Hell Breaker Read online

  She steadied her breathing and let her mind return to her worst memory, to the horrible night when, while infected with vampire blood, she had murdered a police officer. Whatever dwelled within these shadows, it could not be worse than the dreams that haunted her every night. Right? Right.

  Archer shifted her attention from the empty tunnels to the grime-encrusted turnstiles. The rusting metal creaked as she pushed through it. A shadowy staircase awaited her. Footprints marked the dust-covered floor. She figured Parker Wang must’ve left them when she sought refuge in the station.

  The woman had vanished only a few days ago, but she had looked aged and ashen, like she’d been to Hell and back. What had happened to her? Where had she been? Determined to get some answers, Archer climbed the stairs to the surface.

  To her surprise, light spilled down the stairs. It was way too bright to be moonlight. But how could the sun be up at this time of night? Only about thirty minutes had passed since she first boarded the train. It should be hours before dawn.

  Tentatively, she continued her ascent, hand tight around her Glock. She emerged from the staircase and gasped at the blazing sky which greeted her. The firmament had turned red, fireballs bleeding across the sky.

  The strange crimson light was only the beginning of the weirdness.

  For a beat, Archer refused to accept what she was seeing. The skyscrapers of this strange, deserted city were not made of glass or stone. A mosaic of human skulls made up the surface of a nearby tower. Correction, not just skulls. Bones of all shapes and sizes had been used as building materials. Arches constructed from vertebrae, walls fashioned from femurs and rib cages.

  Eyes wide, adrenaline surging, Archer’s attention swept over the other ivory structures that made up the city. Every building stretching out before her in the blood-red light was made from human bones.

  This place was a city of the dead, a giant ossuary, a nightmare come to life.

  Where the hell am I?

  Possible explanations raced through her brain. Had she stumbled into some horrific parallel world, or had some terrible spell transformed the city she called home?

  Archer shook with terror, panic taking hold of her racing thoughts. Desperate to get out of this bone metropolis, she wheeled toward the subway stop and found it…gone.

  No fucking way!

  There was no subway entrance, no stairs, not a single sign suggesting a train ran beneath this nightmare landscape. The station had been erased from reality, almost like it had never existed in the first place.

  In the distance, thunder rumbled, and spectral green lightning split the scarlet sky. And for a terrible moment, the deafening peals of thunder sounded like the demented laughter of a mad God.

  3

  My eyes snapped open and fixed on the shadow lurking in my bedroom. I gasped as the darkness shifted and reconfigured itself into a human shape—and then Skulick stood at the foot of my bed. My former partner’s spectral body loomed silently, a haunted expression carved into his features. He extended one arm toward me, his eyes pleading, desperate. This pathetic figure wasn’t the confident badass who had spent decades whipping me into a monster hunter. I was looking at a lost soul seeking the eternal peace Morgal had denied him.

  “Skulick,” I croaked.

  Then the darkness behind the ghostly figure parted, revealing a fast-moving serpent. I was looking at Morgal in one of his many earthly incarnations. The giant snake wrapped around Skulick’s anguished ghost and brutally sucked him back into the shadows. My partner cried out. His pitiful scream shook me to the core.

  Sweat poured down my face as I tried to free myself from the tangle of sheets. I was about to go after my partner when my room erupted into a roaring fire. Flames consumed the walls and floor, and I could feel the heat singe my eyebrows. And up ahead, where Skulick had vanished in the blackness, a giant red eye of swirling flame appeared. I felt like I was staring into the churning core of a volcano.

  I knew instinctively that it was a portal to another realm. A gateway to hell.

  Moans emanated from the darkness, and disembodied human hands reached out from the carpet of flames to claw at my blankets, pull at my sheets. Inhuman fingers snapped around my ankles and wrists. They were going to wrench me off the bed, into the fire. Determined to drag me into the raging inferno. Drag me into Hell.

