Shadow Born: A Joseph Hunter Novel: Book 1 (Joseph Hunter Series) Read online

  “Thought you were going to shower?”

  “I’ll get there, perv. Keep your pants on.” I knocked back the rest of my drink like a shot. “Mind if I go again?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “So, when you’re done journaling,” I said, moving into the kitchen. The condo was an open concept, so we could talk without the burden of a wall between us. “You going to research Hecate in your handy-dandy database?” I found the decanter and poured the amber liquid about twice as full as Xander’s stingy offering. “I prefer to know a little about my opponent before facing off. Call me old-fashioned, but surprises aren’t my thing.”

  Without waiting for him to respond, I carried the scotch down the hallway and found the bathroom. The mirror didn’t have any water stains on it, no toothpaste splatter, and no grime. How could a person live in such decadence? I needed a little filth to assist my reflection—which stared back at me with swollen, heavy eyes and unkempt hair and a scraggly beard.

  “Still sexier than you!” I called out to Xander, not knowing if he heard me or not.

  He didn’t respond.

  I set the tumbler and my phone on the glowing countertop, then peeled off my bloodied, singed, dirty clothes.

  After turning on the shower, I stood on the tile and let the water get warm. While waiting, I glanced at my phone. I hadn’t checked it since removing it from the bowl of rice. The battery life read five percent. Better add that to the recharging list of me and my guns. Notifications showed a missed call and had a voicemail from a blocked number.

  My heart beat in my face as I pressed the button to listen.

  Nothing happened at first. I turned up the volume, but the message didn’t sound. Glaring at my screen, I realized that I hadn’t pressed the play button. I hated technology.

  Steam rose over the shower’s glass walls, whispering for me to step in. I ignored the temptation for the time being, opting instead to press the stupid sideways triangle on my phone and play the recording.

  “Joseph,” the same hissing voice from the parking garage said, “I want you to listen carefully. The world is a dark place, but hell is even darker.”

  I grimaced. Why did Nephil always have to speak in flowery, metaphorical language? Why couldn’t they just say what was weighing on their hearts and minds like a normal human being? But I guess no one really ever says what they want to say. So, new question… why can’t monsters be less like humans?

  The message continued. “If you come after Melanie, we will kill her.”

  The line clicked dead. I tried to redial the blocked number, but apparently technology hadn’t come that far—at least to my simplistic understanding. I tossed the phone on the counter and made a fist, struggling not to put the first blemish in Xander’s immaculate mirror.

  “Fuck,” I said to appease my frustration. Cursing helped a little. It usually did. I sat on the toilet seat and stared at the white floor’s reflection of the can lights above me. The shower continued to stream and steam.

  Hecate had used the word we. Whom did she mean? Her and the Priestess that frequented the Snake Head Lounge? Or someone else? Hopefully Xander had stopped scribbling his feelings onto a blank page and was gathering information on Hecate.

  I meant to strangle her with my bare hands and show her just how dark this life could be.

  I made sure to dry my feet after finishing with the shower. Hardwood ran through most of Xander’s condo, and I didn’t want to ruin the flooring. See, sometimes I think of other people. After wrapping the towel around my waist, I padded down the hallway and into the living room. Xander sat on the couch, scrolling through a tablet. I tossed my phone on the couch cushion, startling him.

  “Seriously?” he asked, glaring up at me. “After the day we had, you’re sneaking up on me?”

  I grinned. “Check out the voicemail,” I said. “Also, where can I find a phone charger and some clothes?” I surveyed the room for a clock, found one glowing on the oven in the kitchen. Narrowing my eyes, I made out nearly midnight. “We need to leave here pretty soon if we plan to catch the closing-time crowd.”

  Xander picked up my phone. “What’s your password?” he asked. I told him, and he listened to the voicemail, frowning. When the message finished, he handed me the phone. “What’s it mean?”

  “Don’t know,” I said. “I’m curious about who Hecate means when she says ‘we.’ You think she means the Priestess that the vampire referred to, a group of people, or someone else?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said, returning his attention to the tablet.

