The Demon-Eater: Hunting Shadows (Book One, Part One Page 2

  The moonlight was fading already, as the silvery disk passed over the gap between the buildings of the alleyway. With it, the two shadows were steadily fading. The hunter lifted an arm above his head, suddenly. Both shadows moved, but one was slightly off key. Demons, in their natural form were not shadows, but they were semi-amorphous and so they could imitate the shadows. But they could not read minds, and their movements showed this.

  The light ebbed further, the shadows hardly distinguishable from the general darkness now. The hunter slammed his sword toward one of the shadows. The shadow moved to flee, the light faded completely just as he heard the tip of his blade break against the stone, and the demon disappeared somewhere beneath the hunter.

  The hunter stood unmoving, heart thumping wildly in his chest, pressing his sword down against the stone with both hands. The silence seemed to last an eternity.

  “Demon-Eater,” a hiss like the whisper of the wind finally sounded from the darkness at the end of his blade. There was a slight tremble of fear and realization to the voice. Demon-Eater. It was the name by which the demons knew him. They had given him the name. He found himself forgetting his true name at times, these days.

  Your name is Demon-Eater, the others whispered in his mind.

  I am the hunter... he reminded himself. I am Gabriel Hall.

  “You cannot kill me,” the demon went on. It was almost a question.

  The hunter, Gabriel, remained silent, but knelt down, still gripping the hilt of his sword, with one hand now. Demon-kind were immortal, as far as the hunter knew, but he wished he could kill them. They deserved death, every one of them.

  He leaned in toward the ground, until he could see the dark mass of the demon's form, just slightly darker than the night. He had never fully understood how they could be so formless, yet still be impaled by a sword. He leaned still lower until his face was nearly touching the monster beneath him.

  They could not physically harm anybody in their natural forms—unless one considered possession physical harm, of course. He did not know why, except to guess that it was because they did not belong to his world, but to another. After years of hunting demons, Gabriel still felt like he knew nothing about them.

  And that was well with him.

  “I will find a way,” he said to the demon after a few moments. He kept telling himself that.

  The demon laughed. A slow, deliberate cackle, lacking all humor. Gabriel frowned.

  “You know, laughing is an odd thing for a demon to do when facing me,” he said.

  “Yes,” the demon said, sounded oddly amused. “The great Demon-Eater. He who has yet to actually rid any of us from this place. We are still a part of your world, still among the people. Through you.”

  Gabriel's frown deepened.

  “How many of us are inside you?” the demon asked. “A hundred. More. Why, I would bet you are more demon than you even are human anymore. What is it in that head of yours still keeping you from being just another monster—because, that is what we demon-kind are right, monsters, Demon-Eater?”

  “Don't call me that!” An image flashed in his mind. Of a long, pallid corridor, and a demon wearing a ring. A memory. A reminder of why he did what he did.

  I am Gabriel Hall, he told himself. The hunter. The human.

  No, the others whispered in his head, the way a mother might correct a mistaken child. You are Demon-Eater now. You are no longer who you were. You are new. You...are...Demon-Eater. The others began to chant the name over and over again in his mind.

  He did his best to suppress their chanting as he opened his mouth as though to yawn. Only, instead of exhaling, he breathed in. Not of the air, but of the demon below him. He did not know how he did it; it was as if a completely different part of him was breathing. As though the sinister darkness that made up the demons was this different part's oxygen. Its life force.

  “How many more of us can you take, before you are the monster?” the demon whispered in a strained, breathless wheeze, barely audible above the others' cries inside of Gabriel's head. He continued breathing, until the demon disappeared below him.

  A new voice was added to the chanting army in his mind. Demon-Eater! Demon-Eater! they cried like an angry choir.

  Another voice, suppressed somewhere deeper than the others were in his mind was nearly drowned out by the fervent chants. I am giving up on you, Gabriel, it said.

  Demon-Eater! Demon-Eater!

