The Demon-Eater: Hunting Shadows (Book One, Part One by Devin Graham

P ROLOGUE
     
    NIGHT HAD LONG SINCE
FALLEN and the one flickering streetlight
did little to illuminate the long, narrow street, still damp from
the previous night's rainfall. A strange chill was carried on the
breeze, intermingling with the summer heat, and the foul stench of
decay pervaded the air all around, clinging to the atmosphere just
as the humidity caused the hunter's clothes to cling to his
body.
    Although...
    The hunter removed his bowler hat,
welcoming the slight breeze, which played among the strands of his
matted hair. He tilted his head upward and closed his eyes,
concentrating on the smell of rotted flesh. Breathing deeply of the
fetid air, his nose instinctively crinkled. That smell, strong as a
pelt to the gut, might have made any other man fall to his knees.
But not the hunter. He was accustomed to it, after so many years.
That was, he was as accustomed to the stench as every other man was
forced to become accustomed to his own waste.
    His nose ever sniffing, the hunter
turned in place, making a complete circle. He continued, as though
to make another full circle, then stopped suddenly.
    The hunter cracked a smile. His
particular line of work—if one could truly call it a line of work
at all—did not allow for many smiles, and so he had learned to take
them wherever he could.
    He lowered his head and opened his
eyes, finding himself facing the tenebrous mouth of an alleyway.
The putrid decay wafted out from that baleful opening just slightly
stronger than it was anywhere else. Staring into the interminable
darkness of the alleyway, the hunter frowned. He was not at all
fond of going into shadowed corners of any kind when hunting a
demon, especially when the hot, near-palpable odor of decomposition
was contained to the area, trapped by the walls of the narrow
passage.
    Derelict buildings loomed lopsidedly
on either side of the alley, many of their windows boarded up,
making them seem abandoned. They were not all abandoned, he knew,
from the little snatches of flickering candlelight he caught wanly
shining from behind some of the boarded windows.
    An alleyway somewhere in the middle of
the slums, such as this, was even worse. He was not afraid of the
danger; he was afraid of where his thoughts went in the silent
dark. No, the hunter had grown bored of danger a long time
ago.
    The man replaced his bowler hat atop
his head, then rested his hand on the hilt of his dueling sword
fastened at his hip—which he had only just learned this night was
not fashionable for a lord to wear at balls; canes were the fashion
now. He could never keep up with the trends of the nobles, as often
as they changed.
    With his other hand, he felt at his
revolver pistol, hidden in a holster beneath his suit jacket. He
probably would not use it. Too loud. But he liked to know it was
there. It was a gift, after all.
    A murderous demon in a
dark alley, the hunter thought. Fun. He started forward
and was quickly enveloped by the shadows.
    The alley was narrow and cramped with
trash and questionable puddles, but the way remained straight, with
no branching paths nor doorways through which the demon could have
gone. Forward was the only direction...for the most
part.
    The hunter paused at a
large heap—more a small mountain, really—of trash clogging the way,
like a pile of logs might dam up a river. A particularly smelly dam, the
hunter thought, frowning. Looks like, for
now, the way is up. Planting one foot as
firmly as he could in the heap, and finding as well a grip as was
possible with his hands, he began a sloppy ascent. As he climbed,
he hummed a soft tune to himself—something he had heard on a
phonograph recently; music was another thing changing almost as
quickly as high society's fashion, becoming more lyrical and
strumming than instrumental—in an attempt not to think of what
things laid carelessly tossed into the mountain of garbage to which
he clung.
    Rusty needles? he thought when his footing was knocked loose and
he