Chapter One

Missing Moon

Ritual Semantics

Protecting my kids is something I always put first.

They say a mother is always willing to hold her son’s hand whenever he needs it, though I kind of doubt whoever ‘they’ are imagined a mother would ever be holding their son entirely in one hand. On a long enough timeline, I imagine the proverbial ‘they’ who came up with all these notions once probably existed in a time when magic and whatnot happened to be more commonplace. Perhaps the ancient version of ‘they’ might understand. Our modern ‘they’ would never believe Anthony is about six inches tall right now.

Not that I claim to be any sort of scholar about the past, but from what little I have seen, I’m convinced the world of 2,000 years ago was vastly different than what anyone today in the mainstream believes. History only goes as far as the people telling the stories. If everyone is lying… or they’ve been fooled, who knows what happened back then. Part of me thinks magic used to be common and certain groups that fear or hate magic waged war, won, and rewrote history to make it seem like magic had never been real. Or, maybe there had been some manner of great cataclysmic war that nearly wiped out humanity. So me people out on the fringe think that human society advanced into the nuclear age tens of thousands of years ago and nuked each other back into the stone age. What if it wasn’t nukes but magic? Could ancient societies have gotten into a magical war that nearly destroyed our species, and the survivors either never learned how to use it or were so afraid of magic’s potential they banned its study to the point where it died out?

Anyway…

So, yeah. I’m carrying Anthony in my hand at the moment.

Sure, he can fly on his own thanks to his status as an angel-in-training. And no, I do not have any regrets about the steps I took to save his life when he was little. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I’d rather have him still around the way he is now than not around at all.

The smallness is courtesy of Tammy, who is presently flying alongside me disguised as a hawk. We decided to take the ‘small Anthony’ approach for stealth reasons. Yes, he can fly… but he is incredibly obvious in the air. Since he is not a ‘full angel’ yet, they didn’t give him those weird powers to make people not see him. Or perhaps he simply hasn’t figured out how to do that yet.

It’s getting dark out… I think.

Kind of difficult for me to tell these days. I’ve gotten so used to being able to see at night, it’s become a bit challenging to realize when normal mortals would consider it dark. At least with me no longer being undead, the sunlight isn’t painful. Back then, reality existed in two modes: painfully bright or normal. Now, it’s pretty much ‘normal’ all the time no matter the hour. It is, as they say, a ‘good change.’ I also save a lot of money on sunscreen.

Since I don’t need it anymore, I mean.

Yeah, I’m rambling due to nerves .

Not scared for myself or my kids. This isn’t exactly a ‘dangerous’ mission we’re on. Honestly, I’d prefer personal danger. Thinking that I might end up dead if I screw up is barely a concern on my mind now. My biggest worry is searching for an abducted girl and finding her too late. Obviously, if I got myself killed (destroyed) or whatever the technical term is, I wouldn’t be around to mope and be upset about it. If we fail to find this kid before who-knows-what happens to her, that’s some guilt I’ll be carrying for a few centuries.

Miles and miles of forest rolls along below us. I constantly dread that I’ve overshot and debate turning around… but don’t. Just a little farther and we’ll find her, I keep telling myself.

Little background. We were just kinda at home about to have dinner when our phones started howling. An Amber Alert went out for this girl named Shannon Ross, a missing and presumed endangered fourteen-year-old from Los Angeles. The instant I looked at the message on my phone screen, the worst feeling punched me in the gut. Somehow, I just knew that if I didn’t haul ass and find this kid fast, she wouldn’t survive the night.

Tammy and Anthony insisted on going with me. We left home while the sun was still up, so my daughter came up with the whole shrinking thing for Anthony. Yeah, I still leapt into the air on my wings but… mine don’t give off bright golden light. It’s a lot easier for me to zip into the sky unnoticed than Mr. Tiny Sun.

Being psychic can be tricky sometimes. They don’t exactly give you an instruction manual to explain how this stuff works. Knowing that this innocent kid’s life is in danger and time happened to be very short has my adrenaline pumping as bad as anything, even that time I fought the literal Devil.

