Beloved (Heart Hunter Series Book 1)

Chapter 3

The sun sat low in the sky and cast sinister shadows of junior boys running at breakneck speed across a well-kept but yellowed field. A slow-moving ball met a well-practiced kick and celebratory shouts rang loud in the air.

Unlike her arrival at school that morning, Kara had gotten them to Josh’s practice on time. She hugged her sweater clad arms closer as a cool east wind blew over from the Atlantic. A storm was brewing someplace over the cresting waves and vast water.

She turned her back to the soccer mo ms ahead of her in line at the concession to break the chill and watched her brother slam a ball to the opposite side of the field.

The quick jaunt to get them snacks was a well disguised escape from sitting next to James. With him practically sitting on her hip, the eyes around them had drawn in closer and closer. It got awkward quickly and James was so involved in silently watching the game he didn’t even notice.

She ordered an ice cream against her better j udgement and jogged back to the bleachers to warm herself up.

The sun was almost completely parallel to the field and she had to squint to make anything out across the pitch.

Josh was heading straight for the net this ti me, his legs moving faster than Kara could track. He was tied for the fastest and it showed, with all of his other teammates falling ever so slightly behind. He came up the steps from the net and slammed the ball.

He missed by an inch but the goalie had to leap to bat it away. His disappointment was more than visible against the blinding light as Kara sat back down next to James.

“Do you want some?” She licked the plastic spoon of its last drops of ice cream and shoved the already half empty paper bowl in front of him. The money had been hard to let go of for the dessert, it would mean less necessities later but she had felt a sudden pull to have it, everything else be damned.

“Really?” he grumbled, still failing to remove his shadowed eyes from under his hat and away from the game.

Kara smiled, she knew full well he would turn down the offer. He hated ice cream and though she didn’t totally understand why, she considered it the only fault he had. Such a weirdo. Who doesn’t like ice cream?

“So, what do you think of them?”

James glanced at her through his dark sunglasses. “I think they need a better coach.”

Kara let out a breath of amusement. “You realize they’re twelve, right?”

“When I was that age—”

“One major difference,” she cut him off, “you’re not from here, so don’t compare any of it the same way.” It left her lips with more snark than she intended but she didn’t correct it fact was fact.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He looked back out to the kids. They ran around the field chasing the ball with no real group coordination or any particular rhyme or reason.

“You’ve been short with me since we got here, what did I do?”

Kara hated how honest he was sometimes. She’d already written off any chance of a rekindled relationship hours ago. So she shook her head to shake him off.

“I don’t think they’re bad. They’re just being poorly coached.”

“It’s an after-school program for…” It took her a moment to process how vulnerable the next part of the statement would ma ke her feel. “for underprivileged kids. He qualifies because we have no money. Okay?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to finish her ice cream anymore. She watched the puddle at the bottom of the bowl grow with the addition of another melting drop.

“So stop over analyzing it.”

“I’m sorry.” He said, his eyes not leaving the game. There was a silence between them for a long time. The urge

to look at him was strong and so she studied him closely.

He’d changed so subtly from the year before, but in the best possible ways, now a leanly muscled man in the defined tone of an athlete. He set fire to something so deep inside herself, she didn’t quite understand it. He was magnetic, the urge to reach out and touch him so strong she feared she’d never let go and thankfully, her fingers never got the courage.

“I thought your grandparents help with some of the bills.”

Kara closed her eyes with her exhale, fighting the ball that gathered in her throat. She knew there was nothing to hide at this point—no reputation to save, nothing to rekindle. She could be honest.

“They help as much as they can, like with the electric and few other things—and food when they have some extra money. Grandpa’s health is getting bad though and they need the mone y for the medical bills. I don’t ask.”

She should have know n more about the situation with her grandfather. The guilt had ate its way through her. Just last year her grandparents had meant so much to her but now she barely felt anything. Just the craving for listlessness in an ocean of a numb sleep. The guilt would leave her then. She tapped her fingers on her knee, feeling overwhelmed with the battle between her craving and the life it faded.

“Guess it’s lucky that the house has no mor tgage—my dad’s final gift to us.”

“It’s a miracle your mother hasn’t refinanced it.”

“You’d need an actual job to get the bank to do that. A Hunter isn’t a real job. No one pays you to save their life, ironically.” Kara snorted out a laugh that just ended up being pathetic.

The topic made her self-conscious and it showed. She knew she was making the same mi stakes as her mother when she was young. The same ones her mom made when her dad had left—she was normal and then she was distant and then she was gone—twisted into a woman she didn’t want to know anymore.

Kara wasn’t sure if she was thinking of herself or her mother. There was no way out for a Hunter in this world.