  A bloodcurdling scream burst from my scorched lungs…

  My eyes jerked open, and once again I found myself in my bedroom. But there was no fire, no clawing ghost arms, no serpent demons and no trace of my partner. It had been a nightmare. Or perhaps a vision from beyond our world? Had Skulick been trying to communicate with me from Morgal’s realm of darkness?

  I’d seen enough freaky shit during my tenure as a monster hunter to know that anything was possible. I shuddered, the remembered fear of the dream washing over me in an icy wave. I’ve faced nightmares for most of my life, so serpents and fire normally didn’t quicken my pulse. But seeing the raw terror in my partner’s eyes, his naked panic and desperation, hit me where it hurt.

  I rocked back and forth, hugging myself, and allowed the horrific visions to fade, before I eased from the covers and got up. I grabbed a large bottle of mineral water, which I kept next to my bed, and took a few gulps. The foul, parched taste in my mouth subsided somewhat. I eyed my flashing cell phone and realized Archer had called around one o’clock. I must’ve been out cold when she left her message.

  My curiosity piqued, I listened to the voicemail. Apparently, a group of people had vanished on the number 9 subway line, and Archer was going to check out the train. Had she carried out her plan without me? Knowing her the way I did, she probably had. She didn’t waste time when innocent lives were at stake. To be honest, I doubted she needed me to tag along on a case like this. Archer was more than a capable of handling a monster hunt on her own.

  No, this sounded more like she’d wanted to pull me out of my funk. Nothing chased away the nightmares like shooting a monster or two in the face.

  Reminding myself to return Archer’s call once I got some caffeine into my system, I limped toward the bathroom. I refused to spend an extra minute in my bedroom. The walls felt like they were closing in on me, and I struggled to breathe. I needed fresh air, a change of scenery. Anything to put the nightmare behind me.

  I quickly got dressed and stepped out of my room. As soon as my bedroom door slammed shut, I could feel my spirit lifting. Early morning daylight streamed into the loft from the row of windows. Brick, glass, and steel glittered in the sunshine. At the center of the high-ceilinged space, a familiar figure reclined behind a bank of flashing monitors.

  I stopped dead in my tracks, unable to wrap my brain around what I was seeing for a moment. Three weeks had passed since our climatic battle with the Crimson Circle, and I was still struggling with the idea that Cyon had hitched a ride in Skulick’s body.

  I gave myself a push and drew closer.

  Upon first glance, one might think nothing had changed, but the devil was in the details—no pun intended. First, the wheelchair was gone. When Morgal had first possessed Skulick’s body, the archdemon had fixed his spinal injury and rejuvenated my partner’s body. Freakily enough, Skulick now looked to be only a few years older than me, the spitting image of the monster hunter who had first taken me under his wing when I was a kid. This Skulick was strong, virile, dangerous.

  But those surface details were merely the beginning. Unlike my real partner, the new-and-not-so-improved Skulick didn’t care for coffee. God, how I missed the delicious smell of my partner’s brew, which ordinarily enveloped the loft at this time of day. Nowadays, I prepared my own cup of joe, a pale imitation of the magic Skulick used to pull off with some java beans and water.

  Stepping even closer, a final glaring difference between old Skulick and this impostor became clear. This new Skulick didn’t spend his waking hours reviewing TV and internet newsfeeds for signs of paranormal activity in the Cursed City. No, the monitors flashed wit
h very different stories and data. Obscure occult texts and scrolls flickered onscreen, complex documents in long forgotten tongues. Cyon, former witch hunter turned demon, was searching for a way to break into Hell.

  Hey, everyone needs a hobby, right?

  It turned out even demons can’t just slip back into Hell, especially once they find themselves in our reality and inside a human host. And Hell gates didn’t grow on trees. Like myself, Cyon was obsessed with getting a rematch with his former master.

  Morgal had abandoned him when the vampire Marek trapped him in a binding circle. The master vampire had fed on Cyon’s demonic blood, drained him to the brink, and despite his pleas for help, Morgal had refused to interfere on his behalf. This betrayal had led Cyon on his quest for vengeance and redemption.

