Semi fallen, p.1
Semi-Fallen, page 1
SEMI-FALLEN
HARPER HALL INVESTIGATIONS BOOK 9
ISABEL JORDAN
© 2022 Isabel Jordan. All rights reserved.
Cover Design by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are the product of the author’s twisted imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or people (living or dead) is coincidental (and would be super-weird).
IMPORTANT MESSAGE
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CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Caped and Dangerous
Chapter 1
You Complicate Me
Chapter 1
Also by Isabel Jordan
A personal note from Isabel:
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To all those typos who survive five rounds of self-edits and at least one round of professional editing and beta reading. Your tenacity is to be admired.
CHAPTER 1
Lane Hunter had been tracking and neutralizing demons with her team for, oh, about eight years now, and she’d been sure she’d seen it all.
Until today.
Demons like her squad leader, Gabriel, who shot hellfire from their fingertips, were a dime a dozen. The ones who could create portals and walk between dimensions weren’t as common, but she’d seen her fair share of those, too.
There were even a few in Section 8’s newly built maximum-security prison that could teleport. (And yes, containing them and binding their powers so that they couldn’t just teleport out of prison was a bitch.)
But the demon they’d cornered today in this old, abandoned warehouse in the riverfront district?
It could fly.
That was new. And not in a fun way.
No. Fun. Whatsoever.
Another team had the perimeter sealed, so it wasn’t going anywhere. But here, inside the warehouse, well, that was another story.
The demon was probably eight feet tall, with leathery-looking, eggplant-colored skin and thick, veiny black wings that spanned at least twice its body length. Wait, no. Not an it. Since the demon was also naked, she could now see that he was a he.
And he was impressive.
If demons had porno movies, this demon would star in them. He was undoubtedly the Dirk Diggler of demon-dom, because that genitalia was frighteningly huge. Seriously, how did these things reproduce? And more importantly, what did the female genitalia look like?
But that wasn’t the point. The point was that there was an eight-foot-tall, naked, extremely well-hung demon flying over their heads, dive bombing them with hellfire every now and then, and pinging off the walls and ceiling, trying to bust his way out into the mortal world.
Every time she or one of her team got close to knocking it out of the air with a blast of energy or fire or a hail of silver bullets, it became even more agitated and aggressive. Lane wasn’t entirely sure this one was going to make it to prison. It might have to be neutralized to keep it from killing someone.
So, she wouldn’t hesitate if she got the kill order from Gabriel. This monster had already done enough damage.
Harper wouldn’t like it, though. There’d be plenty of explaining to do if the demon had to die tonight.
Harper Hall was a formidable woman and a fierce fighter, but she would much rather detain demonic troublemakers than kill them. In her heart, she believed anyone could be rehabilitated.
That’s partly why Harper had been chosen to run Section 8, the government’s super-secret operation that tracked demons who crossed into the human world through rifts in the veil between dimensions.
Her husband, Noah Riddick, was her second in command, and their ragtag team of magical misfits and dhamypres kept humans safe from everything supernatural that went bump in the night. And day. And any other time paranormal baddies wanted to bump.
But Lane’s main purpose on missions was a little more…violent than the rest of her teams’. Everyone knew all she had to do was scream and either the monster’s head would explode, or he’d be so debilitated by the noise that the rest of her team could execute containment measures.
No one really knew why Lane had that ability. As far as she knew, her adoptive parents hadn’t ever felt the need to look too far into her lineage. After all, what difference did it make? Her adoptive parents were the head of the Vampire Council, and she worked for Section 8, which was full of magical misfits, demons who’d defected to the human(ish) side, and shifters. She was an oddity, sure, but so was everyone else in her life.
Lane dove beneath a rusted-out work bench when the demon shot a ball of hellfire at her. With an exasperated glare at Gabriel, who wasn’t bothering to crouch behind anything as he took shot after shot at the chaotic, flying demon (must be nice to be fireproof), she waved her hands to get his attention.
When he side-eyed her, she asked in ASL, Can I bring it down now?
He glanced at the rest of his team who were taking turns drawing the demon’s fire, then diving under something to avoid retaliation, before signing to her, Do it. But only enough to bring it down if you can. Don’t kill it.
About fucking time. All the cowering and hiding was getting really old. She signed back, Copy that. Give the order for ear protection.
