Good Intentions 3: Personal Demons (45 page)

The invisible grip flung her clear across the street. She gasped in shock before she slammed against a desk in a darkened office and fell to the floor.

Never in her life had Onyx felt this kind of all-over pain. Shards of glass cut into her arms. More ran all the way down her body. She could hardly breathe, let alone move.

Then she flew up into the air and dangled upright as if hanging from a hook.

The blonde woman from the casino fight stepped into view. Onyx floated in a dark office full of bullet holes, blood, and bodies, but only the person in front of her scared her. “That was clever,” Evelyn sneered with obvious frustration. She raised both hands just slowly enough to let Onyx see the talons of her fingertips and the searing magical heat that turned her flesh red. One of those hands tore into her belly, inflicting such agony that Onyx couldn’t draw breath to scream.

Almost in the same second, Evelyn jerked violently to one side and tumbled to her knees. Onyx heard the sharp whistle of air in tandem with the motion, but fell to the ground in another painful collapse without recognizing the sound of Molly’s magic.

Though pushed to the floor by the concentrated wind, Evelyn rolled over and forced her hands together. The sharp motion cut through Molly’s spell like a knife, severing her hold on the demon. Evelyn sat upright and promptly felt something tear through her chest, knocking her back hard onto the floor. She brought her hands up in a quick, desperate motion, removing herself from sight to buy time to heal her gunshot wound.

“Someone watch the door!” warned Wade. He knelt where he’d hit the deck, his rifle against his shoulder for the sake of decent aim. The young man pulled the trigger again, yet almost in the same instant, he realized he’d lost his target. “Aw shit, she vanished.”

“What?” grunted Taylor.

“Watch the door! They’re pro’bly gonna hit us from both sides!”

Wade flipped the selector on the rifle to full automatic and pulled the trigger for several short bursts, trusting Hector’s enchantments and his own aim to keep from hitting his fallen friend. A handful of sparks appeared here and there as rounds ricocheted off sturdier objects in the room. One little flash of orange light caught his attention, like the flare of a cigarette lighter in a dark space, but he only saw it as his weapon ran dry. All he could do then was fumble in the bag for another magazine.

“Onyx!” Molly shouted.

Wade reloaded. Amber turned the coffee table over to provide a bit of cover. The redhead had her wand in hand, but with her first reflexive spell so easily blocked she didn’t immediately see her next option.

Then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Throw me over there!” Drew urged. He threw the nail from his pocket down onto the floor without a second thought.

“What?” Molly blinked.

“Throw me! Someone’s gotta get to Onyx!”

Molly only considered it for half a heartbeat. She had no other options and no time to ask if he was sure. It was his idea and things were already desperate. “Run and jump and hold your arms out like a bird,” she said, and then reached back to point at the wall behind him with her wand. “Go!”

He didn’t think twice. Drew ran for the ledge. It wasn’t as if he could build up a full head of steam in only a few steps, but he gave it his all. He didn’t see Molly swing her wand back around to point at him, but he felt the rush of air all around and underneath him. His last step pushed him off the balcony’s edge and into the air.

With only a couple friends watching and no one to record the distance, Drew absolutely destroyed his old record for the long jump.

Evelyn saw him coming. She’d never been seriously hurt by a gun before, but the wound was nothing her magic couldn’t handle. The demon was on her feet before Drew jumped, still hidden by an enchantment and perfectly positioned to kill him as soon as he crossed the distance. The idiot wouldn’t even be worth a spell. As Drew’s feet left the ledge on the other side of the street, Evelyn reached back with her taloned fingers to greet him—and then staggered backward, falling out of invisibility as unexpected torment wracked her brain.

The dying witch on the floor still had her wand and the will to fight. Evelyn brought one foot down on the stupid girl’s hand, breaking fingers and snapping the instrument in half. She looked up again exactly in time for Drew’s outstretched arm to catch her neck. His airborne clothesline carried her into the office door on the far end of the room.

