Page 39 of How to Trust a Hellhound (Hellhounds of Paradise Falls #4)

Wilder

T he crows guided Corbin, and I was never more thankful that he had an affinity with them. Josh stayed pressed against my chest, and I rubbed his back, occasionally murmuring to him.

I thought I could sense Sebbie, but I wasn’t sure. He seemed to be slightly connected to the pack, but the tether was barely there. I knew we were headed in the right direction, however, and there was still a faint link, so I knew he was alive. I could only hope he stayed that way.

I thought the cult had probably taken him in order to get to Josh, and maybe through him to us, but it all seemed very convoluted. We didn’t have access to Aiden’s grandfather’s stolen money. I couldn’t understand their motives, and that made them unpredictable.

Then there was Sebbie’s… otherness. I hadn’t delved too deeply into what he was, because I could sense the humanity in him, and his soul was good.

There was something there, though, that I could almost remember.

Something familiar from long, long ago, but I hadn’t really tried to place it.

I cursed myself now for that, because it wa s just one more level of the unknown added to an already fucked up situation.

We eventually left the main highway and drove onto gravel and then dirt roads, the car bumping along and our speed slowing down quite a bit. Josh roused himself from against me and looked out the windows.

“We’re close,” Corbin said, still focusing on driving.

The road was getting narrower, with only room for one car. There was a clearing in the trees ahead, and we pulled up and saw an old house.

“Oh, lovely. This looks like it belongs in a horror movie,” Thea grumbled.

I wasn’t sure why she said that, since it didn’t look particularly scary. It was a rather large Victorian home, and it seemed well-maintained, although deserted. I didn’t watch horror movies, though, and Josh must have agreed, because he gave a little sound of distress as we pulled to a stop.

Thea turned around to look at him, reaching into the backseat to pat his hand. “Don’t worry, Josh—we’re the monsters in this horror movie. We’ll save your friend and end these fuckers.”

“Wilder?” Corbin asked, and I could hear the concern in his voice as he stared at the house.

“I know,” I answered.

It smelled of rotten souls, but it also smelled of something else. I would have said afterlifers, but that wasn’t quite right. It was a stench like burnt food. The smell of angels and demons was sort of there, but it was like their essence had been tainted somehow.

It was unsettling.

“Not too many people in there,” Thea said, staring at the house. “Less than ten? It’s hard to tell for some reason.”

We all opened our doors and got out of the car. I grabbed onto Josh’s hand and held on. Technically, I had marked and mated him, so he was as immortal as I was. I still worried, though .

The front door creaked open, yet no one was there.

Thea sighed. “Definitely horror movie shit. So trite, though.” With that, she led the way, walking up the steps and into the house.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but the inside of the house was well-kept, if sparsely furnished.

There was a hallway and then a door at the end of it, which was an odd set-up.

Thea took the lead, opening the door at the end of the hallway.

She wasn’t attacked, and I could see past her to a large room that was currently empty. She walked in, and we all followed.

The door shut behind us, the lights went off, and Thea scoffed as a door across the room opened up and people filed through it. They were all wearing robes and carrying candles.

“Oh, brother. Not even original,” Thea mumbled under her breath.

Josh stifled a slightly hysterical giggle. They were all mostly human, and they were all rotten. That slightly burnt flavor existed on all of them, but it was a faint trace.

“Behold Death, majestic in her beauty, triumphant in—” a man’s voice started, but Thea cut him off.

“Yeah, yeah, we get it. Can we get this show on the road, please?” she complained.

What appeared to be an angel came in through the door, her wings flaring out behind her. She wasn’t an angel, though. She was… wrong.

She wore an all black robe, her hair was long and dark, and two small grey horns protruded from her forehead.

Her wings were a beautiful white color, fully feathered, but there was something off about them that I couldn’t quite place.

It was almost like it was a costume, because it didn’t look totally real.

I had seen angels, and I had seen demons, and she didn’t quite look right for either.

The burnt smell emanated most strongly from her—she smelled of angel, demon, and rotten soul .

