“Race you to the top,” Eve challenged, before gripping the handrail and sprinting up.
He could catch her. His legs were longer. But it was far more fun to bring up the rear. They burst onto the roof in a rush of limbs and laughter . . . but the sight that greeted them quickly turned merriment into startled silence.
“Holy shit.” Alec slid briefly along the metal roof before gaining purchase.
Eve, still new to her strength, almost skid directly into the bonfire that was the source of his astonishment. Instead, she fell on her ass. “Ouch!”
Feeling as if he were suffering the effects of a hallucinogenic drug, Alec gaped at the tengu who danced around the hellfire with gleeful chortles. None of his mark senses registered the beast in front of him. Aside from the frail mortal vision he’d been born with, there was no other way to detect the demon. Yet it wasn’t that his senses had failed him. He saw the pit of hellfire. As a demonic conjuring that cast no illumination and no shadow, it was impossible to see with Unmarked vision.
But if his mark senses were functioning properly, he would also be able to smell the tengu and see his details. With that information, Alec would know which king of Hell he belonged to and how best to eradicate him. As it was, Alec was up shit creek without a paddle. And Eve was along for the ride.
Pivoting, he searched for the other gargoyles but found his view blocked by massive air-conditioning units. Were there more tengu to manage?
“Pretty Mark, Pretty Mark,” the tengu sang, his beady eyes on Eve where she still sprawled. He didn’t seem to notice Alec at all. “Pretty Mark came to see Joey.”
“You piss on me again,” she warned, pushing to her feet, “and I’ll kick your ass.”
“Joey’s ass is stone, Pretty Mark. Pretty Mark break foot kicking Joey’s ass.” The tengu laughed, still hopping in a frenzied jig to some tune only he could hear.
“My foot’s bigger,” Alec rumbled.
The tengu looked at him and a smile split his face. “Cain, Cain, good to see you again.”
“You know him?” Eve asked, stepping closer.
“Hell if I know. Without any details, I can’t tell.”
“What do we do?”
“Capture him.”
She snorted. “How are we supposed to do that?”
“Pretty Mark want to dance?” Joey cried, then he lunged at her.
Alec leaped between them, grunting against the vicious impact of hard, heavy stone to his gut. He hit the deck on his back and rolled with the writhing tengu. A brick safety ledge surrounded the roof’s perimeter and they crashed into it with a jolting thud.
The creature was hot to the touch, charged by the evil of the hellfire. As Alec grappled with the wriggling demon, his bare palms sizzled. The stench of burning flesh filled the air and he briefly considered tossing the damn tengu over the edge to shatter into pieces on the ground below. But he needed him intact so they could study him.
What the hell was it?
Aided by weight and his small size, the tengu crawled up Alec’s torso. As he rose with both hands fisted together as a mallet and prepared to swing, Eve lashed out with a swift kick. Her boot caught the tengu in the face and sent him flying. Screaming, it crashed into the bonfire.
“We’ve got to put the flames out.” Alec leaped to his feet. “It will keep recharging him, and we’ll wear out before he does.”
The tengu vaulted from the flames as a red-hot missile, and Eve ducked. He overshot and crashed into a van-sized air conditioner. A pipe feeding into the unit broke, spilling water across the roof.
“Will that work?” she asked.
“Only if it’s holy.”
“How the fuck are we supposed to get holy water up here?” She kicked droplets at the fire. The tengu disengaged from the massive dent he’d made in the AC unit and came running for Eve, screeching unintelligible words.
“Give me a second to work on that.” Alec tackled the crazed demon before he reached her.
Eve stared in horrified fascination. The two combatants were so disparate in size, yet seemed almost evenly matched. Alec definitely had his hands full. She glanced around for anything that could be used as a makeshift weapon.
“Adjutorium nostrun in nomine—” Alec shouted. “—Domini.”
“What?” She raced around the air conditioner and was thrust backward with stunning strength. With the wind knocked from her, Eve could only gape up at the creature who sat on her. It was another tengu.
“I kill you,” the tengu said, in a lilting feminine voice so at odds with her frightening visage.
Alec continued to yell at his opponent in what Eve guessed was Latin. She yanked her head to the side as the tengu swung at her. The sound of the metal roof rending near her ear was deafening and painful, but the pain dissipated as quickly as it came. Using the tengu’s forward momentum, Eve tossed the heavy creature over her head and rolled to her belly. She scrambled to her feet, barely managing to gain her footing before the tengu was after her again.
