Bloodline (Paranormal Romance, Dark & Twisted) Saving Demons Series Book 1

She's not a thing, Izzy. She is a finely tuned, masterfully crafted piece of art, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you hurt her feelings," I said. I cranked the throttle and gave her some gas. The Harley roared. Her beastly voice echoed against the mountain range.

  Izzy jumped, letting out a shrill cry of surprise. I laughed at her.

  "She? You call that thing a she?" Izzy's voice was shacking.

  "Just get on, Izzy. I promise I won't hurt you." I cupped my ear, bent over the gas tank and paused like that momentarily. Then I sat back up and looked at Izzy. "She promises not to hurt you, either," I said, grinning.

  "Please tell me that it did not just talk back to you," Izzy said.

  "She wouldn't dare talk back to me, Izzy. She knows better than that."

  Izzy hesitated. Her contemplation was evident in the twisting of her face. I watched as her horrified expression hardened into determination.

  She would conquer her fear.

  "Don't go fast," she said, and with newfound courage, Izzy got on behind me. She wrapped her arms around my waist so tight that I thought she was trying to performing the Hiemlick Maneuver.

  "Izzy, too tight. Can't breathe," I grunted. I tapped into gear and headed slowly down the driveway. Izzy was too frightened to loosen her grip on me.

  "If you squeeze me to death, I'll crash," I warned. That did the trick. Izzy instantly loosened her grip, at least to where I could breathe again. I turned onto Snake Road and picked up the pace a little. Izzy burrowed her face into my back, squealing like a stuck pig. I couldn't help but laugh at her.

  Izzy didn't say a word all the way down the pass. At least, nothing coherent that is. She made a lot of screeching noises. Especially around the sharper corners, where I had to lean the bike a little. Ok, so I didn't have to lean as much as I actually did, but Izzy didn't need to know this, and it sure was fun getting that extra screech or two out of her. By the time we reached the bottom of the pass I ached all over from laughing so hard. I was actually tempted to turn around and do it all over again, just because laughing was something I hadn't done in a very long time. Not like this, anyway.

  When we pulled onto the cobblestone street, Izzy started humming one flat tune, just to hear her voice jiggle. So, of course, I wasn't done laughing. When I wiped the tears from the corner of my eyes, Izzy cried out in sheer hysteria. "Don't let go of the thingies!"

  "They're called handle bars, Izzy," I said, through my manic laughing. "Turns out, you don't really even need the darn things!" I raised both my hands high up in the air. "See?" But this proved to be not such a good idea on the cobblestone. The bike wobbled, sending Izzy into another bout of hysteria. I took the handlebars and calmed my machine before I ended up breaking the promise we had made to Izzy about not hurting her.

  That was when I realized just how crowded Sleepy Hallow was today. There were cars lining both sides of the street, from one end of town to the other. There were groups of people clustered in the park and in front of the shops.

  I squeezed the Harley in between two bumpers at the end of the street and rolled up over the curb and onto the grass. I turned the Knucklehead off. The rumble died to the hushed voices of the town folk.

  Izzy barely let out a gasp before I realized what she was looking at. She was off the bike before the last knock of the engine, transfixed on the commotion going on in the church parking lot, like most everyone else seemed to be.

  There were fire trucks, three police cars and one ambulance parked in a half circle near the trees at the rear of the church. Red, blue, and orange lights were flashing. There were a lot of people huddled in groups in the church parking lot and down the sides of the gravel road, but no one but emergency servicemen and women were beyond the makeshift barricade that was constructed out of two police cars parked nose to nose and a few armed officers standing with their backs to the crime scene. There was yellow police-line tape behind them in the woods at the back of the church. It was waving at me in the stiff breeze, as if to ask if I remembered the last time I'd seen such a thing.

  Someone had died. I was certain of it.

  This scene was painfully too familiar to me.

  Izzy took off toward the gravel road. Although I was in my own little world, trying to keep the bad memories suppressed, I was still vaguely aware of a few important things. I had to stop Izzy. What ever bad thing awaited her on the other side of that yellow police tape wasn't worth seeing. It wasn't worth being haunted for the rest of her life. I needed to protect her from that.

  "Wait!" I jogged to catch up to Izzy. "You can't just march up there and demand to know what's going on!" When I caught up to her, I wanted to grab her and stop her, but I saw that look on her face and in her eyes, and I understood all too well. Izzy had to see for herself. She had to know. And the determination that was emanated from her said that no one was going to be able to stop her from doing so.

