by Anya Bast
Micah pushed his glass away. “Damn, you’re both depressing the hell out of me tonight.”
Thomas glanced at him. “That’s because it’s a fucking depressing night.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Adam hoisted his glass.
Thomas fished some bills out of his wallet and tossed them on the bar. “Finish up, guys. I want to get back to the Coven.”
“Back to Isabelle, you mean,” said Adam, right before he drained his glass.
“Yeah, back to Isabelle.”
He and Micah finished their drinks. They settled their bill and headed outside to the car, parked in a lonely part of the nearly empty lot. Above their heads, the full moon lit their path across the parking lot. Gravel crunched beneath their shoes.
As Thomas hit the remote locks on the door, he heard a low moan coming from around the side of the building.
“What the hell?” whispered Adam.
Furrowing his brow, Thomas pocketed his keys and edged his way around the side of the building, trampling weeds and tripping over litter as he followed the low sound. Adam and Micah stayed behind him.
At the back of the bar lay an employee parking lot. Three cars were parked there and a Dumpster stood near the rear exit. Weeds sprouted through the cracked pavement. Shrubs and small trees grew around the periphery.
They stopped at the corner of the building and waited until another low moan resonated in the night air. It came from behind the Dumpster.
Thomas turned and motioned for Micah and Adam to go around the opposite side of the Dumpster. The three of them moved in close. Thomas didn’t pull his sword yet. It could be anything from a prostitute or some other illicit liaison to a mugging to—
“Demon,” he murmured.
He could smell him — that distinct dry, earthy smell that wasn’t quite of this earth. Perhaps it wasn’t Earth, but Eudae. Catching Adam’s eye, Thomas reached over his head, grasped the handle of the sword and drew it slowly.
The moan came again. Thomas and Adam rounded the corners of the Dumpster at the same time, cautiously, swords held ready to swing. The brunette from the bar lay crumpled on the ground in fetal position. The demon was nowhere in sight, but his scent lingered in the air. The man who’d been with the woman in the bar was also missing.
Adam ran to the woman, knelt, and laid his sword on the pavement beside her shoulder. “Susan? Can you hear me?”
The woman moaned again and put a hand to her head.
Thomas sank to the ground on her other side. Blood marked her cheek and spattered her shirt. Thomas suspected her nose might be broken. “Susan, where is your date? Where is the man you were here with?”
She rolled to her back, wincing. “Jake?”
“Yes, Jake. Where is he?”
She moaned again and Adam pulled her onto his lap. “There was a…man…a big man. At least I think he was a man. He didn’t seem human, but didn’t feel like a witch. He punched me and fought with Jake.” She swallowed hard. “Jake lost. The man dragged him off.”
“In what direction did the man take Jake?”
Susan raised a trembling arm. She pointed to the scrubby line of vegetation that edged a small stand of trees around the employee parking lot. “There. He dragged him in there.”
Thomas stood and grabbed his sword. “Micah, get this woman medical attention. Adam, come with me.”
He and Adam took off in the direction she’d pointed, wading cautiously into the weed-choked area. Brambles pulled at his clothing and vines tried to trip him. Thomas could detect no scent of the demon now and could hear nothing — no struggle. Were they too late?
They made their way through the clearing and found themselves behind a factory. The gentle whirr of a ventilation system met their ears.
A short distance away they could see a vintage Harley parked in another lot, metal and chrome gleaming in the moonlight. Glimpsing it at the same time, he and Adam both walked toward it. Boyle had come to snatch a pretty big witch, but the demon wouldn’t need physical means to transport Jake out of here. He might have come on his cycle but he likely planned to leave through a doorway with his captured prey. Micah had found an entry in the texts that said it was possible for Boyle to do that.
A blur of motion came toward them from Thomas’s left. They both whirled toward it and something caught Adam in the face. Whatever it was moved too fast for Thomas to track. Adam grunted and collapsed.
Then nothing. Silence but for Adam’s harsh breathing and soft curses uttered from where he lay sprawled on the ground.
