The sulfuric blackness slammed into him, filling his nose and mouth, making it impossible to breathe, to even think, as it filled and burned in his chest. But even as his hand was still clamped in the cold hard one of the demon, that same strange sensation of being pulled apart infinitesimal bit by infinitesimal bit sparked again in his system.
Someone was trying to summon him out of Hell.
Rathe felt it too. His pupils instantly dilated into thin slits, and his grip tightened until the bones in Colt’s hand cracked. Just before his skin began to fade into dark smoke-like particles, Colt grabbed the Book from Rathe’s grasp.
Everything was a blur of pain.
“How long is this supposed to take?” Lilly’s voice, sweet and impatient, filled his ears.
She squeaked as he transformed from a curl of dark particles into solid form. He’d never seen anything so beautiful as her surprised face lighting up with joy at the sight of him.
Her red hair was caught up in a twist, little spirals of flame silk curling about her sweet face. A long-sleeved red calico gown, fastened with little pearl-like buttons from chin to belly button, clung to her curves, and Colt staggered forward with the need to hold her.
The supernatural detection device on Marley’s utility belt began to glow a furious red. Marley narrowed his eyes, pointing a crossbow at Colt’s chest.
A spear of agony hit him in the heart when she moved toward him, but Marley stepped in front of her, confirming his worst fears. Now that he was half Darkin, she’d want nothing to do with him. “Careful, Miss Arliss. That shape-shifter is back.”
Standing before them in nothing but his boots and black pants, Colt felt absurdly exposed. He rubbed his thumb over the smooth vellum of the pages in his hand and raised it to show them. “I got the Book.” He swallowed hard. The raw marks upon his skin from the Darkin lash had somehow already healed but were still caked with dried blood.
Marley’s gaze darted from the pages to Colt’s face and back again. The tip of the crossbow dipped slightly but was still cocked and ready. “How do I know the demon lord—” Marley glanced at Lilly.
“Rathe,” Lilly supplied.
“The demon lord, Rathe, hasn’t sent you to fetch Miss Arliss back?”
Colt sighed. “You don’t.”
Marley glanced down at the still glowing indicator on his detection device. “You’re Darkin. Admit it.”
Colt didn’t miss that Lilly’s eyes widened with shock and fear. Her eyes, which had been impossibly green before when she was a demon, were now a softer sage color. The irony struck him to the heart. Wasn’t that just the way of things? He knew their positions were now reversed. He was the evil thing and she the human. He the hunted and she on the side of the Hunters. All the faith she’d placed in her precious prophecy had gone up in smoke the moment he’d sold part of his soul to Rathe in exchange for his freedom. There was no way he could be part of the Chosen now. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he’d be accepted by his brothers any longer.
But he’d done it because Rathe had found his one weakness: Lilly.
Colt blew out a harsh, frustrated breath. “It’s not what you think, Marley.”
“Then perhaps you should enlighten me,” Marley retorted, raising the end of the crossbow level with Colt’s heart once more.
“Oh, no. No, no,” Lilly murmured, a sad softness to her voice. “I know that look. You’ve made a deal with him, haven’t you?”
It hurt to gaze into her sad, accusatory eyes. They began to well, her lashes turning dark with tears before they spilled in a shining track over her cheek.
“Guess it means we’re still not fit to be with one another.”
Lilly surprised him by shoving past Marley and coming at him in a rush. She threw her arms around him in a fierce hug that placed her smooth cheek against his bare chest. “Why? Oh, Colt, you shouldn’t have. You should have chosen the Book.”
Tenderly, gently, Colt stroked her hair beneath his fingers. The texture was silk under his touch, and the spicy-sweet fragrance that was all Lilly swirled around her in a seductive mixture he couldn’t resist. She was even more alluring than she’d been as a succubus. “You were worth more than the Book,” he whispered, his voice rough and ragged. She was worth a thousand Books of Legend.
She tipped her head up and stared at him, serious and not the least afraid of his new Darkin status. “How much of your soul did you exchange for your freedom?”
Colt tried to shrug it off as inconsequential, when the reality was his choice weighed like a lead yoke on his shoulders. “I bargained him down to half for a chance at a lifetime with you. It was worth it.”
