Burned (14 page)

Ignoring Danton to focus on my own problem, I tried to grab hold of the Amazon with my demonic hand, but before I could, she released the hold and sent me stumbling forward. She pounced on top of me, driving me to the pavement before pressing the cold steel of her revolver into the back of my neck.

“Let me be clear, Mac,” she said, anger filling her voice. “I have no problem shooting you in the back of the skull and collecting the payday. It isn’t ideal because I’ll have to cut in my Alpha, but it’s a lot more ideal than letting you set me on fire or pull some other kind of voodoo crap. Got it?”

I tried to respond but couldn’t quite make my mouth work, mostly because I was too busy trying to suck in lava-laden gulps of air into my shrieking lungs. I felt the cold caress of handcuffs on my wrists before I was hauled to my feet like I weighed less than nothing. The fat cop still lay on the ground next to me, only now he resembled a charred husk. Well, that was a sucky way to go. I had no idea what Danton had done to the guy, but I was really glad he hadn’t done the same to me. Note to self, stop antagonizing the demon hunter.

The Amazon must have caught me looking because she snorted derisively. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer sack of shit,” she said, jerking me toward her police car. It was a good thing she was super strong because I couldn’t even make my feet work very well. I wasn’t sure if she was actually a werepig or if Danton was being clever douchebag, but she certainly had the strength of a werecreature. Even if she wasn’t supernaturally strong, the absolute last thing I wanted to do was get trapped in a cop car with her. If that happened I’d wind up being used against Ricky or sent to Baal. Neither of those options suited me.

I stopped walking, turning to dead weight in mid-stride. She stumbled, less because holding my entire bodyweight bothered her and more because she probably hadn’t expected it. Well boo on her. Evidently, she’d never seen the Animaniacs.

As I slipped from her grip, I whirled, lashing out with one foot. My heel connected with the front of her knee with a sickening crack moments before I landed hard on the asphalt. My head thwacked painfully against the ground, and the angry Amazon became two blurry amazons in a heartbeat. Well, that was fine. I was always down for a threesome.

I kicked out at her as she collapsed to the ground, her distended knee already pulling itself back into place. My steel toed boot caught her full in the face, snapping her head backward. She crashed to the ground with little tweety birds circling her head. I took a moment to suck in a breath before trying to pull apart the handcuffs with my brute strength. It didn’t work. The man of steel I was not. Fortunately, I had another way. Demon magic.

“Resero,” I whispered, and even though that tiny effort made invisible gremlins hack at my brain with rusty tire irons, the handcuffs popped open and fell to the rain-slick pavement. Take that, Superman.

By the time I pushed myself to my feet, the Amazon was starting to stir. Given another second she’d be up, and I wasn’t sure I could take her in a fair fight. So I did the only logical thing. I dropped the leg. I threw myself in the air, coming down hard on her solar plexus in my best imitation of a Hulk Hogan leg drop. The sickening sound of her ribs shattering filled my ears as an explosion of bloody breath burst from her lips.

“And that’s what happens when Hulkamania runs wild over you,” I said as I got to my feet and limped toward Sal’s car and the shotgun full of silver ammo on the ground beside his mostly headless corpse. “Brother.”

The word had barely left my lips when Danton’s body came flying through the air and smashed through the windshield of the police car beside me. His left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle and his head lolled in a way that made me suspect he was in dreamland. I spun in time to see the Asian cop coming at me with a flying dragon kick straight out of every kung fu movie ever.

I ducked, avoiding her attack mostly because my shaky knees gave out. I fell to the floor, but I did it with style. Her foot punched through the metal car door like it was made of tin foil, and by the time I’d gotten back to my feet, she’d torn her trapped limb free of the car door.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” she said, fixing me with a death glare that made me wish I’d done all my homework, ate all my vegetables, and not blamed my mess on the dog. “I’ll be honest, I sort of want you to pick the easy way.” Then she decked me in the face and everything faded to black.

Chapter 21

“If you don’t want to get eaten, you should get up,” whispered the feline voice of my cat demon. My eyes fluttered open to find her sitting on my chest, peering at me expectantly.

