by Raquel Lyon
Before Seb could make any further protest, I pushed my stool from the breakfast bar and whistled for Rust to follow me as I left. I knew my cousin better than anyone. We’d always been closer than brothers, and I was confident he’d get over his anger as soon as we were in the clear.
As long as I came back alive.
Chapter Six
Rust enjoyed the journey to Carleigh far more than I did, and his first car ride was spent with the wind buffeting his fur as he travelled along with his head stuck out of the window and his tongue lolling down. I wasn’t planning to take him any further than my visit to pick up the instructions. Once I had them, I fully intended to drop him back home before making a start on my mission. Bringing him along wasn’t only for his benefit, but for mine, too. I needed his friendship a while longer, and having him by my side offered a distraction from what I was about to face and reminded me of who I was back when Saul was my only companion. I thought I’d said goodbye to those days, but after weeks of trying to rid myself of their effect, I had to find that man again in order to have a fighting chance with what I was about to do.
When we arrived at the crate, Rust stopped dead. He lowered his head, and a growl rumbled up his throat and out through his bared teeth. Either he had better senses than I did—unlikely—or he’d spotted a rat hiding under the piles of rubbish littering the alleyway.
“What’s up, bud? Got a sniff of something?” I asked, hardly expecting an answer, though some sort of recognition that I’d spoken would have been nice. “Well?” He ignored me and his growling continued, but now wasn’t the time to pander to Rust’s rookie antics. I had intel to collect. “Ah, forget it.”
I opened the door, and Rust backed up slowly as the steam swirled around him.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of a bit of steam. I know it’s a bit weird going into a box, but I assure you it’s different on the inside.” Trust me to choose a dog who wasn’t just a lousy hunter but a coward, too. “Look, are you coming in or not?”
Rust looked up at me and let out a soft whine before turning back to the crate and growling again.
“You’ve got two seconds to make your mind up, and then I’m leaving you here.”
Taking no notice of me again, Rust continued his protest, and I was all out of patience.
“Fine. Have it your way. Wait here, and don’t go off chasing an alley cat. I doubt you’ll catch it, and even if you do, it’ll probably scratch your eyes out. I won’t be long.” I entered the steam without looking back.
As soon as the spinning stopped, a burnt aroma drifted into my nostrils, and my hackles rose as I studied the particles of dust hanging over the terraplunger. Something was definitely amiss, and for once, my crazy mutt might actually have been on the ball. Perhaps he was learning something at last.
The door creaked as I opened it and peered through the crack, totally unprepared for the devastation that met my eyes. However impossible it seemed that an Assembly institution had been infiltrated, someone or something had really gone to town on the place and practically wiped it from existence.
Gone was the lavish interior and in its place was a war zone.
I flung the door wide and stepped into the previously ornate foyer. Bodies lay scattered in every direction. The sight didn’t faze me, but the smell of blood saturating the air lured my fangs from retreat. When you’ve killed as many times as I have, it’s easy for the bloodlust to take over you and become who you are. My wolf half always enjoyed a good fight and was primed to spill more, but my human side was disciplined enough to control it—and in half a mind to turn on its heel and get the hell out.
My first thought ran to explosives. Yanis’s door had certainly been blasted from its hinges with enough force to take the surrounding bricks along for the ride, but the three giant slashes mutilating the painting behind the bulla demon splayed over the reception desk spoke of something more sinister. My senses heightened as I stepped over smashed chandeliers and splintered furniture. Glass crunched under my boots and echoed around the high walls, the only sound in the silence of the aftermath. All around, blood oozed from corpses with missing limbs or sections of torsos and pooled on the floor. I covered my mouth with my sleeve as I intermittently stopped to check the bodies, in the small hope that I’d find a glimmer of life remaining in one of them who could shed some light on what the hell had happened.
