Demon Demon Burning Bright, Whisperings book four (20 page)

Lucky for me they weren’t adroit. I
collapsed and tumbled to the other side of the corridor as Ninja
Three swung his blade. It slashed over my head and this guy
struggled to keep his balance.

Nope, despite the swords and mysterious
black outfits, these guys were not professionals. Ninja One’s
overhead hack when he could have got me with a sweep or stab told
me that. A real Ninja would have had me at the beginning. I was
fortunate they didn’t carry guns. Mine would come in mighty handy
right now.

Inept or not, three men with nasty, shining
blades now surrounded me in a half circle, pinning me to the
wall.

Red smeared the floor where I had rolled.
Blood slicked my palm and fell in micro droplets to the floor. I
felt the pain now, as if a hot iron had been plunged into my flesh.
I tried to push it away again and concentrate on the men who
surrounded me. I would
not
die in Bel-Athaer.

Then Chris was among them.

I have seen Gelpha fight before. They flow,
silently, effortless as a slow-flowing stream, or fierce and
furious like raging rapids. Clad in nothing but his leather pants,
Chris went through my Ninjas as if every movement were
choreographed. I leaned on the wall, transfixed by the fluid beauty
of his body in motion. Dipping, spiraling, swaying aside, sliding
between them. A blade flew away and clanked to the floor, a body
toppled and fell. A straight-armed blow with the flat of his hand
sent another into the wall; he rebounded and landed curled on his
side. The third tried to turn on the shadow at his back, but the
shadow’s arm snaked around his throat and lifted him off his
feet.

It was over in minutes. Three men lay face
down on the floor, disarmed, one unconscious, the other two
stirring feebly. They were human; they didn’t stand a chance.

A head popped around the wall at the top of
the staircase. The hostel manager.
Thank you, Jesus!
Next
second, he was gone.

A blur, and Chris pushed me through the
bathroom door which seemed to have opened magically. Trying to
regain my balance, I staggered as the door banged behind me.

“Lock it,” Chris said through the door.

Lock it. Yes, lock it.
My hand closed
on the doorknob. I stared, willing a lock to magically appear.
How can I. . . ?
My gaze slid up to the bolt at the top of
the door. I reached and engaged it.

Chris drawled, “Come, gentlemen. Let’s
dance.”

I had to calm down. I slumped against the
door, taking in shallow breaths, trying to slow my ferociously
beating heart. My shoulder burned but no longer dripped blood.

A thud, grunts, the soft whisper of
scuffling feet. Then silence.

“You can come out now.”

I drew the bolt and flung open the door.
Chris’ arms closed around me and pulled me tight to smoldering skin
smooth as marble. His scent flooded over me, citrus and ginger. I
felt the steady rhythm of his heart, looked into eyes gone
satin-gray. His low, slow voice soothed, “There, there, Tiff. I
have you now. You’re safe.”

His arm covered my wound and it burned from
his body’s heat, but it actually felt good, like a hot pad on a
strained muscle.

I hated the way my voice trembled. “Where
are they?”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Where they
can’t bother you again.”

I became intimately conscious of the lean
muscles beneath his naked skin, the strength of his arms. I pulled
back.

“Oh well,” he said with a gleam of white
teeth, “it was fun while it lasted.” His expression turned serious.
“Come, we can’t stay here.”

He suddenly moved back and raised his arm.
“What’s this?”

My blood smeared the underside of his arm,
his armpit and ribs.

“Um. That would be me.”

“You’re hurt!” Storm clouds boiled in his
eyes.

Before I could blink, I was off the floor,
in his arms, hurtling along the corridor. The door to my room
banged open with such force, I noticed a crack running vertical to
the door frame as he sat me on the edge of the bed. His hands were
on my waist, peeling my hoodie up, when I found enough breath to
protest.

“Stop right there!”

All seriousness, Chris narrowed his eyes.
“If you wish.”

His hands blurred and my sleeve fell away
either side of my arm. Still joined to the shoulder, he had neatly
separated it lengthwise.

I held my arm out from my side. “Oh,
yuck.”

The Ninja guy’s blade had sliced open
three-inches of skin. It looked like an envelope flap which needed
gluing. And my arm was red down to the wrist, with drizzles spread
over the back of my hand in a thick web.

“I’ll be right back.”

