A Hellhound in Hollywood (8 page)

His admission surprised me. I didn’t want to pry, but my curiosity got the better of me.

“What happened to her?”

He sighed softly and his entire body seemed to deflate. “She died. Old age.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. You must miss her.”

“Terribly.” He looked across to the pews and his face became solemn. “As soon as I’ve fixed you up, you’d better tell me what went on in here.”

“Fix me?” I gasped when he placed a hand on my stomach, right over the wound, then the other on my right cheek.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered.

I did as asked, but I didn’t have much choice in the matter. My eyes grew impossibly heavy—so heavy I couldn’t have kept them open if I’d tried. A tingling sensation began in my stomach then radiated throughout my entire body, making me feel warmer and safer than ever www.totallybound.com

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before. Behind my eyelids, there was a flash of light so bright I thought it might blind me, then it was gone and the tingling stopped.

“Good as new,” Malaki said.

I was.

The pain in my stomach had disappeared and I felt great—better than I had when I’d woken that morning.

I opened my eyes again and was relieved to be able to see clearly out of both. I raised a hand and ran my fingers over my healed eye and cheek.

“Thank you.”

“What’s going on?” Ty said, glaring at Malaki.

The angel smirked. It was an expression I’d seen him wear countless times before, but after the things he’d just shared with me, it didn’t seem right on him anymore. Maybe I recognized it for the cover that it was—a mask to hide his true emotions. He let his hand linger on my stomach for a moment before letting it fall away, then slowly got to his feet.

“What? We were just getting to know each other better.”

Ty didn’t look very happy with Malaki’s response. He caught my gaze then quickly glanced away.

“The council is sending a team here to try to get to the bottom of this,” Ty said, his voice lacking emotion.

I nodded. “Good. Did you tell them about the hellhounds?”

“Yes. They’ll warn the team to be prepared.”

When Malaki strode down the aisle, I followed him and Ty brought up the rear. Malaki looked over the bodies then shook his head.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say these people had been savaged by a hellhound, but that’s impossible. Like demons, hellhounds can’t get into a church or step foot on consecrated ground.”

He turned to me, all business now.

“Tell me everything you know.”

There wasn’t a lot we
could
tell him, but Ty and I went over our visit with Father Donahue.

When I mentioned the man I’d seen sitting in the pews, Malaki nodded.

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“He must have been enthralled by a demon. That would explain his eyes and the fact that you can’t remember what he looked like. That used to be a rare occurrence, but since the war has escalated, it’s happening more and more.”

“You mean like a possession?” I queried.

Malaki shook his head. “With a possession, the demon inhabits the human’s body, but when they enthrall a human, they essentially put them under a spell. It allows them to command a human and enables them to get into places that a demon can’t go.”

“Like consecrated ground,” I added.

“Precisely.”

Ty frowned. “Of course. I can’t believe I didn’t I think of that.”

“Why are they all still seated?” I asked. “Surely they would have seen the first person slain then tried to run away.”

“The enthralled have a small amount of power they can wield over people,” Malaki explained. “It isn’t nearly as strong as a demon’s power, but it would be strong enough to keep these people in their seats.”

I closed my eyes for a moment as I thought about that. “How awful. So they would have seen what was happening to the others, but weren’t able to move to save themselves.”

Malaki nodded. “More than likely. Just be careful from now on. Enthrallment or possession isn’t always apparent from the person’s eyes. They’re sometimes able to hide it. If a person you know is enthralled, there’ll be telltale signs, but it won’t always be obvious in strangers.”

Ty groaned. “Great. That means we have to be wary of the entire city.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Just another in a long list of things that we need to be wary of.”

Malaki tilted his head back and raised his eyes to the ceiling. His expression cleared and he became stock-still.

I studied his face then asked, “What’s wrong?”

“You said you hadn’t met any other angels?” When I nodded, he added, “Be careful what you wish for.”

