Blood Trinity (Belador #1)(14)
Beladors would come—grudgingly—if she called. Screw that, and she wasn’t bothering Tzader. His meeting was too important.
I can’t put this off with those two boys at the mercy of a Cresyl demon.
She drew a shallow breath and walked further into the parking lot. The closer she got to the demon the more foul the air turned. Would the female Cresyl be in her demon form, or could the thing have fed on another human and now be masquerading in that poor soul’s body?
Where were the twins? Her panic for their safety was rising high.
A scraping sound above her drew her gaze over her shoulder, up to where two identical blond males clung to a galvanized pole mounted thirty feet off the ground that supported the halogen security light. One of the boys kicked his boot against the brick wall and struggled to keep a grasp, but neither uttered a sound.
Thank the goddess they were safe.
The demon had muted them—something she’d wanted to do to the back-talking Kardos on occasion—but this wasn’t funny.
Evalle needed something to break their fall. She spied a Dumpster and lifted her hand to telekinetically move it into place.
All of a sudden a blast of energy knocked her backward. She hit the brick wall four feet off the ground and slid down, scraping her arms on the rough edges but landing on her feet.
Ready to fight.
Her hand went to the dagger in her sheath and paused.
The demon that leaped into view from between steel containers on the far side of the parking lot was not a Cresyl or a female.
Scrolled ink designs ran along one side of his face, moving like a tangle of angry snakes. He was pushing eight feet tall, and she had a bad feeling this one could grow larger. She based gender this time on the very human fit of his jeans that were tight enough to leave no doubt about his endowment or sex.
Ah, crap, he was shifting from human to demon form.
What kind of demon was this thing, and what was he doing here? Who had opened the hellmouth downtown?
More to the point, how did she close it again? Preferably with the demons on the right side of it. ’Cause no offense, she was getting tired of the cleanup.
He locked his hands—that now had claw tips—together in front of his chest. A supersized black hoodie covered thick shoulders, but he was still shifting. Horns had already started growing from his thick forehead just above each eye. His nose widened and lengthened to a curved tip. Ew! Boar demons were ugly. A thin red tongue lashed out from between pointed teeth.
And what the heck had happened to his ears? They were cauliflowered like a battered boxer’s instead of pointed.
The back of his pants ripped open, and two tails grew six feet long with spikes at the end.
Now she knew what he was.
A Birrn demon, far more dangerous than a Cresyl.
Oh, yay! Just what her suckass night needed.
If the stories she’d heard were true, he should smell like tar or burned rubber, not sulfur … unless …
He’d eaten the Cresyl.
Great. Just great. Even better. He’d eaten her evidence. Did everything have to conspire against her tonight?
But a Birrn wasn’t a free agent. He answered to a master, so he wouldn’t be here unless he’d been sent. VIPER would definitely go after whoever sent a predator here. If Evalle could show up with this thing smelling of Cresyl, even Sen would hesitate to point a finger at her for the dead human.
She hoped.
The demon bellowed as both horns curled and thickened at full extension.
“Hello, Mr. Ugly. Care to explain why you ran my friends up a flagpole?” And here she’d thought only bully humans were that cruel.
“I want your power,” the demon whispered, a deep and menacing sound.
Was he hunting any and all powerful beings or … just her?
“Um yeah … no offense. Think I’ll hang on to it for a bit.” Evalle crossed her arms and glanced over her shoulder. “What about those two?” Had he sucked them dry?
“Bait.”
Okay … how did he know anyone would come to help the twins, much less someone with my level of powers? She’d chalk it up to a good guess, but his kind really weren’t that smart. “Let them go and we’ll chat.”
He shook his head in an easy motion. “Bait always dies.”
“Bad news for you then.”
The demon pulled back. Dull confusion fogged his glowing red eyes. “Why?”
“Cuz you’re not bright enough to come after me yourself, which makes you somebody else’s bait.”
Worry skipped through his gaze for a split second, just long enough for Evalle to take advantage of his lack of attention. She whipped both arms away from her body, throwing an arc of hot energy at him that knocked him backward. He slammed into the steel shipping containers, which crashed down on him, the sound shattering the predawn quiet.
Using her telekinesis, she directed a Dumpster to cross the parking lot and park below the boys. “Jump!”
A sick thought hit her at the same moment.
What if the Dumpster was empty?
Or worse, had something in it deadly for them? Surely they wouldn’t be that stupid.
Well … Kell wasn’t that stupid.
But when the boys dropped, it sounded as though they’d landed on a cushion of garbage. Thank Macha.
“Get out of here,” Evalle ordered the twins when they scrambled over the top and jumped down in front of her. “And get a bath. You smell like rat piss.”