“Let me pay for what you need…” Her eyes flashed to his as he fished the sentence, “—at least until you finish high school.”

She couldn’t entertain the thought—it made her head spin, her heart leap and she couldn’t risk the danger of hope.

“Guess I missed that offer by a day.” She laughed, unable to stop herself.

“What are you talking about?” His voice had clouded with confusion. The nervous swallow preceded her reply, “I was expelled. Today.”

“What?” James stared at her with no clear emotion.

“Too many late days. Bad days.”

He didn’t believe her. It was mostly the truth. The look of disappointment was obvious. He looked away. Her face started to burn. If only something as embarrassing as getting kicked out of school could have happened after James left, Kara would have bought a lottery ticket.

“What are you going to do then?”

“Well, plans aren’t my forte so I guess I’ll just wing it.”

He grabbed her elbow and she faced him, her attention fully narrowed in on the worry crossing his forehead. “You just can’t sit around and do nothing in this town.” He paused, his eyes flicking back and forth between hers, searching desperately for better words behind his eyes. “It’s a waste of your life. You’re worth more than that.”

“What else should I do with my life? Spending some time relaxing doesn’t really sound so bad right now.”

He let her go and she shook the feeling of his fingers from her arm. “Anywhere is better than North America for Demon activity. You just need to get away from it. Get away from here.”

It took all her might to not roll her eyes at his naivety. “I have a twelve year old brother, a mother who I haven’t seen in over two months, no job and no money. Where should I go, James? At least here, I have a roof and grandparents who do what they can.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean then? My family has been here longer than I could ever trace. I’m a Hunter. I have a duty, I have blood which aches for me to stay in this hell-whole. There is no way out.” A few of the parents were staring at them now. She was louder than the kids yelling at one another to pass the ball. She softened her voice, the anger having subsided and left her exposed. “If you don’t have a realistic suggestion, just don’t suggest anything

at all. In fact, just don’t bother with”

“Hey, James!” Josh was leaning on the end of the bleachers, huffing and out of breath but beaming.

“I told my coach you’re like super good at soccer, and he said I should come get you to play with us!”

Kara gave her brother a weird look. James stood. “You’re going down there?”

“Why not?” He didn’t even look at her, just stepped off the bleachers and squeezed Josh’s shoulder. “Come on. Introduce me then.”

Kara couldn’t believe he had just walked away. She could barely contain her anger. She pushed herself off the bleachers and shot towards them to catch up.

She wasn’t going to just be left behind like usual.

“Hey!” She slowed to a walk so she wouldn’t trip on the bumpy field.

“Come on! Practice is almost over!” Josh had stopped to wait for her at the top of the pitch but decided better of it and ran to the team huddle. James stayed stopped though, his hands in his coat pockets, looking out at the group of kids gathered around the coach.

“So what shouldn’t I bother with?” The words drifted to her as soon as she had come up next to him.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

He glanced at her as he said, “Not to me.” She sighed. “You shouldn’t bother with me, with us. We live in two different worlds. This” She gestured around the field. Only half of the streetlamps had come on with the beginning of dusk, the grass was more yellow than green, the kids all sporting second-hand shoes. “This is not what your life is like.”

“How would you know what my life is like?” James wouldn’t look at her but Kara stared straight into him. “We haven’t talked in over a year.”

“I knew exactly what it was like when we were… just never mind.”

“You don’t though. You’re assuming so you have an excuse to push me away.” He looked at her finally, waiting. Kara had nothing more to say though and her eyes drifted past him to the last of the summer leaves drying and falling in the wind that blew off from the near ocean. Her stomach cramped again and she told herself only an hour or so left to survive and the void would be filled. She straightened her shoulders to hide the pain.

“Now is not the right time but we will talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, it’s not like you and I are ever going to be anything. You made that fairly clear to me last ti me you were here, didn’t you?”

His silence killed the glimmer of longing she had left. “Kara! James! Come say hi!” Her brother vibrated with excitement. Kara vibrated with frustration. James’ absent reply confirmed what she first thought when they were in the kitchen. He was there to check on her because her brother had asked, not to be with her.

She stormed past him to the waiting group of eager kids. Only to hear James’ footsteps crunch in the dead grass behind her on his approach.

“Hey, I’m Coach Bruce!”

James moved around her to greet the scruffy faced parent volunteer in his neon green soccer shorts and grass stained, tattered cleats. His offset fanny pack on his hip had the remainders of protein bar packets sticking out, obviously a last ditch effort to feel like anything but a washed up athlete. Her eyes cascaded up James’ lean torso as he loomed above the oddly shaped coach. The bars weren’t working, especially not up against James and his natural athleticism.

