Awaken (Divine Hunter Series) (27 page)

She lost it.

Tears began to stream, dampening Michael’s sweater. He must have heard her hitched breaths because he tightened his hold on her, kissing the top of her head. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that in each other’s arms, but when Michael eased her back so he could look at her she knew it hadn’t been long enough.

He wiped at her tears with the tips of his
fingers, then tilted her chin, covering her mouth with his in a lingering kiss. “I have to go,” he said in a husky voice, while resting his forehead against hers. He closed his eyes and let out a slow ragged breath.

When he moved to leave
her, she managed to speak, “Michael−” but her words were cut short when he placed his hand over her lips and shook his head. “Don’t. . . ”

Another tear escaped and ran down her cheek and she swallowed hard. Aside from burying her sister, saying goodbye to him truly was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do in her life.

“I’ll see you soon, okay?” His eyebrows raised a little and he looked at Lacy with reassurance.

“Promise?”

Michael placed his hand on her cheek. “I promise.” He gently kissed her forehead, turned and left.

Lacy stayed in the exact same spot for what could have been a few minutes, a few hours, she didn’t care. The man who she feared she was falling in love with had just said goodbye to her for what could be the very last time. She w
as numb, devoid of all feeling.

When she finally managed to move her
legs, she grabbed the phone, called work and told them she had a severe stomach bug−no way she could face it today−and snuggled on the couch with a blanket with the intention of watching trash TV in the hope it would take her mind off things. It didn’t. Instead she just sat and stared.

Lacy had no idea how long she’d been transfixed on the TV screen. The show that was on when she’d first sat down had finished and Extreme Makeover had taken its place. She hadn’t even noticed that the sound was down until now. She wanted to get up from her zombie-like state and at least take a
shower, but she had no chance of willing her body to move. This was worse than she’d anticipated. When she’d imagined Michael leaving and the state she’d be in, it hadn’t been this bad.

She groaned and pulled the blanket right up to her chin suddenly feeling the air turn chilly. Oh well, at least she’d have no choice but to move soon when she’d have to turn the thermostat up on the heating. The temperature must have dropped outside.

She pushed the blanket off and was just about to get up from the sofa when a sudden humming sensation began to sound from over by the door to the hallway. She paused to listen. It grew louder and then, in the exact spot that her eyes were fixed, a swirling gray mist formed from nowhere. Before she could do anything other than freeze with fear, a familiar figure appeared and the gray mist dissipated as quickly as it had formed to reveal a tall, dark-haired woman, dressed in navy blue tight jeans and a black figure hugging turtle neck top under a tan knee length coat, with a very troubled look on her face.

“Alethia?” Lacy gasped as she rushed over to her, taking her arm and walking her to the sofa. “What’s wrong?”

Alethia blinked and shook her head as if to re-load her batteries. “Where are they?” She grabbed hold of Lacy’s arms, her desperation, causing Lacy’s heart to race with concern. “Evo and Michael, where are they?”

“They left about an hour ago
, I think. Alethia, Evo is performing a ritual that will let them enter Hell. I’m so s−”

“Where? Where are they performing the ritual?” Her unusual caramel colored eyes were wide, staring right into Lacy’s.

“They were going to Michael’s apartment at the university.”

“We have to stop them.”

Lacy instantly felt nauseous. The fact that Alethia’s usual calm had abandoned her was a huge cause for concern. “Why. . . Alethia, what’s wrong?”

“The ring. . .
Shit
. He can’t use it. There will be terrible consequences if either one of them try.”

“What? The ring that you gave to Evo? What consequences?”

“I didn’t give it to him. He took it from me.”

“What consequences, Alethia?” Now Lacy was the one who was frantic.

The deity’s shoulders slumped as she began to explain, talking so fast Lacy could only just understand her. “It was created by my father and only he can decide who can use it. It was designed in such a way that if it happened to fall into the wrong hands it would—” She paused mid sentence.

“What? Alethia, tell me please.”

“If Michael or Evo use that ring. . . instead of trapping the demon they are wielding it on, it will reverse the process.”

“Annnd?” That didn’t sound good.

“By trapping the person who uses it instead.”

Lacy’s breath left her lungs in a rush and she suddenly felt quite dizzy. “Oh. My. God! We have to stop them.” She rushed to get into her coat and scarf, shoved her warm camel skin boots on her feet and grabbed her car keys.

