Was he right? Could he kill Artemis?
“I take it Reyes didn’t stop hunting your pets.”
“You knew he wouldn’t.”
He was right. I did know. “Reyes doesn’t really listen to me.”
The man leaned over to smell my hair. He took a deep whiff, practically nuzzling my neck, reveling in the scent, while he smelled like rotten eggs. I tried not to flinch when his scent burned my nostrils.
When he spoke, the smell grew stronger. Suffocating. “If I could,” he said, his voice soft, sincere, “if I had the time, I would lick the fear off every inch of your body before I bit into your flesh, but no doubt the boy will come soon.”
The moon glinted off a silvery blade in my periphery. A blade very similar to the one Earl Walker had used on me. The fear that flooded my system hit so hard and so fast, the edges of my vision grew fuzzy. I wanted to run, but Hedeshi seemed to sense every thought I had.
He put a hand on my shoulder to stay me. “I’ll make it quick, Dutch. You’ll hardly feel a thing.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice quivering, “I’ve been on the wrong end of a blade before, and I would have to argue with you on that point.”
He stepped around until I could see his face. He wasn’t tall, but I knew the demon inside gave him immeasurable strength. A humorous smile slipped soundlessly across his face. “You’re probably right.” His hand shook with excitement as he drew back the blade, and I hoped Dad would be okay with this. With my death. He’d probably take it hard.
Odd that I would think of him now.
Setting my jaw, I figured I should probably give this my all. If I was going to go out tonight, I was going to go out fighting. Or screaming in agony. Either way.
The blade rushed forward, certain to sink into my stomach, which instantly pissed me off. I’d heard death from a stomach wound was a really painful way to go. Reyes was right. These guys were liars. Before I could think about it, I blocked his attack by thrusting his hand to the side with one of mine, diverting the forward momentum. I twisted around, doing everything in my power to avoid the sharp end of the knife.
I still managed to get cut. The blade sliced across my forearm, through my jacket and into my flesh. The sting of the blade rocketed through me, but Hedeshi brought it back around for another try. He lost control for just an instant, and the demon inside the man slipped to the side. I saw him, and the sight stunned me for a moment. Long enough for him to sink the blade into my side. I rocketed to attention and pushed at him as hard as I could. Then I ran because it seemed like the right thing to do.
This was no ordinary demon, as ridiculous as that sounded. His shell didn’t swallow light like the void of a starless night. Instead, his sleek black exterior gleamed with a red translucent coating, an iridescent shine. He was something else. Something higher. Stronger.
“Older, actually.”
“Reyes,” I whispered.
I tumbled out of Hedeshi’s reach to the ground and swiveled around to see Reyes standing between us. No wonder I wasn’t bleeding from a dozen different stab wounds. Reyes held the man’s arm, the sheer strength each of them possessed causing the earth to quake beneath us. I scrambled back only to be brought up short by a hot breath fanning across my neck.
Slamming my eyes shut, I summoned Artemis, my voice nothing more than a breath on the night air. She rose from the earth beside me and lunged toward the demon at my back. Loud, guttural growls mixed with a series of inhuman screams as the demon was ripped from a woman’s body.
Hedeshi and Reyes seemed oblivious. They stood there, arms clasped, eyeing each other. The energy radiating off them caused the fabric of time to ripple around me. Their images distorted, warped, then snapped back into place. I blinked to clear my vision. To focus.
The woman lay unconscious, but I felt more demons nearby. None dared come any closer, no matter how bad they wanted to. I could feel their desire, their singular drive, pulsate around me. They craved my blood like a desert craves water, my fear driving them into a mental frenzy. But they refrained from acting on it. Artemis was too powerful. She’d disposed of one demon and now stood hunched over me.
Waiting.
Hoping.
“You can’t win,” Hedeshi said.
Reyes lowered his head. “You forget who I am.”
“Not at all.” The man smiled, his teeth gritted with effort as he struggled against Reyes’s hold. Shook with it. “You’re the boy from the village who got lost on his way to the market. Do you remember why you’re here? Why your father created you?”
Another wave rippled through the air with the heat of Reyes’s anger. “He created me so he could get out of hell.”
“That was only half of it. The other half was for you to find the portal.” He nodded toward me. “That particular portal. Why do you think he sent you here?” He leaned in until their noses almost touched. “You?”
Reyes eased back. “He sent me after a portal, any portal. Not her.” He didn’t seem quite as confident as he had before. His brows slid together in thought.
The Englishman laughed. “You really don’t remember, do you?”
“I remember everything, like the fact that all you know how to do is lie.”
“She’s royalty, boy. She’s the most valuable pawn we could ever hope to possess. And you think you can keep her to yourself?”
A knowing grin slid across Reyes’s face. “She’s also the most powerful.”
“Exactly,” Hedeshi said, his eyes suddenly bright with hope. “Think of what we can do with her. With the two of you together. That’s what this is all about. What it’s always been about.” He dropped the knife and wrapped his hand around the back of Reyes’s head, pulling him forward into a brotherly embrace, their foreheads touching in affection. “We will be unstoppable, my lord. The world will fall beneath our feet, and your father will rule at last.”
