Tainted Blood

Without looking back, the Skitter ran at top speed across the cemetery, avoiding the demon hunters scattered across the property. Making its way to a side road, it stopped and appeared to take a deep breath before its body began to shift.

Within the passing of a few seconds the Skitter was gone and in its place stood Trevor.

Rolling his neck and shoulders before dipping down to pick up the clothes he had discarded, Trevor calmly stepped into Evey’s view. He’d backtracked to the cemetery and parked her there before re-entering the graveyard saying he was checking on the progress of the battle. Once he was out of sight of his car, he’d shifted into one of the Skitters and put his plan into action. Now all he needed to do was get dressed and finish his self-appointed mission.

Trevor combed his fingers through his hair in agitation… he didn’t like what he’d just done but still allowed the small smile to form on his face. When Evey opened the driver’s door for him, he closed the distance between them. Trevor paused when he heard a fox whistle coming from her.

Looking down at his naked body, he wondered what Ren was thinking when he’d given Evey such a human personality. It was a good thing the car had no idea what he’d just done… otherwise he’d been in a world of shit.

“Such a magnificent specimen,” Evey’s voice teased.

“You hush,” Trevor growled and quickly dressed. He slid behind the wheel knowing he would only have a couple of hours before Devon woke up. This would have to be fast if he wanted to get away with it.

Trevor was silent as he drove Evey to another secluded spot and shut off the car. He sat there for a few minutes with his eyes closed wondering if he was doing the right thing.

“Is everything all right Trevor?” Evey asked softly.

“I’m fine Evey,” Trevor said. “I need you to do something really important for me. I’ve got a secret mission that I need to finish. No one else in PIT is to know about this… its top secret.” He cringed at what he was about to say next, “Storm doesn’t want any reports filed on this and you can’t say anything to anyone.”

Evey was quiet for a moment, “How long will you be?” she asked.

“Only a couple of hours,” Trevor answered. “It won’t be too long.”

“Be careful,” Evey said then the dash lights went dark.

Trevor got out of the car and started walking down the street. Once he was out of Evey’s sight, he shifted once more… this time into Devon Santos and jogged the rest of the way to Chad’s place. Walking into the house using the spare key Envy had forgotten to take back from him, he made his way through the quiet apartment.

He knew Chad would be asleep and bypassed his friend’s room to Envy’s closed bedroom door. Pushing it open, he walked in and stared down at Envy’s sleeping form. His eyebrows furrowed into a sad expression when he caught the scent of salt lingering in the room. He felt bad for making her cry but he was handling his jealousy the best way he could.

Back at the graveyard… there had been one fleeting moment where he thought about killing Devon. With Devon gone, would Envy have turned to him in her grief? He had forced the tempting thought from his mind. It startled him at how quickly the evil temptation had appeared in the first place.

He could never hurt Envy like that and it scared him that he’d even remotely considered it. Besides… watching her mourn another man would be just as bad as watching her love another man. And as much as it killed him, Trevor knew Envy loved both of them. He hadn't been lying a couple hours ago when he’d pointed that annoying little fact out to her.

Moving silently, Trevor slowly stripped off his clothes and crawled in the bed behind Envy. If this was what it took to steal a couple of moments alone with her… then he refused to care who she thought he was. He agreed with the concept that there were no rules when it came to love or war… and right now he felt like he was in the middle of both.

Envy felt the mattress sink down behind her and instantly turned toward Devon, hugging him very tightly and hiding her face against his chest. Her mind had been filled with thoughts of Trevor for the last hour and it left her feeling very guilty.

Now that she’d seen PIT in action, she realized Trevor had been keeping secrets from her because he had no choice. She’d been heartless enough to break up with him over something he couldn’t control… even wrongly tasered him for it. How could she have been so mean?

His heartbreak now was her fault and she wasn’t going to punish him for it… if anything, she needed to try to become his friend again and maybe his heart would mend. She rubbed her head against Devon's hand where he was caressing her hair so tenderly.

