Demon Hunter (Hellfire Academy Book 2) Read online

  Book Two

  of the

  Hellfire Academy Series

  C. L. Coffey

  Axellia Publishing

  Demon Hunter

  Copyright © 2021 C. L. Coffey

  All rights reserved.

  First edition, February 2021

  Published by Axellia Publishing

  Print ISBN: 978-1-912644-11-7

  eBook ASIN: B08LBRFYMJ

  Cover design by Bewitching Book Covers by Rebecca Frank

  Edited by Aethereal Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval systems, in any forms or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, unless for the purpose of a review which may quote brief passages for a review purpose.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locations are used fictitiously. Other characters, names, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, or persons – living or dead – is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Contents

  Also By C. L. Coffey

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Ways To Connect

  Also By C. L. Coffey

  THE HELLFIRE ACADEMY SERIES

  Demon Born

  Demon Hunter

  Demon Legacy

  Demon Shadow

  Demon Fury

  THE LOUISIANGEL SERIES

  Angel in Training

  Angel Eclipsed

  Angel Tormented

  Angel in Crisis

  Angel Exalted

  Angelic Schemes

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  Dedication

  For Noah

  This will mean nothing to you right now, but in a few years, you might think this is cool. Or maybe not. But either way, just know your parents got jealous.

  Chapter One

  “Excuse me, but have you seen this woman?” I thrust a picture of my mom in front of the store assistant.

  “Nope.” She responded without even looking.

  The edges of the worn photograph started to crumple as my grip on the paper tightened. “Uh-huh. And what color hair does she have?”

  Finally, the woman glanced up from the magazine she was skimming through and looked me in the eyes. “I don’t see anything. Seeing things is what gets you in trouble in these parts.”

  “Kennedy, let’s go,” Gabriel leaned in and murmured in my ear.

  I ignored him. “This is my mom, and she’s gone missing.”

  “And if she’s in these parts, then the trouble I don’t want to get associated with is exactly why I haven’t seen her.”

  “Come on.” Gabriel took my free hand and led me out of the store.

  Outside I pulled my hand free and frowned at him. “I hadn’t finished questioning her.”

  “No, she’s just an unhelpful member of the public.”

  With a long sigh, Gabriel looked down the street.

  It was dusk. The sky, where the sun was dipping below the buildings, was red like it had stained the dark sky behind us. It matched my mood and my desire to draw blood from the next person who brushed me off.

  “It has been a long day. Let’s get something to eat and head back to the college.”

  “No, there are a few more stores open on this street and—”

  “And this was the last store,” Gabriel said, firmly. “If we had nothing by sundown, we would return to the college. You promised me.”

  Promised?

  More like blackmailed.

  For the last week, Gabriel and I had been traveling to different cities trying to find my mom. We’d started off in Boise—her last known location. From there, we’d followed the trail west to Oregon—Eugene and then Portland.

  Currently, we were in Seattle.

  One of Gabriel’s angelic gifts was the ability to transport himself to any location in the world in the blink of an eye. Given his ability to take us anywhere, he wanted to return to his home to rest, but I refused.

  I’d left my mom in Las Vegas months ago to enroll in Greenwood Preparatory University. Gabriel had been keeping an eye on my mom, yet she vanished regardless.

  “You also promised me that you’d watch over my mom.”

  Gabriel slowly ran his tongue over his lower lip.

  I was pushing it, I knew that. For a week, I’d been throwing that at him to get my way, and while it was currently working, there was only a limited time before he was going to grab me by my collar and pull me out of there.

  Despite my words, I knew it wasn’t fair to keep blaming him. I knew my mom was mentally unstable—I’d lived with it for most of my life—but at the first opportunity, I’d accepted the position at Greenwood Prep and abandoned her.

  In my defense, I’d discovered that my father—the man my mom had spent most of my life running from—was a fallen angel. Worse yet, every time my mother had called me an abomination, she was right. I was a nephilim.

  Burying myself in schoolwork had been the perfect distraction from acknowledging the fact that the whole time I’d considered my mom mentally ill, I was wrong.

  She was, in fact, sane and . . . there was a good chance I was evil, just like she thought.

  No.

  I shouldn’t be dwelling on this again. It took up enough of my thoughts as I lay in bed, and last night, I’d decided that was enough.

  If the Archangel Gabriel could put me in college with other nephilim and humans while also giving me a charge to protect, then clearly, I wasn’t that evil.

  My father could have been Lucifer for all I knew, but that didn’t mean I had to act anything like him.

  Gabriel seemed to think I was a potential—someone who had the opportunity to earn their wings and become an angel.