I managed to tear my gaze from my arm, but
he had disappeared.

I checked my arm again. At least it had
stopped bleeding and I didn’t appear to have lost much blood
despite the stain on my sleeve. The weakness creeping through my
body was shock. My hoodie, though, was ruined. I could take the
sleeve off altogether, and the other one, and use it sleeveless.
You can buy them made like that anyway. Who’d know I didn’t follow
fashion, if I managed to get the stains out the rest of it?

“Tiff.”

Dazed, I looked up. Chris stood over me with
a small white box in his hands.

“How do you feel?”

“Okay.” I jogged my arm up and down. “But
you ruined my hoodie. I was thinking, though, I can - ”

“You’re in shock.” His eyes softened, his
voice lost its hard tone and gentled. “Relax, my Sweet and drink
this.” He held a small brown bottle out to me.

I squinted at the bottle. “Why? It’s not
that Gryphon’s Piss, is it?”

A smile tweaked his lips. “No, it’s not
Gryphon’s Ale. Something more powerful to dull the pain, because
I’m afraid I’m going to have to hurt you.”

I took the bottle and sniffed. It smelled
like seaweed stranded on the beach after the tide recedes. “You’re
going to hurt me how?”

“I’m going to suture the wound.”

He sat on the bed next to me, opened the box
and took out a small jar, gauze pads, roll of white, wattle-weave
bandage, a long, sharp needle, a reel of brown thread and tiny
scissors.

I upended the bottle and swallowed the
contents. And spent the next half minute trying not to gag it back
up.

I bet I looked like the proverbial deer in
the headlights as I watched him try to thread the needle. “Can I
have a Band-Aid instead?”

“Afraid not.” He beamed as he managed to get
the thread through the eye. “There.” He peered at me. “How do you
feel now?”

I suddenly felt peculiar, as if someone
novocained my entire body. Lethargy flowed through me. My shoulders
relaxed. My head kept wanting to flop on one shoulder. “Fine. I
feel . . . fine.”

Did I just slur? I couldn’t tell. “Where did
you get that stuff?”

Chris uncapped the small jar. “From the
manager.”

“Same one who was up here and looked the
other way?”

“They don’t get involved in this part of
town, which is why he didn’t ask why I need the first aid kit.”

“He needs a -
sonuvabitch!”

Chris pulled thread through the first
stitch. The sneaky bastard had stuck me when I was distracted. The
stuff in the bottle made me woozy but I still felt that first
stitch. Yes, stitch. He
sewed
me up. A distant part of my
mind wondered how bad it would be without the booze - or whatever
it was - to numb the pain. Unfortunately, the numbness wore off
before Chris finished tacking my skin together.

Then he slapped some ointment on.

God almighty!
I wonder I didn’t go
through the ceiling. My eyes popped wide, then flooded with tears.
My nose chose that moment to run. When I found my breath, I used my
other sleeve to mop up unladylike fluids.

By then, a neat bandage circled my arm.
“There.”

I eyed him inquisitively. This was a day for
surprises and Chris not the least of them. A sophisticated roué, a
crazy biker, an efficient, no-nonsense medic. And I saw the true
concern in his eyes.

I kind of liked this side of Chris Plowman.
Not that I’d admit it.

I touched the dangling end of my sleeve.
“Rip it off, will you. And while you’re at it, take the other one
off too.”

“I can sew it.” Chris held up the
needle.

I flapped the soggy material. “No thanks.
This is going in the trash when I get home. I’d wash it but it
won’t be dry before morning.”

He replaced the supplies in the tin. “Take
it off and I will personally launder it for you.”

I lofted one eyebrow. “You can’t use a
dishwasher but you can launder?”

He gave me a pitying look. “You obviously
don’t know many gentlemen, my dear. But you would not, in Royal’s
company. A gentleman does not perform menial household tasks, but
he does know how to care for his wardrobe. One never knows when one
will be stranded without one’s valet.”

“How awful for one! Hand me those scissors
and I’ll cut the damn things off.”

He tore both sleeves off so fast I didn’t
feel them leave. Then he took the cover off Gia’s bed, folded it
and snugged it over my shoulders. He put his arm around me. “To
warm you up, you understand,” he said, the old drawl back in his
voice.

I closed my eyes and reveled in the demon
warmth which seeped through the cover.