  "We have to sneak," I said. I took her by the elbow. "This way! Come on." We were at the edge of the church parking lot, when I caught a glimpse of Roman standing at the barricade. Roman, with his obviously keen eyes, had spotted Izzy and me before I even saw him. He purposely distracted the two officers, who were standing guard at the barricade, and I ran, leading Izzy through the grass, around to the side of the church. There were people everywhere, but everyone seemed too preoccupied to notice us. When we reached the back corner of the church, I slowed down, rounding the corner at, hopefully, a much less-noticeable pace.

  No one but police and other uniformed men were back here. And they were, at first, too preoccupied with whatever was going on in the section of trees that was cordoned off with tape to notice us. Cameras were flashing. Several people were kneeling down around the object of their attention.

  This was painfully too familiar.

  Izzy and I crept slowly, unnoticed, along the backside of the church, until we found a small, momentary gap in the crowd. We both stopped at the same exact time, held captive by the gruesome sight before us. Izzy's gasp was so loud that someone noticed us, but neither Izzy nor I noticed them. We were both gripped by the horrible image before us. Even though it was only a flash before our eyes, before we were grabbed up rudely by the arms and escorted away, I knew it was another one of those sights that would inevitably haunt me for the rest of my life.

  The man who led Izzy and I around the church and into the parking lot was angrily reprimanding us, but I didn't hear a word he was saying. All that existed was the bloody, mangled body that was lying on the forest floor behind us.

  In just that one glimpse, I saw every detail. There wasn't a trace of flesh visible on the body that wasn't soaked in blood. The arms and legs, back and neck had all obviously been broken. There wasn't a single part of the corps lying the way that it should have been. The hips were completely twisted around so that the stomach was lying flat on the ground, while the chest and shoulders were facing straight up. The face, completely unrecognizable with all the skin torn off and pealed away from the bone, was pointed straight back, vertical with the spine. A pool of blood saturated hair shown glimpses of its jet-black color.

  "Isis," I heard Izzy say, but it sounded weird because her sweet, innocent voice did not belong in the psychotic, disturbing haze that I was in.

  I didn't remember the walk back to the park, because of the fog that I was in. I was pretty sure Izzy was sharing the same fog with me. It dissipated, only slightly, as we sat down in the corner of a deserted coffee shop at the end of the street.

  "That was Isis Blackhawk," Izzy said. "It looked like an animal had torn her apart!"

  "Izzy," I stopped her from saying anymore, but what I think I was really trying to do was protect her from the horror of it. It was too late for that, though. I should have stopped her when I felt compelled to, before she defiled her mind this way. "I was there. No need to explain," I said, hearing the rough edge of anger in my tone.

  "I think we need a double espresso," Izzy said. Without waiting for my reply, she got up and left the
table, seemingly in a hurry. Not to leave me, but maybe the image. Maybe Izzy hoped it would stay behind if she moved hastily forward.

  My surroundings started coming together, as the fog that loomed over me thinned away. The coffee shop had a very rustic, cozy feel to it, with its log walls, thick, low-beam ceiling and large, crackling fireplace. We sat at a table just off to the side of the large, glass, French doors that framed the breathtaking view of the babbling, white water rapids that sliced and wriggled through the thick woods. The land sloped on the other side of the river and took a severe slant up the mountain.

  It was beautiful, or at least I knew it would have been beautiful if I hadn't been looking at it through a lens of horror.

  Outside the coffee shop, a redwood deck hung out over the river, offering outdoor dinning. On the right side of the deck, there were steps made out of huge, flat rocks that led down to another redwood deck, where it was even more secluded. The area offered privacy and the view of the river where it bloated and slowed to a creeping crawl. One could sit at the deck's edge and dip her toes into the lazy river.

  After seeing what I saw, what felt like only moments ago, being here in this warm, cozy atmosphere was perfect.

  Except for the gross-looking animal heads that were hanging on the walls.

  Looking at me.

  "Sorry," I whispered to them. "But it's really not my fault you ended up nailed to the wall, so quit looking at me like that, will ya?" I whispered, irritably.

  "Like what?" Izzy said, setting a steaming cup of espresso on the table under my nose. "Who are you talking to?"

  "The animals," I whispered, tweaking my eyes upward at a very distraught looking deer.

  Izzy paused in mid-sip, looking deeply concerned for me. She turned her eyes up slowly, looking at the deer head above the door. "They're not talking back to you, are they?"

