Keeper Chronicles: Awakening (7 page)

Chapter Six

Hunger gnawed at him, sinking its teeth into his mind and overwhelming his restraint. It’d been too long. He needed to feed. Now. The forests were thick along the coast and practically hummed with wildlife; however, his need required more esoteric cuisine. Human hearts, specifically. Female ones were best, though a male would do in a pinch. Preferably still beating.

Slowing, he approached the two-story house from the rear, skittering across the lawn on all fours like a spider, his head cocked to the side to listen for any noise out of place. This place hadn’t been his first choice—he’d learned much from devouring the Keeper, including that small housing communities like this one often had neighbors uncomfortably nearby—yet hunger dictated his actions. If he didn’t feed soon, he’d die. Existing in the human world wasn’t easy for demons, and without a fresh supply of human hearts and blood, he’d lose his link with the human world and fade back into the Red.

He wasn’t about to let that happen.

Flattening himself against the house, he stood upright and listened. Four heartbeats. Two downstairs in a central location. The beats were slow, regular. He almost tore into the side of the house and devoured them whole, but something else stopped him. Upstairs. In one bedroom. The hearts beating in that room were younger, steadier. Almost racing.

He hissed in anticipation, his spiked teeth scissoring against each other, and surged up the side of the neat blue siding.

No.
He stopped himself at the windowsill, holding himself beneath the bedroom window. Their life called to him, each beat of their hearts spurting precious blood into the bodies, blood he wanted to suck dry.

Patience.

The Keepers couldn’t find out about him. Not yet. He needed more time.

Using his claws to keep his purchase, he climbed around to the top of the window and waited, hanging upside down to keep his ear near the window. Each moment was a torment, each pulse of their hearts like a dagger driven into his chest as his need intensified. It seemed like a lifetime until the boy snuck out of the very window he hung over, giving the girl a final kiss before starting down the trellis. He wanted to attack them then, to kill them, but that would be a mistake. The heartbeats below would hear, call the police, or scream.

Patience would reward him.

And so he kept waiting, after the boy ran off down the street. After the two heartbeats downstairs went to another room and settled. After the girl slowed and fell asleep. Each second brought a new agony. Each second brought him closer to realizing his own potential.

Not until the house had been quiet for a few hours did he slink around the window and open it a crack, pausing to see if anyone heard. To him, the sound was like a bolt of lightning. The humans, however, had cow ears. They heard nothing, his every noise swallowed by the ruckus of their breath.

He opened the window, pausing after each scratch of wood on wood. The darkness was beautiful, thrumming with energy and hidden potential. Living things had an essence too faint for human eyes to see, a glow that lit them even in the darkness, but to him they were bright like fireworks. The lights deepened the contrast with his dark nature. Each shadow was a hiding place. Shelter. He moved among them easily as their darkness welcomed his own, conformed to him.

He paused next to her bed, letting the need build until it hummed inside him, waiting to explode. The girl was a pale yellow like fresh flowers, vibrating with each pulse of her soon-to-be-deceased heart. The thrill built inside him as sparks of red fired through. She dreamed of the boy; he could taste her desire on her dreams. Humans were pathetic. A blight on the world. One day soon, his kind would again be free to hunt the cities and villages, free to teach these humans their natural place in the order of things: the bottom.

The girl moaned and started to turn over. This was it. His wait was over.

Punching his hand through her chest, he yanked out her heart and brought it to his lips, sucking her blood through her aorta like a straw. When the faint yellow of her spark faded completely, he devoured her heart in two succulent bites.

Chapter Seven

Tuna casserole wasn’t Gabe’s favorite, but since eating was better than responding to his father’s rather bold announcement, he took his time chewing. Then swallowing. Then taking a drink of water.

“No.” Gabe pronounced the word slowly and definitively so that there could be no mistaking his meaning.

His father’s face reddened all the way to the top of his balding head. “Now, you listen here, son. I’m the Elder of this region, and if I give you a direct order, you will obey it.”

