Murder by numbers. There were too many of them. Infernals who had used her own creation against her. The plan had been perfect. Brilliant. They would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for that meddling Evangeline.
“We can do this all day,” the faery drawled. “Or we can just get on with it and you can rejoin your dear Malachai in Hell.”
Malachai. Her spouse, lover, partner-in-crime. His contribution to her spell had made the mask possible . . . and it had cost them his life by Abel’s vengeful hands.
“Go help the others,” the redhead said to the dragon. Her gaze moved to the gwyllion. “Bernard and I will commence training.”
Callaghan came forward, shaking off the drywall debris. “I’ll ask fer explanations later. Right now, I just want tae know how to kill this bajin.”
Kenise closed her eyes and thought of Malachai.
CHAPTER 19
"What the fuck is the matter with you?” Eve shouted, yanking on Izzie’s hair. Smoke was roiling down the hallway, churning through the air like a tidal wave, clogging her throat and burning her lungs. Somewhere in the house, a window shattered.
“What is—” Izzie gasped for breathable air, “the matter with you? Attacking Garza—”
Gaining her knees, Eve yanked the blonde up by her hair and pointed at the wolf presently devouring the investigator’s throat. “Does that look like Garza to you?”
Izzie froze. Eve hauled back and socked her square in the jaw, knocking her out. She dropped the blonde back onto the floor and struggled to her feet, screeching when she was hauled upward and clasped back-to-front to a steely frame.
“Did you have to hit her?” Reed asked, his lips to her ear. He was scorching hot, as if he were giving off a great deal of energy.
“Yes, actually, I did.”
His hand fisted between her breasts and ripped something from around her neck. Instantly, a surfeit of emotion poured into her—his and Alec’s. As soon as they reconnected, Alec shut himself off like a spigot, but Reed’s mind latched onto hers with something akin to desperation.
She looked down at his hand and in his palm saw the Sigil of Baphomet amulet—the official insignia of the Church of Satan, a symbol adopted by Sammael himself because he thought its design was clever. Reed dropped it, revealing a smoldering burn in his palm.
Her gaze returned to the wolf, who lifted his head and leered at her with his bloody, gaping maw. The pounding on the door stopped. A moment later the sounds of battle rang out in the yard—growling and barking, shouting and cursing. Screaming.
“Get Izzie out of here,” Eve said, tensing for her own fight.
“I’m not leaving you in here with him.”
“And I’m not leaving Izzie to the wolf, even if she is enough of a pain in the ass to deserve it.”
“Shit.” He released her. “Two seconds.”
She felt him collecting Izzie behind her, followed by the soft breeze that accompanied his shifting away.
“Can you take me in mortal form?” she goaded the wolf. “Or do you need to be in animal form to win?”
The wolf shifted before her, taking on the shape of a ghost she recognized. At least he should have been a ghost, considering she’d killed him once already. Recognition hit her hard, followed by an immediate chill down her spine.
“You,” she said.
“Me.” He smiled.
Eve’s heart dropped into her stomach. How was she supposed to kill something that wouldn’t stay dead?
“You’re going to break the steering wheel if you don’t ease up.” Giselle shouted to be heard over the roar of the Mustang’s powerful engine and the surrounding freeway traffic.
Alec glanced at his white knuckles, startled to see a visible sign of tension he didn’t feel. He forced his grip to relax. They flew past Gilroy, weaving through cars as recklessly as possible.
Forty-five minutes to Monterey. But then it should have been an hour and a half to Gilroy. He’d cut that travel time almost in half.
He was changing lanes between two cars when Eve hit his brain like a ton of bricks, blackening his vision and thrusting his head back against the headrest. Swerving, Alec lost control of the Mustang, the car fishtailing and skidding recklessly.
Giselle screamed. Car horns blared. Tires squealed.
Jerking the steering wheel, Alec fought to keep the sports car on the road. Vehicles flew by all around him. It was only by the grace of God that they reached the shoulder of the highway without hitting another car. Yanking on the emergency brake, he maneuvered the Mustang into an abrupt, violent halt just an inch shy of a guardrail.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Giselle shouted, gasping. “What the hell was that?”
He unhooked his seat belt. “I have to go.”
“What?” Her hand whipped over and caught his. “Go where?”
“To McCroskey.” His gaze met hers. “He’s there already. He flew.”
She stilled. “Oh, shit.”