“You okay?” Thomas said, making a wary circle with the sword in hand. The scent of demon now filled the small clearing they stood in.
“No, goddamn it. That’s a dumb question,” groaned Adam, but he struggled to his feet anyway.
The blur came again, this time straight at Thomas. He swung his sword, hit air. Then a heavy fist struck the side of his head and it was his turn to kiss the ground.
Thomas blacked out for a moment under the force of the punch, but then pushed quickly to his feet, knowing they didn’t have much time. The demon was just playing with them now and it wouldn’t take long before he got serious. Nausea rolled around in his stomach as he balanced unsteadily, pain throbbing through his head and shoulders.
Playing with demons was just no fun at all.
He and Adam exchanged a glance and stood ready in the moonlight, both swaying a little. Blood trickled into Thomas’s eye and made it burn.
Silence.
Stillness.
From Thomas’s right came another blur of motion. With all his might, he concentrated on the movement and calculated the swing of his sword. Blade bit into flesh and Boyle roared. The demon’s fist came down again, backhanding Thomas. His sword flew from his grasp to land in the nearby brush.
As Boyle lifted his hand again, Thomas tapped his magick. Power coursed, channeled through his chest and down his arm. He concentrated it on the earth beneath Boyle’s feet, causing it to rumble and shake.
Boyle, caught off balance, stumbled backward. Adam stepped in immediately, swinging his sword at the demon who dodged the blow at the last second. The blade whistled through the air an inch from the demon’s throat.
Thomas lunged for his lost weapon. As his hand closed around the grip, he heard Adam’s warning, “Watch out!” and rolled to the side to see Boyle had picked up a huge branch and was attempting to skewer him with the end like a marshmallow at a campfire. The end of the branch stuck in the ground where Thomas had been just a moment before.
Thomas took the opportunity to swing the blade in an arc toward Boyle’s knees, but the demon managed to pull the branch free and block his swing. The blade stuck fast in the wood like Excalibur to stone. Boyle and Thomas both pulled to extract their weapons at the same time. Wood and blade separated. Thomas rolled away while the demon turned and engaged an attack from Adam.
He pulled himself to his feet and glimpsed a prone figure in the weeds. Jake. Thomas couldn’t tell if he still lived or not.
Thomas turned and bellowed, “What do you want with them?” Rage and frustration made the words echo raw and bloody into the night air, pulled from his throat with savage intensity.
Just then Adam sank the sword into the demon’s leg. Boyle yelled out in pain and punched Adam so hard he flew backward, hit the ground and lay still. Icy fear clenched in Thomas’s stomach. He wanted to get to him but at the moment a very pissed off demon blocked his way.
Boyle turned, pulled the sword from his leg and tossed it to the side. “I want to go home!” He took several menacing steps toward Thomas. The demon’s skin now had an unnatural reddish cast to it. His eyes had bled to obsidian and the demon’s grimace revealed unnaturally sharp teeth.
According to Micah these bodily changes meant the demon had entered a killing rage. Fun.
“I just want to get home, aeamon,” repeated Boyle.
“So you’re using the witches to open a doorway between Earth and Eudae? Is that what you�
�re doing?”
“I am amused by the tie you have with the water witch, but your ignorance annoys me.”
Thomas circled the demon warily, sword tight in his grip. He really didn’t like any words coming from the demon’s mouth that concerned Isabelle. “Since I’m so ignorant, why don’t you enlighten me?”
“Educating you is not my concern, aeamon. You’re only delaying me.”
“Really? Are you in a hurry?” He paused for a moment and then rasped, “Tell me how you’re doing it, Boyle.”
“It’s almost done. I have only two more keys to make and I’m finished. This is nothing to you, and I have nothing to say. Leave me alone. Let me go home.”
“This is everything to me! You’re killing my people!” Thomas’s throat felt raw more from shouting and rage than from the beating he’d taken. Rage at not being able to stop the demon filled every molecule of his body.
“Your people, my people. We are all one people. I want to go home. Stop trying to prevent me. Once I am gone, the killing will stop.”
