Page 6 of Some Swans Don't Swim
A scraping sounded, metallic and loud. And then movement. Something huge was coming up the street.
Finally, coming up from two blocks down, the scraping sound revealed itself. It was a car, tipped up on its very front end and sliding down the center of the slick street toward me. Orange sparks flared out from where it grated along the ice.
No sign of Krampus, which meant he was using magic, and not to impress me. To distract me.
The car slid up toward me fast, but I didn’t budge. I held out my arm, stuck out my finger, and touched it to the cold top of the car to stop it. When it did stop, the night roared with quiet.
Too much quiet.
Except for the slightest creak behind the car. An arctic prickle scurried over the top of my scalp. I took a single step back and flicked my gaze upward.
And locked eyes with a pair of beastly red ones. A mouthful of yellowed fangs opened, and a horrible wail burst out as well as a long, forked tongue. Two humongous goat horns jutted from a dingy furred hood and curled up over the top of his head. From behind the car, he smacked a clawed hand against it and sent it flying.
Terror gripped my dead heart. A scream welled up inside my throat and froze.
That was my cue to run, and I did. Yeah, I know that wasn’t the slayer thing to do, but I needed to reevaluate, find a weakness, something, and fast. I couldn’t do that if I was served on a plate and stabbed with a fork.
The car crashed into the house with my vamps and dog inside, so I sprinted away from it, as fast as I could, to draw Krampus away from my loves. I slid to a stop on the other side of a white van. With my ungraceful speed, I nearly took off the passenger side mirror. I ripped it the rest of the way free and threw it as hard as I could toward some bushes a couple houses down. It crashed into them with a satisfactory amount of noise, and a growl rolled toward that direction.
I had no idea how smart Krampus was, but I hoped he was dumb enough to go investigate and give me time to think. The van I stood next to had chains on its tires. Maybe I could make those work for me. But first, I needed a plan. Something to distract him long enough so I could tie the chains around him. And then what? The devil wasn’t here to take him back to hell, so it would just be Krampus and me, hanging out. Unless I could stash him somewhere until the devil came back...
A faint ringing of jingle bells came from the bushes I’d thrown the mirror in.
Quickly, I dropped to my knees and rolled underneath the van so the ice seeped up through the front of my open leather jacket and Sylvester T-shirt. To my left was an empty street once more, though I doubted it would stay that way for long. As quietly as I could, I reached my seraph knife out in front of me toward the chained tire.
From the back pocket of my jeans, my cell began to ring, so loud in the silent night.Fuck. I scrambled to answer it. It was probably Eddie with an idea of how to catch Krampus.
“Hello,” I said, not even a whisper, and Eddie began talking.
I didn’t hear a word he said. More jingles sounded, much too close. Then the van I hid under tipped fast and knocked on its side with a loud bang. Leaving me exposed. Leaving me staring up at the big guy himself.
Dressed in a once-red, fur-lined cloak, he towered over me. Battered jingle bells edged the bottom of his cloak and scraped along the ice, and as he shifted, I glimpsed hoofed feet. Strings of drool dripped from his yellowed fangs, and four-inch claws that poked from his long sleeves clicked together.
My flesh felt like it was peeling away from my bones at how badly I wanted to scurry away from him.
We eyed each other, assessing. My muscles coiled tight. My grips on the seraph knife and god bone turned painful. His beastly red eyes homed in on the knife particularly, as if he recognized exactly who it was meant to kill—demons like himself. Even goat demons. At least I hoped.
Behind his red eyes, I sensed a great deal of intelligence and cunning. And hunger, just as sharp as my seraph knife and growing sharper.
Oh.Shit.
With a horrendous snarl, he lunged.
