CHAPTER 1

 

 

 

 

THE CHILLY MARCH WINDS STUNG Alexa’s face like hot needles as she ran through the dark streets of downtown Toronto. Her boots flapped against the slippery pavement while her legs pounded a steady rhythm. The downtown area was a twisting labyrinth of ever-darker alleyways and passages lost in shadow. There were no pedestrians and no street lights. The only source of light was the moon moving past thick clouds overhead. Very unnatural.

Alexa picked her way carefully around a recent snow fall. Her legs were still a bit stiff from her recent arrival to the mortal world, but she didn’t dare slow down.

After a ten-minute sprint, mortal lungs would be burning by now, but not hers. The muscles in her thighs pulsed with strength, pushing her onward at a supernatural speed. She unclenched her fists and relaxed her shoulders so her arms could swing more loosely as she sprang a little harder off of her toes. The burning in her thighs intensified, but it was barely a tingle, not nearly enough to slow her down.

She wiped the hair from her eyes and barreled down another street.

Ahead, Milo glanced over his shoulder to check on her, the powerful muscles of his back shifting beneath his clothes. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had his blond locks tied back, revealing the snake-like sigil that marked his neck—Lucifer’s sigil. He wore the black gear made of durable, flexible cloth common to all of the guardians from the Counter Demon Division, and had his spirit sabers, his special swords that could cut through metal, strapped to his back.

Nearly a month had passed since the night at the American Museum of Natural History in New York when the pagan god Hades had taken the Helm of Darkness and fled. Since then, the mortal word had exploded in paranormal activity, especially around major cities. Mortals were dying, hundreds at a time, and the death tolls were increasing by the hour. The mortal news stations described the deaths as “an abnormal number of mass suicides.”

With the help of the Helm of Darkness, Hades had breached the Veil and he was letting hell out into the mortal world—literally.

Still, Alexa was happy to be doing something other than sitting alone with her thoughts. Her mind was still in a drunken fog, but she knew she couldn’t run forever. Eventually she would have to face the uncomfortable truths about her new gift, the loss of her memories, and her feelings for Erik.

She spent less time thinking when she was out killing demons. It was both a burden and a release. And she was good at it. Her skill and insight worked better when she wasn’t overthinking things.

Erik still occupied her mind whenever she returned to the mortal world. It was inevitable. The cars, the buildings, the shops, and the cafés all reminded her of him. Even the air teased her with his smell, like Earth was playing a cruel joke on her, mocking her. And yet, in every new assignment she met a little less pain and suffering. She was healing.

Deep down, Alexa knew part of the pain she felt was her hurt pride. Her bruised ego was the outcome of letting down her guard, filling her head with emotions—mortal emotions—and falling for someone who chose someone else over her. Betrayals and being slighted in romance were a part of life, just not her life anymore. She had to move on.

But a part of her didn’t want to let go of the pain because it was the only thing still tying her to the mortal world. It was the only piece left her that wasn’t part of Horizon, that wasn’t erased like her memories.

And maybe… Alexa just couldn’t let go. She wasn’t ready. Not yet.

Alexa’s world had changed so much in little more than a year. First was her untimely and unfortunate death, which was quickly followed with a post in the Guardian Angel Legion. Then came her new ability—her soul channeling—the power to manipulate souls.

Alexa barely understood it, let alone how to summon it. Still, this new gift fed her with the confidence she needed to face this new wave of darkness, demons, and fallen angels. She had only used her gift twice now, and both times it had yielded a tremendous effect, the power to vanquish demons without the use of a blade.

She had become a weapon.

If Alexa focused, she could sense that compartment within her soul, like a closed door ready to be opened. She had been hesitant to use her soul channeling again since the museum incident. The power she’d felt was exhilarating, but it also frightened her, like handling a semi-automatic weapon for the first time and being scared to pull the trigger. How could she use a weapon if she didn’t have a deep understanding of how it worked? Especially when she had accidentally acquired the weapon as Hades had tried to kill her…

“Here it is,” said Milo suddenly, snapping Alexa out of her reverie.

Milo slowed down when he reached a gothic-looking building squeezed between two high-rises. A flashing neon sign read THE OUTER LIMITS NIGHTCLUB. Below the sign was an open door, a silent invitation.

“It’s never a good sign when there are no bouncers at the door of a nightclub,” said Milo as he inspected the entrance.

