hunched over from his deteriorating muscle and bone. With Kara in the lead, Megan and James trailed behind. She made her way up the creaking steps. The screech of his cane dragging across the porch caught all their attention and they stopped to look up.

“I’m John and you both are?”

“T-these are my… friends, Megan and James.” For lack of better words, Kara somehow got herself through the sentence. “We need your help, cause I don’t know what to do.”

“Come inside and explain what has happened.” He scanned the front yard while they filed inside the dark entryway. Kara shuffled on the dusty

Turkish rug, removing her sneakers but keeping her coat on, knowing how drafty the house tended to be. She looked up to the stained glass chandelier that hung high up on the ceiling above. The house’s tiny floor plan was masked by its vaulted and cathedral like heights. The front door being bolted shut and it’s metal on metal moan only gave her flashbacks of her childhood with her brother in the house. Nightmares were a common occurrence in a home filled with Demon memorabilia and a child’s mind never failed to fear them.

“The radio said it could be a hurricane hitting,” her grandfather croaked, turning toward them as Kara listened to the wind howling through the nooks and crannies of the home.

She hugged her arms around herself already feeling the cold and looked to Megan beside her, the girl was drenched and dripping to the floor. “This stuff is wicked!” Megan stepped up to the dark trinkets, confusing objects and bloody trophies covering the peeling paisley wallpaper. “First the bones, now all this awesome stuff.”

John limped by the Demon Hunter. “We’ve collected it all. A prize for every successful hunt. How different the world is now, letting them live.” He gave Kara a glance. “Come explain the situation, Granddaughter.” He slipped behind a tattered tapestry in a doorway.

“Heck ya.” Megan breathed, following the old man with a bounce in her step.

Kara turned to James before she followed. Their eyes locked together and she didn’t need to hear him say it to know what he was thinking. Yeah, I know, I’m a weirdo, born from other weirdos. “After you.” James motioned to the tapestry that led into the kitchen.

She ducked under the rug and stepped onto the mixed match kitchen tiles that wobbled under her feet. The clock down the hall started it’s echoing chime. The eerie sound made her skin crawl and she counted each of its seven chimes.

“Where’s Josh? School?”

Kara walked to the kitchen table, which was covered in its usual books, newspapers and array of dark world magazines. She gripped the back of the oak chair for support. “He was taken.” Her eyes went to the cover of the latest issue of the local paper and read the headline; Drug Cartels Expand Territory Across East Coast. Her eyes shut briefly with the image of her ex-boyfriend and how much that headline likely involved him.

“We’re trying to figure out who exactly but so far, I’m not sure.” Kara whispered against the pain stretching across her chest. Megan snapped the piece of gum in her mouth as she popped her butt up on the butcher block countertop. “All signs point toward the same Demon that tried to kill me two weeks ago in Boston. They’re big and nasty looking. Not cloaked as humans.”

Kara winced from her picture family and the accuracy that trait she shared with Megan had. “It’s true.”

“When did this happen?” Her Grandfather’s dark eyes demanded answers from her she had yet to comprehend. Afterall, how did she tell the only family she had left this news?

“It was my fault.” James stepped into the conversation. “I left him unattended—”

“It wasn’t,” Kara interrupted. “I shouldn’t have had him out that late. I know better.”

John looked between them with a creased brow. “So, he’s been taken and you have no real idea by whom?”

“Morning!” The tapestry was thrown aside by an old woman, vivacious with life in her eyes but not her body. She bony arms swatted the dusty rug as she turned toward them all with a warm smile. “Oh Karrie! I knew you were coming.” She moved around James, giving him a careful look over and then came toward Kara with her hands out to cup her cheeks. “Did something happen? You’re cold. Do you want some tea?”

“S-sure.” Kara blubbered.

“Anyone else?” The woman spun, eyeing the room.

James caught the woman’s attention. “Yes, please.”

She clasped her hands and continue to smile at him. “I see now, yes, an emperor… You’re very handsome. What’s your name?”

He paused, his eyes connecting with Kara’s just long enough to show his bemus ement with her grandmother. “James Dray.”

She turned back around to Kara and wiggled her eyebrows. “And he’s got an accent!”

“Never mind that, Lauren,” her grandfather chewed off. “Some Demons have taken Josh.”

The woman stared at her husband. “What do you mean?”

“He’s gone, Grandma.” This time unable to hold it together, Kara’s eyes filled with tears. “And we can’t find him!”

