Dweller on the Threshold (8 page)

I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. “Do I want to know why?”

“I have all the ingredients. That’s not a problem. They’re already ground up and everything. But there are more larvae than I expected.”

“I told you there were a lot. And how do you know? I thought you couldn’t see them.”

“Yes, but I can feel them. I’m thinking I should be burning mass quantities.”

“Burning.” She said burning. I flashed back to the accidental fire she’d started in my sister’s yard. She hadn’t been surprised then—she’d blown the fire off as if it was a common occurrence.
She was used to it.
“The place of the spell is the strongest, right? Can you go ahead and do it here now to keep them off my sister? We can always come back and burn your ‘mass quantities’ later. Wait, does it have to be a burn spell?”

She nodded. “If you want to get this done now. I only came prepared for that spell. I didn’t find one specific to larvae so this is an ancient fumigation spell. It’s for disease demons. I know larvae aren’t demons, but they’re attracted to disease, right?”

“Disease demons spread disease.” Nikolos crossed his arms over his chest. “Larvae don’t spread anything but death when they feed too long on a victim. Your spell will work to keep them away temporarily, though.”

I wondered if that spark of power I’d felt from him had been magic as I walked over to place my hand on top of my sister’s. He didn’t resemble any witch I’d ever seen. In fact, they’d all been kind of on the shorter side—even the men. “Just do the damned spell, Blythe. I want out of here so we can figure out our next move. I’m going to check her neck.” I slid my hands under her shoulder and head to turn her gently.

Fred came up behind me. “You aren’t really going to let her start a fire, are you? In here?”

At least Blythe couldn’t hear him. I shook my head quickly and continued to turn my sister. There was a wound at the back of her neck. Small and round, like a puncture. It was small enough the doctors wouldn’t have noticed it and looked nothing like the wide slashes on the stick images on Blythe’s paper.

Blythe had already started pulling small baggies of herbs out of her happy-faced tote, laying them on the table beside the bed. She opened the bag wide and stuck her face half in it, mumbled something about myrrh and then threw more baggies on the table.

If anyone walked in at that moment, they’d think a drug deal was going down.

I rolled my eyes then stared at the man standing not two feet from me. Every time Nikolos moved, a faint spicy scent wafted from his direction. Sage tinted with wood smoke. He’d obviously burned herbs of his own today. People burned sage to cleanse.

What sounded like a tray clattering to the floor in the hallway echoed loudly through the door. The crowd outside the room grew louder. Thankfully, all those people were keeping the hospital staff busy. Goddess, I wanted out of there. Restlessness—the need to dig for answers—burned in my gut. I felt the ticking of Elsa’s clock in my soul. I just knew we needed to be doing something more now.

Nikolos stepped closer and stared down at Elsa. The frown on his face made him look cruel. I wondered at his heritage, having never seen such a mix of features before. Faintly Asian with that hint of slant to his dark, dark eyes—yet his nose sloped arrogantly Roman, his skin was tanned. My gaze went to that black mass around him again. It pulled at me something fierce and as if sensing my regard, began writhing. I took a step back, horror blinding me for a second. Could those souls pick up on my ability to see them? Like spirits, did they want help? “I need some water,” I mumbled before turning toward the small bathroom.

Phro, who had finally managed to snap out of her creepy, petrified state, snorted. “I’ll alert the media.”

It was like she knew I needed her snark right then—needed that return to normalcy.
Well, my normalcy, which admittedly isn’t like anyone else’s I know.
I stepped into the bathroom and flipped on the light. White blinded as the fluorescents hummed. I squinted into the mirror. My face was nearly as pale as the dull, colorless walls of the small room.

I turned on the water and leaned over to splash some on my face. The cold didn’t help much. Food would be better. Food and getting as far away from that man in the other room as possible.

I was blinking water from my eyes when screams broke out in the hallway.