She stepped up onto a dais, which made Thea snort. She bared her teeth at that, and they were all pointed and sharp.

“Oh my god, did you seriously file your teeth?” Thea asked. “Because that’s just so 2010, girlfriend. And the horns are cute, but the wings need some work, don’t they?”

The woman hissed at that, and I noticed it then. Her wings were real, but most of the feathers were not. I thought without the artificial additions, her wings would be a patchy mess.

“Nephilim,” I said, the realization suddenly coming to me. That was the underlying odor, but it was so distorted it had been hard to place.

Corbin and Thea both looked at me, confused. I didn’t blame them. They were both relatively young, and the only Nephilim they had seen looked just like people. Nephilim of today might have some extra abilities, but their appearance was all mortal.

In the beginning, though, Nephilim had not always looked like humans. But that had been centuries ago, and although Nephilim had longer lives, they were not immortal.

“How?” I asked.

The woman—I refused to call her Death, even in my head—smiled at me.

“We have been here since the beginning, even though we were cast out and forgotten. We have cultivated our powers, being careful to keep our bloodlines pure and hidden from those like you. We have flourished in the darkness, in secret, but our time is near,” the woman said.

“For fuck’s sake,” Thea said, and I could literally hear the eye roll in her voice. “You sound like every other cult out there. Let me guess—you’re all going to off yourselves and take over the afterlife or some other crazy shit like that.”

The woman laughed, a high, tinkling sound that grated. “What use do we have for the afterlife? They all betrayed us. They left us here on Earth, and then they took away our dominion of this place. ”

“Oh my god, really? World domination? That’s just so predictable,” Thea mocked.

“Human, your sharp tongue grows tiring. Perhaps my acolytes will cut it out so I’m not subjected to any more of your impertinence," the woman hissed.

I reached over and gently touched Thea’s elbow, hoping she understood. They didn’t know she was a hellhound. That could work in our favor, and I didn’t want her correcting the Nephilim.

“You’re all Nephilim,” I stated, attempting to draw attention away from Thea. “But I’ve had encounters with the Order before, and there were no Nephilim then.”

“You think we do not have humans who worship us and do our bidding? We didn’t have the means to deal with you then, so we stayed in the shadows,” she snarled.

Josh gripped me more tightly, and I understood his fear. Her words implied that she did have the ability to “deal with us” now. I couldn’t imagine what that meant, though.

“Where’s Sebbie?” Josh asked.

She turned her attention to him, which made my hackles rise. I couldn’t suppress my growl, but Josh just leaned into me.

“Your friend is safe—for now. A shame you didn’t bring the rest of your pack with you, although I imagine they’ll come along eventually.” She smiled then, and Josh shivered at her pointy teeth.

Thea was slightly ahead of us, and one of the men grabbed her and pulled her forward, a knife to her throat.

I put my hand up slightly, cautioning Thea to remain compliant.

I wanted them to continue believing she was human.

I didn’t understand what they wanted, and it frustrated me. We needed every advantage we could get.

“What is it that you seek?” I asked. “We only want our friend returned safely. We have no access to the son of Cain’s money and fortune, if that’s what you search for.”

The Nephilim laughed gleefully. “Oh, no, we do not seek his fortune, although we wouldn’t turn it down. The real prize was the son of Cain.”

“We have no interest in him. Give us back those that belong to us, and we shall part ways,” I answered.

“You want your friend? Follow me, and I’ll bring you to him. I warn you that your hellfire cannot harm me, but it would be detrimental to the building and all those in it, including your mortals.” She motioned her head toward Thea, who was standing calmly with a knife at her neck, looking bored.

The Nephilim walked through the door, expecting us to follow, and I turned to look at Thea again.

She actually rolled her eyes at me and made a slight gesture with her hand, telling us to go ahead.

I didn’t like leaving her behind, but if they thought she was mortal, perhaps they wouldn’t hurt her.

I turned and followed the Nephilim, hoping I was making the right decision.

I heard Thea mumbling softly to her captor as Corbin, Josh, and I made our way through the doorway.

Some of the other robed figures followed behind us, but I focused on the woman in front of us.

