Dark Desires After Dusk (31 page)

Guardedly, she made her way toward them.

To both Holly and Cade, Tera said, “Then we part ways here, hopefully with peace still between us.”

Cade shrugged. “What's a few arrow wounds among friends, yeah?”

With a wince, she said, “About those arrows, Cade. They were dipped in poison—”

“Poison!” Cade bellowed. “Ah, come on, Tera!”

Holly gave a cry behind him. “What poison? You're poisoned?”

Cade turned to her. “No, I'll be fine. It'll just hurt like—”

From out of nowhere, fire hurtled down at him with the force of a rocket. Flames engulfed him as the impact sent him flying.

*   *   *

Just as Holly screamed,
“Cadeon!”
one of the archers yelled, “Fire demons on the cliffs!”

The blast that hit Cadeon looked like a cannonball shot from a flamethrower. His burning body slammed into a ridge, crushing solid rock before falling to the ground still ablaze.

At once, she sprinted for him, yanking off her coat.

“Bows up—shoot to kill!” Tera ordered, her delicate voice now booming as her own bow joined the salvo.

As Holly ran, she chanced a glance at the cliff above the bridge. Through the wispy mist, she saw four demons. Liquid fire danced in their palms.

When she reached Cadeon, Holly spread her coat over him, shoving the material against the flames. Once she'd put them out and drew her coat back, she stared in shock at the damage to his upper body.

His hands were . . . gone, melted to stumps from where he'd tried to ward off the flames. On the right side of his head, his face and hair were burned completely away. That eye was missing, and she thought she could see bone.

Tera yelled to her, “Get out of here!” A stream of arrows flew at the demons, the fey launching them with supernatural speed. “We'll stall them!”

Holly nodded, even as she had no idea how she'd get Cadeon to the car. She stooped down to drape his damaged arm over her shoulders as she'd seen people do on TV, then heaved upward.

What the . . . ?
She'd easily lifted him to his feet.

Cadeon grated something that sounded like “Can't touch me.”

“What?”

“Poison—”

“We'll talk about this later!” She'd heard what Tera had said and was aware that they faced a subset of problems—but she really couldn't think about that right now!

At the car, she slung him into the passenger seat, then stuffed his long legs in, trying not to freak out about all the damage he'd sustained.

As she yanked open her own door, she spied the fey's truck just around the bend, parked sideways, blocking the road between rock faces.

Holly swung her head in the other direction. A flimsy roadblock, a questionable bridge, and a demon-filled ridge awaited.

Reasoning trail?
This car can fly. Bust through the roadblock, gain more speed on the bridge, then jet right under the demons . . . .

If the bridge held. Hadn't Cadeon said this car was heavy as a tank?

Don't hesitate . . . follow instinct.
Inside the car, she pushed the start button.
Need momentum to hit the roadblock. Oh, God, oh, God . . .
She shifted into reverse, then floored the gas.

“I'm going to get you out of here, Cadeon. We're going to lose them.”

Another blast landed just behind them. The demons were on the run from the feys' arrows, but still firing from their vantage. She slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop inches from the new column of flames.

Cadeon flew forward, cracking his forehead on the metal dash—but this actually seemed to rouse him. “Fuck! What're you doing?” he yelled.

“Trying to get us out of here!” Holly shifted into first gear, then stomped the gas again. The tires peeled as the car surged ahead. Never looking away from the road, she said, “Hold on!”

“Watch the roadblock—”

The front bumper crashed into it, torpedoing the wood. Pieces of lumber bashed the windshield like baseball bats. A split second later, the car ramped down onto the deck of the bridge, the entire structure wobbling dangerously beneath and around them.

Another demon blast struck the bridge's roof. Streams
of fire sieved through the gaps, or oozed from the roof, dropping in her path . . . She steadied the wheel, righting the car.
Almost out, almost to the gauntlet below the demons. I can do this!

The car stalled.

As she gaped in disbelief, they crawled to a stop in the middle of the bridge, a mere hundred feet from where she'd initially started.

“No, no, no!” She hastily shifted to neutral, pushing the start button again. Nothing.

“Battery's out . . .” Cadeon rasped. “No juice.”

“Why?” she cried.

“Don't know. Run, Holly! Get to the forest . . . follow the river back.”

“I'm not leaving you.”

He squinted at her with his remaining eye. “Why not?”

“Because . . . because I'm just not! So tell me how to get this thing started—”

Another explosion above them. Fire had eaten through most of the wooden roof, leaving the skeleton of rusted trusses. A glance at the churning river below, and she knew their next move. Her stomach roiled along with the water. “Cadeon, our only chance is the river . . .”

She trailed off as writing began to appear in the fogged glass on her side window. One of the ghosts was communicating with her! Holly swallowed, whispering, “Cadeon, are you seeing this.”

“Still have . . . one eye.”

“Numbers? It looks like latitude and longitude.” They had to be the directions to the next checkpoint! She quickly memorized them, then asked Cadeon, “You ready to swim?”

