The Demon Within Read online

  Three weeks ago, she’d not only discovered she was carrying a family legacy around inside her, but she also found out one of those monsters had set her brother up for murder while another had come after her little sister. One second, she had been a normal college kid with little to worry about except grades and parties, and the next, she was out killing demons and wearing their guts on her clothes.

  Oh, the curves life throws at us.

  Since then, she’d dropped out of college and spent every night roaming the shadows within shadows of Savannah looking for the demon responsible for sending her brother up the river with a life-in-prison sentence. Every night, she prowled the city, hunting and slaying demons in an effort to find the one…the only one…who could shed light on Quick’s case and offer up the information that would give them the key to his freedom. She needed to do whatever she could to keep her family intact.

  Nothing else mattered to her but her family.

  Nothing.

  She hadn’t let anything keep her from her nightly rounds.

  So when three punk teenagers started wolf whistling at her, she just kept going. Humans did not interest her unless they were possessed. All they did was get in her way, and Denny didn’t have time for their bullshit.

  When one of the punks stepped in front of her, she shoved him so hard in the chest, he landed twelve feet away on his back. The other two boys just stood there with their mouths open.

  “Fuck off, boys, before someone gets seriously hurt.” The Hanta’s voice was deep and gravelly, but Denny was still in control. She couldn’t seem to override it when she spoke, though, and often sounded like a gargoyle speaking with a sandpaper tongue. It was hard on the ears.

  “What the…how the hell did she do that?”

  Denny stopped and turned to the other two hoodlums. “What’ll it be, fellas? Wanna get your ass kicked by a woman or you gonna leave me the hell alone? It’s your call.”

  The two boys wearing dark hoodies parted like the Red Sea and let her through.

  “Good choice. I’ve already killed one asshole tonight. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?” Denny continued toward the Black Stallion, unmolested.

  The BS, as everyone called it, was a shitbag little bar that never had a better day. From the moment it opened, it was a dive. It was the poster child for dive bars, and only the truly brave went there for a drink.

  When she walked in, a few people looked at her, but it was too dark to see the remnants of the demon detritus still clinging to her clothes. Bellying up to the bar, Denny ordered a shot of whiskey from a bartender who was no demon.

  “Where’s that other bartender?” Denny asked when he set her half filled shot glass in front of her. The amber liquid appeared alive as it rocked back and forth in the small glass.

  “Rocky?”

  Denny laughed. “His name is...Rocky? What’s his real name?”

  The bartender, a tall, rugged-looking man, just stared at her. He wasn’t the only one. “Miss, you look around you? You’re in a gay bar. No one goes by his real name in here. Not even us.”

  She stared down at the whisky she seldom ordered and swirled it slightly. “I see.”

  Though there were demons walking this earth, perhaps the greatest evil lay dormant in those bottles on the wall. Dormant, that is, until they made their way down the gullet, where they worked voodoo magic, changing the very nature of the drinker.

  Never for the better.

  Ever.

  Why then, with all the damage they wrought, did governments allow it? So much heartache. So much destruction.

  Demons in a bottle.

  She wondered what the Hanta thought about that since it did seem to enjoy the taste of southern whiskey.

  Shooting it back, she felt the slow burn as the drink slid down her throat, eager to push her towards some ugly outcome. The Hanta enjoyed the heat as it went down.

  “Want to leave him a message?” The bartender asked, winking at someone who had just walked by.

  “No, no. When does he work next?”

  “Not sure. Tuesday, maybe? You somebody’s girlfriend or something?”

  Somebody’s girlfriend.

  A month ago, she’d been somebody’s girlfriend. She and Rushalyn Holbrook had been lovers for three years before Rush left her. She just up and left her.

  Not that Rush could truly leave. She was already dead.

  Dead and gone for the last forty-three years. Dead as in having no corporeal form, and gone as in not being anywhere around for the last three weeks.

  Gone.

