I would’ve laughed in her face, but I actually respected that threat. I really did. I was glad Zayne had a friend like this. A little annoyed, too, but mostly glad.
So, I said, “You have nothing to worry about, Stacey. Seriously.”
“We’ll see.” Her gaze flicked past me as she pushed off the island. “How was the tour?”
“Short,” Roth said. “Really short.”
“Yeah.” Layla looked a little concerned. “It’s a nice place. The bathroom is amazing.”
I wondered if she was thinking the same thing about the bedroom as Stacey had. Neither needed to waste time on the idea of anything of interest happening on that bed any longer.
Unfortunately.
There was a quick succession of goodbyes, and I hopped off the stool, my poor butt feeling numb.
Zayne followed the girls to the elevator doors, but Roth hung back. I didn’t realize he was so close to me until he stepped into my central vision. Those eerie tawny eyes met mine, and when he spoke, his words were meant for my ears only. “I’ll be seeing you again, real soon.”
7
“You tried to eat the puppy!”
My shout was drowned out by horns blaring from a nearby congested street as I raced down a narrow foul-smelling alley.
Not that it would do any good, but I tried not to breathe too deeply. The rancid smell was most likely coming from overflowing dumpsters, and the stench was seeping into my clothing and soaking my skin.
Sometimes I thought the entire city of Washington, DC, smelled like this—like forgotten humanity and despair mixed with exhaust and faint undertones of decay and rot. I almost couldn’t remember the clean mountain air of the Potomac Highlands at this point, and part of me wondered if I ever would smell it again.
A bigger part of me wondered if I even wanted to, because the Community would no longer feel like home without...
Without Misha.
My heart squeezed as if someone had reached inside and caught it in a fist. I couldn’t let myself think about that. I wouldn’t. Everything with Misha was filed away under EPIC FAIL, and that drawer was nice and secure.
Instead, as I raced down the stinkiest alley in the entire country, I focused on how my night had gone from boring to this. After Roth’s cryptic parting message, Zayne and I had puttered around the apartment all afternoon and then headed out to look for the Harbinger.
We’d spent the evening patrolling the area where we’d spotted the two demons, with no luck. The streets were dead, with the exception of a few Fiends messing with traffic lights, which, for some reason, had actually made me want to laugh. Other than causing a minor fender bender that had backed up traffic, it was rather harmless.
Granted, if I’d been either of the two drivers or those stuck behind the two men yelling that both their lights were green, I probably wouldn’t have thought it was all that funny.
While Fiends were testing the nerves of humans, Zayne was testing mine by asking if I was okay about five hundred million times. Like I was a fragile glass flower seconds away from shattering, and I hated feeling that way, because I was fine. Totally okay with everything. I wasn’t pestering him with questions about Stacey and their previous more-than-just-friends status. Even if he’d picked up on something through the bond while Stacey had been at his place, it had been a momentary lapse of control. I was acting normal, so I wasn’t sure why he was so worried.
By the time we’d spotted the Raver demons, I was happy for the distraction. Until I’d smelled this alley.
Stringing together a slew of curse words, I focused on the task at hand. With my narrow, blurry vision and the dim flickering glow of the lone alley light, I couldn’t afford any distractions when it came to the puppy-eating jerk that looked kind of like a rat.
If rats were six feet tall, walked on two legs and had a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.
The long-tailed bastard and its pack of ugly low level demons had just tried to snatch up a dog that reminded me of the blue alien from Lilo and Stitch.
What kind of dog was that? A French bulldog? Maybe? I had no idea, but the Raver had made a grab for the so-ugly-it-was-cute puppy and its fedora-wearing owner, who’d wandered too close to the alley the horde of Ravers had been scavenging in.
Luckily Fedora Guy hadn’t seen the Raver. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to explain what it was to a human. A mutated sewer rat? Not likely.
The demon had scared the poor puppy, causing it to yelp and topple onto its side with its little legs rigid. And that flipped me straight into Bitch Got to Die mode.
Trying to eat humans was bad enough, even if it was the result of cosmic karma for the human wearing a fedora in the humidity of July, but trying to munch on cute Frenchie pups?
Completely unacceptable.
I’d nailed the sucker with a dagger, scaring it off and scattering the pack, and now it was booking it on two muscular hind legs while Zayne went after the rest. It stopped and crouched. Before it could jump, I launched off the cement and went airborne.
For about two seconds.
I landed on the Raver’s hairless back, my arms circling its thick neck as it let out a squeak that sounded an awful lot like a dog’s chew toy.
