Vivi Anna - Seducing the Hunter

“So, my friend, what is the word out in the world?” she asked as she took her turn.

“Loir is going topside,” he said as he rolled again.

“Really?” This surprised Daeva. Loir was Klix’s twin sister. Goblins usually didn’t go to the mortal realm. They weren’t very good at assimilating into the human world. Seeing a four-foot, bald, green-skinned creature with bulbous eyes, razor-sharp talons and four sets of teeth would send anyone into a panic or an asylum. “What is her purpose?”

Klix shrugged. “I am not sure. She would not tell me much.”

“She must be accompanying someone on a task.”

He nodded. “Yes, that would be logical.” He moved some of his black pieces into the winning box. “She did say something about a key.”

This perked Daeva up. There were only a few important keys up there in the world. “What kind of key, do you know?”

“Not sure. But I did hear it is supposed to open something of great value to demons. Something powerful. Something ancient.”

Daeva nearly dropped her teacup. She set it on the table, her hand shaking.

“Are you ill, Mistress?”

She swallowed, then gave him a small smile. “I must be a bit under the weather, Klix. Could we finish our game later? I believe I need to rest a bit.”

“Yes, of course.” He rose from his seat. “Shall I take the tea tray?”

“No, that’s fine.”

He bowed his bald head to her. “I will be back later to check on you, Mistress.”

“Oh, Klix, could you deliver a message to your sister for me?” Daeva reached for parchment and a quill. She scrawled three words on it, and folded the paper. She handed it to the goblin.

“I will do this right away.”

“Thank you, Klix. Please tell her to burn it after she reads it.”

The little goblin left her chamber, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Once he was gone, Daeva rose from her chair and went to the floor-to-ceiling bookcase along one wall. She ran her finger along the book titles until she found the one she needed. She slid it off the shelf and went to sit on the sofa.

She opened the thick tome on her lap and flipped through the pages. She stopped at a picture of a large wooden box with an elaborate lock on it. She read the text that went with it, then her finger circled another picture, that of a key. A skeleton key. The key that fit the lock. The key that opened a box that had been buried.

A plain wooden box she had buried herself, over a hundred years ago.

She sighed and leaned back against the sofa cushions. She prayed that this wasn’t the key Loir had gone topside to look for. As far as she knew, she was one of only a few people who knew who had the key. If someone was looking for it, then they were looking for the box.

The box had been entrusted to her more than a century ago by an elderly human scholar. He’d been an intelligent, well-read man who knew about the curse on the box. He knew exactly what had been sealed inside. And he had pleaded with her to bury it where no one, no human, no demon, would be able to find it again. He had been her friend, one of the few she had as a demon, so she did as he asked. With the help of a local man, she’d buried it deep in the earth in northern Canada.

They couldn’t allow what lay inside the box to be used again. Daeva feared what would happen if it fell into demon hands. It had been used against demonkind two millennia ago, used to enslave them and do one insane man’s bidding. But if it fell into demon hands, it could be used to subjugate the entire human population. It would overthrow humanity.

Recently, she had heard rumors and whispers about who possessed the key. And the last confirmed report had chilled her blood. If only she was still topside, she could’ve protected him, the key keeper, and he would never have even known.

Because she’d spent years right under his nose, hiding in plain sight. Hiding inside the woman he’d fallen in love with. The woman she’d been possessing for years, before she even met him. So, in Daeva’s mind, he had fallen in love with her.

And she had loved him. Damn him for it.

She pushed the book to the side and stood. Pacing the room she flicked her hand and all the candles in her chamber lit. She tried to warm her body with their flames. It would surprise everyone to know that even in hell she could be cold. She worried about what was to come, fretted about the future.

Daeva knew she would be called upon. There was only one being still alive who knew she’d hidden the box. The man she’d loved, the man who had sent her back to hell.

Soon, Quinn Strom, exorcist extraordinaire, would come a-knocking at her hellish “door.”

A knock startled her. It couldn’t be Klix; she had told him to come back later. Her heart thudding in her chest, she opened the door.

Two soldiers with swords at their sides stood waiting for her. “Daeva, you must come with us.”

“What is this about?” Although, deep down in her churning gut, she knew.

“Please comply, or we will be forced to be unpleasant.”

Swallowing the fear that was quickly rising, she nodded and stepped out between them, firmly shutting her door behind her.

Chapter 2

The sound was faint, maybe only a creak of the house, but Quinn Strom heard it. He sat upright in his bed, peering into the darkness of his bedroom and straining to listen.

Trained to sleep lightly, he was always alert at any out-of-place sound. He’d lived in his modest house long enough to have memorized every normal creak, squeak and groan of the place. And the creak he’d heard was from the stairs just outside his room; the fourth step from the top had a soft spot that only a certain amount of weight triggered.

The creak came again, prompting Quinn to bolt off the bed and reach under his bed for the arsenal that he’d stashed there when he first moved in. Fortunately he always slept in sweatpants, so in emergencies like these he didn’t have to bother dressing. He grabbed the shotgun, loaded with silver and rock salt, and the beat-up old satchel that contained ampoules of holy water and his blessed silver crucifix.

Quinn had been a demon hunter and exorcist for most of his life, so he was always prepared for any threat, be it human or other. His father had trained him since he was ten to be vigilant, to be wary of the things that went bump in the night.

All the doors and windows had been warded against demon attacks, so the intruder had to be human. But just because they were human didn’t make them any less of a threat. He knew that firsthand. He’d had his fair share of run-ins with sorcerers, especially those from the Crimson Hall Cabal, a powerful organization of one hundred members who were always searching for more power.

Quinn took position at the side of his door, his gun raised, the satchel hung over his shoulder. He couldn’t cock the gun now because of the sound it would make, but the moment the door opened, he would pump it and point it in a nanosecond. In his other hand he had a glass ampoule of holy water ready to be released, just in case his wards had failed. One splash of the water on unholy skin would incapacitate any demon for a few minutes. Enough time for him to shoot silver into a demon body and kill it.

Breathing deep and even, he counted down the seconds in his head. The attack would come any moment now. He could sense movement on the other side of the door, hear the swish of fabric moving. What the hell were they waiting for?

Could this be a regular, run-of-the-mill home burglar? Looking for expensive things to steal and hock? Quinn didn’t live in an affluent neighborhood. There was no indication in either his house decor or the vehicle he drove that he was anything but a blue-collar working man with nothing of worth to take except maybe a plasma TV and a game console. But nothing worth searching the rest of the house for.