Between: Running from the Devil, #2

BETWEEN

A malevolent benefactor is collecting demons. Will Phoebe survive the culling?

It has been months since Phoebe was able to knock off two of the seven deadly sins. When a succubus shows up at a popular nightclub in the East Village, stripping all inhibitions from her human victims before they succumb to death by lust, Phoebe must step into battle.

But the danger isn’t just the succubus. A malevolent benefactor is collecting demons, one that poses a bigger threat to all humankind.

When Phoebe goes to take down the succubus, she gets caught up in the fray. Will she be led to her own walk of shame, or worse, to her death?

Chapter 1

Smoke curled up in the open windowsill soaking up the fall sunshine. His soft purr of contentment filled the tiny studio apartment that was no bigger than one of the supply closets at Animal Haven. Fate hadn’t shown her face since she’d collected the Djinn’s talisman from Phoebe, and that had been months ago.

Not that Phoebe was complaining.

On the contrary, she had been left to get her life together enough to find a home of her own. Her nights were spent at Animal Haven helping Adam Lazlo, the chief veterinarian, with whatever he needed. She felt indebted to him, even though he routinely told her it had been his choice. Besides, the weekly paycheck helped her just as much as his friendship.

Without Adam, she would still be living in the shelter.

Without Adam, she would still be illiterate.

Without Adam, she would have failed against the Night Hag and the Djinn and ended up back in Hell being carved up for eternity.

And he was just a mere human. Albeit a man with one of the biggest hearts she had ever encountered, but still just a human. As much as she was thankful, it still bruised her ego not to be able to take her enemies down on her own.

Time had worked its magic on more than just her ego. It helped heal her cracked ribs and the knife wound in her leg, which had been a real bitch to deal with the days following the alley battle. It helped her frame of mind as well, and she’d begrudgingly accepted the fact she did not have to do everything herself. Having friends around, allies to help her when she needed it, was a benefit rather than a burden.

She stretched in the small space, trying to rid herself of the bothersome knot that had developed in her lower back. A satisfying crackle traversed up her spine sending immediate relief.

Phoebe reached down to collect her breakfast plate from the little coffee table that served as her dining area. A rush of wind swirled through her apartment, creating a mini cyclone of napkins and papers dancing in the air. Phoebe straightened in her seat, her plate forgotten, as she welcomed the face she hadn’t seen in quite some time.

Fate appeared in all her blonde, teenage glory. But excitement was not the expression she offered when she met Phoebe’s eyes. As a matter of fact, she looked downright flustered.

I need you to get to the Farm Colony on Staten Island right now. Her voice was as frantic as her eyes. The little pixie tossed money and a slip of paper with an address meticulously written on it at Phoebe.

Phoebe caught the cash and stared at it a moment, then blinked. Her mouth dropped open. Genuine dollars and actual directions.

Go! Fate bellowed at her. Get a cab and protect these two no matter the cost! She shoved a picture with a redhead and a man with a very familiar face, one Phoebe had seen before on a CD case at Animal Haven. He was the famous singer who had all but disappeared a few months back.

You haven’t bothered—

Fate held out a black obsidian blade to Phoebe. I will want this back. The franticness in her face was cause enough for alarm, but the offer of another knife set a fire under her.

This is one of those emergency situations outlined in your contract. I promise I’ll explain the urgency once you’ve returned. Fate pointed toward the door. Now go get a cab and get to that address as fast as humanly possible, or the next time I see you, I’ll bring Leviathan.

Smoke hissed and Phoebe stepped back. The vague memory of that chained monster left her skin as cold as death.

She didn’t question Fate any further. Phoebe took the obsidian blade, along with her own daggers, the money, and the address, and booked it down the stairs like her life depended on it.

It was only as she sat in the back of a cab that she stared at the picture and wondered what could have possibly riled Fate so much. She’d never looked so crazed. Not in all the time Phoebe had known her. She turned the paper with the address on it over, and there was Fate’s neat script.

Stop the wendigos.

Phoebe sounded the word ‘wind-e-gos’ out like Adam had taught her to do when she came upon something that was unfamiliar. The name of one of the monsters in the lower realms of Hell made her shiver.

Crap. Wendigos made it to the surface? What else escaped?

The lower realms of Hell had always been known as the prison for seriously nasty monsters. The kind most demons refused to associate with. Had Lucifer finally cracked and decided it was time for Armageddon?

Focus, she muttered under her breath and leaned forward to get the cabbie’s attention. Can you try to drive just a little faster? she asked, mentally willing him to step on it.

He waved at the wall of traffic and muttered in some foreign language she didn’t understand. By the time they arrived at the address Fate had given her, Phoebe was left dumbfounded.

