“I’ve inconveniently been involved with the aftermath of some weird crimes before. Most recently a high-level demon who had a minion kidnapping and cutting open people.”
“I heard about that. You saved a bunch of people and put an end to a demon who’d been terrorizing the town for decades.”
“All in a day’s work,” I say with a shrug.
“It actually is for you.”
“Right?” I say with a snort of laughter.
“You should take a break,” she says and eyes my stomach. “For a few months, at least.”
“I would if I could,” I tell her. “And I want to, though I have this…this need to go out and fight the things other people can’t. I never understood it before, but knowing who my father is, how he’s God’s warrior or whatever Julian called him…it makes sense now.”
“It does. He’s the embodiment of good fighting evil, and he’s your dad. I still can’t wrap my head around—oh shit.”
The boy who didn’t get bitten is being questioned by Officer Maxwell right now, and he’s pointing at me.
“And then this thing came out of nowhere! It looked like a person but wasn’t and it didn’t have any clothes on, and Wonder Woman kicked its ass!”
I almost forgot I’m still in my Halloween costume.
“What are we going to tell them?” Ruby whispers.
“We hit a deer. Stopped to look for it. Heard the screams and went to check things out and found the kids drunk with one bleeding. There were no scrappers.”
“All three saw, and you know how kids are with their phones. Do you think they recorded anything?”
“I’m hoping no. They got attacked by something before the scrappers. Though I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the kid pulled out his phone while he was being bitten.”
“Hah. Live-streamed it to Facebook.” She lets out a breath. “We should go check on him.”
“Okay.” I run my hand over the blood, smearing it instead of wiping it away. Scrapper blood doesn’t look remotely human, at least.
“Hey,” I say to Bite Wound. “How are you doing?”
The EMTs are still cleaning and bandaging his wound. He’s definitely going to need stitches.
“I’ve been better,” the kid answers, eyes glossy.
“You’re lucky,” I tell him and catch the eye of one of the EMTs. “Coyotes can be brutal.”
“It was a werewolf. I’m telling you.” Bite Wound winces as his leg is wrapped. “They even said it looks like a dog bite, but a big dog.”
One of the EMTs—Holly, by her name tag—nods. “It does look like dog bites we’ve seen before. Big dogs.”
“Have there been any reports of coyotes attacking humans recently?” the other EMT muses. “I haven’t heard of any.”
That’s because there haven’t been any. Though we can’t rule out a desperate coyote or even a scared dog. But a coyote or dog wouldn’t have eyes that glow yellow.
“It was a werewolf,” Bite Wound presses. “Maybe even a hellhound.”
“No,” I say, but my blood runs cold. “That’s not possible.”
“Right,” Holly agrees. “Hellhounds aren’t real, and neither are werewolves.” She looks at her partner, saying something about letting the ER know the kid could use a psych eval. Good gravy, Holly. The kid is drunk as a skunk and just got attacked in the dark. Cut him some slack.
Ruby takes my arm and leads me back over to the Jeep. “Is there any way Scarlet could have gotten out?”
“No. She was at home when I left, and even if she did get out, she’d be running around looking like a little fluff-ball puppy. The only way she can transform is if someone takes her collar off, and that someone has to have angel blood. It wasn’t me, and the only other angels who know about her are Julian and my dad, and I know—” I stop short, because there is one other person. It wouldn’t have been possible before, but now…now it is.
Because Lucifer is here on Earth.Chapter 16“Mrs. King? Mrs. King?”
Blinking, I snap my attention away from the woods and look at Officer Maxwell standing only a few feet from me. My lips part and I let out a breath. Focus, Callie, focus. Binx is still in my arms, and Officer Maxwell is curiously looking at him, and I don’t have to have the power to read minds to know exactly what he’s thinking.
The people I rescued from that root cellar told some pretty wild tales, with one being me showing up with an army of cats. But he’ll never say anything, because you’d sound pretty fucking insane to outright accuse someone of running through town like a masked vigilante—with their army of cats.
Though that sounds pretty badass, if you ask me.
“Yes?”
“I need you to tell me what happened.”
My eyes shut in a long blink and I set Binx down. Opening my eyes, I adjust my headpiece and take a slow breath in. “We were driving back to my house from the downtown trick-or-treating event and a deer ran out in front of us. It hit the passenger side.” I motion to the Jeep’s cracked headlight. “So we stopped and got out to look for it but it ran off. Then we heard the kids screaming for help.”