Into the Light (The Admiral's Elite Book 2) (31 page)

Michael pointedly ignored it and tried to temper his feelings, an impossible task at the moment. Ryan, it seemed, was having trouble effusing his usual carefree attitude. One look at Gabs’ blank stare could easily explain why. They had to gain control over this situation and find a way to restore Becca at least enough to shove this hellion back down its hole. As unit leader, Michael took full responsibility and squared his shoulders. “Ryan, help Gabs take a seat over there.” He pointed to the front row of upholstered chairs.

Action agreed with him and Ryan’s body slipped easily into his big rolling gait within a stride. While he tended to Gabs, Michael debated leaving the demon to attempt to wake Becca. It wasn’t like he was really holding the thing. As long as it had its hooks in Becca and Gabs, it was
they
who were the hostages.

The sound of the side door slamming shut reached him just before the heavy footsteps of a human intruder. His rapid breathing and muttered orders into his phone, audible to all present, announced his identity.

The demon’s red eyes rolled up into its head as it continued to feed. The thing’s Becca face was virtually orgasmic, then hiccupped drunkenly as a fresh surge rolled in from Michael’s direction. Kicking himself, he shut himself down. They didn’t
all
have to feed the thing, damn it. He was set to advise Detective Salvo to clear the premises when he rounded the corner and saw that the detective was leaned over Becca’s body rubbing her arm with one hand while he loosened her shirt with the other.

His ensuing growl ripped the detective’s attention immediately from the woman beside whom he knelt and landed it squarely on the captain’s distorted face.

Salvo’s eyes went wide right before he squinted, trying to see. It was dim in there for a human’s eyes. “Captain Rossi?”

“Get out of here, Detective,” he ordered, his voice low and gruff.

His eyes returned to the prone figure on the floor, Salvo’s stare lingering there as well. Michael waited impatiently for the comparatively slow human to work through what he was seeing. Part of him considered the fallout of picking him up bodily and throwing him out of the theatre. It was almost enough to force the cranky vampire’s tight lips into a smile. Not quite.

“What’s going on here?” Salvo stage whispered. “Is the suspect in here?” He rested a hand on the slight shoulder by his knee. “Did
he
do this to her?”

For once Michael ignored the man’s familiar touching on her flesh for expediency sake. “Everything’s under control. We need you to leave
now
.” He put a little more emphasis on the urgency for the detective’s brain, woefully behind his. He wasn’t long on patience.

Frustratingly dense, Salvo shook Michael’s orders off. “I’ve called for backup. We’ll have this place surrounded any minute.” His fingers strayed to the open throat of Becca’s shirt and pressed down, his eyes growing distant while he counted out the beats he felt there.

“It’s fast, I know.” Michael wanted his hands off his woman and his feet moving back the way he came but had to be careful. This was a delicate place for him. Not only was his control in jeopardy, any dustups would result in making the demon stronger. He had to get Becca’s mind back so they could get rid of this thing and the stronger it was the harder her task. Then, an idea popped into his head. The vampire inside him screamed in frustration and he swore he heard the demon laugh. Taking a breath to speak, Michael ignored them both. “Detective,” he spoke quietly, adding just enough influence to guarantee his orders would be followed. “I need you to take Becca outside. Get her clear of here.”

Salvo’s mouth dropped open and he leaned in toward Michael for only a few counts before shaking himself and blinking. Anger sprouted in his eyes and his cheeks reddened. “I would be more useful here.”

The human was stronger than expected and Michael couldn’t risk raising more heat from him. Desperate, he appealed to the human instead of controlling. “If she stays, she’s in danger. I can’t risk harm coming to her.” He felt the human wavering. “Please.”

Another painfully slow couple of seconds dragged by while the detective weighed decency against being on the front lines of bringing in what could be the biggest criminal his town would ever see. Michael saw his victory just before the dark head dipped once.

“Thank you.” His gratitude was genuine. Risking the detective seeing more than he should, Michael crept toward her and waited a second while the human backed up a step. He leaned in, lips so close to her ears he brushed them when he spoke. “Becca, love, come back to me.” And as he leaned back, he paused to press a kiss against her forehead.

He waited until he had returned to the shadows to risk eye contact again with the detective, giving him a grateful nod. Forces within him threatened to tear their way through him as he seemingly peacefully watched the human gather up
his
woman against his chest and carry her bodily from the darkened theatre.

For the first time in half a century, Michael prayed.

The demon’s scream, half Becca, half demon, from behind him brought a smile to his lips. He’d been right. It wouldn’t destroy something as powerful as Becca by wrecking her mind. Michael had done the right thing. Now he just had to keep it here and distract it enough that it loosened its hold.

The vampire inside him roared with pleasure that it could finally be free.

Chapter 30

Broken voices, static-filled communications over radios filled her ears. The strobing light bars illuminating the dim morning flashed against her closed lids as Becca returned to consciousness. Her fingers splayed out to feel leather and stitching under her fingers. A sniff of lemon air freshener covering the remains of what was either terrible b.o. or vomit or both hit her nostrils in a powerful wave. Becca’s eyes popped open and she was sitting in the back of a squad car, door open with her feet hanging out.

Sitting up slowly, she tested both her body and mind for injury. Partially spotted vision told her she was near danger though not imminently so. Her head swiveled carefully, taking in what had to be the entire River Falls police force. Six squad cars, numerous blue uniforms stretching yellow tape and waving gathering gawkers back to establish a perimeter and the backs of two plain clothes men talking with their heads together at the hood of the car she found herself in.

Chief Kowski saw her first as she walked up beside Detective Salvo. His eyes widened a touch. “Captain Sauter, you’re awake?” He sounded tired.