“Josh says you play some soccer?”

“Some.” James glanced to a bouncing Josh nearby.

Kara rolled her eyes and couldn’t stop the words, “He might as well be a professional player, okay?”

James looked to her in surprise. She wasn’t going to suddenly admit the one time, not too long ago days after her breakup with Tom, she’d looked James up online at the school library after being kicked out of science lab.

Somehow she’d ended up in the library and sitting at the one research computer. It had sort of been research in how insane she could make herself. Nothing said mentally unstable like online-stalking.

“That so?” The coach grunted. “I played on my university team back in the day.” He looked proud of that fact. “Who do you play for?”

“Just a team back home,” however gracious James’ reply, it was enough for the coach to feel good about himself. Kara knew better though, knew how stacked full of credentials James Dray’s soccer career already was at a mere twenty-two years old.

They were from two different worlds. It became hard for Kara to imagine what sort of life he got to live across that ocean. It made her feel hollow and sick to her stomach the more she thought about his house, his car, the dinners she couldn’t afford. It wasn’t as humbl e as he made it sound. She wanted to keel over. She didn’t but the urge called to her.

Josh jumped in front of the group and his words pierced Kara’s attention back to the team of four-foot-something boys.

“This is James, my sister’s boyfriend—he’s really, really good at soccer!”

Kara wanted to die. She couldn’t believe her brother had said that aloud.

“Show them something super cool!” Josh demanded.

Kara watched the joy light up in her brother ’s face as James stepped up to the ball, just to kick it behind him with his heel and flick the ball over his head and in a quick second—catching it on the top of his foot.

His perfect Nikes looked absolutely ridiculous under the battered white and black ball.

The kids went wild and Kara had to turn away from their chattering to rub her temples.

“If it’s alright with your coach, do you want to try to learn that?”

She heard James ask the boys. They shouted with excitement.

In her mind, a line had drawn in the sand. He would stay on the one side and she on the other and it would be better that way. But more importantly, she wouldn’t ever have to go through the tor ment of loving him ever again. When the final rays of the sun dipped behind the flat horizon, practice was over.

Kara was gunning for another hit of something. Her mind wouldn’t stop reflecting back on her life, her palms were sweaty, her head throbbed. She didn’t care much for what the hit would be, she didn’t when she first started. She had just cared that Tom was there beside her when James had left. A filler for her empty chest that flooded her veins with chemicals, that numbed her thoughts from anything but real life.

Tom was her introduction to drugs of all kinds, but now Kara settled on sedatives to carry her away.

But not yet. Now she was stuck watching James’ talent with a soccer ball and it was infuriating, she would have gone over and tore the ball to shreds if practice had not just ended. She needed to leave.

Kara looked down at her phone screen flashing a bright green 8:30 from its small pixelated display. Her phone was in rough shape, with the corner of the glass shattered and every edge mottled with pits from where it dropped on sidewalks when she had been tracking Demons, but it could still tell time and that was all that mattered.

There was half an hour before she needed to ma ke the deal. Maybe a few minutes after that to get home and shut herself in and finally feel okay. They couldn’t go home first because practice had run a lot later than usual no thanks to James showing off.

She glanced up at him and Josh walking slowly back up towards the bleachers. People around her were packing up and shifting around. Some would look quickly at her before shuffling away towards the parking lot. She decided to take the risk and take them with her. They could wait in the car. She could blame it on her Demon hunter duties. “Kara!” Josh ran up the hill with the biggest smile he’d ever had. “James said we could go out for like dessert or something!”

Kara gave her foot an impatient tap to the bleachers.

“It’s almost dark.”

“So?” Josh put his hands on his hips as Kara shook her head at him. She looked to James as she stepped off the bleachers, he was saying bye to their coach, it was apparent he was much more social than she was capable of.

“Not tonight.” She looked at James as he walked over. “Can I drive the car home? He gave her an odd look but nothing she couldn’t ignore. “I need to stop somew here first”

“Where?” Josh butted into the conversation.

Kara huffed. “None of your business.” A line across his brow appeared but she didn’t give him another opportunity to seek more information. “Let’s go.” She held out her hand and James gave her the keys for the rental car.

“Thanks.”

She left Josh and James to catch up and rushed for the parking lot. Her side throbbed for the fourth ti me in the last hour, but so did her head. It could be her instincts on the fritz. She’d gone too long without a pill to be reliant on anything her body was saying. There was no way a Demon would hang around an empty soccer field full of poor mortals. There was nothing there for it to do ever since human sacrifice had gotten old about six hundred years ago. Being a Demon now with any power meant illegal activity and random gang wars cloaked as human faces in the night. It all bored her more than her than her own existence.

