Chapter One

Chapter One

“I

s it just me, or did it get cold all of a sudden?” Officer Duran asked.

His partner, Officer Williams, nodded. It was the dead of night, so the temperature was on the cool side, but he too had noticed that it had abruptly become downright frigid. He was actually glad Officer Duran had said something because for an instant, he’d thought he’d imagined the coldness. “No, it’s not only you,” he replied, his breath visible in the air.

Duran frowned. “Something isn’t right here.”

“No kidding! Why else you think we were sent out here?” the other man retorted.

Despite his bravado, Williams understood very well what his partner meant. Something was definitely out of the ordinary.

The officers stood side by side and their gaze darted over the graveyard’s raised headstones in search of the disturbance they’d been dispatched to investigate. The station had received several calls from locals to complain about unusual noises and strange shadows in Greenlawn Cemetery. The two men expected to find a couple of kids messing around—nothing serious, merely a routine nuisance call.

Instead, however, they’d been greeted by unnatural coldness, eerie silence, and the feeling of being watched by some unseen force that made the hairs on their arms stand on end.

“Well, um…I think whatever was out here must be gone now, right?” Duran asked. “Maybe we should, you know, tell the station the trouble is over. Let’s get out of here.”

“Stop being so damned chicken all the time!” Williams exclaimed.

“I’m not chicken. I’m merely not interested in arresting ghosts.”

“Ghosts?”

“Hey, the locals reported seeing strange shadows, not people. What else do you think would hang out in a cemetery at this time of night? Or do you not believe in stuff like that?”

“I’ve seen a lot in my day, but one thing I’ve never seen is a ghost. What were you doing in the back room of the station all day? Watching those crackpot ghost-hunting shows again?”

“No!” Duran shot back too quickly. He cleared his throat, grateful that the darkness hid his blush. “And those are

documentaries

that I watch, by the way. It might do you some good to watch some. You need to broaden your horizons.”

Williams huffed. “Why, so I can end up a paranoid old fool like you?” He laughed.

“Ha, ha. You don’t have to believe me, but one day, you’ll see that there’s more out there than what meets the eye.” He dropped his voice and attempted to sound spooky, but then jumped.

Williams shook his head. “Look at you. Honestly, you can’t even be scary without scaring your own self.”

“No. Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“I saw something.”

“Where?”

“Over there.”

“Over where?”

“Shh! There!” Duran pointed to a headstone to their far right. They stared and squinted through the darkness. There was movement all right, but what the heck was it?

They stood perfectly still, so silent that they could almost hear each other’s heartbeats.

A sound suddenly drifted through the air. Initially, it sounded like a whistle but soon transformed into a spine-tingling laugh.

“It looks like the perps are still here after all,” Williams muttered. He straightened to his full height and puffed his chest out. “All right! Police! Come out and keep your hands where I can see them.”

Duran stood beside him, his gun aimed and his gaze fixed in the direction in which he’d seen the shadows. His concentration was broken when a cold wind whipped by and carried an awful stench with it.

Williams sniffed and crinkled his nose. “The hell is that smell?” he whispered. “Did you eat eggs and pickles for lunch again? That’s the third time this week.”

“That’s not me, I swear. It smells like…like sulfur or something.”

“Sulfur?”

“Oh, my God. I think… I read somewhere that the smell of sulfur means—”

“Aw, shut up, already. If this is more of your ghost-hunting mumbo jumbo, I don’t even wanna hear it. Help me draw these scoundrels out into the open.” Williams placed his hand on his weapon, annoyed at the lack of response. The slow, eerie laugh around them grew louder and multiplied. “Hell, there’s more than one.”

Out of the shadows rose not one or two, but three figures. Human in shape at first, they quickly morphed into something unrecognizable. As the two men stared, dumfounded, the figures grew impossibly tall and all three sported bright red, glowing eyes. The grotesque lumps that could only be their heads were topped with horns—deadly and sharp, but nowhere near as frightening as the teeth they exposed when they opened their mouths to laugh louder.

Williams’s jaw dropped. “Holy sh—” The rest of his expletive was drowned out entirely by his partner’s high-pitched, blood-curdling scream. Immediately, Duran raised his gun and fired as his squealed scream turned into a battle cry of sorts.

The other officer reached for his gun, unable to process what he saw but absolutely certain that he needed to act quickly. Before he could manage to aim at the creatures, one of them leapt over several headstones and headed directly for Duran.

The man broke into a run but still fired shots at the creature in pursuit.

Several bullets went astray and Williams ducked with a muttered curse and landed hard on his belly, which knocked the wind out of him. He gasped a breath and began to fire shots at the heels of the beast that chased his partner, but the bullets seemed to bounce right off.

A stream of profanities spewed from Williams’s mouth. He was about to scramble to his feet when a smell hit his nose that was so horrific that he gagged.

I guess it wasn’t Duran after all,

he thought wildly.