Gabe took another bite of casserole. His mother watched his every move and gesture, silently pleading with him to repent. Gabe should have known better than to spend the night at his parents’ place after everything that happened with the storm and then Lorek. If he had just listened to his instincts, he wouldn’t have to sit here over breakfast and be bullied. Setting his fork down on his napkin, he folded his hands in front of his plate and stared at his father.

“No.”

Before he could argue or scream or throw his knife at Gabe’s head, his father’s cellphone rang, vibrating against the wooden table like it too, wanted to run away. Gabe’s father hesitated a moment, and then picked it up. “McDaniel here.” A pause. “Uh-huh.” “Are you sure?” “Okay, we’ll be right there.”

“What is it?” Gabe’s mother asked, pushing away from the table. Her wavy, dark hair nearly reached her waist with only a hint of gray around the edges. Although she had been born in Oregon, her father had been Japanese, and she got the best of her features from him. Keepers were a small community, so members sometimes had to move to different countries in order to keep the bloodlines from becoming stale. Though he kept his own hair cut rather close, Gabe’s short dark curls could only have come from his mother.

“Been a murder. Nasty one, too.” His father’s tone was accusatory. “Cops are thinking it’s some kind of animal attack and asked us to check it out. Might as well come, Gabe. Do you good to see what kind of work we do here landside.”

Gabe knew better than to refuse this invitation, even though his uniform was still in the wash. Only a special detergent could get out the smell of rotting demon. Following his parents into the hall, he slid his black jacket over his shoulders but didn’t fasten it up. The spare drawer of clothing had been his mother’s idea when he first moved to keep watch at Killamook. At the time, Gabe thought it sentimental, but over the years, it’d turned out to be useful when things inevitably went sideways. Logistics weren’t always easy when only a long boat ride connected him with the rest of the world.

Sitting in the back of the patrol car, he felt like a criminal or, worse, a child again. Silence settled on the black leather seats, a thick sludge through which no movement or sound could penetrate as they traveled south on the 101 to Florence. His father was angry that Gabe hadn’t bent knee and submitted to his orders immediately. Duty was life; life was duty. He was sure that were he to slice into his father’s heart, he’d find a rusted old machine ticking instead of flesh and blood.

As they drove into the city, however, past numerous stores and restaurants, past an elementary school with big yellow busses parked outside, Gabe grew convinced that whatever had caused this murder hadn’t been a demon. Restraint like that—passing up easy kills to go deeper into the city—wasn’t within the abilities of any demon he’d ever met. It’s what, ultimately, made them easy to kill. Driven by an insatiable hunger, any demon would go for the nearest, easiest food, leaving a trail of mangled corpses easier to follow than bright neon signs. The difficult part was always keeping the local cops from finding the bodies first and launching an investigation.

His father drove the patrol car into the most middleclass suburb imaginable: immaculate laws, neatly-ordered flowerbeds, and even a few giant inflatable pumpkins rocking from side to side in the autumn breeze. The residents who hadn’t left for work were standing in their driveways chatting in high-heels and makeup. Like suburban dolls. Or trophies. The house they stopped at looked like any other on the street except that it was surrounded by police cars, an ambulance, and even a fire truck’s lights added to the chaos, making it seem that the house’s siding was splashed with blood.

A barricade had been established around the perimeter to keep onlookers out, and the officer waived them through. Gabe got out before his father even cut the engine, slamming the door. When one of the officers tried to come up to him, he flashed his Parks Services badge.

“They’re waiting for you guys upstairs. In the door and to your right.” He hesitated, face pale. “You’ll know the room when you see it.”

Gabe glanced where he pointed, and then looked back at the officer. “Thanks. I’d like to check out the exterior first, if you don’t mind. See what tracks I can find. Has anyone been around the back?”

The officer shook his head. “Nope. All traffic’s been through the front entrance.”

“Thanks. I’ll start out here and work my way back.”

Leaving just as his father walked up and began talking to the officer, Gabe hung his badge out of his back jean pocket so no one bothered him. This close to the front of the house, the scents were too chaotic for his finely-tuned nose to sort through. Whoever owned the house had a cockroach problem they probably didn’t know about—the scent of excrement was faint but lingering. A few cats had come by. And a dog. Nothing so far that screamed murder.