With water dripping off my cheeks and chin, I ran from the bathroom. I met Nikolos’s eyes and something snapped between us. Quick. Ruthless. I had time enough to wish I’d picked up a weapon before I saw him draw two wicked-looking foot-long daggers from his black boots. Knowledge burned in that gaze, like he might know what was out there.

Usually, my strength got me by, but I had this really, really bad feeling that my strange super muscles wouldn’t be enough this time. I looked at Blythe. “I don’t suppose you have any weapons in that ‘have a nice day’ bag of yours, do you, Witch?”

“Not any that you can use.” A dark, steely undertone laced Blythe’s words. She opened one of the baggies, her look of determination completely transforming her expression from the usual friendly bewilderment to scary, bad witch.

Screams grew louder just outside the room. I could hear shoes hitting tile and bodies slamming into each other and walls.

Nikolos lunged toward the door.

“Shit!” I looked around for anything that would work as a weapon before spying some sturdy legs on a medical cart. After shoving the bedpan and flowers to the floor, I upended the thing and broke off one of the metal legs. I followed Nikolos through the doorway, meeting Phro’s eyes on the way out. “Protect my sister.”

She nodded.

People were still trying to run but the hallway was too tight with bodies, living and dead. I shoved through the fray to get to the loudest area. It wasn’t hard with the mountain of a man in front of me making a wide pathway. The metallic mix of blood and sweat scented the air. My breath froze in my chest as that sour odor from my sister’s house crept through.

“Get out of here!” I tried yelling over the screaming and crying, then realized it was fruitless so I grabbed the nearest security guard and shook him. “Get these people out of here! Pick up the little ones!”

He nodded and I let him go, then grabbed a woman who looked fairly coherent and repeated the process.

After snapping a few more people out of their dazes, I hurried to catch up to Nikolos. “What are we looking for?”

“Demon.”

“Okay, yeah, I guessed that—I did find demon blood at my sister’s house—”

“In her house?” He interrupted, his abrupt stop sending me careening into him. It was like being hit by a wrecking ball—all the wind just left my body. He twisted to steady me, transferring both daggers to one hand and grabbing my shoulder with the other. “Was the blood near a mirror?”

I nodded, still trying to find my breath. Gasping, I swallowed a couple of times before I could get my words to come. “The mirror had a pattern in it. Do you know what happened there?”

“Maybe. Take me there after all this.” With that, he let me go and continued toward the screams. He took extra care not to push people too hard. He even plucked up one small boy and handed him to a man before growling at another who stood in the middle of the hallway, doing nothing. The mob was so damned thick—everyone was shoving. A sharp elbow hit my side and without a second thought, I scooched up behind the big guy and grabbed the back of his shirt.
Let him take the brunt of the crowd pain
. I kept the metal cart leg close so it didn’t stab anyone. The end where I’d broken it off was damned pointy.

Black eyes met mine as Nikolos looked at me over his shoulder. “I think I know what we’re about to face. If I’m right, there a few important things to remember. The most important is to not let any of the melting skin touch you.” He didn’t slow in the least, glancing forward every now and then to mark progress. “Wait until it’s all the way through the body and go for the eyes, ears or throat. Those are the only kill zones as they don’t have a heart.”

My stomach clenched. Hard.
Melting skin? All the way through the body?
“I’m not liking the sound of this at all.” I skirted a fallen cart and its pile of spilled sheets.

“Just remember—damn! We ran out of time. There’s more than one!” Nikolos shoved the last few people out of his way. A young man hit the wall pretty hard before scrambling away on all fours, face white with terror. He threw panicked looks over his shoulder and I followed his gaze only to feel as if the world rumbled beneath my feet.

Even before I’d changed, I’d always known there was more to the world than human beings could see—had always felt the different energies from things that could pass for human yet were anything but. I’d seen pixies, werewolves and even a fucking vampire librarian—but I hadn’t known anything like this existed.

Sheer terror clawed into my spine. I had been better off not knowing.

One of the demons had shed most of its human layer
. Its human layer.
I understood what Nikolos meant now. Horror twisted my stomach into knots. A bloody mass of flesh and bone mixed with torn clothing piled at its feet. Flaps of skin still stuck to its legs.

