“There are demons, Darien,” she whispered. “They’re hunting us.” He was about to ask who she meant byus—when he heard her dog bark in the background.
It was Darien’s turn to swear as the baying of demons crackled through the phone. “Turn on your location.Now,Loren.” He was already in the car, reversing at eighty miles an hour through the gates that barely swung open on time.
Loren sobbed, “Darien, I’m sorry—”
The phone cut out, as though she’d dropped it. But not before he heard the snarling.
Not before he heard her scream.
—
The lightbulb burnt out.
Everything happened so quickly, Loren could barely make sense of it all.
As soon as that bulb imploded with a noise like a paper bag popping—and the disc of light she and Singer were standing inside plunged into murky darkness—the demons snarled and lunged.
She fired the pistol into the shadows, the kickback reverberating through her wrists hard enough to bruise. Each bullet cracked through the night.
There was a spray of blood, and claws tore into the flesh at her collarbone as a demon slammed into her with the force of a truck. A sharp burning arrowed deep, the feeling so intense she almost passed out. Her thoughts were barely clear enough for her to realize she should shield her throat from those teeth and claws as she went down.
She hit the asphalt, bones barking, one hand gripping the pistol while the other took the brunt of the attack. Teeth like razors ripped into her hand.
A dark shape blurred in front of her. The claws were jerked out of her skin as the demon attacking her tumbled down the alley. The demon was yowling in pain, fighting to stay on its feet under the blows of the dark shape that had intercepted it.
Singer had tackled the demon to get it off her and was now pinning it beneath his paws. But his strength was waning as the thing thrashed and bit and swept with sharp and deadly hands. Four yellowed claws struck deep, sinking right into the soft flesh between two of Singer’s ribs.
Singer arced his back and gave a pained yelp.
Loren was screaming as she fumbled to take aim. She wasn’t sure what she was saying. It might’ve beenno.It might’ve beenstop.
She squeezed the trigger.
Another demon charged for her, knocking the gun out of her grasp. There was a bang and a crack as her bullet careened off-course and connected with brick, shattering it into red dust.
She had to get to Singer; had to save him.
Loren moved. Fast, like she’d seen the slayers move.
She wound up her leg and kicked the demon hard in the side of the head. It yelped and stumbled, allowing her just enough time to grab the gun again. She whipped back around, took aim, and shot a bullet right through its open mouth as it dove for her exposed neck. The bullet tore out the back of its head with an explosion of brains and black, sticky blood.
It collapsed onto her, dying with one last click of its jaws.
She drove its limp body aside with an upward push of her legs and whirled until she was kneeling, taking aim again for the demon that was now upon Singer. Aseconddemon, for Singer had managed to kill the first.
Singer’s body bowed in agony as those black teeth tore into his throat, easily digging through skin and muscle and tendon—
Loren fired.
And fired.
And fired.
There was no room in her head for thoughts. No room in her heart to feel anything as an icy, numbing rage washed over her. As she killed that abhorrent creature—as shebutcheredit.
And she was as much a demon as those creatures were as she growled,“Don’t. You. Touch. Him.”
Rising off the cold, blood-covered ground, she emptied the magazine of bullets, each shot cracking through the night. By the time she was finished, the creature’s misshapen skull was riddled with them. Black, reeking blood dribbled in lines down its wrinkled skin, fizzling like acid as it moved.