Alec pushed open the door and climbed out. “Just keep driving south and follow the signs.”
“To where?”
“Wherever. Anaheim. Mexico. Hell. You might end up there anyway within an hour or two.”
Her jaw tightened and she crawled over to the driver’s seat. “I’ll meet you there. Don’t get yourself killed.”
He was already gone.
Eve stared at the teenage son of the Alpha and wondered how he could look the same, yet different. She’d guess he was sixteen. Seventeen at the most. His hair was still a mop of dark waves that fell to his shoulders. He still had a weak chin, and a pouty, sullen mouth. But his hazel eyes were colder, more barren than before. Soulless, and drowning in malice and bloodlust.
He was also buck naked, which gave her the willies. Pubescent boys had never been her thing. She’d kept her virginity until she was almost eighteen, then she gave it to Alec. A virile, potent man . . . several centuries her senior.
The pounding at the door resumed, Reed shouting words she couldn’t understand. His near-panic, however, was palpable and gave her courage. The wolf was using his magical side to keep Reed out.
I’m coming, Reed thought grimly. You stay alive until I do.
No worries, she said with pure bravado. In truth, she was scared nearly witless. A wolf with magic. Just what she’d always wanted.
In response, Reed bolstered her the best way he could. The mark on her arm began to tingle and burn, pumping celestially enhanced adrenaline through her system. Her senses honed, her muscles thickened. Permission granted to kick some demon ass.
“He can’t come back for you, you know,” the wolf murmured, circling around Richens’s corpse. “I’ve locked us in a warding/containment spell.”
“Great. No one to interfere while I kill you.”
“For years,” he continued, “I couldn’t control my wolf or my magic. Now, thanks to being cooked in Mark bone and blood meal, I can control both.”
As understanding dawned, Eve exhaled in a rush. He’d been locked in with the kiln in Upland when it exploded—a kiln that had been stuffed with all the ingredients to make the Infernal mask, including Mark blood and bone meal, which were remarkable for their regenerative properties.
It’s how they made the hellhounds, Alec said.
Hellhounds?
I’ll explain as soon as I get in there.
Alec was outside with Reed. Her heroes. Unfortunately, it looked as if she would be stuck saving herself. Against a wolf with magic. Without a weapon she was proficient with.
She sidestepped in opposition to him, keeping him directly across from her. At least the gurney hid the lower half of his body from view, although it kept Richens’s mutilated cadaver a bit too close for comfort. She tried not to look. “I really don’t give a damn about your existential angst or your shitty childhood,” she retorted. “All I care about is how to kill you so you stay dead.”
Smoke tumbled across the ceiling, black and gray, like specters on the hunt. In the rear of the house, the fire ate through wood and drywall with gleeful cackling. To make things worse, she was facing a hybrid who had a lot more experience than she did, despite his youth.
“Aw, gimme a break,” he teased, as if they were friends or people who liked each other. “I don’t want to kill you. I want to turn you over as a gift. You’re not a believer anyway. What does it matter which side you’re on?”
Eve choked on smoke. “You’re k-kidding.”
“I’m going to get a car out of my dad for this.” His dead eyes brightened at the thought. “A Porsche like the one in the driveway. The bitches will love it.”
She’d love to run him over with it, the little bastard. She tossed a flaming dagger at his right side just for the hell of it, then followed it up with another to the left. When he ducked away from the first, the second nicked him on the shoulder. Then it smashed into a jar of something on a crate behind him that exploded into flames. The ignited liquid splattered on him and he cursed, tamping the fire out with swats of his hands.
Eve raised her arms in triumph, relishing the wild aggressive energy the mark was pumping through her veins. “Yes!”
“Stupid whore.” His lips curled back from his teeth.
“Asshole,” she countered.
He feinted to the left, then the right, trying to psych her out. She laughed instead. It was a shaky, rather unconvincing sound, but it was still a shock to hear, which was the point. Sometimes bullshit was all a Mark had to keep the tension even.
The wolf growled and shoved the table at her, prompting her to jump back. Richens’s body tumbled to her feet.
Then she realized she had a weapon after all—his temper. She’d seen it before, the last time they met. When she provoked him, he’d become careless and violent. He’d run straight into her roundhouse kick and gotten his dumb ass knocked out.
The house is on fire, Alec said.
No shit? I thought it smelled like barbeque.
You’re going to be barbequed, Reed snapped, if you don’t get the hell out of there.