Before I consciously realized what I was doing, I zoomed off in the first direction that felt correct. Something—which I hope is my psychic intuition—is leading me out here to the woods. It’s simultaneously weird, but it makes sense. Creeps who prey on young girls hate witnesses. They want to remove their victim to a place where they can do whatever sick crap they have in mind without worrying about anyone interrupting them… not to mention the deep woods being a place where one could ditch a body and it would likely not be found for years if at all.

Grr. I hate that thought. I can’t stand the idea of referring to anyone younger than myself as ‘a body.’ Yeah, I know. Idealistic. Bad crap happens, but that doesn’t mean I have to like talking or thinking about it. I’m still not honestly sure that a creep abducted Shannon. I mean, it’s the obvious assumption. Professional assassins do not generally go after children. This girl is not famous nor connected to any prominent politicians or anything, so… yeah. She’s been kidnapped, and I feel certain she’s going to be killed. That leaves me making certain assumptions about whatever the kidnapper wants to do with her before he kills her. Okay, sure, I’m assuming it’s a he. For all I know, her mother has a psychotic friend that’s jealous of her having a daughter. Who knows?

All I know for sure is what little they had on the news. She didn’t make it home from school today and no one has a clue where she went. Stranger abductions are the scariest because they statistically end poorly for the victim.

And if I can stop the bad crap from happening…

Hence why I’m flying around out here, hoping my psychic ‘gut’ leads me to the right place.

A strange squeaking noise distracts me.

Takes a moment for my brain to process the sound as Anthony talking.

I peer down at him. He’s got his arms folded around my index finger, seems comfortable if perhaps a little annoyed at being so tiny. “Sorry, didn’t hear you.”

He emits a sigh, then looks up at me. “Are you sure about this? Any chance you’re overreacting?”

“Don’t think so.” I nibble on my lower lip. “As soon as I saw that alert message, it hit me like a sack of bricks. She’s gotta be around here somewhere. It just feels right.”

Anthony seems about to say something sarcastic, then pauses, his expression going serious. Right as he starts to point toward the ground ahead, a scream echoes up from the trees.

I dive toward the unmistakable cries of a terrified teen girl. The desperation practically gives me rocket boosts. Her voice is so full of terror, it draws upon the deepest most primal momness in the pit of my soul.

Anthony pats my finger in a way that means ‘go ahead and drop me.’

His confidence short circuits my logic, so without thinking, I release my hamster-sized son into free fall while I’m in the middle of a power dive. We’re not that high up. Even if he hits the ground, he’ll be fine.

A frightening scene clarifies through the rapidly thinning trees in front of me.

Several figures in dark clothing surround a stone slab ‘altar,’ upon which a terrified blonde girl squirms and thrashes around. Two men fight to hold her down while a third guy stands poised over her with a knife. She appears to have her hands tied behind her back, her ankles tied together, and is putting up one hell of a fight, twisting side to side to make it as hard as possible for the maniac to stab her in the heart.

As ridiculous as this is, it’s really happening.

Weirdo freaking cultists are about to murder this kid. I’ve literally got three seconds to make the difference between her surviving and not.

Before I even realize what my brain is doing, I’ve flipped around and turned my angel-winged dive into some sort of crazy quasi flying kick somewhere between Bruce Lee and Japanese anime. The sole of my sneaker rams into this guy’s face so hard his jaw crumbles under my heel with a rippling crunch similar to a stepped-on branch.

The force of my kick hammers the would-be killer into the dirt so hard he bounces up, flips over, and goes sliding several feet away from the altar. I drop straight down onto my feet where he’d been standing. Somehow, I have the presence of mind to dissipate my wings before anyone really gets a good look at them. They’re black, it’s dark, and I have ‘sudden appearance out of nowhere’ shock factor.

Not too far in the distance, a heavy thud tells me a normal-sized Anthony has landed.

The nine or ten people in a ring around me are too far away to present an immediate threat to the girl unless they happen to be carrying guns. I whirl to face the slab. A scrap of duct tape hangs limply from Shannon’s cheek, no longer covering her mouth. She appears to be bound with more duct tape, arms behind her back. Her clothes: pink jacket, white shirt, jeans, make me think they grabbed her while she walked home from school—or soon after arriving at her house.

Well, for one thing, she wasn’t grabbed by a creep. That’s good. On the other hand, what the actual crap? Cultists trying to conduct an actual human sacrifice? What the frick century am I in?