Lilly nodded, her fingers absently stroking the skin over his heart, making it tighten in response. “That’s enough.”
“For what?”
She peered at him, her eyes narrowing. “For you to have demon powers. That’s why Marley’s detector can sense you.” She wiped away the blood on his chest with her sleeve. He flinched as she followed one of the dark pink lines that had been the open lash mark on his chest with her finger, her touch trailing fire in its path. “That’s why you’ve healed so quickly.”
Colt stiffened and tried to pull away from her, but she held on to him tightly. “Look, I know I’m not completely human anymore. I expect this changes everything.”
Her generous lips tipped up at the edges in a soft smile. “You still don’t understand, do you?”
Colt paused for a moment, thoroughly confused by her demeanor. Shouldn’t she be shrinking back in fear or disgust? Truthfully, she’d been trying for so long to get out of being a demon that he didn’t understand how she could stand to be around him with half a demon inside him. “I suppose I don’t,” he finally admitted.
“He may have taken half of your soul, but in return he’s given you abilities he can’t hope to defeat. He’s given you powers of the Darkin.”
He still wasn’t seeing the positive in this particular situation. “And that’s a good thing because—”
“Because when your new powers are combined with your brothers’, the Chosen will be unstoppable.”
Colt rubbed the uncomfortable itch on the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, about that. I’m not so sure my brothers are going to be as accepting of me having half a soul as you are. They’re more apt to act like Marley here.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the crossbow still held at his chest.
“Perhaps you need to give them ... and me a chance. People who love you don’t worry about how you’ve changed. You’re still you, aren’t you?”
Colt puffed up a little bit. “Hell, yeah, of course I am. Just a little more scarred,” he said, glancing at his new marks.
Lilly put her hand to his cheek and waited until his gaze connected with hers. “Then you’re still the man I love, and that’s really all that matters.”
Colt pulled her in tight to his chest, afraid for a moment that this was all just a hallucination and would disappear at any moment. That the light feeling growing inside him would end and the weight that had lifted off his shoulders would somehow return.
“You love me?”
She nodded.
“Half-demon and all?”
“I loved you when you were all Hunter too, so what’s the difference?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess I just thought that it would make a difference somehow.”
Lilly turned on Marley. “Oh, for pity’s sake, put that thing away. This is Colt. I’d stake my mortality on it.”
Marley hesitantly lowered the weapon, a strange gleam coming into his eye. “You say he should have demon powers now?”
Lilly nodded.
Marley looked Colt up and down, moving in a semicircle around him and Lilly. “Interesting, very interesting.” A maniacal gleam lit his eyes. “This could be very useful. Would you mind if I ran some tests on you?”
“Not now,” Lilly and Colt answered in unison. Marley looked a bit deflated.
Colt didn’t want to let go of her, not for an instant. After what little he’d seen, there was no way he was taking a chance Rathe might find and take her away from him.
She looked up into his face. He’d never get tired of looking at her. “I’ve just one question I want you to answer for me, Colt.”
“Anything.”
“You could have taken the Book and left me behind. Why didn’t you? Why’d you give up part of your soul when you didn’t have to? And how did you get out?”
“That’s not one question, that’s more like two or three.”
She slapped her hand on his shoulder. “Answer the questions.”
“First, I got you out because I promised. Second, I gave up part of my soul to be with you. Last, he offered me a way out of Hell and a way to protect you, so I took it.”
Lilly threaded her fingers through his hair, brushing her thumb against his cheek in a soft caress that sank down deep like a healing balm to his torn soul. “You were afraid he would torture me some more, weren’t you.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.
“Yes.”
“Colt Ambrose Jackson,” she said softly as she brushed her lips against his, “you’re in love.”
Colt smiled. “Yes, ma’am. I do believe I am.”
Joining the Book together and closing the Gates was the only way he was going to protect her, hell, all of them, from Rathe taking over the world. “We’ve still got three days until the new moon,” Colt said.
“Time enough to unite the Book of Legend, if your brothers have recovered the other pieces,” she replied, determination written all over her face.
“What about our pact? Are you still willing to come along?” Colt teased as he looked into the face of the woman he’d given his very soul for, and brushed a curl away from her cheek.
