Trapped between a Demon and a Dragon

Chapter 1

"Soon the time for revenge will come. The blood of the wicked will flow through the streets, and the sinners and the unclean will fear the Righteous and Holy. I regret that you must be a part of this plot for, as an educator, you are doing the work of our lord. But you have chosen an immoral path as well by playing house and home with a spawn of Hell itself. So you must face the consequences of your actions. Soon the timing will be right and your punishment will commence."

The letter falls out of the stack of mail that Harper brought in a few minutes ago. The envelope lacks a stamp or an address, but her name is scrawled across the front in vermillion ink. Normally she'd laugh this off as a bad joke, but after receiving these kinds of messages for over two weeks straight, Harper would admit that she is feeling a little uneasy.

It started two Fridays ago after work. Her team scheduled an impromptu afterschool meeting to discuss the Winter Formal. Since it celebrates the end of the first semester, students deck themselves out in their finest clothing: three piece suits, ball gowns, tiaras. Harper swears the kids think they are going to the Met Gala when they pick out their attire for the night. So obviously the decoration committee waited until three weeks before the event to start planning.

What was supposed to be a 30 minute meeting naturally lasted an hour and a half, meaning the parking lot was nearly empty by the time she got out there. The sun had already slid below the horizon, leaving the sky draped in a purplish haze, giving a sense of eeriness to the entire scene.

As she approached her car, Harper paused as she spotted a rolled piece of paper tucked into the space between her door handle and the side of the car. 

"I feel like I should have a live stream going just in case someone wants to kidnap me," she muttered as she neared the car. She glanced around, trying to see if anyone else was around to play witness to the sketchy situation. Of course everyone who was smart enough to leave when dismissed had already booked it to their cars and left while the overachievers would probably stay another hour or so before heading home. 

With a deep sigh and a quick prayer of " Please don't be someone's nudes," Harper yanks the note free. It was thin, only one sheet, and tightly rolled. A heavy weight filled her stomach as Harper unrolled the note and started reading the text. 

" Disgusting monsters may have invaded our town. But what do they want? Our lives? Our souls? Our children? I refuse to let them achieve their wicked goals. The monsters and those that support them will perish. If not by my hand then by the hand of my brethren."

A chill ran down Harper's spine as she took in the words. She wanted to believe that this letter was just the rambling of someone not all there or someone pulling a prank. But part of her knows that the word "monsters" could easily be replaced with the word "demon". And unless everyone in the parking lot received a letter, what are the odds that she, the girl with a demon boyfriend, would also be the one whose car gets tagged with a letter promising death to demons and their support network. Hard to believe it is a coincidence. 

The text message she got a few days later that claimed "The wicked and those who lay with them will succumb to my wraith" confirmed that the writer intended for her to find the letter. Which means that they were aware of not only the supernatural world running alongside the ordinary world, but this creep also knew about her relationship with Aeron. Granted, over the past year the two started going out in public more often and told some of their friends and family about their relationship, but the demon still tried to keep Harper a secret from most of those in the supernatural community. Many still saw relationships between the supernatural and ordinary humans as an abomination and expressed their disapproval in a violent way. So they agreed to keep it a secret in order to give Harper another layer of safety.