“You’re back,” she whispered, wishing the heaviness in her chest would ease.

“What’s wrong Envy?” he asked softly.

“Nothing,” Envy lied and loosened her hold on Devon so she could pull back and smile up at him.

“Then why have you been crying?” he watched as Envy frowned up at him in confusion. Before she had a chance to deny it he reminded her, “I can smell the salt from your tears. You can’t hide your feelings from me.” He had to know if she was going to sic Devon on him later for what had happened when he’d brought her here.

Envy’s eyes widened. That was the same thing Trevor had said to her. Did both of them know what she was feeling better than she did? The knowledge that they could both read her so well left her feeling a bit exposed.

He felt her tense but before he could catch the expression on her face she pressed her cheek to his chest again. “Did Trevor say or do something to upset you on the way over here? Because if he did, I swear…”

Envy quickly pushed away and looked up at Devon almost angrily, “No, you promised me that you would never hurt Trevor no matter what.” Her heart thudded in her chest not ever wanting to see them fight again. If one of them were to get hurt… she would hate the other no matter which one it was. She knew that now.

Trevor almost quit breathing as he stared down at her defending him. She had made Devon promise to never hurt him… and Devon had agreed for the same reason he hadn't killed Devon tonight.

“As for the tears,” Envy lowered her voice getting a handle on her high-strung emotions, “I had a dream that one of those monsters in the graveyard had you and I was crying when I woke up.” Well… that was also the truth.

“It was just a dream,” he whispered and hugged her to him. Trevor squeezed his eyes shut wondering if the link she shared with both him and Devon had caused the very accurate dream. Not wanting to think about it he rolled Envy over to her back and gazed down at her before slowly lowering his lips to hers.

Envy moaned softly and arched her back, pushing her breasts against his chest. She wound her arms around his neck only for him to take hold of her wrists and gently press them down into the mattress.

Their mouths separated and Envy tilted her head back when Devon’s lips began a long, torturous trail down her neck and across her collarbone. Smiling into the sensation, she parted her legs and wrapped them around his waist to pull him closer until she could feel Devon’s hardness press inside her.

Trevor stopped and looked down at her, hovering there for only a moment before thrusting forward. He didn’t care who he looked like… this was his body and this was right where he wanted to be. Hovering above her, he made love to her like a driven man who had become lost within his own insanity.

Envy bit her bottom lip to keep from crying out and waking her brother. She gripped Devon trying to match his rhythm but quickly found out there was no way she could keep up with him tonight. It was all she could do just to hold on as he brought her so many times it made her high.

Trevor quickly claimed her lips when she forgot they weren’t alone in the house but he wouldn’t give her a chance to regain her sensibilities just yet. He held a tight rein on his own control, not giving into to the same high until over an hour had passed.

He allowed himself to watch her sleep for a few minutes before leaving a soft kiss on her lips and slipping from the bed.

*****

Warren was starting to get concerned. He’d been searching the graveyard for Devon’s scent for the last hour. When he wandered away from his brother earlier, he figured Devon would be right behind him and ready to fight. Warren had killed three more Skitters before he fully realized that Devon was still nowhere in sight.

He’d even sent out a piercing feline cry, basically the jaguar’s version of checking in with each other. There was no responding cry. Going over the last place he’d seen Devon, Warren found the signs of the fight but no Skitter and no trace of Devon. It took him a few more minutes but when he finally found Devon’s scent. It led him toward an old crypt.

Approaching the building carefully, he sniffed around the perimeter before pawing at the locked door. He growled at the lock and two solutions popped into his mind. Devon had either been put in there or the door had slammed shut and somehow locked during a fight.

Shifting back to his human form, Warren wrenched the door open, breaking it away from its hinges with the scream of old metal against heavy wood. His eyes widened when he saw Devon lying in the middle of the floor with two Skitters heaped on top of one another next to him.

Devon’s eyes opened slightly when the door banged open but he immediately shut them when the morning light invaded, burning his retinas. He felt like he’d just drank Kat’s entire stock of Heat and got into a losing fight on top of it.

