Macabre

An Iverland Marks, Demon Hunter Novel

MACABRE

L.A. KENNEDY

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to action persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

© Copyright L.A. Kennedy 2015

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book contains scenes of violence, blood, and sexually explicit content, which is only suitable for mature readers.

Dedicated to David.

Elephant Shoe.

Discover other titles by L.A. Kennedy

Iverland Marks: Demon Hunter:

Macabre

Wraith

Bloody Vindicta

Demon Games

Marquis de Mort

Ichor Rising

Danza Del Diablo

The Collector

The Hecatomb Labyrinth

The Divisions Series

The Divisions

Division Two: The Nosferatu

Division Three: The Lycans

COMING SOON: Division Four ~ The Magicks

The Skin Trilogy

A Sinful Series

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Prologue

I am the daughter of a vampire and a demon, a half-breed, a little joke on humanity. I wasn’t laughing, but I was thirsty, I was always so bloody thirsty. My mother was a born vampire, pure breed, who died during my birth. Love doesn’t heal all wounds, especially a vampire with a chest wound. My father is a demon, that’s about all I know. He did his deed and left my mother to fend for herself, left her at the mercy of everything and everyone who wanted us dead. My mother’s last breath was taken before my first one left my lips.

Half demons did not walk the earth. We usually died during our birthing and then dragged into hell, but never to walk freeing and unchecked. If one lived, it died shortly after, either from severe birth defects or killed by the church. Call it population control, from the man upstairs. But Satan? He’d populate his army on the backs of the good people who strayed. They’re not called deadly sins for nothing.

Mix the demon blood and vampire and you have one hell of a mess, which is currently what my life looks like right now. There were two types of vampires, born and turned. Vampires were born every day, born human-ish, until their first death. They came back the second time around, with a thirst for blood stronger than ever before. It’s the difference between wanting a snack and wanting a buffet. The turned were manageable. Little wannabe flunkies who thought being a vampire would make them better at life. How can you be better at life when you’re dead? Mark my words; it doesn’t make you anything more than a lap dog to the born vampires.

I currently was the only vampire demon in stock. I haven’t gone through my second birthing and hadn’t planned on it either. I didn’t want to be a vampire. I was enough of a monster already. The downside to this stubbornness, I’d end up in hell a lot sooner.

Over two thousand years ago, a demon was summoned to create a curse to hide the praeternatural from humans, a curse to allow the monsters to walk freely among the humans. Y2K started with the end of that curse. And here you thought your bank card not working was going to be your biggest problem. I was about ten at the time, but remember the panic and fighting, the blood running down the streets like rain water. It was the first time I had seen so much blood. I wanted to dance in that rain and drink from the puddles. Even before the second birthing, we thirsted.

The world was woken to the praeternatural in a bang. One moment oblivious, the next, wide awake to the terrors that had once roamed undetected. Don’t get me wrong, humans knew all about us, the more sensitive the person, the stronger they could feel us. It was that unexplained feeling to look over your shoulder or the sensation you were being watched. No matter how hidden we thought we were, humankind knew evil existed. No one wakes up and decides to drown their baby or eat their neighbor. Oh, what fun the demons had at the human’s expense.

In the blink of an eye, the fairy tales said to children were as real as death and taxes. Vampires, shifters, trolls, demons and creatures of myth, were as real as the air we breathe. And in that same blink of an eye, firms went up, hunters of the praeternatural. I was one of them; I hunted a unique flavor of monster. I killed demons. Being a half-breed gave me an advantage, I was one of the few who wasn’t scared shitless. I wasn’t stupid, I was scared, but could face most of them without my sanity slipping. Being a half-breed left me immune to most of their magic.

I don’t have a lot to look forward to when I finally die. I’ll either wake up a crazed vampire, who will seek out the people I love, to eat them. Or, I get to enjoy an eternity of torture and torment in hell. Love the options. So, I did everything I could to stay alive. You’d be surprised what you will do when you know what waited for you when you died.

Being a half-breed didn’t have as many perks as you would think. The very thin silver lining was that it was harder to use magic on me, and I could sense the praeternatural. I was a little stronger, a little faster, and little harder to kill. I had a link to demons and to vampires, both links I’d rather keep locked up tight at the bottom of the ocean. But like I said, you’d be surprised what you’re willing to do to stay alive.