The doors to the church flew open and six men strode inside. No, not men. There was no mistaking that they were angels. Unlike Malaki, they had an ethereal quality. Their bodies moved with the sort of grace I would have expected of a celestial being. Despite their obvious www.totallybound.com

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muscles and impressive height, they all but floated down the church’s aisle. They wore a uniform of black that suited the dark mood that accompanied them. With their gazes fixed on Malaki, they wore matching expressions of ire.

Whether purposely or unconsciously, Ty moved in front of me, thus shielding me from their view. The protective gesture was sweet, if pointless. Nothing could have protected me from their wrath if I’d been the focus of it. The power they exuded was magnificent, yet utterly terrifying. Fortunately, they didn’t as much as glance in our direction. They stood together in a group, separate from Malaki, and looked over the dead bodies seated in the pews. The angels’

faces were impassive, but the air around them crackled with charged electricity. Malaki didn’t move a muscle.

“He’s not pleased with you,” one of the angels said without looking up.

Malaki gave an impatient shrug. “I’m quite sure. What are you doing here, Gabriel? You don’t usually concern yourself with the death of humans. Don’t you think them below you?”

Gabriel’s eyes brimmed with anger and contempt. “This is in His house!” he roared, his voice rattling the church’s stained glass windows.

Shock and fear coursed through my veins. Far from objecting when Ty pulled me into his side and put his arms around my shoulders, I welcomed the comfort, warmth and feeling of protection.

“I’m well aware of that,” Malaki replied calmly. His voice, though barely louder than a whisper on the wind, was as clear as a werewolf’s call to the moon.

An indefinable spark of emotion shone in Malaki’s eyes. His face remained impassive, yet something about his demeanor had changed. It was as if he’d stood up to his full height, even though he hadn’t, in fact, moved at all. Malaki looked every inch the angel he was, which was both striking and terrifying.

“You’ve become complacent, Malaki,” Gabriel spat. “Have you forgotten that He can strip you any time He sees fit?”

Malaki roared, and the sound was even more frightening than Gabriel’s outburst had been. I gasped when the air around Malaki shimmied and wings of purest white grew out of his shoulders. He took to the air before they had even fully formed and he loomed over Gabriel, an impressive yet foreboding presence.

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“He can have my wings if He wants them,” Malaki thundered. “One day, I might even offer them to Him of my own accord. But hear this, Gabriel. If I find out you’ve been conspiring against me, Heaven help you.”

Gabriel’s mouth twisted into an ugly sneer as Malaki turned and flew at top speed toward the door. Before he reached it, the air lit up with a blinding white light. I lifted my arm to shield my eyes and when I removed it, Malaki had disappeared. Gabriel shot a hostile glare our way before turning to one of the other angels.

“Uriel,” he snapped, before nodding to the pews. “Clean up this mess.”

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As it turned out, cleaning up a mess was simple when you were an angel. A flick of the wrist and the bodies in the pews, along with the pools of blood at their feet, vanished without a trace. I was sure the council would come up with a way to explain the disappearances, but as we waited for their operatives to arrive, I spared a thought for the families, friends and loved ones those people had left behind. I couldn’t imagine how excruciatingly painful it would be to wave goodbye to someone in the morning before I went about my day, only to arrive home later that night to learn that it had been for the last time.

How did anyone get over a loss like that?

“You still with me?” Ty asked, his gaze raking over my face.

I felt every look he sent my way deep down in the pit of my stomach. Each concerned glance or worried expression fed a need in me I hadn’t realized I possessed. I curled my fingers around his shoulder and gave it a small squeeze, ignoring the awakened response within me that touching him produced.

“I’m hanging in there. Thanks for supporting me. I don’t know what I would have done without you these past couple of days.”

“I do. You’d have gotten the job done, just the same. You’re a survivor, Alana. Hunting is in your blood, just as it’s in mine. Surviving is what we do.”

I grinned back at him. “Can’t you accept a compliment?”