  And would someone who was good give up on their mom?

  “I’m sorry,” I told Gabriel as he focused his attention on me. “I just . . . there’s a liquor store over there, and another convenience store on the corner.”

  With the various medications my mom had been on, she hadn’t drunk alcohol, but without me there to pick up the prescription she resented taking, would she still be on them? Who’s to say she wouldn’t want a drink?

  The archangel looked down the street before nodding. “After that, we grab some food, and we return back to Greenwood Prep, like you promised.”

  I was about to nod my agreement when I remembered that Easter break would be over tomorrow, and I would have to return to the Greenwood Prep campus. If we didn’t find my mom now, we’d lose her. I had no idea when I’d next be able to leave the college and the tra
il could go cold.

  In all the time that I lived with my mother, I never fully appreciated just how good Mom was at hiding us until I was the one trying to find her.

  “She has to be somewhere.”

  Pushing back the bite of desperation, I started walking towards the liquor store, smoothing out the rumbled photograph. It had been taken a couple of years ago, the day my mom had chopped her shoulder-length hair into a pixie cut. It was the same style she’d had when I’d left her, so even if a few months had passed, it was the closest to what I imagined it would be now.

  The door jingled when I walked in, announcing our presence to the worn looking assistant.

  When we’d left Portland and Gabriel transported us to Seattle, in the middle of the Greyhound Station’s unused buses, I’d gone straight inside and asked the assistant where I could find a place with the lowest rent.

  Once I explained I was aware that Seattle wasn’t the cheapest place to live and that I wasn’t bothered with the suitability or neighborhood, she’d sent me downtown.

  This store had a central aisle, and then everything else was caged off.

  There were trust issues in this neighborhood.

  That meant landlords of these apartments weren’t going to run a background check on their tenants.

  And they were exactly the type of places we’d lived in before.

  “Have you seen this woman?” I asked the man sitting behind the counter.

  “Can’t say I have.” He barely looked at the photograph I was holding up.

  “This is my mom.” I tried again. “She went missing, and she might have gone off her meds. Please look at the picture.”

  The man glanced over at Gabriel before turning his attention back to me and the photograph. Slowly, he looked back at me. “You’re Naomi’s daughter?”

  “You’ve seen her?”

  “She’s renting an apartment across the way. She works the lunch shift in the deli twice a week.” He looked to the side, tilting his head. “It would be closed by now. Let me write down the address of the apartment.”

  As he scribbled the address down on the back of a receipt, I had to force myself not to make him write quicker.

  “Thank you.” I practically snatched the paper from his hands.

  “I don’t know what number.”

  “Do you know when you last saw her?” My heart felt like it was pounding in my throat.

  The man tilted his head again. “The day before yesterday? I had a pastrami sandwich, so that must have been Friday.”

  The day before yesterday—that was the closest lead we’d had yet.

  Throwing another thank you out over my shoulder, I darted out the door. A few paces from the store, I had to stop, leaning back against the wall as a wave of dizziness hit me. Relief and excitement with a lack of sleep and an empty stomach was not a good combination.

  In an instant, Gabriel was in front of me; his hands bracing my shoulders. “Kennedy?”

  I looked up at him and gave him a weak smile. “Head rush. I’m fine.”

  Gabriel reached up and brushed some hair from my face. It was the most tender move he’d made the whole time we’d been out looking for my mom. “I know you’re desperate to see her, but slow down. We’ve been disappointed before.”

  He was right.

  It had been one disappointment after another, but I was clinging to a shred of hope and I was in no hurry to let go of it.

  I sucked in a deep breath, the cool air making me feel better as it filled my lungs. “I’m good. Let’s go.”

  Gabriel stepped back, but he didn’t go too far, probably expecting me to fall.

  I didn’t.

  The liquor store owner hadn’t just given me an address, but he also scribbled down some brief directions. Follow the road to the intersection, cross, then head west towards the Expressway.

  It was a short walk, but since I could run faster than most humans, I was making a conscious effort to walk at a ‘normal’ pace. Gabriel had pulled me back several times in the past couple of weeks for moving at near supernatural speeds. If I passed my mom on the way, the last thing that I wanted was to spook her before I could tell her what I was.

  The apartment building was another version of many we’d lived in over the last seven years. The kind of place where you knew it had as many code violations as it did roaches. The walls were cracked and several of the windows were boarded up.

  I might not have an apartment number, but my mom had always been drawn to the same apartment. One which faced the main street and had a fire escape—not for a fire, but in case my father turned up.