Kara pressed the key fob and a wave of pain emitted from her sides. She clutched the handle of the door and gingerly sat down. She wished there was a reset on the extra sense, sometimes it seemed so wrong she was sure it malfunctioned. Josh and James were slow moving, talking up a storm and encroaching on her pick-up time. What little patience she mustered was quickly lost and she sunk into the low seat of the car. Unable to see over the steering wheel, her mind started to wander. However not very far. It settled in on James’ physical self, now that she couldn’t see hi m. It folded a new sculpture of him into her memory replacing the thinner, slightly ganglier boy she’d met years before. He was still slim but solid now.

God, his legs are long. She adjusted the driver’s seat to its smallest settings and he came back into view. Her mind’s eye was still strong, he was just as athletic as she’d been visualizing. Probably an evolutionary advantage for Hunters and a trait she actually didn’t mind acquiring. She tapped her fingers on the wheel in front of her to a song she’d heard recently at The Waker, in between shots of tequila with Jessica on the weekend. To prevent those same fingers from pulling the steering wheel off the dash with impatience, she tapped harder. The back door opened first and Josh climbed in.

“We can be quick getting ice cream. Come on, Kara, we never get to go out for anything.”

They definitely couldn’t go now. She would be late even if she didn’t hit a single light.

“Maybe after.”

When James didn’t get in next she looked for him around the car, glancing out the passenger window as her door popped open. She twisted in the seat, face to face with him as he leaned over with his hand very near her calf. His fingers even grazed her and it made her flinch. “What are you doing?” she squeaked. “Opening the boot. I need to change my shirt.” He pulled the small lever on the floor and she inched away from him, diverting her eyes toward the windshield. There was a small chip in the corner. She focused in on it. The rental company really should have caught that on such a fancy vehicle. “By the way, it’s called a trunk.” She heard him chuckle as he shut the door. She saw a flicker in the mirror and instinctively focused in, she watched James peel the shirt over his head, revealing his toned back. He threw the resulting black ball of cotton into the open trunk. She shouldn’t be staring.

Fumbling with the keys, she started the ignition and glanced at Josh. He was already looking at her.

“Did you see the trick James was teaching us with the ball? It’s a real hard one, it’s called the rainbow! I almost got it!”

“Sure. Yeah.” Kara mumbled, keeping her eyes off the mirrors like her life depended on it.

“You did.”

James got in the passenger seat and she stepped on the gas, reversing the vehicle out of the parking lot. Gravel pinged violently and assaulted the car.

“Are you in some sort of rush?” His seat-belt clicked just as Kara pulled out of the parking lot.

“Yeah, practice should have ended half an hour ago.”

“Right and where are we going?”

Kara glanced at him, trying to read his level of suspicion.

“I just need to meet up with someone. Not really a big deal but they’re waiting now.” She tried to ignore the clamminess of her grip on the steering wheel. A symptom of lying to James, it always felt wrong, yet she always did it.

She didn’t look at him and forced her expression to slacken, hoping her poker face would steer him away but he had already stared at her for a long minute. Eventually he looked out his window, brushing a hand through his hair.

“I didn’t know you had to go somewhere. We could have left earlier.”

And end Josh’s fun? Guilt writhed in her gut. Her brother deserved moments of normalcy and James had been able to give it to him tonight. He’d even gave her that normalcy, but she hadn’t let it woe her like it had Josh.

“It’s fine.” She clicked on the radio to avoid any more conversation between them. It was already loud, she didn’t need to turn it up.

“…Tonight, we have the digs on what actually happened on 5th and Gurdrow last night. Stick around to hear from Virginia Beach’s Ex-Police- Chief to hear more and prevent it from happening to you. Right after Night Howler ’s chart topper—All Wolf, Baby.”

She pulled his rental car up under a lonely street light ten minutes later. Some young dude had walked into an illegal Demon hangout and had left entirely out of his mind and walletless. He was still in the hospital. The radio and it’s interviewee said to look for a large, scaled Demon with a pendant on its chest. Kara knew better. That kind of symbol crap was all rumor. The kid had certainly been there looking for some cheap thrills. The next song was just starting to burst through the speakers when Kara cut the ignition and opened her door.

“I’ll only be a few minutes.”

“What are we doing here?” It was as barren and dangerous as it looked exactly like what that kid would have seen when he went looking for a Demon bar. She knew James wasn’t stupid like that and she wouldn’t be able to glaze over where they were.

“I just need to talk to someone.”

“Someone or something?” He asked as she clambered out of the car.

“There’s a difference?” She joked but his jaw had set in disapproval.