Her burnt, wrong smell was the strongest of any of them.

She led us through the house and to a padlocked door, which she opened, leading us down a flight of steps.

Once down in the basement, there was another door.

I wished Thea were there to make some quip about horror movies, because this would have amused her for sure.

“It really is kind of cliched,” Josh murmured, like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

I moved my hand to the back of his neck, giving him a squeeze. We went down another set of stairs, which ended in another door. She opened it, and I could see a large round stone chamber inside. She walked through, but Corbin, Josh, and I stopped in front of the doorway.

I suddenly realized why she smelled so wrong, and why she had both demonic and angelic features. “Inbreeding,” I murmured .

She turned and looked at me. “Selective breeding,” she corrected. “The original Nephilim started the order, and they made sure to keep the bloodlines as pure as possible. It has kept us powerful, although some lines have flourished more than others.”

We stepped into the room, and Josh gasped as he saw Sebbie chained to the stone wall, sitting with his back against it, legs stretched out in front of him.

He looked okay as he glanced up at us, but the old man who was unchained and laying in his lap did not look okay.

He was skeletal, most of his hair was gone, and his skin was gray and wrinkled.

It was like he had been mummified, but I saw his chest rising and falling, so I knew he was breathing.

I took a sharp inhale as I realized who I was looking at.

“Yes. As you can see, you won’t have to worry about the Son of Cain anymore,” the woman said.

“This is evil work,” Corbin stated, and I heard the anger underlying his words.

“He is an evil man,” she answered calmly.

“What does that make you?” Corbin asked, tilting his head at her.

The other Nephilim had crowded behind us, blocking the doorway. I had no doubt that we could fight our way through them all, but I wasn’t sure if we could do it before Sebbie was injured.

Hellfire would have been the practical solution, and although I wasn’t sure she was telling the truth about being immune to it, there was too great a possibility she, and some of the others, actually were.

They were Nephilim, after all, and if they had strong demonic ancestry, an immunity to hellfire was likely.

I couldn’t chance them retaliating and hurting Sebbie.

The Nephilim woman finally answered Corbin’s question.

“It makes us a necessary evil. We know about the afterlife. How wrong things have gone. How the universe is breaking apart. The original Nephilim wanted the destruction of the universe, but in later centuries, we realized that goal was shortsighted. ”

“World domination for the win,” Thea said from behind me, and the man who was holding her brought her through the others and into the room, going over to stand next to Sebbie.

The Nephilim woman bared her teeth at him, but he seemed unfazed. “They won’t attack with both their humans here,” he responded.

I had known they thought Thea was a human, but I hadn’t realized they thought Josh was a hellhound. If they knew he was human, I had no doubt they would have tried to take him away from us as well, and then I would have had no choice but to act.

“You think too small, little girl,” the woman hissed. “We want what was rightfully ours and was denied to us.”

“Immortality,” I said, looking at the husk of the old man in Sebbie’s lap.

Somehow, they were draining the descendant of Cain and stealing his immortality. I didn’t know how they were doing it, and I wouldn’t have thought it possible if the evidence wasn’t in front of me. The man’s very life force was sucked dry, his soul just a small sliver in his body.

Corbin hadn’t said a word, which was beginning to concern me.

He seemed… mesmerized. He was staring at Sebbie, who was looking down at the old man in his lap.

Corbin moved to sit down on the floor, crossing his legs.

The Nephilim glanced at him, but she did nothing, probably because he seemed less of a threat now than before.

She turned her attention back to Josh and I. “Immortality… and control of the universe. Why destroy what we can instead control?”

“You’re insane,” Josh whispered hoarsely.

“No, I’m afraid not, hellhound. Although perhaps you’ll wish I was,” she answered.

From the folds of her cloak, she pulled a dagger. It was a plain-looking thing, the hilt and the blade both made of the same metal. It was silver in color, slightly tarnished looking, and if I hadn’t felt the power emanating from it, I might have mistaken it for a regular weapon.

It was not, however, simply a weapon. At least not a mortal one.

We were fucked.