A man in a dark, hooded cloak holds Shannon down by the shoulders while another guy at the opposite side of the slab holds her ankles. Shock from my sudden arrival seems to have caused the girl to stop struggling; she lays there staring up at me, face streaked with tears. The sight of a kid this young, who knows they just came close to death, enrages me.

By some miracle, I manage to hold myself back from going on a rage-fueled killing spree and simply lunge at the man holding her shoulders. I palm his face and shove. The guy’s smart enough to let go of the girl, which probably spares him from a broken neck. Knocked off his feet, he takes flight for a few yards, then crashes down into a stumble before eating dirt and rolling over a few times. When I spin to glare at the other guy holding the girl’s legs, he lets go of her and backpedals far enough to join the circle of cloaked weirdos, giving me a WTF stare. Not sure if he noticed my wings, but he just watched a relatively small woman throw a guy twice my size ten feet with one hand.

A cultist emits an annoyed sigh. “Interruptions… again. What are you fools waiting for? Kill this intruder and let us resume.”

I shift my attention to him. He’s the only one of the group wearing a robe that isn’t plain black. His has embroidered stuff around the sleeves and collar resembling runic markings or some sort of occult symbols. Must be their idiot leader.

Anthony steps into view out of the woods. “I’d advise against that.”

The cultists not already facing him twist around to look at him.

My son is tall. No one seeing him would guess in a million years he hasn’t hit eighteen yet. He is not, however, terribly intimidating in a T-shirt and jeans… with no visible weapons. At least he doesn’t seem to worry a dozen nutjobs out in the woods. I don’t think even Anthony expects them to hesitate just because he asks them to.

Tammy is probably hiding out nearby, perhaps in the shape of a panther. My guess is she’s waiting for the best opportunity to swoop in and grab Shannon and get her out of danger when the cultists are distracted. Either that, or she’s waiting to see how much of a threat these guys are before committing to violence. There isn’t really a ‘gentle’ way for a panther to fight a human, after all. If she’s going to draw blood, she wants to make sure it’s deserved .

And unfortunately, she can’t turn them all pixie-sized. From what she says, it’s a lot harder to do to someone who isn’t a willing recipient. Impractically difficult, even, which is why she hasn’t even tried, however hilarious it would be to have a six-inch-tall cultist threatening me without realizing he’s been miniaturized.

The leader gestures dismissively at Anthony. “More interruptions. This is unacceptable. Kill them both.”

All eleven or so guys in the ring flip their cloaks open, revealing relatively normal street clothes… and large knives that they pull from sheaths on their belts.

Okay. I can play that game, too.

I twist the cap off my canteen—yes, I brought it for this exact purpose—and reach for the opening. Water responds to my magic, gushing out. I grab the stream as if it were a solid object and effectively ‘draw’ my ice sword into existence. Its blue glow appears to give these ritualists pause. Like something out of a Clint Eastwood movie, we all stand there in silence, eyeing each other, waiting to see who flinches first.

If I wasn’t so upset about the fact these bastards were about to murder a child, I’d probably find their reaction to a glowing sword humorous. Their two-plus-two equals five expressions are somewhat amusing.

Once I’m reasonably sure none of them are willing to make the first move and find out what a glowing ice sword actually does to human flesh, I shift my attention to the one who acts like their leader.

“I should drag all of you to the police… but you sick freaks were about to murder a child.” I narrow my eyes, trying to sound harder than I am. No, I don’t really want to kill them all. Here’s hoping intimidation works. Honestly, I’m not really sure what to do with them. Letting them leave so the police can deal with them later feels wrong. Trying to arrest them myself is perhaps impractical, at least not without violence. Bleh. The be st thing I can think of in two seconds is to scare them off for now. As long as Shannon is safe, I can worry about tracking them down another day. “Give me one good reason why I don’t just bury all of you out here where no one will ever find your bones.”

Their leader sighs again, giving off an attitude like I’m the assistant manager telling him a work meeting got rescheduled for the sixth time. “Admittedly, I didn’t really want one so young, but we’re from Los Angeles.”

I tilt my head. “What the heck does L.A. have to do with you twisted bastards abducting a child?”

“We had to ensure we got a virgin,” says the guy in such a blank tone I think he’s completely serious.

