Then, one day, a messenger came with news that he witnessed a horrific car crash, a man and a child were stuck inside when it exploded. They had teeth records to prove it was Lex and his uncle. When my dad told me the news, I held those tears in and told him it was a lie, that there was no way Lex was dead. My dad assured me he would keep searching but told me it didn’t look good. They would see justice served, but we needed to face the reality that the Devil line was gone.
I remembered them spilling over when he said that, and I wiped my cheeks furiously. I glared at him and said we would pick up the Devil’s duties until he returned, then stomped off, not wanting to hear him tell me again that Lex was gone.
When I looked into those sparkling dark eyes last night, I knew it was him. Even if his hair and face were longer, his body and arms pressed into me, showing me he was a lot bigger and stronger, those were still the exact same eyes, the same expression, from when I gave him my hairpin. Everything inside of me screamed,See, I was right, he was alive, and I knew it.
I knew it. The Devil family was not gone. They needed us to carry some of the slack until they came back... until I brought him back.
We turned down a dirt road to the first settlement. It was a small group of werewolves that enjoyed the desert life more than the forest life and made a home for themselves in the mountains. With these smaller communities, they usually had their own customs, ones rooted in respect, so I had prepared some offerings to give to get the information I needed, proving I could use the honey versus the vinegar to get the results I wanted.
I went straight to their alpha, and two of my men followed with a large cooler filled with raw beef. He took my offering and invited me inside his home as an honored guest. I gave him Lex’s details, asking if he saw a man by that description. He told me he didn’t see anyone that fit that, but his wolves had noticed a lot of activity around the basin of the mountain. He showed me a trail and the area that his wolves usually hunted but no longer had animals. He and his wolves felt an ominous aura coming from the entrance and refused to go back down there after seeing a few small groups in hoods heading farther into the basin.
I thanked him for his observations, then complimented his settlement and location. He preened and told me to come back whenever I wanted. That Rayla Desmond would always be welcomed by the Sun Runners Pack. I thanked him again and went off to the second settlement.
It was a mage and human settlement, one where they liked to live off the land and their magic, keeping technology out of their lives as much as possible. Also, they liked to have humans and supes integrated with each other in everything, something that most major cities frowned upon.
Human officials would say it was too dangerous and risky for humans to live so closely with us unpredictable beings. While it was not against the law for humans and supes to be cohesive, it was frowned upon. It didn’t help that if a human got into an issue with a supe, most human law enforcement wouldn’t do anything about it. They would say the person knew the risks of dealing with our kind and would leave it at that. This made it so the humans, with a healthy dose of fear, steered clear of us, and since that was most humans, they mainly kept to their places and us ours, but over the past five years, I had seen an uptick in human activity around supes.
Upon arriving at the second settlement, I did the same thing. I had two men carry out a box full of magical items and stones, things they would appreciate and use, as I asked to see their leader. Again, I was welcomed with open arms, and I asked my questions.
This leader said about the same thing; he hadn’t seen someone with Lex’s description, but that he had seen a larger increase of blacked-out SUVs going back and forth on the road. When I asked him about the basin of the mountain, telling him what the Sun Runners’s alpha told me, he agreed. He said that he and his people avoided that area because they felt a distortion of nature around it. That he didn’t feel it until about a couple weeks ago. It was so heavy they didn’t even go in that direction anymore, and he warned me to not go there as well.
I nodded to him in thanks. He shook my hand, telling me he appreciated our donation and the respect I showed to their community. It wasn’t really anything like that, I didn’t give a flying fuck about them, I just wanted information, and I knew the fastest, most efficient way to get it was to buy them off. I smiled and told him if I found anyone that needed a place like this, I would send them his way. We could always use allies. He thanked me, waving us off as we turned down the highway toward the basin.
If there was one thing I learned from visiting them, it was that something was going on down there, something that spooked them. Luckily, I didn’t scare easily, so I would investigate, and if the gods of good fortune were on my side, I would find some clue as to where Lex was.
We parked where the dirt road turned into a footpath. Even with it only being dirt, small bushes, and large rocks, it would make it impossible for our vehicles to go forward, which meant we needed to go on foot. I swung my leg over my bike and informed the men to take a weapon with them but to keep it light as I didn’t know how far we had to go.
