Undaunted (3 page)

“And how did you suddenly become something other than a hound?” Addie glared at him with narrowed eyes, and her entire body seemed to vibrate with anger.

Az cleared his throat. “My story is not a pretty one. I originally trained as a gladiator, though I eventually rose to a position within the army as a centurion with a cohort of eighty men. My heart wasn’t in it, though. My true prowess was with fire and food and I became the main chef for a senator in the time of Julius Caesar of Rome, a man called Marcus Junius Brutus. When he and other senators conspired to assassinate Caesar, I learned that Brutus had made a pact with the devil—his eternal soul upon his natural death for victory over Caesar. When it came time to pay up, Brutus reneged on his contract with the devil. Instead, he gave me over to a marquis of hell, a demon named Naburus. Naburus wasn’t particular whose soul he collected, so he took mine. Instead of suffering in hell with the others of the damned, though, he made me a hellhound. My job for all these many years has been to go after the souls of the damned and deliver them to Charon, who would then ferry them into hell.”

He took a sip of his coffee, a strange brew that tasted much different than it smelled, but he decided he could get used to the taste—if only he could somehow manage to stay in this time and place. “I was a good man in life. I worked hard, even after my wife and child died of sickness. I did not deserve service to a demon in hell, but Naburus has held claim to me all these years. When Namaka needed a lure to overthrow her sister, she captured me and put the events with Pele into motion, but she also gave me my first chance of freedom from servitude to my demon master.”

“So what made you decide to change from hellhound to human this morning?”

He raised his head and spoke directly to Addie. “This morning Ukopach showed up, frightened out of his wits. A bad demon has kidnapped the gamekeepers and is holding them hostage. From the description Ukopach gave me, I’m almost positive it’s Naburus. He can only be in Earth’s dimension for one reason—to capture me and return me to hell. If I go after him in my hellhound form, I will have no recourse but to obey. That body is programmed to do as Naburus says. I’m hoping that by fighting the demon as a human I’ll be able to ignore his demands to obey.”

Addie reached across the table and covered his linked hands with hers. He felt her touch all the way to his balls. Her voice was soft and sort of husky when she said, “That’s the only reason? So you can fight Naburus?”

He nodded. “It is. I swear it.” He turned his hands and clasped hers. “Why the anger? What do you suspect of me?”

“I feel stupid now, but . . .” She glanced away. Az couldn’t believe it, but the dangerous demon hunter was actually blushing all the way to the roots of her black and white hair. But he was the one blushing when she added, “You’re so damned sexy that all I could think was you had shifted to put the make on my boys.” She laughed softly and didn’t meet his gaze. Then she sighed. “We have such a perfect team. I don’t want to lose what we have, the dynamic of the three of us is so perfect. I’m sorry. My first reaction was so childish and nothing more than jealousy. Please accept my apology.”

He glanced at both Jett and Locan, and his body stirred, but it was nothing like the reaction he’d had from touching Addie. She thought he was sexy? Well, that was a start, anyway. He wondered what the guys thought, but then he realized that wasn’t important. What was important could get him killed.

“There’s no need for you to apologize. Honestly, I would love nothing more than to be part of your team,” he said. “But I know that is a position that must be earned. Now I must do what I can to rescue the gamekeepers from Naburus.” He stood and began gathering the empty plates. “For that, I will have to kill the demon.”

Jett stood and walked across the room, where he opened a large armoire against the stone wall. “For that, you’ll need a sword. One designed for killing demons.” He reached inside and hauled out a leather scabbard, slowly withdrawing a sword with a long, broad two-sided blade that glinted almost blue in the bright light of the kitchen. He handed it to Az.

Azrael wrapped his hand around the hilt and grinned. This was a weapon worthy of a centurion. Long and sharp, perfectly balanced, with a leather scabbard that fit like a glove. He buckled the straps at his chest with the scabbard across his back, reached over his shoulder and drew the sword. It slid from the sheath like a knife from warm butter.

“Thank you. I swear to bring honor to this weapon, and the spirits of those who have wielded it before me.”

“I have no doubt,” Locan said.

“Nor I.” Addie grinned at Jett. “Good call, Jett. Leah would be pleased.”

