By the time the smell of food on the grill wafted into the crisp air around us, Brock and I had settled at a bench table surrounded by Ray, Sabine, and several of the more dominant wolves in his pack.
I was happily listening to Ray’s story about how Brock had made two of his male wolves— who hadn’t shown sufficient respect to some of the females in the pack—walk through the middle of town naked, when a rush of power surged through me, making my body tense enough that Brock noticed.
He pinned alert eyes on me as another wave rocked through me, making me flush at the intensity of it. Right away, Ray’s story was forgotten and Brock was in my personal space.
‘What is it?’ he asked using our telepathic link, cluing me in to the fact that he didn’t want his wolves to be aware of all that was happening with me.
‘I don’t kno—’ I broke off with a groan of pain that I couldn’t keep silent. Many of the nearby wolves turned to face our direction as another fierce wave of magical power ripped through me. That one was enough to make me queasy, and I had to swallow down the bile that threatened to rise up my throat.
What the ever-loving fuck was going on?
Brock’s entire body was tensed and ready for battle while mine struggled to contain whatever was happening. ‘You need to tell me what’s happening right now.’
His words were less the command of an alpha as they were the words of a concerned lover.
I gasped as the pain abated for a few moments. ‘I really don’t know. Waves of pain. Magic. Power, I guess.’
‘Yours?’
I shook my head, ignoring the many sets of eyes on me. ‘I can’t tell.’ I swallowed a big gulp of air as a wave of ... whatever it was raced through me again, leaving every nerve in my body on edge.
Brock jumped from his seat, where he hovered behind me, searching for how to help me I assumed. ‘Can Cass help figure it out? Or Tianna?’
I nodded absently, my mind and eyes starting to glaze over. ‘Cass?’ I whimpered.
‘Evie. What is it?’ he answered right away.
‘I don’t know. Some energy is rushing through me, and it hurts.’ I grunted, gritting my teeth at a new wave of pain.
Couldn’t a girl get even half a day off from the shitstorm that had been my life lately? Yeah, apparently not. I grimaced. ‘It’s magic. Ask Tianna.’
Brock was trying to pace behind me to work off his coiled energy while simultaneously not wanting to let go of his grip on my shoulders. I couldn’t bring myself to be bothered by the contradiction.
‘Eve,’ he warned.
I’d have to give him a way to help me, and fast. Before Cass could answer, I gasped, the sudden realization enough to interrupt the pain. ‘It’s the gate,’ I said, attempting to broadcast to Brock and Cass at the same time, without any idea whether it could be done. ‘Something’s come through the gate. And whatever it is, it’s really bad news.’
I had no idea where the certainty came from. Maybe it was a kitsune thing, a new power from the fourth tail I’d sprouted this morning when I’d shifted to stave off the vampire killing curse. Whatever the explanation, the fact couldn’t be denied—a monster unlike any other had just entered our world.
And I was the only one who could stop it, that was for certain.
I gritted my teeth against a wave of pain and shot to my feet. After sharing a single look with Brock, we set off at a run, Ray and Sabine on our heels. They might not know what set us off, but they were experienced enough to understand something was wrong.
Something was very, very wrong.
14 Beaten with the Ugly Stick
Brock stuck to me like glue, but the more I ran and settled into the repetitive rhythm of my strides, the easier it was to push away the waves of power and the consequent pain they caused. The nausea receded and I stretched my legs to reach farther and faster.
The gate was on the other end of the property, farthest from Brock’s house and mine. Given the circumstances, that was a very good thing. I didn’t want this creature that had slipped through anywhere near people I cared about. I had the distinct feeling the creature would want to eat my friends.
‘Cass? You coming?’ I asked while we ran.
‘On your tail. Everyone’s with me too, even T.’
‘Good,’ I said. We’d need every one of our strengths. I couldn’t explain the clear knowledge that a demon had just crawled out of the gate, but I’d bet my life on it. A new kitsune power, and a useful one.
‘The baby,’ Brock warned. ‘You’re going too fast.’
‘Honey, I’m not going fast enough,’ I said. ‘If whatever this is makes it off the property, we’re fucked.’ And I didn’t mean “we” as in my group of friends and my baby daddy, I meant the entire town. We’d barely managed to kill the demon giant the last time something escaped from the gate, and I recoiled at the thought of what it would have done had it made it into town.
Brock, Ray, Sabine, and I loped silently through the woods. When I spotted the creature in front of us, my step faltered and I stumbled before catching myself.
“What the...?” Brock whispered.
I snapped my mouth shut. I had no fucking idea what the hell this creature ahead of us was.
Brock, his wolves, and I, whirled at the sound of crunching branches to our right. A relieved exhale escaped me when Haru and Reo moved through the forest as light on their feet as deer. They took one look from me to the creature standing near the area of the gate and the immovable Japanese warriors’ faces settled into lines of shock.
