A phone started ringing. It shrilled over and over, in harmony with the approaching shifters, their combined steps—both his and theirs—bringing them closer to each other until the high-pitched blaring stopped.
He stopped when he reached the middle of the room, ever silent as they neared. Their glowing eyes proclaimed the demon beneath their skin sought to take control.
The phone started ringing again. A high-pitched buzz filled his ears and his heart started to race. He absorbed those final moments magnified by fear and finality.
Everything came into focus—those around him, the colors inside the room, the smells of alcohol, cigarettes and cigars, his childhood, his favorite pet, his parents, what could have been his future—until the weight in his hand was almost too heavy.
Slowly, he lifted his arm and revealed the device cradled inside his fingers. The shifters watched the movement with their opalescent eyes narrowed and unnaturally muscular bodies tense. It wasn’t until he pulled his jacket aside with his free hand and revealed the intricate wires and liquid compounds affixed to his chest that he saw recognition, comprehension and alarm cross their faces.
Before they could react, he whispered, “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”
Then he lifted his thumb.
Chapter Eighteen
Ava was walking from the living room to the kitchen when what felt like an explosion tore through the lower portion of the building. The back of her head hit the edge of the counter and a dull, stabbing sensation followed, causing her vision to blur as a deafening roar burned her ears until all she could hear was a high-pitched ringing. She fell to the floor, landing on her stomach. The ground beneath her seemed to roll and rumble, as if a stampede were occurring downstairs.
Clumsy and dazed, she braced on hands and knees. The floor shook and swayed as she tried to stand. Pictures flew from the walls and landed inches from her hands, mixing with pots, pans and portions of the ceiling that crashed to the floor. Each time she tried to rise her feet slipped from beneath her, as if her brain were sending the signals but her limbs refused to function properly.
A strange wailing sound seemed far away, as if a siren or alarm was crying in the distance. She shook her head, blinking back tears as she struggled to focus. The room was suddenly hot, the floor beneath her hands going uncomfortably warm. She groaned when she lifted her fingers to the liquid seeping down her neck, the warm pool soaking into her shirt, and tried to comprehend why there was a massive, gaping hole where solid bone should have been.
Hands grasped her shoulders and she lifted her head.
Nathan’s concerned face came into view, his lips moving, but she couldn’t hear anything he said. He touched the throbbing ache at the back of her skull and his eyes widened in alarm, the pupils erasing the amber portion of his irises. An unexpected surge of nausea overtook her, causing her to choke, making the pain in her head so much worse. Her stomach heaved and lurched, the dryness in her mouth nearly unbearable as her nose filled with the acrid stench of smoke and some other odor she couldn’t define.
Nathan lifted her and she watched the ground sway back and forth. He carried her into the bedroom and walked past the bed. With a firm kick, he took out the only window on the floor. The dizziness was worse, the throbbing in her head intensifying. Smoke billowed, carrying through the window, and as she turned her head she saw flames were engulfing the room.
“Diskant,” she whispered but couldn’t hear herself. Her ears continued to hum, the only sound she could perceive the steady, shrilling drone that went on and on and on.
Nathan smoothed a hand over her forehead and his lips moved again, as if he were trying to comfort her. Keeping her close, he climbed from the window onto a fire escape. She focused on the interlocking iron, mesmerized by the clouds of steam and smoke that rose to the sky.
A sharp, unexpected burning in her leg caused her to cry out and Nathan whipped around. She couldn’t see anything but knew from his expression that something was wrong, something he hadn’t anticipated. Her stomach barreled into her throat as he leapt from the fire escape to the ground, keeping her snug against his chest as he landed.
Several of the same men who had approached her and Diskant outside her building blocked the alleyway, their guns leveled. Nathan didn’t move but remained as he was, his arms around her, the heat from his body considerably less than that coming from the building alongside them. As they all said something, lips moving in perfect harmony, she felt Nathan brace himself and the world spun as he turned, shielding her with his body.
She felt each bullet that tore through his back, the accompanying jerks against her too violent to be anything else. She expected to fall to the ground but as he sank to his knees he kept her in the secure cradle of his arms. Her head fell back and her gaze rested on the blood forming at the corner of his mouth. His expression was one of sorrow and regret and she tried to reassure him but discovered that she was unable to speak, her tongue suddenly heavy and uncoordinated.
An image of Diskant seated on his bike earlier that afternoon, uncertain and hesitant, flashed before her eyes. She’d felt the same thing he had in that moment, that something was about to go horribly wrong. Blaming it on her raging hormones and newfound feelings, she’d forced her intuition aside. It was a shame that she hadn’t listened to her instincts.
Her gut reactions had never steered her wrong.
A shadow appeared, blocking out the light of the moon over Nathan’s shoulder. Ava lifted her gaze, expecting to see the barrel of a gun, only to meet a pair of large, violet-hued eyes. She studied the beautiful face framed by illuminating white, entranced by the way her blonde hair appeared to glow. She’d seen her before at Liminality, always on her own, seated in the back where no one would notice her.
Nathan lifted his head and snarled, baring pointed fangs. His breathing was shallow, a steady bubbling of blood forming at his left nostril. After a moment the angelic face was gone, leaving Ava to stare at the sky. Her vision began to blur, the outlines of the fire escape becoming hazy.
Nathan tried to speak to her, shaking her forcefully when her lids slid closed.
She knew he was trying to keep her awake but she was so damn tired and her eyes were becoming so heavy…
As Sadie peered into the face of the dying woman held inside the arms of the shifter who had taken an array of bullets in the back to protect her, she felt the rage that came with being half-demon stir.
She wasn’t sure what had possessed her to stay behind when Trey left, keeping a close watch on the building where the remaining shifters waited. Something had warned her she’d be needed here, something she couldn’t shake. Unfortunately, when she’d focused on the lone man entering the bar there had been no time to warn anyone or to stop what had been set into motion. The blast had shattered the glass of the building and demolished all of those within a close proximity.
She turned to face the Shepherds standing at the end of the alley. There were four of them, their weapons now spent. “You’re all going to die,” she informed them and retrieved the sword at her back, removing it with a slow, practiced movement.
They went for the weapons strapped to their chests but they weren’t fast enough. Vampire movement was impossible to beat when in the grip of fury.
She took the head of the first one, ensuring he died faster than he deserved. As his face literally pounded concrete she moved to the second, delivering a blow to the heart that would guarantee he didn’t achieve the same demise. A bullet struck her in the chest and exited her back, bringing her to her third target. He managed to get another shot off—to her abdomen this time—before she delivered a blow to his midsection that sent his innards spilling to his knees.