  No matter where Denny looked or how hard she called out, Rush had not appeared.

  For thirteen years, Rush had been lurking around the Holbrook House every hour of every day, watching, waiting. Watching and waiting for Denny to come of age so she could tell her how she felt about her.

  And when she did, when they finally managed to connect, it had been beautiful.

  Not any longer.

  Rush had left her after an argument with Denny about the Hanta. Denny was furious to discover that Rush had always known Denny carried a demon within her.

  Rush had known and yet she hadn’t ever said a word. She’d never told Denny. She’d never let on to her, and in the end, it crushed the tenuous bond between the living and the dead.

  Rush left, and had not returned.

  Three long weeks, and no word. It was as if she never existed.

  “Lady, if you’re somebody’s wife or something—”

  Looking up from her thoughts, Denny muttered, “Nah. Nobody’s girlfriend. Nobody’s...anything, really. I’m just a handful of trouble.”

  The bartender poured another drink for her. “Harsh.” Pushing it over to her, he walked away.

  Denny looked at the drink. “Harsh?” She shook her head. “You have no idea.”

  ****

  Once home, Denny stopped to stare at herself in the mirror. Her five foot ten inch frame was covered in demon detritus. Blood, brains, and bits of flesh clung to her clothes like supernatural lint. She’d managed to get most off her face and hair, but some was still clinging to life. Her green eyes had pinpricks for pupils and she could see that the Hanta had long since gone back to sleep.

  Trudging up the stairs to the master bedroom closet, she opened a hidden door leading to a small, oddly shaped room lined with bookshelves and small windows. The musty odor of aged leather bound tomes wafted through the air. Sitting regally in the center of the room was an antique roll-top desk with a green marble slab in the center. Lying on the desk were several thick, stained leather-bound journals, three to five inches thick. One was open and held a two dollar bill bookmark within the spine.

  Slowly taking her shirt off, she sprayed the bloodstain on the left sleeve with water and then squeezed the blood into a well usually reserved for ink. Then she clicked open the green marble slab, which slowly rose to reveal a secret drawer. Within that drawer were several hypodermic needles used for drawing blood.

  Once Denny had drawn her own, she squirted it into the well and mixed the two bloods together before grabbing the fountain pen and opening the black leather journal that lay open on her desk.

  The writing in blood had always been her least favorite aspect of the demon hunting ritual. It was one thing to use demon blood to tally the night’s kills, but it was her blood that enabled the rest of the demon hunting guild to read her words in their books…her kills….to learn who she killed and how she did it. It kept the legacy hunters connected. It kept them educated and alive.

  And they needed this connection to survive.

  It was far too supernaturally weird to Denny to know how that all shook out in the end. She just did what Ames Walker, her mentor and trainer, had said her mother did. She recorded precisely who, what, when, where, why and how she defeated her demons. That way, there was not only a reckoning, but a manual of sorts…in case the other legacy hunters came across the same type of demon.

  Writing in the Book of Demons, o
r the Kill Book, as she liked to call it, was the only responsible thing she’d done in the last three weeks. Sure, she’d hunted demons, she’d killed them, she’d questioned them, but she was living fast and loose with her Hanta in her attempt to uncover the truth. What she’d needed was a manual.

  She’d needed a manual concerning how this obligation, this legacy, had been thrust upon her without either her consent or her knowledge. She had entered the paranormal realm kicking and screaming. She hadn’t wanted to be possessed—hadn’t wanted to spend her nights combing through the underbelly of society looking for evil. She hadn’t wanted any of it.

  Now, it was the only thing that mattered.

  Dipping her fountain pen in the blood ink, Denny began transcribing the details of the night’s kill. And as she’d done every night for three weeks, she spoke aloud to Rush and felt the gaping void left by her disappearance.

