Demon Hunt: Kyra Bell: Book Two Read online

  Demon Hunt

  Kyra Bell: Book Two

  Author: Brittany Rose

  Copyright 2020. This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  ~ Author’s notes ~

  ~ Book Description ~

  Chapter One

  The bright moon hung over the old city. Philadelphia had some interesting landmarks and architecture, but I barely noticed it as my heart raced. The target of my interest was obvious, as many humans were fleeing in the opposite direction. Then I felt it, for just a split second, another half demon but a moment later all I felt was the aftermath of his magic, the hungry flames consuming all it could.

  Too late.

  My boots slammed into the pavement over and over as I ran toward the old church, and my respiration was steady but deep as I took the stairs up to the doors two at a time. The door was knocked over and I ducked my head below the smoke pouring out of the top of the doorway. The cries of pain and fear from the human bystanders were unmistakable.

  The scent of death hit my nose like a hammer, and for the moment I was the only supernatural in range, no one would notice if I helped. I wasn’t a hero, never had been, but my conscience, guilt from the past, and my frustration didn’t leave me much of a choice.

  The scene was a mess, broken pews, some splintered, others burning, and a whole team of other supernaturals were dead on the floor, probably a local council hunter team. Assholes. There were also human casualties, and sadly enough not all that many humans that were still breathing. At least two of them were currently on fire and the scream tore at my empathy.

  Reminded me of the past, when it had been my magic out of control.

  They were cowering and cringing in the far-left corner of the sanctuary. The hellfire flames blocked them in and were slowly inching toward them. The flames didn’t spread in any other direction, they wanted to feed on life. A half-demon’s semi-sentient magic wasn’t something to be let out uncontrolled.

  Without other supernaturals around, I could release my own magic without fear of discovery, but flame whips would even out me to humans, and killing the witnesses would be counterproductive, not to mention evil.

  I used my fae magic, not containing my more powerful magic, but forming an illusion around it so it wouldn’t be recognized. My flame whip darted out, and eagerly ate the loose and uncontrolled magic, without the other half-demon feeding those flames it was easy, but all the humans saw was fae magic shielding and starving the fires of oxygen.

  Actually, I was pretty sure that would’ve worked if I’d tried it, but experimenting with alternate magical options to quench hellfire while two people were burning to death and several more were in danger wasn’t a great idea.

  Several of the humans screamed and looked at me with fear, and I felt a surge of empathy. Not the best thanks, but at least they were alive. I’d also felt a surge of anger, not at them, but at the dumb ass team who’d tried to take down a half-demon in a crowd gathered in a church. Idiots.

  I moved forward quickly, while my heart pounded in my chest. It was obvious the half-demon had gated out, which meant he was probably nuts. Escaping to hell sounded like a horrible idea to me.

  “Healing potions, Muriel,” I directed at the soul both bound and aware in my mound. My own dimension and reality. Two potions appeared in my hand when I cupped it, and I poured one down the throat of a man struggling to breathe, with burns all over his body. The second one went into a younger man, mid-teens, that hadn’t been nearly as badly burnt, otherwise I’d have done his first.

  There was plenty of smoke, but most of it was up by the ceiling. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, short of blasting holes in the ceiling, I wasn’t an air witch.

  “You’re safe, the fire’s gone,” I said in a gentle voice.

  Obvious statement perhaps, but they were in shock. I wasn’t being as condescending as that would’ve sounded to a person in their right mind.

  This was the last place I’d ever expected to be, and I never thought I’d be running after a half-demon that’d made the news for supposedly terrorizing Philadelphia the last week. I say supposedly because it was obvious what’d happened, at least to me, he’d been hiding here. If he’d been sadistic or evil, there’d be nothing and no one left in the city.

  It’d been two weeks since I took down that idiot Serin, and I’d had to flee what I’d been hoping would be my new permanent home. Two weeks, out in the real world, anyway. For me, it’d been closer to seven months ago. I’d been busy, very busy, in my self-imposed exile from the world.

  The first thing I did was make a second identity of sorts, on my glamour enchanted necklace. Unlike the first one which really only hid my ears and horns, and kept my demon magic from being sensed, the second was a lot more thorough.

  Instead of long black hair, it was a light blonde with just a hint of gold in it. My dark stormy gray eyes were still mostly gray, but about five shades lighter with hints of blue in them. My tanned skin was also far fairer, to make my blonde hair look natural and not like a dye job. Lastly, my strong high cheekbones were softened, and as a blonde I had a far softer beauty, as opposed to classic.

  It was that last that would make the most difference, in both fooling human senses and facial identity software.

  I wasn’t sure if I liked it, but I was sure my description as I really am had been given to every council around the world. They were kind of rabid about hunting down half-demons, after all.