Was he telling the truth? Was Reyes sent for me specifically? He must’ve sensed my doubt. He turned slightly, watching me from his periphery. “Remember what they are, Dutch. What they do.”
“I remember,” I said, trying to scoot out from under Artemis, but she plopped a huge paw on my chest, pinning me to the ground.
“Really?” I asked her, and she leaned over with a whine to lick my face. I pulled her head down into a hug, partly to assure her I wasn’t mad at her and partly to get a better look at the two men standing before me. That’s when I saw where the knife had dropped. Not to the ground as Hedeshi had expected, but into Reyes’s hand.
He took hold of the man’s head, seeming to embrace him back, and plunged the knife into his gut in one lightning-quick strike. Hedeshi gaped at him, his shock genuine as he stumbled back. “You would deny your father his throne?”
“It was never his,” Reyes said, plunging the knife again. Forcing it up his torso. An instant later, the knife reemerged from just underneath the Englishman’s chin.
Hedeshi looked at me, his eyes watering in pain. “Just remember what I’ve told you about him.”
I tried to tamp down the horror I felt at watching a man being cut open. “I’ll tie a string around my finger.”
Another stab wound wrenched a ragged groan from his throat. “He is not what you think he is.”
I thought of my father. Of Harper and Art and Pari. Of pretty much anyone I’d ever known in my entire life, and answered him as truthfully as I could. “No one ever is.”
Reyes embraced him again and plunged the knife into his side. “Your first mistake was coming for her,” he said into the man’s ear.
Hedeshi coughed, knowing full well he was taking his last breaths. “And my second?” he asked as blood gushed out of his mouth.
“Believing that you could get past me.”
The man smiled and said in the gentlest of voices, “Attack.”
And that was pretty much when all hell broke loose.
20
It puts the lotion in the basket.
—T-SHIRT
Unfortunately, Artemis used my body as a launching pad, ridding me of a kidney named Percival and quite possibly Harold, my spleen. I cradled my stomach, then scrambled to my feet and reached for the closest thing at hand—a leaf rake leaning against the building.
That’s when I realized Mrs. Allen had come outside to let PP the miniature poodle go potty. PP went berserk at all the action. Mrs. Allen yelled at him to get back inside, but PP was beyond listening to anything she had to say. I scooted back in surprise as he attacked a burly man headed toward me. The guy had enough weight on him to be taken seriously. Not as much as the sumo wrestler, but I wouldn’t have challenged him to a thumb war if my life depended on it.
He crept forward, literally crawling on hands and knees, stalking me in a slow methodical march, victory so close, so sweet, he must’ve wanted to savor the moment. PP barked and leapt off the ground, sinking his toothless gums into the man’s ear.
He cursed and shook off the dog, but Artemis took over from there. She’d already disposed of another demon, leaving a guy around my age lying unconscious in the small square of grass that lined the apartment building. Now she pounced on the heftier man, her snarls of rage enough to cause goose bumps to jut out all over my skin.
I glanced at Reyes and the demon. One incorporeal being against another, his enveloping black robe making much of the fight impossible to see. But what I did see was surreal, otherworldly, and my mind had difficulty processing it. Their movements were so fast, so fluid, it was like watching two oceans collide. Then I looked at his physical form. He had the sumo wrestler in a headlock, one knee jabbed into the man’s back. In the next instant, the man’s head snapped to the side with a sharp crack. He slumped to the ground instantly. But I knew from experience that wouldn’t last long. He’d be back up in a matter of moments.
I tore my gaze away. The Englishman’s body lay limp on the paved lot. I gripped the leaf rake and started toward him as PP went after another possessed woman. Hunched a few feet from me, she seemed confused. She wanted me but didn’t seem to know why. And when PP nipped at her fingers, she appraised him with a vacant stare as though trying to figure out exactly what he was.
I took the break to check on the Englishman, but the instant I started toward him, I could tell he was already dead. That’s when I realized another of the possessed had picked up the knife, his eyes glistening with hunger as he came for me. I met him halfway, pitching forward and lashing out with the rake. Just to stop it. To slow it down.
The bristles of the rake scraped harmlessly across its face, doing little damage, but I did manage to knock the knife out of his hand. He looked to the side, and the distraction granted me enough time to crash into him, another male in his early forties. He seemed unable to believe his luck as we tumbled to the pavement and skidded across the lot. Dirt and gravel ground into my shoulder. He straddled me, took my head into his hands, and started to twist.
He was going to break my neck, and I hated having my neck broken, so I lifted my legs, leveraged my feet up and around his head, then jerked back, knocking him off balance long enough for me to almost make it out from under him. But he threw his weight on top of me.
I fought his hold, elbowed him across the face, and crawled forward, fighting for every inch I gained. Before I knew it, his hands were gripping my head again. He really wanted the kill. When he twisted, I rolled with it, forcing him to go for a better hold. But Artemis finally ripped into him, hurtling herself right through the human’s body and dragging the demon out with her as she landed. The man went limp on top of me, and I lay pinned to the ground.