Everything in me froze when it stretched to its full height, its head brushing the ceiling. It didn’t have skin. Not skin like I had or like any other creature I’d seen. It was covered in rigid bumps and sinew—like muscle and tissue under human flesh—only it wasn’t red, but black and blue. Its face wasn’t even a full face, just yellow eyes in holes, no nose, and a wide, sharp-toothed mouth that would inspire many future nightmares.

“Oh Goddess.” Fire burned up my esophagus.

Nikolos reached for the metal table leg I held tight to my chest. He pried it out of my fingers and handed me one of his daggers. “You take the one already through. You don’t want the melting skin on you. It’s like acid.” He hesitated, reached up and touched my cheek with the pad of his thumb. Shocked, I had enough time to catch a glimpse of his worry. Then it was gone. “It’s strong. Watch out for the claws!” He let go and ran at the one with part of someone’s face sliding off its chin.

My demon grabbed a screaming woman. Its wide, lipless mouth stretched into a grin. It pulled her toward its face. I let out a yell of fury and jumped for it. I punched it in the head. Pain exploded in my knuckles as they hit bony skull. The startled demon did let the woman go. I lunged in front of her. “Run!” I screamed.

She did, sobs wracking her body, blood seeping from puncture wounds at her ribs.

I stared the demon down and saw every image of Hell ever described. It had no emotion other than the need to destroy. And it had me in its sights.

Ten long claws came at my face with the speed of a cheetah. I jumped backward. My spine cracked into the corner of a gurney. Pain slammed into my back as the bed crashed into the wall. I nearly fell as it slid down the hall. Gaining my feet, I bent low. I lunged toward the demon’s stomach with the dagger. Nikolos had said it wasn’t a killing spot but I hoped it might be a slowing-down one.

My dagger slid into its belly. It laughed, then lightly scratched a claw down my arm.
Lightly, yet the cut was still deep
.

I moved back again, balancing on the balls of my feet as I decided the best way to get to its throat. The part of me not engaged in battle wondered why it didn’t just grab me and try to eat my face, too.

“No use.” The voice, like the teeth, was something out of my deepest, darkest nightmares. It scraped along the surface of my skin, raising the fine hairs on my arms—the ‘s’ slightly sibilant.

Surprise straightened my back momentarily.
Oh Goddess, that hurt
. I must have hit my spine harder than I’d thought. I waited, gripping the dagger tightly, taking note of where my blood dripped to the floor. I didn’t want to slip on it.

It was then I noticed the state of the floor around the demon. This time, my stomach did heave. In less time than it had taken me to get through the hallway, this thing had ripped through at least ten people. Some dead, some trying to crawl away from the fight. All covered in so much blood. It didn’t matter where my own dripped.

The thing took a step, yanking my gaze back to it. The wide mouth stretched to touch the tiny holes where its ears must be. “Soon you will be a puddle of melted remains after one of my brethren wears you.”

“I wouldn’t be a good fit, trust me.”

The grin disappeared as it tilted its head to the side. It leaned over to sniff the air. A low, vibrating chuckle grated in my ears. “Your magic cannot harm me.”

I worked hard not to frown in confusion. Magic?
What the hell is it talking about?
Before I could ask, I felt a swirl of air around me. The demon’s eyes widened as a hard punch of gathered force knocked it to the wall.

My mouth fell open when I saw Fred stalking the thing. Phro walked by his side and from the gathering energy, they were getting ready to try and hit it again. As I watched, other spirits—these ghosts and without much power—joined in the fight. They did little damage, but the distraction was welcome.

I jumped in to stab it a few more times as its arms flailed around the ghosts. Smelly, oozing blood splattered from the force of my blows. It sprayed into my face. I blinked the burning crud out of my eyes then leapt to jab it again.

Nikolos’s dagger was wicked sharp and I found it a good fit for my hand and movements.