  While in that form my witch magic was also hidden behind glamour. So one of my kind, a Nephilim, or a witch with a spell couldn’t sense the earth witch part of me either. Nor would a shifter scent it. That had been a hard decision, to pretend to only be partial fae and human, but there weren’t all that many witch fae in the world, and even disguised differently walking around as a blonde witch-fae might draw attention anyway.

  That had caused all sorts of other complications I’d had to work around. The hardest of which was learning how to brew with my fae magic. Fae alchemists were rare, but not unheard of. A fae’s nature magic wasn’t all that much different than an earth witch’s magic. Regardless, when disguised like this, Muriel knew to hand me potions from my fae potion stash, so the potions would have fae magic markers, not a witch’s magic aura.

  Another complication was my preferred fighting style. Even after all I’d done, I couldn’t very well pull out tranquilizer pistols and start knocking people out. I’d never heard of another using that tactic, and it was another possible giveaway despite all the other lengths I’d gone through. So, I’d come up with an alternative, I just didn’t know how well it would work in actual combat, yet.

  They were basically small throwing darts, that would inject when they hit something and the needle broke skin. It was slower than pulling a trigger, but with my new way of pulling things from my mound
not by much. On the other hand, it was faster in choosing what potion I used. I’d used to have to switch guns, now I could throw three darts rapidly all with different potions based on what my enemy was. I’d just never done it yet, outside of practice.

  Of course, I still had all my witch potions, and the pistols. If I ever wanted to start trouble, or to show up as my half-demon-quarter-fae-quarter-witch self for some reason, I could still do it.

  Lastly as far as my physical disguise went, Kyra was a rather unique name, so I was going by my last name in this guise. Perhaps that was a mistake, but Bell Lyons was nothing like Kyra Bell. Oh, I almost forgot, the necklace itself as well looked different, in the different forms. It’d be dumb to get identified because a good description of my enchanted necklace was around Bell’s neck.

  The original had been platinum with a decent ruby surrounded by quarter karat diamonds. The new look was a Sapphire surrounded by smaller rubies, with a white gold chain.

  The ring that replaced the bag was on the ring-finger of my right hand. It matched the new necklace to make it look like a set. It worked much like my old bag did, without the bag. Items, clothes, whatever I wanted could appear into my hand from the mound, or with a thought toward Muriel items would disappear into my mound. That was the easy part. The hard part was making the anchor part of the spell more complicated, so when I went into my mound, I wouldn’t be taking the anchor through the doorway with me. It temporarily imbued it into something else, and then retrieved it when I left through the doorway. It was also still controllable through the ring via the mound, which was connected to the anchor.

  Honestly, it was kind of weird. I’d gotten used to lugging around that large bag for four years, and sometimes I still felt naked without it. But it was without a doubt, a lot more convenient.

  As for Vic, I still missed him. I’d only been with him for less than a week, and I’d only known him for a measly twelve days. For me it’d been seven months instead of the two weeks out here, but he still haunted my thoughts at times. The physical pain at our abrupt separation was long gone though. It was more wistful, and angry, that life had conspired to take another home from me again.

  I wasn’t sure about the psychology of it, perhaps if I’d known him longer it would be easier, we’d been in that first phase of wild sex and can do no wrong, and I missed it. Maybe it wasn’t healthy, maybe it was normal, but regardless of all that, it’s what I felt. The crying was done, but I still missed him, and thought of him often. Maybe it was because I’d spent the last seven months with no company save Muriel, time would tell.

  Regardless, even though I wanted to go visit to get closure, I daren’t do so. That would put them in an impossible situation. If they didn’t report my visit and some council witch somehow picked up on that, then they’d all be screwed for harboring a half-demon. I simply couldn’t go back there, at least not on the main property.

  I shook my head to clear it, not sure I wanted to know what Vic thought of me now, and I sent the empty potion vials back to my mound.

  “You’ll both be fine in a few hours, I’m sorry I can’t do more.”

  I did have pain management potions, but nothing that would work on severe burns. They only worked on things like headaches, chronic arthritis, and the like.

  The man and boy stared up at me wordlessly in thanks, and I stood up and walked over to a half-broken pew and took a seat. Deep in thought.

  I’d left my mound for the first time just two days ago. Seven months for me, but it’d only been two weeks of real time since I kicked Serin’s ass. So, I’d kind of expected to see my picture on the news, a be on the look out with a number for humans to call the authorities if I was sighted.

  Instead I’d seen him on the news. Apparently, I wasn’t the only half-demon to make a splash in the news recently, and he had top billing since he couldn’t just disappear like I could. It was a major manhunt in the area, and I was sure the council had trackers after him as well. Half-demons were mostly half human, very few supernaturals would deign to sleep with one, even if they were dumb enough to summon them in the first place. But letting them go out and rape a mortal wasn’t unheard of as part of a deal.

  That was horrible of course, but a witch so far down the left-hand path that they were power hungry enough to summon pure evil for power, would do a lot worse than see a woman raped by evil.