  “Another mid-level brought down, love, but you already know that, don’t you? What must you think of me now that I’ve become a cold-hearted killer of demons? Do you sit in judgment of me? Do you feel sorry for me? Do you even miss me? Miss us? I do.” Denny sat silent for a moment, waiting, as always, to see if Rush would answer.

  “I’ve not given up on you, Rush. And though you left me so I could spend time with the living, look at how I truly spend my time: hunting those neither dead nor alive. The irony can’t possibly escape you. It hasn’t escaped me.”

  Denny kept dipping the pen in the well of blood until she finished the task of retelling the death and how she did it. The blood soaked through the vellum pages, becoming a permanent entry in the Black Book of Demons.

  “Take that, Peyton, you fucking overachiever. You think you’re the only one who can serial kill these bastards nightly?” Denny tossed the pen in the cup with the other used pens. “Ten in one night? I’m gonna blow right through you, dude.”

  The wall clock read three thirteen. Denny looked out at the high windows above the bookshelves at the half moon.

  There was still time.

  She could still do a few passes through the neighborhood on her rounds.

  Her rounds.

  Ever since her family had been attacked, she would walk or drive through those neighborhoods occupied by people unfortunate enough to care about her. They were at risk. Loving her put them in danger, but as long as any demons knew she would come through every night, the assholes would be less likely to attack.

  Less likely was as good as it got right now.

  Blowing on the blood ink, Denny carefully placed the needle and inkwell into a Ziplock baggie and set it by the door.

  When she sat back down, she lightly touched her mother’s ragged and stained brown leather journal. Her mother had been the last Silver to carry the Hanta Raya inside her…the previous owner of the Silver Legacy. Every time Denny touched the journal, she seemed to feel her mother’s energy, her zest not only for life but for the death of those demons she had killed in her tenure as Demon Hunter.

  Denny started to open it when she saw the barest hint of writing on the page opposite where she had just written. Pulling the thick journal with its embossed vellum pages up to her, Denny waited for someone else’s blood ink to slowly become legible.

  “Busy, busy,” Denny murmured when the name appeared at the bottom of the ledger.

  Peyton.

  “Damn you, Peyton. That’s three for you this week.” Denny read the entry from a hunter who simply went by Peyton. He had beautiful handwriting, and Denny suspected it was possibly from a Catholic school upbringing. Given the many parishes in Louisiana, it was a safe bet this hunter had gone to one.

  As she read, she took notes. “Mid-level who did not die upon decapitation? Interesting. This guy’s doing a lot of good killing. Cutting off heads and burning the bodies is too fucking labor-intensive.” She re-read the entry. “Peyton’s using a non-embellished Katana, eh?” Denny rose and traced her fingers along the many cracked spines of a few choice books in her library. She pulled out a thin, relatively new book simply titled, Weapons.

  Denny didn’t quite know why she cared what weapon this Peyton used. Curiosity, maybe. Maybe it just felt good to be connected to somebody. Anybody who could understand what it meant to be a legacy hunter. Maybe she just needed a connection…any connection.

  After Rush left and Denny dropped out of college, she disconnected with everyone she knew. Everyone. Vincent had even stopped by, but Denny didn’t answer the door. So maybe that’s all this was…a connection with another living being who knew how she felt.

  Flipping through the book, she came upon a Katana, the sword of the Samurai warriors of Japan. Skimming the reading, she discovered a block painting by an artist by the name of Sharaku entitled, Samurai and Two Demons. In the painting, the Samurai was after them. The paragraph below it explained that there were only six of these Teymum Tolken, or demon swords, created by the famous sword maker Fujiwara Kanenaga around 1650.

  “Interesting. Apparently, he was commissioned by the emperor’s wife to create six Katana rumored to have been called demon swords because they often appeared to act of their own free will.” Denny thought about her own weapons and how, at times, they felt alive in her hands. “Only two of these swords are still known to exist. One is in West Point, and is the Katana of a World War II criminal named General Tomoyuki Yamashita, nicknamed the Tiger of Malaysia.”

