“Shit’s getting real out here. Wait for my word, but be at the ready. Copy?”
“Copy.” Tyler sounded tired, and I couldn’t blame him. Ever since we’d started this unit it had been one disaster after the other, literally. We almost never had an opportunity to come up for breath.
At least I had a husband to go home to, though spending time with Desmond meant I had to put on a whole different hat: that of pack queen, wife of the werewolf King of the East. Which honestly was almost more work than being with the FBI.
But I had another life outside work, and I think perhaps Tyler needed a little side drama to keep all the supernatural stuff from getting him too bogged down.
I had previously hoped Lily was single, until I realized the two of them together would be about as wise as mixing bleach and ammonia. They’d kill each other, and then I’d have no super-genius lab specialist and no one to do all the boring paperwork.
No thanks.
Moot point anyway, since Lily was engaged.
Finding Tyler a girlfriend would need to wait until we stopped this whole end-of-the-world thing, anyway. No sense in thinking about dating if the apocalypse was mere minutes away, right?
So cheerful inside my brain.
“Let’s move in,” I whispered to Harold, though the team in my earpiece would be able to catch all of it as well. Hence why let’s move in was not my signal to call in the cavalry.
The demon took a few steps forward then stopped, as if frozen on the spot.
“I don’t like this,” he said.
“What’s to like?”
The chanting inside the circle was louder than ever, the voices practically bellowing. I couldn’t see any of the hooded figures, but a fire-like glow flickered amid the white smoke, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the candles or something else. It sure was bright, though.
I didn’t much like this, either, if I was being totally honest.
“Let’s go,” I seethed, jerking my head towards the gathering. It was now or never, and if we didn’t break up their little light show, we were going to be too late to save their captive sacrifice. I didn’t want any unnecessary deaths on my track record, human, vampire, werewolf, or otherwise.
Harold took two halting steps, then stopped again, shaking his head. It was bizarre to see someone that looked like him, basically a drawing out of a Biblical textbook about Hell, acting so afraid of something.
When the big bads are spooked, it’s time to worry.
“We need to leave,” he announced.
I didn’t want to threaten him with the collar bomb, but when he started slowly backing away from me, I pulled it out of my pocket and held it in my hand so he could see it. “We have to stop them. That’s the deal.”
He was staring at something behind me, and his expression changed to one of pure terror.
Have you ever seen a demon terrified?
No, you haven’t, because it’s simply not something that ever happens, and I’m here to tell you it will sober you up right quick. There is nothing as scary as seeing a demon look that scared.
“It’s too late,” he said.
I glanced over my shoulder and immediately knew I’d been wrong.
There was something more terrifying than a spooked demon.
And that was seeing the thing that scared him.
Chapter Seven
“Oh. Holy. Fuck.” I totally forgot about the bomb trigger in one hand, or the gun in the other. I numbly stood dead center in the middle of the alley staring way up at the thing that had emerged from the smoke.
It was easily twelve feet tall, with thick, corded muscles and skin the color of tar. His eyes—and it was definitely a him based on the enormous cock dangling between his legs—looked milky blue in the dark. His ears were long and pointed, and paired with the huge elk antlers on his head made him appear incredibly imposing. His legs were like normal human legs, but he had long fingerlike digits on his feet and hands, similar to Harold’s grotesque fingers.