Page 28 of Another Damned Storm
Surprise lit the demon’s mangled features, but I didn’t take the time to work out what that meant before I launched forward, dipping low and slicing a deep gash along the creature’s knee. It let out a howl and stumbled, but not before I spun and swept my blade in a long arc along the back of its leg.
Hamstringing was one of the best ways to take down something this big, especially when punching holes in it wasn’t incentive enough for it to stop.
The bearded guy took a running leap with his blade held high in both hands. You know in the movies how the dashing pirate would sink a blade into a sail and ride it down? That was pretty much his move, only he did it to the demon’s back.
The thing reared back and spun, twisting and reaching. I shot forward and dropped into a baseball-worthy slide, slicing what I hoped was the equivalent of the thing’s Achilles tendon.
That was the last straw. The demon stumbled. He was going down, but I couldn’t tell if the guy playing the hero was still on him or not. A quick glance showed me the woman was racing across the street toward the alcove, and the guy that had been watching me from there was battling demon number two with Bike Guy. The Bearded Hero, however, was nowhere to be seen.
The demon in front of me let out an ear-splitting roar that made me wince. It wasn’t the sound, though. It was the agony in it. Ifeltit. Not the way I could feel Hook, but more like a kindred spirit. Empathy. And for one horrifying moment, I froze.
Why would I feel anything for a demon other than loathing? Had stopping by the Alius scrambled my brain? Fried my wires?
The demon’s gaze met mine for a second, and what I saw wrenched me back into action. Hate bled from those black eyes. Merciless. Ruthless.
It spun around with another deafening roar, and there was the Bearded Hero, climbing the thing’s back, using his blade like an ice-climbing axe.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I yelled.
He didn’t spare me a glance, which, considering what the moron was doing, was probably smart. The demon tottered again before it hit its knees. Mr. Hero wasn’t even phased. He just scaled the thing’s back, and when he got to its shoulders, he drove his blade into the base of the demon’s skull, clear to the hilt.
Well, shit.I’d seen my share of wannabe tough guys, but whoever Mr. Hero was in real life, he was also a badass.
I turned my attention to the other demon and the two men fighting it. It looked like they were trying to use a similar approach with a distraction from the front, but the thing wasn’t falling for it. It slashed out and ripped a gouge in Alcove Guy’s upper arm.
To his credit, Alcove Guy just looked more pissed. He pressed his opposite hand to the wound before scowling up at the demon and darting forward with his blade out. Bike Guy raced up on foot with two smaller knives, one in each hand, and went to town slashing and slicing.
The smaller demon howled and fought back. He knocked Bike Guy on his ass. Threw Alcove Guy hard enough to send him tumbling down the street. Then his attention landed on me.
He bellowed something in demonese, and again, I could feel my brain trying to make sense of it.
Wrong time, sunshine. Sort that shit out later.
First, I needed to make sure that nasty baddie didn’t kill anyone.I charged the demon, but at the last second, I bobbed to the left, swung around, and hit the thing with three quick jabs to the side. It wasn’t debilitating, but it was enough to give the other guys a chance to get back on their feet.
What felt like hours later, sucking air and feeling like a drowned rat, I took a beat to survey the damage.
“We need to remove the heads,” I finally said. That was how to keep demons like that from eventually healing and coming back for more. I might not have many nice things to say about my mom anymore, but at least she taught me the most important tricks.
Mr. Hero motioned to Alcove Guy. “You got it, Kai?”
He held up his blade. “Yeah, boss. I’m on it.”
Boss? So, this was an operation? And Mr. Hero, the guy marching toward me with a scowl on his face, was the leader.
Fun.
I had my trademark snark locked and loaded for when he inevitably opened his mouth to yell at me, because that was what authority figures usually did when they had to deal with me. But as he drew closer, a few things hit me in rapid succession.
The first was his gate and the slight limp that he did a pretty good job of hiding. The second was that the guy had at least a decade on me, with a rebellious beard that only seemed to highlight the two jagged scars marring the left side of his face. And the third—the thing that made my breath catch in my chest—was the realization that I knew him.
I’d known him almost my entire life.
“Matty?”
11
NEVER