I lost count of how many I examined before I heard groaning a few feet to my left and rushed to the side of a red-haired dude with half of his shoulder and neck missing. The dude didn’t stand a chance. What little life he clung to would desert him at any second, and then he’d be history like the rest of them. I bent my ear to his mouth as he gurgled something indistinguishable. It sounded like “get out”, but I couldn’t be sure. Besides, it seemed a little too late to be telling me that. It must have been something else.
“Say that again, mate. I didn’t quite catch it,” I said.
Blood pumped from the man’s neck, and his eyes grew wide as he gripped the collar of my jacket with what remained of his failing strength and pulled me closer. He gagged on his own body fluids and forced out more garbled words, which were annoyingly drowned out by the sound of a door slamming somewhere behind me. That sound was quickly followed by another—one I’d hoped would stay firmly in my past where it belonged. A cold chill ran up my spine at the memory, and my brain pieced together what the red-haired dude had been trying to tell me with the final breath that sighed out of his broken body. It was a warning. The cause of the devastation was still here, its claws tapping along the tiled floor as it prowled closer, and the deathly rattle of its snorts echoing around the high walls.
It was too late to run.
Readying my wolf, I turned slowly to face the culprit and looked into the fiery eyes of one of Hell’s deadliest creations.
Chapter Seven
I’d seen two kinds of hellhound in my life. The kind that Saul had been—disguised under a glamour to fool onlookers into thinking they were seeing your friendly, family pooch—and this kind, the one that towered over me, all fangs and matted fur, dripping bloodstained drool over its previous victims. Victims whose number I had no inclination to be one of.
This kind was the worst: the soldiers of Hell. They were like machines, acting on orders with one goal in mind, and they didn’t know when to stop. It was kill or be killed, and I knew which one I preferred. The question was, could I do it? They were tough fuckers, and vicious with it. Jaws of steel set in a six-hundred-pound body, sporting infinitely more testosterone than me, covered in black fur sharp enough to strip the skin from your body if you came at it from the wrong angle.
The look of them made me grateful my wolf only claimed half of my body when I shifted.
I’d fought this kind once before, years ago when a bunch of them had broken through a portal, driven by a madman’s desire that was not unlike the suspected one of the demon I was expected to stop this time around. Perhaps this was what I was supposed to do with my life, the point of my existence. Stop all the madmen. It was something I was good at, after all. Something that was worthwhile. But I’d had help back then. This time, I was alone.
The hellhound pawed at the floor, its red eyes fixed on me warily as if it could sense that I wasn’t as human as I looked—or needed to be, right at this moment. Whatever its thought process—if hellhounds were capable of thinking—its hesitation allowed me the vital seconds I required to shed my human form and take it on, beast to beast.
I straightened up just as it pounced. Fortunately, my reflexes were quicker, and I leapt over its giant form, landing and turning in time to watch it skid across the debris-strewn marble and twist to catch me in its sights once more. Then it raced towards me, legs splaying and stirring up clouds of dust in its effort to reach me before I bolted again.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
Come on, you ugly son of a bitch. Show me what you’ve got.
With inches to spare, we both reared, simultaneously striking out
claws at the other. Both of us missed. The slippery sucker was more agile than its bulk suggested. I whipped my head around as I hit the ground in time to see it think it had the jump on me, but it was wrong. I rolled from the spot it targeted in the nick of time, and instead of getting a mouthful of Lovell, its massive jaws scraped across the tiles with a cringeworthy screech.
Damn. The bastard was good.
Leaving me no breathing space, it came at me again and again. The thunder of our clashes resounded around the vast room, and any furniture that had remained unscathed from the previous attack perished in this one. Then just when I was beginning to question my skills to get a good shot in, my claws connected and gouged out a chunk of hairy hind leg. I flicked it aside with disgust. The hellhound reeled back and howled to the heavens. Not to be outdone, I threw my own head high and belted out a matching battle cry in response. Through both our roars, I heard more howling in the distance, softer and higher than the two competing for supremacy here, and the thought that Rust had finally found the balls to enter the crate caught me off guard.