  Denny paused there.

  The Hanta Raya originated in Malaysia. So had her demon. “This can not be a coincidence.”

  As she read on, she discovered the second sword was in a private collection in...New Orleans.

  “Well, well, well. I’ll be damned. Looks like little Peyton is sporting a stolen, big ticket demon-slashing sword. Good for him. Now I understand how he has so many kills.”

  As she returned the book to its place, she pulled out her phone to record what she’d found out. Her little green phone icon said she had fourteen calls. None of them answered. Three were voice messages she’d get to later; the rest she ignored.

  “I hate to admit that I sorta admire a guy like Peyton,” Denny said aloud. A large part of her hoped Rush was still there, still listening. “A go-getter. It will be interesting watching his kills now that I know what he’s using.”

  Resuming her seat in the leather desk chair that creaked every time she moved in it, Denny pulled her mother’s six-inch thick journal to her and opened it. She had stopped reading it three weeks ago because it hurt too much. It made her miss her mother that much more.

  Denny wasn’t at all sure that the living death her mother was experiencing in a catatonic state, was preferable to true death, but she was seriously beginning to believe the Hanta had been right when he’d growled that there were worse things than dying.

  Catatonia was one of those worse fates.

  To be there and not really be there made her mother as much a ghost as Rush. Only deader. At least when Rush had been around, she knew it. She could feel it. She could converse with her and laugh with her and share her day.

  Her mother, not so much.

  “The living dead” was how Pure, her little sister, referred to their mother. She wasn’t completely wrong, either.

  Gently opening the weathered journal, Denny skimmed ahead until she came to the entry where her mother, Gwen, first encountered the demon Denny suspected of running them off the road, killing her father, destroying her mother’s life, and leaving four children to raise themselves.

  As hard as it was to read her mother’s polished penmanship, Denny inhaled and took the plunge.

  It was time.

  ****

  Gwen’s Journal

  I felt watched this afternoon in the park. I know that feeling well and it wasn’t a pair of human eyes doing the watching. This, I am sure about.

  Golden, Quick, and Sterling were playing on the jungle gym when I felt it. I looked over at Sterling and I think she felt it, too, because she pulled her baby sister to her like she was afraid someone
might snatch her.

  I have no such fears.

  My Hanta Raya seems overly protective—like a pit bull or a Doberman. It rears its head any time it feels danger near my kids. I fear for anyone messing with my children.

  But this was different. Someone was actually hunting me.

  Me!

  Can you imagine? I finally found peace and quiet here in Chicago and now this? I was foolish to think it would ever really end. Perhaps the best thing we can do for ourselves is leave. Pick up stakes and move out of the danger zone. It’s possible now that Robert’s resume has gotten some bites. Robert has three different universities courting him, but he won’t tell me which ones. Says he doesn’t want to “jinx it.” How cute is that man? His wife slays metaphorical dragons and he’s crossing his fingers to keep evil away? You have to love him.

  With any luck, we will find some place demon-free—safe. Or at least safer than Chicago. I just want someplace to call home.

  Denny closed the journal and shook her head. “No such luck, eh, Mom? To land in the most haunted city in the United States? You must have been so bummed.” Pushing the journal away like a meal she was sending back, Denny rubbed her tired eyes and stretched.

  Gathering her things, she closed up shop, took a quick shower, and headed, as she had done every night for the last three weeks, to the sturdy recliner in the corner of the family room. Setting her two cylinders on her lap, she turned out all the lights and waited in almost complete darkness.

  Pulling out her phone, she listened to only one of the voicemails left for her.

  “Golden Silver, it’s Brianna once more. I don’t know what the hell is going on with you but dropping out of school and out of sight is not cool. It’s not cool at all. Call me. Please. Just let me know you’re okay. Leave a message if you want, but let me know you’re not dead somewhere. Let me know you’re okay.”