Almost Human (18 page)

She laughed. “Jeez, glad you have my
back.”

* * * *

Gideon drummed his fingers on the door of
the car. “Well, this is disconcerting.”

I frowned at him. “What is?”

“This vehicle. I don’t like it at all. It’s
a death trap. Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of safety
harness you wear.”

“It’s called a seatbelt, and with four of
you crammed back there it will make them hard to use. Can you even
die?”

Alaric, Jairdan, Astra and Gideon were all
in the backseat. I glanced at Astra and gave her a reassuring
smile. I hoped it helped, but I doubted it. She was next to two
creatures she hunted, and a demon. And Jairdan was paying her a
frightening amount of attention. What was going on with them?

Gideon leaned on the back of my seat. “In my
world? Not entirely. Here the rules are a little different. My
magic is very limited. I can feel it like a pressure on my chest. I
don’t think a car crash would kill me, though. According to what
I’ve heard, something mystical has to kill you here. I’ve also
heard the sun is damaging. It can’t kill, but it can completely
take away your powers and fry you like bacon.”

“Most lore here says that vampires can’t
walk in sunlight, but they can. It never occurred to me that a
demon couldn’t.”

“Our sunlight doesn’t harm us. I don’t know
why the sun of the mortal plane does. Its good protection for the
humans at least, since we’re also limited to the residences we can
enter. All humans have to do is stay inside after the sun sets and
they’re protected from us. Well, under normal circumstances. If
you’re determined, you can find a way in. Or make the humans come
out.”

Weird. The lore had completely gotten the
rules for demons confused with the rules for vampires.

Alaric arched and eyebrow. “Does that
convince you that we aren’t the evil ones, Kori? We aren’t part
demon apparently, and we can still do all of that.”

I snorted. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that
vampires don’t have some connection to demons.”

Gideon nodded. “She’s right. It’s rumored
that vampires originate from demons. I don’t know how, though.
Usually a human tampering with the dark arts remains human. If a
demon bonds with a human, it’s possession and doesn’t make a
vampire. Demons have tried to duplicate the process to create a
loyal army here to call them from our plane. Nothing has worked,
and my kind executes anyone who tries. Because apparently having
demons bonded with vampires is bad for the mortal plane.” Gideon
smirked and glanced at Dagger. “Don’t you think?”

Dagger hunched in on himself. “Shut up, I’m
still not going to go with you when you go back to your world, and
neither is Kori. I won’t turn anymore people.”

“We’ll see.”

Dagger’s hands clenched on the steering
wheel and the metal groaned under the pressure. I cleared my throat
and he took a deep breath and let up on it.

“Gideon, maybe you should lay off until we
get there so he can be level headed.”

Gideon snorted. “He’s the perfect warrior.
He won’t let me distract him. He’ll try to kill me.”

Alaric crossed his arms over his chest.
“Can’t say I blame him. You’re annoying enough for me to want to
kill you. If you think Kori is going with you to whatever hell you
have in mind, you’re mistaken.”

Gideon rolled his eyes. “Jeez, Christians.
It’s not hell. It’s another dimension.”

“That happens to seem a lot like the
Christian version of hell,” Dagger piped in.

“You’re—”

The car jolted to a stop when Dagger slammed
on the brakes. “Holy shit!”

Sherra stood in our path on the deserted
country road, two balls of fire floating in the palms of her
hands.

“Shit, everybody bail.” I hurled myself from
the car as the ball of fire left her hands. Gideon landed on top of
me in the ditch, shoving the air out of my lungs as heat from the
car exploding rippled over us. Little shards of shrapnel ripped
apart the pieces of my flesh that were exposed, but Gideon must
have taken the brunt of it.

He groaned, tumbled off me, and rolled
around on the ground to put out the flames while I picked jagged
bits of metal from my skin. I gritted my teeth. I had nothing
serious, but they hurt like hell. I couldn’t say the same for
Gideon, who had a foot long shard embedded in his back. A shriek
tore through the night and I peeked over the embankment to look at
Sherra.

