Whisper to a Scream (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #6.5)

A couple near the door sat stiffly across from one another. The woman was tense; fear filled her dark eyes. Please God, don’t let this be real. She projected her small prayer out into the unseen world around us, allowing me to hear her desperation and rage at her companion’s unfaithful betrayal.

Thoughts withheld within the mind, sacred and private, were protected from creatures like me, both light and dark. However, a freely projected thought was open for all to hear. She was fortunate when she wished both her husband and his lover to hell, since no demon was near enough to hear her.

While one couple broke up, another united. Laughter from the back of the coffee shop drew my attention to two teenage kids talking in loud, boisterous voices. The boy reached across the table to take the girl’s hand, and she giggled, a blush coloring her cheeks. Young love begot so much nostalgia in a human life.

“Thank you.” I accepted my drink from the barista and took a moment to inhale the sweet scent. Conflicted, I wondered if I should have let Christina go like that, without another word.

“No, don’t bother. I’ll send movers for my stuff.” The jilted woman’s voice was loud as she quickly stood. She cut off her companion before he could say anything to further the sting. “Save the apology. Sorry doesn’t mean a damn thing after you’ve screwed another woman.”

She paused to pour the rest of her coffee in his lap before storming out of the coffee shop, fighting back tears every step of the way. Then, she was gone.

Angry curses followed her departure. The man piled napkins in his lap to sop up the mess. He had been unfaithful, broken his lover’s heart, but his concern was for his own embarrassment and his dry cleaning bill.

Leaving the busy streets behind, I sipped the sweet, frothy drink as I walked several blocks down a side street until the burnt out remains of the church stood in the distance. It was little more than a shell of what it had once been. Soon, the husk would be razed, though the ground would remain consecrated.

A figure stepped out of the shadows ahead, falling into step with me. I wasn’t surprised to see Serene. We walked in silence until we reached the soot-stained front step of the church. The stink of burnt wood, metal and plastic mingled into an ugly scent that marred the otherwise crisp night air.

“I don’t suppose he found anything here.” Serene pushed the blackened double doors open. One of them fell from its hinges, collapsing at our feet. A puff of dust and soot rose up in a suffocating cloud.

“I doubt there was anything to be found.” I crossed the threshold, pausing to survey the destruction.

Most of the stained glass windows had exploded from the heat of the fire. The pews were lined up in perfect rows though nobody would ever sit in them again. The floor moved slightly as I approached the charred, overturned altar. The interior of the church was beyond repair, though the fire had been put out in time to save the foundation of the structure. We sifted through the rubble, seeking a sacred scroll amongst the debris.

I took in the remnants of lingering residual energy. It was faint but detectable. “Shya murdered a man here. While others watched.”

“Human casualties.” Serene gave a nod of his blond head and let his wings expand in full. They fringed his tall frame in a burst of iridescent white feathers. “A small price to the demon.” Shya was acting recklessly.

The heavy negative energy of a violent and bloody death clung to the air. It was almost tangible.

“He’s a fool. It will end badly.” It would; I knew that undoubtedly.

It would end terribly for all of them if Shya saw this ridiculous farce through to the end. Shya wouldn’t be the first demon to believe it was possible to control humanity by manipulating supernatural forces. However, Shya was particularly dangerous since he was among the few demons who might succeed.

Things were changing. They were always changing, but in this century, things had taken a turn. Humanity was advancing in leaps and bounds. People saw their technological breakthroughs as a success, but they couldn’t see it from the outside. The more they advanced, the more they lost themselves. With the people so distracted, demons were already taking advantage of every temptation. Every day, the humans edged faster toward their downfall.

As life got easier due to the invention of various convenient gadgets, the plight of their souls grew. Detached from one another and even from themselves, humans were coming apart at the seams, though they were none the wiser.

Serene reached to touch the scorched pages of a hymnbook that lay open on a nearby pew. The blackened pages crumbled, staining his fingers with soot. “I don’t like this, Willow. I can feel the power of the underworld shifting.”

“He’ll be expecting us.”

I wasn’t sure what to anticipate from Shya. It had been a long time since we had been brothers. Shya’s fall had been a time of great sadness. He’d embraced the darkness wholeheartedly and never looked back.