“Eden. Let me explain.”
No. She was done listening to him. Done with it all. A hotel room and a drink. In that order. “Please don’t. The sound of your voice makes me want to hurl.” She leaned over the edge of the boat, dangerously close to tipping over into the water, about to fake gag.
However, something was in the water. Peering up at her. And getting closer with each second. A fish? Maybe, but it was a big fucking fish. She cranked her head to the side, studying it. No. It wasn’t a fish. It looked like an alligator. She’d swear it was a gator, but that was silly. There were no gators in Seattle.
Until now.
The gator surged from the Puget. It was the biggest gator she’d ever seen in her life.
Holy shit!
It was twenty plus feet! With wings like a damn bat. It flew! Fucking flew over the barge.
Eden fell back. The back of her head slammed on to the metal deck. The world blurred but snapped back within seconds for her to see Seren. His white shirt and gray khakis gone, replaced by his celestial armor, fighting the flying alligator who wasn’t an alligator at all but a creature with the body of a man, the skin of a gator, and the wings of a bat.
Demon!Her brain screamed.
She rose, only to be struck down, and pinned to the deck by a green-skinned monster with tusks. ALord of the Ringscosplay? Nope. It was a real fucking orc on top of her.
It snarled, and Jesus, the bad breath alone nearly killed her. Rows of sharp teeth gleamed, and a river of drool skied between its teeth to bathe her forehead. “Mine.” The guttural snarl rattled her bones.
Its meaty hand closed around her throat. She couldn’t breathe as it hauled her into the air. “Found. Her.” It shouted.
Held aloft, what she saw struck terror in her heart. Demons! Lots of them coming from the sea and the air. Different types. All of them heading for Seren.
“No!” she choked and clamped her left hand on to the orc’s wrist, her right hand on to its bald skull.
Seren wouldn’t die alone. If death came for him, it came for both of them. Fuck that! He wasn’t dying at all. And neither was she.
Agone!She cried out in her heart as she stared into the orc’s eyes.Come get your siblings!
In the corner of her eye, she spotted Seren in a death spiral with the gator. Wings, teeth, claws, sword, they fought with everything they had. But the rest of the demons were closing in fast with that son of a bitch who had orchestrated Harry’s death in the lead. He grinned at her, then pointed at Seren. Whatever he said caused the gator to drive Seren to the deck and the rest of the demons to surge forward.
Seren’s impact left a crater. The entire barge rocked. The demons scrambled over each other in their race to get to a piece of the angel. Buried under the demons, she lost sight of him.
Thrown off balance by the impact, the orc staggered, but he didn’t go down. He widened his stance and went with the flow of the boat.
“I find you. I get to drain you.” The orc leered and shook her like a rag doll. Her head whipped back and forth, left and right.
Enough of this bullshit.The tingle started in her gut, raced up her spine, streaked down her arms, and exploded out of her fingertips. Blue snaked around the orc’s wrist and up his arm, into his skull.
A shudder ran through the orc. Its triumphant grin slid sideways into a grimace. Its knees buckled. Just a bit more power and it would be fried from the inside out.
The mosh pit of demons exploded. Blown back by the shock wave, she flew ten feet in the air. The world slowed and sharpened. The demons flew like leaves in a hurricane cast to the four corners of the world. Their bodies tumbled in the air, a mix of surprise and fury on their faces.
And rising like an avenging angel from the center of it all —
The fog clouding her memories, lifted, and every detail of the night she was attacked outside her job flooded her brain. At light speed, images scrolled by then halted on the last thing she saw before passing out. The being that killed her and triggered her change.
That night a small sun had come to visit Earth. A pure, pulsing yellow entity until a wide black stripe threaded the brightness, dimming it.A being. A man shrouded in black tainted light she determined.
With her blood dripping from his claws. White-tipped claws.
That’s what she saw before passing out. That was her final image of the entity.
The same entity hovered in the air in front of her. But this time, his face was revealed.
It was Seren.