Gabriel nodded and she saw his mouth move as he gave the order. She glanced at the rest of the team and saw that they complied immediately and enthusiastically by pulling out their coms earpieces and replacing them with the sound deadening plugs that would keep their heads from exploding when she screamed.
She didn’t need any such protection. She’d been deaf her whole life, which came in super handy at times like this.
When Gabriel gave her the signal that her team was protected, Lane stood up, turned toward the demon, and let out a little scream.
She’d be lying to herself if she said it didn’t feel good. She was always so cautious to remain completely silent that the intentional release of power was almost relaxing. Like getting out of the car after a long road trip and having a nice, long stretch.
It wasn’t nearly as comfortable for the demon, though.
The scream was maybe half strength. It was still powerful enough to blow out every window in the warehouse and drop the demon out of the air like a stone.
He hit the ground at her feet, stirring up a cloud of dust.
Her team didn’t hesitate to rush forward and fit the demon with a magic-infused silver collar and handcuffs that would bind his abilities and weaken him.
No more flying and dropping hellfire on people’s heads for you, asshole!
As they were pulling the demon to his feet and ushering him to one of their waiting vehicles, Gabriel grinned at her. Great job, kid, he signed.
She felt her nose wrinkle involuntarily. I’m not a kid, she signed back.
He shrugged. You are to me.
Lane supposed that was probably true. Time passed differently in the hell dimension Gabriel came from, so he’d probably packed more actual living into his years than anyone in this dimension ever had.
I’ll allow it because you’re my boss, she signed with a half-smile.
His grin was 100% devilish, which was totally fitting since he was, you know, a demon and all.
You’d allow it anyway because it’s me, he signed.
She rolled her eyes, but knew he was right. Gabriel was hard not to like. He was the antithesis of just about every other demon they’d encountered over the years. And he’d married her best friend’s sister, Adrianne, so there was also that.
&nb sp; As Lane stepped out of the warehouse, a shiver shot down her spine, raising goosebumps up and down her arms. There was an electricity in the air that she’d never felt before.
It was as if someone—or something—was watching her.
Someone—or something—with energy similar to her own.
Which was impossible because she’d seen all manner of men and creatures over her years as a demon hunter, and she’d had yet to encounter anyone like her.
Gabriel and his dimension-hopping brother, Roan, thought she was a mystery, too. Her father, Hunter, was a vampire who’d been roaming the planet since the 1490s, and even he claimed to have never found another living being who contained the power and energy she did.
And somehow, if she had to guess (and she was an excellent guesser) she’d say someone like her was watching from the shadows.
Watching her.
Gabriel laid a hand on her shoulder until she turned toward him. Is everything OK, kid? he signed.
Lane glanced across the street. I’m not really sure.
CHAPTER 2
The creature he’d been sent across oceans of time, multiple planets, and countless dimensions to destroy, the creature who supposedly possessed the power to destroy Heaven and all its warriors, was just a…girl.
No, Lucien mentally corrected himself, she wasn’t a girl. She was a woman. A tiny one, but a full-grown human woman, nonetheless.
And she was pretty. In all the time he’d been hunting Nephilim, he’d never seen one quite this beautiful.
It was disconcerting.
If she were standing next to him, the top of her head would most likely only reach his shoulder. But even though she was tiny, he could tell that underestimating her would be a mistake. She moved with the strength and grace of a predator.
Just like he did.
Her thick, dark hair was tied back at the nape of her slender neck, but if it was unwound, he imagined it would reach the center of her back.
On their own, none of her features were remarkable. But the combination of those high, knife-edged cheek bones, big chocolate-brown eyes, and rosy lips together made her nothing short of stunning.
As a soldier of Heaven, it was his duty, his sacred oath, to hunt and destroy Nephilim—the forbidden offspring of angels and humans. He’d hunted this Nephilim for many human years. He could smite her where she stood.
But he didn’t.
Worse yet, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to.
Maybe it was because he’d been on this planet, in this dimension, for long enough to develop a bit of a fondness for it and its people. The food, the sights and sounds, the entertainment and humor—it was all pleasing to him. Killing the Nephilim would mean leaving it all and returning to Heaven to await his next assignment.
And Heaven didn’t feel like his home anymore.
