I Hear Voices(8)

“Zelda,” Sloan snapped in warning.

“I’m twenty-eight, ma’am.” He stuck a thermometer in my mouth.

“You must get carded a lot,” I mumbled.

Hank grinned. “Yes ma’am, I do.” He examined the welts on my face and arms. “Both of you run into a swarm of bees?”

Derek slanted me a hostile glare. “You could say that.”

Pinching the skin on my arm, Hank pulled out an IV kit. “Let’s get some fluids in you.”

I spit the thermometer out. “No needles.”

Derek stuck the thermometer back in my mouth. “You’re dehydrated.”

I promptly pulled it back out. “I’m fine.”

Hank popped the thermometer back in. “Heat exhaustion can kill you just as dead as a bullet in the chest.”

He had a point. I held out my arm, wincing when Hank slid the needle in and hung the IV bag on a root protruding from the canyon wall.

“You’ll feel better in no time.” He pulled the thermometer out, checked it and handed me a bottle of ice cold water. “Drink up.”

I pressed it against my face and groaned. It felt so good. “You got any chocolate in that bag?”

“Sorry ma’am but I don’t.” Hank grabbed his gear and went to help his partner with the Apache.

Derek took the water bottle from me, removed the cap and handed it back. “Drink it.”

Holding on to my temper by a mere thread, I took a mouthful and was about to spit it in his face when the cocky bastard smiled. Holy Jesus, it was the scariest thing I had ever seen. I quickly swallowed the water.

“Smart girl.”

“I hate, loathe and despise you.”

He winked at me. “No, you don’t.”

“Yeah, I really do,” I retorted.

He brushed the sweaty hair off my face.

“You’ve got spunk but you’re outclassed, Angel. Do what I tell you and we’ll get along just fine.”

Spunk? God, what a snot wad. I dumped the contents of the bottle over his head and watched in satisfaction as the water poured down the Tomb Raider’s face. “I think you’re suffering from heat exhaustion, sugar, because you’re definitely delusional.”

Derek’s hand clamped around the back of my neck and his mouth crushed mine in a fierce, hungry kiss.

Before I knew it, I was kissing him back and our tongues were tangling in an intimate dance.

Granny Annabel crowed, “I told you, he is your soul mate.”

The Marine hooted, “Way to go, boss.”

Reality came crashing back and I broke free.

“Gotta admit, you’re one hell of a kisser, sugar, but this seduction thing? It ain’t gonna work.”

An ominous laugh rumbled deep in Derek’s chest. “Oh, it’ll work all right.”

“You smug bastard.” I swung at him.

Sloan easily caught my hand and brought it up to his mouth for a lingering kiss. “Got a bit of a temper, don’t you?”

“You have no idea.” I yanked my hand free and rubbed it on my jeans.

A smile tugging at his mouth, Derek motioned to the tactical guys. They obediently trotted over.

“Tell them where you saw the skulls.”

“Why? They can’t go down there.”

The Marine snickered. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but we don’t believe in ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night.”

I examined the idiot from his military haircut, down his spotless uniform to his spit shined boots.

“Booyah! Sixty people have vanished in these mountains in the last year and I bet they all thought the same thing.”

“Zelda,” Derek warned.

“How attached are you to them?”

“Attached?”

“I’m only asking because if you send them down there without protection they won’t be coming back.”

The bald guy asked, “Protection? What kind of protection?”

I held out my cross. “You’ll need this, some salt to drive away demonic spirits and Granny’s help.”

Derek cocked an incredulous eyebrow. “Your dead grandmother’s help?”

“Did she or did she not freeze the bees attacking you?”

Sloan rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “Something did. It could have been some kind of a weird cold front.”

I rolled my eyes. “Right. It’s June. It’s Arizona and its degrees today.”

The Apache warrior convulsed and thrashed around violently.

The crowd of vengeful spirits that had gathered over his body fled in terror.

“Oh hell.” I could sense something really terrible heading our way.

“He comes,” Granny announced.

“No shit, Sherlock.” I cast a wary eye at the boiling black clouds building overhead. “I need my stun gun back, now.”