The demon pitched forward and hit the alley hard, the impact jarring me to the bone. It reared, but I held on as it tried to buck me off.
“That puppy did nothing to you!” I yelled as I rocked backward, planting my knees in the ground—the suspiciously wet ground. I was so not going to think about that. I tightened my arm around its neck. “A puppy! How dare you!”
The thing chattered and clicked its jaw as it snapped at the air.
I yanked free the dagger jutting out of its side. “You’re gonna regret—”
The Raver face-planted the alley and went limp. Unprepared for the tactic, I flipped over its head, landing on my back in what had better be a puddle caused by the late-afternoon thunderstorm.
“Ugh.” Sprawled out, I caught a whiff of what was definitely not rain.
I was so going to spend ten hours in the shower after this.
Hot, fetid breath blasted my face, causing me to gag as the Raver stumbled to its feet and hovered over me. My stomach churned. I shouldn’t have eaten those two hot dogs or those fries...or half of that falafel. For once, I was grateful for my poor eyesight. In the dim light of the alley, the finer details of the Raver’s features were nothing more than a blur of teeth and fur.
I lurched up and grabbed the Raver by the shoulders before it could get me with its teeth or claws. Its fur was patchy and rough, its skin slippery and all around repulsive. I yanked it backward, tapping into my Trueborn strength as I felt the little ball of warmth and light in my chest burn brighter as Zayne drew near.
The Raver slammed into the ground, arms and legs flailing. I fell forward, straddling the demon as I planted a hand on its chest and held it down.
Something clicked off in my head. Or maybe it turned on. I didn’t know and I wasn’t thinking. I was just acting. My fist slammed into the demon’s jaw. A tooth clinked on the alley floor as pain flared along my knuckles. I landed the next blow, and another tooth went flying, bouncing off my chest, and...
My perfectly sealed mental file cabinet split wide open, files bursting in every direction. Primal rage poured into me, lighting up every cell and fiber of my being much like the grace did when I tapped into it. Fury roared through me like a tornado as I gripped the demon by the throat and lifted it off the ground, and then connected my fist with its face once more.
Anger wasn’t the only thing coursing through my veins, causing my blood to feel like it was tainted with battery acid. Raw grief was there, tearing through the fury. A helpless sorrow that I wasn’t sure would ever lessen.
The alley, the sounds of cars and people, the wretched smell, the entire world constricted, until it was just me, this puppy-eating demon and this...this anger, and a continuous stream of images flashing through my mind.
My mom, dying on the side of a dirty road, killed by Ryker. Two-headed Aym, taunting me. Me, blindly and stupidly rushing outside the senator’s house, just like Aym had known I would—just like Misha had known I would. Zayne, burned and dying, still trying to fight. My father, arriving, showing no remorse for the mistake that had been made.
The images whirled together, each one powerful and consuming, but the one that stood out the most, the one I couldn’t unsee, was the look on Misha’s face. The flicker of surprise in those beautiful blue eyes, as if, for one second, he couldn’t believe that I would do what I’d needed to do.
What I’d had to do.
How could Misha have done this? To me? To himself? To us?
My fist connected with the Raver’s snout as sorrow and rage gave way to guilt and dug its nasty, bitter claws into my very soul. I couldn’t get it out of me. How had I not seen Misha for what he really was? How could I have been so wrapped up in my own woes that I hadn’t seen this evil festering in him, hadn’t noticed—
“Trin.”
I heard the familiar voice, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. My fist slammed into the Raver’s snout again and again. Something warm and foul-smelling sprayed my chest.
“You need to stop.”
“It tried to eat a puppy.” My voice trembled on a shaky, frail breath. “A cute puppy.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Only because we stopped it.” I hit the demon again. “That doesn’t make it okay.”
“Didn’t say that it was.” The voice was closer, and the warmth in my chest was reaching out, beating back the dark, oily feelings that had spread like a noxious weed. “But it’s time to end this.”
I knew that.
My fist slammed into the Raver’s jaw yet again, and a few more teeth hit the ground.
“Trinity.”
I raised my fist again, vaguely aware that the shape of the Raver’s head looked wrong in the gloom of the alley, like half its skull might be indented. The demon wasn’t fighting back. Its arms were limp at its sides, its mouth hanging—
The scent of wintermint overshadowed the stench of the alley a moment before a warm, strong arm circled my waist. Zayne hauled me off the prone demon. From the amount of heat he was throwing off, I knew he was still in Warden form.