I, Iverland Marks, am a half-breed, and I am a demon hunter. My number one goal is to stay alive, and if I couldn’t, I’d take as many monsters with me as I could. This put me on a few hit lists. It didn’t make me flinch. I was half vampire and half demon, and I had a hit list of my own. Christian was at the top of that list.

How do you kill someone when you’d rather die than be without them? It’s pretty simple; have them try to kill you first.

Chapter One

I was out of Hell Fire, and my black market dealer was dead. It happened, a lot, dealers dropping like flies. Dealers were low-level demons who sold bits and pieces from hell to those of us who couldn’t just walk in and out without sounding the alarms. You didn’t want to be in hell uninvited, if the hell hounds didn’t rip you to shreds, you’d pray they had, when a demon got a hold of you. As soon as a higher demon found a dealer, they were removed, sent back.

I needed Hell Fire, red sand from the grounds of hell, for my hunts. It allowed me to send a demon back, without it I’d have to do it freestyle, which came with more risks, such as death. Since I was going to burn in hell, I’d rather not take that chance. Objects from hell weren’t something I could bargain for, with another demon. No demon, aside from the slim at the bottom, would dare to break this law of theirs. Not on the grounds of some moral dilemma, it was all about power, and they wanted it all.

To find another dealer could take me months, I didn’t have months. I had days. I had a contract with a demon which was active, without the Hell Fire, I’d end up dead. I couldn’t pass up a deal like this, I’d have loved to, but if anyone was sending this demon back, it would be me.

Awhile back I had heard whispers from lower demons, telling me that this demon was there the night my mother died, and did nothing to help her. Instead, fueled the fire, helped others hunt her down like a dog. Now, I’d have to find a way to get my hands on a supply, only, I hadn’t the slightest idea of how.

By the time a contract crossed my desk, the body count was already too high. They came in from various agencies and a few churches. The more top ranking the demon, the more of us went out. I may have been the only half-breed on staff, but it didn’t hurt to have a demonologist or witch on your side.

11:35 p.m. and the moon was brilliant in the cloudy sky above me, the ground was lit up like early morning. I could hear the wolves howling, they sounded excited tonight. Not just any wolves, they were werewolves. They usually left you alone if you left them alone, after all, they’d be hunted down and killed for any acts of aggression towards humans. No lawyer, no trial, no jury, only a judge – the person pulling the trigger.

There was a pesky law circulating at the moment, one that would give the furry beasts rights. The same rights humans had. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit. A monster is a monster, no matter how many bleeding hearts said otherwise. But Lycan-Law had gained a lot of momentum and stood a better chance than the equality law for Vampires. How do you give parity to the dead? They’re dead. People were screwing with a world and power that they couldn’t even begin to comprehend. We lived in an exciting time nowadays, exciting may be the wrong word – scary, yeah, that’s more like it.

I was in my usual jogging attire, black yoga pants, black spaghetti strap shirt, and a black zipper hoodie with reflective strips down the sides in pink. My black and pink runners crunched the gravel with each stomp I took along the path. The July night felt cumbersome and sticky on my already sweaty skin, dripping down between my shoulder blades. It didn’t help that I had a knife concealed on my lower back; I never went out unarmed, ever. But it itched with the movement and sweat. I was a hunter, of nothing more than bad little monsters. I have been a hunter for almost five years, so I always carried a weapon, but tonight it stuck to my body and rubbed my skin raw.

You had two types of weather here in Vancouver – hot or wet. I’d take wet, any day. The heat sticks to you in a way that I could never be completely comfortable, like blood just before it dries. I jogged every night; it was easier than trying to sleep. Sleep didn’t come easy for me. Sleep was either pill induced or spent tossing and turning with nightmares that always left my voice raw from screaming and my eyes puffing from tears. I wake up filled with terror; I didn’t want to relive it as soon as my eyes were finally open. I’d recall snippets, me screaming, me bleeding someone dry as I drank them, little snapshots of me being tortured in hell. The odd night, I’d enjoy my dreams, but those were far and few between.

My heart pounded in my chest, thumping with each step. I ran. My long strawberry hair bound in a tight ponytail high on my head, bouncing back and forth as I ran. I jogged regularly, but this wasn’t jogging. Jogging to keep in shape and running to stay alive, your body knows the difference. Your body can only give you so much, even when you beg for that extra push. I could already run at a pace which no human could match, and not for the length of time I could pull off either. Good genetics.