“What the hell happened in here?” Warren demanded softly.

Devon growled low in his chest and shifted back to his human form. Bringing a hand to his head, he slowly sat up with Warren’s help and took a good look around.

“The last thing I remember was getting into a fight with another Skitter after you left,” Devon answered. “I must have trapped it in here and killed it…” he looked over at the heaped Skitters and frowned, “…killed them. One must have knocked me good in the head before it went down.”

“I think that’s enough fighting for now.” Warren said at length. “We both need some sleep.”

Devon nodded and let Warren pull him to his feet. “Great, we’re naked,” he muttered.

”Just call us the streak,” Warren smirked. “Wanna slowly stroll out of here and see how many cat calls we get, or do you wanna race?”

“The count of three,” Devon responded with a raised eyebrow.

When they got back to the vehicle, they put on the change of clothing they kept stashed there just in case.

“Drop me off at Chad’s place. Envy’s there, so I’ll just crawl into bed with her,” Devon said as he leaned back in the seat. “Also, do me a favor.”

Warren looked over at him as he drove. “I won’t tell anyone so it doesn’t get back to Envy.”

Devon smiled at his elder brother’s uncanny ability to always know what someone was thinking. Sometimes it made things not so awkward.

“Thanks,” Devon said. “I hate it when she worries.”

A few minutes later, Warren pulled to a stop in front of Chad’s apartment and looked over at Devon. “Get some sleep and just call me when you’re ready to come back.”

Devon shook his head, “Don’t worry about it, either Chad will drive us or I’ll call a cab.”

Warren waited until Devon opened the front door and was inside the house before he drove off. He didn’t want to say anything to Devon, but finding his brother like that had sent up red flags. The way the door had been locked from the outside was a bit too planned out making him wonder if someone or something else didn’t lock him in there on purpose.

Shaking his head, Warren decided not to think about it anymore today… he was exhausted.

Devon moved silently through the apartment toward Envy’s room. Opening the door, he smiled at the vision of her angelic face relaxed with sleep. Removing his clothes, he slipped into bed behind her and curled up against her back, wrapping an arm around her waist.

She snuggled closer before relaxing against his chest and tilted her head back. Her breathing returned to the long breaths associated with a deep sleep and Devon relaxed. He decided to let her sleep this time instead of waking her up to let her know he was there… he would have to remember to take better care of her sleep habits from now on.

*****

The seventh floor of the hospital was peacefully quiet. It had been a long and boring shift as the nurses did their rounds to the various patients. The soft rhythms of the life support machines beeped steadily, creating enough background noise to keep the darkened floor from feeling eerie.

“Long ten hours huh?” the security guard asked one of the nurses at the station.

“And then some,” the nurse said with a smile, “You going to the corner deli for lunch?”

“Yeah,” the guard answered. “You want anything?”

The nurse nodded, “We were talking about it earlier. I’ll get an answer from everyone and let you know before you go.”

The system monitoring the patients suddenly started lighting up and the nurse jumped to her feet. Blue led lights flashed sporadically making the nurse grab the phone sitting next to her.

“Doctor Gordon and Doctor Harris to the seventh floor stat,” she announced before hanging up the phone and rushing out from behind the desk.

More nurses came from the smaller stations at each end of the sprawling floor, each one trying to cover a set of rooms in order to see more patients in a shorter time. The security guard brought out his radio and called main floor security. It wasn’t long before the two doctors on duty along with a small army of ten more nurses rushed the floor to help.

Panic and mayhem started to bloom among the staff as the patients began dropping like flies. They stayed with the people as long as possible before moving on to the next one, barely taking a moment to note the time of death for each one.

As the staff moved down the hall, they realized that whatever was causing the patients to die seemed to be moving closer to the ICU also located on this floor. Though they were all thinking the exact same thing, none of them voiced that fear… it was only a coincidence after all.

