“What happened?” I asked.
“They tried to break into the house.” Bathin stood over another man who was kneeling, hands behind his back. The man’s eyes glowed red.
“Delaney Reed, you too, will die. Die!” he growled in a voice much too deep for a human.
“Okay,” I said. “What are we working with here?”
“Demon,” Bathin said. From his tone, he didn’t think very highly of it. “Assassins possessing humans. Oldest trick in the book.”
“Assassins,” I repeated. “Why would they come to Myra’s house if they want to kill me?”
“They don’t like you.” He snapped his fingers which made the kneeling assassin grunt with pain. “I don’t think they’re fond of me either. I might have been their original target.”
With that came a very satisfied smile.
“The wards?” Rossi stepped out of the shadows by the edge of the property. “Did the demon alarms go off?”
“I didn’t hear them,” I said.
I should have. We’d set them up so I would know if demons were crossing into Ordinary. As the Bridge, I would be the one who could push back and make sure they didn’t make it inside our boundaries. “Why didn’t I hear them?”
“Because these assholes,” Bathin snapped his fingers, and the assassin jerked again, “possessed humans. Not something any self-respecting demon would do.”
“Human suits can get through the wards?”
“Apparently these can.” He held my gaze. “These aren’t living humans. The demons held onto just enough of their souls so they could pass the wards and register as human.”
“A loophole,” Myra said. “Damn it.”
Bathin nodded. “We’ll close it. But I thought you’d want to question this one before I killed it.”
“Who sent you?” I asked.
“The one who will be, the bringer of doom.”
“The King of the Underworld?” I asked.
Glowing red eyes narrowed. “Come closer,” the demon snarled.
Like I’d fall for that. “Who were you here to kill besides me? Myra? Bathin?”
“Kill the prince?” The demon smiled, and it sent chills down my spine. “Come closer, Delaney Reed.”
“Delaney?” Ryder jogged out of the house and into the yard. And there, just outside the yard behind Bathin, was Patrick Baum, his camera focused on us.
Shit.
Several things happened at once.
Rossi spun to face Patrick, who jumped the low fence into the yard. Bathin glanced over his shoulder at that movement.
Ryder paused just a short distance behind me.
And the demon, the one on his knees, surged to his feet, the bindings holding his hands breaking in a shower of sparks as he rushed forward, fast, faster than any human thing.
I reached for my gun and came up empty handed. I was in my jogging sweats and had left my gun at home.
Myra threw something that was on fire. Smoke filled the air.
