Demon's Trust: The Chronicles of Arcayos (Book One) (Paranormal Romance) Read online

  Demon’s Trust

  The Chronicles of Arcayos Book One

  Raven Dark

  Demon’s Trust (The Chronicles of Arcayos Book One)

  Copyright © 2021 Raven Dark, all rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Please purchase only authorized editions of this book, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials.

  Cover by Raven Dark

  Editing by Christina Trevaskis

  Proofreading by Brittany Meyer-Strom

  Images courtesy of Depositphotos

  Created with Vellum

  For my real life hero,

  who filled my once dark life with light.

  Contents

  1. The Man In Black

  2. A Debt Owed

  3. The Warrior

  4. Questions and Answers

  5. Lying to the Boss

  6. Unforgiven

  7. Hagor

  8. A Deal with A Demon

  9. Tear in the World

  10. A Promise Made

  11. Gidan Hudar

  12. A Reason to Fear

  13. Colburn’s Decision

  14. Welcome to the Squad

  15. Partners

  16. The Devil’s Touch

  17. Chance Divided

  18. Trust

  19. The Tip

  20. The Call

  21. Unwelcome Truths

  22. Reasons Why

  23. Alarm Bells

  24. Vengeance

  25. The Ward

  26. Taken Away

  27. The Book of Va’halzoret

  28. A Discovery

  29. The Mirror of Torment

  30. Ambush

  31. Going Back

  32. Cassidy’s Choice

  Connect with Raven Dark

  And in the time of war between the Darkness and the Light,

  He was brought before Her.

  Born of Darkness,

  But sworn to the Light,

  He was Her weapon against the ending come.

  On bended knee, he gave his oath,

  And challenged the Lord of Lies.

  And She placed the Ak’tar upon his chest,

  And armed him with the Sword of Shadows.

  And the world wept with hope,

  For him She named The Knighted One.

  Him She named Her Champion.

  Written by Lanzere Goldenshield, First Angel of the Goddess, the Book of Va’halzoret

  1

  The Man In Black

  Wolfhead Creek, New York, 1986

  Fuck, I hate this place.

  There are too many bad memories here, but if I’m going to find her, I have to do this.

  It’s early afternoon when I pull the Junk Pile up in front of the old house and kill the car’s engine.

  Gripping the steering wheel to stop my hands from shaking, I take a deep breath. Come on, Cass, woman up.

  I pull a pair of black leather gloves from the pocket of my leather jacket and slip them on. No one wears gloves in July unless they’re me. It’s too warm for a jacket, but it’s the best way to hide my gun.

  I fish my badge and pistol from inside the glove compartment and climb out of the car.

  The white stucco house is drenched in sunlight, and vines creep around the pillars out front. The upper-floor windows stare down at me like soulless black eyes.

  Ah, home sweet fucking home.

  I clip the gun’s holster to my belt, stow my police badge in my jeans pocket, and make my way up the front steps.

  A sharp cawing shatters the silence. I spin around.

  The rusty carcass of an old pea-green ’74 Plymouth crouches in the drive. A raven is perched on the roof. The bird cocks its head, its black eyes locked on me.

  A shiver skitters up my spine. Gotta stop letting this place get to me.

  Ringing the doorbell, I make sure my jacket covers my firearm and badge. Cops make everyone nervous. No need to alarm the house’s occupant unnecessarily.

  “Caw!”

  I jump.

  “Jesus.” I glare at the bird. It glares back, cocking its head the other way. I pick up a pebble and whip it toward the raven. “Fuck off.”

  The bird shoots off with an angry squawk, wings flapping.

  I ring the bell again. Feet shuffle from inside. The door opens and a short, plump old woman with pretty, white hair in curlers sticks her head out.

  “Yes?”

  The words lodge in my throat, and I swallow.

  “Sorry to bother you, ma’am. I’m Cassidy Morgan. I used to live here years ago. Could I come in and take a look around for a few minutes?”

  The woman’s soft blue eyes assess me, darting about the sheltered porch. “Another one? I suppose it never gets old, does it?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Wait.” She opens the door wide, apparently deciding I haven’t stopped by to rob her. “Are you here about what happened twelve years ago?”

  The sympathy in her eyes makes me cringe. I throw on a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Her mouth turns down, and she waves me in. “Come on in, dear. Sorry. Reporters have been sniffing around this place. Guess they wanna do a story on what happened.”

  Yeah, I bet. There’s always some asswipe wanting to turn the one story all of Wolfhead Creek would rather forget into a fucking media circus. Idiots.

  She pushes the door shut and locks it. I shake her hand. She furrows her brow at my gloves.

  “Skin condition,” I say with a practiced embarrassed look.

  “Ah. I’m Claire.” She nods to the general inside of the house. “Take all the time you need.”

  A wooden staircase leads to the second floor in front of me. From the door, the living room is partially visible. A state-of-the-art twenty-five-inch TV mutters the infamous trailer for Top Gun. I smile. Saw the movie last week with the guys from work, and, yes, I shed a tear when Goose died. I have a soul.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I won’t be long.”