A scoff comes from the trees on the left. Tammy, in her leaf-dress, steps out looking totally like the wild, angry forest nymph she is. “Is this dickhead serious, or is he making an awful joke about L.A.?”

His eyebrow twitches. He’s annoyed .

Meanwhile, Shannon twists around to look at Tammy, then Anthony, then me. She squirms a little as if to say, ‘hey, I’m still tied up. Little help please.’

“Wow. Stupid cultists.” I shake my head and gently swipe my sword at the duct tape around Shannon’s ankles, freeing her legs. “At least now I know you guys have no damn clue what you’re doing.”

Murmurs go around the ring of cultists. They’re all still brandishing knives at us, though none of them have yet summoned the courage to test my fencing skills—which are not shabby at all if I do say so myself.

“Virgin doesn’t mean that. ” I help Shannon sit up, then slice the tape off her wrists. “In a ritual sense, it means using blood that has never before been used with magic. Has nothing to do with sex.”

Leader guy jabs a finger at me. He’s about to yell (probably an order to kill us) when a sudden eruption of brambles bursts from the ground all around us, tangling the feet of the cultists. Vines and leaves brush at my legs but don’t grab on. Faint green light emanates in a halo from Tammy.

The look on the cultists’ faces is absolutely priceless. This is, without a doubt, the first time any of them have seen real magic. Watching their confidence collapse in real time is gratifying. I’m about to make a wiseass remark when a strong sensation comes from the man I kicked, the one who had been seconds away from murdering Shannon. Uh oh. Feels like he just died. Dammit. Not what I wanted to do but… he was seconds away from murdering a child. I’m not going to feel too guilty about removing him from the gene pool.

All of a sudden, the cultists scream in agony, except for the leader.

He stands there, dumbfounded, having gone wide-eyed and gawking.

I shoot a look at Tammy. She shakes her head as if to say, ‘I’m not doing that.’ I shift my gaze to the cult leader. He turns toward the dead body still lying on the ground where he landed. Dude hasn’t moved at all since I hit him. The way his head is positioned… I think I broke his neck. Ack.

A sudden fiery glow draws my attention to Anthony, who’s now holding his fiery broadsword. He’s dropped into a fighting stance. Before I can ask why, the screaming cultists lapse into convulsions. The forest fills with the rapid crunching of bones and the wet squishing of flesh compressing and expanding; bodies twist and collapse in on themselves, bending in ways humans are not meant to move.

The cultists in the ring, plus the one I killed, burst upward into geysers of gore, each man’s muscle and sinew hovering in an unrecognizable levitating mass for the span of half a breath before reworking itself into the shapes of demonic beings. They’re like five-foot-tall bat-winged little goobers with dull green skin and bodies somewhere between gargoyles and goblins. All of them fidget and shift about like a group of hungry factory workers watching the lunch truck pull up five minutes late. The thirteen spindly limbed demons creep closer in a circle around me, staring malevolently with pale white circular eyes brighter than the moon.

Shannon spins around atop the altar in a frantic search for an escape path… but the demons are everywhere. Unable to go in any direction without getting closer to monsters, she simply covers her eyes and repeatedly whispers ‘this isn’t real’ to herself.

Of the cultists, the only one who didn’t undergo a demonic explosion is the leader. I’m certain this fact is not due in any way to his skill, ability, or importance. The demons are messing with him. Can’t expect an idiot like him to get this, though. He proves his stupidity by giving me this imperious stare and an appropriately corny, arrogant laugh.

“See? You were wrong,” I say, pointing at the demon now standing where the man I kicked lay a moment earlier. “Demons aren’t terribly picky about sacrifices. I’m going to guess that guy wasn’t a virgin, yet his death still worked to complete your ritual.”

I’m honestly shocked someone who didn’t even understand the meaning of ‘virgin’ as it relates to ritual magic managed to invoke something successfully. Cult leader guy sets his hands on his hips like that guy from the irritated meme. “Okay, fine. You were right. Virgin doesn’t mean that . Our summoning still worked.”

“Except for the important part you’re forgetting,” says Tammy.

As if he’s getting a headache, the cult leader pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. “What now? ”

Tammy gestures around at the area. “I don’t see a binding circle. You idiots summoned the demons but forgot to implement any sort of control.”

Cult guy rolls his eyes.

