RAY
This was one of my favorite parts.
Apart from the actual fighting side of it, l like the staking out and the stalking, sussing out the layout of the building, finding the weak spots, knowing where the exits were. The thrill of catching someone trying to flee, or even better, letting them flee only to cut them off at the exit.
Their eyes would widen, showing the whites of their eyes, the part which held all the fear.
Delicious.
If this Earl character had any security at all, he hid it damn well because there was no evidence I could find of anything protecting him. No cameras or bouncers, no security system, no alarms on the windows. Not even any homemade booby traps.
Nothing.
He must have been pretty confident in himself because this small townhouse which sat in a row with six others, seemed almost entirely unprotected.
We edged toward the border of where the city landscape started to change. Hell, even the roads looked cleaner the further you moved toward the higher side of the city.
Literally, higher. The entire city was on a gentle decline, as though even the world was pointing down to the people who lived in the lower end of town.
The crammed-in apartment buildings started to ease into neat townhouses before stretching into the restaurants and eventually shopping districts, then building back up to high-rises topped with penthouse apartments only the richest could afford. Buildings surrounded by parklands dotted throughout the cityscape as though a few trees and some well-kept public grass could make up for the lack of residential gardens. No one here had gardens—the suburban area was further out from the central business district than most cities. Beyond that, country towns were dotted around and stretched further and further apart until you hit the highway and could take it straight to the interstate.
If you drove for long enough.
This city was a world unto itself.
Earl was watching television in the family room as we peeked through the front window. No curtains or blinds, the muted glow from the screen flickered against the wall behind him. He seemed contented, relaxed almost. Earl was tall—intimidatingly so—his long legs stretched out in front of him, and arms draped over the sides of the armchair, almost brushing the ground with his knuckles, his long slender fingers curved around. There were stacks of items in the corners of the room—technology, blades, guns, cash strewn around. The entire setup reeked of some sort of hole criminals dealt from, exchanging stolen goods.
“Something doesn’t feel right about this,” Ilsa whispered. I nodded, she was right. None of this spoke of the sort of beings who owned several businesses and would threaten and take lives to protect them. But we needed to find answers, and this was the man who could give them.
“Let’s go.” I held my hand out, and Ilsa squeezed it briefly before dropping it. She was on, in a work mode I hadn’t seen of her before, not to this intensity. We had already decided we were going to simply knock on the front door and take him down when he opened it, using my appearance to disarm him.
Because who would be threatened by me? And Ilsa looked too much like a cop. She held it about her, and no matter how much we had practiced pouting and batting her eyelashes, it didn’t change anything.
Ilsa pressed her back against the wall next to me as I knocked on the door. I heard a groan from inside as he lifted himself from the chair and watched through the window as he ducked under the doorframe before disappearing from sight into the hallway.
The door opened with a click. There was no chain, not that it would’ve made a difference.
His face appeared in the crack, gray-blond hair shaved short against his scalp and a long, menacing face.
“Yes?” he drawled.
He caught me off guard. While I suspected it, it was still a lot to take in. Not only was he a demon, he was older than me—much older—and he oozed a dangerous power that flowed through the gap of the open door and spilled into the air around me. Power came with age but so did control, and it felt like he almost wasn’t bothering to control himself, his power slipping and sliding around inside him. He reeked of disgust and danger. Not the dark danger Emrick emitted, but the threat of someone who was backed into a corner and desperate.
Slowly, his face changed, his lips lifting into a toothy grin. It wasn’t a good look.
“Well, well,” he whispered. “Another demon come to visit me for… what, I wonder?”
I forced a seductive smile, hoping it wasn’t too late to play my card. “May I come in?”
He nodded, but when he moved to open the door, he grabbed at me, snarling as he moved to yank me inside, his long fingers clasped around my wrist in a vice-like grip. Ilsa came around the corner, kicking the door hard, causing his head to snap back as the edge of it caught him in the face. He released the grip he had managed to get on my wrist. I hated that I wasn’t fast enough to move from him, and I had been frozen on the spot again by the simple implication of his power.
He stumbled back into the hallway, his eyes flashing yellow in his rage as we entered the house. Hissing at Ilsa as she stepped into view, he held his long arms open wide, those fingers scraping the walls of the hall on either side of him. He swiped at her like some sort of sea monster from a nightmare, long arms sweeping around in a circle to claim his prey and squeeze the life out of them.
Ilsa didn’t hesitate. Jumping on him, I’m sure the only reason she got him to the floor was the combination of his surprise at her attack and her training. Jamming the silver knife into the side of his ribcage, she clasped her hand over his mouth to muffle the roar of pain and anger.
His arms moved to snake around her, but I was ready this time and closed the gap between us as they struggled on the floor. As I grabbed his arms and twisted them behind him, Ilsa helped flip him over onto his stomach. I planted my boot on the side of his face, pressing his cheek into the carpet, his arms twisted and stretched behind him at a painful angle.
Ilsa took the blade from his torso, ignoring the wound it left and cut along his cheek. He roared in rage again, snarling and fighting against our hold on him.
“Why are you trying to kill us?” she cried, holding the blade up in a threat of further pain.
“You didn’t come here with innocent intentions. I was protecting my home.”
“No,” she snarled. “Before today.”
He stopped struggling. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. His voice was a calm drawl again, a heavy, simpering tone that grated against me, and I twisted his arms further.
What was he going to do? Call the cops?