"How are we supposed to get there?" I said. "Jump?"
She offered a brief smile before racing across the deck and launching herself across the wide gap between the deck and the roof of the next apartment building over. Dad followed. My guts knotted tight. It was one thing vaulting backyard fences with Katie on my back and quite another to risk a five-story plunge which would hurt me like hell and probably kill Katie.
Her grip tightened as I contemplated the edge. A whimper escaped her throat and I felt her face press against my back. I hoped to god she had a strong bladder.
"Just get off and hide," I said. "You shouldn't be involved in this." Plus I really wanted the extra load off. I was pooped.
"You'll make it. I trust you."
I sighed. "Why are you doing this? I told you I love Elyssa."
"I want you, Justin, but if I can't have you, I want to know what in the world is going on here. You're like superheroes or something. Just like the ones my little brother reads about in his comic books."
I chuckled. "Hardly." If anything, I was the villain. Demon spawn weren't heroes in anyone's book.
Elyssa and Dad waved me over, their faces tight with urgency. I took a deep breath. Ran at the ledge. Jumped. Katie shrieked as we cleared the gap. I couldn't help but look down at the hard concrete sidewalk far, far below. My feet hit the roof. I stumbled as Katie's weight shifted, but managed to stay upright. A mournful howl gripped the chilly air. Dad cursed. Elyssa gasped. I spun and saw our pursuers staring from across the parking deck roof at us. One of the men reared his head back and loosed a chilling inhuman howl which about made me wet my pants. It was a howl of despair and hopelessness. Resistance is futile, it seemed to say. No matter how hard or fast we ran, they would catch us. Besides, why run? We had nowhere to go.
Dad grabbed my arm and wrenched me around. "Ignore the howls, Justin. Shut them out of your mind. Don't let them control you."
Katie's grip loosened on my neck. Sobs shook her body. "We're going to die. It's useless. Life is pointless."
Elyssa dropped to her knees as tears poured from her face. "He's dead," she said. "And it's all my fault." My duffel bag slid from her shoulder and thumped on the roof.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked, shaking off the melancholy mood as both the men continued to howl while they slowly advanced across the parking deck roof for us.
"Their howls kill hope," Dad said. "They bring back our worst memories and nightmares. Thankfully, we spawn are not as easily influenced." He dragged Elyssa to her feet, tried to shake her out of her misery, but it didn't help.
Katie dropped off my back like a sack of potatoes, bawling her eyes out.
"Dad, they're coming. We have to carry the girls."
He glared at our pursuers, his eyes glowing ice-white with fatigue. Mine probably matched his. I wanted to find a nice quiet spot, go to sleep, and dream about kittens. "Justin, if they corner us while we're this tired, we may spawn."
"We'll manifest into our demon forms?"
He gave me a sideways look. "If that happens, we won't be able to control ourselves. We might rampage. People could die."
"What do we do?"
He took a deep breath and picked up Katie, slung her over his shoulder. "We're almost downtown. No matter where we go for miles in any direction we'll run into densely populated areas."
"So, our only chance is to outrun them."
He nodded. "Yeah." The answer sounded dry in his throat.
I looked back at the hounds. "Why aren't they running?"
"I don't think they can howl and run at the same time. They probably think we're immobilized."
"On three?" I scooped up Elyssa and slung her over a shoulder, grabbed my duffel with a spare hand.
Dad gave me a lopsided smile. "One. Two. Three."
We bolted. The howls ceased. Elyssa and Katie bounced against our backs with each long stride, and flopped with each leap. We cleared six rooftops and leapt to the parking deck roof. The hounds leapt each gap with high, graceful jumps belying their huge lumbering forms. I spotted an old tire leaning against the parking deck wall. Dropped my duffel. Gripped the inside of the tire with my free hand. Spun and launched it as the hounds leapt the next-to-last roof. It caught one square in the chest as he hit the apex of his jump. He yelped, sounding like a wounded dog, and vanished between the buildings. His comrade ignored him and came at us, face snarling, his unnaturally long tongue flapping and slavering.
Dad paused at the top of the ramp when he realized I wasn't right behind him. I retrieved my duffel, sprinted to him, and we made our way down the ramp and into the parking deck. Shouting echoed from ahead. A man stood outside his white crew-cab pickup examining the side where a woman in a blue Toyota must have hit him. The woman cowered in fear as he screamed obscenities in her face. Fury rode a rising tide of hot anger in my chest.
"You stupid, blind idiot!" the man shouted. "How could you possibly miss seeing me when I backed out? Women drivers are all brain-dead. Shouldn't even be allowed behind the wheel of a car!" The man's eyes widened with shock the moment he saw us rushing down the ramp, girls slung over our shoulders like a couple of cavemen.