The nearby demon glances at the leader and kinda shrugs while gesturing at her. Its body language says ‘she’s right.’

This dude is totally oblivious. It’s pretty rare that I think a person’s death will move the global average IQ, but this man is definitely a candidate. To be fair, it takes a special kind of stupid to summon demons to begin with. This guy probably thinks gas station sushi is safe.

“Any other wisecracks before my minions rip the flesh off your bones?” asks the cultist.

“Mommy,” whispers Shannon.

“Shh,” I say to her. “We got this. You’re safe now. Just… keep your eyes closed.”

The poor girl gives me a ‘yeah, right,’ stare.

“I’ve only got one thing to say.” Anthony steps toward the ring of demons.

“Oh? What’s that?” asks the cult leader.

Anthony unfurls his angel wings, stretching them out to either side and flooding this little bit of forest with a brilliant golden glow. He leans forward, eyes flashing white. “Bring it.”

Finally , the cult leader looks worried.

At this, the demons are done waiting. They swarm inward, pretty much all heading right for Shannon. I can’t help but feel that their reaction to Anthony’s presence is ‘Crap, an angel. We’re screwed. Let’s get the kid before we get sent back home.’

Home being Hell, of course.

That whole virginity thing in the sense of someone who’s never been intimate has nothing to do with magic at all. However, demons love nothing more than destroying innocence. It’s like waving steak at a starving dog. If they can somehow get her soul, they’ll drag it back into the abyss with them.

The absolute worst part about fighting demons is, they know they can’t die permanently in the mortal world… so they are absolutely fearless. Without a special artifact like the Devil Killer sword, I’d have to go to their home dimension and kill them there for the death to be permanent. These little demons aren’t worth the effort. They’ve got no standing grudge against anyone here, it’s merely convenience. It’s really unlikely any of them will try to come back after her once we flush them back down the drain.

Since Anthony is on the other side of the altar, I concentrate on my side, playing demonic goalie. The fiends launch themselves at me with superhuman speed. Thankfully, I got this. Swinging my blade in wide, sweeping arcs is about the only thing I can do to fend off three to five of them attacking at the same time. This isn’t a movie where the ‘bad guys’ line up all nice like and go after the action hero one at a time. I feel more like I’m going after overgrown grass with a scythe than participating in any sort of beautifully choreographed movie-quality sword fight.

Claws, spindly broom-handle arms, and a whole lot of demon blood and spittle come flying at me. My ice sword rips through their toughened skin, which crunches and crackles like overcooked fried chicken. I wish they smelled as good as chicken. Alas, cutting them open releases a smell about as far opposite from ‘good’ as is possible for the human mind to imagine.

Shannon goes from screaming in fear to gagging on the stench.

In a matter of maybe ten or fifteen seconds that feels more like a minute, the flailing wall of demons is gone. Smoking puddles of miasmic goo lay on the ground by my feet, bubbling and steaming. One demon remaining on my side has decided to dash off into the woods, after having run the cult leader over in its panic to get away from me. It’s not afraid of dying. The damn thing merely knows it’s doomed and is hoping to run off so it can cause as much chaos/damage as possible in this world before it gets sent home.

Apparently, the cultists aren’t the only dumb things out here in the forest tonight. The demons must have failed to realize the three of us aren’t ordinary mortals. While I can’t claim to be an expert on this sort of thing, I do know it’s really difficult to hurt demons with ordinary weapons. They laugh off bullets, for example.

I mean… here I am holding a glowing ice sword. You’d think that would’ve given them a clue. Guess the lure of a young person drove them beyond reason into a feeding frenzy or something. No idea whether they wanted to possess her, drink her soul, or physically devour her. Doesn’t matter what they had in mind; it’s not happening.

Speaking of not happening, there’s no way I’m going to let a stray demon loose in the hills of California. We have enough big tech executives already.

After a quick glance over my shoulder to confirm Ant got the rest of the demons, I sprint off after the fleeing critter. It doesn’t take me long to run the thing down and slice it in half. Both pieces of demon liquefy on contact with the ground, melting into a horrible smelling puddle of olive drab-colored goop.

Ugh.

Going to be smelling this in my nightmares for a while. I’ll deal with it, though. Small price to pay for Shannon to be safe.