“Alec!” she yelled, kicking the demon and sending her skidding through the growing lake of water. Eve was sick of being wet. Totally sick of it.
The tengu slid into the fire and popped up a moment later, laughing. Alec threw his tengu into the other one, causing a collision that cracked off the leg of one and the arm of the other. The two collected their missing appendages and leaped into the fire.
Standing over the gushing water, Alec made the sign of the cross. “Commixtio salis et aquæ pariter fiat in nomine Patris, et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.”
His voice rose in volume, the words rolling off his tongue in a richly nuanced incantation. Eve turned to the broken air conditioner, hoping her superstrength was fully operational. She grabbed the end of the broken water pipe and yanked hard, ripping a piece free. Wielding the section like a bat, she pivoted. “Joey” barreled toward her and she dispatched him with a home run hit that sent him flying over the lip of the roof. The pipe was ruined by the impact. She dropped it with a curse and searched for a replacement.
“Eve!” Alec barked as a tremendous crashing noise was heard from the street below. “We need one of them.”
She winced. “Sorry. Don’t know my own strength.”
The one-legged tengu shrieked and hopped after Eve in retaliation, wielding her broken-off leg like a club. Alec lashed out with a fist, but haste threw off his aim. He struck the beast’s rear lower flank, sending her into a tailspin. Her velocity increased, then she struck Eve, knocking Eve to her back.
The tengu landed on her thighs. Stone arms rose to brain Eve with the leg. Eve screamed and recoiled, shielding her head with her forearms. Braced for the beating, she squeezed her eyes shut.
Then a hideous stench roiled over her, turning her stomach and making her choke.
A roar filled the air, like the sound of a mighty waterfall. The ground slithered beneath her back, dragging her several feet. Her eyes flew open and she watched the scene unfold as if in slow motion.
The water surged into a tidal wave. An all-too-recognizable face emerged within the center of the liquid wall. The tengu shrieked and dropped the leg.
“She’s mine!” the Nix roared.
In a churning, foaming mass, the Nix swept the tengu over the edge of the roof.
And took Eve with it.
CHAPTER 14
Alec!”
Eve tumbled inside the wave like a wiped-out surfer. Her back hit the edge of the brick safety surround and she flipped over the top, arms and legs flailing. Her fingers grappled for purchase, one digit breaking in the effort. Then she was falling, weighted down by the tengu that clung to one leg and the Nix that was wrapped around her entire body in a swirling vortex of water.
As the lip of the roof escaped her vision, an arm reached over and clasped her wrist in a viselike hold. She glanced up, watching how her momentum and gravity pulled Alec inexorably until he dangled from the waist. She screamed. Not from the fear of falling, although she was deathly afraid of heights, but for Alec, who appeared ready to tumble over the edge with her.
“You’re going to die,” she yelled at Alec, kicking madly at the screeching tengu. “Let me go!”
“No way.” He clutched at her with both hands. “Deus, invictæ virtutis auctor, et insuperabilis imperii rex, ac semper magnificus triumphator—”
As Alec continued to speak, Eve flopped from side to side. Her shoulders creaked with the tremendous weight of the beings hanging on to her. Her arms felt on the verge of ripping from their sockets. She was fairly certain that would have happened already if she weren’t superhuman.
She looked down, aiming at the tengu’s eyes with the heel of her boot and kicking at her with all her might. Alec slid farther over the ledge, his hips the only anchor keeping them from free-falling four stories to the ground.
“Per Dominum nostrum!” Alec roared.
The water exploded outward with teeth-rattling violence, knocking the tengu free and slamming Eve into the brick facade. Alec yanked her up and over the top with such force that they both landed in an ignoble sprawl of tangled limbs. From below, the reverberation of the crashing tengu caused a car alarm to wail.
“What the fuck happened?” she gasped, pushing her soaked hair out of her face.
Alec lay beneath her, laughing. “I asked for a blessing of the water. God made it holy and it kicked the Nix out.”
“How can you laugh?” She smacked his shoulder. “This job sucks. And we’re empty-handed.”
“We’re alive. And you were right.” He cupped the back of her neck and gave her a quick, hard kiss. She cried out at the unintentional jarring of her broken finger. He set her beside him, then sat up. Catching her hand, he looked it over. “Angel . . .”
She couldn’t look. Regardless of whether or not she was capable of physically vomiting, the thought of seeing her distorted finger made her sick.
“Come here,” he murmured. Bending forward, Alec took her mouth, first gently and sweetly, then deeper. So startled was she by the action and the first tendrils of desire that she failed to register his changed grip until he yanked her finger into place.