Page 51 of Till Death

Okay, several seconds.

“These are those big bad sin demons I’ve been hearing about?” Lisa clucked her tongue. “They don’t look like much to me.”

Tamara tossed her hair over her shoulder while Kay crept a little closer to Eli. “They really aren’t much, when you get right down to it,” Tamara replied with an attitude.

“You really don’t want to make me mad, sweetheart. I can make sure things you’ve been through before look like a picnic when you get back.” Pride stared at his nails before shooting a withering glare at the witch.

“All I need to do is listen to you talk and I’m already there.”

Go, Tamara!

We chose to divide and conquer without saying a word. Tamara and Eli took Lust while Kay, Lisa and I surrounded Pride.

Another fight, I thought as I swung Bertha. Another fight where I had to draw blood and kill in order to get my friends out. Except this time, they were the ones trying to get me out. They’d come all this way for me.

I used my guilt as fuel when my body practically begged me to break down.Later, I assured it, pushing all thoughts of the wound in my leg to the side. Headache be damned. I had things to do.

“Hey, asshole.”

Kay kicked Pride in the stomach after quite the surprising curse but the hit did no good.

“Get out of here,” I told her, stepping between them in time to absorb the blowback when Pride hit back. The punch reverberated through me, much harder than a normal hit. Considering the slim build, blond hair, the forest green eyes, and the lazy smile, the guy Pride wore probably wouldn’t have hit that hard normally either.

But Kay wasn’t leaving. Neither was Lisa.

Their determination seemed to only grow.

The last time we’d been face-to-face with a sin demon, Kay had booked it for the elevator when she couldn’t take it anymore. Well, I guess a lot more had changed than I originally thought. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

I shook my head. “We’re getting out of here whether you stand in our way or not,” I told Pride, my voice breaking. “It would be easier if you stepped aside.”

Pride chuckled, his hands sliding into his pockets in the perfect facsimile of an Abercrombie ad. “What are you going to do? You can barely stand. Do you want me to bring a seat over for you, so you can relax for a little bit? I don’t mind waiting to snap your spine in two like a glowstick.”

“You can try.” Wow, even Bertha felt heavier than usual, and normally she was an extension of my arm.

We were all exhausted. We were all banged up and ready to drop. Rest wouldn’t come for us until we made it past this latest hurtle.

“Are you ready, Jade?” Kay asked.

Instead of answering, I joined her in running at the demon and doing my best to kill him before he caused more trouble.

I used the pommel of the sword instead of the blade and smashed it against Pride’s perfect nose. Served him right for trying to look like a model.

Black blood began to gush from the wound and he whirled on Kay in retaliation.

“You bitches,” he snarled.

I tuned out the scuffling behind us from where the others fought Lust.

“What’s the matter? Does it bruise your tender ego to have a girl kick your ass?” I asked sweetly. “Well, come on over here, sugar, and I can finish the job. It won’t take much.”

Lisa burst forward next and landed a solid hit to the back of Pride’s knee and I went for the head when he jerked. We really only needed to get one of them down to make the fight a little more manageable. We’d never be able to outrun either if we chose to bolt, which left murder as our only option.

Was it really murder when a demon was the intended victim? Not in my mind.

Kay, Lisa and I tag-teamed Pride but no matter how often we beat at him, none of our attacks had the same force as my first hit. He also never let us get that close again. He parried and spun better than an Olympic figure skater.

Why did these guys have to be so hard to take down?

---