It was time to make his move. He didnt know why hed hesitated, why hed watched it without doing anything. His hatred for the creature was so powerful it would have frightened him, if he were capable of feeling fear. He was incapable of feeling anything but his hatred for the monster. That must be what had stayed his hand. Once he killed it, he would feel nothing at all.
How difficult would the demon be to kill? It looked like a normal female, but he felt its seductive power even from a distance. It didnt need any of the obvious feminine wiles to lure him. It didnt wear makeup, didnt flaunt itself in revealing clothes. It tended to dress in dark colors, in loose-fitting T-shirts and baggy pants. There was nothing to make a man think of sex; yet every time he looked at herat ithe thought about lust. He must never underestimate her.
It. Part of the demons power was to make him forget that it was merely a thing, not the vulnerable female it appeared to be. So easy to slip, to think of it as a woman. A woman he would have to kill. Maybe it had been female once, but not anymore. Now it was simply a repository of all the seductive female force in creation, channeled into a demon that looked like a soft, vulnerable woman.
He could catch her in the parking garage, break her neck, and then fly up high and fling her body into the sun. He could bury her deep beneath the earth in the belly of a volcano. He sensed he would need fire to eradicate her completely, her and her evil powers. Only when she was dead would the threat dissolve.
The threat to newborn babies. The threat to vulnerable men who dreamed of sex and woke to find only a demon possessing them.
And the threat to him. Most of all he hated her for the connection that was foretold, with him of all people. And the only way to make certain that never happened was to destroy her.
He was standing in the corner of the stairwell on the bottom floor, watching her. Hed pulled his wings around him, disappearing; though she searched her surroundings, she saw nothing, and moved on.
More proof of her power, the power she was trying so hard to disguise. No one else sensed him when he cloaked himself. But she did. Her awareness was as acute as his. And he hated that.
Tonight, he told himself. Tonight he would kill her. Whether hed present proof to Uriel was undecided. He might simply leave him unknowing. He could finally return to Sheol, take the reins back from Raziel if he must. And see Raziels bonded mate in Sarahs place.
No, he wasnt ready. Surely there must be something else he had to do before he returned.
Shed escaped into the garage, and he followed her, the door closing silently behind him. The place was brightly lit, but there were only a handful of cars still there. She was already halfway to the dark red one he knew was hers.
He knew where he would take heras far away as humanly possible from this place. To the other side of the world, one of the few places where the scourge known as the Nephilim still thrived.
What better
place for a demon?
He waved a hand and the parking garage plunged into darkness, every light extinguished. He could feel her sudden panic, which surprised him. He wouldnt have thought demons feared the darkness. She started running, but her car was parked midway down, and he spread his wings and took her.
I SCREAMED, BUT MY VOICE was lost in the folds that covered me. I couldnt see, couldnt hear, could barely move, so disoriented and dizzy that I felt sick. I felt the ground give way beneath my feet, and I was falling, falling.
Something tight bound me, but I couldnt sense what. It felt like irons bands around my arms, holding me still, and my face was crushed against something hard, something that felt like cloth. I breathed in, and oddly enough I could smell skin, warm, vibrant, indefinably male skin. Impossible. I smelled the ocean as well, but we were at least a thousand miles away from any salt water.
I squirmed, and the bands tightened, and I couldnt breathe. My chest was crushed against whatever thing had done this, and I was helpless, weightless, cocooned by the monster that had grabbed me. I tried to move once more, and the pain was blinding. As if my heart were being crushed, I thought, as consciousness faded and I fell into a merciful dark hole.
I COULD HEAR SOMEONE SINGING, which was absurd. Either I was dead or Id been captured by some science-fictiony creature whod sealed me in a cocoon or a hive, probably to be eaten later. Id seen those movies, could remember them even though I couldnt remember my own parents.
I hurt everywhere, but most particularly my chest. It felt as if someone had reached inside me and crushed my heart in his hand. Another movie, I thought, feeling dizzy.
But one thing I did remember was that life was never like the movies. I didnt believe in ghosts and ghouls and things that went bump in the night. Whoever had done this to me had to be human, and therefore I could fight back.
Cautiously I opened my eyes.
I was lying in the middle of a lumpy bed in what looked like a seedy motel room. A radio played in the background, something soft and depressing. Another bed was beside me, empty, but with a depressed area on the pillow where someone had been, so presumably I wasnt alone.