One ray of sunlight began to filter in the small window, backlighting the dust moving through the air. It hit Kara’s forehead and she looked into its brightness, bl inking through the tears now streaming her cheeks. She felt nothing. Not the heat of the sun’s rays, not the beating of her own heart, nothing but the numb that had become her life. It was gone as soon as it’d come and the kitchen moved back into its darkened state from the storm outside.

Lauren stuck the kettle under the tap and waited as it creaked and moaned, producing water in a sputter. “Killing children isn’t something Demons like to get their hands dirty with. It’s a sure way to get killed.” “They’re using magic and I don’t think these ones play by the unwritten rules of society,” Megan said.

Kara wiped her tears and sat. “Megan’s right. I think they are using magic.”

“It’s impossible.” John shook his head. “It’s weakened over time. They have virtually none now.”

“But they vanished right before our eyes, Grandpa, how else do you explain that?”

“Using a dimensional fold is not exactly magic but it does require magical tools to do so. Did you see tokens around their necks?”

Megan jumped off the countertop. “Yes! And then it just… poof, gone.”

“It went to a hell dimension,” her grandfather muttered with a shake of his head.

“I knew it!” Megan exclaimed against the shroud of suspense eating at the room.

John continued, “And you can only get into that dimension, with the same token they have for it. Like a key. If the main key is destroyed, so is that fold in the dimension. Are you sure these are the same Demons that took Josh?”

Kara looked to James with nerves and unsettled emotion, he didn’t mirror her though. He never did and this was one of those times that his strength made her jealous.

“I’m sure,” he said and all the eyes went to him.

Megan lunged at the opportunity to interrogate him. “How do you know if your face was in the cement bleeding?”

“They looked the same as the ones in the mountains. Not cloaked,”

James explained and Kara’s heart sped with hope, she just couldn’t believe he hadn’t said anything sooner.

Megan stared at him. “Great, just great and we would have had the token if Sherlock Holmes hadn’t let the Demon go.”

“For the thousandth time, I didn’t let it go,” James growled.

“Pretty sure you did,” Megan hissed.

Her grandmother picked up the velvet bag on the table top as the kettle began to hiss across the silent kitchen. She shook the cards from their bag, and the scripture and intricate drawings made Kara lookup, reminding her of a time when she was younger.

Her grandmother cut the deck into three stacks. “Who has my grandson?” She muttered to the cards more than anyone in that room.

She drew three cards from the three dealt decks and flipped them over, one at a time. “Five of Swords. Ten of wands. The Hanged Man.”

Kara stared at the familiar tarot cards laid out along the silk cloth. Her nervousness didn’t come from what they meant but more from what James might think of her odd family members.

Lauren studied the cards. “With conflict and tension comes the burden and responsibility of what I fear maybe the waiting of a sacrifice.” Her eyes wandered up to her husband. “I don’t like any of this, John.”

The old man sat back in his chair as the kettle summoned her grandmother into making up tea for everyone.

“There’s a book we were given many years ago by a fellow Hunter.”

Her grandmother approached the table. “Remember John? It may have some useful information on this subject of dimensional hell travel, only issue is now that you’ve attacked, there’s a high chance they’ve moved the portal access.”

The old man agreed. “It’s worth a shot, since you have no leads. Correct?”

Kara swallowed with a nod, breaking down into tears again. “I’m so… sorry.”

Lauren’s hand came to her shoulder and squeezed. “You will find him and we will help. He has no chance to defend himself at twelve years old without any ascended Hunter blood. These Demons would be stupid to do anything to him.”

“At sundown you need to be back out.” Her grandfather turned in his chair to the leaning bookshelf against the wall, one wrong book placement and the whole thing might have toppled over. “There is no end to this until you have found him, Kara.” He pulled out a pocket book. “Here’s some information on Demon species. Let’s see… what did they look like?”

“Ugly. Big. Unstoppable.” Kara bit her lip to stop the guilt in the pit of her stomach.

“Horned, scaled, glowing eyes and…” Megan gestured to James.

“Taller than Sherlock Holmes.”

Her grandfather ’s eyes swept over James again. “So fairly tall?” John confirmed.

“Tall.” Megan nodded.

Kara’s hand smacked the table out of frustration. “Yes, tall!” Her eyes looked to James as he sat, his expression remained placid and his whisper soft.

“It’ll be alright.”

There were many things in her life that turned out just alright so far and this would not be one of them. She was positive.

I’m the worst sister alive.