Dark Light of Mine (3 page)

"How do you know?" Elyssa said.

"Because I jerked him off her and slammed him into the wall while they were both fully clothed.  Didn't you see the dent in the drywall?"

A smile lit her face.  It grew even bigger when she saw embarrassment turning Katie's face a brilliant hue of red.  "Good."

My own face felt like it was burning by that point.  "Can we lay off talking about my sex life and figure out what to do next?"

Katie crossed her arms and sniffed.  "I'm not going another step until you tell me what you are.  I've never seen anyone move so fast or jump fences like that.  It's not normal!"

I looked at Dad.  He looked at me.  I looked at Elyssa.  She rolled her eyes.

"What's the protocol here?" I asked, not wanting to break the Overworld secrecy code, or any other pact for that matter.  I was the supernatural newb of the group and still had a lot to learn about, well, everything.

"Katie, we've involved you in something very dangerous you shouldn't know anything about," Dad said.  "Believe me when I tell you it's for the best if you go home right now."

"Oh, no you don't."  She pursed her lips.  "I'm sticking with Justin."

"Elyssa is my girlfriend," I said.  "I'm sorry to be harsh, but I love her, and you sticking around isn't going to change anything."

Tears pooled in her eyes.  "I really screwed up, didn't I?"  She slumped against a tree as sobs shook her body.  "I was such a total bitch to you."

I felt horrible all of a sudden.  What was it about women and crying that made me feel like crap? 
They must have guilt pheromones in their tears.
  I knelt next to her and put a hand on her shoulder.  "It'll be okay.  You'll find a really great guy one day."  This was one speech I never in a million years would have pictured me giving to Katie Johnson.  I'd crushed on her so hard at one point I'd actually thought she was the one for me.  And then I'd met Elyssa and found out what real love was.

"We've got to get going," Dad said.  "The tracker will lead them to us at any moment."

"Who or what is this guy chasing us?" I said.  "The way he just knocked a car around like it was a toy is impossible, even for spawn."

"And my knives didn't even faze him," Elyssa added, her gaze meeting Dad's.

"Is he spawn like you?"

Dad shook his head.  "No."  He ran a hand through his tangled brown hair and glanced at the snarled traffic on the highway leading downtown.  "I'm not sure, not a hundred percent, anyway, but I think they're hellhounds."

My jaw went slack.  "What?  Why are they so hell-bent on catching you anyway?  Are you really such a disappointment to the family?"

"I have a lot to answer for in their eyes," Dad said, his lips going tight.  "Marrying your mother, a human, was just the first slap in their faces.  There's a lot you don't know about our kind, Justin.  They're obsessed with social order and ranking.  I broke all those rules and they despise me for it."

A cold lump formed in my chest.  "Are they going to kill you for it?"

He sighed.  "I honestly don't know."

Katie lifted her tear-streaked face.  "Will someone please tell me what's going on?"

I glanced at the darkening sky.  Night would settle in soon, and I couldn't just leave Katie in this part of town to fend for herself.  "Hop on my back if you want answers." 
Did I really just say that?

Apparently I had because she climbed wearily onto my back.

"This is a mistake," Elyssa said.  "You're going to get her hurt, killed, or worse."

"What could be worse than dying?" I asked.

"After all you've seen, do you really have to ask?"

I thought back to the vamplings, those half-zombie, half-vampire creatures and shuddered.  "I guess not."  I blew out a breath.  "Let's just find her a cab."

Car tires shrieked behind us.  I spun and saw the limo bounce to a halt against the curb.  The front two doors sprang open as the massive driver and his slightly shorter twin leapt out.  Company had arrived.

And they looked pissed.

Chapter 3

I think someone shouted, "Run!" at the top of their lungs.  It might have been me, but I was way past rational thought when I saw we had
two
of those crazy mofos after us.  I streaked toward downtown, using the tallest skyscraper as a beacon.  Dad and Elyssa pulled up alongside me, faces strained with exertion.

"Just how bad," I said, taking a deep breath, "are hellhounds?"  I panted. 

"Worse than you can imagine," Dad said.  "They won't stop hunting us."  He glanced back.  "Even if we cut off the tracking spell with a circle, they could sniff us out anywhere so long as we leave a trail.  We need a car, something to keep our scent off the road.  Otherwise we'll drop from exhaustion long before they give up.”

