Kobal
The wraith tried to break free of my grasp as I pulled it through the wall, but I kept a firm hold on the squirming soul. I could sense the others moving closer, though Corson remained at the entrance of the broken gobalinus seal with River locked securely in his arms. The idea of anyone else holding her the way he was made me see red, but I couldn’t have her near this soul, not if it affected her in such a strong way.
My head tilted as I studied the wraith before me. It was either a new spirit, or it hadn’t been fed from often judging by the lack of distortion to its face and its obvious vitality. Some wraiths managed to evade discovery by the demons for extended periods of time, but the longest time I’d ever heard of was twenty years. That wraith had been made to pay dearly when it was discovered.
I could feel power in this creature, more than any other spirit I’d encountered before it. I didn’t know what made this wraith so different, but I would find out as its strength called to me. Hunger seared through my veins; it had been almost a week since I’d last fed. However, I wouldn’t do it with River nearby, not again.
“It looks to be young,” Bale said.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“And very powerful,” Magnus murmured.
From its fathomless black eyes, I sensed the creature studying us and trying to plot a way to escape me. Even though it had rarely been fed from before, if at all, its features were indistinguishable as a human. Its jaw, nose, and cheeks had all lengthened and darkened into the beginnings of a wraith until they could barely be seen behind its mask of death.
“Somehow powerful enough to bring down a seal,” I said, and I felt a rumble of what could only be laughter in the wraith’s chest.
“That’s impossible,” Magnus said.
“I would have said the same thing too, before,” I replied.
“Before what?” Bale asked.
“Before I held it.”
“How could it possibly be strong enough to break a seal?” Hawk demanded.
“Some of the stronger spirits can retain parts of their human selves, and there are humans who have their own special abilities,” I answered. “Depending on how much of their human abilities they maintain when they pass into the realm of being a wraith, their power could be significant.”
“Significant enough to bring down a seal though?” Magnus asked. “That can’t be possible.”
“Somehow, it can,” I said.
They all followed my gaze to where Corson had backed further away with River. My jaw locked when I saw his hands running over her arms. He’s only trying to warm her, I told myself, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to break his hands off at the wrist.
I focused my attention back on the wraith when it tried to jerk free of my hold. My hands tightened on its throat. A sneer curved my lip as I drew it toward me. Around my heels, the hounds circled, snapping at the creature within my grasp, but they didn’t have the means to seize the spirit. If they did, they would have shredded it before it ever could have brought down the first seal. Now their jaws simply snapped together through the black tails flowing behind the wraith.
“And now we know why the hounds couldn’t stop the seals from coming down,” I murmured.
My eyes narrowed on the creature; part of my ability slid out to lock into it, but I didn’t start to feed from it, only kept it secured in place. Fear slithered out from the wraith as it realized what I’d done. There would be no way for it to escape me, not without me feasting on it and draining much of its vitality.
Deep within its soul, I felt pulsating waves of power. “I’ve never felt one this strong before,” I commented.
Bale, Magnus, and Hawk all moved closer, surrounding the creature in my grasp. “Can they talk?” Hawk inquired.
“They can, but not in this form,” I told him.
As I dug deeper within the creature, it released a low wail that caused River to slap her hands over her ears and Hawk to wince in obvious discomfort. The others all remained unmoving, but the hounds circled faster, their excitement building with every step they took. The creature’s head whipped back and forth so fast that none of its features were discernible, but its wraith façade faded away to reveal what lay beneath.
I found myself staring into the face of a handsome man with ebony hair and blue eyes. His full mouth quirked into a smug smile. “There are some questions you never want the answers to,” he said.
A feeling of dread settled into the pit of my stomach when River gasped. Corson held her close while she squirmed in his grasp. “Put me down!” she ordered.
Her distress beat against me as she fought to get away from him. “Let her go,” I commanded, and Corson set her on her feet.
She teetered there for a second before taking a hesitant step forward. “Stay back, River,” I told her.