Ignoring the looks of the other officers and firemen, he walked up to the front door and studied it, searched for claw marks or scratch marks. Something that might be animal. He circled the perfect blue house and made his way slowly around to the back.

The sliding door to the back porch was untouched and latched. No sign of forced entry. The back patio was unmarked, and there were no claw marks, scratches, or gouges in the siding that he could see. Only domestic animals had been near the house for a while. If it had been a demon or animal, how would it have gotten inside or upstairs? Just in case, he’d check the woods before they left, but he was fairly certain now that they were dealing with a human murderer, if anything. Demons weren’t able to be so cautious.

Gabe followed the cute stone path back around to the front. The officer near the door just nodded as he passed, and he followed the directions upstairs, checking out the railing and carpet as he went. No scratches or claw marks or dents. A person did this.

His parents waited outside the door talking in hushed tones with a plainclothes detective. Gabe stopped beside his mother.

“This is our big-game expert,” his father explained to the detective before turning to Gabe. “Find anything outside?”

“Nothing. No tracks or breakage or suspicious signs. I’m not sure this wasn’t a human. Do you have any suspects?”

The detective, an older man who’d started to go a little soft around the middle, shook his head; his skin was pale with a sickly flush around his cheeks. “No person could have done this. You must’ve missed something.”

“I didn’t...” he began but stopped as his father’s gesture silenced him. “How about I check the room. Is this where you found her...?”

The detective handed Gabe a pair of gloves, glanced at the door, then passed over a second. “Yeah. She’s still inside. The ME’s been here, but we didn’t want to move her until you guys weighed in.”

Gabe walked in first while the others waited by the threshold. The room could have belonged to any sixteen-year-old girl. The walls, painted pink no doubt when she was younger, had been covered over by posters of bands and cutouts from fashion magazines. The small deck in the corner had a stack of school books and more makeup and brushes than would be needed to paint a clown. Clothing was tossed in corners, colorful confetti for a party that would never happen now.

The body was sprawled on the bed. The girl’s skin looked deflated and wrinkled, like she had melted. Gabe glanced back to the door as he stepped around the bed. “Exsanguinated?”

The detective swallowed. “That’s what the ME said. Not a drop left or spilled.”

Using two fingers, Gabe probed the jagged hole in the girl’s chest. “No heart. Any other organs missing?”

“None as far as the ME can tell, at least ‘till the full autopsy.” He rubbed his bald head and stepped back. “Do you know what did this?”

“Definitely a demon. First-order to be this precise with a kill. One’s not come through since the Heaven’s Gate thing, as far as I know. They’re rare, but powerful.”

The detective blanched. “I’m sorry, did you say demon...That’s crazy.”

“‘Fraid not. Mom?”

“Why don’t you come back out in the hall with me, Detective.” Gabe’s mother took the man by the arm. She whispered something in his ear, and he complied. When she left, she shut the door behind her.

“You didn’t have to say that,” his father said in the same tone he might announce the weather. “You know how important our secret is. If everyone knew the danger just outside their doors, it’d be chaos. Nations would topple. Have toppled. Now she’ll have to erase him, and you know how that tires her.”

Gabe ignored his father, studying the fracture pattern of the girl’s ribs. Whatever’d ripped the heart out had used its hand, given the jaggedness of the splintering. Most demons would have just eaten it right in the chest, making a mess of everything. “Call in a witch...make that two. We’re going to have to clean everyone who’s been up here and implant a new memory. Mom is gifted, but we’re going to need more than just her to cover this up. Then send out an alert to the other regions. Whatever did this is still out there and still hunting. I’m going to see if I can figure out how it came in.”

“You’re not in charge, Gabriel.” His father crossed his arms. “You’re a consultant.”

“Then why am I doing your job?” Gable glared at his father until the man left.

Now he could get down to work. To exist in this world, all demons had to consume human flesh. Higher-order demons, fifth- and fourth-order, driven by insatiable hunger, would eat anything or anyone. They were mindless and savage and killed easily. As you got down to the lower-order demons, however, they needed something purer. Some ate organs like the livers and kidneys. A few drank blood. Even rarer types could consume emotions. Most likely he was dealing with an advanced form of one of those.