Blood of the Demon (Kara Gillian 2)

Zack grinned and gave me a mock salute as he lowered his gun. “Why, thankee, ma’am.”

I managed a wheezing chuckle, then got to my feet and looked to Ryan. “Are you all right?”

Ryan scowled and lifted his shirt, revealing a set of rippled abs that would have been incredibly nice to gaze at for a while if not for the four parallel scores across them that were just beginning to ooze blood.

“Barely got me,” he said, tugging the shirt back down. “I’ll be fine.”

I gave him a small smile of relief, then stepped over to crouch by the stain on the floor. I stayed there for a few heartbeats, absorbing the feel of the lingering residue, then straightened.

“That’s what we felt the other day by your office,” I said to both of them.

“So it’s been stalking us for a few days,” Ryan said, expression grim.

“I think so,” I said, then looked back to Zack. “Don’t take this the wrong way, because your timing was fantastic, but what are you doing here?”

A slight smile touched his lips. “I, uh, get ‘feelings’ sometimes. I’ve learned to listen to them. And I had a feeling I needed to see what Ryan was up to.”

So Zack had a touch of clairvoyance? I had a hard time being surprised, especially since I knew that he was sensitive to the arcane. “Well, I’m quite grateful to your feelings right now.” My gaze shifted higher. “And even more grateful that your hair is no longer orange.”

He laughed and ran a hand over his head. “Yep, surfer blond again.”

Ryan’s gaze swept the restaurant, taking in the waitress cowering under a table. “We have bigger problems right now.” He jerked his head toward the back door. “Zack, check the back. There’s a busboy out there, possibly hurt.”

Zack met his eyes, a strange expression on his face. “You’ll take care of the rest?”

Ryan’s face went stony and bleak, and he gave a stiff nod. Zack slipped out the back door.

What the hell was that about?

Ryan stepped over to the table the waitress was hiding under and crouched in front of her. He placed a hand on hers and I thought he was going to help her out from under the table, but instead she went very still and quiet when her eyes met his. I watched the bizarre tableau, perplexed, as Ryan continued to hold the woman’s hand, eyes fixed on hers while a strange and terrible smile curved his lips.

After perhaps half a minute, he took a breath and looked away. The waitress blinked, then gave Ryan a smile as he gripped her hand more firmly and helped her out from under the table.

“Here you go, ma’am,” Ryan said. “The dogs are all gone now.”

The woman let out a normal chuckle that completely unnerved me, considering what she’d just witnessed. “Oh, I knew they’d get in here someday, the way Tommy likes to feed those darn strays! Thank you for chasing them off, darlin’.”

“It was no trouble,” Ryan replied, giving her a charming smile. His eyes flicked to me and he gave a slight motion of his head toward the door. I glanced over to see Zack coming back inside.

“Ryan, the boy was bitten, but he’ll be all right.” He gave Ryan the strange look again. “You’ll see to him?”

Ryan’s face could have been carved from iron. He didn’t nod, just stepped past Zack and walked outside, returning less than a minute later supporting a limping Tommy. “Ya gotta be careful of those feral dogs, kid. You never know when one might take a snap at you.” He eased the boy down to a chair. “You gonna be all right?”

The boy bit his lip, clearly doing everything he could to be manly and not cry about the wound in his leg. It wasn’t gaping or anything, but it was big, and I knew that the kid was going to need some serious stitching. How anyone could think that a stray dog with a normal-size jaw had made that injury was beyond me.

But at the moment there were many things that I felt I wasn’t quite grasping.

“Ryan—” I began.

He jerked his hand up in a keep quiet gesture, eyes unfocused. I wanted to shriek, but I forced myself to hold it in. About a dozen heartbeats later, he blinked and looked back at Zack.

“Okay, the cook is the only other one in the place, and he wears an iPod turned up loud enough to drown out a nuclear explosion.” He scrubbed at his face, hand shaking slightly, then his eyes met mine. “Some stray dogs got in the back door and caused a big mess. That’s … that’s what they remember.”

I could only stare at him for several heartbeats. “What did you just do?” It came out much more calmly than I had expected.

An expression of true pain flickered across his face, then was gone. He gave me a smile that looked terribly sad, then gripped me by the shoulders, eyes quickly scanning me up and down. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No,” I said, voice strangled. “What about you?”