She blushed, glancing away from him for a moment, then gave him a sly smile. “Are you saying you want my help in exchange for a kiss?”
Colt cupped his hand around her hip and pulled her close. “I’ll take it any way I can get it.”
She laughed, rose up on her tiptoes, and kissed him soundly on the mouth. “Spoken like a true Hunter.”
He shifted his hold, locking his arms around her waist. “Half Hunter or not, getting this Book together isn’t going to be easy.”
“Who gave you the mistaken impression that anything worthwhile ever is?” she said.
“You think you can trust a half-demon Hunter?”
She nestled closer her eyes full of admiration and desire. “With all my heart.”
“Then let’s beat them to Bodie. We’ve got a world to save.”
Keep reading for a special sneak preview of
The Slayer
,
Winchester’s search for the second part of
the Book of Legend, available April 2012!
And look for Remington’s story, the exciting
conclusion to the Legend Chronicles—
The Chosen
—in December 2012.
“Put down the gun, Hoss, afore I blow that oversized melon of yours to kingdom come.” Winchester Jackson’s cold, steady voice cracked through the canyon sure as a shot. Although the other hefty man, seated on his horse, had his rifle stuck under the leather flap of the stagecoach window, Winn knew Hoss Dalton never robbed alone. Somewhere, hidden by the rock walls, sagebrush, and dead grasses of the canyon, his ragged band of fellow thieves lay in wait.
Inside the stage, halted precariously on the shaley edge of the dirt road leading from Carson City to Winn’s town of Bodie, a woman whimpered, and a small dog yipped.
“Hoss? You hear me?”
The female whimper was cut off instantly, and even the hot desert air scented with creosote and sagebrush in the rocky chute of the canyon stood still.
Hoss, two bricks shy of a load and perpetually half-drunk, turned slowly. His rifle, which was pointed at the occupants hidden within the dark interior of the steam stage, wavered just a bit at the sound of the sheriff’s voice.
Attached to the front of the stage, the mechanical horses, big copper beasts the size of Clydesdales, pinged, hissing steam through their venting nostrils as the metal and gears cooled.
Winn kept Hoss in his sights. The old man’s eyes, rheumy from too much rotgut whiskey, flicked to the star-shaped silver badge on Winn’s chest, but his rifle didn’t waver. Sonofabitch, was the old fool going to shoot a stage full of people right here, ten minutes from town, for a lousy payroll?
The brilliant sun stood white hot overhead in a cloudless field of pale blue.
“Countdown is at three, Hoss. Drop that, or swear to God, I’ll shoot you where you stand! Tommy Sutton? You stay right where you are!” he yelled. He didn’t know if Sutton was there or not. Didn’t have eyes in the back of his head either, but the rustle in the grasses off to his right stopped.
“Damn, Winn. You ain’t nothin’ like your old man.” The man’s tone conveyed his deep disappointment born of familiarity.
Winchester Jackson peered down the length of his rifle barrel aimed at his quarry’s heart. “Thank you for the compliment.” The fact was, anything that distinguished him from his notorious outlaw father and supernatural Hunter, Cyrus “Black Jack” Jackson, pleased him enormously. He didn’t want any part of that life. Not now. Not ever again.
“Cain’t you jest let me go, for old time’s sake?” Hoss and his group of bandits had once been Hunters alongside his father. But tough times had turned them from protecting humanity to protecting their own self-serving interests. They’d robbed this stage four times in the last month, taking the Black Gulch Mine’s payroll.
Winn was damned if he was going to let it be five. He’d tried hard to ignore their activities because it’d just been stealing and he had a murder a day to contend with in the rowdy mining town, sometimes more. But enough was enough.
“Then I wouldn’t be doing my job, now would I? Get your hands where I can see them.” Winn cocked the hammer back.
Click. Click. Click. Click.
Four other guns cocked and pointed at Winchester’s head as the rest of Hoss’s group emerged from the jagged tan rocks of the canyon where they’d stopped the steam stage.
Damn.
“Not this time, Winn.” Hoss stepped forward, his wide smile a mess of gaps and yellowed teeth, and pulled the rifle from Winchester’s hands. “No one would have figured you for the rotten apple in the barrel. A lawman. That would jest make your pa spit nails.”