He took for granted it wouldn’t be enough to put her down. Drew used the single second the demon needed to rally to grab the closest weapon at hand. As soon as Evelyn stepped out of the doorway again, hissing something along the lines of, “Stupid mortal,” he slammed the desktop keyboard straight into her face.

Onyx didn’t see it. She lay partly on her side, pulling her broken hand down over her torn and bleeding stomach. Everything hurt. She had some distant, feverish thought about covering up the worst pain with the least.

She couldn’t last long with wounds like this. She knew that. The minor healing spells she’d mastered weren’t up to this task.
Better than doing nothing
, she thought desperately, fighting back her pain to cough out the words and focus her will.

Blood. The word for blood is…
“
Dam
,” she whispered, concentrating as best she could while she shivered and coughed. “
Dam
…
dam
…”

This sort of injury required skill like Molly’s, but her lover was too far away.

Her eyes opened. Across the street, she saw Molly in the apartment, looking backward rather than toward Onyx. Something was going on inside, too. The coffee table was on its side, Wade knelt out in the open where he could shoot, and…
Where did the couch go?

“Jason! Help me lift!” shouted Taylor.

“What?” Jason blinked.

Taylor had her hands under one corner of the couch facing the now demolished balcony. “We gotta barricade the door!”

He didn’t argue. He didn’t have any better ideas right then, anyway. Jason grabbed the other end and heaved, remembering how glad he’d been when Alex told him Lorelei hired professional movers rather than relying on friends like everyone else did. They made it around the kitchen bar and into the small foyer before he realized the couch wasn’t that heavy—unless that was his adrenaline talking.

“Wait, turn it,” Taylor hissed before they set the couch down. She gestured with her head, wanting Jason to wheel the couch around instead of laying it across the doorway. “Turn it sideways, it’ll only barely fit in here. It’ll jam the door.” Her moving partner immediately complied, walking around until he was almost jammed between the couch and the foyer wall himself.

Their eyes went wide at the sound of a distinct mechanical pump-action on the other side of the door. Taylor rolled away as Jason dove out of the foyer. Amber waited at the corner by the living room with Hector’s shotgun ready to go.

The door shuddered under a heavy impact, jostling the couch without dislodging it. The shout of pain from the other side of the door suggested the door-kicker didn’t expect such resistance. A sharp blast followed, sending wood flying from the door and tearing upholstery from the couch. A second blast knocked off the hinges midway up the door.

Amber answered it with a loud, booming counterattack from her shotgun. Her blast added to the damage inflicted upon the door, but a loud grunt suggested she’d hit someone on the other side. “Get back,” she warned her friends. “Jason, grab my pistol and get—”

Gunfire erupted all along the door and the wall beside it. Concrete, wood, and plaster flew everywhere as the men on the other side opened up with automatic weapons. Thankfully, Jason didn’t stand behind his girlfriend. Instead of taking her gun, he grabbed her waist and yanked backward. The move saved her from the initial hail of bullets.

The moment also confirmed the corner offered a good bit of cover. Amber had taken the walls for the usual flimsy drywall until this second. The corner between the foyer and living room held up as well as anything she’d find in someone’s home. With the first pass of gunfire over, Amber pushed herself back into place.

Taylor threw herself around the corner into the living room. Unlike her friends, she had no weapon and no real skill with guns in the first place. That left her with every reason to stay lower and further out of sight.  Her eyes searched the living room for something she could do or use as the gunfire continued. She needed to help. She just didn’t see how.

The door and the couch both broke in half with a sudden crash. Smoke and embers blew through the split wood at the center of the door. A second heavy strike snapped every remaining piece of framework inside the couch and destroyed what remained of the door. Something tall and inhuman pushed through the passage. Rocks covered its arms, shoulder and chest, with red embers floating out through the gaps in between. Amber and Jason saw a round, inhuman head with long, spiral horns.