  "If I told you they were, would you still be my friend?" I asked. I was hoping to help Izzy forget about Isis, even if only temporarily, in the span of a giggle or a smile.

  "No," she said without even a hint of humor in her tone. Actually, Izzy didn't look much like Izzy right now. Her usual illuminated eyes were now grey and haunted. Her expression reminded me of a storm cloud drifting over the sun. I hated it. I hated the fact that whoever did this to Isis was doing this to Izzy. And the crazy thing was, I think I hated it more for Izzy than I did for Isis.

  "Then, no, the animals weren't talking back to me," I said. I took a careful sip of espresso, unable to keep my mind from accusing the barbarian for what had happened to Isis.

  He had warned her.

  Isis did not obey him.

  She ticked him off.

  I knew his kind. I knew that his kind was capable of murder.

  I reached across the table and took Izzy's hand. "I'm sorry. I know how you wanted to save her and all."

  This was my fault. If I hadn't tried to drown my self in Snow Melt, the barbarian would not have come and taken me to the other side. Isis would have never gotten lippy with me. She would not have disobeyed him.

  Izzy's head sank downward, spirals cascaded over her face. "It's too late for her," she said so softly that I could hardly hear her.

  Then again, maybe it wasn't the barbarian. Maybe this wasn't my fault. Oh, man, did I hope this wasn't my fault!

  "But there is still the rest of them. It's not too late for them, right?" I asked. Suddenly I realized just how important this was to Izzy, leading this coven to her Lord. And suddenly, more than anything else, I wanted to help her. I wanted to stand by her side and wave my sword, too.

  Except, I didn't have a sword. I didn't know how to acquire a sword. Heck, I didn't even believe in what Izzy was fighting for.

  But I believed in Izzy. And for this, alone, I would fight legions of witches and sons of Lucifer. I'd fight Lucifer himself!

  "You are right, Luna," Izzy said. Slowly, she seemed to recover from her state of defeat. She straightened her spine and raised her head high. "I just have to be a little more, I don't know, aggressive, I guess. And fast, before anything else like this can happen to one of them." A fiery determination sparkled in her eyes and animated her face.

  The Izzy I knew was back. The storm cloud had rolled on. The sun was now blazing.

  "I like that look, Izzy. You wear it well," I said, letting go of her hand.

  "Thanks," she said, excitedly. "Do you want to see my warrior face?" Izzy didn't wait for an answer before she rearranged her features. Her brows furrowed, eyes narrowed into green, razor-sharp slits, and her lips pulled downward a little, almost into a pouting position. Before my eyes, Isabelle Gordon was transformed from sweet and loving Izzy, into dangerous, ready-to-cry warrior.

  "Wow. Pretty scary, Izzy. But you really should do something about the mouth area. It just isn't working with that whole eye-thing you got going on there," I suggested.

  Izzy's face fell, and she was Izzy once again, the sad one, but without the haunting, without the cloud. "I can't believe us, Luna! Here we are all happy and everything while Isis' body lies all chewed up in the woods. We're awful people."

  "No, we're not! Just cuz something bad has happened doesn't mean we should torture ourselves over it. We're not awful people for not owning the horror. It's not ours to own. It doesn't belong to us. That doesn't mean we shouldn't care, but we don't have to be sick with sorrow either. Bad stuff happens in the world every second of every day! Do we walk around like tortured, sorrow-infected zombies? No! Finding comfort in one another's smile or laughter doesn't make us awful people. It just means we're human." For some strange reason, immediately following the sound of my voice, Ashmodai came to my thoughts.

  Ashmodai lived at the church. Maybe he saw something. Maybe he knew who did this to Isis. Maybe Isis was with him right now, at this very moment, in ghost form.

  Maybe Ashmodai murdered Isis. He is a spooky guy. Spooky guys are definitely capable of doing spooky things, right?

  I had to go talk to him.

  But what if Ashmodai does the same thing to me that he did to Isis?

  I grinned to myself.

  I'd kick his butt!

  "So, how do you kick a ghost's butt if your foot would just go right through it?" I asked Izzy. Which earned me another one of those I-found-your-crazy-stuff look from her. But before she could figure out how to respond, I held up my palm, like I was stopping traffic. "Never mind, Izzy. I'll figure it out," I said.

  I had to figure it out before tonight.

  Because tonight, while everyone in Sleepy Hallow will be tucked safely in their beds, oblivious to the world of ghosts and demons in their midst, I would go to the catacombs and I would find Ashmodai.

  ****

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Luna