The scene around us was frozen, complete with drops of water suspended in the air around us. I was lying flat on my back, one leg clutched in the Asian cop’s hand as she dragged me toward the non-destroyed cop car.

“So I’m not awake right now?” I said, realizing that I felt a lot better than I had a moment before when I’d taken a Mike Tyson death blow to the chin.

“No. I am in your head. It just gives the appearance that time has stopped. If you watch closely you can actually see the rain drops fall at a nearly infinitesimal speed.” She yawned, which let me tell you, was pretty scary. I always forgot how much the jaws of a cat looked like those of a horrible predator. “But you should wake up. Of the two of us, only I have the right to nap on the job.” She hunkered down on my chest, resting her head in her arms.

“I don’t have a lot left,” I said, sure it was true. Even if I managed to sit bolt upright out of this weird dream-like slumber, I wasn’t going to be doing a whole lot against a fully capable werecop who could kick through steel doors.

“But I have a lot left,” the cat replied. “I’ll gladly lend you some energy on one condition.” Her grin returned. “Do you want to hear my condition?”

“Yeah,” I said, reaching out for my own rattlesnake lifeline. “What is it?”

“That you remember something, Mac. I own you completely.” She began to fade away so all I saw of her was her stupid Cheshire grin. “I just wanted to remind you of that. I
own
you, Mac Brennan.”

“Bitch,” I said, and as the word left my mouth, the scene around me sped back into real time. The Asian cop turned to look at me, a mixture of shock and annoyance plastered across her Geisha face.

“I’d really hoped this was going to be the easy way.” She jerked me through the air, intending to slam me bodily into the car by my ankle. I did the only thing I could think to do. I threw out my hand and screamed as loud as I could.

“Ignis!” Hellfire exploded from my palm, blasting into the cop car in front of me and sending it hurtling into the street in a fireball of molten steel. My body flew through the empty air a second later with enough momentum to throw the cop off balance. I took the opportunity to plant a swift kick to her ribs.

I was rewarded by her releasing her grip on my other ankle and was sent flying across the parking lot. I landed hard on my shoulder before rolling to my feet. I knew it should have hurt like a motherfucker, but it just didn’t. In fact, as I spun to face her and found her already sprinting toward me at superhuman space, I realized I felt better than I had since I’d woken up in that dumpster. I ducked her first attack, a wild haymaker that would have taken off my head and buried my left fist in her stomach.

She staggered backward under the force of the blow but didn’t go down. As I swung again with my other hand, she caught my fist in her bare hand and squeezed. Agony exploded from my right hand as the bones in my hand shuddered under her vice-like grip.

“Hey, doll,” Danton said from behind her as he spat a gob of blood onto the ground beside the police car he was still embedded into. “Fancy a second round?”

His words hadn’t done anything more than distract the cop, but that was enough for me to jerk my hand backward, pulling her toward me. My knee came up, burying itself into her stomach, and as my demonic hand came free from her grip, I drove my left elbow into the back of her skull. She hit the ground in a heap, her chin rebounding off the asphalt with a satisfying crunch. Not wanting to take any chances, I kicked her in the face as hard as I could. It was way more satisfying than it should have been.

“I guess that makes us even,” Danton said, pulling himself free of the car and collapsing onto the ground beside it. Blood poured from his torn open chest. It looked like he’d been gored by a wild boar.

“Why do you say that?” I asked, rushing over to the demon hunter while trying to keep the panic out of my voice. There was no way wounds like that were anything but a death sentence.

“I got two and you got two,” he replied through clenched teeth. He pulled out a vial from his pocket and smashed it over his chest. Viscous white fluid splattered across the wound, filling it with pale light, and the pain in his features dissipated. He looked at me, pupils huge and dilated. Had he just gotten high?

“Yeah, we’re even,” I said, and he looked at me dumbly. Had he even understood what I said?

“What?” He shook his head dumbly and slapped at himself with the hand that wasn’t dangling awkwardly at his side. “This’ll hold me until you can get me help,” he slurred before giving me a huge, cheesy grin.