“Or when it’s as silent as a grave,” said Alexa. She felt the hair rise on the back of her neck as she moved next to him. “There should be loud music and voices, but I can’t hear anything. No laughter. No bass. Nothing. Which makes no sense for a nightclub on a Friday night. It looks empty.”

Still, when Alexa threw out her angel senses, she could feel them—the warmth of human souls. There were people inside the club.

But there was also a flicker of something else, something cold and dark and powerful. Alexa sensed a darkness leaking from somewhere inside the club. It tugged inside her chest as a cold shudder ran through her body. Death.

Milo made a face. “Smells like death in there,” he said, as though reading her mind. He turned and looked at Alexa. “Don’t let the quiet fool you. Death is always silent before it strikes. You ready?”

Alexa nodded and looked to the darkness that lay beyond the door. “What do you think is in there?” Her hand gripped the hilt of her soul blade, glad that the Legion finally trusted her with one, although she would have preferred one of Milo’s spirit sabers.

“Well, if it’s anything like the other nightclubs under the Legion’s radar, a lot of dead bodies. I can still sense living souls in there, but something’s different about them. They’re weak.”

“Weak?” Alexa’s insides clenched. “How can souls be weak?”

“Not sure, but there’s only one way to find out.” Milo pulled out his swords and added, “If there’s anything that doesn’t look or feel like a mortal—kill it.”

Alexa kept her nerves hidden as she yanked her blade free from her belt.

“That’s all we’ve been doing for weeks, killing things. I’m getting pretty good at it.”

“Not things, demons,” said Milo. He bared his teeth in a feral, petrifying glower. “Until we figure out how to stop Hades and these demons he’s spreading like viruses, this is what we do. We kill demons and anything that feels demon. Every last one of them, if we have to. Until he’s stopped.”

Alexa liked it when he got this way, all overly protective and a little feral-like, but she wasn’t about to tell him.

She flashed him a smile. “I promise to kill every demon that steps in my way, boss.”

“Good. That’s what I like to hear from my fledglings.” He smiled at her wryly before turning around.

A rush of excitement mixed with trepidation soared through Alexa as she followed Milo through the open door to the nightclub. The entrance was narrow and dark, but with her enhanced angel senses and sight, her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness as though seeing through the eyes of a cat.

The air was hot and thick with the smells of human sweat and beer. They met no one as they moved through the thin corridor with Milo in the lead. Alexa couldn’t remember if she’d ever been to a nightclub before. The blockage on her mortal memories was like staring at a new world with fresh eyes. She knew nightclubs were the hangouts for most young adults, but she didn’t remember that part of her past. She didn’t remember her life as a mortal.

The familiar smell of rotting eggs and decay intensified as they stepped into a large space. Despite its size, it was tightly packed and looked like it had once been the interior of a gallery. Darting colored spotlights highlighted the pale and dream-like faces of mortals in the crowd, illuminating them in hues of red, blue, and yellow.

Ceiling lights shone from the dim room above, illuminating square tables set with candles that circled the dance floor. There was a DJ booth along one wall, but it was empty. An open bar ran the length of the room, topped with expensive-looking whiskies, rums, vodkas and countless other bottles filled with golden liquid.

There was a reserved darkness about the room, but the sheer, string-like mist spreading over the dance floor had Alexa’s angel senses on high alert.

A network of orange filaments wound around the mortals, connecting them like puppets on a string controlled by an invisible master.

A ripple of cold went up Alexa’s spine as she scanned the area. She stared at the hundred or so mortals on the dance floor, all stock-still and frozen in place, as though they were waiting for instructions. No one spoke. The silence was unnatural.

A large mountain of a man, his chest and arm muscles bulging from a tight T-shirt, stood in the middle of the crowd, just as motionless as the others. Alexa recognized him as the bouncer. His dark skin was plagued with coiling orange mist.

The rancid scent of darkness and evil was everywhere. It clung to her skin and clothes like a thick haze, and she could taste the rot on her tongue. An overwhelming feeling of being watched crept over her, like icy fingers crawling over her skin. Though she couldn’t see any demons among the mortals, she felt them, felt the presence of death, of something not from this world.

Milo cast Alexa an anxious glance as he cautiously picked his way amongst the hovering mortals, careful not to touch the eerie orange strings with his body.

Alexa walked up to a woman with long, black hair. Her eyes were unfocused, and her skin had a slight yellow-orange tinge to it, as did the whites of her eyes, as though she was suffering from jaundice. Her cheekbones protruded from her face severely, making her look sick and old. This was not the blissful expression one might expect to see in a nightclub.