“Are we really related, Boyle?” he pressed. “Are witches the offspring of demons?”
“Yes. We are kin.”
Thomas lunged for Boyle, bitter acid roiling through his stomach and burning his throat. The demon stepped to the left, but Thomas anticipated his move and twisted his blade to intercept. It caught the demon deeply in the side.
The wound smoked and the skin peeled away, just as the first time Isabelle had used her knife. Boyle keened in pain and the first drops of his acidic blood began to fall.
Thomas only had a moment to consider why this particular stroke of the copper blade had caused the reaction when the others had not, perhaps because the blade had bit so deeply. Screaming in agony, Boyle swung his heavy tree branch like a baseball bat and hit Thomas in the midsection.
Home run.
Thomas’s breath woofed out of his lungs as pain exploded through his body. His feet left the earth and he landed heavily on his side, his head making hard contact with the ground. His vision blurred and his breath gone, he saw the demon there one moment and not the next.
Thomas thought of Isabelle, irrationally — her face, the feel of her breath on his throat, the scent of her skin. Lord and Lady, he wanted Isabelle now.
All he got was blackness.
EIGHTEEN
“WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?” ISABELLE RACED DOWN the steps of the Coven, her bare feet slapping on the pavement.
A blast of cool early morning air billowed under the T-shirt and boxers she’d worn to bed since Jack McAllister had been babysitting her…and because she didn’t want to be sword fighting in the nude if the demon showed up in the middle of the night. That would be inconvenient.
Some of the stronger male Coven witches helped Adam and Thomas, both clearly injured, into the house. Others carried a large unconscious man whom Isabelle didn’t recognize.
Damn it, she wanted to be mad at Thomas for forcing Jack on her, but instead she was terrified for him. Thomas and Adam both had torn clothing. Blood and dirt streaked their faces and shirt collars. Bruises bloomed all over both them and Adam’s lip was split. Thomas walked with a distinct limp, aided on one side by his cousin Micah.
“What the hell happened?” she demanded to know again once she reached the motley group.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Micah answered her. “They met the demon and the demon won.”
“Demon didn’t win,” slurred Adam. “Demon didn’t kill us. Demon left his prey. So…didn’t win.” He staggered forward and almost planted his face on the steps — an extra injury he didn’t need — before the two witches helping him walk managed to catch him. “He did kick our asses though.”
“Prey?” The word stopped her in her tracks.
Thomas held Isabelle’s gaze. Now she saw his lip was also split. Blood covered the right side of his face. “The demon didn’t get Jake, so he didn’t win.”
“What? Who the hell is Jake?”
Thomas motioned with his head to the unconscious man they were just getting through the front doors of the Coven. “Isabelle, meet Jake. Jake, Isabelle.” The unsplit part of his mouth crooked upward in a smile before he winced and dropped it. “I don’t think he’ll say hi right now.”
She frowned. “Cute. Did they give you painkillers or something?”
He grimaced, but Isabelle was pretty sure he meant it to be a grin. “I missed you.”
She looked at Micah. “Seriously, did you give him painkillers?”
Thomas grimaced again. “I’ll tell you everything, Isabelle. Stay with me while Doc Oliver patches me up.”
Isabelle followed them into the house and down a corridor to Doctor Oliver’s facilities. They entered the large waiting room after Adam. Doc Oliver and her nurses did a booming business at the Coven these days.
Jake, Boyle’s almost-dinner, was being pushed into one of the private examination rooms on a gurney. “Is he going to be all right?” she asked Micah, watching the door close behind them.
Micah shrugged. “I think he’s just been knocked out cold, but it’s too early to say. The doctor needs to look at him.”
Thomas rebuffed Micah’s attempt to lead him to an examination room and sank down into one of the plush burgundy waiting room chairs. Adam had disappeared into one of the other rooms, probably to await the doctor like Thomas. Clearly, she needed to deal with Jake first. His injuries were the worst.
A nurse approached Thomas, but he waved her away. “I’m fine, see to Adam first.” He sounded grouchy. The nurse nodded and moved away.