  “Oh no, take your time. It’s nice to have someone else in this old place other than my cat.” Her brow crinkles. “Say, did they ever find the little girl?”

  No. My gut clenches.

  “I need to see the upstairs. Mind if I snoop around in the bedroom?”

  “Not at all. It’s my office now. Do you want me to go with you?”

  “That won’t be necessary, ma’am.” I start for the stairs.

  Claire offers me a cold glass of lemonade. I don’t want one, but I need her to leave, so I politely accept.

  Claire goes down the hall and shuffles in the kitchen. I glance upstairs, licking my lips. This part of the house is exactly the same as it was when I was a kid, all scuffed wood and smudged walls. The hole in the wall a few steps up has been patched, but there’s a bulge where it’s been filled in. Dad put his fist through the wall after I broke one of his wine bottles.

  Fun times.

  I set my foot on the bottom step. My heartbeat thuds in my throat. I slowly pull one glove off. The staircase seems at once much too long and too short, the door to my sister’s bedroom at the top too close, yet too far away.

  Fingers trembling, I slip my hand around the worn bannister.

  A shock of power shoots through my fingers and up my arm, like a lightning bolt.

  Images flood in, slashes of color and sound that race past my mind’s eye in an indistinguishable jumble. Voices crash in, loud and harsh. I almost put my hands over my ears in reflex.
r />   Desperate to maintain the connection between the here and now, I clutch the bannister in a white-knuckled grip. It’s as if someone has sliced open my skull and poured hot lava in. My head pounds. I grit my teeth, holding in a scream.

  Been a psychic since as far back as I can remember, but the visions still hurt like a bitch.

  I force myself to slow the images down. Taking in every detail I can.

  A child’s laughter rings out. It’s a bittersweet sound, painfully innocent.

  It’s twelve year old me’s laugh. In my mind’s eye, I race up the steps, then turn to look down at the bottom. I give a start. I’m looking at myself.

  It takes a second for me to clue in. I’m not me. I’m seeing this through my sister’s eyes. Which means I’m a four-year-old Saffron, looking down at a twelve-year-old Cassidy.

  When I see things, I always become the person in the vision.

  My gaze drops. I’m holding a piece of cake in my hand. Of course. It’s Saffron’s birthday. Adrenaline pumps through my veins. My throat tightens. Why did I leave without her?

  We race up the stairs, chasing each other and laughing. Dad shouts at us to shut our fucking heads. We stifle our laughter. Both of us know better than to piss dad off this early in the morning.

  Hearing Saffron’s small, tinkling laugh makes my heart hurt.

  Moving carefully up the steps, I slide my hand along the bannister. The ghostly sound of two little girls giggling mixes with the hum of Claire’s TV playing the opening score to All My Children.

  At the top of the steps, I let my hand fall away from the railing. The past disappears, the giggling cut short. Emptiness burrows its way in, as if I’ve just severed the only connection to Saffron I have left.

  Bracing myself, I set my fingertips on the door to her room and push it open.

  There is a flash of the room as it is now. The desk shoved into a corner. An overstuffed bookshelf against the wall. A large orange tabby sits on the windowsill. It hisses at me. Then the flash of the present vanishes, and scalding lava once more spills in behind my eyes.

  The desk becomes my sister’s single bed, draped in faded, threadbare linens our mother is too cheap to replace. The cat is gone. The bookshelf becomes a 1974 calendar boasting a picture of David Cassidy as July’s Heartthrob of the Month. My eight-year-old sister is kissing David’s picture. Except it’s me, and I’m leaving mom’s harlot red lipstick on his face.

  1974. My heart gallops. It’s suddenly hard to breathe. That’s the year Saffron went missing.

  Saffron squeals, only the sound is coming from me. It peals through the house, an echo that vibrates with terror.

  Footsteps sound on the stairs behind me.

  Claire. I snatch my hand from the door.

  The images vanish, a movie switched off. I step farther into the room. The tabby hisses again.

  “Here you are, dear.”

  I turn. Claire is in the doorway holding a tall glass of lemonade and a few cookies on a tray.

  Fingers still trembling with adrenaline, I take the glass, careful to use the hand with the glove still on. No visions.

  “Thanks.” My voice shakes.

  Some tough inner-city cop I am.

  Claire frowns. “Are you alright, dear? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I’m fine.” A forced smile. “I’m almost done here.”

  She nods, sets the tray down on a side table for me, and pats her thigh. “Come on, Mister. Come to mummy.”

  The cat leaps lightly off the sill and saunters over to her. She scoops him up. He casts a baleful look at me and emits a growl. She cuddles him close.

  “This is Mister. Oh, hush, you,” she adds when he lets out another, irritated rumble. “Ignore him. He’s always a grouch around company. Come on, Mister. Let’s leave this nice lady to her business.”

  As soon as she’s gone, I set the lemonade down on the tray and make my way to the closet. The door is closed. Swallowing, I grasp the doorknob.

  Saffron’s screams pierce my ears, but once more they come from me.

