“If you could find a way through on this side, that would be better. It’s going to be dangerous either way, but I’m thinking they won’t chase you as long as I’m here⏤”
“What the hell is going on?” Kara snapped. “Where the hell am I? How did I get here?”
Dags shook his head, still channeling the blue-green fire into the man lying on the dirt.
“There’s no time, Kara. You’re in danger, do you get that? I need you to get Ruby out of here. I really need both of you to go. Right now⏤”
“Really?” she snapped. “Do you really need me to do that, Dags? So you give orders to the L.A.P.D. now? That’s interesting. I don’t remember getting the departmental memo that I now answer to a low-grade P.I. when it comes to crimes being committed⏤”
“Kara!” Dags growled.
He glared up at her.
Something in his eyes seemed to make her hesitate, long enough for him to go on.
“Please. Please trust me. I can’t protect you if you stay here. I need you to go. For once in your life, please just trust me when I tell you this isn’t something the police can handle. I’ll tell you everything later, if you’ll just get Ruby out of here safely.”
Thinking, he nodded down at the guy he was kneeling on, without easing up on the blue-green fire he was pumping into the man’s chest.
“…and maybe this guy, too,” he amended, still thinking. “If you’ll just wait a minute, he should be well enough to go with you.”
“Did someone shoot me?” Kara burst out, her voice incredulous.
When Dags glanced up that time, she was looking at her arm, which was covered with blood, even though the bullet wound had mostly healed.
“Who the hell shot me, Jourdain? And why doesn’t it hurt more? The blood is still wet.”
He kicked himself, wondering what possessed him to bring Kara back first.
She’d arrest him as soon as listen to him, no matter what story he gave her.
He opened his mouth to answer⏤
⏤when another volley of gunshots came from the opening between the branches.
Dags didn’t think.
Lifting his knee off the man’s abdomen, he dragged the male further behind the tree, then raised the gun he still gripped in one hand. He let out six shots in quick succession, and that demon was on the ground, too.
Seeing movement on the ground, he shot that one, too, concentrating to avoid killing it when it started to climb to its feet. Then it hit him. That was the one he’d shot in the chest. When the understanding sunk in, Dags couldn’t help exhaling in relief.
Thank Christ.
He hadn’t killed that one, either.
That, or demons could walk away from gunshot wounds to the heart. Not exactly a comforting thought in some respects, but if true, it was good to know.
At that particular moment, all Dags could feel was relief.
The last thing he wanted was to kill one of Phoenix’s friends.
He looked up at Kara after he downed a third demon, only to find her staring at him, her mouth hanging open.
Her mouth shut with a snap, her jaw hard.
“What the fuck?” she burst out. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to save your life!” he growled. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”
Just then, the man under his knee started to cough like Ruby had done. The man started gasping in huge breaths, his body shuddering and contorting like each cough hurt like hell. From his facial expression, it probably did.
The black and silver, tar-like substance was starting to coming out of him, though.
“What’s wrong with him?” Kara snapped. “What are you doing to him?”
He could see the fear even more prominently in her aura now. He could also see her dealing with it by covering it over with anger. She walked directly up to Dags, staring down at the man he was channeling angel-fire into, and frowned.
A gunshot rang overhead then, causing her to duck, then slide around behind the back of the tree.
“What the hell do they want?” she said, glaring at Dags.
“They want us dead,” he said, realizing he had to tell her something, or she probably wouldn’t leave.
She might not leave anyway, but he at least had to give her something.
“You’ve been missing for a few days,” he growled, raising his voice as another volley of shots headed their way. “They drugged you or something. Hypnotized you. All of these people are hypnotized like you were.” He motioned around the clearing with his jaw as he continued to channel the angel-fire into the guy’s chest. “Even the ones shooting at us.”
“I’ve been missing?” she said. “For how long?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe as much as a week?”
“A WEEK?” she shouted.
More shots rang out, chipping off pieces of bark and embedding themselves in the dirt and the tree’s trunk. Kara ducked down and sideways, sliding further behind the oak, and scowled over at Dags.
“That’s not possible,” she informed him.
He shrugged, not willing to argue.
Leaning out from where he still had his hand pressed in the middle of the guy’s chest, he let off another volley of shots when the person out there paused their firing.
Once he got that one in the shoulder in the leg, he downed another demon who’d been in the process of climbing to their feet. Concentrating, he got them in the knee, the arm, and the hand, making it hiss and curse at him.
“What are you doing?” Kara snapped. “I thought you said they were all hypnotized?”
“They are,” Dags growled, hitting the release to drop the empty magazine to the dirt. He tossed her the empty gun. “Reload it. Nine millimeter. There should be a whole bunch of magazines for this thing in the bag.”
Nodding down at the guy under his knee, who was coughing again, Dags raised his voice over more gunfire from the opening in the branches.
“I don’t think they’re trying to kill us, or they’d just walk around the tree,” he said. “That, or they’re trying to drive us out that way, in the hopes of getting us alive.”
At her bewildered look, he nodded down at the man under his knee.