The security guard was waiting at the elevator when the police arrived. He was disappointed that only two officers had answered the call but it was better than nothing. With the earthquake about a week before, added to all the people showing up dead and dismembered, he could understand the lack of available cops.

Screaming erupted down the hall and the officers pulled their guns as they ran forward. Two nurses went sailing across the hall, hitting the wall hard enough to crunch bones. They fell to the floor leaving long smears of blood behind on the pristine white paint.

“What the hell?” the security guard whispered.

The officers tightened their grips on their side arms and slowly moved down the hall toward the bodies. More staff members began flying from the doors while others attempted to run for it.

The security guard stared wide-eyed as a dark figure emerged from the last room next to the entrance of the ICU. It was fading in and out of their vision as it moved. Its face couldn’t be seen beneath the ragged black cloak, but a long bladed scythe could be seen clearly in one of its ridiculously long-fingered hands.

It moved down the hall toward them, grabbing up nurses and flinging them aside like rag-dolls. The officers opened fire while backing away from the specter. The scythe came down in a long arc slicing one of the officers in two. Blood sprayed across the floors as the officer fell but the creature kept advancing on the officer still firing his gun.

Blood sprayed again, this time across the security guard’s face as the second officer was cut down. He vaguely registered the elevator ding, signaling that someone was coming up but he was frozen in fear and couldn’t move.

A man appeared in the corner of his vision… young, with a long trench coat and punkish dark hair. He lifted a hand toward the creature and it was sent flying down the hall. It screamed, using the scythe to stop its flight and seemed to stare at the newcomer before vanishing into the floor.

“You okay?” Ren asked the traumatized man.

The security guard abruptly collapsed in a dead faint. Ren sighed heavily and took out his cell phone. It was a good thing this hospital was close enough to some of the city paranormals or he wouldn’t have had the power to scare the thing into not attacking him too.

“We need a huge cleanup crew and the best demon exterminator on the roster.”

Chapter 4

Angelica paced back and forth in Ren’s office trying to stay within eyesight of the barrier and away from everyone else that had business in the huge room. She’d already bitten Storm’s head off when he’d informed her that staring at Zachary wasn’t going to make him wake up any faster.

She glanced at Syn who was still leaning against the wall and raised an eyebrow. She was starting to believe that man could turn into a statue if he tried hard enough. He hadn't moved in hours.

Maybe Storm was right, because the walls were starting to close in on her and Zachary hadn't as much as twitched. Her cell phone rang, the loud sound startling her out of her musings.

Seeing the caller ID and thinking Storm was just checking on Zachary she answered the call, “No Storm. He still hasn’t woken up.”

“Ren needs you at the local hospital,” Storm said seriously. “He ran into something rather nasty and has lost it somewhere in the building.”

“And he needs me to track it down,” Angelica finished gazing at Zachary one last time before turning away. “I’ll be there.”

She hung up and glanced at Syn, “I gotta go to the hospital.” Syn closed the distance between them so fast she almost missed it.

Syn wrapped an arm around her waist and smiled down at her before pulling her tight against him. It was about time she left her friend’s bedside.

Angelica blinked and they were suddenly standing in the front entrance of the hospital. PIT members dressed up as police officers were already escorting people and patients out of the building. It was far from the orderly fashion it could have been but if this thing was nasty like Storm said, then she couldn’t really blame them.

“Where is it?” Angelica asked one of the PIT team.

“I don’t know but Ren’s on the seventh floor trying to find it,” the man said recognizing her.

Angelica and Syn moved to the elevators and took one up to the seventh floor. When the doors opened, the first thing Angelica noticed was the smell of blood. Her eyes widened at the amount of carnage in the hall.

Ren had the entire area roped off with a few PIT members scattered around checking the bodies to see if anyone was left alive. The only other thing that was out of place was the security guard huddled in a ball in a corner behind the nurse’s station. He was rocking back and forth muttering something about the Reaper.

“What happened?” Angelica asked.

Ren sighed, “It looked like the Grim Reaper, scythe and all.”

