Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

“Whatever you are, be a good one.” �" Abraham Lincoln

Ace

Accursius wasn’t too thrilled about the news I shared with him.  He was hoping that nothing would get in the way of this plan, although he didn’t throw that possibility completely out of mind.  Things were supposed to go his way, and he didn’t like it when things happened without his knowledge.  It makes him nervous when that happens.  We actually wound up discussing it for quite a while; I think it was for a couple hours.  However, he didn’t really want to think about it too much, because he quickly changed the subject once we discussed how I could handle it.  He could smell the Holy water in my system.  It was something he seemed to have found pretty humorous as well.  The only reason for that is because he knows I’m strong enough to the point where ingesting Holy water won’t hurt me, and I guess I found it a little funny as well.  The only thing that wasn’t funny about it to me was that it made my last bottle of beer taste like s**t.

The ambush of slayers tonight hardly surprised me.  I could smell them with complete clarity when they were standing across the street, planning.  I guess I should’ve done something to warn the idiots that were partying here, but I didn’t.  Something told me to just wait and watch how the situation played out.  And that’s exactly what I’m doing; just watching.  Favorably, none of the other demons would smell me, and none of the slayers would see me.

I was standing up on the balcony of the next floor, hiding in the shadows.  I was in my demon form in a long black cloak, that wasn’t even made out of a real fabric; just a material from Hell…it kind of reminded me of a smoky substance.  The hood always remained up, even if I wanted it down, giving me a Grim Reaper look, even though I’m not anything like that.  No matter how much someone tried to see my face, the hood kept a permanent shadow casting over me.  Emerging from my back, were two large wings that curved downward, remaining close to my body and resembled pure leather.  My hands were covered by the sleeves, rolling them up quite a bit would be the only way to see them, and my feet constantly remained under the end of the cloak, no matter how much I tried to get them into view.

I only used this form when I was doing surveillance or just felt like hanging out without getting caught.  It wasn’t the form I preferred, but it worked; I’d always rather be in my human form.  That’s why it’s always the form I arrive in Hell in, even though I know I shouldn’t be there in it.  If I were to go down in this form, everyone down there would know that I mean business, and I have no reason for them to think that.

Next to me sat my dog.  Okay…a Hellhound of mine, but in a way, it’s kind of my dog.  It doesn’t look anything like the two I called up on the two slayers that were out in the back alley, or even the ones that will be found around the castle in Hell.  This one looked more like an actual dog.  It’s kind of tall with silky black fur; the fur on its ears stringy looking.  The body was extremely skinny; almost skin and bones if it decides to hide a couple of its exposed ribs.  If it were to do that, one would never know it’s a Hellhound…unless they saw that it has six sets of red eyes that start from where the muzzle connects to the rest of the head, all the way up to the forehead.  Like hiding the ribs, it’s able to hide the excess eyes, and change the normal set to brown in order to blend in.  Something it typically wouldn’t do unless I told it too.  Around its neck were three, two inch steel collars with notches on them and a small handle on the middle one; all three of them its original lifeline.  Break just one, it’ll be severely injured; break all three and it’s dead.  A rarer sight in Hell, and when it’s seen, it’d act pretty aggressive.  It’s almost impossible to gain this hound’s loyalty, and once it’s gained, its lifeline changes from its collars, to being tied to its master.  I don’t know how I did it, but I did, and now it won’t die until I do.

It was watching the fight down below with me.

Three demons’ lives ago my little slayer friend had crawled in through a window.  I watched her after her entry.  I watched as she was sideswiped by the first demon as soon as she got in.  She didn’t even flinch as she looked at him once she got on her feet.  Even when he changed, she hardly blinked an eye.  She spent maybe five minutes on the first demon before finishing him off and moving onto the next one.  Within fifteen minutes she had killed three and was on her fourth.  A skilled little slayer she was.  Smart too.  She never completely turned her back to a demon, nor the rest of the group of demons.  Her eyes were always scanning all around her, even as she was attacking the one that was attacking her.  Swift, careful movements went into each of her strikes and complete caution and agility went into her evasions.  Not all of them were successful; I watched as she took a fair amount of hits, and I’m surprised she wasn’t down.  However, even from my distance, I could see that she was breaking out in a sweat already, and so were the other slayers.  Speaking of other slayers…

Her supposed ‘boyfriend’ was fighting relatively close to her, always looking back towards her to make sure she was alright.  A few times he jumped into her fight and got the demon away from her just long enough for her to get back on her feet and take over again.  He climbed in the window after her, having to remove an additional board to slip through the hole that Ronnie was able to slip through so easily.  The way he kept looking at her made annoyance flare in the pit of my stomach.  If she was doing this well so far, there was no need for him to keep looking back at her; she’s probably stronger than him.

There was a crash that sounded like snapping wood.

I pulled my attention from the male slayer and looked around, searching for what I just missed.  My little slayer was out of sight.  However, I did see a female demon stalking towards the window my friend crawled through.  So…she threw her out the window…well I’ll have to be meeting up with Ronnie soon to catch her when she’s sore.  It’d make time interesting to hear her tell me what happened.