I had to hand it to the two community leaders. I got why they warned me away from this place. As my foot hit the ground, there was this dense feeling in the air that rushed forward, almost like I was walking through mud. I glanced at my men, their furrowed brows and hesitation an indication they felt it, too. I lifted my finger to my lips, letting them know we needed to be quiet from this point on, and then pushed my hand forward.
We walked in silence for a while as I surveyed the area. The deeper we got down the path, the more unsettled I felt. It was like my whole body was rejecting going forward. A sudden breeze rushed through the air, and I thought I heard a voice telling us to go back, to leave this place. It only strengthened my resolve, making me want to go deeper.
When you put these occurrences together, it seemed like someone had used a lot of subtle magic to make sure people turned away on their own. Even my men’s steps got slower and slower, trying to delay my advancement. Sure, my heart was pumping with adrenaline at finding something dangerous at the end of the path. My thrill-seeking ways made it so I wouldn’t fall for the magic’s trickery and only pushed myself harder to discover what someone desperately didn’t want me to see.
A snap sounded to my side, and on instinct, I ducked, and something whooshed above me in the space where my neck had been. I turned to the side and a hooded figure dressed in all black came out from behind a large boulder.
“Great.” I sighed. “Now I have to deal with some lone wilderness crazy person.”
The hooded figure moved its fingers, and a dagger appeared in the blink of an eye. Pulling its hood down, a man with cinnamon skin and yellow eyes stared down at me. “Who said I was alone?”
As if those were the magical words, hooded heads popped up out of nowhere all round us. My men made a quick decision to circle me, but I did a rapid count, and there was about thirty of them versus the five of us. That only meant I would have to pull more weight in this fight.
I couldn’t keep the sass out of my voice as I responded, “So, you admit you’re a wilderness crazy person, and they are your rock-loving friends?” His hand tightened around the hilt of his dagger as he glared at me.
Two yellow horns peeked out of his shiny, bald head as his eyes blazed in anger, and my heart skipped a beat. Demon. He was a demon. Did he know where Lex was? Could this weirdo have seen him?
I didn’t have a chance to ask as the bald demon spat out, “This will be your last day for making jokes, vampire. Your death will be brutal and bloody, but we will make sure to send what tiny remains are left of you to your father.” He looked around and yelled, “Go!”
1I was a little bummed we had to stop our chat, he was giving me information I was interested in, and I wanted to see if he would give me more, but as ten of the hooded figures descended on my group, I felt like a deeper conversation was out of the question.
“Don’t worry about me, I will be handling the outskirts,” I whispered to my men. “Just focus on taking out as many as quickly as you can.”
They nodded as they faced the oncoming threats. I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out two golden identical rings, securing them on each hand’s middle finger. It was an old-school weapon, one my dad used a lot back in the day, but it was lightweight and effective, so I packed them with me.
I heard some whispering to my left, a telltale sign of someone trying to cast magic, and zoomed toward it and found a hooded figure crouching behind a boulder. He was trying to hurry as he drew a rune to set the trap, and I knew it was my moment to step in. “I don’t think that will hold, bro.”
His head snapped up, and he didn’t finish setting the spell as I lifted my hands and tapped the two rings together. A small, thin, razor-sharp wire showed up via magic, and I wrapped it around the mage’s neck, slammed my foot on his back, and forced his body down as I yanked his head up. The wire sliced its way through his skin and muscles until I got to the spinal cord, and I yanked harder, cracking through the bone. Blood splattered across my face as his head landed with a thud at my feet with his expression frozen in shock. He should’ve been faster.
I clicked the rings again, and the wire disappeared as I zoomed to my next victim. I jumped just as a hooded fae took flight and then slammed him to the ground as he cried out for help. I swiftly lifted him, punched my hand through his chest, and squeezed his heart. The thick coating of blood around my hand made it difficult to get a good hold on the organ, but I was determined and dug my nails in to secure it as I yanked it out. His cries of pure suffering and pain made me smile wide, fangs on full display, as I crushed it in front of him.
