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Chapter 1
DOWNTOWN, NEW YORK
He moved like the night. Stealthy, silent, and ominous. Darkness and danger clung to him like a shroud. His bright blue eyes pierced the eerily quiet alleyway as he prowled toward his prey. His hapless victim was instinctively petrified, yet still completely unaware of the fate which awaited him. The words which were about to slither through the air may clue him in, though. Unless he was particularly dimwitted or had a self-inflated ego the size of a Goodyear blimp, chances were pretty good he was within moments of wishing he’d worn an adult diaper. With ease Roth set the cloaking bubble around himself and his victim. No need to freak the humans out with what was about to go down. They’d just see an abandoned alley and feel the need to keep moving on.
“Oi, dick stain! Care to take a guess how long it’s going to take me to gut your pathetic ass?” he growled, toying with the evil asshole as he stalked closer. He was sure he looked like the guy’s worst nightmare . . . A really big, broad-shouldered, and muscular one. A portent of death sent to collect the diseased souls of his victims. So yeah, maybe he enjoyed his job a little too much sometimes. Could you really blame him? He was an artist, and his wrath was the ultimate expression of life, well . . . his life anyway.
Pitch black shadows writhed around his ankles, sweeping out to the walls on either side of him. They curled up around his black denim-clad legs, twisted around his torso, and twined about his arms. Wickedly sharp hellfire blades were held firmly within the grip of each calloused palm. The black steel emitted a sinister red glow, casting a devilish menace in its wake; the essence of hellfire forged into its very core. Ready and waiting for each irredeemable soul they’d reap.
Already the stench of fear filled the air between predator and prey, along with a tinge of false bravado and inflated ego. His target’s name was Nigel, according to the intel he’d been mind slapped with pre-mission. Nigel, the true monster, rose from his crouched position in the dirty alley, his former excitement no more than a distant memory as he sized up what was headed his way. Nigel’s victim was hidden behind the dumpster. His posture showed an ego that was thin and puffed up like a balloon. Before the scumbag could utter even a single word, an invisible hand squeezed tight about his pale throat, cutting off precious oxygen. Life sustaining air a monster the likes of him should never have the privilege of breathing.
Nigel’s eyes flared wide, panicked flailing ensued, and soon the tang of fresh urine joined the stench of fear. Yep, there it was. All bravado and ego disappeared.
This one was almost too easy, no fight at all. What did one such as him have to do to get a good fight these days? A challenge even? Someone who wouldn’t break at the first parlor trick. Ah! But wasn’t that most often the nature of the monsters for which he was sent to hunt? Those preying on the weak, feeding their thirst for power, control, pride, and greed. Their hunger, sated only by the torture and suffering of those they sought to crush, was older than creation itself.
For all his millennia of existence, for all the many and varied ways he had to end these creatures, to rip their souls away and deliver them to the fiery afterlife they deserved, they always succeeded in finding even more terrible acts of evil depravity to unleash upon their fellow earthly inhabitants.
While he loved his job, even he could admit that it was becoming a bit too predictable lately. Where was the fire, the fight, the passion? When had such a level of ‘don’t give a fuck’ taken over this world, this generation of humans, that they were so weak, so willing to give up rather than fight to live? Not that they stood a chance against the likes of him, but still . . . It’s the principle of it all, right? Oh, how he longed for the days when the blackened, festering souls he was sent to collect would at least make it a little fun.
Growling low in his throat, frustrated at how easy this was, at the unfulfilled promise of executing his full wrath, Roth unleashed his shadows, sending them forth in a burst of unrestrained, aggressive speed. Red eyes from the deepest pits glowed above a snarling maw filled with sharp and dripping fangs leaped forward at his command. A Shadow Hound, the image of a Wraith of Hell, was the last sight the weak, corrupted soul named Nigel would see before death took him.
Striding forward, his shitkickers making nary a sound, he was completely invisible within his swirling shadows. Even the whites of his eyes had darkened to pitch. A quick and efficient slice to the dangling meatsuit’s gullet caused blood to spray and fall in a steady stream to the asphalt below.
By divine grace, or rather, decidedly the opposite, not a drop made contact with him. His lips quirked upwards at the thought of his origins and his boss’ tweaks to their powers. Taking one of his blades, he dipped the tip into the gaping wound and gave it a vicious little twist, just for shits and giggles; the Hellfire took over and drew out the diseased and manky soul. Like a moth to a flame, it entrapped the essence securely in the fire-protected reservoir at the core of the lethal steel. Hephaestus’s etchings gave it an extra-strong ward so that only the blade’s owner could extract it, and then only into the care of one of two wells.
He felt no guilt at what his job entailed. Most of the souls he collected, like this one, were not fit for this world. These were the souls that couldn’t be recycled. The ones who couldn’t be redeemed. They got no second chances. It was a Hell of a job, but someone needed to do it. And as it was his divine role, he may as well enjoy it and take pride in it, right? And this soul definitely deserved it, judging by what he sensed on the other side of the dumpster.
Pain and agony called out to him, not by sound but by spirit. A hunger for life, a fighting spirit. All he had done just moments before—and it had taken but moments to end that sorry excuse for a life—was forgotten as he was pulled forward toward the essence which called to him.
He knew what he’d find before he saw her, but still, his heart jolted in his chest. She lay there, battered and broken; so much blood. Arms sliced in intricate patterns, and her dress cut away to reveal her ruined torso. Several ribs played peek-a-boo with the night air, shining white amidst a sea of crimson, matching her platinum blonde hair matted in the quickly congealing blood. So many marks littered her body, so much desecration of a human vessel. How she was still alive was a miracle in and of itself.