“Thomas—” Isabelle objected. He didn’t look fine to her, covered in blood, wincing, bruised, and limping.
He held up a hand. “Really, Isabelle. I’m okay. I didn’t break anything…I don’t think.”
“Great. You don’t think. Stubborn,” she muttered, shook her head and gave up. “Tell me about this guy Jake and how he came to be Boyle’s prey.”
Thomas adjusted his position for more comfort, trying not to jar his leg. Micah had taken a chair nearby. “We went to the Red Rock. It was our last stop for the night.”
“We all thought the troll for Boyle was a wash…again,” Micah added.
“But as we were leaving we heard sounds coming from behind the building. When we went around to investigate, a woman was there, beaten nearly unconscious. We recognized her from the bar, but she’d been with a man—”
Isabelle stopped chewing her thumbnail to ask, “Jake?”
“Yes. We could smell the demon had been there. That damned stink of turned, scorched other-Earth was in the air. So when she pointed to the stand of trees nearby, we went for it.”
“I stayed behind to help the woman on Thomas’s orders,” Micah interjected. “Adam and Thomas went in.”
Thomas shifted again and closed his eyes for a moment. Isabelle battled the urge to call for the nurse. “We fought the demon. He kicked our asses, but I managed to lay one good swipe into him with my sword — a swipe that gave him that allergic reaction, or whatever it is. It made him leave immediately…without Jake. Maybe I laid into him so deep whatever he did to give himself resistance to the copper couldn’t work. I don’t know.”
Isabelle nodded. “So you think the demon was lying in wait for Jake as his next victim and you interrupted the abduction?”
Thomas nodded. “That’s what I think.”
She glanced at Micah. “So when you were finished helping the injured woman, you came back and found them?”
Micah nodded. “I called the Coven and they came out immediately.”
Isabelle turned away, Boyle’s words echoing in her head. I will come for you when I am ready. I have work to do before you. How many others were to come before her? When would Boyle come for her?
“Isabelle, are you all right?”
She turned to see Thomas’s concerned expression. “I’m sick of this, sick of being one step behind Boyle.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. Thomas looked weary and
she knew it was from more than a simple lack of sleep or his current physical condition. “Me, too, Isabelle. If we hadn’t found Boyle when we did, Jake would have been the next victim.”
Isabelle wrapped her arms around herself and hugged. “And who knows if the demon hasn’t already chosen a replacement.” She swallowed. “Maybe two of them.”
Thomas’s jaw worked as he probably gritted his teeth. “I know. Takes the shine off stealing Boyle’s prey tonight.”
All three of them fell silent. In the other room they could hear the doctor and her assistants working on Jake. Urgent, raised voices, beeping machines, shuffling feet.
Apparently Jake was worse off than Micah thought.
“Damn it. I have to get out of here.” Thomas pushed up from the chair onto his bad leg and winced. “I’m starving. Let’s go get something to eat.”
Isabelle gaped. “What? You need to be seen by the doctor.”
Micah blew out a frustrated sounding breath. “Don’t be dumb, boss. You’re bleeding all over the place and your eye is almost swollen shut.”
Thomas touched his forehead. “The bleeding has stopped and my injuries aren’t as bad as Jake’s or Adam’s. Anyway, she’s going to be a while. I can grab a bite and be back before she’s ready for me.”
“You stay here. Let me go get you something, Thomas.” Isabelle moved toward the door, but he caught her wrist in his iron grip.
“We’ll go together. I’m sick of seeing Micah’s ugly mug. It’s the first damn thing I saw when I came to. All that on nothing but bourbon in my stomach. It’s enough to—”
“Hey, hey!” Micah objected with a raised hand. “All right already. Go on. I’ll tell the doc you’ll be back soon and to tend to Adam first.”
“Thanks, cousin.” Thomas answered with a grimace-trying-to-be-a-grin and moved toward the door. “You know I was only partially kidding, right?”
“Partially. Yeah, got it. I feel the love, I really do.” He paused and glanced at Isabelle. “You know I have you to blame for this.”
Isabelle lifted her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”