Green Flame Assassin (Demon Lord series, book 2) (39 page)

I heard a loud
crunch
, as the liger bit off a chunk of bear skull, taking an ear with it.  Blood poured down the bear’s head.  Its eyes were wide in shock.  Though its front claws were gouging deep in the liger, Josh had his hind feet bicycling, a common disemboweling technique of lions and tigers.

With a great effort, the bear ripped the liger loose and flung him across the room, into the kitchen, through the kitchen door, and into the backyard.

I emptied my clips into the bear, going for as many head and heart shots as possible.  The bear would have zeroed in on me and charged, but Kat hurled butcher knives from a butcher’s block, Vivian filled the front doorway, a bucking shotgun in her hands, spitting fire and thunder, and Osamu dug out of a pile of fallen shelves and broken furniture with his demon sword in hand, looking for a place to start carving.

The bear couldn’t even rear properly; it was too tall for the ceiling.  Hunching awkwardly, several knife handles jutting from its fur, its paw caught the room’s overhead light, smashing it loose, spraying pieces at Kat. 

Vivian kept unloading slugs into the bear that blew off chunks. 

Osamu leaped, powering into a diagonal slash meant to cut the bear’s throat.

And I dropped empty clips, reloading.

We were doing a helluva lot of damage to the house and the bear, but it wasn’t a natural creature anymore than Josh was.  Just as his shifter’s form healed the most horrific of injuries, so did the bear’s.  Already, the bear’s skull was back together, his missing ear grown back.  The bear ignored his slashed throat, batting Osamu outside through a living room window.

Kat ran out of knives, and picked up a laundry iron by her feet.  Holding it by the handle, she had a sort of brass-knuckle affair, well, steel-knuckle you could call it.

Vivian ran out of shot, and choked up on the barrel of the shotgun like she meant to bludgeon the bear into submission.

And my defensive barrier had snapped on full because the she-bear was looking straight at me with murder in her eyes.

The liger chose that moment to barrel back into the house, a golden blur, silent as lightning running ahead of its own thunder.  The liger sprang from pointblank range, hitting low.  Using human cunning and a linebacker’s knowledge of leverage, Josh picked the bear entirely off her feet.  They both slammed through an exterior wall, into the front yard.

Kat tried to follow, but I caught and held her back.

“Don’t get in his way,” I said.  “He can fight the bear, or get himself ripped up bad by having to also protect you.  Which do you want?”

If looks can kill… 

The growl in her throat died as my words sank in.

I figured it was time to adjust her attitude a little more so she wouldn’t fight my plans to make Josh the new Master of the City.  “We need him to do what only he can.  You kept Josh out of preternatural politics, and a master vampire and his cronies moved in.  This hell-beast moved in.  Dozens died, wolves, humans, and fey.”  I neglected to mention that the bear’s kills were mostly due to my having pissing it off.  “A weak city is always targeted, vulnerable.  What kind of a world are you building for your kid?  One where the good and innocent must hide or die, or bend before the power of the perverse?”

I’d been polishing that speech in my head for a while now.  I hoped it worked.  I had no more time.  I put my guns away and concentrated on my
Dragon Fire
tat as I ran out the big hole in the living room wall.  I paid for the magic with the pain of a meat cleaver thumping its way down my back, breaking up my vertebrae, chopping up my spinal cord. 

Fuck!  That’s a new one.

Outside, Osamu waited for an opening, his demon sword
thrumming
in ecstasy. 

Vivian caught a bear paw and went sailing into someone’s hedge.

Gaping jaws locked on each other, the liger and bear tumbled onto the limo, caving in the hood, pulverizing the windshield.  Dragon fire danced in my palms, waiting to be thrown.

And that’s when the cavalry arrived.  Three white vans pulled up in the street.  Their doors were thrust open as men and women in full military gear disembarked.  The air thickened with thunder as a black helicopter dropped down into view, hovering twenty feet above the vans.  Staring at the helicopter’s open bay door, I saw a .50 machine gun, and a young kid with sunglasses and a grin playing with a remote-control.  At his feet, ready to launch, was a drone.

A PRT hit team?  Josh, what were you thinking?

The shrill scream of approaching police cars added to the chaos.