  From the street, it looked like the three-story building had two apartments that seemed to fit this criteria.

  If the building was supposed to have a secure main door, that was broken. The door swung open easily and as we walked in. Otherwise, it seemed cleaner than I expected once we were inside.

  Back when my mom first decided to move, she had some savings and the new apartment was nice. But when we tried to leave before our lease was up and the landlord refused to give up the security deposit, she’d switched to places where handing that over wasn’t an issue.

  Usually we lucked out and could find a place that was only slightly more expensive in rent. Slowly, as my mom decided big cities were easier to get lost in, we started sacrificing floorspace and nicer neighborhoods for places within our budget.

  As time passed and moves became more frequent, I started saving as much as I could, ready for the next move. That way, when we upped and left with almost no warning, I’d have a little bit of money for rent on somewhere that was at least clean for the sake of my mom’s health. There wasn’t much else I could do.

  I was relieved to see that this place, while looking old, dated, and in need of some repairs, was still clean. The faded tiles of the entrance had a lingering smell of disinfectant.

  Without waiting for Gabriel, I jogged up the first flight of stairs and followed the short hallway to what I hoped was one of the front-facing apartments. Gabriel was right behind me as I knocked on the door.

  The door opened, catching on a chain. Between the inch of a gap, a woman eyed me with suspicion. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’m looking for my mom’s new place. I thought it was this one.” I pulled the photograph of me and her out of my pocket and held it up.

  “Apartment above.” The door was shut in my face.

  A grin was on my face before I could stop it. Ducking behind Gabriel, I charged up the remaining flight of stairs to the door directly above.

  “Mom?” I called as I knocked on the door. “Mom? It’s me. Dora.”

  Nothing.

  I knocked again. Harder.

  “Mom? Naomi?”

  “Kennedy, I don’t think she’s home.” Gabriel gently touched my arm.

  It wasn’t the middle of the night. She should have been there. When I lived with my mom, she’d rarely left the apartment. I didn’t know if I should be happy or worried that she was finally getting out. Hadn’t the guy at the liquor store said she even had a part-time job?

  But was that because of me?

  I’d lost count of the number of times she’d broken down, calling me a demon—an abomination. What if I was making her sick?

  I wrapped my hand around the handle and tried the door.

  Locked.

  I turned to Gabriel. “Can you get us in there?”

  “You want an angel to break the law? What if it’s the wrong place?”

  “Then stay here,” I told him.

  As I started to walk back towards the stairs, Gabriel hurried after me. “Where are you going?”

  “That door isn’t the only way in and out of the apartment.” I wasn’t going to mention that I had experience getting into our apartments before.

  “Kennedy.”

  Before my foot could hit the first step, I wasn’t in the hallway anymore. Gabriel’s hand was on my shoulder, and we were both standing in front
of the door to my mom’s apartment. On the inside.

  Gabriel flicked on the light, and I scanned the apartment as more relief flooded me. Mom had found something clean, and although it was a small studio apartment, there was a fresh bunch of flowers on the small table and the bed was neatly made.

  Breathing out a sigh of relief, I took two strides towards an old refrigerator and pulled the door open. Half a bottle of in-date milk, a loaf of bread, butter, some chicken and even some vegetables.

  Closing the door, I turned back and leaned against the fridge to face Gabriel. His green eyes were fixed on me. “Thank you.”

  “Are you sure this is her place?” he asked.

  Before the knot of doubt could grow, I moved across the apartment towards the bed, pulling back the pillow. A photograph of me and on top of it.

  “Your mother has an angelic weapon?”

  I stared down at the blade, certain I was hallucinating. “That’s a dagger.”

  The dagger had a black handle with what looked like wings decorating it and a blade that was just as dark. I’d never seen it before in my life.

  Gabriel reached past me, picking it up. Somehow, it started to grow to a full-sized sword. “Is this your mother’s?”

  A growing sword was, strangely, something I had seen before. Gabriel had one. I didn’t doubt it was angelic, but I had no idea how my mom ended up with it. “I don’t know.”

  Gabriel shrank the blade back down before setting it on the small bedside table.

  I picked up the photograph. This I’d seen before. I couldn’t remember where we’d been living at the time, but I was about fourteen in the picture.

  “Maybe it was my dad’s sword?” I sank down onto the bed, my gaze drifting back to the sword. My father was one of the Fallen—a fallen angel. It would make sense for it to be his weapon.

  Only, I’d often been the one to pack up our lives before we moved onto the next city, and I’d never seen that before. I couldn’t begin to imagine where Mom had it hidden.