“Don’t worry your pretty head. Be right back.” She slammed the door, satisfied he may not follow her. Walking across the deserted street, she pocketed the keys in her coat. As soon as she got inside, she would be untraceable in the location for at least a few minutes, enough time to get the drugs and go. Her body flushed with excitement. The guarantee of a needed high lit a spark in her and drove her forward.

She grabbed the handle of a heavily dented steel door when a familiar voice threw her heart to her feet.

“Kara.”

She couldn’t hide the anger and turned to him, no mask to shield the gritting of teeth. “What?”

“Don’t go in there.” It was reminiscent of a time before. He’d always been overly cautious of her, watchful, and just like Jessica loved to point out, downright anal retentive. At ma ny points in their friendship, Jessica took any opportunity she could get to paint James as paranoid.

She huffed, “Don’t start.”

He visibly smelled the air. “It reeks.”

There was a faint smell of putrid oranges, sulfur and sweat, a telltale sign of the Demons inside but that wouldn’t stop her from what she wanted. It never did.

“They always smell. You know this.” Her eyes caught a lengthy shadow from the corner of the alley and it’s yellow eyes quickly made contact with them as it scurried past and sank back into the darkness. James reached and took her arm in a hold she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“There are Demons everywhere.”

“I’m surprised this is news to you. Go back and watch Josh.”

He didn’t immediately move. Kara feared he wouldn’t be easy to sway either. She tried not to blink for a few extra mo me nts to water her eyes.

“Please?” It was the best beg she’d ever procured. “I won’t be long.”

He let her go.

“Fine. You have ten minutes but then I’m coming in and removing you myself.”

She’d like to see a human try to alpha in there, but the limp bargain was good enough for her.

“Sure, whatever, ten mi nutes.” She turned away from him and slipped behind the heavy metal door before he could say another word. It shut, the cool air of the outside sucked out with the sound of the slam. She still shuddered. A light chill moved past her shoulders knowing she’d left him in the alley alone. As long as he goes back to the car like he said, he’ll be fine. She made her way down the hall lit by only a few black candles. It really set the mood. The bass and smashed kick of the music filled the space, but the rest of the dissonant symphony exposed themselves with each step. The tin of steel drums, the w hine of synthesizers, the shouts of an organ, they all made her dizzy. It was made of human instruments but it did not sound like any music a human would compose, let alone listen to on the radio. It was muggy and noisy and the instinctual cramps cascading down her sides only heighted the unease she felt.

Kara stepped through a curtain and into an ocean of beings. She cast her eyes down, trying her best at being inconspicuous in the thrashing of forms around her. It was hard when more than half of the room wasn’t cloaked.

She was pushed into the side of one particularly large Demon, no trace of human to be found across its wide scarred chest. She ricocheted off to the back of the building before they would become the wiser and took a quick glance at the entertainment of the night.

Human-like forms sat slumped over the bar watching topless female creatures who seemed far more attractive than they would usually look; dancing up on the bar, grasping at cash and undecipherable trinkets from hands that shot towards them. The old-world trick of swallowing up their appearance into the skin of some human flesh would allow any Demon to walk along in the night looking just as a human would. Kara knew these femal e presenting dancers were not human but it didn’t mean they weren’t easily detected as actual Demons.

Their distinct orange-tinged sulfur scent and haloed yellow eyes made it impossible to hide behind their practically extinct magics. She locked eyes with one before quickly looking away to dodge an i ncomi ng waitress holding smoking pendulums on chains.

They looked back and gave her a nasty look with their deformed faces, full of scales and sharp teeth, which then faded seconds later to sleek human features. They gave her a tooth filled smirk and fell back into the mass of bodies.

Yeah, yeah. Hunter in the building. Chill out. She got to the back of the club and leaned against the brick red wall to wait for the hook-up of her favourite drug.

Practically blind from all the s moke and haze in the building she did her best to look around to ma ke sure James hadn’t followed her. A figure approached a Demon, and any thought of James quickly dissolved.

“Finally…” The Demon swirled around her and looked her up and down. “What’s going on tonight, Kara?” His voice was loud to overcome the deep pounding and shrieking of the musi c around them. His human hand was

in his pocket fiddling with something.

“Nothing.” Kara matched his volume esperately wanting to leave the overwhelming atmosphere. She stopped leaning on the wall and squared herself up closer to his wavering form, her patience worn thin as her gaze narrowed; the seconds slowed as he just looked at her.

“Give me them. I can’t stand here all night.”

He gingerly pulled a small dime-bag, its edges crushed in his grasp from the pocket of his suit pants. Kara snatched it away to inspect the product. She ran her fingers through the tiny white pills within it. Her jaw jittered with anticipation.

“No Demon to hunt? No good fights left to fight?”

