Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(41)

Its claws caught my left leg near my hip. I roared as I twisted and blocked its gaping mouth by shoving my right paw against the bottom of its mouth, slamming its jaw shut.

The power in its body, though, was like wrestling with a literal force of nature. Inch by inch, its bared teeth drew closer and I knew it was only a matter of time before it bit down on me and chewed my face off. This was what I got for helping Raven. Damn it, I was an idiot. I rolled to the side as I scrabbled at its belly with my back feet.

Connected with Spirit—the only way to disperse a demon properly—I tried to force it back through the Veil again.

“Ah, that won’t work with me.” It spat the words through the bared teeth. “I ain’t that kind of demon.”

With a screech, I used the demon’s body weight against it and jerked us to one side. We slammed into the deck and the blow shuddered around us, rippling the steel in a wave.

The claws dug in harder to my arm and my bone snapped, sudden and loud under the pressure.

“Someone help her! She’s just a girl!”

Just a girl?

Rage lit me up at the way they dismissed me because I was a woman. A girl, in their eyes, and therefore unable to protect myself. There was no way I was going down under a demon. I called on the power of the earth hard, yanked it up around the ship and spilled it over the deck so wet sand spread out in a wave.

The demon stared at me and started to laugh. “Wet sand, that’s all you’ve got?”

I shifted into my human form, my broken arm much smaller than the powerful legs of the snow leopard. I slid back from the demon on my ass across the makeshift beach.

“You bet.” I called the sand forward, tightened the molecules until they hardened into glass. Long sharp shards that I sent flying toward the demon’s body. The shattered against him, as if they were nothing. Well, shit on that.

The creature roared with laughter and I bit down against the shooting pains in my upper arm. It stalked toward me. I could only think of one thing.

Spirit could turn the beast into my own creature.

I called the element to me and began to weave it through the demon at a speed I didn’t know I was capable of. Faster and faster, I pushed my own thoughts into the demon’s head, over and over.

“What are you doing?” It growled and shook its head, put one big paw to its forehead.

It growled and the tongues shot out, caught me around the ankles and yanked me forward. Peta’s fear sliced through me.

“Stay back!” I yelled at her. The last thing I wanted was to have her tangled up with whatever I was doing with Spirit.

The demon pulled me toward it, teeth bared. “I’m going to eat your heart,” it snarled.

The only option left was to somehow unravel the thing, to pull its life apart thread by thread.

But could I do that with Spirit?

Raven’s words about not being told how to do things came back to me, so I would attempt the impossible again. I was right under it now, the mouth coming at me. I snapped my good hand up under its jaw once more to buy myself the few seconds I needed. I opened myself to Spirit. Opened myself to the possibility of taking this thing’s life, of pulling it apart molecule by molecule. Its flashing red eyes narrowed as spit dripped onto my face. The push of it against my hand, each second that ticked by brought its teeth that much closer.

“What are you doing?” one of the humans yelled.

“Killing it,” I whispered, as I urged Spirit forward, weaving it through the demon’s body, making my own power part of the skin and flesh that made up the creature, finding the pathways that were the power holding it together.

“Bitch.” Its teeth snapped the word before it jerked its head from me.

I slammed Spirit into it as hard as I could, desperation stealing any caution I might have left in my heart. The demon’s body jerked once, its red eyes fading to a dull gray, then closing as it slid to its knees, its wide and scaled chest pressing against my legs. My power curled through it, bringing its power and will under my control. Something I had never done, something that I hadn’t planned.

“Mistress, what have you need of? I live to serve.” The demon dog blinked up at me, its eyes wide and begging.

Shaking, I pushed myself back a few feet. “Shit.” Shit indeed, what exactly had I done?

Peta raced to my side. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But we have more than one problem.”

I twisted where I sat to see four winged beasts sweeping down across the deck. Stone skin, wide leathery wings, rocks for teeth. I let out a sigh. “Gargoyles, really?”

“We are here for that one.” The lead gargoyle pointed at the still figure of Raven.

“I can’t let you take him.” I pushed slowly to my feet, clutching my broken arm.

“Mistress, I can destroy them for you.” The demon dog whined softly. “Please let me destroy them for you.”

The gargoyles spread out, and I knew no matter how good the demon dog was, at least one would get by him.

A part of me blabbered that I should be terrified, that I was about to use a demon to kill other creatures. The rest of me was too tired and hurt to care.

“Do it.”

The demon dog rushed the gargoyles and managed to snag two at once.

The other two split their defense.

One came for me the other went straight to Raven.