“This guy should be ready to go with you in a minute. I can handle the rest on my own, especially if I know you two got out safe. Just be sure and look before you try to leave⏤”
“What?” Kara scowled at him. “Are you out of your mind?”
He thought she was going to blow him off about the gun, but enough seemed to have sunk in with her that she took that part of what he’d said seriously. She snatched up the Steyr where it fell on the dirt and felt over it in the dark.
“Nine millimeter?”
“Right.”
She unzipped the top of the canvas bag. He saw her peering into it then, rooting around inside until she found the right magazine.
Holding it up briefly, trying to see it in the darkness behind the tree, she tried inserting it into the gun. When it fit, locking into place, she chambered a bullet, then walked it back to him, the handle facing him.
He took it from her gratefully, then motioned with the gun towards his jacket.
“I have a Beretta if you want it. In my right pocket. Or you can find something in the bag. Just try not to kill any of them. Just slow them down. Keep them from attacking long enough for me to de-hypnotize them.”
She stared at him.
He could almost feel the questions rapid firing in her brain.
“I can’t explain it to you now,” he growled. “I can’t.”
He saw her jaw harden in the glow of the blue-green light, but he saw her seem to accept that on some level, too. She returned to the bag, and began going through it, likely looking for a gun, like he’d suggested. A few seconds later, she returned to her place behind the tree, gripping a full-sized Glock-17 in both hands.
He was doing the ritual now, murmuring the words.
He saw both Ruby
and Kara staring at him, but neither of them said a word.
They continued to watch him, bewildered looks on their faces, as he continued the ritual and the light around him and the fallen man began to brighten.
A few minutes later, Dags felt it.
The last of the black gunk lifted up off the guy’s chest.
He was coughing again, but already, his coughs looked and sounded less painful and labored. Dags saw his human aura flare around him, unusually bright.
“Oh my God,” the man gasped. “Oh my God.”
He took in sucking, deep, labored breaths, and Dags took his knee off the guy’s belly, rising slowly, holding the gun in both hands again.
“Okay. Get them out of here, Kara.” He nodded towards the canvas bag. “There should be more magazines for the Glock in there. Take a few of those with you. Head for the road⏤”
“Dags!” she snapped. “Where the hell is ‘here’?”
“You’ll see when you get outside,” he said.
His eyes were already scanning the area just beneath the oak tree.
He’d forgotten they’d opened up the temple or whatever it was under there.
Concentrating his aim, he shot a woman he didn’t recognize, hitting her in the shoulder, the forearm, then in both legs, one after the other.
She let out a cry and crumpled.
Dags turned to Kara.
“Go. Just be careful. I don’t know how many of them might be out there. Try not to shoot to kill. Like I said, they’re like you were. Just slow them down, okay?”
Kara stared down at the guy Dags had just pulled the demon-gunk out of.
The man was slowly fighting his way back to his feet.
He pulled his body upright and winced violently, limping in place to get his balance, holding a hand over the half-healed bullet wound in his thigh.
He gasped again a second later, pressing his hand against another bullet wound in his shoulder and closing his eyes. He stared at Dags, his eyes widening.
“Where am I?” he gasped. “What the hell happened to me?”
“Go with her,” Dags said, nodding to Kara. “She’s a cop.”
“Jourdain!” Kara snapped.
He turned to look at her, frowning, and she exhaled in frustration.
He watched as she began rooting through the bag again, holding up more magazines to check the size and caliber. Finding ones that matched the Glock, she stuffed a few into the pockets of a leather jacket that now looked really alien on her.
She turned to scowl at him again.
“Are you really going to explain this crazy shit to me later?” she said, glaring at him as she checked the magazine on the gun, then checked the chamber and clicked the trigger twice to disengage the safety. “Really this time? Or am I going to get another load of bull-crap from you tomorrow, about how I got dosed by some kind of hallucinogen, and all of this is in my head? Including watching you perform some kind of exorcism on a Hollywood movie star?”
She motioned jerkily towards the tall black man as she said it.
Dags blinked up at the guy, frowning.
The guy was unusually handsome. Dags hadn’t really thought about it before, but Kara must recognize him from some movie or another.
Clearly, he was one of Phoenix’s friends.
Shaking it off, Dags turned back to Kara, thinking about her words.
Still aiming the gun around at the rest of the clearing, moving instinctively from one body to the next as he sensed movement, he exhaled.
“Does it matter?” he said.
There was a silence.
Then Kara let out an outraged laugh, without an ounce of humor in it.
“Does it matter?”
“Kara! I need you to go! It’s not safe for you here⏤”
But that’s as far as he got.
Another voice rose from outside the tree, drifting through the opening between the thick branches.
“It’s too late for that, Kills Many,” it said.
Male.
The voice was soft. Disturbingly familiar.
Dags could almost see him smiling through the dark.
Then several sets of pale hands pushed through the space between the branches on the other side of the tree.
Not just one person that time.
Not two. Or three.
It was a group of people, cutting off the light from the full moon.