A sweep of the hellhound’s foreleg tossed me up to the precariously suspended ceiling and spiked me onto a piece of jutting metal that ripped across my back as my weight pulled the adjoining chunk of ceiling crashing to the ground.
Fuck, that hurt.
My vision splintered into shards of bright light. Pain seared through my back. I swung my head from side to side to shake the confusion from it and pinpoint my opponent before it struck again. Where was that furry fuckwad? I winced as I twisted around and discovered it shaking a part of the ceiling from its back. Goddammit, even a ton of concrete couldn’t flatten the bastard. Clearly, I needed a more direct approach.
Taking advantage of its momentary incapacity, I pushed back the pain pulsating through me and pounced again. Blood pounded in my head and clouded my vision as if my brain were about to explode, but with a small amount of dexterity and a whole heap of luck, I landed on the hellhound’s back and sank my fangs into its neck. I quickly ripped out a huge chunk of it and spat the rancid flesh on the floor with revulsion.
With my last ounce of strength, I leapt free and landed breathless a safe distance away. The bastard had better stay down. I doubted I had any fight left in me for another round.
As I lay there panting with my instinct honed to watch for the slightest movement that might indicate the fight had yet to be won, my nose picked up a smell of burning, and a flicker of yellow caught my eye. It expanded and spread until flames burst forth from every inch of the hound’s limp form, eventually enveloping and consuming it. Weird. I never knew they could do that. Still, at least it was toast. Literally.
My breath left my body along with my beastly side, and my battered and bruised human form sank to the floor and let exhaustion take over as I shielded my face from the intense glare and waited for the heat to subside.
What did I do now? I’d got rid of one heap of crap and found myself slap bang in another. Should I investigate Yanis’s office, maybe see if I could find what I needed on Parker’s computer? Was it even necessary anymore? Maybe the boss was dead and there was no one left to care whether I’d been given a job to do or not.
Realising the heat had cooled enough not to singe my nose hairs, I looked up to find that it was glaringly obvious that someone cared. All that remained of the corpse was a scorch mark burnt onto the tiles. And not just any old mark. It spelled out a name.
My name.
“Well, now,” a voice said as I stared at the letters, speechless. “This is a fine situation.”
Someone was alive?
I smoothed my bangs back into place and absentmindedly pulled a hellhound hair from my tongue as I forced my head to turn from the puzzling development, only to see the ghost of the red-haired man from earlier bobbing up and down alongside me.
My eyebrows raised and I cocked my head in greeting. I wasn’t shocked to see a ghost. He wasn’t my first. Hell, Grandpa Jo still hung around, and he’d been dead for forty years. But even if I’d been able to find my voice to ask him what he meant, I had no time to. A shower of dust fell into my eyes, quickly followed by another section of ceiling that had dislodged. It smacked me square on the forehead and knocked me out cold.
Chapter Eight
I wasn’t on the roof this time; I was in a car. Whose car it was, was a mystery to me, but I remembered hot-wiring it back at our previous stop and speeding from the scene without a backward glance.
I craned my neck around the headrest to check on Saul, asleep on the back seat. He seemed to be sleeping more and more as his belly grew fuller, but he’d soon perk up when we reached our destination and he got a sniff of the demon we were about to bring down. The prospect of a good meal always reignited his fire.
Beside me, in the passenger seat, Charlotte was in a particularly good mood. There was a buzz about her that always surfaced at times like these. She systematically checked her weapons and tugged the zip of her tank top to ensure its security over her ample boobs before laying her hand over mine as I moved to switch gears and smiling sexily.
We made a great team, in tune with each other’s thoughts, and I could read hers now. She was pumped up, eager to finish our mission so we could work off our adrenaline later in some sleazy motel room, all hot and sweaty. My gaze dropped to her leather-clad thigh, and I pictured its creamy flesh wrapped around my hips, but as I looked up and raised a brow to return her thought, her gaze shot over my shoulder and her eyes widened with shock.