  I say redemption because the demon appeared to be reconnecting with the man he’d once been while alive, a medieval witch hunter who had succumbed to the charms of a spell-slinger as seductive as she was evil. Perhaps his heart (well, if demons still had hearts) was in the right place, but I would never fully trust Cyon again after some of the shit that went down during our last case. He wanted to destroy Morgal, so we had that in common, but unfortunately, he also appeared willing to sacrifice anyone for his revenge.

  Would I be willing to brave Hell with this monster?

  I shivered, and it wasn’t because of the early morning breeze passing through the loft. You might think being possessed by a demon would prepare a guy for a trip into the underworld, but despite having hunted demons for years, I don’t know all that much about the place where they come from. No one does. Not even Skulick.

  Demonology focuses on the beasts more than their point of origin for a good reason. The human brain is poorly equipped to practice magic. And even less capable of contemplating the horrors that exist at the edges of the world. Only recently had I caught glimpses of this terrible netherworld, and I wasn’t all that eager to see more.

  Venturing into Morgal’s domain sounded like suicide, but that’s why it was our only shot. The archdemon wouldn’t see us coming. He would never expect such a move. With a plan this bold (or stupid, depending on how you want to look at it) the element of surprise was firmly on our side.

  I stifled a yawn, and Cyon finally acknowledged my presence.

  “More bad dreams?”

  The surreal experience of looking at Skulick and hearing Cyon’s voice emanating from his lips jerked me wide awake. Suddenly I didn’t need coffee any longer.

  “Your screams probably woke up the whole neighborhood,” he said.

  I was about to point out that our neighbors were mostly homeless bums sleeping off their latest hangovers—one perk of living in a converted warehouse loft in the deserted downtown area of the city—but decided against it. Instead, my eyes turned to the leather-bound books resting on Skulick’s desk, the three volumes of the Daemonium.

  My magical ring, the Seal of Solomon, had separated the super-grimoire into three tomes again, returning Cyon’s grimoire to its original state and restoring the demon’s ability to cast spells. According to Cyon, the three books of magic were the key to defeating Morgal once we entered his infernal realm. I had to trust the demon knew what he was talking about. Cyon was in the driver’s seat now. I knew how to fight monsters in my world. Hell was Cyon’s jam, and to be honest, beyond my mental grasp.

  Doubts plagued me. Could we defeat Morgal in his own realm when we had failed to destroy him here on Earth? Optimist that I am, I doubted it, but Cyon seemed determined to give it a whirl. And I would follow the demon through the gates of Hell if it meant I might save Skulick. I didn’t dare imagine the horrors my partner was being forced to endure while at Morgal’s mercy.

  Although saving Skulick was my top priority, there was more at stake. We had pushed Morgal back into Hell, forcing him to abandon his human host and return to the dimension of fear. Unfortunately, his loyal demon soldiers had remained in our world. These lieutenants of darkness now controlled some of the most powerful and influential people across the globe. Who knew what horrors they planned to unleash on our reality?

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, the cursed relics the Crimson Circle had lifted from our vault were still out there. The cult had undone decades of hard work in one swift heist. My gut told me not all of the cultists had perished during the ritual in the church and remained at large. They were biding their time, waiting for the perfect time to strike again.

  Morgal had experienced one setback, but this fight was far from over. He’d lost the battle but was winning the war on several fronts. Thinking about it made me sick to my stomach. All my attempts to learn more about the wealthy, powerful people Morgal’s demons had possessed had ended in one dead end after another. But I swore I wouldn’t give up.

  No one ever said this shit was supposed to be easy.

  I pushed the dark thoughts aside and stepped up to Cyon’s unholy collection of books.

  “Enjoying some light morning reading?” I asked.

  Cyon cocked an eyebrow. “Very amusing. I thought you’d appreciate my dedication to this task.”

  I did. But it was seven a.m., and my head was pounding because someone refused to enjoy the wonders of caffeinated beverages.

  “So how are things looking? Any closer to finding a doorway into Morgal’s world?”