I lengthened my stride, reached him, and punched him square in the nose. He staggered in a wobbling half-circle before face-planting on the concrete. I grabbed him with my free hand and dragged him against the opposite wall, out of the way. "We have an emergency," I told the shocked woman with the blue Toyota. "Tell him he can get his precious pickup later." I glanced back up the ramp. "Now get out of here and hide!"
She bolted like a crazed jackrabbit.
Dad and I slung the girls into the back seats of the crew cab, not bothering to buckle them in as the panting of the hound grew louder. I unslung the duffel from my shoulder, tossed it to Dad, and hopped in the driver's seat. The truck peeled out under my desperate guidance while Dad turned around and tried to buckle the dazed girls in.
"What—what happened?" Elyssa asked, seeming to recover her wits. She buckled herself in before Dad could finish securing Katie's grief-stricken form.
"Hellhound howls," Dad said. "I'd have thought Templars might know how to protect against those."
"I've never encountered them." Elyssa squeezed her temples. "My head's killing me."
"It'll pass."
"Okay, so they howl, pant, slobber, and yelp, but they still look like men," I said. "Are they shifters like Stacey?"
"The reverse," he replied.
"Huh?"
"Stacey is a felycan—a human who can shift into feline form. Hellhounds are huge mindlessly-devoted creatures who can shift into human or other forms as a sort of camouflage."
I drifted around the parking deck ramp, tires squealing as I wrestled the big truck under control. A car pulled out a few slots ahead, but my preternatural senses and reflexes guided me around it without a second thought.
"No wonder Edward was such a crazy driver," I muttered.
"Who's Edward?" Elyssa asked.
"You know, from Twilight."
Katie perked up all of a sudden, her eyes red and puffy. "I love Edward."
Elyssa groaned.
I screeched to a halt at the parking deck exit and cursed. A steel gate barred the way, and it looked too solid to smash through. "Crap. What now?"
Elyssa reached between the seats and jerked a gray fob off the keychain dangling from the truck's ignition. "Scan it." She pointed to a pad on a console outside the window.
I rolled the window down and thrust the fob at the pad. It dinged and a light turned green. The steel shutter slid up. Slowly. Like old-man-crossing-the-street-with-a-walker slow. Tires squealed. Metal crunched. Glass shattered. I looked past Dad through the passenger window. A car at the corner of the ramp bounced and rolled, sparks flying before smashing into a Bentley across the driveway as the hound burst around the corner. In mid-stride, the man morphed into a huge ebony dog, fangs bared and tongue lolling. A yellow glow pulsed from within its eyes.
The shutter wasn't halfway up yet, its bottom about level with the middle of the truck's windshield. Dad rolled down his window and crawled into the narrow space between concrete wall and truck. He reached for the bottom of the shutter. Cursed. Jerked it up. The metal groaned. Something gave a metallic pop and the shutter sprang up, slamming into the stops at the end of the rails overhead.
The second Dad had his body back through the window, I gunned it. Katie screamed. I looked left in time to see the other hound, still in human form, bolt down the sidewalk. It was too late to get away. The truck shuddered with the brute's impact, and agony shot into my arm as the door imploded on me. A screech of rubber and the scream of torn metal sounded for an instant. Then silence followed as the truck flipped sideways through the air. Time seemed to slow in my head as my reflexes shot into overdrive. Glass flew sideways. Katie and Elyssa's hair hit the ceiling as the truck went upside down some ten feet off the ground.
Dad's eyes met mine. He didn't have to say what I was thinking. If the truck landed on its roof, this was going to hurt. He, Elyssa, and I might survive, but not Katie. I tore my seatbelt off. Dove into the back seat. Gripped the top and bottom of Katie's seat tight and pressed her hard against the cushions, forming a shield around her. Elyssa gave me a look of concern mixed with something else—jealousy? Sadness?
The truck slammed into the ground before I had a chance to figure it out. Metal met asphalt as the roof crunched. The roof buckled but somehow didn't cave in completely. Then the truck rolled onto the side Katie and I were on and slid down the hill toward a busy intersection at the bottom. The remaining windows shattered, spraying us with safety glass. Agony ripped into the skin on my back as my flesh kissed the rough surface of the road, searing it as we slid.
I cried out in pain, trying to force myself up. Elyssa gripped Katie and pulled her off me just enough so I could get the leverage to end the pain. Tires screeched as the truck reached the intersection and frightened drivers swerved to avoid us. I saw a van rushing our way from the sideways angle where the front windshield used to be.