Page 76 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

Loren leaped between us, looking ready to shove her back to the other side before my heave combined with her push brought her tumbling over.

She spilled onto the damp asphalt, clutching the knife as she scrambled to stand.

A swing of Loren’s arm knocked me backward, but I managed to keep my feet while the situation played out before me.

The girl was upright but staggered, and Loren had drawn his glaive. He situated his hands on the weapon’s shaft, readying to swing. Judging by his pose and the angle of his intended attack, he would cut the woman cleanly in half.

I shouted his name and barreled forward, colliding with a shove against his back. He barely budged, but I succeeded in delaying his attack and in giving three more people time to lunge over the fence.

Another woman and two men squared off across from us, all baring their teeth and wielding a variety of weapons.

The trend of disinterest continued when their attention glossed over me and pinpointed Loren. My heart knocked against my ribs. I’d gotten him out of danger once; this time, I’d led him into it.

The injured woman hobbled aside, likely considering making a break for it. Loren snarled and leveled his glaive at the otherthree, tracking rapidly from one assailant to the next. Everyone paused, and I thought for a moment they might take turns in an organized, civilized fashion.

Instead, it was a brawl.

Silver flashed as swords cut through the air. The accompanying racket made me fear we’d alert all of Brooklyn. At least then maybe someone could do what I’d failed to: help.

Loren was surrounded, outnumbered as he had been at the auto shop but with slightly better odds. He was holding his own, making swipes with his polearm that kept the other hounds at bay.

I needed to get in there, to make the fight fairer or to end it entirely. There were only a few things that could permanently kill a hellhound, and phoenix fire was one of them. Anything Loren did to wound the other hounds would, at worst, send them back to Hell. From there, they could return again and again in ever greater numbers until they overwhelmed us. Until they flooded the city and ran us out of it.

My pulse pounded, and I grasped at the air. I thought about flames. Attack. Defense. My fantasized aerial assault.

Nothing happened.

No wings sprouted from my shoulders; no sparks flew from my hands. I stood there, cold and ineffective, while the hellhounds yipped and growled. Blood splattered the ground.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but everything was wrong.Iwas wrong.

Something shiny flew past. One of the hounds had a thrown weapon. A spike or small knife that I didn’t get a good look at until it lodged in Loren’s chest. He yelped, and I raced toward the fray, but the backswing of his glaive nearly took me out at the knees.

Loren swept the polearm forward then, pitching wide and low as his aim suffered from his injury. The blade connected,bisecting the nearest hound above the hips. The man slid apart, his torso separated from his legs in a gruesome bath of black.

The other two went in rapid succession, one cleaved in half and the other decapitated with such force her disembodied head sailed into the alley wall. It struck with a wet smack, then tumbled to the ground.

Their ruined bodies wisped into smoke that dissipated in the night air

The girl we had saved remained, and I felt a cool wash of relief until Loren turned his attention toward her.

“Lorenzo,” she gasped and raised her empty hands. “Loren, I didn’t… I never meant to come here.” She backpedaled but didn’t run while Loren closed the gap between them.

“Yet you came,” he rumbled.

The girl shook her head so her ratted hair swung wildly. “We were sent,” she sputtered.

“From Hell. The witch… Nero’s witch.”

Loren’s lip curled as the woman babbled on.

“She said to check this city. Said someone stole something from her and brought it here.”

The bag Loren took—the one Sully burned. Like a magical tracking device, it must have pinged its last known location as Brooklyn, New York, and brought the hounds to our backyard.

“I tried to get away.” The girl gestured to the fence and whatever lay beyond it. “I don’t want to belong to Nero or Karst.” She shook her head again. “I want to be free, so I tried to run, but they?—”

“You turned me in to Nero,” Loren cut in, his voice low. “That was the cost of leaving you alive last time. A price I won’t pay again.”

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