I raised an arm and tried to wipe some of the gore from my face. “Yes, but right now I kinda wish I wasn’t.”
He grinned and held out a hand to me, easily pulling me to my feet. I wasn’t the only one who blanched when demon pieces slid off me and slopped onto the carpeted floor. I looked around at the expressions of shock and revulsion and then at the wide area spewed with black demon blood and guts. I had seen a lot of strange and awful things in the last few months but exploding demons definitely beat them all.
I am so glad I don’t have to clean up this mess. I imagined the expressions of the theater’s cleaning crew when they saw this and a giggle burst from me, earning me confused stares from the two warriors and the three teenagers standing a few steps above me. Something in their expressions struck me as incredibly hilarious and I couldn’t help myself, I started to laugh. The harder they stared, the harder I laughed until my stomach hurt and tears ran down my cheeks.
“What’s wrong with her?” Olivia asked, her voice quivering.
Jordan narrowed her eyes at me. “I think she’s hysterical.”
“N-no,” I stammered, straightening. “Can you imagine being a janitor here and having to clean up this?” I waved at the gore around us. “Talk about a realistic zombie movie.”
The twin who had helped me up shook his head at me as he put his phone to his ear. “It’s Niall. We need a clean-up crew. Bloody lamprey demons in the movie theater. Hell, your guess is as good as mine.” He looked at us. “No, they’re all okay, just a little beat up. No, they took out the lot of them on their own. Some civilians were hurt, too, and we’ll need to treat them. It’s a pretty big mess so put a rush on it.”
He gave them directions and hung up. Pursing his lips, he studied the carnage at his feet. “Someone want to tell me what in bloody hell did this?”
I was still fighting back laughter, which probably made me look slightly unhinged, so he addressed the others. Jordan shrugged and pointed at me. “Ask her. I was busy keeping one of those bastards off my ass when she did . . . whatever she did.”
“Same here,” Mark added.
“All I saw was Sara and the demon falling down the stairs,” Olivia supplied. “I saw a white flash and suddenly the demon exploded everywhere.”
Niall looked at me, and I shook my head. Whatever he was thinking, he did not push the matter and instead pulled off his coat. “Remove your coat, lass, and try to wipe off your face and hair as best you can. Then put this on. It’ll cover the worst of the mess.”
I did as he instructed and let him put his much larger coat on me. Jordan, Mark, and Olivia did what they could to clean up as well. All we could do after that was wait for backup. Niall and Seamus managed to lock the doors to keep the civilians out, except for the two boys who were sitting in their seats now and staring at us like we were a satanic cult about to sacrifice them. I didn’t know if the Mohiri had something to modify memories. If so, these two were going to need a strong dose of it.
The cleanup crew wasted no time, and fifteen minutes after Niall’s call, the employee door to the left of the screen opened and they filed in. The eight-man crew could not hide their surprise as they took in the number of dead demons as well as what was left of the one I had exploded. Their initial reaction passed quickly, and two of them headed for the teenage boys who had witnessed everything while the others began to assess the situation.
“You weren’t kidding about the mess. We’ll need to bring in another team,” one of the men said to Niall. “Paulette is waiting in the van to take the trainees home. Looks like they all could use some medical attention.”
“How did they get here so fast?” I asked Seamus, and he told me they kept teams in the major cities in every state. It made it easier to respond to situations like this one.
Before I knew it, we were shuffled outside to a black van where a tall blond woman gawked at my bloody hair and clothes before she started ushering us into the vehicle. I hung back while everyone else climbed in, wishing I could change my clothes before I crowded in with them.
Without warning, coldness slammed into my chest, leaving me almost gasping for breath, and I had to hold onto a stair rail for support. Not now.
“You okay?” Seamus asked, and it took me several seconds to nod. He helped me into the van’s second row of seats and got in behind me. We had plenty of room because everyone gave me a wide berth.
As soon as the van started Jordan raised the question on everyone’s minds.
“What the hell are lamprey demons doing in a movie theater? Don’t they live in sewers?”