The young man screamed and spat at the young priest standing in front of him. My team spread throughout the aisles of the church, weapons drawn at our sides. The priest recited a Latin incantation in a breaking voice. In his shaking hands, he held a worn leather-bound Bible and a wooden box. Reaching the end of a phrase, he took a small vile from the pocket of his shirt and splashed the contents on the man’s face.

“In the name of Jesus, I compel thee,” he croaked.

An eerie laugh escaped the man’s mouth. He whipped his head from side to side, water droplets flinging from the ends of his stringy brown hair. His golden tan skin turned green as he leaned forward and retched onto the priest’s shoes.

“We’ve got another one,” Gabe said in a monotonous tone.

He held a short dagger in his hand and had a thin blade strapped across his back. His brown hair had grown longer over the past year. It hung over his ears with a slight wave.

When we weren’t on work duty, I loved to push it out of his emerald green eyes and run my hands through it. The thought gave me butterflies. Still, now wasn’t the time or place to be thinking of such things. We had a job to do. The same job we’d been doing since the Hell Gate had been sealed shut nearly a year ago.

His brother, Adam, followed closely behind. They had similar athletic figures, but where Gabe was dark, Adam was blond and blue-eyed. He nodded his agreement and waved the rest of us forward in militarized fashion.

Ashley went first. She towered nearly five inches over me, her entire body solid as a rock. She was the Giselle of Nephilim warriors and had a serious appetite for competition. Next, was my cousin Raquel. Just two months ago, she’d been branded an official warrior with a blood oath. Like an eager puppy, she’d jumped at the chance to sniff out the demons who’d escaped the Black Hills Forest last year. If it were up to her, she’d travel the whole world searching out the elusive ones. But so far, it seemed like most of our troubles hadn’t migrated out much further than the four of the surrounding states. 

I followed behind my cousin. In my hands, I cradled a semi-automatic glock. The biting cold of the metal pressed against my sweaty palms. No matter how many times we did this, I always got a nervous rush of energy right before the exorcism. If all went well, we’d free this man from his demonic host and send him back to live his life. But exorcising a demon was no walk in the park. If things got out of control, our only option was to kill him. Killing demonic forms in the forest was one thing; killing a human host was entirely different.

A floorboard creaked and the young priest spun to find us closing in on him. His face went white and he clutched the Bible to his chest. “What are you doing here?” he asked in a shaking voice. “This is the house of the Lord.”

“We know that, Father.” Gabe took a step up toward the alter. “We are God’s warriors, sent to help. Leave this to us.”

He stuttered and looked each of us over. Our eyes met for the briefest second. I knew that look. Fear had engraved a home within his soul. He was out of his depths.

“What are you going to do?” he managed to utter.

Gabe ignored him, marching straight toward the wild-eyed man in the chair. His hands had been bound by a thick rope and his ankles similarly tied to the legs of the simple wooden chair. The man smiled wide, his eyes bulging with the effort. He gazed at Gabe and hissed.

“What are you going to do?” the priest asked again, his eyes glued to the vicious dagger in Gabe’s hands. “Don’t hurt him. This man doesn’t deserve to die.”

“In our line of work, no one ever does,” Gabe muttered.

While he examined our captive, the four of us formed a circle around them. We’d had some near disasters in the past. It was best to be prepared for anything.

Feral demons in human hosts had enhanced powers. I’d seen them throw full-grown men across the room with nothing but a flick of their wrists. It was impressive that this priest had managed to wrangle one. Usually, we had to hunt them down to the darkest corners before we could conduct the ceremony.

“This man has a family,” the priest insisted, his voice breaking.

He stepped in front of Gabe, thrusting out his chest. A bookish man, small in stature, he never would’ve stood a chance against a Nephilim warrior. Still, Gabe was patient.

“Step aside.” He fixed him with a hard stare. I knew this part was hard for him. He didn’t like the risk involved with exorcism and there could be no guarantee of results.

“He’s a loving husband and a good friend.” The priest blinked his watery blue eyes. “I won’t let you hurt him.”

Sorrow tugged at my heart as Gabe placed a comforting hand on the priest’s shoulder. This was the possessed man’s only chance. The Nephilim had managed to revive an ancient exorcism practice that was last used at the turn of the century. With the huge influx of demons that had escaped last year, it’d become imperative to find a way to cleanse humans of their demon parasites while creating the least damage possible.

But there were drawbacks. It only worked on ferals, the lowest level of demon-kind. And it only had about a fifty percent success rate. Too often, the human host died anyway. I’d questioned this process myself at least a dozen times, but there was no way around it. It was the only option we had.

“Time for the test,” Gabe explained in a soft voice. “We always test, to be sure.”

The test was something Luke had insisted on instilling for all the teams tracking down demons. It was a simple way to make sure the human we’d cornered wasn’t suffering from a mental illness rather than possession.