It hadn’t since he’d been captured by demons and left to rot in a hell dimension prison for so many years. Every one of the angels he called brothers and sisters left him there without bothering to search or plan a rescue. They simply carried on with their own missions like the good little soldiers they were.
Sometimes, for fleeting moments, it made him wish he was capable of falling. Other angels could choose to surrender their grace and power and live a mundane life amongst the humans. Soldiers weren’t afforded that luxury.
The thought of being powerless was terrifying, but then again, the thought of following orders didn’t hold much appeal these days, either. Funny how being forsaken and left for dead will tend to do that.
Lucien almost let out a bitter laugh at the memory of his escape nearly fifteen years ago. A demon named Gabriel and his half-demon bride, Adrianne, had facilitated his release.
And they’d treated him better, more fairly, than his own brothers and sisters in arms.
If he’d known at the time that the Nephilim he sought—the one he’d lost track of while he was imprisoned in a hell dimension—was right here all along, things might’ve ended differently.
But now…
He sighed. Now he was stuck watching from the shadows as the pretty little Nephilim helped Gabriel, the closest thing he had to a friend in this dimension, hunt and subdue a fire demon he knew for a fact had killed twenty innocent humans.
She did it with shocking ease, too. The rest of her team, even Gabriel, struggled to control the beast. But not her. One scream—a tiny one, at that—had taken it to the ground.
She could’ve done so much more damage. Her control was remarkable. So was her concern for her teammates. She’d waited to defeat the creature until her team was protected.
Hardly the Heaven-destroying monster he’d been trained to kill.
And before the end of this day, he’d have to decide if he wanted to kill this seemingly innocent Nephilim and return home, or defy Heaven itself to protect her.
It was going to be a very long night.
Because he didn’t have a clue what the right decision was. Was there even a right decision in this instance?
But that wasn’t even the real problem.
The real problem was that he wasn’t even sure right mattered anymore. Not to him, Heaven, or anyone else in this dimension.
CHAPTER 3
Lane set her lunch tray down on the table in the Section 8 cafeteria, doing her best to ignore the werewolf who was trying so hard to get her attention.
When she sat down, he dropped into the chair across from her and leaned down so that she was forced to look him in the eye. Deliberately and slowly so that she could read his lips, he said, “So, heard you took down another demon, freak show. Nicely done.”
Abel Woods was a vile jerk. He was about her age, and looked like every mean, bullying jock in every teen movie ever made. Tall, muscled, classically handsome features, overly styled blond hair, and a sneer that perfectly complimented his cold, dead eyes.
If he was her trainee, she’d make it a point to knock him on his ass every day until some of the arrogant bravado started to drain out of his soul.
The fact that he was even talking to her at all showed a stunning lack of self-awareness. She outranked him by years. He’d only entered the training program a few months ago. She was his superior in rank, age, strength, and intelligence, and he had the nerve to call her names?
But telling him so would be pointless. He was just displaying typical insecure werewolf behavior by trying to assert dominance. He’d picked out the strongest person in the room, and was trying to get the best of her to prove what a big, tough, wannabe-alpha wolf he was.
Yeah. Not happening. She wasn’t in the mood.
So, Lane gave him her best dead-eyed stare, and simply made a shooing motion with her hand (go away, little boy) and visually dismissed him before tucking into her turkey, bacon, and lettuce sandwich. Yum.
She didn’t flinch when he angrily slapped a palm down on the table, shaking her tray and nearly toppling her can of Diet Coke. Instead, she lifted her gaze to his and raised a brow at him, trying her hardest not to smirk at his quickly reddening face.
Wolf boy doesn’t like being ignored and dismissed. Good for future reference.
He almost said something to her, but didn’t get a chance. Haven Hall, Lane’s best friend, walked up with her own lunch tray, and in a move so quick no one saw it coming, put her palm on the side of Abel’s head, shoved him onto the floor, then calmly stole his seat.
Lane had to bite down on her bottom lip until she tasted blood to keep from laughing as Haven tossed her nearly waist-length black curls over her shoulder and completely ignored Abel, who was now sprawled on the floor, glaring up at her.
Haven gave Lane her typical sunny smile. “Heard you kicked demon ass. Well done.” Then she hit her with a palm-stinging high five.
