Refuge(36)

“At least two, it’s hard to tell in here,” Mark called to her.

I scanned the dark theater. “What should we do?”

Jordan replied without looking back. “We’ve got this. You get the hell out of here.”

“Are you nuts? I’m not leaving you guys in here with those things.”

“Sara, you and Olivia are bleeding and neither of you can fight. The last thing I need right now is to be worried about keeping your asses safe.”

I looked at Olivia’s pained expression, then down at the dead demon on the stairs. Smoke curled from it where the silver tip of the whip touched its sickly gray skin.

“Here they come!” Mark yelled. “Oh Jesus, there are three of them!”

I pushed Olivia aside and grabbed the handle of the whip, yanking hard to unroll it from the dead demon’s body and sending the creature thumping down the stairs. Whip in hand, I spun around as Jordan and Mark were attacked. Mark went down, stabbing at one demon that was ferociously trying to latch onto his neck. Jordan moved fast, but the demons were just as fast. No matter how good or fast Jordan was, she was outnumbered this time.

I put my fingers to my lips and let out a sharp whistle. “Hey, you fat ugly worms, come and get me.” One of the demons turned my way, and I gripped the whip handle so tight my knuckles turned white. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, you overgrown maggot!”

The demon made a sound somewhere between a hiss and a shriek and came at me. Oh shit! This ranked way up there on the list of the stupidest things I had ever done, and that was a pretty big list.

I struck out with the whip and felt it connect with the demon’s body, leaving a long smoking gash along its side. It wasn’t enough to stop the demon, and I dropped the whip to fend off the thing with my bare hands. The force of its body hitting mine sent us both tumbling down the stairs and knocked the breath out of me when my back hit the bottom landing. The demon recovered fast and struck, and my hands came up just in time to grab it and keep its nightmarish jaws away from my throat. It thrashed its powerful body, and I grunted as I fought to hold it away from me. No way could I fight this thing off alone. I was totally screwed if help didn’t come very, very soon.

“Sara! Are you okay?” Jordan bellowed.

“Could . . . really use . . . some help!” I panted.

The demon twisted violently, and I suddenly found my body pinned beneath it. “Argh!” I pushed with all my strength at the head mere inches above me. Drool dripped onto my face and neck, and I nearly choked on the fetid breath invading my nostrils. As I stared into the deep funnel-like mouth with its rows upon rows of undulating teeth, I swore there was no way I was going out this way. I had not survived all I’d been through just to be taken down by an overgrown grub with teeth.

Static sizzled across my skin and crackled through my hair. My whole body felt like there was electricity buzzing just below the surface, building in intensity and looking for a way out. Instead of fearing it, I welcomed it and fed it with more power. Heat spread through my arms and filled my hands until they began to glow like they did for a healing, and the air around me sparked and filled with the thick smell of ozone.

The demon began to writhe and thrash frantically as it tried to tear away from me, but my hands were welded to its head. Tiny bolts of electricity leapt from my fingers, and it felt like I held a lightning storm in my hands. Power surged forward into the demon until the creature began to swell and glowing cracks appeared in its skin. I watched its fishlike eyes bulge in terror a second before it let out a gurgling shriek and exploded, raining me with hot, stinking blood and guts and thousands of demon bits. Stunned, I stared at my raised bloody hands for few seconds before I rolled over onto my side and puked up my popcorn lunch.

Jordan was the first to reach me. “What the fuck?” she swore when she caught sight of me and what was left of the demon. “What happened? What did you do to it?”

I held up my hand and shook my head as Mark and Olivia crowded behind her, staring at me covered from head to toe in demon guts. There was no way to tell them what had happened. Even if I could share my secret, I wasn’t even sure what I had done.

The doors below us slammed open, and Niall and Seamus burst into the theater. They came up short when they saw Jordan, Olivia, and Mark standing over me lying on the floor, covered in blood and guts. Their sharp eyes quickly swept the scene and took a count of the dead lamprey demons littering the stairs and the four of us, bloody but standing. Well, most of us were standing.

“Sweet Mother!”

One of the twins crouched beside me. “Are you alive beneath all that, lass?”