“Don’t deserve one,” Ty returned. “Fact is that you wouldn’t have found yourself in any of those situations if it wasn’t for me. It was my decision to go out hunting last night when we ran into the demon and hellhounds and I brought us here to the church today.”

“But none of those situations was your fault. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

“No, but that doesn’t change the fact that I put you in harm’s way. That’s on me, whichever way you look at it. You could have been killed. You
did
get hurt.”

“Yes, but…”

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“But nothing, Alana.” Using his thumb, he traced the skin under my right eye, right where the swelling had been. “If something happened to you, I’d never forgive myself.”

I opened my mouth to reply, just as one of the council operatives called my name.

“Be right there,” I answered, but when I turned to Ty again, he had his back to me and he was already walking away.

Ty and I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon at the church. Each time we tried to leave, more operatives and hunters showed up and we had to impart the story all over again. It spoke volumes that the council had dispatched so many hunters to one city. Our next stop was supposed to have been the agent’s place of work so that we could question him about the grimoire, but I was in no fit state to walk around the streets of LA. It seemed Malaki had mended the hole in my stomach, but not the hole in my favorite T-shirt, which also happened to be covered in blood. I might have good-naturedly called him out on it, but he’d failed to show up again after his spectacular disappearance.

When we were finally able to get out of the church, Ty found his Stetson, crumpled but otherwise unharmed, sitting in the parking lot near a wheel of the truck we’d been hiding behind. He dusted off the hat then slipped it onto his head before we made our way back to my motel, making an impromptu stop-off at the place Ty had temporarily chosen to call home.

Despite my reservations that it wasn’t necessary, Ty reasoned it would be better if we both stayed at the same motel. It would save time going from one place to the other. I couldn’t disagree with that, but I wondered if his motives were really that straightforward.

While Ty checked in, I took a shower to wash off the blood and grime that covered my clothes and skin. We didn’t have a lot of time to waste, but I stayed under the spray for longer than usual, letting the warm water soothe my tired, aching limbs.

My trip to LA had gone spectacularly poorly so far and I couldn’t help but wonder what else was in store for me. I hated feeling so out of control. I hated that I couldn’t take anything for granted anymore. Although the control I’d thought I possessed might have been an illusion all along—a carefully constructed illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.

Just a week earlier, I would have laughed in the face of anyone who told me I’d have run from any sort of danger, yet run I had. I’d been grateful for Ty’s presence, but it wasn’t as if I hadn’t worked on my own before I met him. Caleb had been out of action on too many www.totallybound.com

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occasions to count, and while he’d recuperated in various hospitals, I’d plodded on without him—ever the good little hunter trying to make her mother proud.

I’d just combed out my wet hair and wrapped a white, fluffy towel around me when there was a light rap on the motel room door.

“Alana, it’s me.”

Ty’s handsome face greeted me when I opened the door.

“I won’t be long,” I told him. “I was just about to get…”

My words faltered when Ty pushed past me and strode into the room.

“There’s no rush.” His grin widened. “Take all the time you need.”

He took off his Stetson then tossed it on the bed. I attempted to count to ten as I closed the door, but I only made it to three. I spun around.

“Ty!” I chastised. “Do you mind? I’m wearing a towel and I need to get dressed.”

A slow, sensual smile tugged at his lips, and his appraising gaze roamed over me. His eyes lifted to meet mine, and a familiar shiver of attraction rippled through me. Even though the towel covered my modesty, I’d never felt so naked—or so attractive. I was amazed that he could make me feel like that with nothing but a look and a flicker of his eyes up and down the length of me.

“Don’t get dressed on my account, sugar,” he drawled playfully. “It would be a crime to cover up those legs.”

I rolled my eyes. “Cool it, Romeo. We have a job to do, remember?”

Holding my gaze, Ty moved closer then put his hand on my arm. His touch was soft, barely there, hesitant even, but I felt it in every part of my being.