A recreation area lay in front of her. What was so dangerous about this place? Sure, there was a bunch of screaming kids welding aluminum sticks, but they hardly counted as dangerous. Evil, perhaps. Loud, definitely, but hardly something worth her time to deal with. And while they were swinging bats, they weren’t bashing each other with them, so there was no immediate cause for alarm. Had she gotten the address wrong?

The cabbie pulled away before she could double-check the address with him, leaving her with just enough cash to get back to the city. She sent up a silent prayer as she scanned the crowd, hoping to find the bright redheaded girl that matched the picture. No one in the small crowd of adults watching over the children fit the description.

This couldn’t be it. Phoebe circled around, inspecting everything from the parking area to the brick outhouse, before finally noticing a thick wooded area behind the field the children were playing on.

She turned over all the things she had learned about the monsters while she was in Hell. Wendigos liked to hide among the trees, and they usually attacked in packs.

The woods made more sense, and the close proximity to the children began to make sense. Fate wouldn’t want any harm to come to innocent people. Would the wendigos be stupid enough to attack a crowd? She hoped not, because the kids weren’t her first priority despite the itch to protect them.

If there were more than two wendigos, Phoebe was ill prepared to fight them. Her little blades wouldn’t measure up to the beast’s claws, never mind the razor-like teeth.

As she stepped into the forest, the canopy blocked most of the afternoon light. She moved faster than she usually would as her internal alarms started to clang. Phoebe wondered why Fate had tasked her with protecting a famous singer.

She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye, and dove into a break-fall just in time to avoid a sharp claw aimed at her neck. She’d have to thank Adam for sponsoring her martial arts classes. They’d just saved her from near decapitation.

She rolled back onto her feet and spun, launching one of her ethereal blades at the beast. The knife buried to the hilt in the creature’s forehead. He managed one wobbly step before his body registered that his brain had died. He went down like a toppled tree, crashing into the brittle leaves covering the path with enough noise to raise the hairs on her neck.

Her skin prickled and she turned, her other knife at the ready, but nothing came for her. When she was sure there wasn’t going to be another attack, she walked over to the dead wendigo, and gave it a forceful kick to roll it over onto its back, so she could retrieve her blade.

Never having seen one of their kind up close, she allowed herself a moment to really take in the ugly. It truly was hideous. A deformed cross between a human, buck, and shark. Antlers like great big spears, claws like daggers, and teeth like hundreds of little razors. They had a face Phoebe was certain not even a mother could love. No wonder those things had been locked tightly away in the lowest dungeons of Hell. Or, at least, they had been. How many more had made it topside?

She did one more turn, looking for any sign of another ambush. When there wasn’t one, she put her boot across the wendigo's face and pulled on her dagger. She yanked hard, and the blade finally came free with a wet, ripe sound that soured her stomach.

Where there was one wendigo, there had to be more. If the people she’d been assigned to protect were somewhere in the woods, they were in much bigger danger than she was.

A scream to her right sent Phoebe into motion. She bolted toward the pain-filled sound, expecting chaos and bloodshed.

She just hoped she wasn’t already too late.

Chapter 2

Phoebe skidded to a stop. The scene before her was as perplexing as the entire protection detail order from Fate.

She thought the two people in front of her matched the photos Fate had shoved in her hands before she left. She reached for the picture in her back pocket, but it was empty. Damn. She must have left it in the cab.

But that wasn’t what stalled her feet from continuing forward. A redhead crouched over the famous singer, cauterizing a wound on his head.

The girl had a blue flame sizzling from her fingertips. Flames. Coming out of her finger.

Phoebe tried to reconcile Fate’s order to protect these people with what she was seeing. She had only known demons to be able to shoot flame. Phoebe blinked a few times, trying to digest the fact that Fate wanted her to save an obvious agent of Hell.

The girl’s profile bathed in shadows struck a chord, too. There was something oddly familiar about her.

Before her mind could identify where she had seen the girl, movement behind the redhead caught her attention. It hadn’t been just monsters attacking. Seven of her demon brethren were sneaking up on the two innocents.

The redhead closed her fist, dousing the flame, and then began to wrap the man’s head with no awareness of the danger approaching. One demon slunk closer like a predator sneaking up on their prey.

Fate’s directive jumped to the forefront of Phoebe’s mind. If she didn’t do something now, she wouldn’t be able to save either of them from the demon’s malice.

Phoebe hurled one of her daggers, and it struck true, straight into the demon’s chest, piercing through his blackened heart. He remained standing for a moment as his eyes widened with shock and realization of his fate. Then he fell forward, dead. The sound of his lifeless body hitting the ground called attention away from the redhead.