He rolled onto his side as an enormous scaly foot slammed onto the ground beside him. The stench was a hundred times worse than a locker room that hadn’t been cleaned in ten years. His gaze traveled up and up until it settled on the creature’s face.

It stared at him a with mocking gleam in its bright red eyes.

From a distance, he heard Duran yell, presumably into his walkie-talkie,

“Backup! Backup! We need backup.”

“What is it?” a voice crackled.

“Send backup to Greenlawn Cemetery immediately! We have a—”

His words cut short for reasons his partner was too afraid to even think about.

Williams gritted his teeth, pushed into a sitting position, and aimed his gun at the creature before him, aware of a second one in his periphery. He tried to pull the trigger, but instead, everything faded to black.

At the police station, Officer Hudson sat at his desk with his walkie-talkie in his hand. He stared at it for a second, his eyebrows drawn into a tight line. Confused, he pressed the button and held it to his mouth. “Hey, Duran, are you there? Copy?”

“W-what’s going on?”

Hudson looked at Officer Jenkins, who was seated across from him. The man gripped his coffee mug tightly.

“I have no idea,” Hudson replied. “Did you hear that, though? Duran radioed in from Greenlawn Cemetery yelled about needing backup, but now he doesn’t respond.”

The other man swallowed. “Yeah, I heard him. Um… He wouldn’t pull our leg, would he?” Even as he asked the question, he knew this was no joking matter. He’d heard the terror in Duran’s voice, just as he’d heard the strange noises that came through the walkie-talkie.

“It didn’t sound like no joke to me. He sounded scared out of his mind,” Hudson said. “Let me see if I can reach Williams.”

He attempted to contact the other officer but heard only static on the other end.

“I swear, if this turns out to be a joke, I’ll kill them both,” Hudson muttered. He stood with a weary sigh. “Let me round up some officers and get out there to see what’s going on.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Jenkins agreed and pushed to his feet. He reached for his cell phone and, when the other man turned away, darted across the station toward the washroom. Although he wasn’t entirely certain, it was better to be safe than sorry. Every instinct within him knew Duran’s call didn’t involve regular troublemakers.

Chad’s cell phone went off as if somewhere in the distance and jerked him out of deep sleep. He groaned as he fumbled with his hands to find it in the dark. “Um. Hello?”

“Hey, Chad,” a voice on the other end whispered. The pitch of it woke him instantly and alerted him that something was wrong. “It’s Jenkins.”

“What’s wrong?”

“A call for backup at Greenlawn Cemetery just came in, and um…I think we’re dealing with

your

kind of business, not ours, if you catch my drift.”

“At Greenlawn Cemetery?”

“Yes. More officers are already on their way, so I suggest you hurry.”

“I’m on it.”

Without a second to waste, Chad jumped out of bed, grabbed whatever clothes his hands landed on first, and pulled them on. He wiped the sleep from his eyes, snatched his car keys, and headed out of his apartment.

During the drive, he was torn between a hope that Jenkins was wrong and this would turn out to be a false alarm and another that he was right because he would be pretty ticked off if he’d been dragged out of bed for no reason. He had spent far too much of his night grading papers to have been disturbed without cause.

By the time he reached the cemetery gates, though, he knew Jenkins had been right. The stench of evil was in the air.

Chad swore when he sensed that the creatures were nearby. He reached quickly into the console to retrieve his special bullets and pistol. After a deep breath, he slid out of the car, knowing he wouldn’t have long before cops showed up. He wanted to be gone well before they arrived since he really didn’t want to be mixed up in the drama that would inevitably unfold.

Or wind up having a mugshot taken.

The nerves that typically accompanied a hunt of this nature engulfed him. He had been well-trained but never lost sight of the fact that all it took was one mistake to put his life on the line.

Hunting was always an adrenaline rush and a pain in the butt at the same time.

Conscious of the time ticking by, he swallowed his apprehension and tiptoed through the cemetery, his eyes wide and alert.

There

. He could hear their demonic laughter, most likely over whatever horrible misdeeds they’d recently committed.

He paused for an instant and let his gaze roam over the headstones. There weren’t many signs of struggle, but that was how these monsters tended to operate. They left little evidence behind, which was why most people didn’t know of their existence. And, of course, the unlucky few who did eventually learn the truth didn’t live long enough to tell anyone about it.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of red. He whirled on the spot in time to see shadows move behind him. He snarled his hatred for how these things blended so well into the darkness. Naturally, they did that sort of thing on purpose—they hid in the shadows and made their victims think they saw things or had gone mad.

They were about to be in for a rude awakening though, because Chad knew better. He tightened his grip on his gun, now loaded with holy-water-soaked bullets. The instant he saw a flash of red again, he fired three times to send a bullet into each of them. The slugs would only weaken them temporarily.

The demons dropped in quick succession. They hissed and filled the air with their stench.

