Demon Lore Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Praise for Karilyn Bentley

  Demon Lore

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  ...the spike of adrenaline explodes

  into my limbs too late to stop the backhand blow slamming across my jaw.

  I superman it halfway across the living room. Land on the hardwood floor in a thud of pain-ridden limbs. My jaw morphs into a screaming ball of nerves. My head no sooner hits the floor than I hear the bracelet scream, a high-pitched wail quivering through my skin like vibrations from a tuning fork. The bracelet tightens around my wrist, cutting off the circulation, and then it loosens with a pop at the same time I hear the door click closed.

  Ohgodohgodohgod, I’m going to die. I don’t want to die. No, no, no, no, no. Pain and terror hold me crumpled on the floor as my mind crawls backward in time.

  But I’m no longer a child, fearful of fists and words, cowering on the ground.

  I’m a fighter.

  My head spins, but I refuse to lie on the floor waiting to be killed, so I attempt to stand. Evil Guy laughs as I ass-plant it. Laughs as a moan escapes my lips. He takes a step toward me, right arm drawn back for a hit. His fist hurls toward my face, but I manage to block it with my left arm. My right arm, the one with the bracelet, shoves forward, slamming into his chest.

  His black eyes widen, mouth open in surprise, his hands fluttering to his chest before dropping. I stare at my hand, stare hard, for I’m as surprised as Evil Guy. The bracelet had become a sword, a long, thin spike of metal extending from the silver links, straight into Evil Guy’s heart.

  Praise for Karilyn Bentley

  MAGICAL LOVER

  “Ms. Bentley’s characters are strong and will defend to the death those they love.”

  ~Aloe, Long and Short Reviews

  ~*~

  WARRIOR LOVER

  “I enjoyed the way the author wrote this book and the characters were very realistic. I will be living in this fairytale for awhile.”

  ~Crystal, Romancing the Book

  ~*~

  WEREWOLVES IN LONDON

  “The author has excellent world building skills and leaves the reader with a very good picture of this werewolf society and its rules. This story is a great combination of romance, action, suspense and the paranormal.”

  ~Maura, CoffeeTime Romance

  ~*~

  WOLF MATES

  “...had a good mix of humor and action, a good, developed plot for a novella and was a fun read.”

  ~M. Dobson, Sizzling Hot Book Reviews

  ~*~

  “...was a fun book to read.”

  ~Jane, Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance & More

  Demon Lore

  by

  Karilyn Bentley

  A Demon Huntress Novel

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Demon Lore

  COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Karilyn Bentley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Diana Carlile

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Mainstream General Edition, 2014

  Print ISBN 978-1-62830-693-4

  Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-694-1

  A Demon Huntress Novel

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  Thank you to the Plotting Princesses

  for helping me brainstorm much needed names.

  And a special thanks to Phyllis Middleton

  for her expertise on police procedures.

  Any mistakes are mine.

  And as always, to my hubby.

  Thank you for listening and for your constant support.

  I love you!

  Chapter 1

  Colors explode in my mind, their corresponding emotions a sucker punch to my brain. Red anger, gray sorrow, and then Will Wunderliech, our top ER doc, moves his hand from my bare arm, releasing me from his tumultuous thoughts.

  Despite the lack of contact, Will’s wife continues to scream at him—at me—her voice bouncing through my brain like a ball in a pinball machine. I gulp in a breath, squeeze my eyes shut, force the voice into hiding.

  Being an empath is a curse.

  Whoever thinks it fascinating needs to live my life. Then maybe they’d stop calling me crazy.

  Will’s wife fades into nothing, her voice and image disappearing into the dark recesses of my mind.

  I take a deep breath. Steady now. I should be used to the flashes, to the glimpses of people’s thoughts and emotions, but nope, I’m not. At least it only happens with skin-on-skin contact. But I don’t have on my scrub jacket, and he touched my bare arm.

  “You okay, Gin?”

  I look into the pair of blue eyes featured prominently in my dreams since high school. Who would’ve thought we’d end up working together years later at Blue Forest Hospital in the Emergency Room. This time, though, I’m not the school freak. I’m a kickass ER nurse staring into the eyes of the local Dr. Dreamy. My old friend.

  Who needs lying to about my empath ability. No use in him thinking I’m still a freak.

  “Yeah, sorry. Lost my balance. How are you?”

  “Eh.” His hand floats in the air, twisting back and forth in a so-so motion. “I’ve been better.”

  “Is it the wife?” Or as I’ve always thought of that trashy blowjob queen, a ho.

  He pauses, blinks, clearly weighing past friendship with professional pecking order. When he sighs, I know friendship wins. “You must be psychic or something. Yeah, we got in a big fight this morning.” Pain-filled eyes meet mine then look away. When he replies his voice softens so only I can hear. “I think she wants to leave. Maybe it’s for the best. I don’t know.” He clears his throat, offers a lopsided grin. “Anyway, I’ve gotta get busy. There’s a new patient in number one. Stomach pains. Those are always fun.” The intimate glimpse into his thoughts disappears, leaving me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

  He waves and hightails it away from where I stand. I sigh. It’s not meant to be, obviously. I mean, sure, I see what’s going on with him and his wife, so I could easily say something to encourage him to leave her. But how likely was it that he would come knocking on my door?