Az frowned. “Leah?”

“The one who turned me,” Addie said. “The fulcrum who came before me. She was a good woman and a strong fighter. And yes, I will admit it’s taken me a while to reach that conclusion.” She focused on her partners with a look so filled with love that Az suddenly felt bereft. To have someone look at him with that kind of love? He would give anything.

He stood tall and sheathed his sword.
Leah’s sword.
She must have been a strong woman to fight with a weapon like this. He gazed at the two men, at the woman, at the small red demon, all of them watching him expectantly. “I’m ready,” he vowed. “I will do my best to make Leah proud.”

Locan stepped up beside him and placed a hand on Azrael’s shoulder. “We’ll do our best, Az,” he said, emphasizing the pronoun. “We’re going with you.” He glanced at Jett and Addie, who appeared to know exactly what he was talking about, and then he focused once again on Az. “It’s as good a chance as any to see how we do as a team of four.”

Chapter 3

It was simple enough to follow Ukopach’s lead into Earth’s dimension—once Az realized he couldn’t switch dimensions in his human form. As a man, he had no knowledge of travel between the realms. However, he did have the demon hunters. Holding hands with Jett and Addie, he made the crossing from their cavern
between
to the large, modern-looking office building in Earth’s dimension where the gamekeepers worked.

The next step was finding exactly where the gamekeepers were being held without alerting Naburus. The five of them—counting Ukopach—materialized in a bright, glass-walled hallway that stretched along one side of the high-rise office building. Azrael had been in places like this before when retrieving souls bound for hell, but the hallways had always been teeming with people. This one was entirely empty.

Az drew his sword. Crouching low beside the others, he gazed about. “Where is everyone?” The building was quiet in the manner that only a large, deserted space can be. The soft hum of machinery created a deceptively soothing white noise. No voices, no phones ringing. Nothing.

Ukopach glanced at Az and shrugged. “They were in their workroom when Naburus came. Right there.” He pointed to an open doorway across the hall. From what Az could tell, the room looked empty.

“Okay. It’s pretty obvious they’re not there now. But where is everyone else?” Addie stood and walked across to the gamekeepers’ room. Az and the others followed as she peeked inside the door. She stepped through, glanced at something on the first desk she came to, and then turned around and grinned at them, holding up a digital calendar. “It’s Sunday. No one’s working today.”

“The gamekeepers were. I would not lie to you, Addie.”

“I know, Ukopach. You’re a very honest demon.” She crouched in front of him, putting herself almost at eye level. “But it explains why no one else is around. The gamekeepers always work. Can you take us to them without Naburus knowing we’re here?”

Ukopach nodded. “He’s taken them somewhere. I hope they’re still here. Give me time to find them.” He spread his wings and coasted into the workroom. Az watched, spellbound as the little red demon flew directly toward a computer monitor and disappeared into the flat screen.

“What did he just do?” He glanced at the guys. Locan was chuckling, like he was enjoying the fact Az looked confused, but Jett merely shook his head.

“Ukopach is a video game demon. He was created by the gamekeepers—that’s what the little guys call the computer geeks who developed their game,
The Trials of Moloch
. The geeks are the video game demons’ gods. What’s really fascinating is that those brilliant game developers don’t realize that the characters—the CGI demons they’ve created—are sentient. Somehow, they’ve developed independently of the game coding, and they have their own little society. They can move from place to place through cyberspace—the energy of the Internet. Are you at all familiar with computers?”

“A little.” Az sheathed his sword. He’d be ready when the time came. “As a hellhound, I retrieved many souls from this modern business environment. Bankers, stockbrokers, investment advisors. Many of them manipulate the information stored in cyberspace to cheat the innocent. They might get away from the legal system in this dimension, but they don’t escape judgment. Hell will always be there. If they’re deserving of eternity as one of the damned, that’s where they’ll go.”

Jett laughed. “Why do I find that so comforting?” He raised his head. “Ah, here he comes.”

Ukopach shot out of the computer screen. “I found them. They’re in the cafeteria, but it doesn’t look like it’s supposed to. The demon is there and the gamekeepers are scared.” He took a deep breath and Az thought the little guy looked like he might cry. “They don’t know I’m real, so I didn’t let them see me or tell them you were here to save them.”