“What are you talking about?” She pocketed the bag, careful to not crush the pills anymore than they were already.

“Just small talk.”

“Here’s your money.” She pulled crumpled bills from her back pocket and dropped each twenty into his distended fingers one at a time until three sat in his claws.

He snatched the payment from her, his nose wrinkling into features not familiar to humans. His yellow eyes turning from her to scan back into the crowd.

“What’s that smell?”

“What smell?” Kara peered past his head into the mass of grey swirling that was the dance floor.

“Smells like dog.”

Dog? How insightful. Kara made a face. “All I smell is cooked Demon flesh.”

He looked over his shoulder. “I’m out. See you around.”

Kara fingered a pill from its home in her pocket and pressed it to the back of her tongue. Upon her swallow, her eyelids fluttering shut, a smile finally creeping itself onto her face. The calming effect begged her to drop her head to the wall and she did. Nothing could take that moment of relief from her now.

“Hey!”

The vivacious voice destroyed the calm tingle rising through her body. Her eyes flashed open to a broad, tall, seemingly young woman with hip length stringy dark hair still soaring through the air, reaching out to Kara. Her

hand landed deftly on Kara’s shoulder and she grasped it tightly.

“You’re a Hunter!” The declaration made Kara lunge on the girl, hand taped over her mouth. A Demon crawl like that wasn’t the place to start playing Hunter Marco Polo.

“Shh… Do you want to die?” Kara felt the woman laugh behind her hand before wrenching that hand away with strength not even Kara could match. She took Kara for a ride, laying her flat, knocking the wind from her lungs. The woman swatted a bit of dust off her leather fringe coat as she lorded above her.

The floor was so sticky. “W-w ho are you?” She reached for the uneven brick along the wall and somehow managed to shimmy herself upright without grazing against any part of the myster y woman and back onto her feet.

That of course came with a bout of dizziness she couldn’t shake.

“Megan Reed. I’ve been following a group of Demons who tried to kill me a week back…” As she tried to listen, the voice fell off into the murky shroud of bass and an electric guitar solo. Her body fell back into the wall and the sticky floor suddenly seemed really soft.

“What is your problem?” Kara looked back up at this Megan girl. “I just said…” The voice trailed off. The lights pulsed around her and clouds for med across the indoor sky into beautiful shapes.

A hand grasped her like irons by the shoulders but Kara felt no pain.

The pale woman’s face shot into Kara’s vision and yelled so loudly she could feel the vibrations along her skin. “There’s Demons in this town that just showed up and they aren’t any good. Lucky I found you, I need help hunting them. This is your town, right?”

Kara blinked, leaning back from the grip on her shoulder, trying to find the wall to lean on. She needed to think. She needed to not think. She needed to go home .

“You’re a quick one, ain’t ya?” The fiery Hunter in front of her shook her violently.

“There’s Demons all over this town.” Kara responded, trying to push past the mental fading enough to leave. To go home . To sleep. She tried to walk away but she was held solid.

“Not these type. They’re cocky enough to try to get the upper hand. They’re not just gonna sit in the underworld and wait for the end days. They want to make the end days.” Megan’s eyes were intense, bright—angry.

“What’s your name?”

“Kara.”

The music cut as a loud gunshot-like bang, interrupted the rumble of the club. “Police. Get out now!”

Kara had been in the shady club many times and never had she been witness to a scurry of Demon leaving due to a police presence. Megan grabbed her by the front of her coat and dragged her forward.

“Hey! Let me go!” Kara struggled to free herself from the intense grip.

“What are you made of steel?” She grappled at Megan’s fingers as she led them both into the night air. The Demons, cloaked in their human forms, scattered every way except in the one direction Megan was leading them in.

Lights and sirens caught both of their attentions and Megan stopped, making Kara also come to an abrupt halt. The red and blue auras against the shadows of the alley loaded Kara with fear. She’d left her baby brother to wait for her there—at that exact place.

“Shit!” She took off running.

“Where are you going!” Megan chased after her.

Kara ricocheted off of the walls of the brick buildings around her instead of slowing down. She tripped into a halt when she saw James—his back against the rented black sedan, blood all over his face, an open wound still weeping on his forehead. Two police officers hovered over him, one with a notepad writing furiously. James’ mouth was moving. Josh was nowhere she could see.

Kara closed in on them, crashing into the hood of the sedan to try to keep herself upright enough to search inside the car. Her desperate collision caught the attention of the officers and one of them moved towards her.

“Where’s Josh!”

James lifted his head and she saw the damage that had been done to him with his one eye swelling shut and bright red blood dripping over his lips from one nostril.

“They took him.”

“Who!” Kara demanded.