If only I had a bottle of Axe Body Spray to dump on the ground.  If such a concentration of manly odor didn't confuse their canine noses, nothing would.  The men behind us obviously didn't look like dogs, but I was too out of breath to ask more questions.  We reached a huge apartment complex.  Leapt the razor-wire atop the chain-link fence.  We'd already gained some distance on the hellhound dudes, but I didn't expect our lead to last long, if what Dad said about their tracking abilities was true.  The apartments were five-story, flat-roofed affairs with a courtyard in the center and two parking decks flanking each side of the complex.

Elyssa motioned us to follow her inside the nearest parking deck.  "You said we needed a car?"

"You know how to hotwire one?" I said, impressed.

She shook her head.  "No, but with any luck we can carjack someone."

Before I could offer a morally outraged response, she raced around the garage and up the ramps, her gaze sweeping the area for a target.  But we reached the roof without finding a victim.

Elyssa looked across the apartments to the other parking deck.  "We'll have to take our chances in the next one."

"How are we supposed to get there?" I said.  "Jump?"

She offered a brief smile before racing across the deck and launching herself across the wide gap between the deck and the roof of the next apartment building over.  Dad followed.  My guts knotted tight.  It was one thing vaulting backyard fences with Katie on my back and quite another to risk a five-story plunge which would hurt me like hell and probably kill Katie.

Her grip tightened as I contemplated the edge.  A whimper escaped her throat and I felt her face press against my back.  I hoped to god she had a strong bladder.

"Just get off and hide," I said.  "You shouldn't be involved in this."  Plus I really wanted the extra load off.  I was pooped.

"You'll make it.  I trust you."

I sighed.  "Why are you doing this?  I told you I love Elyssa."

"I want you, Justin, but if I can't have you, I want to know what in the world is going on here.  You're like superheroes or something.  Just like the ones my little brother reads about in his comic books."

I chuckled.  "Hardly."  If anything, I was the villain.  Demon spawn weren't heroes in anyone's book.

Elyssa and Dad waved me over, their faces tight with urgency.  I took a deep breath.  Ran at the ledge.  Jumped.  Katie shrieked as we cleared the gap.  I couldn't help but look down at the hard concrete sidewalk far, far below.  My feet hit the roof.  I stumbled as Katie's weight shifted, but managed to stay upright.  A mournful howl gripped the chilly air.  Dad cursed.  Elyssa gasped.  I spun and saw our pursuers staring from across the parking deck roof at us.  One of the men reared his head back and loosed a chilling inhuman howl which about made me wet my pants.  It was a howl of despair and hopelessness. 
Resistance is futile
, it seemed to say.  No matter how hard or fast we ran, they would catch us.  Besides, why run?  We had nowhere to go.

Dad grabbed my arm and wrenched me around.  "Ignore the howls, Justin.  Shut them out of your mind.  Don't let them control you."

Katie's grip loosened on my neck.  Sobs shook her body.  "We're going to die.  It's useless.  Life is pointless."

Elyssa dropped to her knees as tears poured from her face.  "He's dead," she said.  "And it's all my fault."  My duffel bag slid from her shoulder and thumped on the roof.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked, shaking off the melancholy mood as both the men continued to howl while they slowly advanced across the parking deck roof for us.

"Their howls kill hope," Dad said.  "They bring back our worst memories and nightmares.  Thankfully, we spawn are not as easily influenced."  He dragged Elyssa to her feet, tried to shake her out of her misery, but it didn't help.

Katie dropped off my back like a sack of potatoes, bawling her eyes out.

"Dad, they're coming.  We have to carry the girls."

He glared at our pursuers, his eyes glowing ice-white with fatigue.  Mine probably matched his.  I wanted to find a nice quiet spot, go to sleep, and dream about kittens.  "Justin, if they corner us while we're this tired, we may spawn."

"We'll manifest into our demon forms?"

He gave me a sideways look.  "If that happens, we won't be able to control ourselves.  We might rampage.  People could die."

"What do we do?"

He took a deep breath and picked up Katie, slung her over his shoulder.  "We're almost downtown.  No matter where we go for miles in any direction we'll run into densely populated areas."

"So, our only chance is to outrun them."

He nodded.  "Yeah."  The answer sounded dry in his throat.