“A death demon,” Angelica mused. “Never been up against one but I’ve heard they can be really vicious.”

“It sank into the floor and vanished.” Ren explained. “We haven’t been able to find it since.”

“It’s still here,” Syn informed them.

“I know… I can feel its evil energy crawling all over me like a damn disease,” Ren said in frustration.

Angelica took a deep breath and began to mentally feel her way across the hospital to the floors above and below. Sometimes she could follow the invisible path a powerful demon made, but this demon had been all over the place, crossing its own path too many times to make it easy.

Ren’s eyebrows shot up into his bangs when he felt her power touch him. “Interesting,” he said having never felt it before. He supposed that when they were within the sanctuary of the castle, her power was always dormant because she didn’t need it. Ren shrugged, knowing right now wasn’t the time to be testing out new powers and returned to his job.

Angelica moved away from the massacre to the emergency staircase. Syn was right behind her when she entered the tall, slim area and watched her look around for a moment. He felt the blood in his veins start to heat up when his sensitive ears heard the sounds of children crying… they were begging for someone to help them. Syn’s amethyst eyes slowly rose to the ceiling as he zeroed in on the sound.

Angelica inhaled sharply and started running up the stairs at breakneck speed. They ascended three floors and exited on the tenth. She slid to a stop and placed a hand over her mouth at the scene of carnage.

Looking down at her feet, she felt tears spring up in her eyes when she saw she was standing in a pool of blood. A small child not more than five years old lay just a few feet away, his life force slowly bleeding out. Small bodies lay strewn everywhere, some of them with expressions of terror frozen on their angelic faces.

“No,” Angelica whispered. She could handle almost anything that came with the job she did… blood, gore, and demons, but these children were innocent.

An eerie inhuman scream came from down the hall making Angelica and Syn look up. The death demon was standing in the main room of the children’s ward covered in blood. It slammed the butt of its scythe on the floor cracking the tile before coming at them.

Syn slowly moved past Angelica, stalking toward the demon as it approached at a rapid pace. It brought the scythe up to cut him down but Syn’s hand came up, grasping the weapon just as the blade was a centimeter from his skin.

“Let me introduce myself,” Syn hissed and slammed the palm of his hand into the chest of the demon, reaching through its robes to grasp something inside. The demon screeched and backed away, leaving Syn holding the scythe in one hand and something black and beating in the other.

“To kill a child is not allowed.” Syn said in a dangerously calm voice, hefting the scythe with a practiced hand. “You will know the pain you give.”

Dropping the black heart and shifting the scythe to his right hand, Syn spun the weapon in front of him before cutting through the demon with a precise swing. He didn’t cut the demon completely in half, wanting to watch it suffer and knowing it would take more to kill it.

“You are not the true reaper… he shows mercy where you do not,” Syn growled and brought the scythe across the demon’s chest. “He will see you shortly and lock you in a cage where others will rip you to shreds like you have done to these children.”

Syn’s last swing of the scythe went directly into the dark hood, piercing the demon’s head. The tip of the scythe buried itself into the wall, pinning the demon there. Angelica watched as Syn continued to glare at it for a moment before it suddenly burst into bright white flames.

“Syn,” Angelica whispered when he didn’t move and slowly approached him.

Syn was breathing heavily with his hands fisted at his sides. “War is not for children,” he said trying to contain his rage and keep from leveling the hospital. “This needs to be erased from history.”

Angelica reached out to touch his arm but he moved away from her. She felt tears well in her eyes when Syn walked over to the closest child, a little boy, and very carefully picked him up. Placing the small lifeless body in a bed, he sat on the edge of it and gently pushed the hair out of the child’s face.

He put his hand over the little boy’s heart. Angelica’s jaw dropped open in awe when she saw a soft white light shine where Syn’s hand was touching the child’s chest. The wounds on the boy slowly vanished along with any trace of blood.

Angelica pressed her hands to her mouth, unable to control the tearful laughter when the child suddenly inhaled deeply then started breathing normally.