  “You find anything out?” I asked.

  Xander shrugged. “M.I.S. database is pretty unreliable when it comes to the Nephil. Hecate seems to be even more of a ghost—absent from nearly all of our records. From the little I managed to gather, she’s powerful, and she’s gained even more power over the years. She also has a very loyal following of Cursed and Acolytes.”

  “Are the Cursed vampires?” I asked.

  “They are. Though, from what I’ve read, the vampiric curse isn’t exclusive to her. She has her own, specific type of curse—and most people seem to believe that she created the vampiric condition.”

  “But it works the same? Her curse? The hungrier they are, the more powerful?”

  “For the most part,” Xander said. “They’re immortal, vulnerable to death only from pure silver and magic. They also have a few tricks that Hecate imbued upon them. They can shape-shift, changing from human to Raven whether they’re hungry or not, like the vampire did earlier—though they still lose most of their intelligence when they shift deliberately. However, in their Raven form, they have more physical abilities—speed, strength, healing, some magical resistance. They can also control mists. Not like water vapor, but a fog that allows them to travel between worlds.”

  I cocked my head. “Teleportation?”

  “Not really, but kind of. Hecate can travel freely between worlds and realms. For example, she helped escort Persephone into and out of the Underworld. As a result, she was granted a place in the forever darkness—she can now move between our world and the Underworld without penalty.”

  “And her Ravens can do the same?”

  “They’re technically called Empousa—the first of their kind. And to an extent, yes. They are allowed to travel between worlds, though only with Hecate’s permission and guidance. They are servants, unable to do anything without her commanding it.”

  For clarification, most of the Nephil live on Earth and are hidden in society. They live among us because they’re unable to travel to different heavens or hells or other realms of existence. Those few who have the ability to jump between worlds are extremely powerful and dangerous—Hades, Zeus, Poseidon… the big names—and most people don’t even think those three are Nephil, but actual full-blown fallen angels. Demons. Anyway, according to Xander, Hecate not only had the ability to openly travel where she wanted to, but she had imbued a part of that ability to her Empousa. For a Cursed or an Acolyte to move between worlds—to teleport—was unheard of, if not impossible.

  Xander continued relaying his findings. “Her Empousa, like other vampires, also have the power to enthrall their victims.”

  I recalled my meeting with the red-headed vampire in Xander’s monster prison. She had nearly coaxed me into sitting beside her on the bed. When I resisted, she said I was more powerful than I realized—like I shouldn’t have been able to resist her charm.

  “So, to summarize,” I said, “Hecate diverted me from Mel so that she could abduct my daughter, alive, and capture me, also alive. When she failed, she placed some empanadas—”

  “Empousa,” Xander said.

  “Same fucking thing. She places some enchiladas at my house to finish the job. To her credit, she succeeded in burning my beautiful trailer to the ground.”

  “I think the burning was your doing… and you have a loose understanding of the word beautiful, don’t you?”

  I flipped Xander off. “Hecat
e travelled through some shadows or a magical fog to speak with me in the parking garage, while kidnapping Mel at the same time. Am I following the threads?”

  “This is why I write it down.”

  “Well, I’m not a fourteen-year-old girl with a crush.” I cleared my throat. “Her Empousa,” I said, enunciating the word for my grammar lord, “knew what I had inscribed on my wife’s wedding band. I find that strange, do you not? Why would Hecate want us to connect this event to Callie’s death? It makes no sense.”

  Xander frowned. “Knowing Mel’s kidnapping connected to Callie’s death would force you to double down on your search—as you said. So, if Hecate wants you off the trail as she said,” he pointed at my cell phone, indicating the voicemail, “why plant the ring?”

  “It has to be one of Hecate’s enemies… someone who wants me to find and kill her. Which doesn’t make any sense. Acolytes and Cursed can’t harm a Nephil.” I pondered on that for a second, chewed on the possibilities of an invisible Nephil using the circumstances to manipulate me into killing another of their kind—which, as said above, would be impossible for me. “How powerful is Hecate?” I asked. “Like, what do we know about her actual… power?”