Her appearance had deteriorated. Pieces of
rotting flesh fell off her left arm, exposing bone and the wiggling
white maggots that had hatched in the gruesome wound. The skin on
the right side of her head appeared to be missing. Teeth showed
white against the dark red tissue. All the hair on that side of her
head was gone and her eye glared from the socket, no lid to protect
it.

“Well, I don’t know whether to consider this
good news or bad, but Braxus no longer inhabits her body,” Gideon
piped from beside me.

I stared at him. How did he sound so calm
and chipper after being set on fire? “Sounds dandy to me.”

“Well Sherra will be slightly easier to
kill, but Braxus is on the loose somewhere. Possibly with enough
power to manifest himself now.”

“Great. Let’s consider it a good thing and
destroy her.”

Gideon nodded. “The only course of action.
Alaric had the sword.”

God, had they even made it out of the car
alive? Being burned was one of the few ways to kill a vampire. If
they couldn’t put themselves out in time, it was definitely a death
sentence. However, it usually took a long time to burn to death.
They were much more resilient than humans. A gift and a curse when
it comes to burning alive. If you could get the fire out in time,
you’d be hurt, but survive. If you couldn’t, it was a slow,
agonizing death.

However, I didn’t hear any screaming. A
vampire on fire would be screaming for a very long time.

I stuck my head out of the ditch.
“Alaric?”

Sherra hurled her other fire ball toward me
and I hit the ground. Moist dirt rained down on me and Gideon,
filling the air with the earthy scent.

“We’re alive, Kori. Even Astra. Do you have
the sword?”

Damn. He didn’t have it. It had been in the
back of the car last time I’d seen it. “Nope.”

I stuck my head out of our fox hole
cautiously. Thankfully, Sherra was down on all fours and not
moving. It seemed that without the demon, a couple of fireballs had
tired her out. Or maybe she had been up to more than attacking us.
A scary thought. I spotted the sword, embedded halfway in the
pavement, closer to us than Alaric and the rest of the group. When
the car had exploded, it must have launched the damn thing.

“Gideon, the sword sank into the road.”

He arched a brow and looked. “Well, that’s
interesting. Can a vampire free that?”

“I honestly have no idea. I would think so,
but I have yet to try and pull a sword out of concrete.”

He snorted. “Well, what use are you
then?”

I rolled my eyes. “Can a demon do it?”

He grimaced. “Well, I could, but I can’t
even touch it. You did notice that when I handed it to Alaric it
was in a leather case? Anyone with demon blood in them can’t kill
with it, but I’m a full demon. I can’t even touch it.”

Shit. The sword was closer to us and I
wasn’t sure I could pull it from the ground. Sherra stumbled to her
feet and I jumped. She took a shaky step toward the sword. I
swallowed hard.

“If Sherra gets the sword?”

Gideon shook his head. “I have no idea,
honestly. In all my years hunting down demons on this plane I’ve
never faced a raised vampire-hunting witch that used to harbor a
demon. Could officially kill her, or it could be really bad for
us.”

“And I can touch it without dying.”

“Yes, but every second you touch it will be
excruciating pain, and if you even try to strike against her, it
will kill you. That’s assuming you can pull it from the
street.”

Sherra was striding a little more
confidently toward the blade now. “No choice. We’re closer.”

I darted into the street and she shuffled
toward me faster. There was almost no human cunning in her eyes
now. With any luck, we would be battling a regular zombie. Though
those were scary enough. They were virtually unstoppable, and had
to be ripped apart. Even then their body parts still moved until
you burned them to ashes. Also, their bites usually got horribly
infected. There were all types of diseases you could get from being
bitten by a corpse.

I ran past the blade, and tried to yank it
out as I went by. It was angled toward the other side of the road,
so I’d hoped it would come loose.

As soon as I wrapped my palm around the
hilt, my brain lit up with pain and my sight went bright white.
When the sword didn’t break free of the street, I landed on my
back, my shoulder muscles screaming as my arm was almost yanked out
of the socket.

I lay in the middle of the road for a
minute, trying to remember who the hell I was and how to
breathe.

“Kori.” A voice called from a distance, but
I couldn’t answer them.

Damn, that had hurt. I wasn’t sure that if I
could pull the sword out of concrete I could make it to Alaric. I
twisted my head to see Sherra was only five steps from me.
Get
up
.