Derek snorted. “Not a chance”

“Your butt, sugar, but putting your men at risk?

Now that’s just plain stupid.”

The Tomb Raider’s mouth tightened into a hard line. “What are you talking about?”

A great crack of thunder shook the earth.

“You’re about to meet something that goes bump in the night.”

Uttering a terrifying war cry the Apache warrior broke his restraints and hurled the paramedics into the canyon wall. They crumpled to the ground and lay unmoving.

Immediately, Derek and his team piled on the warrior and fought to hold him down.

Leaping back, I tried to find a way around the rolling ball of kicking, punching men. I had to get to my stun gun.

Eerie green lightning lanced across the roiling clouds and great cracks of thunder shook the canyon.

In frustrated rage, I yelled. “If I had my stun gun I could zap the shit out of the demon and short circuit it’s power before it takes possession.”

The bald guy went flying and smacked face first into a boulder.

“But, oh no, your brain dead boss wouldn’t let me have it and it’s gonna get us killed.”

Without warning a sparking, crackling bolt of putrid green energy spewed from the warrior’s chest.

I flinched as dark magic crawled over me and held the cross out. “Go back to hell you bloody demon.”

The sickly green energy flared brightly and then vanished abruptly.

When my vision cleared, I noticed the men were scattered about like broken toys. “They better not be dead, you slimy piece of shit!”

My gaze locked on the Apache warrior. He stood poised like a snake, silent, still and watchful.

It might be his body but the Thunder God had definitely taken possession. Could this day get any worse?

His glowing green eyes surveyed me with seething hostility. “I will cut your still-beating heart from your chest and eat it.”

I sighed. Yeah, it could. “You’ve been watching way too many horror movies, puke breath.”

A startled yelp broke from me when a lightning bolt struck a dead tree several feet away.

The monster laughed.

“Yuck it up but I’m still sending you back to hell.”

“Your puny cross will not save you.” He sniffed the air. “I haven’t had a virgin’s heart in over a hundred years.”

I glared at him. Great. Just what I needed another blabbermouth.

He licked his lips. “After I’ve drained your virgin’s blood, I will feed your entrails…”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. To the buzzards,” I inserted.

Lightning crackled like fiery snakes and the sky darkened to night. The wind swirled around me, whispering that death was ever near.

My breath left my lungs in an involuntary gasp.

God, I hated demons’ little games.

The Thunder God grinned, displaying needle sharp teeth with pieces of flesh wedged between them.

“Oh, ick.”

“Your skull I will use to piss in.”

Gods pissed? To my horror, I heard myself say, “Bring it on, asshole.”

A jewel encrusted knife appeared in the God’s hand and he glided towards me.

Holy Jesus, did I have a big mouth or what? I grabbed a bag of salt from my backpack. “Granny, I could use a little help here.”

Granny, the best demon slayer in the universe, appeared next to me. “Repeat after me. Tempore.

Cuidamn. Monstrata. Desopsuit de cruce!”

“Tempore. Cuidamn. Monstrata. Desopsuit de cruce!”

The Thunder God roared in fury and raised his knife.

I threw the salt in his face and yelled, “Tempore. Cuidamn. Monstrata. Desopsuit de cruce! Go back to hell, you freak!”

Incandescent red bolts arced and pulsed around him. With an unearthly howl, the Thunder God vanished.

The chaotic mass of black clouds dissipated and a blistering sun hung in the turquoise sky.

I did a happy dance. “I did it. I really did it.”

“He’ll be back,” Granny warned as she faded away.

“Fuck.” I grabbed my backpack.

“Going somewhere, Angel?”

I turned and all the men were upright, pale, battered and a bit shell-shocked.

“Still don’t believe in ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night?”

Derek prowled towards me. The grim set of his face was that of a roused predator. “Did you kill it?”

“No. It’ll be back.”

The bald guy shook his head in disbelief. “What are you?”

“I’m psychic. You can also think of me as your local demon and ghost buster.”

The Tomb Raider grabbed my backpack and started pulling out bags of salt. “How long do we have?”

I shrugged. “Depends on how bad I hurt it.”