His eyes met mine, and the rage in them was a rage that couldn’t be caged, the heat scorching like a sunburn against my skin. The energy he threw off felt like sandpaper against my own aura, and it kept getting wilder, flaring. A dervish would throw off this kind of intense energy, and he stood in the center of it. Everything within range of him and not nailed down went flying.
I ducked a little, one arm up to protect my face, and winced when several sharp corners from product boxes hit my skin. Ow, fuck, I was going to be covered in little bruises and cuts. It was getting worse, his energy escalating, and I could barely see Joey at this point. Dark energy whipped around him like he was in some kind of cloud.
How to shut him down? We had to before he tore this store apart, and us with it!
His mouth dropped open in an unnatural way, like his jaw was no longer hinged correctly, and the voice coming out of him sounded like a distorted siren, awful and piercing. “This is my town.My town! Gold rides an iron horse!”
Definitely Joey Halfacre. The slogan sealed it.
On some internal level, I panicked, because I was seriously not the right person to even try to tackle this man. Hell, Eli might not be able to fully deal with him. Could I even hold him?
Dammit, we needed Seiji. Stat.
Eli flexed her hand, staring at him, but she was also signaling something to Quinn? I couldn’t quite see from this angle.
Brandon was still behind the counter but had the Super Soaker pointed at the back of Joey’s head. I hoped he didn’t use it. Joey would scatter, and I wanted him locked down. No one wanted to hunt him down again after this.
Joey’s head turned, and I think he realized he was surrounded. Oh shit, he was going to bolt—
I barely braced myself before he flew in my direction, and despite my best effort to grab him, he hit me with the same kind of finesse as a freight train. I gasped out a breath as I went flying backward, hitting the ground with my right shoulder, and fuck, ow, that hurt.
“Mack?!”
I heard Brandon but didn’t have the breath to reassure him. Owww. Felt like my solar plexus was flexing, trying to release enough to draw in a breath. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, come on lungs, work, dammit! Oh, shit, I knew why I couldn’t breathe. This damn demonling had blocked my aura with his own energy. God, this feltviolating, like I was bathing in dirty engine oil. If I could have breathed enough to do it, I might have thrown up. But trying to draw air into my starved, gasping lungs took all priority.
Two hands I knew better than my own gathered me up, and I felt holy water poured over my throat and chest. The second the water hit, my solar plexus released. That bastard’s aura was cleansed with it, and I drew in a deep, gasping breath.
I leaned against Brandon’s warm chest, focusing on breathing for a second. I was so, so glad I’d put on the amulet Gwyn had made me. Wow, that decision had instantly paid off. The demon might well have tried to possess me. He’d be far more powerfulin my body, after all. Hell, he could have stopped my heart if not for the amulet.
Brandon’s hand swept over my cheek, tilting my head up to look me over frantically.
I finally had enough breath to say something. “I’m okay. I’m okay now. Where’s—”
“The bastard flew out the door once he took you down. Eli and Quinn are chasing him.”
“Then let’s get outside, cher. I want to witness his takedown.”
I wasn’t in any position to race outside, but I hobbled over quickly, still rubbing my chest. Fuckingow. That was going to take a while to settle, clearly. Brandon kept an arm around my waist in support as we hustled out through the front door.
In the minute I was down, a lot had happened. Seiji had somehow arrived on scene and a showdown was now happening right in the middle of the street. He’d thrown down an energy barrier via three throwing daggers, now embedded in a triangular formation in the pavement.
He could drive a metal knife through asphalt? Day-um.
Seiji stood on one side of the triangle, Eli on another, Davina planted on the third side, with Joey Halfacre neatly caught inside the barrier. He kept hitting the walls, screaming obscenities, but whatever Seiji had made kept him pinned. Seriously, what was that? The barrier glowed, almost like dust motes? Just these pretty little flickers of light that were somehow strung together strongly enough to form a solid wall.
I had this feeling I could spend a solid year picking Seiji’s brain and still only know a thimbleful of what he did.
Eli caught sight of me and called, “You okay?”
“I’m good.” Give me another minute, and I might drink some holy water to clear the residue, but I’d be fine. Would it look stupid and childish to squirt some water from the gun into mymouth…? Probably. Ugh, fine, I’d wait until I could grab the stash out of the SUV.
“I’m not okay,” Brandon snarled, sounding fit to be tied. “I want to stab this asshole in the nuts.”
Seiji didn’t do more than glance our way before drawling, “Please leave nut stabbing to the professionals.”
I snickered. Oh, he was in a mood, this one.
Seiji drew the katana at his side, then, with a single finger, started drawing on it. Kanji, I could tell. Huh, he could use his finger like a pen? It was drawing in lines of pure white light. The quick, confident way he wrote the characters showed he knew what he was doing.