As she headed for the front door, she was stopped in mid-stride as Alethia grabbed her arm. “There’s no time for that. We’ll have to go my way.” She took hold of Lacy’s upper arms, wrapping her hands around her tightly. “Hold onto my arms. And your stomach.”

“My stomach, why?” Lacy asked as she placed her hands tentatively on
Alethia’s arms in the same way.

“Because you’re probably about to lose it. Humans don’t usually cope well with this. Now hold tight.”

Before she could respond, Lacy was being swept into a swirling black mist, suddenly losing all sense of where she was. The disorientating rush of dizziness that consumed her in the next moment was sickening. No wonder Alethia said to hold on to her stomach. She honestly felt like she was about to throw up her whole insides not just her stomach. The feeling was much worse than last time. Probably because last time she’d been so preoccupied with everything that had gone on she hadn’t noticed. Just as she felt she was about to pass out, the swirling began to slow and the darkness that surrounded her a moment ago began to fade. Alethia came into view and Lacy realized she was still gripping onto her arms for dear life. White and blue painted walls began to appear either side of them and when the last bit of gray haze had disappeared, she recognized where they were: standing in the corridor outside Michael’s front door.

Alethia helped her regain her balance. “Fe
eling okay?” she asked, still holding on as if to make sure Lacy was okay.

Lacy waited a moment before answering. “Yeah. Actually, I feel fine.”

Alethia shrugged her shoulders. “You’re stronger than you look.” She smiled slightly, but then it quickly disappeared and she turned to face the apartment door. “I couldn’t get us inside. He must have spelled it with something.”

Lacy didn’t care and rapped her knuckles on the door. “Michael! Michael, are you in there?” No answer. She knocked again, harder this time; still no answer. “Oh, no! They must have done the ritual already.”

Alethia grabbed Lacy’s shoulder and pulled her back from the door. “Allow me.” She crossed her arms over each other in front of her chest and bowed her head, eyes closed. After a couple of seconds Michael’s door flew open.

Shit!
She was good to have around in situations like this.

They both walked into the living room where a pile of unusual looking items
was scattered around the coffee table, including what looked like a bowl with blood in it and another with what appeared to be burnt ashes. Lacy went cold. She wasn’t usually one for cursing, but with a trembling voice she said, “Alethia, what the fuck are we going to do?”

I
t wasn’t the blood soaked walls of the many caves, nor was it the horrific, blood curdling screams in the distance that made Michael’s skin crawl as he remembered his torturous time in the pit. No, it was the stomach churning stench of burning flesh that was at the forefront of his memories. The familiarity of that alone was why he felt as uncomfortable as he did at that moment. Both men made their way down a long tunnel cut through a large rock formation that they’d suddenly appeared in front of after completing the ritual−which was downright weird by the way.

It hadn
’t been as bad for Michael, but how Evo had managed to endure the pain−which he could only imagine−of slicing his own flesh and then stuffing his wound full of the pasty blood and ash mixture, all the while chanting strange sounding words, was unimaginable. It was only when he cauterized the sliced flesh back together with that strange looking wand that his buddy screamed like a bitch.

Couldn
’t blame the guy though.

“
Man, this is some freaky shit,” Evo said as he walked a few steps ahead with a burning torch that he’d grabbed at the entrance of the tunnel. He was passing it over the seeping walls inspecting every inch of them with the light from the flame. “I don’t even want to know what that shit is.” His nose curled up at the sight of some black ooze that was about to drip down from above him. He moved his body out of the way just in time.

Michael hadn’t known what to expect before they’d arrived. His memories of his time in Hell were very
limited, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t been given a grand tour of the place. No, instead he’d been locked away somewhere and forced to endure things that even the devil himself would have squirmed at.

He stayed behind his friend, eyes scanning the shadows, as they continued deeper into the tunnel. Evo had his not-so-demon friendly knife in his right
hand, ready to stick it into anything that came near, while Michael had stuck to the regular type, but he’d opted for one in each hand.

It was too damn quiet.

The distant screams had quietened down the further into the cave they’d gotten, and apart from dripping sounds and the occasional curse from Evo, there was deadly silence. Michael didn’t like it at all. Neither one of them had a clue how to find Lucifer, or what dangers they were heading for, but Michael was prepared for anything and had a feeling that the evil bastard, if he didn’t already, would know he was here soon enough.

The silence was unnerving.