The rest of the dirty half dozen turned their attention towards Phoebe. She stood, dagger in hand, ready to fell the first one stupid enough to make a move.

Phoebe had gotten the attention of the redhead too. But there was no thankful softness in her gaze. The girl’s wide eyes shaded with both shock and anger as she looked between Phoebe and the rest of the demons.

They didn’t stand down like she had hoped, and when one charged, Phoebe launched another blade, taking that one down as surely as the first. Unfortunately, Phoebe only had one more blade. It was the one that Fate had given her. One that she had promised to return when she removed the danger.

She pulled the black blade from the sheath at the small of her back and started towards the fight. Before she could launch another attack, the girl climbed to her feet, opened her palms, and pointed at the demons.

Phoebe ground to a stop in time to witness light as white as a portal shoot out from the center of the redhead’s hands. The demons were incinerated, reduced to dust in the blink of an eye. A chill caught Phoebe at the girl’s stance, and then the particulars of where she had seen her barreled into her as hard as that light toasted those demons.

This was the girl in the subway tunnel.

The same girl who had her palm at the ready when Phoebe slid through the portal and turned and ran into the darkened tunnel. She never understood the danger in the girl’s open hand, but now... now she knew she had dodged one hell of a flaming bullet.

The redhead turned towards Phoebe, her face tense and her eyes shadowed. She raised a closed fist, and Phoebe stood perfectly still. Danger sirens blared in her head.

I’m not here to hurt you. Phoebe slowly sheathed the blade before raising her hands in surrender.

You’re a demon, the girl growled as she hovered over the unconscious man protectively.

She wasn’t going to get into semantics with this girl, not with her life in this precarious position. You’re the one from the subway. The one who freed us. Phoebe hated the awe that filled her voice, but this girl had given her a second chance at redemption. She couldn’t help but feel like she was witnessing the second coming.

And you’re the one who got away, the girl said. Her voice held a bitter edge to it.

Phoebe’s cheeks bloomed with heat, and she nodded, averting her eyes. And I am thankful.

The girl clenched both her jaw and her fists. Why? She waved at the two dead demons behind her still bearing Phoebe’s knives.

I was actually hunting the wendigos. She nodded towards the girl’s wounded shoulder. But it looks like they attacked before I had a chance to intercept them.

And you knew they would be here how? Mistrust laced every syllable.

Fate sent me. She told me it was imperative that I stop the wendigos. She glanced at the man still unconscious on the ground. Apparently, I did not get here fast enough.

Fate? The redhead cocked her head, narrowing her gaze.

A tickle in Phoebe’s head made her wince, and then it was gone. She blinked to clear her mind and then nodded. As hard as it is to believe, yes.

What does she look like? the girl demanded.

Blonde little thing with chestnut eyes. No older than you, Phoebe answered.

The redhead’s hand lowered briefly. She looked at the unconscious man lying at her feet, and sadness clouded her features. But when she raised her gaze to Phoebe, the redhead went poker-faced and lifted her hand once more.

Alarms sounded in every cell in Phoebe’s body. She kept her hands held out in front of her, non-threateningly. What had Fate told her? Fate said I needed to help you. Her voice shook with the panic creating a hot burn in her stomach. She did not want to go back to Hell. Please, she whispered, despising the begging tone of her voice.

You want to help? Get these bodies out of here while I call for an ambulance. The girl pointed at the two remaining demons.

Phoebe gladly obliged. She approached cautiously, wanting her blades back, and pulled the daggers from each dead demon while whispering, Ashes to Ashes in her native language. It wasn’t the words but the sheer action of pulling her knives from their hearts that made them crumble to dust, but the way the girl was staring at her, she had no idea that a blade forged in Hell would do that.

Phoebe wiped the blades and sheathed them before approaching the girl.

I’m Phoebe. She stuck out her hand, just as Adam had taught her was customary when greeting someone.

The girl stiffened and recoiled at Phoebe’s outstretched peace offering. The rebuff stung, but if all the girl’s encounters with demons had been ones like the thugs who were prepared to attack her, Phoebe understood her disgust. She pocketed her offending hands to avoid setting off the redhead’s fire fists.

I’ve never seen someone shoot fire before, Phoebe said, trying to warm the girl up to her. At least not topside. She could be a useful ally. I could sure use someone like you on my side.

I don’t think so. The girl’s voice was cool, and her stare even more frigid than the winter wind whipping through the city.

Who the hell does she think she is? Phoebe crossed her arms.

The girl’s expression hardened even more. It was as if she