The man’s forehead creased at her name. She stopped ten feet away from us with her trembling fingers pressing against her mouth. The color faded from her face so rapidly that Corson grabbed her elbow when she swayed on her feet. The freckles on her nose stood out starkly against the sudden pallor of her skin.
“Kobal.” Her voice was choked with emotion as her haunted eyes slid toward mine. “That’s my father.”
My eyes shot back to the creature in my grasp as the man’s smug smile grew.
***
River
It was taking everything I had to stay on my feet as I stared at the man Kobal held before him. I’d seen his face only once before in a photo my mom had in her closet. I never would have seen it if Gage hadn’t decided to go snooping for Christmas presents when he was six. He’d torn the closet apart, but all he’d found were memories that were better off buried in the junk filling the small space.
Thankfully, I’d caught him instead of our mother and cleaned up the mess before she returned home. I’d discovered the photo while putting everything back where it came from. Staring at that photo, I’d known immediately who the man in it was. The resemblance had been unmistakable; it still was.
He bore the masculine version of my nose; my eyes were more his color than my mother’s, and his hair was nearly the same shade of black as mine. I clearly got my height from him as my mother barely stood over five feet tall. He wasn’t nearly as tall as Kobal, but he was pushing six feet.
Unlike the ghosts, there wasn’t a grayish, misty appearance to him. No, he was full-on color and looked solid dangling there in Kobal’s tight grip.
I inhaled a labored breath as cold encased my lungs once more. My father’s eyes flicked toward me, but his lips remained clamped together. Were those freckles on his nose? Had I gotten those from him too?
I tried to clear my head of the conflicting emotions battering against me. This man had taken off before I’d been born. I’d never known him, never dreamed of him riding in to rescue me from my mother. He’d proven he wasn’t the rescuing type when he’d rode out of town and never looked back. Besides, I’d never been one for fairy tales.
Despite my lack of any connection to this man, other than DNA, sorrow and pity tugged at me for him. He had created me, and now he was one of the twisted things the demons fed from, and he was in Hell.
He’s in Hell!
The implications behind that realization sank into my dazed mind. He’d done something to deserve being located on this side of death. Not only that, but he was also helping to bring down the seals. How was he doing it? Why was he doing it?
Because he’s helping Lucifer.
The answer hit me like a bullet between the eyes, and my vision crossed for a minute. Even dead, my father had the power to help Lucifer, which meant I might too. I’d already helped Kobal to hold up the seal; it made sense that I could help topple it.
Bile burned my throat. I’d accepted the fact that both my parents cared less for me than a dog did for their young, accepted I was a mix of all three worlds, but now I was to accept this too?
“Shit,” I moaned. My hands fell to my knees as I bent over.
“Corson, help her!” Kobal barked.
I held up my hand to hold Corson back. “Give me a minute.”
Corson remained where he was, looking completely helpless and uncomfortable as he tried to figure out what to do. I lifted my head to look at my father again. I’d kept myself detached from Lucifer by thinking of him as only a distant ancestor, but I couldn’t do that with this man.
No, with this man, there was no denying the direct tie between me and evil. Despite the discomfort in my bones and the chill in my body, I rose back to my full height and met his gaze head-on. I had questions, and damn it, this man owed me answers.
“What did you do to end up in here?” I demanded. “Or does abandoning your child qualify as a big enough sin?”
“It doesn’t,” Corson said when my father simply stared at me with his lips flattened into a thin line. “But there are more than a few ghosts who have done it.”
“I wasn’t prepared to be saddled with a child so young,” my father replied. “Your mother was only a fling.”
“At least you’re honest,” I said. “What did you do to end up here then?” I didn’t really want to know the answer, but I felt I had to know. To live in denial of what he was, of what I was, would only catch up with me in the end. There would never be any burying my head in the sand again after this.
Kobal’s gaze was drawn away from me as he focused on the man within his grasp once more. “Answer her,” he commanded, and pain filled my father’s face.