  Xander kept a long face for a second. “Nothing. I know what I told you. That’s it. She creates Empousa through her curse. She can travel between worlds, and she bestows that gift to her Cursed creatures. Everything we have on her is through observation of the Empousa. There’s no record of her engaging with humans beyond those who follow her eternally. The myths say she prefers isolation and night—the quiet darkness—to work on her magic.”

  I clicked my tongue, then finished my scotch. It burned a little too pleasantly. I liked my alcohol to hurt, reminding me of why I drank. “What about Elizabeth? The Priestess?” I asked, referring to the other name the Empousa had given us while restrained. “You know anything about that name?”

  Xander shook his head. “Nada. She could be anyone.”

  “So, according to the Empousa—Hecate’s loyal Cursed—to find her, we need to find this Elizabeth Anyone? What if she’s a Nephil? You ever fight one before?”

  “No,” Xander said. “That’s a business most people avoid.”

  I put a hand on my head and tried to mentally straighten out the facts. I wasn’t that billionaire wizard from St. Louis, with an eidetic memory and the surging power of a Maker. I was a blue-collar drunk for the better part of five years, thrown back into the complicated world of monsters and magic. I had to reflect and think and mentally organize information, otherwise it seemed to slip away. Maybe I should start a diary. What would it hurt, other than my ego?

  “Hecate, a realm-traveling Nephil, organized a diversion to abduct me and snag Mel. An Empousa, Hecate’s realm-traveling vampire pet, said we can find more information from Elizabeth, a closing-time patron at the Snake Head Lounge. Somehow, this all connects to Callie’s death. Am I missing anything?”

  “Your underwear,” Xander said.

  I glanced at my lap, and my towel had slipped open. I snickered. “Well, shit, don’t get too excited about that.” I adjusted the towel. “Show me to the closet, sir, so I can dress. Are you ready to go?”

  “After a quick shower. I smell like a bonfire.” He stood, placing his tablet on the coffee table, then he led me back to his room to change.

  “I look like a clown,” I said, standing before a body-length mirror in his bedroom. Why he had a full-body mirror, don’t ask me. I barely used the bathroom mirror I had in my trailer. Maybe it came with his fancy-ass bedroom set of mahogany. Actually, I don’t know what his bedroom set was made of, because I don’t know stupid shit like that. My job description simply reads, destroy. Whether it’s mahogany or oak or granite or kindling or pebbles. I destroyed without bias.

  “You look like a civilized human being for once,” Xander said. “Maybe you should do your hair, too.”

  “I splashed some water on it,” I admitted, checking myself out. I was actually pretty pleasant to look at, based on Xander’s mirror. “Also, there’s no way you ever wear this shirt.”

  Xander had tree-trunk legs, and his jeans fit me like a parachute. Luckily, the button-down shirt he lent me was an extra-large from the Baby Gap, so it actually fit me.

  “With those tattoos covered, the bouncer might actually let you in,” he said, judging my ink for the millionth time in our friendship. Don’t eat burgers or drink alcohol or stain your skin, because your body is the temple of God, blah, blah, blah. “So, you’re welcome for the outfit.” He wore jeans that fit him like a second layer of skin, a muscle-accentuating shirt, and a gold watch. “Oh, and, Joey.”

  “Yup,” I said, turning sideways to admire my profile. It had been a while since I’d worn anything other than torn jeans and wife-beaters, or since I’d splashed water over my hair to partly style it.

  “No guns allowed in the club. They have wands to check for that stuff.”

  I scoffed. “I have runes, my beautiful, bald friend. My guns are invisible unless I draw them.” Not that it mattered, since I hadn’t charged any of the sigils, anyway. Nor did I have inscribed ammunition prepared. My guns were about as magically useful as a stick shaped like a pistol. But why would I avoid a good excuse to annoy Xander for a second?

  “Okay,” he said, frowning. “And where do you plan to carry them? Security will make you show anything under a jacket—it’s a high-end bar. Lots of money going through there. They don’t take chances.”

