Kasadya (Hellhound Awakened) (29 page)

“Yes, I agree. Thank you for taking that chance with me,” he responded, releasing my arm. Damn he just blew out my flame.

“You were different, what they are doing is wrong.”

“I know, but see their point in this. Every day she grows older and Amon doesn’t; now they may have a way to delay it, or maybe even cancel out the whole thing.”

“At what cost?” I asked him, unable to take my eyes from him. For the first time I saw a man, not a soldier.

He smiled. “We’ll take it one step at a time,” he answered, still looking at me.

Because some steps are worth taking, damn I hate my life
.
“Okay, we will see where this goes,” I replied, and turned around to walk out.

“Kasadya, I won’t forget what you did for me today,” he promised from behind me. I just nodded and walked out of the command room to find Kali and tell her she was right, I’m in huge freaking trouble.

I was about to hit the corner when a woman’s scream echoed down the hallway, not just any woman, it was Melissa. Following the sound I ran super-fast to see what’s up; I reached a door and just put my hand on it to open when she screamed again. I flung it open and walked in. She was on the bed, having the same effect Max had and Amon was trying to help her.

“Yeah, not pretty is it?” I threw at him. He looked up and then I saw his tears, damn. I went to stand on the other side to help hold her down
.

“How long did it last?” Amon asked me, tears running down his face. He must really love her
.

“A few minutes, then Max went into dead mode,” I replied, looking at Melissa. Her eyes were huge from the pain, but it’s too late now.

We held her down and her screaming started to quiet down, then just like Max she went into dead mode; no breathing, nothing. This time I stayed put, needing to see this. Minutes went by and I was starting to go into panic. Amon was restless as well, he kept feeling her face and stuff. Losing hope, I decided to get up and kill Amon. The moment I was on my feet, she flew up into a sitting position, taking in a deep breath and scaring the daylights out of me. I jumped away from the bed in shock, and bumped into a hard chest; without caring who it was, I stayed put watching her.

Oh man, that is just freaky. She looked around and the moment she saw Amon grabbed him. “Never do that to me again,” she blurted out, hugging him. He was kissing her head and anything he could get his mouth on.

“Never,” he agreed, a tear falling down his cheek. Okay I can do the slicing, fighting, and even headless stuff, but this was too much for me. I walked out of the room to go stand in the hallway, bracing my hands on the wall and taking in deep breaths.

“I can see now why you thought I didn’t make it,” Max said from my left. I looked up to find him standing there looking at me. Oh, he was the chest, damn.

“Yes, you have to admit that was beyond scary not to mention freaky,” I replied, straightening up to look at him.

He smiled. “I’m glad I was the first one to scare you,” he teased, and walked back into the room. Shaking my head at his joking in a time like this, I went to knock on the door
.

“Guys, are you okay?” I asked, concerned for Melissa.

“Yes, you can come in,” Melissa said, so I walked in to find her standing and looking at herself. “I don’t feel different,” she told us, looking back up at Amon then Max.

“Yes, I don’t feel a difference either,” Max pitched in, and then all of them looked at me.

I held up my hands in surrender. “Don’t ask me, never tried it before,” I threw back to get them off me; they looked at each other.

“So what are we then?” Melissa asked, looking at everyone
.

“It’s difficult to tell, in all my years I’ve never heard of something like this ever being done. We need to test the limits of this,” Amon said looking at Max, who nodded.

“I agree. We can do it with me. That way Melissa will not be harmed in the process,” he replied and walked out of the room, sparing me a smile. I looked at him confused and then returned my eyes to Amon again.

“What the hell is he smiling about?” I asked him. Amon smiled.

“He’s going to play test dummy and test his new found body,” he answered, and then I heard my name being called in the hallway.

“Kasadya, I can use some help!” Max yelled, and fury pounded through me.

“I’m going to kick your butts for this,” I said to Amon and walked out of the room, only to find Max walking a few meters in front of me. Keeping back I kept my eyes on him. We walked past the command room, and I gestured for Kali to fall in. She quickly caught up and walked next to me
.

