Demon Hunters: Book 1 Faith [editing]

Chapter 2

"Take a seat," Zacharias whispered. She hated when he got into this mood. Nonetheless, she bowed her head and entered the room.

Zacharias stood by the wall, which was covered with newspaper clippings, photographs of people, copies of documents, and other such items. A large map of the United States had push-pins and writing all over it. Finding the scions required heavy-duty detective work. The easiest ones to find were those who had become careless with their powers and used them too often.

Zacharias lifted a manila folder off the desk and dropped it on the table in front of her. Charlie Stankey, the psycho-killer and rapist. Scion. He unlocked his demon blood powers seven months ago. The ability to control electricity. It helped him to shock his victims unconscious.

Zoe looked up at Zacharias's grim and worn face. Of the three of them, he was the oldest both in spiritual age and corporeal form. His dark hair was littered with specks of white, and wrinkles along his eyes ran deep. Zoe, on the other hand, could easily pass for sixteen. Truth was that Zacharias was over ten thousand-years-old. Zoe was barely a few hundred.

Then he lifted the second folder and dropped this on top of the first one. Ramon Garcia, cartel drug lord and murderer. Scion. He unlocked his demon blood powers four months ago. His ability? Strength. Inhuman strength.

The third folder dropped with a small thud on top of the last one. Salvatore Luciano, Italian mafia-man. Scion. He unlocked his blood powers just two weeks ago. Firestarter, perhaps the most common ability. Fire was the easiest element to master after all, and the man kept burning everything and anyone he wanted to once he learned how to control it. That was what gave him away. Each time an scion used a power, it sent out a ripple across space, a pulsing sensation that only angels and demons could feel—kind of like a homing beacon declaring loudly "Come and find me!"

Zacharias cleared his throat. "What do these three have in common?"

Zoe flinched. All three men were evil, beyond-evil. All had unlocked a secret power found within their ancestral demon blood. And, all of them... "Ren." She let his name slip out.

"Yes," he confirmed. "Thanks to that demon recruiter they now have another descendant to add to their underground army." Zoe closed her eyes.

"I was so close. I almost had him. So close."

He sighed. "That doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter if you had killed the scion in the tunnels."

"Yes, it does."

"What matters is that you disobeyed an order."

"I was so close. If that blond kid hadn't distracted me, I would have gotten him."

"What about the guards? If you killed them faster, would that have made a difference?"

"The guards? We already knew everything about them already. They were bad men, and they were in the way." Zoe shot him a look. "They slowed me down."

"You were careless. You killed three men who were not scions."

"They weren't men. They were monsters. They deserved to die."

Zacharias grabbed another file folder and slammed it on top of the others. Three photographs scattered on the table in front of her. "They were bad men," he said. "But their wives weren't so bad. Their children weren't bad either." He inched family photos closer to her. "Look at them."

Zoe turned away, but her keen angel-eyes picked up every detail, each curve along these children's faces, every blemish, and every groove along their smiling teeth.

Why did he have to do this to her now? She was just trying to do the job. It was hard enough. And tonight everything had gone wrong.

"I didn't kill them," she grumbled through gritted teeth.

"Zoe, we are angels. We follow orders and protect humans against the demons. That's our job."

"Killing scions is our job," Zoe countered, "and if we don't stop the demons from whatever they are doing then all of humanity is lost."

Zacharias sighed and closed his eyes. Then he finally sat down on the chair opposite her. "Look," he began. "I know that we have had a lot of pressure on us, especially since Ren seems to have outsmarted us again. I just don't think these humans were the reason. He's figured something out, a strategy that seems to be working."

Zoe folded her arms and nodded.

"We've had a good run. Six scions in a row, and that's just in this year. Archangel Michael tells me that once again we are the most successful team of watchers on the planet."

"But I've let Ren become the best demon recruiter on the planet."

"Zoe, this isn't about you. He and his team—"

"Team?"

"Yes. He probably has gotten his team to be more effective. We just need to stay focused on how we work as a team."

How we work as a team? Does his team leader interfere with his mission like mine does?

Zacharias fell silent for a moment. "You need to trust me, Zoe."

She sat up and stared at him. "I do trust you, Zacharias."

"So why do you not follow my orders? When I say to abort, I have a good reason to say that. We can't afford for the humans to know we exist. We can't afford to put them in arms way."

Zoe shrugged. "Sometimes you got to act in the moment. Everything can't always be planned ahead of time."

"You know how I feel about making brash decisions. People get killed that way, unnecessarily, like those guards."

"Fine." She pouted.

"You know, everything should not be all about killing. I hope you don't forget that."

She stood up and picked up her jacket. "I won't."

Zacharias nodded and then returned back to the documents posted to the wall.

Zoe retreated to her room. On the cot, her katana waited in its scabbard. I could have used those extra inches tonight.

She opened the closet, hung-up her jacket, and retrieved a shoebox hidden from behind some blankets. She sat down on the cot and lifted the lid. Inside, a small stack of papers rested there, eight in total. The most formal looking one, a full sheet of white stationery, had been folded into third. It read:

Z,

My turn again! This time I took the liberty of writing something a little more elaborate. I wanted you to remember this occasion. Two letters in a row. Isn't this splendid! Yes, yes, I know I have a little more work to do before I can get that number up to six. But I'm getting so much better. I've learned from the best--that's you, Z.

I've missed you. We haven't encountered each other in nearly 30 years. Oh, what a fight we had! Three of the best days of my life. Don't you hate being immortal?

Got to run,

R

PS: These drug dealers have such nice ballpoint pens and paper.

Zoe didn't know why she kept his letters or even why she started leaving her own in the first place. They had met only once, twenty-eight years ago. She had chased him through the tunnels, but this time he ascended into the middle of an empty desert and waited for her to emerge. He and his fiery red blade; she and her sizzling celestial blade. Sparks flew wildly with each clash of blade upon blade. The night slipped into day and the day back into the night. Blow for blow, equally matched, equally determined. Then after the third sunrise, Ren stepped back and laughed, loud and boisterous. "Thank you," he simply said and struck his sword back into the ground forming a portal. She watched him descend into the earth, dumbfounded.

She refolded the letter and placed it back into the box. Then she dug into her pocket and retrieved this last note, which was now wrinkled and damp from the rain outside. She straightened out the paper and gently laid it on top of the others.

A smile spread across her face. He won't be so lucky next time.