Chad advanced on them, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. He stopped a few feet away and he let the power build inside him. His feet firmly planted on top of a grave, he raised his hands and began to chant as he thrust his arms palms-forward toward the creatures. The power surged through him like a crackle of electricity and he welcomed it as he watched the demons squirm before then fell into something like a seizure.

It was hard to take on three at once, but so far, so good.

He swung his arms as if he brandished an invisible whip. The beasts roared as magical lashes appeared across their tough hides.

The demon hunter gathered his strength. One more lash to their hearts should do the trick. He took a deep breath and prepared to go in for the kill on all three of them.

Chad slashed the first demon, then the second.

He had taken too long. The third jumped to his feet.

The demon half-leapt and half-flew at him. The hunter chanted louder while he ran, but the creature was too fast. It pounced and brought the man crashing to the ground. A hot and searing pain shot through his leg as the creature yanked at him. Chad flipped onto his back and drew his gun again. He fired and the bullet grazed the top of the creature’s head. Malodorous smoke seeped from the wound and the monster stumbled back.

Chad roared one last incantation as he scrambled back to his feet. He thrust his hands forward and a ball of bouncing light burst from his palms and struck his attacker squarely in the chest. It toppled, motionless.

Panting, Chad leaned forward to rest his hands on his knees and try to catch his breath. That had been a close call. Too close. “Take that!” he roared as the demons disintegrated and vanished. Needless to say, he felt a lot braver now that they were dead.

As he had run from the third demon, he came to the realization that the cops who’d been sent out to investigate were now among the dead. His mood sobered as the thought returned and he was upset that he hadn’t managed to get there sooner. Maybe their lives could have been spared.

Chad shook his head regretfully. He knew the press would have a field day once the news hit the airwaves. Two dead cops with no viable explanation for their causes of death? This would be the top story for days to come. He moved toward the spot where he’d seen one of the men.

The body looked exactly as he’d expected. The nametag read

Williams

, and the expression on his face would have been comical if not for the sinister reason behind it. The poor man had literally been scared to death. That was how demons usually worked, though. Sometimes, their mere appearance was more fatal than their actions. People often died from a stroke or heart attack due to fear before the creatures even laid a finger on them.

He put his hands on his hips and shook his head. The two victims were beyond help, and he needed to get to the coven as soon as possible. They would be awfully pissed off if they found out about tonight from some morning radio jock rather than him, and he certainly didn’t want to listen to their nagging.

Police sirens howled down the road. He swore again and wondered what he could possibly tell them. Maybe he should simply hide so he wouldn’t incriminate himself.

Realizing that he didn’t have much time in which to make a decision, he crossed the graveyard hurriedly and ignored the pain in his leg. As he hobbled along, he saw flashlight beams dart across the silent burial ground. To avoid discovery, he ducked behind a tall headstone and sank into its shadow.

“Do you see anything, partner?” one officer asked another. Chad peeked around the headstone and saw Officer Jenkins with his partner. Jenkins’s eyes were wide and his gaze roamed constantly, likely looking for Chad—or, rather, hoping he wasn’t visible.

The demon hunter crouched farther and made sure he couldn’t be seen as he continued to watch as the other officers arrived. One man shivered and clearly looked spooked. “God, I hate this. I’m not superstitious or anything, but being called to a damn cemetery in the dead of night ain’t exactly the kind of night I ever look forward to having.”

Chad suppressed a laugh, practically squirming with impatience. As entertaining as it would have been to listen to them try to figure out what had happened, all he wanted was to get home and jump into bed. Being a professor by day and a demon hunter by night was exhausting.

“What the devil?” Chad overheard an officer say.

Devil? Not exactly,

he thought to himself.

Here we go.

Right on cue, the yelling and swearing started, a clear indication that the slain officers had been discovered.

“Oh, geez, here’s Duran,” one called. “What the hell happened here? There are no gunshot wounds or anything.”

From his hiding spot, Chad glanced toward the cemetery gates and wondered if he could escape unnoticed. The last thing he needed was for a nosy vigilante to look out a window somewhere and see him sneak off. He glanced back to check how far away the officers were. One of them made their way toward Jenkins again.

“I know this will sound stupid,” the officer began, “but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say these fellas were literally scared to death. But there’s no such thing, right?”

Of course, there is,

Chad thought.

“Could have been massive heart attacks, you know?” Jenkins suggested.

“Two different men having massive fatal heart attacks at the same time? Come on, give me a break, Jenkins.”

“Well, what other explanation do we have?”

“I don’t know, but somebody’s gotta know something.”

Jenkins shrugged and scanned the cemetery again. His gaze finally landed on the headstone Chad crouched behind and nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I’m sure something will turn up,” Jenkins assured the man as he clasped his partner’s shoulder and steered him away.

The demon hunter drew a deep breath. He knew that was his cue to escape and wasted no time. He had to report to the coven.