“What now?” she asked.

“Amon did the same with Melissa, and now Mad Max wants to test his new found life,” I replied, pointing to Max.

“Kas, you really need to think before you do something. You are creating world scale disasters,” Kali threw back at me, but man was she right.

“Agreed, no more brain waves from me,” I said, and looked at her to find her smiling at me. Yeah I’m an idiot, I know.

Max led us all the way to the court and walked to stand in the middle of the court, looking at us. I stopped and folded my arms across my chest looking at him. We stood there for a while until Max rolled his eyes
.
“Kasadya, I need some help,” he pleaded. Oh I’ll help him, back into near death. I just stood there ignoring him
.

“Kas, just get it over with,” Kali said next to me. I shook my head and walked up to him, a smile waiting to greet me.

I stopped in front of him and looked at him, trying to figure out how to test him
.
“So any ideas?” he asked me
.

“When I came to
Exsilium
my
Custos
took me to a spirit fae, to get a spark. Before that I was normal, but afterwards all hell broke loose,” I told him, trying to find a solution.

“Then you’re lucky to have a spirit fae around for this,” Amon said from behind me, so I turned to look at him; of course. He released Melissa and walked over to Max, holding out his hands. Max looked at them and then locked his hands onto his arms. Amon closed his eyes and concentrated. I looked back at Max to see what was happening. I saw the moment he felt the magic, he made a frown, and looked at me
.

“Brace yourself cowboy, this is going to be rough,” I threw back at him grinning; payback can be so nice. His eyes grew wide and Amon released him and stepped back. Just like with a fallen Max started to transform, but it took longer than with a fallen, and it looked painful. But a few minutes later, and I’m sure a few screams held back from him, a half hellhound and half Max was standing there looking at us. Unlike me, he still had his human flesh and eyes. The only things giving away that he’s not human is the big black bat like wings on his back, two horns on his forehead, and of course he was way taller than usual. Yip, I’m freaking Frankenstein!

He looked at himself, and the moment his wings opened up he tried to turn to look at them; which was impossible. I could look at mine, but it was because they were way bigger than his. He looked back to us. “So what am I?” he asked. I looked at Amon, waiting for a reply but he just stood there, his jaw open. Great, the freaking fae was stunned. I looked back to Max.

“I believe you’re a half-breed hellhound,” I answered. He made the frown again
.
“Look, I was born from a fallen pair, so I’m a purebred fallen. You came from two humans. So by taking my blood only a few fallen elements were brought into you, thus ending up in what can only be called a half-breed,” I finished, shaking my head at watching too many stupid movies to come up with that explanation.

“Holy hell,” Kali said from next to me, so I turned to look at her. “Kas, if the fallen sees this I believe you’re dead,” she went on. I took it in gracefully.

“I’m dead anyway,” I replied, and she looked away from Max to me, sorry written all over her face. What the hell, might as well enjoy the ride until it’s over. So I shook off the dead ring and looked back at Max. “Let’s see what you can do,” I said, transforming to fallen and walking to take a sparring stand against him.

He looked at me, waiting for me to say something
.
“Okay, your wings are your greatest weakness, but with the right training it can also be your best asset,” I said, snapping out my wings for him to see how I use them. I have mastered the art of moving one without the other, which really helps if you need to knock a demon or two away from you.

So Max and I started training all over again. I became a
Custos
and taught him everything I knew. It took a few weeks, but slowly he started to transform into a fallen. Just like with me, his wings grew bigger and stronger with each training session. Kali took over the training with the human guys, to make sure they are not killed. We were able to convince Amon not to create more half-breeds and he agreed to only use it as the last option. Up until now, we only had four half-breeds; two hellhounds and two fae. Kali refused to give blood, and I didn’t push her any further. So it was between me and Amon to train the half breeds. We discovered later that the fae also just needed a spark, and there you go, magic half breeds.