“Something’s wrong with them,” said Alexa as she waved her hand in front of the woman’s face and saw no reaction. Her gaze moved to the man standing next to the woman, who shared the same trance-like expression and haggard look. “I don’t think they’re stoned or drunk. It’s more like they’re in a dream state, like they’re sleeping or something…”

“They’re not sleeping,” said Milo, after examining a young man.

“So, what’s wrong with them? And what is this orange stuff? I know it’s not some smoke machine trick or some ambient effect. I can feel the demon energy coming from it.”

Milo looked at Alexa, his expression fierce and angry. “This is a devil’s caress. These mortals are being drained of their life forces. They’re slowly dying, and they have no idea.”

Alexa loosened her grip on her soul blade before the hilt broke through her skin. “All these people… at the same time? This is a horrible way to die,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

“Soon there will be nothing left of them, of their souls. They’ll just be empty human shells,” said Milo. His voice was dim and distant. “If I’m right, I think this is part of what’s been happening all over the major cities causing all the unexplainable deaths. The Legion only found dead bodies—hundreds of them at a time—but we’re the first to actually see it happening.”

“That’s all very interesting,” said Alexa, more harshly than she’d intended, “but I really don’t care who discovered it first. All I want to know is how we stop it? How do we kill this thing? This devil’s caress?”

“We need to break the connection,” answered Milo.

On instinct, Alexa reached out and grabbed the woman by the hand. She pulled hard, desperate to get the devil’s caress off her, but the misty strings only stretched and followed like long transparent ribbons, fingers that wouldn’t let go of their meal. She could see tiny sparks of light moving in the orange filaments, like bubbles sucked through a straw. She stared in horror realizing she was watching the mortals’ life force, their souls being drained out of them.

“What the hell? It’s not letting go,” Alexa cursed. A spark of anger ignited in her. She let go of the woman’s hand and backed away. Then she brought her blade down hard, slicing through the repulsive thing that held on to the woman’s back.

The strings parted. They lingered in the air for a second, moving like hair floating in water, and then they shot forward and sewed back together, attached once again.

Alexa yelled in frustration and ran to the back of the room, barely aware of Milo calling out to her. She stopped when she spotted a group of three young women, close to her age, huddled together. They’d probably snuck in with fake IDs, not realizing their outing was a death trap.

Fury ripped through her at the sight of young innocent lives being so horribly stolen.

“How do we stop it? Where’s it coming from?” she yelled, skimming through people and the shadows at the edges of the club. “Something has to be controlling it, right? So, who? Who’s controlling it?”

“A Greater demon most likely. Higher demons don’t have the power or necessary skill to pull off something of this magnitude,” said Milo as he prowled around the room like a wolf stalking his prey in the underbrush. “It’s in here somewhere. It can’t be too far away because it needs to be close enough to control its hold on the mortals to feed from their life forces.”

Alexa scanned the shadows again, bracing herself for demons and Greater demons. “You think it’s hiding from us?”

“No. Not hiding. It probably doesn’t even know we’re here.” Milo looked up at a small balcony on the second floor, his lips a thin line. “It’s arrogant. It feels superior, superior enough to leave its meal before it needs to feed again. That means it’s either really stupid or really powerful.”

“Let’s hope for stupid,” said Alexa. “Stupid is a lot easier to kill.” She couldn’t help the shiver that rolled up her spine. They hadn’t faced another Greater demon since they had vanquished the goddess Kali and her demon husband. And that had been purely an accident with the help of her gift and a little luck.

Alexa stared at the vacant expressions the mortals shared and felt a deep sadness for them. She and Milo were having a conversation right in front of them and it was as though they weren’t even there.

“I don’t think I can handle watching all these people die.” Alexa looked at Milo long and hard. Her body trembled. “They don’t look like they have much time left. We can’t wait for the Greater demon to show up. By the time it does or we find it—if we even find it—they’ll be dead. All of them. We have to do something now, Milo, or all of these people are going to die.”

Milo stared at her for a heartbeat. “Then there’s only one way out of this,” said the angel, “and you’re not going to like it.”

“What?”

Milo stopped and turned. Even in the semi-darkness Alexa could see the horror on his face. He didn’t want to say what he needed to say, dreaded saying it, but he had to.

“We have to kill one of the mortals.”