“We were thinking more along the lines of dueling pianos, actually,” the man in question answered. “I don’t think demons are on the agenda tonight.”
I raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. “You don’t think?”
He shrugged further into his coat as a cold wind swept around us. “My Sight isn’t perfect. If I saweverythingbefore it happened, nothing would ever happen. Not saying that would be a bad thing, but that’s not how my powers work. An ability like that is above my pay grade.”
“Hold up.” Sasha stepped in front of us and stopped, lifting her eyebrows. “Where are we going again? You said something about pianos?”
“We’re here to have fun tonight, Sasha.” Nathan slung an arm around her shoulders and dragged her along again. I didn’t miss the way her face reddened. “You could use a little of that, too. I’ve had you guys working in overtime since this all started.”
“Yeah, well, the attacks don’t stop just because we need a break,” she muttered quietly.
As happy as I was to have this opportunity to hang out with friends, I felt guilty about my role in pulling her from her post in North Carolina. Sure, I hadn’t asked Nathan to do it, but he did because he was worried about me. She was right, the attacks wouldn’t stop for a night out. And I wanted to do my part in bringing an end to the chaos, even if all I could do was help my mom and the covens of Boston.
“So how far is this place?” Sasha asked, breaking an awkward silence that had fallen over us. “Do we need to get an Uber?”
“It’s only a half hour walk.” She groaned at my response, and I added, “Besides, we have time to kill. My friend is joining us tonight and she’ll be a while.”
With the ominous-looking sky above us, the sidewalks weren’t terribly crowded. We made good time, and I was starting to get excited despite my earlier thoughts. Then my stomach turned shortly after we hit D Street. Nathan’s hand on my shoulder stopped me a second later, and we all looked around as another pedestrian walked around us, cursing us for stopping so suddenly.
“Do you feel that?” Nathan asked quietly.
“I feel nauseous, but—”
Before I could finish my reply, a red-skinned demon with two legs and four arms came barreling out of an industrial area ahead. Horns blared and tires squealed as it ran across the street, and the disgruntled pedestrian in front of us was taken down in a tangle of limbs. Then it was off again, disappearing into the empty lot beside us. We were moving before a single word was exchanged, racing after the agile thing as a group of startled stray cats bolted in the other direction.
“If we had kept walking, that would’ve been us.” Despite running at full-speed, Nathan didn’t sound winded in the slightest.
I wanted to object, but he was right. And something told me it wasn’t a coincidence, not after the attack on the beach yesterday. Since I finally started gaining some semblance of control over my powers and met other gods and demis, I’d felt like a small fish in a big pond, but it looked like someone disagreed. My stomach sank as I considered that someone might’ve discovered the secret of my parentage, except these were demons, not Æsir or Vanir. The great and powerful king of Asgard wouldn’t have allied with Abaddon just to get to me, would he?
My power swelled beneath my skin as my emotions broke free. Fear, anxiety, desperation. Anger.
There was too much happening at once and I couldn’t process it all, so when the slimy, slightly more familiar shapes appeared around us, I snapped. A fire whip raced through the air and wrapped around one ankle of the four-armed demon as he attempted to climb over a warehouse. He held onto the unlucky Bostonian with one hand, but I could tell even at this distance the man wouldn’t make it, and that just pissed me off more.
The demon reared back and pounded into the side of the warehouse, ripping a chunk of steel off the side and flinging it right at me. I had no choice but to release my fire whip and dodge, but came up face-to-face with two slimy bastards. These, at least, I could blow up.
Black ichor splattered across the ground and my shoes, and I had to mentally remind myself that it would come out. I held my hand out to my side, fingers spread as a spinning circle of fire materialized an inch from my palm. There’d been no opportunities to practice my aim, so I hoped for the best and threw the chakram at the creature scaling the building.
It lodged into the meat behind one of its shoulder blades and the demon bellowed in pain, dropping the man into a crumpled heap at the base of the building. I ran for him, not caring if the thing got away as long as I could save this man, but black pain lanced across my right shoulder and arm and I crashed into a wall several feet away. My breath rushed from my lungs on impact and I heard someone yelling, though I couldn’t make out who it was.
Hot, smelly breath washed over me, and a deep growl made my bones vibrate. I blinked up at the beast hovering over me, noticing it had two distinctly different sets of eyes in its head—one set of blue, one orange. Baring its jagged teeth in what I figured was a victorious grin, it scooped one shockingly smooth hand under me.
“Hey, jackass!” A silvery flash whipped across the side of the demon’s head, splashing more dark ichor across my clothes. The salt water scent that Boston always seemed to carry grew stronger with the woman’s voice. “You forget someone?”
The demon moved enough for me to see Sasha standing behind it, a whip in each hand. It dropped me to the ground again, pain lancing up my arm, but I fought past it and pushed to my feet as it turned toward her. Across the lot, Nathan was engaged with several of the smaller demons, his sword a blur in the evening light. Anger swelled again, knowing that whoever had sent these things, they were after me and my friends had gotten caught in the crossfire.
Cold speared into my head again, but I refused to let it cripple me at this critical moment. Tears stung my eyes as the pain crested, and the demon tensed and spun back toward me, his new target already forgotten. Fire played around my fingertips and I lashed out with everything I had. Roaring filled my ears. I couldn’t tell if it was mine or his or the world’s, but it grew with every sweep of my arms.
For some reason, the demon didn’t fight back, but I wasn’t complaining. I threw it all at him, my body moving on its own until there was nothing left. My skin was on fire, contrasting painfully with the ice cube my head had turned into. When I finally blinked my vision clear, the demon’s body was in pieces, strewn across the lot. My chest heaved with the effort to not cry at the horrible migraine, but I failed to hold it in when I saw Sasha on the ground, clutching a badly burned leg.
“Sasha!” Nathan rushed over from his own pile of demon bodies and slid in front of her, gingerly removing her hands from the wound. “Lexi, do you happen to have a healing ability in your toolbox?”
I stood there staring, unable to think past the pain in my head, in my shoulder, in my fuckingsoul. Someone just got hurt because of me, someone I wanted to consider a friend. And the man—I jerked my head around, my stomach twisting with the urge to vomit at the red and grey mush that was left of him, inhuman footprints embedded in the remains. I fell to my knees, stomach heaving up what little it had to give. Seeing demons explode was one thing, but this…
“Stay with me, Lexi.” Strong fingers gripped my chin and forced my gaze away from the mess. I focused on his green eyes, so much brighter than Sasha’s that they almost glowed with his miniscule power. “I need you to focus now. Sasha is hurt. We need to get out of here.”
I nodded, licked my lips. Swallowed hard.
“Right,” I croaked. A tear slipped down my cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Sasha.”