  “Stick them in my waistband, like a common gangster.”

  Xander sighed.

  “It’s times like these I wish I’d have used rings as my focus. They shouldn’t allow nineteen-year-old kids, who spent their life idolizing Deadpool and Frank Castle, to choose how to channel their magic. Fucking guns,” I muttered. “What was I thinking? I can’t even take them into half the places I want to take them. Disneyland. A plane. A fucking high-end bar.”

  Xander narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “What do you need a gun for in any of those places?”

  “What’s your focus?” I asked.

  “Don’t have one.”

  “That’s what I thought. So, shut up about it.”

  Xander shrugged and sneered. “You brought it up.”

  “You ready to go?” I asked, itching to punch something in the face and burn some pent-up anxiety and angst.

  He took one last look in the mirror, running his hand over his bald head like it made a damn difference. “Let’s go.”

  8

  I sat alone at the bar of the Snake Head Lounge, staring inside my glass of half-drunk beer. Xander stood at a high table near the front, having insisted that I wasn’t allowed to drink anything stronger than lager. Little did he know, I’m more efficient when intoxicated. But he’s pretty much the lame mom of our two-man group, so I only argued a little before relenting to his wishes. Luckily, we’d decided to divide and conquer. He would schmooze with the ladies in his section of the bar, and I would engage in awkward banter with the women in my section.

  A fool-fucking-proof plan if I ever heard one.

  Except for the part where I had mostly avoided the fairer sex since meeting Callie—the better part of a decade—and Xander was about as smooth with women as sandpaper was to wiping ass.

  Any one of the many women at the lounge could have been Elizabeth. Xander and I had a lot of stiff, sober conversation to move through—because, as he had instructed, we couldn’t get drunk. The possibility also existed that Elizabeth had decided not to grace the lounge with her presence that night.

  I couldn’t think like that, though. I had to try. For Mel. For Callie. If it meant sitting at this bougie bar and drinking overpriced beer while getting rejected by pretentious women to find my girls, then I would be there every single night until I found this Elizabeth.

  I checked my phone. Time read just after one in the morning, which meant we had about an hour to locate her. I mentally calculated how many potential Elizabeth’s were present.
I didn’t know much beyond basic addition and subtraction, so figuring out the percentage of finding an Elizabeth had no equation behind it. In the end, it equaled how my desire to take a shot was greater now than it was two minutes ago.

  How’s that for math?

  As I debated the idea of disobeying Xander’s wish and ordering a real drink, a voice beside me asked, “Waiting for someone?”

  I about leapt out of my chair. Apparently, I hadn’t experienced much sobriety over the past few years, and this clear mentality had made me a little jumpy. I scratched my neck, trying to play off my reaction. “No,” I said, turning to face the jump-scare queen.

  She had dark blonde, wavy hair that curled at the ends near her shoulders. Her blue eyes appeared black in the low-lit room. She drank red wine, and lipstick marks stained the rim of her glass. Tilting her head to the left, she asked, “Just here alone?” Her voice moved through my hearing holes like pure silk.

  I wanted to ask her to sing me a song, but I thought that might be too weird. Shit. I had no idea what to say. I just sat there nodding like a bobblehead, holding my glass of beer.

  You know what I was most worried about right then? If I nutted-up and held her hand, would she hate the fact that my fingers were ice cubes on her tanned skin? That thought literally sprinted laps through my mind, even though I would never in a thousand years attempt to hold a woman’s hand at first sight. Still, it nagged at me and forced me to set my beer on the counter and rub my palms on my jeans to warm them. I mean, I didn’t understand the nerves. She wasn’t even my type. I preferred brunettes, which was beside the point. I would never hold her hand.

  With an awful sense of dread, I realized she had asked me a question about an hour ago, but I had no recollection of what it was. Clearing my throat, I asked, “What’s that?” I pointed at the ceiling. “Sorry, it’s loud in here.” It wasn’t loud at all. A gentle murmur from the patrons intermingled with the light play of smooth jazz.