The demon was looking out the window now, not getting any luck in finding her prey.  From what I could see, I didn’t even see her on the fire escape anymore.  I sniffed the air and scowled.  There was no scent of dead slayer in the air, which meant that she was still alive.  The scent of her blood was unknown to me, so I couldn’t pick up on it, but I knew she was bleeding.  I saw it on her before.  It was on her arms and on one of her upper legs.  Damn.  It had to be the legs.  Her one asset that took my attention by complete surprise.  To be honest, I was kind of disappointed.  That is, until a pained scream filled the building.  My attention snapped back to the hunting demon and saw that her prey had taken her by surprise.  The little slayer was hiding above the window and had jumped down, stabbing a crucifix between her prey’s eyes without hesitation.  As soon as she got back in, however, she was faced with having to fight a Hellhound that made it inside.  It was the exact same one as the last two I had sent around to the back alley, knowing that she and her partner had gone back there.  Yes, I know: dick move.  But I had to act like I tried to help slow down the ambush, no matter how pathetic the attempt was.  I was watching her fight them outside as well, and she seemed a little nervous at first when she saw their teeth, but she wasn’t scared.  It looked like she was more on the cautious side than anything; like she’d been bitten before.  Maybe I can find out if she has any scars that could possibly be from the hounds.

She got knocked around quite a bit by the hound, but she held her own.  Her movements remained quick and precise as she made every strike count.  It was only a matter of minutes before she managed to kill it, and she had started to slow down from being overworked.  She may have been a young slayer, but she was a good one.  I haven’t seen that young of one fight like she did in a long time.  It made me nervous.  Now I’d have to watch my back even more.  Not that she could kill me on her own, but with the rest of her clan…that’s a different story.  No demon in their right mind would mess with an entire clan of slayers single handedly, no matter how strong they thought they were.  It’s suicide.  Even standing where I was, watching a slayer finish off the last demon, I didn’t feel safe, despite the fact that none of them knew I was present.  My hound was ready to go, letting me know by tugging on my sleeve with her teeth silently.  I took a small step back but stopped when something caught my eye about Ronnie down low.  She was looking up at me with curiosity.  Bowing my head, I turned around and placed my hand on my hound, shimmering the two of us out of sight.

The hound took off as soon as we arrived in Hell, but I didn’t care.  I needed something to pass the time with and decided to go around the place again, hoping that seeing all the Damned and their pain would take my mind off things.  That’s all I needed at the time and if I didn’t get it, I’d probably go do something stupid.  Then I would get a mouthful from everyone else and even the King would question me and my reasons behind everything.  I did not want that.

Deciding to leave Hell, I shimmered myself out and arrived in my apartment, where my phone and the book were sitting on the counter.  My phone was the first thing I grabbed and looking at it, I saw that I had a text from Ronnie from a few hours earlier.  She told me that she had to go and that she’d talk to me later.  That was right before the ambush.  We were actually texting for a little over an hour before she had to leave.  Not even through text was I able to get her to tell me anything interesting about her family or to even get her to slip something that would give away the slightest hint about anything.  I needed to be able to talk to her verbally and preferably face to face; I needed to see her facial expressions.  They’d give away what she won’t, thus making my job quick and easy.  In the mean time…

I grabbed the book and dropped down on my large, black couch, opening the book in the process.  The pages were stiff and slightly wrinkled with age as they took on a faint yellow color.  It was almost as old as I was.  How they managed to keep it in this good of shape for so long was beyond me, but it sure was interesting.  There were pictures of specific slayers, and at first I didn’t understand how they chose who to put in it, but then I noticed that they all had the same tattoo, and each one of them have lost their families’ honor and had regained it just the same.  Below each picture was the slayer’s name, and below the line that said they regained their honor, was how they did it:

Killed their demon.

Then I came across two pages stuck together, and when I pulled them apart, I noticed that the hiding page had a slayer on it with different information.  Even her years of life were different; there was no year of death.  The first part, however, was the same:

Degraded Rank? Yes; Disgrace to family.

Although that was still a slight mystery to me, it wasn’t what was different from the rest of it.  The difference was:

Regained honor? No �" failed to kill her demon.

Their demon?  What the f**k?  How does a slayer have a demon?  That’s impossible.  I’ve been around for a long time and I have never heard of slayer’s having demons.  I have, however, heard of them falling in love with a demon, and vice versa, but never owning one.  Not to mention that there’s a slayer out there that failed to kill ‘their demon’, whatever the f**k that means, and is still a disgrace.  Just the thought of those things made my skin crawl and I felt the need to put the book down for a minute.  I wasn’t going to act on it, but my phone went off and took my attention away from the old book in my hands.

Wht r u doin this weekend?

It was Ronnie.  The corners of my mouth tugged up in the form of a smile before I even read the message, when I saw that it was her that texted me.  Did I have plans this weekend?  No, I didn’t.  I replied to her message, telling her that it depended and asking what she had in mind.  Honestly, I was planning on asking her if she wanted to do something soon, for my job of course, so her coming to me first was a good sign.  She replied back quickly.  Apparently there was a summer fair in town and she was wondering if I wanted to go.

Sure.

I’ve been to just a couple of the things, considering how long I’ve been around, but I only went to hunt.  The rides and games were completely insignificant to me.  A few times there had been fairs that had haunted trail rides, which I often did go on; the darkness of the woods and the sound affects and occasional strobe light flashes were perfect when it came to being discreet and snatching someone for a snack.  Everything else was just pointless, and because of that, I always got bored rather quickly.  But if I were to go with a slayer, maybe that’d make the fair more entertaining.  That may mean I’d have to go on rides and play games, but if it furthered my progress, who really gives a s**t?

Just curious…y did ur sis decide on a black widow spider as a tattoo?

My body tensed up immediately.  I never would’ve thought she’d catch that in the quick time she looked at Zona.  It’s too small and it was too dark for anyone else to see it.  Not to mention even I could barely see it when she was wearing that dress; I just knew it was there.  She’s more observant than I thought.  Hopefully she didn’t notice the small inverted pentagram within the red hourglass on the spider’s body.