“We'd never make it down,” he rasped with a jerk of his chin toward the end of the bridge. A demon had appeared. He raised his flaming hand, about to shoot at them dead on.

Her gaze flew up to the rearview mirror. A second blocked the other end.

Now there was no way to escape, nowhere to run . . .

Suddenly the demon's neck snapped to the side, his head at a right angle to his body; he dropped to his knees, then fell face down, the flame in his hand snuffed.

The one behind them suffered the same fate. The ghosts!

“Thanks for that!” Holly said to the unseen entities, then tried the start button once more.

Nothing.

Timber began to whine beneath the car, unable to bear the weight. One board snapped, then another. The burning structure shuddered and pitched all around them.

More writing on the window, quick and shaky.
EXORCIST. Free us.

“Oh, God, of course,” Holly said, nodding frantically. “Yes, I'll bring one back here as soon as I can!” she vowed.

At once the engine purred to life. Her eyes widened.
In gear.
“Hold on, Cadeon!”
Floor the gas.

They didn't move an inch.

She shot a glance to her side-view mirror. The back tire was spinning at the edge of an iron underpinning. In the other side-view mirror, she saw the back wheel was spinning furiously—on nothing.

“More gas,” he grated.

“You said this has all-wheel drive!” She flattened the accelerator. Smoke billowed from the front peeling tires.

“That's why we're . . . not in the drink yet.”

Traction caught; they were thrown back against their
seats as the car lurched forward over booming, cracking supports.

A wall of flames appeared at the exit.

“Oh, God, oh, God,” she muttered, clenching the wheel.

“
Do it
.”

“Cadeon, if you're the praying type,” she murmured, “now would be a choice time.”

F
ire buffeted the car, roaring all around them. Then came a split second of clear night before the next two blasts landed.

Holly swerved around one, drove through another, then floored it, unbridling the engine on the curving road.

She chanced a glance at Cadeon, but almost wished she hadn't. Panic hit her hard. He was burned over most of his upper body, some of the wounds so severe, there was no physical resemblance to whatever feature had been there before.

Most of his visible flesh looked as if it had melted.

A minute passed. “They're not giving chase.” Another minute. “They must have parked on the other side and can't get across the bridge. Or maybe the archers got the last two?”

A noxious smell arose, like burning rubber. Was smoke rising from the back rear tire? She couldn't tell in the fog.

Four minutes passed. “We did it, Cadeon!” she said, determined to keep talking to him. “My God, that was wild! Did you feel the bridge shaking? The deck collapsed like a line of dominoes behind us!”

Headlights shined from down in the basin.

“They're coming again! Why won't they
die
?”

“Outrun . . . them. You can do it . . .”

“On it!” She downshifted for speed up a straight section. “Let's see what this baby—”

A loud bang sounded. The car wobbled. “What—just—happened?”

“Blown tire. Now . . . will you please . . . fucking leave me?”

Ditching Cadeon was simply not an option. She kept her foot on the gas, fighting to steer the car, fighting for inches . . . All those criminals on
Cops
could go for miles with a busted tire!

Think, Holly, think!

She'd just driven on a considerable straightaway and a sharp bend lay up ahead. The road was flanked with ridges on both sides. A nebulous idea arose.

“Cadeon, whose car is this?”

He rasped,
“Not . . . ours.”

“Just checking.”

*   *   *

From his position, propped up against a birch above the ridge, Cade watched Holly snagging the last of their gear from the car, finalizing her trap.

Surely, this couldn't work. But it had to . . . her life depended on it.

Because for some reason, she refused to leave him. And he was helpless to protect her. The poison from those arrows was eating away at him inside, and when his body tried to sweat it out, the chemicals were like acid on his burns, keeping them from healing.

Dizziness was constant. Black spots swarmed in front of his eye as he struggled to stay conscious. Every movement was grueling.

She trotted up the rise, dumping their stuff to the ground
except for his sword, which she unsheathed. Crouching beside him, she laid the weapon over her knees. In readiness.

Could she consciously kill a demon, or possibly more? Could she mindfully make the decision to take a life?

“What are our chances?” she asked.

He grated, “One in fifteen. Don't know if . . . I'd take them.”

“You would if there's zero chance otherwise.”

The truck was flying up the winding road, headlights going from visible to concealed to visible once more. Tires screeched around the hairpin curves before falling silent when the driver reached the straightaway and gunned the engine.

“Here they come,” Holly murmured. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .
one
.”

The driver slammed on the brakes at his first glimpse of her improvised Veyron roadblock.

Too late.

With nowhere to turn, the truck t-boned the heavy car; the sole demon catapulted through the windshield, hurtling through the air.

On his landing, bones cracked audibly, then the momentum sent him scraping over the skin-eating pavement. Eventually, he stopped, sprawling unconscious.

“And that's why even immortals need to wear seat belts.” As lightning began to fire all over the valley, Holly rose, wielding Cade's sword. He heard her absently say, “Sit tight. I'll be right back.”

*   *   *

Holly advanced to where the fire demon lay, looking like a boneless lump of tissue on the road.