Apparently, no one had told the kid in the chopper that the liger was a good guy.  The drone shot in, taking on both liger and Spirit Bear—and limo. 
My poor limo! 
All three went up in a BOOM!  The limo’s gas tank followed.  Another BOOM!  Black, greasy smoke climbed into the sky, trimmed with orange flames that came and went as shrapnel rained.  The men from the vans ducked low to ride out the explosions.  The helicopter swayed in the sky.  I heard men mouthing curses.  The neighbor’s Chihuahua yelped from under a porch.

Something heavy crashed onto the porch beside me.  It was so shredded and burnt, you couldn’t really tell what it had been.  Kat emerged from the wreckage of the house, an Indian blanket in hand.  She beat out the flames on a huge, well-done steak.  The
steak
groaned, almost a human sound.  Big chunks filled in as it grew smaller, the size of a large man.  Black skin flaked off.  Patches like raw hamburger knitted into muscle.  Fragments of bone fused, becoming whole.  It bled until the wounds closed.  New pink skin crept over the exposed muscle.  Finally, Josh began to take form.

Where the bear went was anybody’s guess.

TWENTY-EIGHT

“Sympathy is a connivance

one should use sparingly.”

                                 
         
—
Caine Deathwalker

“Kat, Josh will sleep a lot longer than I did.  There’s a lot of internal damage to heal.  The PRT will get him medical care—he was one of theirs.”  She looked at me, puzzled, probably wondering why I was recapping the obvious.  I pushed on, making my points, “I have friends on the PRT, but I’m also a Person of Interest in a number of their investigations.  I’ve got work to do, so I’m slipping out of here.  Josh won’t be able to protect anyone for a while. You and your people need go underground.”

Her eyes went back to Josh.  “I can’t leave him … like this.”

“He’d agree with me.  You need to do this for him.  Your lives are never going to be peaceful and quiet.  Start supporting his destiny.”  The encroaching soldiers were rounding up Osamu and Vivian.  Others were looking our way.  “Decide now.”

She drew a deep breath.  “Okay, fine.”

I fired up my
Demon Wings
tat, and felt myself stomped on by some unseen colossus.  The numbing impact shook me, and then the sensation of crumpled flatness evaporated.  I’d become invisible.  Within
my zone
, Kat was cloaked by magic as well.  “Back up, but stay close to me.  Keep me between your people and the soldiers.”

The PRT personnel had faltered, staring, but were coming on again, weapons in hand, moving slowly.

We retreated into the ruins of the living room and found the toms and tabbies pulling themselves together.  Though disheveled, wearing torn clothes, the cat people had healed up and looked pretty functional, which was good since we had to run.

I extended my magic to those Kat called over.  I said, “Cleo, take point.  Lead everyone to the back of the property.  We’re going over the fence.”

“Gotcha!”

We ran as a knot of people, slowing only a little as we exited the spot where the back door had once been.  In the backyard, we heard the helicopter swinging over the house.  I wasn’t sure we’d get away cleanly.  They could have had someone up there with some serious power, a seer, witch with a scrying crystal, or a fey on the team able to pierce my spread-thin demon magic. 

In the backyard, a couple orange trees shielded us.  Instead of wasting time scrambling over the six-foot wooden fence, I kicked out several planks.  We slipped through into someone’s backyard.  No animals barked.  A small plastic kid’s pool was full, but no children were around.  The grass was brown with neglect.  The white-painted house’s windows were blocked by mini-blinds.  An external air-conditioner whirred softly to itself, as we passed it, going along the side of the building, through a gate to the front yard.

I glanced back.  The helicopter still hung above Kat’s house.  It looked like we’d gotten away clean.  Despite the drain, I kept everyone close to me, shielded by my
Demon Wings
magic, until Kat directed us to a small, neighborhood park that had some swings, a slide, picnic table, and a bit of cool green grass.  I collapsed under a Japanese maple and wiped the sweat from my eyes.

Kat peered down at me like I was something she’d scrapped off her favorite pumps. “What now?”

“We need wheels,” I said.  “And a place for you guys to go to ground.”  I was surprised there were only ten of Kat’s clan, but then again, there had probably been more before they ran afoul of the wolves, and Josh had stepped in to save them.

Kat caught the eye of one of the toms, a scrawny dude in tie-dye shorts and a black mesh shirt.  He sported a little goatee and had had blond dreadlocks fizzing up his head, gathered back at the nape of his neck.  He wore a cheap watch, and his kiwi-colored kicks were untied on his feet.  “Jamie, you live back here somewhere.  You got wheels we can borrow?”