  “I will kill you,” he whispered to the voices, setting his jaws as he climbed to his feet and sheathed his sword.

  I am giving up on you, the other, singular voice whispered behind the cries of the others again.

  “I will kill you all.” Gabriel turned away from the rotting corpse, toward the alley's entrance, and started back the way he had come.

  Part One:

  Hunting Shadows

  If anyone should find this journal, there are a few things you must know about demons.

  Firstly—and I believe this is the first thing anybody should ever know of their kind—, being immortal beings, not from this world but now a part of it, one cannot end a demon's life by any means. No weapon or device can banish them from existence. One may shred the “matter” making up the form of a demon with a sword or otherwise, so much so that it would take quite a while for it to regenerate its body. But it would not die.

  For this very reason, along with the obscurity of their origin, I have found the existence of demons to be a tricky one to understand. After all, if Father Truth had created them, why had he not uncreated them, after the demons had begun killing humans? Why had he not given man a tool to defeat them?

  Although, the more I consider this last question while progressing in my studies of demon-kind, the more I think Father Truth had given man a tool.

  Chapter One

  The cup of tea rattled atop the saucer, set upon the pull-out tray in front of Gabriel, as the steam-engine locomotive worked its way along the Great Railroad. The railroad stretched all the way from the southern town of Kapo to the city of Summerton, just inside the Northern Region. Gabriel was somewhere between the two.

  Briefly, he looked up from his book and to his teacup. Any more rattling and there would be an empty cup atop a flooded saucer, he noted idly. He hardly paid it any mind, however, as some of the dark liquid sloshed over the saucer's shallow brim and onto the tray, so consumed in his own thoughts.

  How many more of us can you take, before you are the monster? The Skin Crawler had asked the question more than a week ago and, still, he could not force it away.

  Frowning in his thoughts, Gabriel took up the cup and sipped a bit of the bitter tea—what remained of it, that is. On any other day, he would have called for more sugar. After all, when playing a lord, one had to act the part. Today, however, he found himself less than motivated. There were more important things on which to dwell than pretending to be frivolous grouser. At least the drink was warm.

  Replacing the teacup, Gabriel turned back to his book. Or rather, he turned to the loose paper he had hidden between two pages. It was a sketch—not a particularly talented one—he had done of a woman. One with no face.

  He had the outline of the face, yes. The correct angles, strong contours that were yet feminine, and an accurate enough portrayal of the short, wavy hair, which flared slightly outward once it reached chin-length and framed the face perfectly. That much was all clear in his memory. But he could not, for the life of him, sketch the actual features making up her face. He recalled beauty and strength, but little more of the woman he sketched, and he felt those few details beginning to elude him as time pressed onward. He did not even have a name for the woman. She was...her. The reason he hunted the demons.

  “Who are you?” he whispered to the faceless sketch. Gabriel remembered loving her; that constant ache in his chest could not be undone from his memories. And he remembered that she was now gone, taken from him by a demon. She was her, and she had been his. That much, he held on to with a ferven
cy he hoped could not be taken from him by the others.

  Gabriel turned away from his sketch, staring unseeingly into the tea-filled saucer on the tray. His thoughts lingered back to the alley in the slums of Pitsville. Back to what the demon had spoken.

  Even as he sat there in his silence, he could hear the soft chanting of the others in his mind. Never ceasing.

  How long will it take? he wondered. This could never truly turn me into a monster, could it? Consuming demons? I have control. They can do no more than try and frighten me with nonexistent sounds. Brief visions. Although, in the beginning, the others had not even been able to do that much, had they? He brought a hand up to the side of his head, massaging his temple with two fingers. It did feel cramped these days, his head.

  After a moment, Gabriel brought his hand back down and shook his head, shoving away his unsettling thoughts. The demons are just trying to get under your skin, he told himself. Remain vigilant, keep your wits about you, and—by Father Truth, Himself—you will find a way to make them bleed. You will make right the wrong they—

  “Ahem.”