  Unlikely to not. And I’d feel bad about it.

  Guilt sucks.

  Almost
as hard as being an empath.

  Since Blue Forest doesn’t pay me to stand in the hall and stare at Dr. Dreamy’s buff bod, I might as well check on the dehydrated patient. Putting the fantasies of us lying tangled in silk sheets into the review-before-going-to-sleep section of my mind, I push open the door to the patient’s room and reach for the glove box hanging on the wall.

  “Hello, Mr. Talley, how are you feeling?” Snap, snap, and the gloves sheath my hands.

  “A little better. Still not right.”

  And he thought he would be all right with one liter of saline? The man walked, or more like shuffled, into the ER after several days of pooping and puking. He thought he could rehydrate himself at home. Oops. Faulty logic there.

  “Well, Mr. Talley, we’re going to need to pull a bit of blood out of you. Is that okay? I’ll access the needle we already have in your arm.”

  “Sure, sure. Whatever you need to do.”

  Protected by the gloves, I grab a needle and get to work accessing the catheter in his arm. With gloves on, I can touch patients and not have to worry much about their thoughts and emotions intruding on me. Only if they’re broadcasting loudly, and I do mean loudly, will it bother me. Mr. Talley is too out of it to project anything but pain and illness.

  Being a nurse might seem an odd career choice for an empath, but occasionally I can help someone. Touch them and know where their illness comes from. What will help them feel better. Or if they’re too far gone to ever feel better, as the case may be. And those rare instances make the unwanted flashes of memory worth every minute.

  “Okay, I got it. I’ll go take this—” I hold up his tube of blood “—to the lab and see what you have in there. Then I’ll come back to check on fluids.” I point to the bag dripping a rehydrating solution into his veins.

  He chuckles and closes his eyes.

  I drop the blood off at the drop station for the hospital lab to pick up and am about to return to the nursing desk to make my diligent notes in the patient’s online chart, when I hear what sounds like coughing coming from Room 1. Dr. Dreamy’s stomach pain patient.

  In an ER coughing is par for the day, but this cough sounds different, inhuman. The sound stops me mid-step, a live statue in the hallway. A fine tremor captures my spine in its grasp. The intuition buzzer wails like a tornado siren in a hailstorm. The coughing, so normal in here, and yet, clearly not right, precedes a dull thump, a light shake of the wall missed, in the bustle of the ER, by all other ears but mine.

  My vision narrows, blocks all the noise, the rush, of medical staff, focusing on Room 1 like light shining at the end of a tunnel. As if pulled by invisible strings, I walk to the exam room, heart double-timing a crazed beat. What’s wrong? Why do I feel this way? Why doesn’t anyone else hear the coughing, the unusual thud?

  My hand reaches for the handle on the door, only to hit air as a nondescript man barrels out of the room as if chased by the hounds of hell. Before I can move, he runs right into me, and I almost fall over.

  His thoughts, oh my god, his thoughts. Tangles of dark strands mesh together, piling upon one another in a jumble of terror. Anger, revenge, disappointment. What he wanted wasn’t here. A body, blood running down its chest, over its white lab coat.

  And then he steps away from me as the door clicks closed.

  “Excuse me.” The melodious tone of his voice doesn’t jibe with the web of thoughts dashing through his mind. I look into his eyes, into vast pools of empty obsidian and a cold shiver consumes my being. My muscles tense, shaking a jitterbug. I can’t move, can’t flee, can’t scream.

  “Where’s my sister?” my twin T’s shout booms down the hall as if fired from a canon. “I need to see her now! Where is she?”

  And just like that T’s voice breaks the communion I’m having with the scariest thing I’ve ever met. I say thing, because his thoughts, his emotions aren’t human. Or not totally human. Or maybe it’s just I’ve never met a human that evil.

  For that’s what the tangles were, evil.

  My muscles relax enough with the sound of T’s voice for me to glance over my shoulder toward the waiting room. Why was T here? T only showed up when bad things were about to happen to me.

  And what could be worse than that evil thing?

  I turn my head so fast it’s like I’m Linda Blair. But the evil thing disappeared. I glance up and down the hall only to see my co-workers going about their business.

  T continues to yell at Sally Ann, our intake coordinator, to let him pass. If she doesn’t, he’ll give up on being polite and shove his way through the doors. It doesn’t matter if they are locked to the ER. T has no problem with making locks disengage.

  I ignore T’s outburst. Room 1 calls me, my intuition shrieks a warning as my skin erupts in tingles. I take a breath, push open the door, and step inside. The coppery scent of blood assails my nostrils. Fresh blood. I’m standing in it.

