Page 93 of Bad Moon Rising
This time, demon sword in hand, he ran for her. By the time he reached her, she already had the mini-demon off her back and was chanting something above it that froze the being.
She stepped away with a smile and waved at him to get on doing his thing with the sword.
Too much emotion swirled inside his head. He wobbled. Flynn moved to help him but he held up a staying hand. “You died.”
“I did.”
“But you’re here.” Spots flashed in his vision.Don’t. Pass. Out.
“Yes. I’m here, but apparently you’d prefer if I was dead?” Her eyes narrowed.
“No. That’s not what I said. You died. I saw him execute you.” He unsheathed the khopesh to attack a demon headed their way. “Did Zadkiel do this?”
He sliced the demon with the sword, which turned it to dust. He was going to kill the angel next time he saw him. He’d clearly lost his mind to bring her back only to involve her in this.
“Cooper changed into the angel. He did something to me to prevent me from dying, but I’ve been asleep until now. He brought me here. I did die. I haven’t gotten any explanations beyond that.”
Two new demons approached him with daggers flying. With a wail of fury, he destroyed both. Zeroing in on the source, the head super shit, he charged, sword in hand.
Someone yelled behind him, but he couldn’t hear—didn’t want to hear. He was on autopilot and wanted this thing gone. He wanted Nova safe.
He had to do it…to save her. And the others.
…
“Roman, can you hear me?”
Someone was shaking him. He woke up in a void of being unable to see. He couldn’t feel his legs.
The voice. It was hers. He wasn’t dead. Guess that was good. And bonus: she was still here.
“Can you do anything with all that? He’s bleeding all over the place?” someone said, maybe Flynn.
“We have to get him off the street,” came another male voice. “There.”
His body was jostled, maybe carried. When he next opened his eyes, he stared up into a cavernous ceiling and an electric chandelier far too ornate and gigantic to be in a house other than that of an ostentatious king. This had to be a church. He intoned the rosary.
Everything came back in a flash. Him attacking the senior demon. The demon struck with talons and then a knife. Then the fucker bit him. He’d kicked his foot into the demon’s stomach to dislodge the demon from his shoulder. He’d gone to slice it, and it smashed his arm. Then he remembered nothing.
There weren’t any spells or tricks to stop a demon like that, other than the khopesh sword. Since it was dead, either Zadkiel or someone else completed the job.
Were those bagpipes? This had to be a dream. Bagpipes in Belgium?
With a groan, he pushed himself upright to search for the source of the music.
“Whoa,” Flynn said. “Stay still until the angel can do something.”
“What’s that music?”
Zadkiel’s handsome face popped into his line of vision, replacing Flynn’s. “You shouldn’t be awake.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse. What were you thinking? You don’t go solo insane on a demon like that.”
He fell back to a prone position. “I think the bite is the worst of it. If I turn into a demon or zombie, kill me.”
“The last thing I want to see is a zombified Roman,” the angel said. He took something out of his pocket that looked like a hand-rolled cigarette. It smelled herbal, but not cannabis or tobacco. He crushed the material between his hands and sprinkled it over the bite.