After Michael and Evo argued the toss about which way they should go when they reached an intersection of tunnels−straight on, right or left−they ended up taking a right and it wasn’t long until they found a small archway in the rock. As they cautiously entered what looked like a dark cavern, bizarrely, and in the blink of an eye, they found themselves in a room that was almost. . . normal. Aside from the fact that the walls were nearly black with dirt, as well as the worn floorboards and the remains of old furniture, the room looked familiar.

“The Fuck?” Michael heard Evo say as they both stood in the middle of the room. It was like they’d just stepped through a portal that had led them s
traight out of the pit and. . .

Wait. Michael had been here before. As he looked closer he
realized why the interior looked so dirty: it was the remnants of a fire and now he could even smell it, the harsh scent of the charred surroundings began to sting the back of his nose and throat. But where was this place?

As he walked out of the door that had now replaced the archway they’d both just come through he gasped, awash with confusion at the fact that he hadn’t returned back to the cave. Instead, he was in a hallway that was much more o
f the same: blackened walls with burnt out pictures hanging up on them. A strange pull was leading him down towards three doors at the end: two on the left and one on the right. It was the one on the right that he went to.

“Hey, Mike. Wait up,” he heard his buddy call out as he placed his hand on the door handle. Dread hummed through every inch of Michael’s
body, yet he didn’t know why. All he knew was that something terrible waited for him on the other side of that door.

“Uh.
I’m not so sure that’s a good−”

He didn’t wait for Evo to finish. He turned the handle and opened the
door, but as he did, the realization of where he was, nearly had him face planting on the ground. He grabbed hold of the door jamb for a second before catching his breath. Then he noticed something on top of the burnt bed over the other end of the room. In the next second he heard a pained roar rip through the room and soon realized it was coming from his own lungs.

“NO!” he screamed as he ran towards the bed where the charred remains of a female form lay upon the blackened mattress. He grabbed the body and cradled
it knowing exactly who it was.

“Michael. No! Don’t touch it.”

It was Lacy’s house they were in. That’s why it was so familiar. Only it wasn’t the same neatly decorated place he was comfortable in−the place he’d had a hard job leaving before he’d done the ritual−no, there wasn’t a thing that hadn’t been destroyed by fire, including. . . NO! Not while she’d slept.

“Lacy. Please, God. No. . . NO!” he heard himself say as he rocked back and forth with her burnt body in his arms.

She was dead. Lacy was dead.

Her precious, soft, alabaster sk
in was now black and blistered.

He felt something trying to pull him away from her, strong
arms, trying to pry his own from her body.

“Michael, you have to let go of her. It’s not real. . . None of this is real.”

He heard his friend’s words, but couldn’t process them; didn’t matter. He didn’t care. All he knew in that moment was heartache. His Lacy had died in such a horrific way and he hadn’t been there to save her.
Oh, no. NO!
Why didn’t I just stay with her? I could have saved her
. A distant voice pulled him from his inner torment and he realized he was crying. Shit. Why her?

“Michael. . .
Michael
. Listen to me. Hey.” He managed to lift his eyes to his friend who was now leaning over Lacy’s body and had gotten right up in his face. “This is
not
real,” Evo said again. Michael just stared into his hazel eyes, which were now frantically piercing his own. “You have to let go of her. Now!”

When Michael looked back down at Lacy he tried to will what little strength he had to believe what his friend was saying. But she
was
real. He held her tightly to him. She felt as real as. . .

He couldn’t fathom what happened next.

Lacy’s head slowly turned towards him. Her eyes suddenly opened wide, shocking the hell out of him as she looked directly at him. “Fuck!” he yelled as he threw her body away from him and jumped up from the bed.

H
e heard Evo’s gasp.

Completely dumbfounded at what he was witnessing, Michael began to back away at the same time that the charred body rose up onto its knees and began to crawl towards the end of the bed. She reached out one arm to him. “Michael. Help me!” she rasped.

Evo was right. This wasn’t Lacy. He continued to walk backwards; joining his friend−whose mouth was now hanging wide open−over the other side of the room.

She slowly climbed down from the bed and straightened, bright white eyes−a stark contrast to her blackened skin−bore into his as she walked towards them.

“Jesus. Fucking. Christ.” Evo said in a shaky voice beside him. “We have to get out of here.”