  Will is slumped against the wall, blood streaming out of him from gunshot wounds in his chest and abdomen. His eyes flick to me, pleading for help, for relief, while his lips form words I can’t hear.

  I do not keep a cool head like I’ve been trained to do in emergencies. I’m standing in a pool of blood from my friend, and everything goes blank in my brain. I scream, realize I’m screaming and shut myself up.

  “Doctor down! Doctor down!”

  A loud shattering sound streaks down the hall, but I’m inside the room and slipping to Will. I grab his hand because lucky for him all I need is a touch to see what happened, to get into his head.

  I want you to have it, I want you to have it, I want you to have it.

  His thoughts hit me first, and then I’m pulled past them, into his memories.

  Will walks into Exam Room 1, but the man is not doubled over, is not having stomach pains and he looks familiar. Where does he know him? Unease scratches across his skin and into mine as I relive his experience.

  The man stands and tries to smile, but it’s a hideous imitation of a welcome.

  Will takes a breath, tension spreading to his muscles. He’s two steps into the room and going no further. “I’m Dr. Wunderliech, what seems to be the problem?”

  “You have something I want.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  The man’s eyes look black, cold as space and as welcoming as an out of control eighteen-wheeler headed his way. Must be an addict looking for a hit. But even as he thinks it, he realizes that’s not true. An addict’s stare lacks the cold calculation and spark of glee this man’s possesses.

  Like a stone-cold killer’s dark gaze.

  Will steps backward, toward the door.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” The man stretches out his hand and catches Will by invisible strings, each strand a frozen length cutting into his flesh, forcing him to stand against the wall.

  He fights, but to no avail. How can he free himself if he can’t even see what’s holding him? Nothing moves except his lungs working overtime.

  “Where is it?” The man takes a step closer. “I’ve spent years tracking it down. And back to you. I killed her trying to get it, but never could find you.”

  Thoughts blossom in Will’s mind, thoughts hidden for years, remembrances of when he was a child, the last night of his mother’s life.

  Terror blossoms in his throat, an acrid scent wrapping him like a blanket, a threat of death in the guise of comfort. He hid under a bed, hearing sounds of a fight, hearing the thuds of fists as they struck his mother, over and over until nothing but silence remained. His breath echoed loudly in his ears, even as he tried to relax the see-saw of air raking in and out of his mouth. He clutched a silver-link bracelet in his hand, held it so tightly it cut into his skin.

  Please don’t see me, please don’t see me, please don’t see me. Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me.

  The phrases ran through his mind, circling around, until they were all he heard. The bracelet felt hot in his palm as if it tried to fuse with his ski
n. It burned now, he felt blisters forming, smelled his skin burning, but didn’t make a sound, didn’t move. He was a good boy. His mother said so. She said to hide under the bed, to hold the bracelet, to not let it go. She said everything would be okay, she said so, and yet he knew it wasn’t.

  Footsteps creaked on the floorboards, each step bringing someone closer. Not his mother, though. Her steps weren’t so heavy. He pressed himself against the wall, trying to make himself tiny.

  Please don’t let him see me. Please don’t let him hurt me.

  The comforter of his bed was thrown back, a bland face peering underneath.

  Please don’t...

  The comforter dropped into place, as the man walked around the room. Doors opened and shut, opened and shut. Drawers were pulled out, their contents dumped on the floor.

  The boy huddled against the wall under the bed, clutching the bracelet, whispering over and over for the bad man to go away, to leave him alone. The silver links hurt his hand, burned his palm, but he gripped it tight like he had his mother’s hand on the Ferris wheel at the state fair. He was still gripping the bracelet, hiding under the bed, when the police found him hours later.

  And now the man, the one who had killed his mother, the one whose face was seared into his memory, who scarred his life, was at the hospital, pinning him to the wall with an invisible hold.

  “Where is it?”

  Will knows what the man wants, knows but refuses to tell him. His mother died protecting that bracelet. For whatever unknown reason, she considered her life a fair trade to keep the silver links safe from this man. How could he honor her memory by doing less?

  “Don’t have it.”

  “Where?”

  “I. Don’t. Have. It.”

  The man growls, a low rumbling threat and pulls out a gun. Panic ricochets through Will’s limbs as he tries in vain to escape his bonds. He’s not ready to see his beloved mother again, but the choice is taken away on what sounds like a string of soft coughs. Pain blooms throughout Will’s chest and stomach as the man laughs with no sound.

  A hand shakes my shoulder, pulling me away from a now unconscious Will. His pain still pings around my chest and abdomen, traveling throughout my limbs. I taste terror in the back of my throat, threatening to choke my breath, Will’s terror, not mine, but I can’t differentiate between the two. Doctors stream in, nurses hurrying around, but I stay slumped on the floor, my brain slowly turning over. I’d never touched another person in that manner for that long before, never been that deep into their thoughts, their remembrances. Blood soaks through my scrubs, soaks right into my skin, like the remains of Will want to become a part of me.