The detective’s head whipped around and his eyes were full of concern. His hands went out as if to catch her should she fall. “Should you be up? Are you feeling alright?”

Becca offered them a quick smile meant to reassure but didn’t look like it hit its mark. Unable to keep her eyes from the building they all faced, she lifted her chin toward the marquis sign and wiped at the drying blood on her forehead. It itched. “Are they in there?”

The chief gave her a grumbled “as far as we can tell,” and the detective laid a hand on her shoulder. “I saw Captain Rossi in there, but he wouldn’t let me in to see who else might be inside.” He lowered his head to look her in the eye and, feeling his precarious state, Becca gave him her full focus for a few seconds.

Knowing they expected a report from her, Becca frowned. She’d been in a daze when she was pulled into the theatre. The demon’s hold over her had broken somehow, allowing her to see for the first time where it brought her. Blinking, buying herself a few precious seconds, she decided to do something either very smart or suicidal. Her thoughts turned to Michael. Picturing him, concentrating on the feel of his skin, the smell of his body, she filled her senses with him from memory and then jumped.

In a second her vision went completely clear, unhampered by spots or limited lighting. Unfortunately, what she saw had her feet moving until a hand against her chest brought her to a halt. The duality of her split sight brought with it the usual sense of vertigo and nausea and she took a deep breath through her nose.

Forcing her eyes to blink, Becca turned her face to Detective Salvo’s and at least pretended to be looking at him. “Detective, I can tell you that my unit needs me in there. We have a highly volatile suspect inside with..”
She trailed off while she watched Michael’s fist ram itself into the demon’s eyes and its form go careening backward into the black wall. Glowing eyes popped open as soon as it hit and it lunged, hands reaching out to encircle his neck just below her field of vision. The orange glow flared in its eye sockets and her vision wavered just before it dropped. Michael was on his knees. Where were Ryan and Gabrielle?
“I need to get in there to help them.”

The detective’s hand didn’t remove itself from her chest and Becca’s eyes narrowed. The pull to be inside with Michael and her fellow unit members was physical. She could feel the stress inside her chest expanding to a painful level. If she didn’t get to follow the draw that was her duty, she feared she would scream. Jaw clenched, she looked up at him and let her patchy human vision take precedence. “Salvo, I’m walking in there and helping my unit do what we do best and you’re going to let me because if I don’t, your town is going to be at the mercy of the worst sort of lunatic. Is that going to be your legacy? Or are we going to stop this thing and you get to be the guy who made it all happen?”

She didn’t wait for either the detective or the chief to respond. As soon as the pressure on her chest lessened, she sidestepped him and started walking. A blue uniform stepped off the sidewalk and held up a hand but the chief’s voice from behind her halted him.

“Let her go, Sergeant.”

A little softer, lower than any but the detective beside him could hear, she caught, “God help her, let her go.”

Not necessarily raised devoutly, she appreciated his crooked blessing and smiled to herself. “Not sure he’s so big on watching over a
witch
, but I’ll take it.”

The entrance door she’d come through, cracked around where her body must have struck it on her less than graceful first entry, opened with a creak and several large triangles of glass clattered to the concrete, breaking into smaller chunks. Sidestepping them, she walked in and heard more shatter when the metal frame settled home. Built with perfect soundproofing, any noises that could have been coming out of the theatre where her friends fought for their lives were hidden. Vaguely, she recalled walking down the long hallway before she’d gone into the theatre where the demon waited.

Split vision allowed her to monitor the battle while she stopped at the end of the hall. A door on either side of her marked her two possible destinations. Walking first to the one on the right, she pressed her ear against it and heard nothing. Right as she pressed her ear to the door on the left, Gabrielle’s pained cry sounded both in her head and outside.

Michael’s eyes, still low enough to show he was on his knees, turned to Gabrielle who, also released from the demon’s control, had changed halfway into her beast. Amber eyes atop a long snout flashed with insane animal rage as she leapt onto the back of the demon. Its hand released Michael’s throat and shoved him away, her vision tipping until it was sideways on the ground.
The obscenely cheerful popcorn men stretching out on the dark blue carpet in front of her smiled and danced on obliviously
. The demon didn’t touch Gabrielle, it merely grinned. Its glow flared with its otherworldly strength and her body froze, dropping to the ground beside it to shudder and moan. It hadn’t relinquished its control entirely.

Not bothering to be silent, as the demon and all three of the others inside would know of her presence as soon as the door closed and the air moved around her, Becca walked in. The long walk down the side hall, too tall to see over until she reached the bottom, was torture. Inside, she was able to hear the grunts as Ryan lunged again and again at the demon only to be thrown aside. Seeing her friends repeatedly sending themselves forward to be painfully tossed around was physically agonizing to watch. This was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid. And as soon as she rounded the corner at the bottom of the wall and saw the torment live, she was overcome. Tears burned her eyes and Becca sucked in her breath.

Blood ran from Michael’s ear. She could see his profile as he kept his shoulders squared to his enemy, his back to the seats behind. He gained his feet, albeit slowly, his left arm hung useless at his side, and he was favoring his ribs on that side. Ryan was running and bunching himself for another attack, he had his back to the screen and was about to take off over the metal railing that separated the short stage from general seating. One of his ears refused to stand and blood matted his fur in several spots. Gabrielle quivered at the demon’s feet, her body rigid and her teeth clacking together so hard they surely were going to break. A quick scan to her left revealed an array of smashed seats. A number of sharp posts stuck up from where they were bolted into the concrete ground, glistening wetly in the dim lights. She could guess at the cause of at least some of her friends’ injuries.