Ah, so they didn’t know what the hell it was either.
Half a minute later, Cass whirred up on his hoverboard, and Tianna and Molly skidded to a stop next to us.
“Holy motherfucking fuck,” Molly whisper-screamed, far less creative than usual, but I wasn’t about to blame her.
The monster was easily fifteen feet tall, but I couldn’t decide if it was half lizard man, half deformed troll, or half an uneasy mixture of the entire contents of the underworld. The thing had five arms, all hanging in the wrong places, and only some ending in a semblance of hands. It had three legs, though only two reached the forest floor, the other one hanging from his waist like a spare part. This thing had definitely been beaten with the ugly stick. Repeatedly.
Its face was human-like, if said human were standing in front of a funhouse mirror. To further make the image the stuff of nightmares, it had a head of dreadlock-looking hair, only the dreads were moving, like Medusa gone terribly wrong.
Cass’ hoverboard sputtered as he lost momentum in his shock. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered.
“What? You know what that thing is?” Brock asked immediately.
The creature was standing far enough off that it hadn’t spotted us yet. It was looking stupidly at its feet, probably wondering what world it had just stepped into.
Cass nodded slowly, as if he were struggling to comprehend what he was seeing.
“Then what the hell is it?” Brock pressed.
Cass popped his hoverboard into his hands and shuffled between me and Tianna. “It’s an apollyon.” His voice suggested we were witnessing a walking legend, the monster kind. He shook his head. “This is so not good. This means the situation is even worse than we thought.”
“It doesn’t seem like it could get much worse,” I muttered.
“Oh, but it has, girl. No doubt about it. An apollyon is a sign that the underworld is malfunctioning. The magic of the underworld is glitching—that same magic that’s responsible for creating your demons, trolls, goblins, sea monsters, what have you, along with the adorable demon imps like me, though I’m one of a kind, of course.”
Cass scanned our horrified group. “It means instead of creating your standard variety of monsters, the underworld is giving birth to an entirely different kind of beast, the kind that takes parts from the entirety of the magic of the underworld.”
“If that’s so,” Reo said, “then maybe the creatures won’t be that strong. If they don’t have balance in their design, they might not function properly.”
“Maybe,” Cass said. “But eventually one could be made that combines the most fearsome of all underworld monster traits. It’s bound to happen. The magic of the underworld strives for one sole purpose: to spread as far and as widely it can, and as powerfully as it can.”
Birds chirped into the dead silence that followed Cass’ pronouncement. Lucky birds, they didn’t understand the literal hell that was about to befall their happy little world.
“Apollyons have only happened once before in the entirety of our history as far as I know. Think of them like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or a plague of locusts. We have to do everything in our power to stop what happens next.”
“I have to close the damn gate,” I said.
“Yes, Evie, you do,” Cass said, “and you need to do it like your ass is on fire. But first, we have to kill that thing. Because that’ll eat babies and lick its lips afterwards.”
As if the monstrous apollyon realized we were planning its demise, it turned and set hideous, bulging eyes on us that glowed like the fiery pits of the underworld.
Everyone in our group froze for a few breaths. Then Haru and Reo closed ranks around me with the shliing of drawing swords, and Brock pressed himself to my side. Molly cocked Gran’s shotgun, the sound ringing out into the forest that was about to lose its peace.
“My katana please,” I said, extending my hand to my warrior protectors. Of course, they were prepared for battle, and Reo placed the hilt of my katana in my hand.
Immediately, it sprang to life at my touch. Purple light whisked across its blade in a flash.
This time, however, I had the feeling a sword wasn’t going to be enough. I’d need every bit of my kitsune and witch magic to take down that thing.
My friends pressed in on me, forming a huddle as the creature rotated its body toward us. Shoulders off kilter but wide as a car, it bore down on us—on me.
The beast opened its crooked mouth wide, revealing several rows of warped teeth, and roared. My heart shook at the sound, missing the rhythm of its beat before settling back down. My super kitsune sense of smell recoiled at the stench of rotting ... everything.
I shook my head to clear it of the fear that tried to overcome my thoughts. “Time to kill an apollyon,” I said, grateful for the strength I was able to inject into my voice.
One thing was for sure, I was going to sleep like the dead tonight. My nap was long overdue.
Breathing deeply to steel my nerves, I charged at the beast, careful not to meet its eyes. They were the most terrifying thing of all.
15 Demon Guts
“You’re pregnant!” Brock called to me as we ran at the beast.
“No shit!” I growled.
Brock started shedding his clothes while we moved, the snapping of bones echoing throughout the forest. Without a shotgun, the alpha would be more useful in his wolf form. I, however, couldn’t do shit as a fox against a monster this size, so I was remaining human with my katana.