  Thrust from his thoughts, Gabriel snapped his book closed and turned his attention in the direction of the cleared throat. His grim mood lightened up almost immediately, as he took in the two glittering sapphires that were a woman's eyes, just outside his train cabin. The woman's skin was fair and soft, and her fiery hair—straight, sleek and cut short, as was becoming the fashion—fell just below her jawline, curling up at the ends, as though to cradle her chin. Freckles lightly dusted her cute, slightly turned-up nose and cheeks.

  She stared at him, expectant. Gabriel found the sharpness behind those eyes of her's quite alluring. Yes, she would be a perfect distraction from thoughts of the faceless woman and the demons.

  A bright smile alighted across his face. Gabriel had never known himself to be a charming man, until only about a year ago, when he had realized it was the most essential asset for one to possess when fooling others into believing he was someone of actual import. And, oh, how he had grown proficient at the most important part of charm. The smile.

  “What can I do for you, madam?” he asked, taking her in with his grin. It was not enough to be a fake lord in his line of work. Tracking demons required piecing together a lot of rumors overheard from the higher-ups in society; rumors not even the media knew to share, but that those with enough status passed along to one another, as a kind of “ammunition” for their never-ending social warfare. And charm was the most useful tool he had to use in order to gain certain accesses he would have not been granted before, even as a lord.

  Of course, there were also his hunches to follow, when he was at a dead end.

  Charm was more than just a necessity when it came to gathering information. It was, also, a means by which to pretend—in moments such as this—that he was a normal man, with a normal life. Even if the charade lasted for a mere moment, that was one moment of distraction from the doom-and-gloom of what was quickly becoming his everyday life.

  Absently, he patted the cover of his book with his hand. And from her.

  “Oh, I do hate to be bothersome, sir,” the woman began in an apologetic tone, smiling in kind, “but all the other train cabins are taken and, well...” She nodded toward the empty booth across from where he sat.

  “Of course, madam.” He gestured to the booth with his hand. “Please, sit.”

  The woman did so with a curt nod, smoothing out her pristine white dress as she sat. She was exquisitely beautiful. The kind of rare gem who could stand out in a crowd of diamonds.

  “I do apologize for having inconvenienced your peaceful reading,” she said, removing her cloche, which had a ribbon matching her dress, and setting it on the seat beside her. She huffed out a breath, seeming flustered.

  “No inconvenience at all,” Gabriel said. “I was coming to the end of my chapter anyway. Not to mention, I was only reading because there was no one to keep me company.”

  The woman gazed out from the train cart's window, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger.

  “That's good then,” she smiled faintly, glancing his way with those piercing eyes. “I do hope you mean it. I had reserved s single-seated cabin just up the aisle a bit for myself, but someone had already taken it—a lousy train-hopper, no doubt. I told the man he had taken my seat, but he only just ignored me.”

  I cannot see how that is even possible, Gabriel thought.

  “I even told one of the attendants,” the woman continued, still looking out the window, “and the attendant had the moxie to ask me to move to another seat. After I had paid extra to reserve that one.” She sighed. “Anyway, I suppose it happens. Still, the train attendants really need to manage the rules more strictly, I think.”

  Gabriel raised an eyebrow at the end of her little rant, rather amused by the woman. She certainly had a fire in her.

  “Oh, but look at me,” she said, turning from the window finally, and toward him. “A complete stranger going on about her troubles. You must think me an unrestrained woman.”

  Gabriel shrugged. “Should I take it that unrestrained is a terrible thing to be, then? I, myself, find that sort of thing refreshing... May I have your name, at least, before deciding what to think of you?”

  “I'm Anna. Anna Thornrose.”

  “Ah, pleasure...Missus Thornrose.” Gabriel paused, briefly. Where had he heard that name before? Thornrose. After a moment, he shrugged inwardly. He had heard many names in his travels. “I'm William Baryon,” he lied, extending a hand toward Anna.