By the time I get back to the ritual site, Anthony’s got the cult leader off his feet by a fistful of his shirt. This guy’s gotta be in his late forties at least, yet the dynamic between them is bizarrely opposite. Anthony is giving off the sense of authority despite him being so young still.

Tammy’s moved over to sit on the altar slab beside Shannon, with an arm around her.

The kid’s not looking around much, keeping her gaze down while clinging to my daughter. I’m really hoping she didn’t see too much. Poor girl’s going to be in therapy for years if she watched us slaughtering demons. If need be, I’ll remove the memory.

“We’re going to need a believable story.” Tammy eyes the cult leader. “Or the cops are just going to let him go.”

I shift my jaw side to side, thinking.

“We are bringing him to the cops, right?” asks Tammy after I don’t say anything. “Right?”

Anthony glances off to the side at the ground. “This man wanted to be with demons so badly that he was willing to kidnap and kill someone…”

Tammy blinks.

I know my son isn’t suggesting we kill this guy, though he’s trying to sound like that’s what he means. Somehow, a yawning chasm abruptly splits the ground open; dark crimson light shines up from parts far below.

“Let’s give him his wish…” Anthony tosses the cultist into the hole, which promptly slams closed right after the man falls out of view.

Shannon gawks at us, then stares at the now-normal looking ground. Oddly enough, that she just witnessed my son throwing her abductor into the abyss seems to be helping her mental state. If nothing else, she at least appears slightly less terrified now.

“It’s over,” says Tammy in a comforting tone. “You’re safe now. They can’t hurt you.”

“I’m not six.” Shannon fidgets while looking around at the various blobs of melting demons. “You don’t have to baby-talk me.”

“Fair enough.” Tammy chuckles .

Anthony puts his wings and sword away, then looks at me with an expression halfway between being pleased with himself and hoping I agree with what he did. And yes, my son had done that. Seemingly all by himself.

Honestly, it wouldn’t have been that difficult to bring the guy to the police. He and his associates did, after all, kidnap Shannon and drag her out here to the woods. Before anything paranormal came into play, that’s most definitely a crime. However, we run into a small problem where the associates involved in the kidnapping imploded into flesh blobs, which then mutated into demons. Call me pessimistic if you want, but most cops aren’t going to believe a story like that. They might start thinking Shannon snuck off with some people to do drugs and had a bad trip.

“What the hell am I going to tell my parents?” blurts Shannon.

I think for a moment. “Tell them the truth… just not all of it.” I smile. “You were kidnapped but managed to escape. Be honest about everything… except for the part where they turned into demons and three people came out of nowhere at the last possible moment.” With that, I reach inside her mind and scrub her memory clean of all things demons. That should hold for quite a long time.

I turn to my kids. “She won’t remember any of the demon stuff… or us if we get out of her sight soon.”

“Is she going to remember seeing the man ride the express elevator to hell?” Tammy glances at her brother, seeming a little impressed—and a little unsettled.

I chuckle. “Nope. Removed!”

“Okay. Let’s make this more believable.” I take Shannon’s hand, then reach out toward Anthony.

He grasps my hand, then takes Tammy’s.

I call the dancing flame… and step us through the portal to the edge of the wooded area where we found her—close to a sm all commercial area with a gas station and a McDonalds. We leave Shannon sitting on the ground and back off, getting out of sight but close enough to keep an eye on her and make sure she gets to safety.

A few minutes later, she snaps out of the haze I left her in. She looks around at the woods in a daze for a few seconds, then seems to ‘remember’ she’s running away from bad people and jumps to her feet and spins around. Poor kid looks scared, but not terrified. A sense of mild confusion comes over her next. My guess is she’s trying to make sense of thinking she’s running for her life but also somehow confident she’s no longer in any danger.

Shannon notices the brightly lit gas station at last and makes a run for it.

We move closer, staying out of sight and watching as she runs into the gas station convenience store and begins frantically talking to the clerk. Within a few minutes, the police arrive. Once I’m sure they’ve made contact with her and she’ll be fine, I offer my hands out to my kids.

“Ready to go home?”

“Yeah,” says Tammy.

“No shrinking this time.” Anthony chuckles.

I hold back a laugh. “Don’t need that, since I know exactly where we’re going.”

With that, I close my eyes and concentrate on the dancing flame, picturing our living room at home.