It was the demon. Clearly it had been in this world long enough to learn about firearms, and it was getting off rounds with a surprisingly steady hand, given that Mother and Pauly had done their jobs. Both its legs were torn to hell and back. Some of its crotch too.
That was the thing with demons. They could section off parts of their bodies like a starfish. Its entire lower half could be torn away, and the upper body would still work. Good thing they’d trained for this possibility.
Cream and Coffee were already on it. Cream would take out the gun arm; Coffee would go for the throat. Some demons had to be dismembered. Mother and Pauly were rounding the trees, cutting closer and obviously anxious to take the bastard down. Nero tensed, ready for his pass as soon as Cream and Coffee delivered their strikes.
Bingo! Coffee got it across the neck, and weird blood sprayed. Cream had the gun arm clamped between his teeth and was ripping it off the bastard’s body, but the thing was way more dexterous than they expected. The demon managed to toss the gun from one hand to the other—while being dismembered—and got off a shot.
Cream yelped in pain and dropped the arm. He still tried to run, but his back leg was fucked-up, and he tumbled nose over tail. Coffee’s momentum had already taken him past Cream, but that was okay because Nero had already started his pass. He’d forgo the demon in favor of pulling Cream’s ass out of the way while Mother and Pauly followed up with the killing blows. But he couldn’t carry Cream as a wolf. It was way easier to scoop up a lupine with human arms, though the wolf weighed a freaking ton. He needed to get the guy out of the line of fire long enough to dig out the bullet. It was much too dangerous to attempt a shift back to human with a bullet in the body. There were too many bad places for the metal to lodge.
Not many shifters could make the change while moving, but fighters didn’t often have the luxury of a quiet place to shift. He had been a year into training with Wulf, Inc. when he’d perfected the moving shift. It was one of the reasons he’d become a team alpha so young. He did it now, slipping into an energy place before resolving into a human still on the run. He even knew how to time his balance so that he could keep running while scooping up Cream’s back end. The wolf would then run on his front legs while Nero managed the back.
That was the plan, and it started with flawless precision. He went from running on all fours to a dissolving flow of energy. His awareness took in the stupid T-shirt he wore, the ground and the air, the pulse of the demon’s radar, and something more. There was a buildup of power from the demon’s head. Coffee hadn’t fully decapitated the thing, and there was growing magic centered at the spine, right behind the jaw.
That couldn’t be good, but in this state, he didn’t have the ability to broadcast a warning. It happened so fast. He’d barely sensed the power when it detonated.
The bastard demon exploded in a fireball that could be seen from a satellite. Fortunately Nero didn’t have a body to burn. He didn’t even feel pain—just a surge that tried to disrupt his energetic state. It was a mental scramble for him to ride the wave without disintegrating, but he managed, and then he resolved himself into his human body. He needed to scream a warning to his team. He needed….
The smell hit first. Even in a human body, he relied on his sense of smell.
Burnt flesh and smoke.
His bare feet registered blistering heat next. It burned his soles, even as he kept running.
Vision came next, and he saw a landscape that was no longer a winter wonderland. He was running through the center of a blast zone, and when he bent to scoop up Cream, all he got was charcoal.
He couldn’t breathe. Everything felt choked off, even as it burned through to the bottom of his lungs. And all he heard was absolute silence.
He stumbled, falling to his knees but unable to release the charred bones of his friend. He looked down, his hands tightened, and the fragments slid between his fingers. He turned, frantically searching for his teammates, someone to share the shock with, but all he could see was burnt bodies and the melted ice of the water.
He saw the demon then, and shit, how could that thing be still alive? Sure, there were demons that could shoot fireballs, but he’d never heard of one that could create an explosion on such a massive scale. But the evidence was clear, as was the pink blob of partially dismembered demon body. It was beside the lake, rolling to the edge before it fell in. It wasn’t going to drown. It would sink to the depths of the lake, where it would reform into a smaller, simpler body. Nero wanted to chase it. He could dive into the water and tear it apart with his bare hands.
But he couldn’t leave Cream.
Or Pauly. Or….
He scanned the area, identifying the bodies, not from anything recognizable but from their locations on the blackened ground. Cream at his feet, Pauly just a few feet away. Mother beside her partner. And Coffee farthest away but facing toward him, because he’d been running back to help.
Four bodies. And a half-mile radius of scorched earth.
He started to shake, and his knees blistered. The heat from the ground was intense, and he was naked except for the tee. He stripped out of it and put it under his feet as he stood. He’d have to walk back to the van, thankfully out of the kill zone. His phone was there too. For some reason he thought he could call for help. Maybe someone could do… something.
It took another moment of staring before he realized he didn’t need his phone. He had someone to call on for help: a fairy prince who owed him a favor. He’d saved the guy’s life in a bar fight, of all things. He’d been at the right place at the right time, and by fairy rules, that meant Bitterroot owed him. The bastard also owed Nero an explanation as to why he’d sent them after this demon without telling them the thing could blast fire.
Clutching his hands into fists, he called out Bitterroot’s full name three times. The condescending prick appeared instantly, almost as if he’d been waiting. He was a short guy or a tall elf, standing about two foot four, with bright eyes and a collection of butterflies attached to his body. The fairy was a collector of sorts.
Bitterroot appeared wearing his usual smug expression, but his eyes widened in shock as he took in the surroundings, including the charred remains at their feet.
Nero didn’t let him get his bearings. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded. “You didn’t say it could blast fire.”
“You didn’t ask,” Bitterroot rasped, his expression still shocked. “There are rules.”
Fucking asshole fairies, always with an excuse. But it didn’t matter. They needed to handle the problem now. “Can you fix this? Can you help me?”
Bitterroot shook his head slowly, his gaze landing with horror on the ash outline of Mother’s body. “I can’t—”
“You can.” Nero swallowed, the solution sitting heavy in his mind. The brass at Wulf, Inc. didn’t have a lot of rules. The main precept was “complete the mission and don’t die.” But there was another: Never negotiate with the fae. Wolves always lose. But Nero didn’t care—he did it anyway. “Give me a mulligan.”
The fairy’s gaze snapped back to Nero’s. “That’s not an easy thing.” He took a deep breath. “It’s anexpensivething.”