Between its size and the awkward passage crowded with broken furniture, the beast couldn’t have made for an easier target. Amber fired, pumped, and fired again. Hector’s enchanted weapon blew apart the demon’s carapace, dropping the thing to its knees.

A man in a camo jacket slipped up to the doorway, practically using the staggered demon as cover. He flung a ball of fire from his hand into the apartment, though Jason’s quick shots with Amber’s pistol disrupted the man’s throw. Rather than hitting the defenders at the corner, the ball flew high and burst across the dining nook past the kitchen. Amber fired again, this time hitting the demon in the head and knocking it back to crowd the sorcerer out of the doorway.

“Taylor,” Amber grunted. “There’s more ammo in the bag over there. Can you—” she fired off another shot at a target that came too close to the door. So did Jason. Neither could tell if they landed hits. “Can you grab it? I need the big fat shells.”

“Right, okay,” said Taylor. She practically dove across the living room, keeping low as she passed by Wade and Molly. The rifle bag lay right behind Wade’s feet. Even a simple task like this beat cowering. She snatched the clearly-labeled box of shells from inside the bag without a second thought, and only looked around at what the others were doing on her way back. Right in front of her, Molly and Wade looked for ways to intervene in the situation across the street, but it looked to Taylor like Drew might be on his own.

She couldn’t do any good there, either. Taylor swallowed hard as she turned away and rushed back to her other friends.

* * *

Drew stepped around Onyx, dodging another swipe of Evelyn’s talons. At first he thought his skills were up to this fight, but he soon found he couldn’t avoid her every attack. Something whipped itself around his leg—her tail, he realized as it tugged him hard. He fell backward against the desk at the side of the room.

Wind whistled into the office at a loud, sharp pitch. Drew felt only a mild breeze. Evelyn caught something closer to a dramatic windstorm that tore at her clothes and threatened to knock her down.

With a dramatic wave of one arm, she ended the unnatural blast, and followed it with another identical motion. Glancing out the empty window, Drew saw Molly and Wade both knocked to the floor. “No more interruptions,” declared Evelyn. She raised and dropped both hands as if part of some dance. A faint shimmer of light appeared at the empty window ledge of the office. Drew saw Wade rise to his knees with the rifle again—and hesitate, clearly unable to spot his target. He couldn’t see through Evelyn’s spell.

“
Dam
,” Onyx rasped in that same instant. “
Dam
.” She lay in front of Drew. Her abdomen hemorrhaged blood with every second. She couldn’t last like this. That frightened Drew more than anything.

His gaze swept the room. Dead men littered the floor, along with one still living man who dragged himself over to a corner.
Aw shit,
Drew thought.
Last thing I need’s another asshole with a—no,
I
need that gun!
Drew scrambled for the guy’s rifle, pulling it from his grip it before Evelyn took notice of him again.

It wasn’t fast enough. Drew got his fingers around the rifle’s hand grip just as something pulled him back and up. Not a hand touched him, yet Drew floated into the air. He twisted end over end as his arms flailed. He turned too fast to line up a shot.

“I suppose I could keep playing this game,” growled Evelyn. “You’re fast enough to provide sport. Alas, I’m tired of it already.”

Her hands stretched out toward him, moving like a puppeteer’s, but she stayed well out of reach. This was exactly what had scared him about Molly’s stunt at her New Year’s party. Drew caught sight of her cold smile as her spell carried him through the faintly shimmering curtain of magic at the edge of the office. As soon as he was on the other side, she dropped him into the night.

He caught the ledge with his left hand. Broken glass in the window frame bit into his skin, but he ignored the pain and held on for dear life. Better a bloody hand than going out as street pizza.

“Drew!” his friends shouted from across the street.

Oh good
, he realized.
Now they can see me. That’s great.
He couldn’t help glancing down, which was, of course, a terrible mistake.
That ain’t so great
.