I looked back at the hounds.  "Why aren't they running?"

"I don't think they can howl and run at the same time.  They probably think we're immobilized."

"On three?"  I scooped up Elyssa and slung her over a shoulder, grabbed my duffel with a spare hand.

Dad gave me a lopsided smile.  "One.  Two.  Three."

We bolted.  The howls ceased.  Elyssa and Katie bounced against our backs with each long stride, and flopped with each leap.  We cleared six rooftops and leapt to the parking deck roof.  The hounds leapt each gap with high, graceful jumps belying their huge lumbering forms.  I spotted an old tire leaning against the parking deck wall.  Dropped my duffel.  Gripped the inside of the tire with my free hand.  Spun and launched it as the hounds leapt the next-to-last roof.  It caught one square in the chest as he hit the apex of his jump.  He yelped, sounding like a wounded dog, and vanished between the buildings.  His comrade ignored him and came at us, face snarling, his unnaturally long tongue flapping and slavering.

Dad paused at the top of the ramp when he realized I wasn't right behind him.  I retrieved my duffel, sprinted to him, and we made our way down the ramp and into the parking deck.  Shouting echoed from ahead.  A man stood outside his white crew-cab pickup examining the side where a woman in a blue Toyota must have hit him.  The woman cowered in fear as he screamed obscenities in her face.  Fury rode a rising tide of hot anger in my chest.

"You stupid, blind idiot!" the man shouted.  "How could you possibly miss seeing me when I backed out?  Women drivers are all brain-dead.  Shouldn't even be allowed behind the wheel of a car!"  The man's eyes widened with shock the moment he saw us rushing down the ramp, girls slung over our shoulders like a couple of cavemen.

I lengthened my stride, reached him, and punched him square in the nose.  He staggered in a wobbling half-circle before face-planting on the concrete.  I grabbed him with my free hand and dragged him against the opposite wall, out of the way.  "We have an emergency," I told the shocked woman with the blue Toyota.  "Tell him he can get his precious pickup later."  I glanced back up the ramp.  "Now get out of here and hide!"

She bolted like a crazed jackrabbit.

Dad and I slung the girls into the back seats of the crew cab, not bothering to buckle them in as the panting of the hound grew louder.  I unslung the duffel from my shoulder, tossed it to Dad, and hopped in the driver's seat.  The truck peeled out under my desperate guidance while Dad turned around and tried to buckle the dazed girls in.

"What—what happened?" Elyssa asked, seeming to recover her wits.  She buckled herself in before Dad could finish securing Katie's grief-stricken form.

"Hellhound howls," Dad said.  "I'd have thought Templars might know how to protect against those."

"I've never encountered them."  Elyssa squeezed her temples.  "My head's killing me."

"It'll pass."

"Okay, so they howl, pant, slobber, and yelp, but they still look like men," I said.  "Are they shifters like Stacey?"

"The reverse," he replied.

"Huh?"

"Stacey is a felycan—a human who can shift into feline form.  Hellhounds are huge mindlessly-devoted creatures who can shift into human or other forms as a sort of camouflage."

I drifted around the parking deck ramp, tires squealing as I wrestled the big truck under control.  A car pulled out a few slots ahead, but my preternatural senses and reflexes guided me around it without a second thought.

"No wonder Edward was such a crazy driver," I muttered.

"Who's Edward?" Elyssa asked.

"You know, from Twilight."

Katie perked up all of a sudden, her eyes red and puffy.  "I love Edward."

Elyssa groaned.

I screeched to a halt at the parking deck exit and cursed.  A steel gate barred the way, and it looked too solid to smash through.  "Crap.  What now?"

Elyssa reached between the seats and jerked a gray fob off the keychain dangling from the truck's ignition.  "Scan it."  She pointed to a pad on a console outside the window.

I rolled the window down and thrust the fob at the pad.  It dinged and a light turned green.  The steel shutter slid up.  Slowly.  Like old-man-crossing-the-street-with-a-walker slow.  Tires squealed.  Metal crunched.  Glass shattered.  I looked past Dad through the passenger window.  A car at the corner of the ramp bounced and rolled, sparks flying before smashing into a Bentley across the driveway as the hound burst around the corner.  In mid-stride, the man morphed into a huge ebony dog, fangs bared and tongue lolling.  A yellow glow pulsed from within its eyes.