  Baryon was his alias for the Southern Region. He needed no alias for the Northern Region. Where the South lived somewhat strict to its traditions of a tiered society, with the nobility at the top, the Northern Region—with its mayors and less-than-spectacular politicians—was more negligent. His business rarely took him to the North, anyway.

  Although, in the South, it was much easier getting into important places when one were the supposed half-brother of a viscount—Gabriel, with the help of the viscount himself, even had falsified documents stating he was Viscount Tulius Baryon's younger half-brother, to make it official. Tulius had owed him a favor, and probably still a couple more.

  The woman, Anna, took his hand in her own and shook it. Her grip was surprisingly firm.

  “Ah, a lord,” she said, sounding impressed. “It's a pleasure, Mister Baryon. And, please, call me Miss.”

  Gabriel drew his hand back, a clever smile creeping across his face.

  “What is it, Mister Baryon?” Anna asked, brows furrowed.

  “I was only just thinking on what you said a moment earlier, about being an unrestrained woman for expressing your opinion of the train service and whatnot to a stranger...” he began. Anna nodded expectantly when he paused. “Well, I have indeed resolved to make a decision on my thoughts about you. Now that I know your name, of course, I can make these judgments, see?”

  “Can you now?” she asked through a grin. Abruptly, her face took on a serious expression—too serious not to be exaggerated. “All right...” she said, the way one might say it when bracing herself for a doctor's diagnosis. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. After a few seconds, she opened them again and nodded. “I'm ready.”

  Again, Gabriel found himself amused by the woman. It was not often that he was able to have an actual fun conversation with one who was so clearly part of the upper class.

  “You see,” Gabriel began, “I have witnessed many tell fellow acquaintances of their deepest, most troubling problems. If we, then, had not been strangers at the time of your...distress...telling me of your disdain of selfish seat thieves and train attendants lacking in proper authoritative standards would be a rather fitting conversation, actually. But, being that we were complete strangers at the time and you are a...er—”

  “Woman?” Anna guessed, a slightly dangerous tone behind her voice. Gabriel cringed inwardly. The seat below him began to fell nearly like eggshells.

  “Right,�
� he said, beginning to rethink having said anything at all. “Things being how they are, I have concluded, my dear, that you are quite the unrestrained woman. Although,” he added quickly, as Anna raised a deadly brow, “I do tend to fancy the unrestrained soul above the rest.”

  Both sat in uncomfortable silence—at least, it was uncomfortable for Gabriel—for several seconds. Brow still poised high, Anna leaned back in her seat, pursing her lips in quiet scrutiny of him. With a dangerous stare—a woman's stare—, she looked him up and down. For a reason he could not understand, his mind kept being pulled back to her, the faceless woman of his ever-fading memory.

  I should have thought this conversation though a little better, Gabriel thought, suddenly questioning the charm he thought he possessed only minutes before. That was the problem when it was a learned attribute and not a natural one; when something was false—charm, lordship, normality—he never felt as though he was doing it right. His guise felt unstable, as though he had cast a sheet over his head in the middle of a crowded room and expected nobody to see him standing there. That was the price when playing the role of someone who was not himself.

  Fortunately, as Anna finally lowered her arched eyebrow, her lips turning up in a devious smile, it appeared her growing criticism of him had been only an act. A cruel act. It seemed she had cleverly played on his discomfort. He spent his time hunting demons, and one arched eyebrow from a lady had him questioning his ability to act in a role he had been playing for more than a year?

  That's a woman for you, he told himself.

  “We should get along just fine then, Mister Baryon,” Anna said, finally, her grin broadening. “And all that might be changing in the coming years—the expectations impressed upon us gentlewomen by you men, who seem to basically be able to say whatever you please. Common women are not held to nearly as lofty a standard, you know. And the women in the North...well, you can hardly tell them apart from the men, I hear. I, also, heard rumor of a group of gentlewomen banding together in Harlun, asking people to sign their petitions against this treatment.” She laughed out loud, as though she had said something funny.