Unlike the other fae, only their hair changed color the rest stayed in human form, which was creepy. We all trained hard, and made sure they all lived up to their fallen bodies. I must admit I had some sympathy for Chax after the third day of being a
Custos
. Man, I wanted to kill Max a few times. But alas we’re still going. Even Melissa joined in on the fun, but we all agreed she wouldn’t go out hunting; she accepted and just trained herself at the compound.

Kali and I got to know the humans and half breeds a lot better. Kali’s even dating Ryan, absurd I know, but I’m not complaining. After all we went through she deserves some fun. The first time the demons saw Max, they all stood there shocked, so we quickly did some real damage before their brains could kick back into action, from there we stormed club, after club, after club.

But we never saw another fallen again. We did however find a few clubs that were already shut down, no demons in sight. What was strange was that our informant reports that the club was in working order the day before; I could only hope that it was them. I still punish myself by trying to shift into
Exsilium
, still nothing.

“Okay, tonight we hit Los Angeles. So let’s get this started,” Amon instructed, sliding in his swords. Shifting also got a whole lot easier. Just like Chax showed me, I trained them all. Found a nice cave in Brazil that also helped. I must confess that it took a longtime, but we got them shifting and boy did I have fun with Max in the cave. Chax would have been so proud.

The human’s locked-in with us, ready to shift, Max looked at me and smiled. I returned the smile. During all this training and stuff we became good friends. Kali confessed that he’s my insane spotter. The moment my yellow eyes go red, he was chosen to step in and take me down or something. So far I still had yellow eyes and was sane, let’s hope it lasts.

So we shifted to a new club we got info on in Los Angeles, landing in the alley next to it
.
“Okay Kas, Kali, go check out the club and report back,” Amon told us. So Kali and I got our girl power out and walked over to the club. We don’t flirt anymore, now we just use our feminine side to get in check out the place and report back. Then we all shift in, using Kali and I as the locators, landing in the spots we had picked out.

We got in like always and checked out the vibe, yip about fifty demons and a lot of humans. I looked around and stopped dead in my shoes. There, sitting on a couch, was Mr. Ballen and his crew. I looked around and found Kali staring at them, the look on her face said he was so dead. Luckily she looked for me and when we made eye contact, told each other without words to report back, so we shifted out to the others and laid out the plan.

Chapter 22

“The demon with blonde hair, sitting on a couch, is mine,” Kali growled out. Ryan looked at me in question. I just shook my head to tell him to butt out; this was personal.

“Agreed, now lock and let’s get this over with,” Amon said, so they all locked-in with me or Kali, who had a wicked grin on her face. She was waiting for this for a longtime; I just hope the ass doesn’t shift out before she gets him.

We shifted in and as we all trained, started the attack immediately. With Kali going for the kill, Max and I suited up as partners. Between him and me, we were making a killing. Yeah, I’ve got a sick mind. I enjoyed this part of my life, not the killing, but the team work. I may have lost my family and friends, but I got one hell of a weird bunch of new friends in return. The humans were also very good. Kali’s training has given them such an edge that we don’t have accidents anymore. And a few have been complaining because they wanted to become half-breeds, but too bad.

Max sliced a demon’s head off to my left, and I took out the one coming in from behind him. Yeah, we were on a roll. Every time I had a second to spare, I tried to find Kali to see how her mission was going, but it was chaos as usual. Well she had a lot of training, no worries.

We went at it, and unlike the other times, demons were shifting in rather than shifting out. No complaining, more fun for us. After a long while of fighting and killing, I felt a strange move in the air. It felt like a shift, but it was like the whole club’s air was being sucked out. I looked at Max and saw the same concern in his eyes, then looked around to see what’s up while Max continued slicing any demons coming near me.

This was a huge freaking shift; I could feel the hair on my body standing up. Oh hell, what now? Preparing myself, I yelled at my team, “Regroup Now!” They all started to move back to us, creating a huge group of fighters
.

“Do you feel that?” Amon asked me, taking a head
.

“Yip, do you know what it is?” I asked in return
.