I looked over and realized Artemis had already taken care of the demon inside the man Reyes had been fighting, the sumo wrestler. Only one demon remained. The woman. She came into view as I lay right in front of her, easing over me, drool dripping from her mouth and into my hair.
A mountain lay atop me, and a possessed woman sat studying my every feature as though I were a specimen in a petri dish. I looked to the side just as Reyes sliced through Hedeshi’s demon self, cutting him in half at the hips. He’d screamed and started back for more, when Reyes swung again. He severed its head, and with its death, it evaporated like smoke on dry ice.
When another drop of drool landed on my temple, I shivered in revulsion. But at least she wasn’t trying to break my neck.
I looked to my other side. PP and Mrs. Allen were gone. She’d probably call the police.
Artemis came into view then, her stubby tail wagging in excitement, ready for more. She hunched down by my side with a begging whine. Reyes stepped beside me, and his incorporeal body reentered his physical one. The robes settled around his shoulders, then disappeared as he dragged the man off. Grateful, I stood, wiped my face and hair, then stepped to the woman, who sat on her knees, now staring at the grass where I’d been.
I knelt down and talked to the demon inside. “This is not going to end well for you.”
She looked up at me, her lids fluttering, and said, “Let me go now and I’ll spare the woman.” Then her brows crinkled and she stared into space again. She was fighting it. The woman. She was fighting the hold the demon had on her.
Sensing the new danger, Artemis crept forward until her jaws were at the woman’s neck, her teeth bared and glistening, saliva dripping off her jowls. The demon flinched, and its head turned toward her. Artemis struck in the next instant with a ferocious bark that shook the windows. The demon didn’t stand a chance. She yanked it out and tore it to pieces until it was nothing more than a heavy vapor. From there, it evaporated, its immeasurable darkness dispersing in the air.
The woman collapsed into the cold grass, and I turned her head to make sure she could breathe. Reyes bent to help, and only then did I realize that he had fought a demon while his incorporeal self was out of his body. He’d never been able to do that. Normally when his incorporeal self left, he entered a seizurelike state.
I leaned back, regarded him warily. “You—You’re—You told me you couldn’t do that,” I finally said accusingly. “You fought a demon without—” I fought for the right words “—without your soul.”
Reyes was checking the woman’s pulse. “Couldn’t,” he said absently before turning back to me. “Can now.” He stood and offered me his hand. He seemed distant, hurt.
“That’s it?” I asked. “You just can now?” When he only shrugged, I asked, “Is that all of them?” I hoped that with the absence of Hedeshi, their leader, there would be no more demons to contend with.
“For now.” He frowned and looked past the building down the alley. “Until they figure out a better way to get at you.”
We were still at an impasse with the picture. And I still had to wonder if he had been cleared of murder charges only to become an arsonist. Why would he burn down that building? Any of them? He’d lived there, but why burn them down?
I had to remember what he came from. I’d been tortured by Earl Walker once and only once, and I had been changed mentally, physically, and emotionally. I became a different animal. What would years of that do to a person? Decades of living and breathing fear, day in and day out? Of being used and abused, beaten and starved, with no haven, no safe place to hide? The thought cinched my ribs around my lungs.
He watched me from underneath his lashes, his expression knowing. “You aren’t feeling sorry for me, are you? I would hate to have to remedy that.”
Yep, he was still mad. “And just how would you accomplish such a thing?”
The resignation on his face stole my breath. “Believe me when I say you don’t want
to know.”
Before I could manage a reply, a thunderous crack exploded in the air behind him. He turned toward the sound and I looked past him, sensing danger instantly. The world thickened and slowed, but not fast enough. Reyes stepped in front of me as a bullet that had been rocketing toward my head tore through his chest instead. It exited out his back and continued its journey, the metal fragmented, but whole enough to finish what it had started.
Then, in a feat that stunned me to my core, Reyes turned, too fast for me to see, and caught it in midair.
I stumbled back and looked on as Reyes opened his palm to examine the bullet. But he was corporeal. When the bullet hit, he hadn’t had time to separate. To try to stop it with his incorporeal self. Blood spread across his T-shirt so fast, I grew light-headed at the sight of it. He coughed, and blood bubbled out of his mouth.
His gaze met mine as he fell to his knees and whispered, “Run.”
I rushed forward to catch him and caught a glimpse of the culprit cowering on top of a building down the street. I expected another demon. Perhaps one who’d wised up and decided to bring weapons of mass destruction to the party. But it was the blond biker from the bank robbery. The one who had been kicked out of the military, who hadn’t finished his sniper training. I stood there, beyond flabbergasted. Apparently, he really didn’t want any witnesses.
Anger surged inside me faster than the splitting of an atom. Like a volcano bursting through the top of a mountain, fury erupted out of me in one blinding flash. Windows shattered and shards of glass hung like a menagerie of shimmering color as I walked toward Blondie, determination locking my teeth together. He was reloading the rifle, his movements slow in the adjustment of time, sluggish. He brought the butt to his shoulder, leaned his head over until the image from the scope came into view. Just as his finger started to squeeze the trigger, I reached into his chest and crushed his heart. It beat once, twice more, then stopped altogether. And satisfaction coursed through me like cool water dousing a wildfire.
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