“Commander Sloan has ordered that we not pair off into teams for now as a safety precaution against whatever demon has been killing?—”
“We should go after the traitors,” Rob interrupted coldly. His thick neck and pug-like nose gave him boorish look, which his personality matched far too well. “We know they’re responsible for this thing, whatever it is. They went after Wallace’s squad. That was payback for their attack on Julian. We all know it. It’sobvious.”
Nicolas inhaled slowly. “Nonetheless, those aren’t our orders. Our orders are to patrol Sector 93, stick together, and kill any monsters we find.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’redyingto find some action tonight, right, Captain?” Evan said, nudging Jacob, who sniggered.
Nicolas pursed his lips. “If you mean to hunt, then yes.”
“Yeah, of course. What else would I mean?” Evan’s mouth twitched, and some of the others badly hid their laughter behind their hands.
Irritation spiked through him. He wouldn’t rise to the bait.Evan was young and overzealous. Nicolas was treated with suspicion because of who his brother was. One day—hopefully—Evan would look back on these moments with shame.
Nicolas wasn’t sure Evan would ever possess the self-awareness to feel shame, but all he could do was hope. Prayer, he’d decided recently, didn’t seem to be getting him very far. Hope was probably just as useless, but it was all he had.
“Let’s head out,” he said, weary already and they hadn’t even begun. It was going to be a long night with these bullies for company. He could hardly believe they were the same people he used to laugh with over steaks and beer at Julian’s house. He barely recognized them now. At one time, he wouldn’t have thought them capable of this casual cruelty. Maybe he never really knew them at all.
The monstrous demons tended to inhabit less populated areas and prey on any who wandered too close, so there was no one around as the group of eight fell into step together with Nicolas at the head. He ignored the quiet words and pointed snickers at his back. He wouldn’t rise to the taunting of small-minded men.
His mind drifted as they walked, scanning the darkness absentmindedly for signs of movement. What was it like, he wondered, patrolling as a sentinel? They had far fewer numbers than the guild. Were they a tight-knit group? Did Julian invite them over for cookouts the way he used to invite the squad? And the demons, what were they like? The behemoth he’d met patrolling with Julian was intimidating at first but nice enough after Julian introduced them and made it clear Nicolas was a friend. Did they help the humans kill other demons? Was there no retribution from Hell for their behavior? It didn’t seem fair that the paladinswere treated more harshly by their leaders than literal demons.
A sharp gasp tore him from his wandering thoughts.
“What’s that?”
Nicolas turned, following Jacob’s finger. Through a chainlink fence, a hooded figure stood on the pavement in a metal-working facility, surrounded by dark warehouse buildings, watching them. He blinked, and the figure disappeared. The door of the warehouse opened with a bang, as though it was inviting them inside, and a chill went down Nicolas’s spine.
The others launched into motion, rushing toward the chainlink gate, which was latched but not locked.
“Wait,” Nicolas rasped. “We don’t know what that thing was!” That could be the demon that was killing paladins. They needed a game plan. If they just rushed in when it was clearly waiting for them, they could be massacred.
“It’s a demon,Nic,” Evan sneered over his shoulder. “We kill them. Remember?”
Nicolas’s response lodged in his throat, and it didn’t matter anyway, because they were gone. He drew his sword and chased after them, slowing when he reached the warehouse door. This building wasn’t abandoned, but at least all the workers were gone for the night. His boots were quiet on the polished tile floor of the dark hallway. The others were already far ahead of him, disappearing through another doorway.
Screams pierced the air, and his stomach bottomed out. He sprinted toward the sound and found his squad scattered across the factory floor. The room was huge, two stories high and at least as big as a football field, lined with large windows that were currently shut, letting in a meageramount of moonlight. There was machinery and a smelter, cold and dark, in the middle of the room, but here, closer to the door, the other seven members of his squad were on the concrete floor.
As Nicolas watched, the figure, with glowing orange eyes deep within the shadowed recesses of a dark hood, twisted one coal black hand. Evan’s legs snapped, and he screamed, trying to claw himself away. The others were in a similar state, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles. All of them were trying to get away from the hooded monster in the middle.
“Help us!” Jacob screamed at Nicolas, and glowing orange eyes lifted to meet his own.
Nicolas jerked into motion, his heart thundering in his ears. But he barely made it two steps into the room. The figure lifted one hand, fingers splayed wide, and an invisible force sent him hurtling backward. He expected pain, expected twisted limbs and slamming into the wall. While he did hit the wall in the hallway, it barely hurt at all, and there was no bone-breaking agony.
Pinned in place by that invisible power, he could do nothing but watch as the figure stooped over Evan, lifting him up and forcing his head back at a painful looking angle. The creature’s head tipped down, and black smoke rose from Evan’s face, billowing up under the demon’s hood. His body shrank, turning gray and withering before Nicolas’s eyes. Evanscreamed, his voice going high and choking off as the life left him.
Panic pounded through Nicolas’s veins, and he closed his eyes as he listened to each member of his squad die. He clung to his sword and drove his shoulders and elbows into the wall behind him, but no amount of pushing freed him.He didn’t want to die like this, helpless and scared. He at least wanted to go down fighting.
“Let me go!” he roared, thrashing against the invisiblethingpinning him still.
He came off the wall so suddenly that he staggered several steps, catching himself in the doorway. Everyone was already dead, their bodies withered and gray. They all died in just a few minutes, and he couldn’t do a thing to stop it.
“My God,” he wheezed, leaning heavily on the door frame. His knees wobbled, and his stomach twisted. He was going to be sick. “They’re all dead.”
“Evil,” the figure croaked, turning to face him. Its voice was deep and raspy, like old pipes rattling in a house.
Nicolas tried to take a breath, but his throat was too tight. “What?”
The demon stepped over a body—he couldn’t even tell who it was anymore—and Nicolas saw a flash of claw-tipped toes. It stepped closer, and Nicolas should have backed away or raised his sword. Instead his mind snagged on the demon’s deep voice, on the way those orange, glowing eyes trailed down his body and back up, like it was savoring him.
