“Shhh,” he said, his breath warm. At first I thought he was just frisky, but he seemed rigid, tense, ready to strike. Or beat the crap out of me. What the hell?
I started to struggle, but then felt his fingers at my palm again. Only this time the heat of his touch was instantly replaced by the cool metal of a gun. I stiffened as he unholstered Margaret and tucked her into my hand.
“What—?”
I didn’t get far before his mouth was on mine. But while his mouth performed a magic spell, his tongue pushing past my lips, rendering me useless, his hands were doing something else. Then I felt the long cool metal of a knife as he pulled it out of the back of his waistband. He returned his mouth to my ear and whispered, “Call the dog.”
My pulse skyrocketed. “Why?” I asked, my voice nothing but a breathless whisper.
He lifted just enough to look into my eyes, his own full of an unspoken apology. “Because this isn’t my room.”
He kissed me again, his mouth hot on mine, and yet every muscle in his body was stretched taut with eagerness. His heart raced on top of mine, his pulse roaring in my ears. I put my hand over the side of the bed and snapped my fingers.
Artemis lifted into my palm, materializing out of the ground, and nuzzled my hand for a split second before pricking her ears. A low growl rumbled from her chest as the door eased open. She lowered onto her haunches and waited.
The door pivoted slowly, then stopped at a forty-five-degree angle. Not enough for me to make out the intruders. All I could see past Reyes’s shoulder was a hand on the doorknob. The intruder started forward a heartbeat before Artemis attacked. With a bark that vibrated against the walls, she bound forward through the half-open door and onto a possessed woman, if the feminine scream was any indication.
Reyes’s weight vanished, and in the next heartbeat, another assailant crashed into the room after having been thrown there. The door banged against the wall, and I could see the woman struggling with Artemis on the sidewalk, fighting something she clearly couldn’t see in its entirety. Even I had a problem staying focused on Artemis’s huge body as she ripped the offending soul out of her.
But before I could see exactly what happened to the demon, the one Reyes was fighting spotted me. He let out a shriek of rage and fought Reyes’s hold to get to me. It was the strangest sensation, to be wanted so desperately by a man who took no heed of the fact that his spine was bent so far out of position, it started to crack under the pressure. I could hear the sharp snaps of bones breaking, of tendons ripping and vertebrae dislodging, yet the man couldn’t take his eyes off me. He wanted me so passionately, his free arm stretched out, his eyes begging me to come closer.
And they were blue. The man’s eyes. I could just make out the demon behind them, the smoky black essence wafting off him, but the host the creature had possessed had blue eyes. So clear, they looked like a swimming pool sparkling on a hot summer day. And they watered as the pressure Reyes was placing on his throat cut off his air supply. But still he didn’t care. He clawed his way toward me with one arm, the other having been broken. It lay limp on the ground beside him, useless.
As he lunged for me in one last valiant effort, his reach appeared to lengthen. Black, razor-sharp claws appeared out of the man’s hand. The darkness of night did nothing to deter the demon from unmasking himself, from reaching out. I could see only his hand, but I knew at least that part of him was unprotected.
I leaned over the side of the bed, ignoring Reyes as he yelled at me to get back, the claw so close, centimeters away. One more ounce of effort, and he’d shred my face. I held out my hand, palm up, leaned in, and blew. As though blowing magic fairy dust, particles of light from inside me floated toward the demon, landed on his claw, and in one great burst of energy, he screamed and stumbled out of his human host.
Writhing in agony, the demon thrashed along the ground, his high-pitched cries like a thousand jet engines taking off.
Artemis pounced in the next instant, sank her teeth, locked her jaw, and ripped the life out of the beast. Killing it was almost an act of compassion at that point, it was in so much pain. I watched as its thick gaseous blood spilled onto the floor, then evaporated.
Before I realized he was angry, Reyes jerked me to my feet and looked me over from head to toe. Then he focused on my face, his own picture of astonishment. “What the f**k was that?” he asked, anger sharpening his voice.
But adrenaline rushed down my spine and through my body. I looked past him toward Artemis. She was busy sniffing the room with the enthusiasm of a hunting dog on the trail of a fox, certain she’d found the scent of another demon. She jumped through the wall into the next room before I could call her back.
Afraid I was going to be sick again, as that seemed to be my MO lately, I stumbled past him toward the miniscule bathroom near the door. He picked me up when I tripped, but I fought his hold and hurtled myself toward the toilet. The fact that I was spelunking in a porcelain bowl used for years by men with bad aim didn’t deter me from my mission. I gulped stale air and swallowed back bile as my stomach heaved unsteadily.
Reyes knelt beside me, and I felt a cool cloth at the back of my neck.
“That’s what’s driving them crazy.” He leaned forward and buried his face against my neck. “The scent of fear—your fear—is like the scent of he**in to a bona fide addict.”
“Well, I can’t help it,” I said.
“I know. It’s my fault, and I’m sorry.”