  Point is, the young half-demon man was only that. He had no witch or fae powers to disguise himself or hide like I did.

  It was probably stupid to get involved, but here I was. I wanted to talk to him, see if he could be salvaged. Perhaps even train him so he could avoid collateral damage like I was seeing in that moment. Despite the horrific damage I was looking at, it also told me of a young man running from the powers that be, and merely defending himself. The damage to the church didn’t show me an evil sadistic being bent on destroying anything, much less opening the gates of hell for legions to march through.

  I snorted.

  Maybe I just wanted to prove to myself us half-demons were just like everyone else, like I’d always believed. That demons were pure evil, but we didn’t inherit that evil or god’s judgment from our demonic parent.

  Let’s just say that kind of thing struck close to home, and it was something to occupy my thoughts and keep me busy. To keep my mind distracted from Chicago and Vic. I wasn’t ready to try and settle down again yet, which put me in wanderer outsider status for the moment, again. It was what it was. I didn’t want to be idle with my thoughts of what I’d lost, and what the councils and supposed good and pure Nephilim had cost me over the years.

  That way lay darkness, and thoughts of revenge. Better to accept it and try to make things better despite it. I’d gotten everything ready, my new enchantments and everything else involved, it was just time to rejoin the world.

  Still, stupid or not, I’d have to be careful. The young male half-demon may have been dominating the news, but I had no doubt the councils were actively hunting the both of us with equal fervor. They just wouldn’t be able to get a magical trace on me, not with me suppressing and disguising my nature. Tracking spells were tentative magic, not strong enough to come close to challenging even my weak quarter fae magic and skill.

  I had no doubt they were trying. They had some of my brewing equipment after all, which was saturated with my witch magic. Not to mention my clothing. That moment wasn’t the first time I regretted not gathering my stuff and taking it with me when I left the ranch. It’d just been too painful to see the unsurety in Vic’s eyes, and the outright rejection in Abby’s. I hadn’t wanted to stay another second. I was more than sure of it, because we’d been expecting Katrina to arrive that very same day to investigate the incident with Vera. As soon as she read the ground and saw the fight with Serin she’d have ordered everything I owned and had left behind collected and bagged.

  I was an idiot, and possibly a fool, but it was what it was. I wasn’t naïve enough even at twenty to think I could change the world, but I had to know if it was just me. That’s what truly drove me, though I did want to help him too, if I could.

  Of course, I was at a dead end at the moment. I’d missed him by seconds it seemed, and he’d gated off this world to another dimension after killing the hunter team, most likely hell since he didn’t have a fae mound like I did. He hadn’t been hard to track once the noise had started, but by then the council was on site making that noise. I needed to figure out how to find him before they did, next time.

  None of my abilities or natures were all that good for tracking, and I wasn’t even sure where to start. Outside of wandering around the city, and hoping I’d feel his presence, which was a bad plan. The city was huge.

  I turned my head, suddenly annoyed, where were the EMTs? I’d given healing potions to the two of them that were death risks, but them and the others still needed medical attention. Even the ones I gave potions to could use some pain medication until the healing potion brought them to full health over the next
few hours.

  I got up and walked over to the door. Since I’d arrived a couple of minutes ago, a large gathering of cops cordoning off the area had arrived, as well as EMTs that looked to be held back. I sighed, they must’ve been waiting for more council to arrive, to give the all clear supernatural wise.

  “Hey, it’s safe, the… he’s gone! People need help in here!”

  I bit my lip, I’d almost qualified the safe part by saying the council hunter team was dead, and despite the situation a snicker was on the tip of my tongue and it was a struggle to hold it back. From my point of view that was just true, but not from anyone else’s, least of all the men in blue. Perception was reality, and our realities were vastly different.

  It actually annoyed me, because it made no sense, but I might as well have been mad at gravity. I bet even the victims in the church would blame it all on the half-demon, and not even connect the fact they’d been perfectly safe up until the council showed up and decided to attack him amongst a huge crowd.

  I also pushed back my light blonde hair over my pointed right ear, so they could see I was fae. I had on my favorite boots, I also wore a pair of fitted jeans and a black crop top. My body was still athletically curvaceous, I hadn’t bothered to change that at all with glamour, and it was my body. I had common enough measurements among young and fit woman my age. It was the face that mattered.

  One of the cops approached warily, his right hand on his sidearm but he didn’t draw. He also checked me out. Nothing creepy, just a quick wandering eye, the man was a little nervous. My tight jeans and conforming black crop top was hardly scandalous, it didn’t even show a hint of cleavage, but it was more risqué than I usually wore with my tight ass clearly defined under the denim and the black crop top tightly conforming to my breasts. It made my generous breasts painfully obvious, in my opinion. I’d never been one to show off my body, except to the few lovers I’d had, perhaps because I wanted to be hidden most of the time, unnoticeable.