Blood of the Demon

Chapter 19

I woke up to the same amount of pain in my back, or so I thought at first. But after a couple of cautious breaths, I was forced to admit that it was nowhere near as excruciating as it had been before I passed out. Now it was merely on the level of hurts like shit.

I was lying facedown on my aunt’s bed, the yarn of her afghan tickling my nose. I shifted to get a tuft out of my nostril, grimacing at the dull spear of pain that accompanied the movement. I heard a chair scrape, then Ryan bent down, crouching beside the bed. Behind him I could see Zack leaning against the wall, his arms folded over his chest and his brows drawn down.

“How do you feel?” Ryan said, voice soft and thick.

“Like someone decided to shove an ice pick into the small of my back. Otherwise, peachy.” I moved carefully, relieved when I was able to roll onto my side without the pain becoming overwhelming. I gingerly reached to feel my back and discovered a wad of gauze and tape. There was a thick smell of garlic as well, so I had to assume that it had been used somehow in the treatment of the sting. Though I had no idea where they’d found garlic. Certainly not in Tessa’s pantry. I’d tossed out anything perishable some time ago.

“Okay, so what was that thing?” I looked at him, eyes narrowed. “You sure knew what to do with it.”

He glanced at Zack and a shadow passed over his face. He lifted a hand and scrubbed at his eyes, as if to brush the troubled expression away as well. “It … it’s like dreams I had,” Ryan said, looking back at me. “I mean, I sit here and rack my brains and I know—just know—that I’ve never in my life encountered anything like that.” His eyes were shadowed, green and gold like the middle of a forest on a summer day. The light from the window caught his face just right to make him look like a rugged statue with marbles for eyes. Then he sighed and shook his head, and the image was gone. “I did what felt right, then called Zack. He knew how to deal with the sting and brought some supplies over.” Zack gave a small nod of acknowledgment.

“And how did you know?” I challenged, looking at Zack.

“Dealt with something similar on a case several years back,” he replied. His expression was pleasant, but I got the distinct impression that he was not going to be forthcoming with any further information.

I was silent for nearly a full minute, then cautiously pushed up to a sitting position. My back throbbed, but it was already starting to fade to a manageable level. “How long was I out?”

“Two days.”

“What!” I straightened in shock, which sent a fresh throb of pain through my back. I groaned as Ryan smiled.

“Just kidding,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Two hours.”

I groaned again. Two hours was still pretty impressive.

“Jill went to get food,” Zack said. “There isn’t a damn thing to eat in this place except for some red beans that she turned her nose up at.”

I laughed weakly. “Yeah, she doesn’t think much of the instant stuff.” I carefully levered myself to stand, taking slow breaths until the wave of dizziness passed. “All right. So did we manage to get all of those things out of the library before I lost it?”

Ryan nodded, expression sobering. “Looks like it.”

“Then the next questions are: What were they, and how did they get in there?”

His face clouded again, then he gave a small shudder, as if throwing off a chill. “Zack said that they’re some sort of very nasty pest but … not from here.”

“From where?” I didn’t look at Zack. I wanted to see how much Ryan knew.

“From an alternate plane. The demon plane, I think. Like that dog.” Ryan’s frown deepened, and I could feel a chill walk over my skin. His eyes were shadowed pits as they lifted to mine. “Don’t ask me how I know this, Kara. I don’t know.”

There was so much I wanted to ask him. No, there was so much I wanted to shake out of him, like, Who the fuck are you?

“Okay,” I said instead. “So it didn’t kill me. That’s a good thing. Then I guess I need to figure out how it got into my aunt’s library.”

“That I think I can help you with. There’s a section of the library that feels really wacky.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Wacky?”

Ryan laughed, only slightly forced. “Yeah, that’s a technical term.”

“How can you even tell in that library? There’s arcane crap everywhere!”

He thrust his hands into his pockets, smiling sheepishly. “Um, we kinda moved a bunch of stuff around while we made sure that all of those things were gone.”

“Ooooh, you are gonna be in so much trouble when my aunt comes back. For all we know she had a system in place.”

He made a sour noise. “Well, it’s a system of a big pile on the floor now. And there’s a place that looks wacky. Are you feeling well enough to take a look at it?”

I started to respond, but the banging of the front door caught my attention. I heard pounding footsteps, then Jill came careening around the doorway, bags of fast food in each hand. The intense and worried expression on her face cleared instantly at the sight of me standing.

“Well, it’s about time you got over your little mosquito bite,” she said, flouncing into the room and plopping the bags on the desk. She crossed her arms over her chest, eyeing me. I grinned and hugged her.

“Get off me, you crazy bitch,” she grumbled, but I could hear the relieved laugh in there as well. “Here—Ryan and Zack said you needed to eat. And I need to as well. I’ve been spending the last couple of hours perched in the damn disaster area your aunt called a library with a fucking fishing net, waiting for another one of those psycho pixie things to pop out, while Ryan and Zack moved books around and muttered to each other.”

I had to laugh at the mental image. “Okay, food first, then fun with fishing nets.”