Raised in Fire (Fire and Ice Trilogy 2)

I grimaced and walked by him. I would need to disappear for a while after this. I was getting careless where my power was concerned. Also, there were too many demons and vampires in my life. That needed to stop.

Oscar yelled something after me, but I didn’t catch it. I turned toward him and made my way back to the mouth of the alleyway. When I reached it, the cold power started throbbing in my middle again, increasing in potency, pushing my useable power even more.

“Not good,” I mumbled, ducking out from under the tape. I put my hand on the sentinel cop, who jerked but didn’t entirely move away. I’d startled him. “Keep your wits about you. Things aren’t as they seem.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Reagan,” Oscar said, catching up. “Where are you going?”

“I was lured here for a reason, detective,” I said. “I best find out what that reason is.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The crowd had increased as the day turned old. Shadows stretched across the street and made countless puddles of black. Someone to my right, an older woman with a canvas bag slowed her already slow pace. Her head swung toward me, and even from the distance, I noticed the inhuman glitter of her eyes.

The canvas bag fell to the ground.

A male teenager stepped out of the crowd and into the street, right in front of a car. Brakes squealed. The car careened. The teen didn’t notice; he only had eyes for me.

As the old woman and teen both started my way, two more people in the crowd shifted in a creepy way, their shoulders suddenly straightening as they turned toward me and started moving steadily, though at half speed. They pushed their way forward, knocking people out of their way like tanks. Down the street, someone screamed. I could barely see a person fall to the ground. Someone else descended on the fallen, fists lashing at the person.

The sentinel cop jerked, having seen it too. His hand went to his gun, but he didn’t start forward. I wasn’t sure why.

The teen started to run at me, a strange glint in his eyes, a wide smile on his face. He swooped down next to one of the cop cars and picked a hammer up off the ground, barely breaking stride.

“What the hell is a hammer doing just willy-nilly behind the cop car?” I demanded.

The sentinel cop didn’t have time to answer me.

“Freeze,” he shouted, taking out his gun. “Put down the hammer. Freeze!”

I stepped into the path of the gun, ran forward, and ducked under the swing of the hammer. The kid’s speed hadn’t increased as a result of whatever spell or magic had infused him. I rammed a punch into his stomach, brought that elbow across his jaw, and then grabbed his hammer arm and knocked his wrist with the hilt of my sword. His fist relaxed, dropping the hammer. I had probably cracked his bone, but he didn’t cry out. I gave him a solid punch to the nose, knocking him out cold.

The old woman finally reached me, as slow as she was, but no way was I going to punch her. That was just wrong.

“Do something about her,” I said, dodging a really weak and slow slap-punch, and gently pushing her toward the cop. I didn’t want to make her fall and be responsible for a broken hip. It wasn’t her fault she was suddenly evil.

Someone screamed down the way. “You need to grab whoever is terrorizing people down there,” I yelled as the two crowd pushers came at me, a woman in yoga pants and a portly guy.

“What the hell is happening?” the sentinel cop shouted.

“Hang with the bull and you’ll eventually get the horns, my man.” I did a jump kick and got the portly man in the face. He went down like a sack of bricks. The woman had stopped to pick up a stick with two nails protruding out of the end. “Someone is leaving candy for the trick-or-treaters.”

I bounced on my toes, waiting for her to surge forward. I met her as I noticed someone out of the corner of my eye running around the corner with a gun in hand.

“Gun!” I shouted, blocking her downward swing. The center of the stick cracked against my forearm. I jerked my head away so the nails on the end didn’t pierce my eyeball. “Get that guy with the gun!”

I punched the woman in the stomach, and she exhaled noisily. I tore the wood out of her hand and broke it over my knee. She came at me with both hands, probably trying to grab my hair like in some female playground fight. I slapped one of her hands away, resisting the urge to run my sword through her middle, and punched her in the face. Her head jerked back, but she didn’t go down.

A roundhouse kick solved that problem.

The crack of a gunshot went off from behind me—Oscar. Then another from the possessed gunman who’d turned a corner. People screamed. The man sank to his knees, his gun still held out.

Another explosion of gunfire, this time from the cop next to me. I flinched away from the noise, my ear ringing. The slug hit the possessed dude center mass. He fell backward and the gun skittered across the ground. No one stopped to pick it up, thank God. No one else ran our way.

I breathed heavily, waiting for more action.

“What the—” Oscar said in a hasty release of breath. “What just happened?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say dimensional demons are responsible for this.” I walked out onto the street, seeing another weapon on the curb that hadn’t been picked up. “These had a purpose, though. This wasn’t just a slip of power—the demon possessed these people intentionally. It’s gotten personal. Unless, maybe, this ability is one he can impart to a disciple?” I pulled out my phone and looked at the screen. “I need to ask my friends. I’m not an expert on this stuff.”

“A demon?” the sentinel cop said, still braced for a war.

“I need to get a move on,” I said. “Call your cop friends. Get officers in the streets. If that demon can’t control its power, or worse, it wants to create a playground of violence, you’re going to get a nasty turn of events in this town.”

Oscar said something in an incredulous tone, but I didn’t stick around to learn what. If something was gunning for me, I wanted it to show itself, and that would happen faster if I forced its hand.

I put in a quick call to Callie, getting her voicemail. I got Dizzy’s as well, so I shot off a text. They were either still sleeping or weren’t paying attention to their phones, a terrible habit they both had. A text was easier to access than a voicemail, so hopefully I’d get a response sooner. Finally, I sent a text to Darius. With the sun nearly dipping behind the horizon, he’d be out soon, and I could use the extra pair of fists if a bunch of citizens was about to come my way. I didn’t want to kill these people, not if what had happened in that Northern Californian town was also happening here. It wasn’t the civilians’ fault some demon had decided to use them as puppets.

First, I needed to stop whoever else had been turned. I headed in the direction from which the civilians had come. Around the corner and down the street, I found someone who hadn’t fared so well in the mini-apocalypse. It was too late to help them, so I continued on, seeing a broken shop window and a few people standing next to it, looking down the street with bewilderment on their faces.

I continued in that direction, but only saw a couple more examples of violence. It looked like I was only following one, max two people. That meant the demon had gone another way, or had started to control the power it radiated.

Selfishly, I half hoped it was the former. If it was controlling its power, that meant it was purposely trying to enter in a cat-and-mouse game with me. I hated cat-and-mouse games. I was no good at them. Either way, the person, or people, I was following would be taken down. That was step one.

Twilight fell as I finally caught sight of the wrongdoer. Only one. He was running into a shop with a baseball bat in hand.

I sped up, following him in. Shouting and crashes came from the back. A woman screamed. A man cursed. Above the din, a beastly yowl rose, not quite human.

I found him at the back of the store, the crazed man with the bat, battering the glass of the freezer section. An employee stood at the end of the aisle with a phone to his ear. A woman with rounded eyes stood behind him, wringing her hands.

As I moved forward, a little kid ran out from around the corner, frightened.