Fractured Souls by Ava Marie Salinger

2

Cassius snatchedhis dagger from the sheath strapped to his back. It swiftly transformed into a sword and blocked the demon’s weapon inches from his head. The stone club smashed soundlessly against the double-edged, Stark Steel blade, the impact rattling Cassius’s bones.

It would have broken his arm had he been human.

A shift in the air told him the demon had retreated. It wouldn’t be for long.

Cassius gritted his teeth and called forth his divine powers. He had to end this fight and soon, before anyone with magical or otherworldly abilities detected their energies. A pale glow lit the gloom as his pupils radiated seraphic light, the brightness piercing the blanket of solid darkness surrounding him.

Lucifugous demons specialized in shadow manipulation, confusing their would-be victims’ senses by wrapping them in a soundproof bubble of pitch blackness while they attacked.

Unfortunately, that sort of trick didn’t work on someone like Cassius.

Sight and sound returned in a violent rush. The creature appeared above Cassius, its grotesque shape arcing through the fading gloom as it descended toward him with a savage roar. It blinked and froze a couple of seconds later, its shriek ending on a shocked grunt.

Cassius’s heart slammed against his ribs as he stared into the demon’s eyes. Dark blood flowed down his sword and dripped onto his hand, hot and sticky.

The blade had pierced the creature’s chest and impaled it straight through its back.

A hint of redness flashed in the demon’s pupils as it sagged on the weapon, its body growing limp in death. For a second, Cassius imagined he saw relief in the creature’s dying gaze.

A soft meow rose in the gloom beside him.

Sadness oozed from the cat as Cassius withdrew his blade and carefully lowered the Lucifugous to the ground. However much they were feared and reviled, demons still mourned every loss of life of their kind. It was a bond that had existed between them since they fell to Earth five hundred years ago, just as it did for the angels who had followed them that fateful day the Nether tore open.

Cassius grimaced. Well, except for me.

He knew no angel would grieve his death when he passed from this wretched world. He clamped down on the age-old bitterness that the thought prompted and closed the demon’s eyes with a gentle hand.

“Rest in peace.”

Of all the creatures Cassius had slain in his long and cursed life, Lucifugous demons earned the most pity in his heart. Most had been unable to adapt to their new lives on Earth after they fell and lived like animals, skulking in hidden spaces under cities and the few untouched pieces of wilderness left on the planet. They were another favorite prey of human magic users and often died at the hands of those who liked to practice their high-end spells on them during magic hunts.

Cassius clenched his jaw, rose, and drove his blade back into the demon’s body and through the red core he could sense deep within it. The demon’s soul shattered with a sound only he heard.

With it came pain.

Cassius sucked in air as the familiar agony squeezed his chest and robbed him momentarily of breath. It wasn’t until the creature’s body had crumbled into a pile of fiery ash that the throbbing abated. He stared blindly at the darkening cinders, wondering if this affliction would forever burden him.

As far as he knew, he was the only one on Earth who could see and destroy another living being’s soul core. And he always experienced crippling suffering when he did so. It was as if the Heavens had damned him when he fell, punishing him for a sin he could not recall committing.

Whereas Reapers claimed the souls of humans and returned them to the cycle of rebirth and death the race of man was destined to go through until their final redemption, the only way for an otherwordly to go through the same process was if their soul core was completely destroyed and their physical remains returned to ash. Despite the pain the rite brought him, Cassius still chose to perform it. He knew, deep in the marrow of his bones, that it was his solemn duty, even if he could not recall why.

The sword shifted back into a dagger as he withdrew his power from the weapon. He wiped it clean, put it back in its sheath, and jumped down into the basin.

The man whose remains the Lucifugous demon had been feasting on had died a terrible death. Cassius could tell from the runes that had been burned into his skin and the aura of corruption tainting his flesh.

The cat growled beside him. Cassius looked down at the creature and followed its unblinking gaze to a sewer pipe on his left.

The scent of evil was coming from that direction.

The cat kept pace with him as they headed that way, its body rubbing against his leg from time to time, as if to mark him. They found the other half of the man’s remains in a second confluence chamber a quarter of a mile to the north. A cold foreboding swept over Cassius as he stared at the mangled torso lying on a stone dais in the center of the basin.

The altar did not belong there.

“Well, this situation just went from bad to hell in a handbasket,” he muttered to the cat.

The creature glanced at him before crouching on the edge of the walkway and springing clear across the basin. It landed on the altar and turned around a couple of times before sitting and looking proudly at him.

“You little—!” Cassius scowled. “Exactly what part of hell in a handbasket did you not understand?!”

The demon cat lowered its head and sniffed the corpse curiously.

Cassius blew out an exasperated sigh, eyed the stagnant pool filling up a third of the basin, and stepped carefully into it. He scanned the shadowy tunnels radiating off the gloomy space as he made his way to the altar, the dark brown waters sloshing around his shins.

The cat moved out of his way as he climbed onto the dais. Cassius took care not to touch any of the black lines and symbols on the stone; he could smell Dark Blight and human blood on the complex pattern of runes that had been etched into it. He squatted, pulled back the corpse’s left eyelid, and stared into the fixed, dark pupil.

Whatever remained of the dead man’s soul was long gone. Which was strange, considering the condition of the corpse.

Cassius studied the signs on the floor with a frown, his unease deepening. It was clear someone had performed a black-magic ritual down here. But to what intent? The runes were unfamiliar to him and the victim had been abandoned and left exposed to the elements and scavengers, the usual as well as otherworldly ones.

An eerie awareness tickled the back of his mind. Before he could make sense of it, a shout echoed from a sewer pipe behind him, startling him.

“Hey, you there! Don’t move!”

Cassius looked over his shoulder and cursed at the sight of a man running toward him with a flashlight in hand. It was an Argonaut agent.

And when there’s one of these bastards, there’s bound to be more!

As if to prove him right, more shouts came from the other tunnels. The beams of a dozen flashlights washed over Cassius where he crouched on the altar. He scowled.

I really don’t have time for this shit.

He tucked the demon cat under his arm, spread his wings, and rose. Angry yells followed him as he smashed through a metal grating and disappeared into the balmy night.