Winchester resisted the urge to tug on the hardened tips of his heavily waxed black mustache, a habit he’d developed when agitated during his last five years as sheriff of Bodie. “My pa would have spit anything he could chew.”
A metallic clink alerted Winn to the steps of the coach being lowered. “Stay inside,” he shouted to the fool preparing to alight on a mountain pass with five armed men holding up the stage.
A rustle of taffeta accompanied a dainty half boot and a length of silky calf onto the first step.
From the dim recesses of the stage stepped an elegant woman, her dark, glossy curls capped with a jaunty little top hat heavily accented with a cloud of black feathers. Her expensive bustled gown, the blue-black iridescent color of raven wings, hugged her slim waist and suggested a silhouette that was amply curved by nature rather than artifice. But more stunning than her figure was her face. Lips, a shade too full to be fashionable, and high cheekbones accented a pair of piercing whiskey-colored eyes that stole his breath away.
The woman’s dusky beauty was both dark and alluring, but the undercurrent of danger surrounded her like a storm cloud charged with lightning. Upon the black kidskin leather of her gloved hand was a large ruby ring, which matched the blood-like droplets of rubies at her ears. Her every mannerism screamed wealth and privilege.
“Is there a problem, gentlemen?” Her voice was soothing and rich like warm honey, and her heavy Eastern European accent made “gentlemen” sound more like “zhentlemen.”
Hoss gave an impatient jerk of his head toward the stage, even though his gaze lingered on the woman. “Wait your turn, missus. Get back in that coach. We’ll have us a fine time when I’m done with my business.” His suggestive tone made Winchester want to punch him—hard, and preferably more than once.
“I think not,” she replied smoothly.
The hair pricked up porcupine fashion on the back of Winchester’s neck as the scent of sulfur tainted the air. Something about this situation wasn’t right. He turned away from the woman, focusing instead on taking down Hoss. Sure, he’d probably get shot, but if he did it right, it wouldn’t be more than a flesh wound and Hoss would take the brunt of his gang’s shots. He bent his knees slightly, preparing to lunge at Hoss’s middle, but before he could even move, all hell broke loose.
The woman’s face warped, her brows protruded, her eyes turned crimson, and her full lips bracketed a pair of perfect pearly fangs. She hissed and every head turned.
“Vampire!” Hoss yelled to the others.
Taken off guard, they fumbled with their weapons, trying to exchange regular bullets for silver, but they weren’t fast enough. In a blink she had stripped the men from their horses, and savagely ripped out their throats with her delicate gloved hands and her fangs.
Winchester grabbed his rifle out of Hoss’s loose grip and trained the weapon on the monster in taffeta. She turned back, facing them, her lips slicked with bright red blood. The tip of her soft pink tongue stroked one fang, making Winchester’s gut tighten involuntarily.
“A bit rustic, and a little too well marinated in whiskey, but substantial,” she said, as if discussing the vintage of wine. She pulled a black silk handkerchief from the sleeve of her gown and dabbed at the blood remaining around her lips and chin, removing the last traces of her unladylike activity.
“Well, don’t just stand there, shoot her!” Hoss yelled, as he shuffled behind Winchester. Winn stood his ground, the rifle pointed straight at the vampiress’s heart. Not that it would do much good. What he really needed was a machete or a broadsword to lop that lovely dark-haired head from her slim shoulders.
“Don’t come any closer,” he warned.
She tilted her head slightly like an inquisitive bird of prey, her eyes returning to their tawny color and her face returning to its regal profile. Only the fangs still remained. “You have nothing to fear from me. Look around you, Hunter. Have I harmed the innocents in the coach? Have I harmed you? No. I took only the lives of those who were contributing nothing to your society in the first place. Hardly a crime.” She peeled the soiled black gloves from her fingers one at a time, then tossed them into the air where they disappeared in a swirl of dark smoke.
Winn’s finger rested heavy on the trigger, just needing a finite amount of pressure to fire the rifle at the vampiress. Only one thing held him back.
Everything she’d said was true.
