Chapter2
Axel
FOUR WEEKS LATER
Axel had smoked so much he wasn’t sure whether he could feel his face, never mind the serrated knife that had just sliced through his abs like fucking butter.
“Fuck, you okay?” Titus asked as he shot the Shadow-Veyn that raced towards them between its eyes. A classification A scavenger who was eating the remains of some poor bastard. Not that much remained of the body, which meant they didn’t need to call and deal with clean-up. Silver linings.
Sythe let out a grunt, swinging his sword at the possessed human who had just tried to re-decorate Axel’s insides. Hunting for Shadow-Veyn and Daemons had become a full-time job, the activity skyrocketing in the last few months to the point there were constant sightings.
People were going missing, creatures made from nightmares were being found lurking in the dark and not to mention the sheer number of fucking possessions. Daemons were clearly lazy bastards, using a conduit to run their errands rather than doing it themselves. Luckily, in a city as populated as London, one or two people a week acting out of character, eating their pets, or drawing dark runes on their kitchen floor wasn’t going to be noticed.
At least not yet.
Sythe swung his sword again, cutting across the man’s chest in one clean cut. There was no blood, just a black sludge that seeped into his shirt. It was a nice shirt, white with delicate little blue flowers. Except now it was ruined. His trousers were well made, black slacks that looked expensive apart from the dirt and mud that caked the hem. His shoes too. Loafers, which weren’t the obvious choice for a murder spree.
Or maybe they were, Axel couldn’t exactly judge his attire when he lived in t-shirts, leather, and boots.
“You’re not supposed to slaughter him,” Titus said, shooting another scavenger who appeared from within a storm drain. His voice was always so soft, relaxed, which was at odds with his appearance. Not to mention the fact he was shooting Veyn with such fucking precision while looking bored out of his mind. What was even better was the fact his gun was covered in glitter, thanks to Axel and a few hours with some glue. He had chosen various shades of grey and silver because he wasn’t a monster. It went with Titus’s style of black, black, and black.
“Do you see him dead?” Sythe muttered. “I’m just having a little fun with our boy here.”
“You’re all going to die,” the man said, but it wasn’t really the man who had spoken. His mouth was open, throat unmoving as the voice projected itself from deep within the shell. A puppet with a hidden ventriloquist.
“Oh, thank the Fates,” Sythe said with a dramatic sigh. “I thought my existence would never end.”
The man screeched, bending back until he was almost in half. His head turned, neck at an impossible angle. “He’scoming for you all.”
“Fuck, I think we need to call a chiropractor,” Sythe said, cocking his head to better meet the man’s red, empty gaze.
“Release your vessel,” Titus said calmly. “This one’s already broken.”
The man snapped his teeth together, hard enough one cracked. “Not until you submit to us. Imagine what we could do, together.”
Axel pulled himself to his feet, quickly checking his stomach. He’d stopped bleeding, and was already healed enough that he wouldn’t pass out. Probably. There was no pain from the wound, in fact there was no pain at all thanks to whatever he’d smoked earlier. His beast for which he shared his soul was still present, a static energy that never rested no matter how many drugs he took. It was constant, a violent buzz across his entire body. When he wasn’t on narcotics it hurt, every muscle on fire while his beast ravaged his mind. Then there were the relentless whispers, white noise and intrusive thoughts that were just as maddening.
Unlike his brothers, he had never heard his beast communicate, not in words or even desires. Nothing other than the pain and persistent discordance.
Something was broken between them, and had been since the ritual when he was forced to take the beast into his body as a child. He had no choice then, and he had no choice now. The beast would be forever with him until death.
Which was looking more and more appealing each passing day.
“Submit?” Axel chuckled. “I’m sorry, Ti likes to be the dominant one in the bedroom. What’s it Cousin? Ropes and paddles?” His grin stretched when Titus shot him a pointed glare.
The possessed man straightened, and Axel cringed at each click of his spine realigned. Not many of the vessels survived the possession, and the man was already looking like hammered shit. The longer the Daemon controlled them, the more they started to deteriorate. The man’s skin was relatively clean, no evidence of decay but his left arm was broken, the bone protruding sharply. There were cuts along his face, the surrounding area red and puffy as infection had set in and some of his fingers were bent at the wrong angle. If he was released, he still had to survive his injuries.
The man looked between them all, his movements uneven, jerky.
Sythe crossed his arms, his sword carefully pointed to the cobbled stones. “This is pointless. We’ll just force him out.”
“Fine by me.” Axel shot across the space, tackling the man around the waist as they both fell to the hard ground. He ignored the punch to his side, feeling a rib break at the borrowed strength that pumped though the man’s skinny arms. “Stop. Fucking. Moving,” he snarled as he straddled the man, his arms pinned beneath Axel’s knees.
“Effective,” Titus said dryly.
“Fuck off and write the fucking glyph.” Axel clenched his thighs, trying to keep the man from bucking him off, like it was some sort of rodeo. Titus was right, it wasn’t the most glamorous way of restraining someone, but it worked.
Sythe laughed, a full belly chuckle that had him bending almost in half. “The guys aren’t going to believe this. If you needed to get laid Axel, you could have just asked. I know a few guys who would happily wrap their lips around your –”