We’d come across a few false alarms. My father, Luke, was always able to find help for them. I imagine the memories they held of a team of armored angel warriors coming to get them would eventually be dismissed as fragments of their delusions. Still, I knew we could be a frightening bunch. Not something easily forgotten.

Gabe held out the silver coated dagger. “Stand back. This might get violent.”

Despite the priest’s protests, he pressed the flat side of the dagger against the man’s cheek. The skin beneath the metal began to hiss and steam, as the demon flailed his body recklessly back and forth. Gabe yanked the dagger away and in its place a red angry welt bubbled up across his cheek.

We didn’t need any more confirmation. This was a demon. Only demonic forces reacted to purified silver so violently. I shifted my grip on my gun and bounced on the balls of my feet.

“You think you’ve won.” A high-pitched oily voice came from the man’s distorted mouth. He laughed as his eyes rolled in his head. “My Prince has you cornered. He will reign. He will destroy you all.”

I exchanged a glance with Raquel across from me. Her green eyes lit with confusion. We hadn’t heard about any of the six Princes of Hell since last fall when one of them tried to use me as a key to unlock the Hell Gate and set forth his legion of demons on the Earth. Thankfully, that Prince was locked up tight, thanks to the determined and meticulous training of my trainer, Manuel.

May he rest in peace.

“Your Prince can rot in Hell,” Adam shot back with a sneer. He chortled and raised his eyebrows in a challenge. “He’s never getting out.”

“Such ignorant peasants,” the man muttered to himself. His head swiveled on his neck. “The darkness comes to bite. It comes to kill. It’s here. It’s here. Right outside that door.”

He gazed down the sanctuary aisle with sudden clarity, focusing in on the doors that led to the outside. Despite our confidence that no one would be joining us from the underworld, all six pairs of eyes followed his lead.

Nothing stirred.

“See? Your Prince has abandoned you,” Adam replied haughtily.

I wanted to give him a good, swift kick. Making a demon mad never seemed to help our cause. And sure enough, this one was furiously struggling against his bonds.

“He’d never abandon his children,” he growled. “He comes for me.”

With a yank, he broke the ropes around his wrists as easily as a piece of straw. With two solid kicks, the wooden chair beneath him disintegrated into kindling and his ankles were free.

The church burst into a frenzy. Gabe was the first to attack. He flew forward, his jaw set in a determined expression. The demon side-stepped him and with a smack on the back, sent him hurtling toward the alter. Despite the sudden jolt of fear I got from watching the love of my life crumple to the floor, I had to keep my attention on the job at hand. Raquel and I fired on the demon, emptying our magazines of silver-coated bullets. With inhuman speed, he darted behind the pulpit and dodged our shots.

“Move in,” Adam cried. He drew a blade from his side, a sinister piece of metal with curved edges and a razor-thin edge. “Don’t let it escape.”

Ashley and I rounded the large wooden pulpit. By this time, I had my trusty daggers in my hands. Raquel and Adam took the north side. The priest had run to Gabe’s aid and my heart thudded in relief as I saw him begin to stir.

The demon attacked Ashley first, driving her to the ground with his foot on her chest. She gasped for air, but managed to swipe at his calves. He rolled to the floor, laughing maniacally. Gritting my teeth, I shot forward, feeling the power in my muscles as I drew on the angelic powers gifted to me by my Nephilim father. Drive left, dodge right, he evaded my every strike. To the priest watching wide-eyed nearby, I’m sure we appeared as blurs, moving too fast for the human eye to see.

Suddenly, everything stopped. It took a moment for my mind to catch up to what was happening. A hand clutched my windpipe, cutting off my source of air. The demon raised me up by my throat and dug his fingernails viciously into my skin. Hot blood ran down my neck and soaked into my black t-shirt. I kicked out, but it was no good. He had me in his grip and the glint in his blood-red eyes told me I was done for.

“Weak. So very weak,” he growled angrily. “And you expected to beat me?”

As I struggled like a worm on a hook for the tiniest breath, a shout went out. Gabe rammed him squarely in the stomach with his shoulder, sending me reeling to the floor. Coughing and sputtering for breath, I looked up to see my friends trading blows with the demon. They moved down the aisles of pews. Splintered wood flew, shards piercing the fragile drywall.

In all the commotion, no one but me noticed a small child enter the sanctuary. He stood in a white robe and gawked at the destruction. With short brown hair cropped above his ears, wide-eyes, and pink cheeks, he had to have been only about six years old.

Bile rose from my stomach when I saw him. Without hesitation, I lunged from the floor toward him. Someone had to get him out of here. The last thing we needed was a hostage situation. But as I moved, I caught a glimpse of the demon to my right. The fight had stalled for a moment. A devilish grin spread across his cheeks, hunger burning in his eyes. I knew why.

He’d spotted the boy.