He glanced at the steam stage. The occupants huddled inside the wooden stagecoach, whispering and peering with wide frightened eyes from behind the dusty leather window coverings, afraid to come out, but they were unharmed. Hoss’s men lay in crumpled bloody heaps and Hoss himself was still huddling behind him, but she hadn’t attacked him.
“What d’you want, vampire?”
“I am Lady Alexandra Porter, Contessa Drossenburg, embassary of his vampiric majesty, Emperor Vladamir the Fifth. I’ve come to seek out the eldest of the Chosen, Winchester Jackson. I was told he resides in Bodie.” Her gaze flicked to the cluster of sun-bleached wooden buildings down in the valley below, then drifted to the star on his chest. “Do you know him?”
“Lady, I
am
him.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Then we have business to discuss.”
Winn slowly lowered his gun, but not his guard. Apparently Hoss was stupider than he looked; he tried to wrestle the repeating rifle away from him. But Winn had lost his patience. He clocked Hoss on the side of the head with the butt of his rifle, and the other man slid unconscious facedown into the powder-fine dirt.
Winn glanced up at the vampire. “I don’t work with supernaturals.”
She gave a shrug of her petite shoulder, her fangs retreating completely, leaving behind an even, white smile. “I expected as much, but the Emperor does not share my view. He thinks it is time for vampires to join with the Chosen if we are to defeat a mutual enemy.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”
“
Da
. But perhaps it is best if we discuss this elsewhere.” She threw a meaningful glance over her shoulder at the stunned occupants of the steam stage. “May I have your leave to glamour them? It is not safe for them to know so much. Don’t you agree, Mr. Jackson?”
Much as he didn’t like it, she did have a point. The last thing he needed was a stage full of frightened travelers to come rolling into Bodie spouting off about a vampire killing the Dalton gang. People, as a general rule, were panicky, stupid, and rash. And chances were ten out of ten, if the travelers talked, the town would come beating down his door demanding him to fix it. No, it was far better if she glamoured the lot of them and made them forget this un-pleasantry had ever happened. He nodded his approval.
The vampire Contessa dipped her head as she bent in a curtsey, then gingerly picked up her skirts and turned back to the stage. The low, husky quality of her voice rustled like the taffeta she wore, sultry and smooth, completely absorbing the total attention of the travelers.
“You have had a most pleasant trip, with only the slightest delay for a mechanical horse that needed an application of oil,” she said slowly. Winn tried to block out her voice, but glanced over her shoulder to see the wide, glassy stares of the occupants of the stage. She certainly did know how to throw a glamour. Good thing he was practically immune.
That was the second thing Pa had taught him about hunting. The first had been never to trust a supernatural being. The Darkin were the scourge of the universe—children of the night—dedicated to eliminating humans so they could claim the earth for themselves.
No matter how elegant, sophisticated, or well-mannered the Contessa seemed, she was still just a damn vampire, and sooner or later he was going to have to slay her.
The knowledge bit down deep and hard into his bones, refusing to let go. Winn silently cursed in four different languages. As the oldest Jackson brother, he’d been exposed to the life of a Hunter the longest. Pa had started drilling it into him from the time he could toddle.
Which made all of this so much worse. Because ten years ago he’d given it up, walked away, and vowed to stay good and gone from Hunters and anything to do with the Darkin. He’d tried to lead a normal life—be an upstanding citizen with a clean reputation—something neither of his brothers would know about. For while the Jackson brothers looked similar on the outside with their pa’s jet hair and broad shoulders and their ma’s blue eyes and winning smile, they were as different as could be on the inside.
Winn turned away from her bidding the travelers a kind good-bye, shaking their hands and waving to them as the horses gained steam and began to huff and chuff, ready to resume their journey into Bodie.
It didn’t help that his little brother Colt, the hothead of the three and a self-styled outlaw, had come waltzing in that afternoon, determined to locate their pa’s long-lost piece of the Book of Legend.
He’d told him the truth. Only a Darkin could access the Book. Well, Colt was welcome to it. Nothin’, but nothin’, was going to change his mind about taking up arms as a Hunter again.
White puffs of steam and darker smoke from the steam carriage’s boilers mixed with the dirt, creating a dark smudge in the otherwise cloudless clear blue sky as the stage clanked and rolled on toward Bodie.