He looked around, waiting for the flash of light only his kind and the dying could see, a tighty whitey coming to take her soul to Heaven, but it didn’t come. His brow furrowed in thought and frustration. It would be just like those pompous pricks to fuck up a soul transfer like this.
Just as he was turning to leave, preparing to pull his shadows into himself and portal back home, a flash of movement had him pivoting back around. His shadows fell still and withdrew into him in his shock. For a moment she seemed frozen, like a macabre statue caught in the darkness of night, her lips parted on a soundless gasp before her posture shifted toward indignant aggression.
Startling soft gray eyes flickered with fire as she glared daggers into him. They seemed to swirl with angry shadows of their own the longer you looked into them. With a deep, gasping breath she leaped to her feet, blood still dripping, her clothing still ruined. Her pale features were almost incandescent with rage and frustration.
“Thanks, asshole,” she sneered. “Just when I had him where I wanted him. Argh! And just like that . . .” She lifted her right hand and snapped her fingers sharply. “A perfectly good meal gone to waste. Now I have to start all over again. Which means I have to relax my standards. It’s not that easy to find souls that evil on such short notice, you know. Whatever.” She sighed rather dramatically. “I don’t have the luxury of time to nut this shit out with the likes of you, and I get the feeling you won’t just hand him over so . . . I’m outtie.”
As she strode past him, giving him a middle finger salute on the way, her shoulder brushed against him, sending an electric pulse through his arm. The hellfire in his blade leaped to attention, and his shadows flared around him before settling calmly against his skin.
As he stared after her, the blood and bruises melted away, the torn and bloodstained clothing replaced like new. Her skin was flawless and knit back together with nary a scar. Her hair was now as red as the blood that had been all over her, the blonde of before was nowhere to be seen. Pausing, she threw him one last look over her shoulder and tensed, taking in his eerily still shadows, the pulsing red glow in his blade, and lifted a dainty brow. His heart pounded in his ears as he saw her delicate features clearly for the first time. Not the mask of illusion she’d worn moments before, but what he hoped was actually her true face. A face so beautiful it took his breath and held it hostage. All hint of vulnerability gone, a swirling sense of OtherRealmliness replaced the ‘human’ he’d sensed earlier. Unless it too was just another illusion or glamour or whatever the fuck she’d done.
“Next time, leave them to me. At least I’d have put him to good use.” She smirked, tore her gaze away from his, and raked it down to his booted feet and up again. “Oh, and tell your Boss Man, or whatever he calls himself these days, “We’ll meet again”. If you could sing it, that’d be a bonus, but it’s not essential.” With a saucy wink, she strolled away, her hips swaying as she whistled a once familiar tune and slipped around the corner. The echoes of that old Vera Lynn song now stuck in his head. He was left standing there with a look of stunned bewilderment chasing across his chiseled features, even as his cock twitched behind his button fly.
“Just who, and what, the fuck was that?”
Rounding the corner onto the street, her spine wilted just a bit, her shoulders slumped. Pain lacerated through her entire being like burning hot hooks pulling at her insides from all directions, tearing through layers of muscle and skin. The agony, made all the more intense by the stampeding of her heart as it tried to escape the confines of her chest, threatened to bring her to her knees. This was her agony; this was her unsated hunger. The bane of her existence. The crux of her curse. This was what forced her to seek out those capable of such depravities as that wretchedly evil scum back in the alley. Even though the Shadow Hound had destroyed the vessel housing it, she could still feel the pull of the festering soul now housed within his blade. So tempting, yet so far out of her desperate reach.
If only he hadn’t come, or had arrived a few minutes later. If only she’d fed her hunger for his soul faster, had been able to satisfy her other half at all . . . she’d be free of this torture. Alas, he had come, and even with his shadows she’d seen him, had watched him, even as he’d used the shield that kept human eyes at bay and distorted the reality of what went down in that dark, dank alley. Him, with his piercing blue eyes, his wicked shadows, and his chiseled features. That fine ass cradled in those tight jeans and the promise of some sexy as sin abs beneath his equally tight shirt. The way his midnight hair caressed his jaw and cheekbones . . .
Another wave of agony assaulted her, reminding her of what his interference had cost her. Of what was at stake if she didn’t find another soul to take the stolen ones place within the next few hours. Of the choices she would be forced to make and what she would be forced to do in order to survive. Damn it, nope; he definitely wasn’t sexy enough to forgive for the torment of her current suffering, no matter how cute his look of shock had been.
She’d felt every lash of pain as that scumbag had sliced and diced her. As he’d run the tip of his knife along her skin, every bone he’d exposed, every flap of flesh he’d folded back thinking he was in control.
Such an easy little puppet to manipulate. So obvious a display of weakness as he sought to show his strength, his perversion of power over the innocent and vulnerable. Tit-for-tat, he’d have been the one found slain behind the dumpster in that dark and dingy place as the light-filled the sky on a brand-new day, not her. One less villain haunting the night. Until that infernal Hound had cut his strings. And damn him for it. That was meant to be her reward. Her service to humanity. Taking out the trash while saving the innocent from the beast now tearing apart her chest–her whole being–as it raged and begged and demanded to be fed. And she would have given him as good as he had given her.
Sure, her pain had been muted as her hunger for his wretchedly evil feelings was being sated, but it still hurt like a mother-fucking Mack truck taking repeated exception to your immortal existence. And it always left the taste of ashes resting at the back of her tongue. A taste that stayed around for at least as long as it took for her to siphon off the much tastier and brighter emotions from innocent beings. Small, barely satisfying amounts that wouldn’t be missed. Once upon a time she’d tried for more . . . She threw off the thought as guilt threatened to immobilize her.
