Page 42 of The Sinner and the Gunslinger
“Possessed!” I shout and duck, narrowly missing clawed hands as they fling past my head and hit the car roof.
With an upward strike, my blade sinks in beneath his ribs. A gun fires. The force of the bullet whips the possessed man’s head back. Zeke unloads his remaining four bullets into the man’s heart. Black smoke billows from the demon-possessed’s mouth. Once it’s all out, the corpse drops.
I yank my sword out and prepare for more danger, but after a few breaths of silence, I don’t think anyone else is coming. The demonic presence is gone.
Zeke jogs to my side of the car, already reloading his gun. He takes one look at me and then searches the darkness around us. While he does that, I crouch to inspect the fallen man now that my eyes have adjusted to the dark.
“He’s a biker,” I note. “Has an MC logo on the leather jacket.”
Dark veins spider out from the wound on his forehead—possibly an effect of the spell attached to Zeke’s bullets. I definitely need to finish carving that into all the weapons when we get to the motel.
“What’s a biker doing out in the middle of nowhere?” I ask, straightening.
“Not sure,” Zeke answers, eyes locked onto something in the distance. “But I think someone in that bar can tell us. I’ll check it out.”
I follow his gaze and gasp. “You mean the bar that’s on fire?”
The embers and mist I saw behind the man on the road were actually fire and smoke.
Fire.
A lot of it.
Sweat breaks out on my upper lip, my neck, everywhere. It prickles over my body and quickens my breathing. The ground moves beneath my feet, and I use the katana to steady myself.
“There might be survivors.” Zeke holsters his gun. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Wait here. I’ll be right back.
Blood roars in my ears. I start panting.
Promise?
Every cell in my body is split between the past and the present. Like a zombie, I watch Zeke jog toward the bar and become consumed by smoke. It’s like I’m in my very own horror movie with my eyelids taped open and my hands strapped to an execution chair. I can’t press pause.
Stop, I try to shout.
Stop.
The fire will burn him alive.
Eighteen
The Past
The boy, who was now a man, stared at his latest effort stitching up the snuggle toy’s chest cavity. The old thing was losing stuffing. He’d tried to reinforce the seam the girl had stitched in the home, but it didn’t work for him as it did for her. She was so good at fixing things. Good at baking, too, even for one so young.
He missed her cookies.
He missed her smile.
The smell of her fruity shampoo.
The way she sighed softly when she enveloped him with her arms.
But most of all, he missed how her face screwed up when she remembered her defiance and let it out.
He sighed and put the floppy toy down, hating how it judged him with its one-button eye. It had been a year since he left his wildcat. A year since he made her think he was dead, but he was no closer to finding the fire demon today than he was then.