I’ll admit, as I looked at him, I wasn’t sure I wanted to help him. Sure, he’d saved my life and blah, blah, blah. But at the same time, I knew where my family was. The most important thing for me to do was get them to safety. Not to mention the non-insignificant fact that these guys had come to get me because of Ricky and Baal. I needed to find her and make sure she was okay before killing the shit out of Baal. I did not have time to take care of Danton too.

“Yeah,” I said, wishing I was the type of person who could just leave him to bleed out on the ground. “I’ll help you. Let me just tie up some loose ends.”

I staggered back over to Sal’s car, picked up the shotgun, and used it to make sure both the cops wouldn’t be getting up, well, ever. Then I broke into the rarest car in the world, a stock Honda Civic. I shoved Danton in the backseat and took off in my stolen car.

Chapter 22

As I pulled in front of Sera’s apartment building and skidded to a stop in front of the entrance despite it being a fire zone, I really hoped three things were true. One, Sera was home. Two, her son John was not home. And three, that she could actually help Danton. I’ll be honest, I also hoped no douchebags would show up to kick the crap out of me while I was at her apartment, but of the four things, it was the only one I could control, and yes, I recognize how incredibly sad that is.

I leapt out of the car and pulled Danton out of the backseat. While he’d stopped bleeding thanks to whatever hocus pocus, he’d done, the Civic’s backseat still looked like the scene of a back alley surgery gone horribly wrong. To make matters worse, or better depending on how you looked at it, Danton had stopped talking somewhere around the middle of the trip.

He was still breathing as I hoisted him over my shoulder and staggered toward the door. It opened easily enough, and I soon found myself standing in front of the elevator.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I cried slamming my palm into the out of order sign. So much for his Godly luck. I glanced at Danton, and much to my horror, saw the light coating his wound had faded to a dull glimmer. There wasn’t a lot of time left. I’d have to hurry.

“Feets, don’t fail me now,” I said, spinning on my heel and kicking open the door to the stairwell. By the time I was halfway up the stairs, I was sweating like a pig and seriously considering just leaving Danton to die there. I didn’t, but it was a near thing.

When I finally reached Sera’s floor and staggered into the hallway, I was panting with exhaustion. Sweat dripped down my body, and even muscles I didn’t know I had felt like jelly. I couldn’t tell you how I managed to lumber across the hallway, but I did. I reached out and rapped my knuckles against her door. When she didn’t immediately answer, I did it again, but louder. My heart began to sink, and I shot a look at Danton’s unconscious face.

“You better hope you get real lucky real fast,” I said, calling upon my power and grabbing the knob. “Resero.”

A spark of power leapt from my hand to the knob, but instead of just opening, the knob glowed with golden light before fading. Well, that was weird. I twisted it. The knob didn’t open. So I did the only thing I could think to do, I kicked the door in frustration. Several times.

The door behind me and to the left opened. I spun so quickly, I nearly dropped Danton in the process. Sera stood there, framed in the door behind me. I couldn’t see John, but I recognized his voice from within the room. He was talking to that same neighbor who I remembered watching him before, which probably explained why Sera was dressed in her pink scrubs. She must have been on her way to work.

“What are you doing, Mac?” Sera asked before her eyes opened in shock. “Oh my God.”

“I’ve got a home delivery,” I said, dumping Danton on the floor between us.

Sera opened her mouth to say something, but as she stared at Danton, all the color drained from her face. “No… it’s not…” she whispered, taking a step out of the doorway and collapsing to her knees in front of the demon hunter. “How can this be?”

“What?” I said, confusion filling my voice. Her reaction was not at all what I expected. Surprise, anger, and annoyance. Those emotions made sense, but this… this was something else.

Instead of responding, she reached out and grabbed Danton’s collar and shook him violently before pulling his head against her. “You were dead. I saw you die. How are you here?”

“Holy fuck,” I said as an idea bubbled up from my subconscious and sat firmly in my conscious brain. Could Danton be Sera’s long dead husband? Was that even possible? Sera had told me her husband had died, and from the way she had acted, she seemed really sure of that fact. Besides, there was no way Danton would have just abandoned her and John. No, surely I was just misreading the situation.