Okay, enough. I’d fall asleep in his arms if
I didn’t move now. I shifted, parted my reluctant eyelids. “I want
to be alone, get some sleep. You should take the kit back and get
some sleep yourself.”

“We could lie down together here. I’ll keep
you warm through the long, lonely hours,” he murmured in my
ear.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I muttered
under my breath. I pushed his arm off my shoulders.

He got the hint. I felt twenty degrees
cooler when he eased away and rose to his feet accompanied by a
deep, tragic sigh. The bed creaked, reminding me of the unyielding
mattress.

He took up the first aid kit. I followed him
to the door so I could bolt it behind him.

He stood in the corridor, wearing a winsome
expression. “Are you sure?”

Right then his door opened and a beautiful
Gelpha with glossy cornflower hair waving to her waist and falling
over her naked, perky breasts peeked out. “Thank the Lady you are -
” she began. Then she lifted wide, cerulean eyes and flushed
beneath her pale copper complexion. She ducked back in and slammed
the door so hard I’m surprised it didn’t explode.

I snorted through my nose. “You didn’t waste
much time. We’ve been here, what, three hours?”

“I’m sure she’ll understand if I ask for a
rain check.”

“That’s what you call getting rid of one
woman so you can bring in another?” I could barely contain my
laughter. “
Pu-lease,
don’t expect me to be a corner of your
love triangle.”

Mock indignation brightened his eyes. “You
think so little of me.”

I tucked my chin in my neck. “Darn
tootin’.”

“It’s not my fault. I don’t invite their
adulation.” He spread his arms and assumed a theatrical stance.
“They are attracted to me like a hummingbird to nectar, a doe to
the mighty stag, salmon to their spawning - ”

I cocked an eyebrow. “I think you’ll find
the stag pursues the doe, not the other way around.”

I spun on my heel and went in my room.

“I will stand vigil outside your door.”

“Oh wow, my very own knight in shining
armor,” I deadpanned.

For a moment, as we bantered, I forgot the
attack, but it hit me full force as I lay on my back and stared at
the ceiling again.

I saw the dead of Dun Falmor fall before me.
Black-clad figures brutally slew the townsfolk at the orders of the
Burning Man.

The men who planted a bomb in my house wore
tight-fitting black. My roommates identified them as human
males.

A dark night. Mel insisted she saw a burning
figure in my backyard.

A chill swept my limbs, turning them icy. I
pulled the thin coverlet up to my chin. Tonight was not the first
time Orcus tried to kill me.

I sat up, stretched to reach the backpack at
the foot of the bed and withdrew my Ruger. It was a reassuring lump
beneath the hostel’s thin pillow.

I woke to a god-awful ruckus, groping for my
Ruger before my eyes were more than slits. The ceiling lamp swung
violently, slashing the room with constantly moving bars of light
and shadow, flickering like an old-fashioned black and white
movie.

I fought free of tangled sheet and bed
cover, came up on my knees, and ducked as Gia’s bed flew over my
head. It hit the wall and exploded. The metal headboard and springs
clanged on the floor as giant wooden splinters speared the room
like missiles.

Gia flew at a tall, muscular man all in
black. They slammed together body to body. The big man should have
crushed Gia’s slighter figure, yet she held, straining against him.
Her mouth opened in a grimace. Time stopped. I held my breath. Then
Gia fell back. I saw the knife in his hand as she went down.

She lay in a jumble of limbs, long
night-black hair over her face.

The man grasped the back of his hood and
pulled it over his head. The mask came off with it. Royal smiled, a
glitter of pointed teeth.

I brought my gun up. “You’re not Royal.”

That smile again. “Why do you say that?” his
familiar voice asked.

“Your teeth.”

He laughed, as unpleasant as his smile.
“These?” He gestured at his mouth with the bloody knife. “I got rid
of the caps. I don’t need them any longer.”

A hole opened inside me and the future I
dared imagine poured out, a wailing storm of loss and grief. My
dreams tossed in that gale, crying out for me to save them, to
believe in them.

He loomed over me. He looked bigger, and
terrible; eyes glassy, vicious. The light still swayed above his
head, one moment blurring his face with murky shadow, the next
illuminating a stark, prominent landscape of harsh angles. “Do you
know,” he said, “what we use them for? Why our teeth are
sharp?”