Teeth scraped her skin. Her pulse skipped and raced. Panic clawed at her insides. Images of Raoul flashed through her mind. Pinning her down, draining her, raping her. The demon knew this. It had read her file and was using it against her. Anger forced its way past the panic, helped her regain control.
The doorknob rattled and the demon spun to face it with a hiss.
“Michael,” she managed to force out of her damaged throat. It wasn’t loud, but she knew he could hear her.
“Juliana!” A thud reverberated through the room as Michael threw himself against the door.
The demon turned to her, fury contorting Thomas’s features into an unrecognizable mask. Metal groaned as Michael threw himself against the door again. She heard sirens on the street below.
“It seems the time has come for me to go,” it growled. “Come and find me, Hound.”
It released her and she fell to the ground, her hand cradling her throat. After kicking out the window, it stood on the sill and looked back at her. With a grin, it waved and launched itself through the opening just as Michael finally broke through the door.
He glanced at her and, once assured she still breathed, unshouldered the rifle and rushed to the window. An icy shard of panic pierced her chest. Michael could hit a coin dead center at three hundred paces. And he aimed to kill. She launched herself at his legs and knocked him off balance just as he fired. If he’d seen her coming, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Ever the professional, he ignored her and re-aimed. “Damn it, lost my shot,” he spat and lowered the rifle. “What the hell was that?”
She clenched her jaw and wrapped a hand around her throat. “You can’t kill him.” Every word felt like sandpaper rubbing against her throat. It didn’t sound much better than it felt.
He looked at her a moment, then sighed and knelt in front of her. He laid the gun on the floor beside them. “I have a feeling you may regret doing that,” he said as he wrapped his hand around hers and gently pulled it away from her throat. “I thought he bit you.”
“Wanted to. You interrupted.” Her voice sounded a little better with each word but it hurt like hell to talk. She needed to communicate as much as possible with as few words as she could.
He helped her to her feet. “He’s gone again. Jumped to the building across the street. I might make the jump, but I can’t guarantee the shape I’d be in after.”
They needed to trap him somewhere he couldn’t get away while she figured this out. She just needed time to think. The seeds of a new plan started to grow. She needed to run it by Michael, though there really wasn’t a point. He was going to hate it. He always hated her plans.
“Freeze,” a voice said from the doorway, chasing any other thought away.
“Well, this should be fun,” Michael said as he laced his fingers on top of his head.
Chapter Twenty
Thirty minutes later Juliana sat in the back of the ambulance while a medic tried to convince her to go to a hospital or at least check in at the Agency. She shook her head for the third time. He threw his hands up in exasperation and stormed off to find someone more cooperative to treat.
As soon as she stepped around Michael so the cop upstairs could see both their badges, he apologized and escorted them down. It hadn’t taken long for them to piece together what happened. Someone had seen Michael run into the building, rifle in hand, and called the cops. The police and the Agency had arrived almost simultaneously. Both of them wanted to know why they hadn’t called in the sighting of Thomas.
Michael made himself scarce as soon as he was able, claiming he needed to take care of something. He just didn’t want anyone looking at his credentials too closely. Her story was that she wasn’t certain Thomas was on the premises and until she was, she didn’t see the point calling in resources needed elsewhere.
For a moment, she was blissfully alone. She sat on the floor at the back of the ambulance, one leg swinging in the air below and the other knee drawn up so she could rest her elbow on it. She held an icepack to her throat, surprised at how much it helped. Closing her eyes, she dropped her head forward and just enjoyed the cool sensation on her tortured neck.
“Norris!” Ben’s voice boomed from across the street. Though she was sure he attracted the attention of everyone else in the area, she ignored him.
“Norris!” he yelled again, closer this time. Still not worth her attention. The conversation would be a repeat of their earlier one and she didn’t see the point. Nor did she have the patience.
“Don’t you ignore me, Walker,” he said. She kept her head down but opened her eyes to find herself looking at his dilapidated dress shoes. He’d worn the same pair every day since she first met him. Maybe she’d give him a gift card for Christmas.
“You let him go, didn’t you?” he demanded.
“No,” she lied without looking at him. The only person that knew she’d let Thomas escape was Michael and he wasn’t about to tell anyone, least of all her boss. Ben could bluster and scream all he wanted, but she wasn’t killing her mate. And neither was anyone else if she could help it.
“Don’t lie to me.”
She didn’t think she’d ever heard him this angry. About anything. He grabbed her shoulders and jerked her to her feet. The icepack fell to the ground. “This is why I didn’t want you involved. You let him go, I know you did.”
She clenched her hands at her sides reminding herself of all the reasons knocking him out would be a bad idea. She slowly raised her head to look him in the eyes. “I wasn’t exactly in control of the situation, sir,” she said with every ounce of disdain she felt for him at that moment. “But I am in control of this one. Get your damn hands off me.”
His eyes fell from hers to look at her throat, which was no doubt starting to show its bruises. He dropped his hands away from her shoulders and took a step back. “I see.”
She studied him for a moment, tried to understand what was going on in his head. “No, I don’t think you do,” she said after a moment. “He jumped out of a seventh-story window, and landed on a building across the street. Then he got up and ran away.”
“I already know that.” He shifted his weight on his feet and frowned at her.
“Then you also know he’s demon-ridden and you will report it as such. The gods help you if you don’t.”
A flush crept up his face. “Are you threatening me, Norris?”
“It’s not a threat. It’s a statement of fact.” She closed the small distance between them and locked eyes with him. “Every officer and agent on this street saw what he did. It will be in their reports. My report will state that you were informed of Thomas’s status some time ago. Initial skepticism on your part is to be understood, even commended. But if you continue to ignore what’s right in front of your face because of some personal power trip, you’re going to be the one they hand over to the executioner when this is done. I’ll make sure of it.”
His face was now crimson with fury and she knew he was trying to find an argument, but there was none. Her words were true. He knew it and that probably pissed him off more than anything. She gave him one last long look then stepped around him and headed to the opposite side of the street where Michael waited in the car.
He pulled away from the curb as soon as she shut her door. “What was that about?”
“Just making sure my boss did the right thing and quit being an ass. We’ll see if it works. We might need some outside help on this one. As much as I hate to give them credit for anything, the Council is superb at this clandestine bullshit.”