  I’m on the floor of the open closet, crying out as a hand drags me across the carpet, hauling me by the ankle. I kick and scream for mom, for dad.

  Two men’s voices, deep and harsh with anger.

  There is a face above me. My heart leaps. Saffron’s attacker.

  A dark, thick mustache and dark beard. A thick, puckered scar across his ruddy cheek. He’s big, with bulky shoulders under a tee. I punch and claw at him, but he spins me onto my stomach. My nails dig into the floor, scraping across the cheap wood inside the closet. He’s too strong, easily dragging me out into the middle of the room.

  “Shut up, you stupid little bitch. You’ll make this worse on yourself when he gets his hands on you.” His voice is gruff, like sandpaper scraping. A monster’s voice to an eight-year-old brain.

  My stomach threatens to empty itself.

  I jerk my hand from the door. The images disappear, ghosts dispelled.

  Why the hell did I leave her here? She’d cried when I tried to make her leave with me. I should have forced her to come. Instead I left her to be taken.

  I dash tears from my cheeks. Take a deep breath and focus on the vision.

  The guy I saw was entirely average. Nothing I saw tells me anything about who took her. I have nothing more now than I’ve had since she disappeared. Except…

  Shut up, you stupid bitch, or you’ll make it worse when he gets his hands on you.

  I blink. Someone wanted her. They took her for someone else, but who?

  Snatching a breath, I grab the door.

  Time rolls back. I’m staring down at the floor of the closet, but instead of the current burgundy carpet, there’s only cheap, scuffed wood. The once neatly kept inside is torn asunder.

  The closet is littered with the little girl’s clothes and toys. An Etch A Sketch and an assortment of 70’s Barbie dolls toppled out of an overturned box.

  And something else. Gouge marks scraped across the wood. Small ones, left by a child’s fingernails.

  Oh, God, Saffron.

  Mister meows from downstairs. The sound catapults me back to the present, tossing me out of the vision with all the finesse of some twisted carnival ride. There’s the automated mechanical whir of an electric can opener coming from the kitchen.

  I stare at the carpet on the closet floor, covering my mouth. What the hell did those sons of bitches do to her?

  A scream shatters the quiet of the house.

  Claire.

  I jump to my feet.

  “How in Sam Hill did you get in here? Who are you, get out of my house!”

  I grab my gun, racing into the hall and down the stairs two at a time.

  “Where is she?” a man snarls.

  “Hand her over, and we’ll make it quick,” another snaps.

  Glass shatters. Claire lets out a pained shriek.

  Fucking bastards. I’ll kill them.

  I cock my gun, racing into the living room.

  Two men. One of them is picking Claire up and slamming her against the wall by the throat. The other is standing behind him. There’s a fucking machete in his fist. The blade glints in the sunlight from the living room window.

  I point my pistol at both men. “Police. Let the woman go and put your hands in the air.”

  The man with the machete turns, and a slow smile twists his heavily scarred face into a grotesque expression. “There you are.”

  So they’re here for me.

  He brandishes the machete at me. The other man keeps his fist around a gasping, thrashing Claire’s throat.

  Who the hell brings a goddamned machete to a home invasion?

  “Chance PD,” I say. “Let the woman go. Drop the fucking machete and put your hands up now, both of you.”

  “You think a bullet’s going to get it done?” The guy with the machete smirks.

  With those scars, he looks as if he stuck his head in a fire. Freddy Krueger would be jealous.
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  “Come on,” he says. “Shoot me. It’ll be fun.”

  What the fuck? If he’s strung out on something, it would explain why he isn’t afraid to take a bullet, but this guy doesn’t look high. His eyes are alert and smug.

  Scar Face stalks toward me. The other guy, a big, beefy one, glances back at us. Claire claws at his arm and kicks at the wall with her heels.

  Big-And-Beefy’s hand flexes around Claire’s throat. There’s a snap of bone. He flings the woman aside like a rag doll. She crumples to the floor.

  Son of a bitch. Scar Face advances toward me.

  I squeeze off a shot, aimed right at his chest.

  There’s a blur of movement. The bullet hits the wall where he’d been standing.

  How in the…

  He closes in from the side. “Try again, gorgeous.” He wiggles his fingers at me and points at his face. “Right here. See what happens.”

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Big-And-Beefy stalks forward. He draws a rope out of his pants pocket and stretches it in front of me, a dangerous glint in his dark eyes.

  I try to squeeze off another shot, but my finger won’t move. Damn it, Cassidy, fire! Don’t be a fucking chickenshit, fire!

  The figure of a man drops and lands in front of me. Towering between me and my attackers, he’s a wall of black cloth draped over muscle.

  I stagger back. What the hell? He came out of nowhere.

  My head snaps up.

  Jesus H. Christ, he’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. His features would be handsome, all strong lines and sharp angles, except his skin is a grayish blue, like something dead. Half-hidden by the hood of a huge black cloak, cracks mar his face, all flashing with a fiery, orange light, as if lava flows beneath his skin.