“That’s good.” Addie glanced at the guys and then walked over to a sign on the wall. Az liked the way she included him when she called them over to see what she was looking at. Almost as if she’d accepted him as one of the team. “Here’s a schematic of this floor. Cafeteria’s at the far end on the . . .” She frowned, staring at the map. “Looks like the southwest corner. Ukopach, let me see your visual of the cafeteria.”

An image popped into Az’s head, the visual Ukopach shared with all of them. The cafeteria was dark except for the reddish glow from flickering flames licking the walls. Half a dozen young men and a couple of equally young women sat along one wall with a barrier of flames keeping them in place. One of the girls and a couple of the guys were crying, but the other young woman and the rest of the men looked really pissed off.

Az figured those were the ones they could call on for help, should they need it. Until Addie blew that theory.

“Okay, we have to pull this off without letting them get a good look at us. Or you, either, Ukopach. As far as the gamekeepers can know, none of us actually exist.” She glanced at Locan. “You’re the best at fogging memories. Can you handle that many?”

“I can try.”

“Good. Do your best. Jett, you, me, and Az will go after Naburus. He’s a marquis of hell, so he’s going to be stronger than your average demon, and he’s not stupid. Az, will he recognize you in your human form?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t seen me in this form for over two thousand years. As far as Naburus is concerned, I’m just the dumb hellhound who does his bidding.”

Addie grinned, though there was definitely a lack of humor in her expression. “Not anymore. And if he tries to use mind control to make you obey, find a way to let us know. Can you fight him?”

Damn, he hoped so, but he had to be honest. “I’ve been practicing various ways to ignore his orders. Doing as he says with the conscious decision that I want to follow his orders, not in a mindless way. I don’t know if it’s made me stronger or not, but I can recognize when he’s trying to control me, at least in my hellhound form. I can tell you if he’s gaining on me. I don’t know if I can beat him, but I will fight him with all I am.”

“Okay. That’s the best we can ask for. Ukopach, I want you to let the other game demons know what’s happening, but I don’t want them to appear unless it all goes south and we need your help. We’re going after Naburus. He’s a powerful demon, as Az says, a marquis of hell. He won’t be physically stronger than the others we’ve fought—Yush, for instance. He was tough, but also smart. I imagine Naburus will be even more intelligent, so all we’ve got going for us is surprise. And numbers.”

“Be wary of his whip.” Az shuddered. “It’s deadly and he wields it as an extension of his arm.”

“Concentrate on the arm,” Addie said. She glanced at Az, and all he could think at the moment was the fact she was beautiful. Fiery, sparkling with energy, and a born leader. He would follow her anywhere, even back to hell itself. As long as Addie was the one leading.

“Okay, Az? Are you comfortable with the long sword, or would you prefer my shorter one?

He drew his weapon and shivered with ancient memories at the familiar, soft
snick
as the sword slipped free of the sheath. “I’m good,” he said. “It’s similar to what I trained with when I was a soldier.” Thrusting the shimmering blade with the supple turn of his wrist, he completed the move and then once again checked the edge. It was razor-sharp, with a wicked tip. “I hadn’t realized how much I missed the excitement of battle. I’m ready.”
Ready for the chance to pay Naburus back for the life I’ve lost, the pain I’ve endured.
Az neatly slipped the sword back inside the scabbard and reached for Addie’s hand.

She clasped his left, and Locan grabbed his right. Jett drew his sword, ready to do battle with Naburus. Az’s only warning was the tightening clasp from both Addie and Locan, a split second of darkness, and then the four of them stood in a ring facing the demon who had been Az’s master and nemesis for over two thousand years.

In that split second of entry, Azrael realized the cafeteria lights were out. Fires burning at the base of the walls lit the large room. The stench of sulfur hinted this was no natural fire. The fact it hadn’t scorched the walls or burned anything in the room made it clear that Naburus had gone for the effect, most likely to terrify the gamekeepers.

All eight young men and women remained huddled against one wall, entirely ringed by the dancing flames. They stared, eyes wide and terrified, at Az and the others, and the first thought that leapt into Az’s mind was that Locan was going to have his hands full fogging so many terrified memories on this job.