I didn’t know what Kobal was doing to him, but whatever it was caused words to tumble from his lips. “I may have killed a few people. You aren’t the only one in our family who can do things.”
“Obviously.” I didn’t ask who he’d killed or why; it didn’t matter. If he’d done it because it had been an accident or in self-defense, he wouldn’t be here. “Why would you help Lucifer bring the seals down?”
“You have no idea what it’s like to feel these things feeding from you.” He waved a hand at the demons surrounding him, earning him a scathing look from each one of them. “Satan found me, and saved me from them.”
“How did Lucifer know you were here?” Kobal inquired.
“I have no idea,” my father replied, and I suspected that if he did know, he wouldn’t tell us.
Kobal’s hand tightened on his throat. My father’s legs kicked in desperation; his fingers clawed at Kobal’s as he turned bright red and agony altered his features. Kobal’s skin took on a deeper brown hue as the marks on him darkened to a jet black. I’d seen this happen to him when he’d fed on the wraiths before, and I realized he was drawing enough life from my father to make him speak.
“I really don’t know!” my father cried.
Taking a deep breath, Kobal’s grip on him eased, and my father’s frantic movements calmed. “How are you able to bring down the seals? You are powerful, but not nearly so much as she is.” Kobal’s golden eyes burned into mine as he held my gaze. “I can feel the difference between you two.”
I blinked back the tears in my eyes; he’d known I needed to hear that right now more than anything else.
“Because it’s all a form of life,” I said, not knowing how I knew the answer to his question, but I did. “It’s all a cycle, as you once told me. I can draw on the power of life, and he once could too. Maybe he never knew he could do it while he was alive, but in death he’s learned how to draw on the power of the dead. He thrives on it; that’s why he’s colder than any of the other wraiths. Colder to me than all of those wraiths on the hill combined, because he feeds from them.”
A muscle twitched at the corner of Kobal’s right eye. “I see.” His attention focused on my father once more. “How long have you been in Hell?”
“Fifteen years,” my father replied.
He’d died when I was seven, and I’d never known. I couldn’t understand why this saddened me, but it did. This man had helped to create me, and he’d vanished off the face of the earth without me ever having sensed or known of his passing.
“And you’ve used the other wraiths to keep you hidden from demons as you’ve fed from them. That’s how Lucifer found you,” Kobal said. “Your power was growing, and he had a new way for you to focus it.”
“None of us were here to notice it growing either,” Bale said and glanced at Magnus who shook his head.
“I’ve heard no rumors of such a thing amongst the wraiths or demons,” Magnus replied.
“Lucifer has only known of him for a short time. The seals have only been falling for two months at the most. If Lucifer had known about him sooner, the seals would have started toppling as soon as he found him,” Kobal said.
“I learned quickly how to protect and hide myself after the first demon fed from me,” my father said.
“How many others like him do you think there have been over the years?” Bale asked.
“Not many, maybe not any. They would have been destroyed if uncovered,” Kobal said. “And I have a feeling if that first demon had taken more from him while feeding, he would have been too weakened to do what he’s done.”
“Could there be others like him in here now who could do the same?” Corson asked.
Kobal studied my father for a minute. “No, the angel lines have been thinning down for centuries now. He was most likely the last of the descendants left before River. Any of those souls who have entered here would have been uncovered by now if they had grown in power as much as he has. If there are any still here, they have become far too weak over the years to be a threat anymore. Also, I’m sure once Lucifer uncovered this one, he went in search of others like him. They would be here helping if they existed.”
Leaning against the wall of the broken seal, I stared at the man across from me as he watched me. “And now I have chosen the winning side,” he said to me.
I snorted and Kobal’s lips skimmed back to bare his fangs while he spoke. “As I said before, you’re powerful, but she’s more so.”
Something shimmered in my father’s eyes; a superior air surrounded him as he smiled at me. My gaze instinctively shot to the ceiling, but I saw nothing there. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling something more was coming. Something bigger.