They both turned towards the
door, but as Michael grabbed for the handle he was grabbed by his arm. He turned his head to see the corpse had latched onto him and was trying to drag him backwards. It was working too. He tried to prize her away, but she was strong and continued to pull. Her grip got harder and she managed to tug his body back a few feet. Just as he thought his flesh would be pulled from his arm, Evo swung something at her head, connecting with it and nearly knocking it clean off her shoulders. The body lost its grip on Michael and slumped to the floor.

“Weird, crispy bitch!” Evo growled as he threw the now broken lamp base to the floor. “Let’s go.”

This time they both made it out of the door and as Michael began to pull it closed, he paused and looked back catching sight of the body trying to drag itself across the floor towards the exit. He slammed it shut and they both leaned against the wall across from each other gasping for breath. Michael looked at Evo whose look of disbelief must have mirrored his own. “What the. . . ” he swallowed hard, “what the fuck just happened?”

It took a minute for Evo to reply as he crouched over, both hands on the tops of his thighs, fighting for breath. “It’s this place fucking with us.”

“Yeah? No shit.”

“I’ve got a feeling that won’t be the only tim
e something like that happens.”

As Michael tried to shift the disturbing vision of what he’d first thought was Lacy from his mind, something began to happen. Their surroundings switched from the dingy burnt out hallway to the seeping walls of the cave that they’d been in prior to their altercation. Evo leapt up from his lean against the wall. A
quick shiver ran through him as he looked back over his shoulder with disgust at what had returned. “Let’s go,” was all he said, brushing both of his shoulders as he walked off towards the darkness.

* * *

O
ne thing Michael realized was that in Hell there was no sense of time. He had no idea how long it had taken him and Evo to get from the tedious caverns of the mountain to where they were now, but what he did know was the fire he could see lighting up the crimson sky ahead couldn’t mean anything good. The mountain was now long behind them and thankfully so was that awful nightmare they’d found themselves in. They were out in the open now, walking through a clearing that was surrounded by tall blackened trees, the dark woodland seemingly out of place amongst the crimson landscape. Every so often Michael would notice, through his peripheral, things moving through the underbrush.

He knew they were getting closer to danger as the demonic cries that filled the air began to sting his ears once again as they increased in volume. He felt a profound disquiet wash over him as he began to imagine the cause of those screams, knowing that at one time his voice would have carried through the air in extreme agony just as those were now. He pushed it aside, refusing to let the memories from that time overcome him, locking them away deep into his subconscious just like he always did.

He couldn’t afford any distractions at a time like this. No matter how tough his recollections were, nor how vivid those memories became, he had to stay focused for both of their sakes.

A deep, ear-splitting howl pulled him back from his thoughts and he immediately saw Evo’s body stiffen; the big guy’s sudden change in stance said
he was on high alert as he too must have sensed that something was about to happen.

Michael could feel the ground begin to vibrate and his eyes darted around trying to get a visual on whatever it was that was about to attack them.
Shit!
The noise was coming from all around them: one minute to their left, the next in front, then from behind. Whatever it was was moving fast, toying with them, and all the while keeping out of view.

Suddenly a dark, formless shape rushed by Michael causing him to duck down low. He saw Evo do the same as another flew by him, but he wasn’t quick enough. “Shit!” Evo exclaimed as his hand went to a fresh wound on his cheek. It didn’t look like it had sliced him but. . .
was that a burn? “What the f−”

Michael noticed more heading straight towards them. As soon as one of the black demons got close, on instinct Evo sliced at it with his knife. The demon squealed and sparks flew off it as soon as the blade connected. Evo raised his eyebrows at Michael, clearly surprised by the fact that he’d wounded it, all be it temporary. But temporary was better than nothing right now. Then Michael remembered the ring. Alethia’s ring was supposed to capture demons somehow. He felt a small whisper of hope at the thought of maybe getting out of this situation.

“Evo, the ring.”

His friend threw a smirk his way after Michael had reminded him that he probably held the key to ending the onslaught, but when Evo looked back at Michael
, his face had paled and he had an odd expression. “Evo. What’s the delay? Use the ring.”

“That might be a little difficult,” he shot back just before ducking out of the way of a demon.

“What are you talking about?”

He raised his hand to Michael and wiggled his pinky finger. “I don’t have it.” As it didn’t resize like it had for Alethia, the only finger that had been small enough to wear it was empty.

The ring was gone.

Shit
! Not only were they screwed right now, but even if they did somehow manage to survive the attack, he wasn’t sure Evo would survive Alethia when she found out he’d lost the damn thing.