Following my birth, I bumped from shitty foster home, to even crappier foster home, until I was old enough to leave and smart enough not to be found. It wasn’t until I was eighteen, did I see the truth. It was through a white witch, who is my best friend, Paulette, did I find out the truth of my existence. I had always known I was different, but this was a little more different than I wanted to be. Paulette hadn’t meant to tell me, but we were too young to understand. Paulette and I had grown up together, since the day we met at six years old.

We have both moved around from home to home, but we always found each other. Her friendship is what gave me the strength to keeping going in life, and there were plenty of times I wanted to give up. A harsh childhood will do that to you. Being a half-breed didn’t keep me from playing victim while growing up. All it ever did was attract the worse of the worst. I was a magnet for evil, not a good thing when you’re too tiny to defend yourself. There was enough corruption found in the fellow man, a demon barely need to nudge them over that ledge. Hell, they didn’t even need a push, a little inspiration and they jumped over that edge willingly.

I had been running at a flat out speed for what felt like seven hours, although I’m sure it was closer to fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes is a long time to run flat out, in fear, in the dark, on a gravel path. I had started running at the end of the trail; it was a thirty-minute jog back to the parking lot, where my beat up 1996 blue Sunfire car was parked. The car wasn’t looking half bad now. I had too much ground to cover, and the feeling I wouldn’t make it, pushed me harder. I am not a quitter, and I am no one’s meat for the taking, not again. Grow up in hell, disguised on the outside as loving homes, and you will know exactly what I’m talking about.

The burning from my flat out pace began filling my chest, cutting off the scream which was about to boil over. Not that shouting would help me – I wouldn’t be heard out here, I was too far off the beaten path and the only one who would hear me was likely going to dump my body even deeper off the trail. Do I even waste my energy with a pointless scream? This was a wonderful way to chime in my twenty-fifth birthday. Another few minutes and I would be twenty-five, July twenty-fifth was my champagne birthday – or so I was told. When you turn the age of your day of birth, it was your lucky birthday, I’ll believe it if I made it out of this night, in one piece.

I couldn’t see the danger approaching, but I could feel it. It was like leaning down to pet a strange dog, his tail was only wagging because he was happy to bite you. I could always sense danger, know when something bad was about to happen. I couldn’t tell you what was about to happen, only that my gut said run.

I could feel his eyes on me. I could smell old blood, and feel his hot breath on my neck. I could feel his enjoyment in this chase. Out of it all, it was him enjoying this that made me angry. I wanted to stop, in spite of him. I was pretty sure he was going to try to kill me, I may be a half-breed, but I could still die, and I was currently trying to avoid that. Why draw out the chase? The reason was simple, the tiny part of my brain which was filled with stubbornness wasn’t nearly as big as the part of my brain that screamed: Run, run, run!

Run little Iverland. His voice rolled across my body; jerking places he had no right to touch. How did he know my real name? No one called me Iverland unless they were demons and this wasn’t a demon.

I had gone by Ivy since I could remember. At least it told me that it wasn’t a friend chasing me down. It honestly wouldn’t have surprised me. It’s been a rough twenty-five years. If this were any sign of the next twenty-five, I wouldn’t make it.

His voice whispered my name again. It was a voice you could drink, a voice you wanted to wrap around yourself at night, a voice you wanted to follow down a dark alley. I wanted to stop, I wanted to hold my arms open and welcome that voice to my naked throat, I wanted to strip down and roll naked in it, cover my body in his scent. The voice was like homemade cookies. I would be safe with the owner of that deep, yet soft voice.

The moment I thought it, I realized I was slowing down and smiling, wanting, feeling my body pulse with need. It was calming; I was picking out wedding invitations in my mind. He was damn powerful if he could squeak past my shields.

I had hit the ground before I knew I was falling. Quick and hard, my head snapping back, hitting the sharp gravel on the trail, it was what I needed; I needed to snap out of whatever was making me calm when I should be filled with terror. It came too late. I could feel myself fading, exhausted, and dizzy from hitting my head. I blinked the fuzziness away and saw him. If you could call him, a him. Vampire screamed through my brain.

He moved on the tips of his fingers and