“I’m sorry.”

“James, tell me !” The oxycontin made all that was happening seem distant and surreal and she hoped she’d wake up at any mo menton the floor of the nightclub instead whatever hell this was.

“Miss, are you family to this man?” An officer interrupted them.

“No.” James slowly stood. “But her brother is the boy that’s gone missing I was just telling you about.”

“The ambul ance is on its way, you should stay sitting, you probably have a -”

“Where is he, James!” She tried to step out into the street, to search every wavering shadow on the street for Josh—but James caught her arm, and turned her to him. His face was so sharp and clear. Bruising had already started along his jaw beneath the drying blood from his nose, his forehead, his cheek. He was shorter from the heavy slouch in his left side. “When I was almost at the car, I was attacked—”

“By what.”

“Something. Not someone.” He specified loud enough for the cops to all hear. “And then… Josh was gone.”

Kara felt sick.

“It was those Demons I’m following. I’m sure of it.”

Kara snapped around to look at the Hunter-girl that had dragged her from the club minutes before.

“What Demons?” A police officer stepped into the conversation. “Do any of you have ID?”

James reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a brown leather wallet. He flipped it open, blood splattering from his trembling fingers onto the cards he handed to the officer. She caught a glimpse of his driver’s license, an odd looking ID if she’d ever seen one but from the look on the officer’s face, valid. She on the other hand, had no real form of ID to even attempt to produce, just a pocket of heavy guilt.

“Long way from home.” The officer handed back James’ ID.

James grunted a reply. . The officer turned away to go speak with his partner, immediately Megan waltzed into his place. “They beat you up then?”

“Ambushed. I wouldn’t consider it a fair fight.”

“Demons don’t fight fair.” Megan pulled a bent cigarette from her pocket and a sugar-skull patterned lighter.

“Who is this?” James asked Kara. She couldn’t process his words fast enough.

“Megan Reed.” The girl blew smoke out without any consideration for others around her. “You?” She offered out her cigarette to him.

“James Dray.” He denied the offer with a raise of his hand.

Megan repeated his name under her breath and took another drag.

“Since no one else here seems to have proper ID, we’ve made a note of the incident and suggest you all head home for the night. An ambulance is on the way for Mr. Dray here.”

“You can cancel it, I don’t need one.” James pushed off from leaning on the rental car and instead placed his hand on Kara’s shoulder, both to comfort her and support himself.

“ Umm, hello! My brother is missing!” Kara stepped away from James’ hand on her back and into the officer’s face.

“And we are suggesting you go home Miss. Get some rest and we’ll be on the lookout.”

“Oh my god, why are you guys always so useless in this town!” It took all of her remaining strength to not shove the officer as hard as she could into his car.

“We’ll be looking for him.” The officer tried to assure her, but Kara knew better. Anything to do with Demons and Hunters, the police wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. There would be a sheet of paperwork and Josh would be another forgotten face to them.

“He’s a kid!” Kara yelled. “Not some Demon drug-monkey!”

James grabbed her arm before she tried to do anything more and moved between her and the cop.

“Thanks for your help.”

The officer was fast to turn and walk back towards his vehicle.

“I’m fine.” Kara shrugged off James’ grip. “Useless morons.”

“So…” Megan flicked her cigarette butt on the ground. “Are we going after these Demons or what?”

Kara looked over her shoulder to the girl as a few raindrops fell from the sky around them. “Who exactly are you?” If her high hadn’t been still going strong, her eyes might have contributed to the rain.

“After they tried to kill me about a week ago, I started to track them. A few inquiries here and there led me to this town and told me that some Demon named Kyle might know something, which led me to this club.”

Megan lit another cigarette and took a long drag. “But now that it has been cleared out—I’m back to the beginning. Well, except for you.”

Kara paused. “Kyle?”

“Do you know him?” Megan was visibly interested, her cigarette left to dangle from her lips, she stepped in close. The red and blue lights illuminating the street cut out and left them to mostl y darkness save a single street light at the end of the block.

Kara’s heart thumped in her chest. All of her life’s loose ends could tie up into a really messy ball and she couldn’t have James finding out like that. “No. Just, that’s a very human name.”

“So, you’re a Demon Hunter too?” James interrupted.

“Ding ding ding.” Megan zipped up her leather coat. “We have a winner here, folks.”

James wiped the drying blood from under his nose and glanced at the mess all over the back of his hand. He wiped it on his dark jeans a few times over.

“You’re doing pretty good for being attacked by Demons.” Megan eyed him up and down again. It was making Kara visibly uncomfortable.

“Am I? It doesn’t quite feel like it.”