  Morgal’s world. What a lovely euphemism for the deepest, darkest pits of Hell.

  “I think I’m getting closer to solving the problem,” Cyon said. “I believe there might be a way of using the breach for our purposes.”

  Now it was my turn to arch my eyebrows. Two years ago, the Crimson Circle had tried to open a gateway between the city and the dimension of fear. Skulick and I had interrupted the ritual and prevented Armageddon. Unfortunately, the cultists’ ritual had still weakened the barriers between our two worlds. As a result, demonic evil could more easily slip through the breach and infect our metropolis, which explained the high occurrence of paranormal crime in the Cursed City.

  “If demons can slip into this reality,” Cyon continued, “then we should be able to pull off the same with a little magical help.”

  “Magical help?”

  “The breach doesn’t allow demons to cross over whenever they like, but it makes it easier for ritualistic magic to draw them to this plane. Now, if some precocious child with a Ouija board can pull a demon into this world, then the reverse could hold true. We just have to give it a push.”

  My head was spinning. I don’t like to start my day with a lecture on interdimensional travel. Resignedly, I said, “Go on.”

  Cyon’s eyes flickered with eagerness as he continued to rock my caffeine-starved brain. The demon loved to lecture. “I believe we need to return to the warehouse where the Crimson Circle first performed their ritual. It’s the nexus point between the two worlds.”

  My mind flashed back to that fateful day when we confronted Kovan Crull and the followers of the original iteration of the Crimson Circle in an abandoned warehouse near the docks. The horror of their mass suicide remained vivid in my thoughts and to this day haunted my nightmares.

  “Sounds risky,” I said. “Don’t we run a chance of widening the breach?”

  “That will not happen. Not if we do it right.”

  Was the demon telling the truth or saying what I wanted to hear? I knew how cold-blooded Cyon could be in the pursuit of his vengeance.

  The demon shifted his gaze to the three copies of the Daemonioum. “These books hold many secrets. They will show me how to tap into the breach’s power and use it to our advantage.”

  I thought of Demon Slayer, the magical sword I’d retrieved from the devil’s bank during my Swiss adventure, could stop Morgal in our reality, but confronting the archdemon on his home turf would require a different weapon powered by a stronger form of magic.

  The confidence in Cyon’s voice left no room for doubt. Facing Morgal wasn’t some distant possibility but a foregone conclusion in the demon’s mind. I fough
t back the impulse to lunge at Skulick’s desk and toss the grimoires out of the window before they could trigger some new unforeseen apocalypse. But I had to trust Cyon and hope he wouldn’t destroy the world in the name of his vengeance.

  My cell chirped before I could change my mind. It was Detective Benson. Cyon had hitched a ride in the homicide detective during the most recent Crimson Circle case and nearly gotten the man killed. I was amazed that Benson was already back at work, but I figured he needed to stay busy after what had happened. He’d seen a lot of weird shit since the breach two years earlier, but working paranormal crime scenes wasn’t the same as sharing your mind with a demon. Not even close. I knew from personal experience.

  “What’s up, Benson? How are you feeling?” I asked as I answered the call.

  “Like I went twelve rounds with the Prince of Darkness himself.”

  Benson wasn’t joking. He had literally faced the archdemon in hand-to-hand combat. If it hadn’t been for Cyon’s regenerative abilities…

  “How can I help you, Detective?”

  “I need you to come down to the precinct. I think your girlfriend is in trouble.”

  My chest tightened. I remembered Archer’s missed call.

  If something had happened to the woman I loved, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I said, already moving for the door.

  Hell could wait. Archer needed me.

  4

  When I’m pissed, especially at myself, it shows in my driving. Tearing through the city in my jet-black muscle car, I cursed like a sailor, honked at the slightest irritation, and pulled a few maneuvers I’m not too proud of. Maybe I pissed off a few fellow drivers, but I didn’t care.

  Archer had contacted me last night, needing my help on a new case, but I’d been too busy catching up on my beauty sleep to pick up the damn phone.