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“Call for backup,” he panted without taking his focus off the demon, who paced a step, a clawed hand—crystalline talons glinting—going to the wound in its side.
She’d never seen anything like it. Anything so unearthly, so primal and raging. Her memory of that night was fogged with rage and grief and drugs, so this, the real, undiluted thing—
Bryce reached for her phone, but the creature lunged for Hunt.
The angel’s blade drove home. It made no difference.
They again toppled to the path, and Hunt bellowed as the demon’s jaws wrapped around his forearm and crunched.
His lightning died out entirely.
Move. Move, she had to move—
Hunt’s free fist slammed into the creature’s face hard enough to crack bone, but the crystal teeth remained clamped.
This thing pinned him down so easily. Had it done just this to Danika? Shredding and shredding?
Hunt grunted, brow bunched in pain and concentration. His lightning had vanished. Not one flicker of it rose again.
Every part of her shook.
Hunt punched the demon’s face again, “Bryce—”
She scrambled into movement. Not for her phone, but for the gun holstered at Hunt’s hip.
The blind demon sensed her, its nostrils flaring as her fingers wrapped around the handgun. She freed the safety, hauling it up as she uncoiled to her feet.
The creature released Hunt’s arm and leapt for her. Bryce fired, but too slow. The demon lunged to the side, dodging her bullet. Bryce fell back as it roared and leapt for her again—
Its head snapped to the side, clear blood spraying like rain as a knife embedded itself to the hilt just above its mouth.
Hunt was upon it again, drawing another long knife from a hidden panel down the back of his battle-suit and plunging the blade right into the skull and toward the spine.
The creature struggled, snapping for Bryce, its clear teeth stained red with Hunt’s blood. She’d wound up on the pavement somehow, and crawled backward as it tried to lunge for her. Failed to, as Hunt wrapped his hands around the blade and twisted.
The crack of its severing neck was muffled by the moss-shrouded trees.
Bryce still aimed the handgun. “Get out of the way.”
Hunt released his grip, letting the creature slump to the mossy path. Its black tongue lolled from its clear-fanged mouth.
“Just in case,” Bryce said, and fired. She didn’t miss this time.
Sirens wailed, and wings filled the air. Ringing droned in her head.
Hunt withdrew his blade from the creature’s skull and brought it down with a mighty, one-armed sweep. The severed head tumbled away. Hunt moved again, and the head split in half. Then quarters.
Another plunge and the hateful heart was skewered, too. Clear blood leaked everywhere, like a spilled vial of serum.
Bryce stared and stared at its ruined head, the horrible, monstrous body.
Powerful forms landed among them, that black-winged malakh instantly at Hunt’s side. “Holy shit, Hunt, what—”
Bryce barely heard the words. Someone helped her to her feet. Blue light flared, and a magi-screen encompassed the site, blocking it from the view of any who hadn’t yet fled. She should have been screaming, should have been leaping for the demon, ripping apart its corpse with her bare hands. But only a thrumming silence filled her head.
She looked around the park, stupidly and slowly, as if she might see Sabine there.
Hunt groaned, and she whirled as he tumbled face-first to the ground. The dark-winged angel caught him, her powerful body easily bearing his weight. “Get a medwitch here now!”