I rolled to my feet and reached for the
blade again, bracing myself for the pain.
Control it
.

My stomach roiled from the agony in my head,
but I kept my feet this time, and my vision didn’t go out on me. I
grasped with both hands and pulled with my whole body weight.

The sword came loose with a grinding screech
of metal on concrete. I stumbled and barely had time to get my feet
under me before Sherra tackled me and I almost lost the sword.

She tried to bite my neck and I forced the
sword between us, trying to push her away. The sharp edge bit into
my palm as she struggled against me. I almost couldn’t resist using
it. A sword wasn’t some stick to ward off an angry dog. I could
behead her with it now.

I fought the urge and scrunched my legs
between us. I shoved with everything I had and she stumbled away
from me, falling on her backside. I shoved myself to my feet and
ran for Alaric. He rushed toward me.

“Throw me the sword, and go get in the
ditch.”

I was about to toss it to him when a shadowy
figure appeared behind him. I shouted at him as his gaze hit
something behind me. “Watch out!”

I spun around. Sherra was feet from me and
closing fast. I didn’t have a choice. I raised the blade to defend
myself.

“No.”

I slammed it into her chest and a bright
white light heated the air, whipping my hair around my head. There
was a deep ghostly scream and it wasn’t Sherra’s. I covered my eyes
and released the sword. Alaric grabbed me around the waist and
hauled me away from her.

The second explosion of the night shook the
street and we stumbled, Alaric falling on top of me.

And then there was silence. Absolute
silence. Even the crickets had gone quiet. Probably afraid for
their little lives. I know I was. Metal clanged on the street as
the sword hit the ground.

I rolled over to glance back at where Sherra
had been. There was nothing left, except the glowing red sword
lying in the middle of the street.

I had to swallow twice before I could
squeeze the words out. “Well, at least that was effective.”

Gideon walked over to us and stood over me.
“Wow, you’re still alive.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Surprised?”

“More like fucking shocked.”

Alaric bounced to his feet and pulled me up.
He ran his hands over my body, like he was checking for
injuries.

“I can’t believe you did that? What if you’d
died?”

“You weren’t close enough, and something was
behind you.”

His grip on my arms tightened. “I turned and
saw nothing.”

I frowned at him. “I was sure it was
Braxus.”

A strange burning started in my chest. I
rubbed my hand over it. Surely vampires didn’t get heartburn. Even
stress-related heartburn. The sensation spread out. I was on fire.
My knees buckled and I hit the ground on my stomach, screaming.

There wasn’t any part of my body that wasn’t
aching. If it weren’t for the pain, I would have thought I was
dead. I’d assumed when I went down on the street that I was done
for. At the moment, I wished that were the case.

I was hot. Sweat coated me, beads of it
rolling down my body as I slumped over in the chair. If I could
move, I would go shower and then lay in a tub full of ice cold
water. It was almost an urge that couldn’t be denied. Almost. My
arms, back, and neck ached from holding this position too long. I
tried to move my arms, but my back screamed in protest, making me
jerk upright with a groan. The ropes ground across my ravaged skin
and I almost passed out again.

I rotated my shoulders and whimpered. God,
how long had I been sitting like this?

When I opened my eyes, the harsh, florescent
lighting blinded me. “Alaric, turn the lights out.” Even I could
barely hear my hoarse croak, but I wasn’t sure I was capable of
more, and there was no answer.

“Why am I tied up?” Oh, louder that time. I
assumed it was to keep me from hurting myself, though judging by
the agony of the ropes sliding over my burned wrists it hadn’t
helped. Either way, I was sick of it now. Suddenly my legs were
quivering with the need to stand.

“Hey, someone get me out of this damned
chair!”

A harsh, male scream echoed from somewhere
and I jumped. Who was that? Not that it mattered. All that mattered
is I had somehow ended up in a bad situation, and someone in this
building needed some help.

I forced myself to open my eyes and adjust
to the garish lighting while I wiggled my hands. I actually wasn’t
tied that securely to the chair. The only reason not to properly
tie me down was if they’d never expected me to have enough of my
faculties again to get loose.