Page 73 of The Hitch
Pain. White-hot pain in my abdomen radiates out, forcing my muscles to contract, ripping a gasp from my lungs. Tears gatherin my eyes, and I work to stifle a scream. My bones are replaced with lava and razor blades. My blood is toxic, burning me from the inside out. It feels like a blazing hot stone is nestled between my hips.
"Oh my god, no," I force out a whisper. With every second the pain lasts, I feel the sticky warmth between my thighs. I don't dare look down. I can't. Iwon't. If I don't look, it's not real. It can't be real. This isn't happening.
No. No. No. No.
No.
"Hey! Ella! This is an emergency, please—she needs medical attention!" Helena screams at the top of her lungs, cupping her hands around her mouth. Her frantic shout bounces around the concrete walls, echoing in my head, slashing at any control I had over myself.
I look down. Blood rushes from between my thighs as another wave of agony sweeps through my body.
No.
Dante
My home is teeming with people. Top men and women from the other demons chatter in hushed tones throughout the house. English, Spanish, Russian, French—languages I don't recognize among them as well—all with one singular goal: stopping the war. Finding my wife.
Crushing the Seraph.
Roman looks up at me from the kitchen counter where he's gathered a handful of grizzled and scarred men and women. They will be the forward operating team. Well, as soon as wefind somewhere to storm. Three more false positives popped up throughout the week, all of them ending empty-handed and empty-hearted.
I haven't slept, not really, in days. My body is exhausted, but my mind won't quit racing. Images of Melody huddled up in pain pervade through the night, through the day, through any time I'm even a little bit conscious. Roman keeps watch over me like a hawk, which I gladly welcome.
Sometimes, being a man is knowing when to ask for help. Knowing when toaccepthelp. And right now, I cannot afford to lose precious moments due to my own idiotic pride. I need help. I've begged for help. And in the cold, lonely night, I beg for my wife back. I beg and plead and scream to any god that might listen.
My prayers have gone unanswered.
I cannot fault the Goetic Consortium, though. True to their word, they supplied as much manpower as I asked for and more. The Eligos descended on that filthy gas station like vultures, scraping up every last piece of evidence they could find. The Paimon's whisper networks are keeping watchful eyes on Detective Ella's position at all hours. Strangely, though, she disappears at times.
She enters her home on the far outskirts of the city, descends into her basement, and doesn't reappear for hours. I don't like it. The Paimon doesn't like it, either. One of his slipperiest men attempted a covert break-in, but the Seraph underlings swarmed the place within minutes.
Ella, it seems, is more powerful than we thought. I dislikethateven more—the lack of knowledge regarding their power structure eats at me like a parasite. They operate much like we do: outside of the law, in shadows, but they prefer making their moves in silence.
To be fair, so do we—but with a bit of a flair for the dramatic. According to the general public, we in the Goetic Consortium are simply business associates. We hold galas. We donate to fundraisers. We sponsor children's education. And we certainly don't have a collective name. Through all the layers of our secrecy, though, no one would ever guess that we reign over an underground empire. Sometimes, the greatest cloak of all is publicity.
Yet I have not gone public with my wife. I have not told the masses that she is missing, nor have I said she even exists. Until she is safe, she will stay in the shadows with me. It's not like sleazy tabloids were knocking down my door before I married her—I've always been the least media-friendly of the Goetia. My name pops up every few months or so, but mainly within the financial sector. I aim to keep it that way.
Besides, no one needs to know that the wife of Dante Lyons has a penchant for murder.
"Sir," Roman calls from the kitchen. "Sir, we found something."
"Ifound something, he means," The Paimon's assistant says with a glare. Leanne is a shrewd woman I've come to respect. Her fiery mane of vibrant red hair frames her cherubic face. One would never suspect that she could kill without breaking a sweat.
"Yes, of course. Leanne found something," Roman mutters with a nod.
"Ground-penetrating radar. Heard of it?" she asks, pointing to her computer.
"Vaguely. Let's assume it does what it says, yeah?" I rush over and stare at the grey lines and smudges on the screen.
"Precisely. We flew a drone at a low altitude around Ella's house and dropped a few probes about an hour ago." She switches to a satellite image, circling three map pins with hercursor. "See this line? It doesn't match up with the sedimentary layers. She has a tunnel."
"She has a fucking tunnel?" I growl and slam my fist on the granite countertop. "Why thefuckare we only hearing about this now?"
"Because someone keeps shooting down our surveillance, asshole. Calm your shit before I calm it for you!" Leanne shoves her finger into my chest, fury in her eyes.
"Where does it lead? How far? When can we get there?" I'm already sprinting towards the door, pulling on my boots and snatching up my gun.
"We don't know yet! We just found it, but from what I can tell, it leads towards the Poconos. And it'slong. She must be using something small to traverse it—electric bike, maybe?" Leanne taps her sharp red fingernails on the counter. "Go. Stay in contact."