Dags aimed the gun, going down on one knee as he instinctively drew a bead on the forehead of the person in front. He had to restrain himself to keep from pulling the trigger, even after his eyes adjusted, and he realized who it was.
It was Jade.
Her eyes were blank, almost not-there. She walked slowly and casually through the opening like she was drugged, or maybe in a trance.
Dags pulled the gun back, aiming it upwards as if he’d been burnt.
That was when Dags saw who walked directly behind her.
Uri.
Uri walked in, moving like a panther, some kind of great cat.
In his hands, he dragged someone with him, holding her out in front of him, holding her up by the throat. Dags’ oldest friend gripped that long, curved throat tightly but seemingly without effort, holding the woman halfway off the ground.
She hung there, suspended, her kicking feet barely scraping the packed dirt.
Dags stared at the face of the person Uri held, watching her claw at the man’s fingers around her neck, fighting to breathe, writhing and kicking as she tried to break free. None of her blows even made Uri wince, despite how hard she swung at him.
Dags was already lowering the gun to his side.
He’d lost.
They had Phoenix.
Chapter 28
The Wrong Things
Dags lowered the gun all the way to the ground, setting in on the dirt and holding up his hand after he’d let it go. His other hand was already in the air.
He rose slowly to his feet, watching Uri grip Phoenix by the throat.
He could see his friend’s irises all the way across the clearing.
They weren’t red.
They glowed, more brightly than the irises of the demons. But instead of that deep, blood red, Uri’s eyes glowed with white-gold light, like miniature suns.
Dags’ voice came out hard, even with his hands in the air.
“Let her go. Please.”
There was a silence. In it, Uri only looked up at him.
Dags felt his throat close. He fought not to look at Phoenix’s face, at the pleading he could see in her eyes, the panic in her movements.
“Please,” he growled. “Please… whoever you are. Let her go.”
When Uri still didn’t speak, Dags’ voice grew harsh.
“You said your leader doesn’t want her dead,” he snapped. “This ‘Father’ you all claim to follow, he wants her alive. Obey him. Let her go. Let her go and you can have me.” He cleared his throat, staring at Phoenix. “Or we’ll both leave. We won’t bother you again.”
The thing that wasn’t Uri smiled.
Dags heard rustling in the oak leaves around him.
He looked around at the demons on the ground recovering from gunshots. Some were starting to sit up, fighting their way back to their feet.
It felt like being thrust into the middle of a zombie movie.
Only he couldn’t kill the zombies.
Stepping from behind the tree trunk, his hands still in the air, Dags gave Kara a hard, warning look where she crouched against the trunk. She returned his gaze, fear in her eyes, gripping the Glock in both hands. She’d obviously figured out enough that she was staying out of sight, hiding in the shadow of the trunk with Ruby and the other guy.
Both Ruby and the male movie star looked dazed.
Ruby turned her head, staring at Dags like she’d only now noticed he was there. She leaned against the trunk, her knees drawn up, shivering in a filmy top and cutoff jean shorts. Dags hadn’t noticed her clothes until now, either.
>
She must have been grabbed during the day.
He saw Kara hold up a finger to her lips to both of them, indicating for them to be silent.
Letting his eyes sweep the rest of the space, Dags looked back at Phoenix, at the fingers squeezing her throat, the hand and arm holding her up, so she couldn’t get her balance.
“Let her go,” Dags growled. “I put down the fucking gun, Uri. What more do you want? You want me to come to you? Surrender myself? What?”
“Just take a breath, Jourdain,” Uri said calmly.
Dags flinched.
It sounded so much like his friend.
Even more than the other demons, it really sounded like him.
Dags even heard the other man’s Russian accent.
“It is me,” Uri said, almost like he heard him. “It’s not a trick. Dags, man. You need to calm down. We all just need to calm down. All right?”
He followed Dags’ eyes to Phoenix and frowned.
The Russian lowered her carefully so that her feet rested on the ground. He must have loosened his hold on her throat too, because Dags heard her gasping, sucking in fuller breaths, even as she continued to pry at Uri’s fingers around her throat.
“I’m sorry about this, with your girl,” Uri said. “I know it is hardly a way to win your trust, especially now… but I just want to talk, and you weren’t being reasonable, Jourdain. I thought if I bring your mate here, you might stop. Listen. Think.” He gave Dags a sideways smile, inclining his head. “Maybe even talk to me.”
Dags stared at him.
He saw demons entering the space under the tree from behind him.
At least eight covered that part of the clearing already.
Dags looked around at their faces.
All of them had red eyes, red irises.
All of them but one.
“Why do your eyes look different?” Dags said, motioning around at the line of silent demons. “Why aren’t yours red? Like theirs?”
“All in good time, brother.”
“No,” Dags growled. “Explain it to me. Explain it now, Uri.”
“No.”
Dags felt his jaw harden.
He glanced at Phoenix, and saw her eyes on his face. She was watching him, fear in her expression, possibly even terror, but he saw her waiting, too. She was waiting for him to do something, to get them out of this.
Bad Angel Page 23