I whipped my head around at the very moment the door ripped from its hinges and flew behind us. So much for seeking the demon. It appeared he’d found us.
I blinked my eyes open to find Sophie leaning over me.
“So, you’re finally awake,” she said, nudging my chest playfully. “I was beginning to worry I’d never see those gorgeous eyes of yours again.”
She bent to kiss my cheek, but the touch of her lips felt rough and all kinds of wrong. I pushed her away, and she sat up, a crooked smile playing on her face. Why was she looking at me like that? Why was she in my bed? Why was I in my bed? How did I get here? The last thing I remembered was—
“There was a hellhound,” I blurted out. “It killed everyone.”
Sophie’s smile widened, and not in a good way. “We know,” she said, “and it still isn’t over, not even close. This is how it has to end.”
I opened my mouth to ask how what had to end, but before I could utter a word, a hand holding a glowing blade punched through her chest, and I watched helplessly as she caught fire and turned to ash.
I winced at my aching bones as the darkness lightened behind my lids and consciousness returned. Rust was poking me awake with his cold, wet nose. When I opened my eyes, he licked the blood from a cut on my cheek. There was something strangely familiar about the roughness of his tongue.
Damn it. Stupid fucking dreams. They couldn’t even leave me alone when I was passed out. And what was that shit with Sophie at the end? It was hard to believe my subconscious wanted her dead.
I was a mess. Maybe it was time to visit a shrink. Maybe I really was as crazy and in need of help as my family thought.
I ruffled Rust’s head and attempted to sit up, flinching as darts of pain shot through every inch of my body. The section of ceiling that had knocked my lights out lay in pieces near the flagrant reminder of what had happened before it fell—the burnt residue of my name in big bold letters across the floor. Rust stretched his neck and let out a small bark. My gaze shot up, panicked by the thought of more concrete landing on my head, but I should have known better than to credit Rust with enough brains for a sixth sense when he didn’t even possess a first. He wasn’t sounding a warning; he was saying hello to the red-headed representative whose ghostly image floated above us.
“Loyal dog you have there, boy,” the ghost said. “Clever, too. Was it you who taught him to use door handles?”
Door handles? “Um, no.” Anything I’d tried to teach him usually w
ent in one ear and out the other. “He must have struck lucky on that one.”
“Then let us hope his luck rubs off on you.”
Considering the circumstances, I was inclined to think that my luck had already been quite sizeable. “Why?”
“You should get going.”
“I will, but give me a minute, dude. My body heals quickly, but not that quick. I need more time.” I winced again, and my faced crunched. “Maybe quite a bit of time.”
I debated asking the ghost if he knew where Travers’ office was, just in case it turned out I needed the info after all. I’d rather be off the hook on the whole demon-killing lark, but if it turned out I wasn’t—
“No. No time,” the ghost said, growing agitated. “You need to leave now.”
“What’s the big hurry? The show’s over,” I said.
Except, apparently it wasn’t. A low rumble shook the floor beneath me, and as the sound grew louder, it was joined by a sharper one when paintings dropped from the walls and their glass smashed. All around me, walls began crumbling and spitting plaster into the room.
“This entire place is about to implode, and you’re too important to go down with it. So if you don’t want to end up out there,” the ghost said, angling his head to point out a hole that had appeared in one of the walls where the darkness was seeping through, “I suggest you move.”
Gritting my teeth, I pushed to my feet as cracks zigzagged across the rest of the ceiling and the floor broke apart. Black mist swirled up between the cracks, and the misery of Angornox seeped into the air. Whistling for Rust to follow, I bolted for the door, scrambling over crumbled bricks and mangled bodies, and offered up a silent prayer that the terraplunger behind it would get us out of this hellhole and back to the safety of the Towers before we added ourselves to the body count.
The door was stuck fast.
I shook the handle and then rammed the panelling with my shoulder to dislodge it from its damaged casing, but it still wouldn’t budge.