They didn’t have time for small talk. Kara’s mind was spinning and her Hunter instincts was colouring her world in an angry shade of red. She needed to pass out in a bed, or kill something. Or both in reverse order. “We need to find them.”

“Yeah, except I have no idea who they are or where they are hiding out.” Megan brushed her dark hair off the side of her face, revealing a fresh cut clean across her cheek that couldn’t have been more than a few days old. “I can smell them though, it’s got to be the same ones.”

“They’re bigger, they don’t human-walk much, or well. I’ve been killing Demons alone for years and before that, with my parents as a kid. I’ve never been up against this type before or heard of any.”

Kara rolled her eyes. “Type, there aren’t any types of Demons. They’re just Demons.”

“I mean, that’s what I thought, but these aren’t normal. It’s like, they’re what came before man went and raised them from the Hells dimension. Before they started to fit and walk around in human skin.”

James stared at her. “Right. Thank you for that.”

Megan’s eyes narrowed on him. “We should move quick though. I’ll get my bike.” She turned and ran back towards the now abandoned club. Kara took a breath and closed eyes as Megan’s footsteps faded away.

She palmed her forehead, the information that these Demons might be somehow stronger and actually have some kind of mission made Josh’s disappearance overwhelming. If he was in the hands of some unworldly Demon, he was probably dead—unless they found him fast. She swallowed hard.

“Kara.” James grazed her shoulder, grabbing her attention. “Can I talk to you a moment? ”

“I don’t even know if this is real.” She whispered over the roar of a near engine being revved. “And this girl is weirding me out.”

“She seems to know what’s going on more than us though.”

“She’s nuts.” Kara cut him off, looking up and searching him for answers. Just like herself, he had none. He just looked sad, blood freshly wet and running down his face from the rain.

Other than this new Demon Hunter Megan and her interest in Kyle, they had nothing.

“Do you remember what they looked like?” Kara tried.

James shook his head. “They got me from behind, practically ran me over. I think Megan is our best option.” The roar of a motorcycle amplified through the street. Kara could barely hear James’ last sentence. “I think she

knows more than she’s letting on.”

The offending bike slid to a stop and Megan flicked the jet black visor of her helmet up. “We should get a move on.”

Kara nodded and pulled out her phone. “I have an idea, just a second!”

She walked to the back of the car to get out of earshot of them both and dialed one of three number s she still had memorized. It rang three ti mes before a distinct and muffl e d ‘Yo’ let Kara breathe a small sigh of relief.

“Kyle, where are you?”

“Why? I sold you good stuff, Hunter. No complaints from anyone.”

“It has nothing to do with that. I need to ask you something.”

The pause was long. “Not on the phone. I’m at The Waker, once the club cleared out I still needed to sell. The kids here love it.” Grainy music interjected in the leftover silence.

“I’m coming.” Kara hung up the call and walked back over to them, picking at the antenna of her cellphone with non-existent nails.

Megan lifted her eyebrows. “Gonna share?”

“Someone I know gave me a lead.”

Megan looked impressed. “Cool. I’ll follow you then.”

Kara turned toward James. “C-can you drive? I don’t think I can right now.”

“Yes, I’ll manage.” James opened the driver’s door and with a wince, sat inside.

Kara looked over to Megan on her motorcycle and leather; the woman was not normal but James was right, she knew something and so she was their best chance at saving Josh.

She got into the car and glanced to the backseat. Josh’s ragged duffle bag was still there—his soccer ball poking out of the partially zipped main pocket. “T-they just grabbed him?” Her eyes started to blur, tears rushing in, choking any other words she could have said.

James started the car and looked to her, his voice soft. “After I talked to you, I walked back across the street to the car and a van came out of nowhere, some Demons leapt out while it was still moving… they ran me down and I slid across the road on my face. When I realized what was happening, they’d disappeared and Josh was gone. I feel like an idiot, Kara. I don’t even know what the vehicle looked like but the Demons were large and uncloaked.”

Her heart beat harshly in her chest, pounding at her lungs. It was hard to breath. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.” She should have never come here with them. They were helpless. She was the one who was destined to protect the city and she couldn’t even protect her own family, let alone James. He looked pathetic, his perfect hair flat, his face swollen and red. His hands shaking as he turned the steering wheel to pull away and follow the raging motorcycle in front of them.

“We’ll find him.” His words breezed across her, full of sorrow and Kara shuddered against it—the dread of not finding Josh weighed heavily on her spirit. She reached out for James’ cold and blood-covered hand. She desperately needed his strength. His fingers accepted her desperate need for comfort and he laced his fingers between hers in a familiar motion.

“Where are we going?”

She instructed him up the street and out of the middle of town towards the most popular hangout for teenage humans around. The Waker.