Beast of the Damned #2

* Chapter Twelve *

"Open the door!" Zaidan's voice morphs into an octave that is as terrifying as it is malevolent. The hinges rattle and groan. Each loud bang sends vibrations of ominous dread rippling through me.

A bright light fills the room. The screams of an incoming missile burst forth seemingly from nowhere. Shards of shattering glass spray us. Luckily, Tristan turns his back to the blast in time to shield me. Otherwise, I'd be cut from head to toe.

When the clinking of falling glass stops, Tristan pivots back around to survey the damage. The mirror of my dresser is demolished. The intense glow of the opal burns out, returning to it's a dormant state.

"What...what was that?" I ask.

"A demon." Tristan snatches the pendant off my dresser.

Marianna's warning. She said Tahkra had the power to summon creatures from the Underworld. It appears what she meant to say is that it calls forth a demon that has been locked up in Hades. I've seen a few demons before. None of them had the kind of energy this one did. Demons that walk the earth have faces and bodies like the vampirie. This one was just spirit energy, pure satanic energy that took no real shape.

"This stone." Tristan lifts it in the air, letting it dangle as he studies it. "It's similar to the pendants the exiled who sported black wings wore. The ones that didn't bear this necklace didn't have wings."

"You said you added 379 pairs of wings to your collection."

"A minor embellishment. I came across a hundred and fifty exiled angels with wings. The others were the same wingless vamp wannabe's they've always been."

"What about the other two-thousand and something the Warriors of the Damned killed?"

Tristan's mouth tweaks up. "Just because some of them didn't have wings, doesn't mean we didn't make them spineless. Every club from here to the other side of the Atlantic has exiled spine nailed to the door."

"Shouldn't their spines turn to glittering ash once you killed them?"

"Whatever part of them is removed before their heart is destroyed belongs to the earth."

"That means they were alive when you...when you..." My limbs tingle with a phantom ache as if Tristan has set to ripping me apart one limb at a time while I'm conscious of breath.

"Death is much kinder to the weak."

I stiffen when Tristan walks up to me. He slips the necklace over my head until the pendant reaches the center of my breastbone.

"It's bedtime, human. You need rest but it is too dangerous to let you sleep."

"Why's that?" I gulp.

"Because the demon I woke's fragmented presence still lingers. If I let you sleep now, he will come for you in your dreams."

I glance down at the pendant Tristan's fingers slip from. The light that shattered the mirror came from this necklace. Whatever magic lives in this opal, it disrupted the demon's powers.

"Do you know who this necklace belongs to?"

"Roarra." Tristan's tone harshens. "She's the angel whose heart you possess."

"Roarra." Her name softly falls from my lips. The pendant hanging around me generates warmth yet no glowing light appears. "She's the angel who gave her life so that I may have mine."

"Roarra didn't willingly trade her heart to save you. She did it to save her sister. I would know as I'm the monster who captured them both."

"You're the vampire who captured the angel who lives inside me? That means you've met her. What's she like? Why did she have to give up her heart to save her sister? What year was this? If angels were walking the earth, that means it had to be—"