Siren Song

15

We materialized into chaos. My eyes burned from smoke and the deck shifted beneath me as an explosion of magic erupted from the door of the front cabin. I watched as a half-charred man flew backward over the rail to slam into the side wall of the cabin of a boat that was tied to our railing.

I felt, rather than saw, Ren vanish. Whether she’d gone for help or just gone was anyone’s guess, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. I ducked down, my world still slowed by vampire vision and the need for blood. But my effort at stealth was spoiled when the billowing smoke made me cough. The nearer of the two invaders turned, startled by my sudden appearance and state of undress. Surprise only slowed him for an instant. Still, that instant was enough for me to find my jacket in the pile of clothes and pull out the first weapon that came to hand. I threw the boomer hard, not at him but at the floor by his feet. Covering my eyes, I was rewarded by a flash of heat and light I could feel through my upraised arm and a roar of sound meant to temporarily deafen anyone in range.

I managed to get my gun pulled and safety off quickly enough to step out of the way of the man charging blindly toward me. He might not be able to see now, but he’d glimpsed me before the light show and was attacking based on that knowledge. Not a stupid move in close quarters like these. There wasn’t a lot of room between me and the railing and he was bigger than me.

Still, I had the advantage. I could see. Rather than waste a bullet I might need later, I stepped aside, ducking beneath his outstretched arms. Coming up behind him, I leveled my hardest punch at his right kidney. His knees folded. He probably screamed, but I couldn’t hear it. My ears were still ringing from the boomer.

Hitting the safety, I pistol-whipped him, and he went down. As I shoved him under the railing into the welcoming ocean, I realized that I’d seen him before. At La Cocina. He’d been with George Miller.

What the hell?

It didn’t matter. Well, it did, intellectually. But it didn’t in reality. Because the second man had positioned himself, legs spread and braced between the railing and the cabin wall. Blindly but methodically, he was firing off shots, holding his weapon at waist level. Shoot, adjust an inch to the left, shoot again. Smart. Because if I was blinded, too, he’d get me eventually, based on the limited space. I dropped to my stomach, braced my elbows, and flipped off the safety. Then, just as methodically, I shot him. The bullet took him between the eyes. Gruesome but effective. I was on my knees, getting ready to rise, when a man came around the front of the cabin, apparently checking to see what had happened.

I fired at him, but I was in an awkward position and he was damned quick. I missed. Swearing, he ducked back behind the cabin wall. I had to scramble to get out of his line of fire. The bullet missed me but embedded itself in the wall, sending fiberglass chips and wood splinters into my naked flesh. Damn it. Ow. I was backing up when I saw the shadows shift on the wall beside me. Instinct made me whirl and I fired into the chest of a monster.

It was tall and oddly shaped, with a long, eyeless head. Its russet body was scaled, naked, and hugely male. Its body was oddly shaped, with knees that bent the wrong direction. Half a dozen curved bone horns surrounded its head where the brow line should be and wicked brass-colored claws sprang from the ends of its hands and feet.

An imp. A lesser demon. A demon.

Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit.

It turned toward me, its mouth opening to show wicked fangs that dripped venom. A long black tongue flicked out in a gesture reminiscent of a snake scenting the air.

I scrambled backward, tripping over my empty holster in my haste to make sure I was out of the reach of that thing. I fell on my ass, hard, dropping my gun, which skittered across the deck to fall into the ocean. The impact made me bite the inside of my cheek. Blood filled my mouth and I spit it out. The creature turned, tongue flicking faster at the smell of fresh blood. It and me, quite a pair.

I reached down to the deck and began rummaging through the pile of clothing, digging for the one thing that might help me against the monster I was facing. I managed to get my right hand wrapped around the plastic handle and was about to pull the little squirt gun free when I heard movement behind me. Heard it—which meant my hearing was coming back.

“Well, if it isn’t Ms. Graves.” Miller’s silken voice was condescending as hell. Of course, considering the advantage he had over me, he had reason to be. “I did warn you not to cross me.”

The demon leaned forward, reaching toward me with its claws. “Halt!” Miller’s command was sharp and the creature jerked back as if it were at the end of a leash. Throwing back its head, it screamed, a harsh, hateful sound with all the musicality of nails on a blackboard or static feedback.

“It’s a little extreme, isn’t it, dealing with the devil just to get back at your ex-partner?”

He shrugged, albeit mostly with one shoulder. The other wasn’t working so well. “In for a penny, in for a pound. I’m damned in either case. And the only way I can put off my eternal unrest for even a little longer is by killing Creede. So, where is he?”

“Haven’t got a clue.” Absolute truth. He could be anywhere. He was probably on the boat. But I sure as hell hadn’t seen him. For all I knew, he was already dead.

“Don’t make me do something you’re going to regret, Ms. Graves.”

The imp strained against its invisible tether and he let it come just a fraction closer. I could smell its breath and a tiny drop of spittle splattered against my leg, burning it like acid.

I screamed. The pain was incredible. Just that one drop had burned through my flesh nearly to the bone.

“Where is he?” Miller’s voice was right behind and above me now. I turned my head, craning my neck upward, and was rewarded with a close-up view of his suit trousers: lightweight wool, gray, with a light pinstripe. But past him I saw something that heartened me. The other bad guy stood silent, empty hands at his sides, Bubba’s .38 tucked firmly under his chin. Creede stood behind Miller, gun at the ready.

“I’m right here.”

Miller actually jumped a little. With his loss of concentration, the imp lunged forward, but not at me—at him. I pulled the One Shot, rolling out of the way of a clawed foot, shooting holy water into the demon’s open mouth.

I was too late. The creature’s clawed arm swung forward, punching completely through Miller just below his breastbone. He screamed, though his lungs had to have been damaged, his left hand clawing weakly at the pocket of his jacket.

The demon was screaming, too. Each, painful, earsplitting shriek was accompanied by a belch of flame as the holy water burned it from the inside out. Throwing Miller aside with a vicious swing of its arm, it turned. Without eyes, I wouldn’t have thought it could find me. But it knew precisely where I was and that I was the one who’d injured it.

It stalked forward, claws extended, following me as I backed away. I was in trouble. The man who had summoned it was dead or dying. There were no priests here to banish it and my little shot of holy water had injured the monster just enough to really piss it off. If that wasn’t enough, even if by some miracle Ren popped in and saved my butt, it could follow me. Anywhere, anytime, with just a taste of my blood, or a hair from my head.

Exactly the way it had been used to trail Creede.

I was on the far side of the boat now, and even using vampire speed I was barely keeping ahead of those swinging claws. Every time it missed, the imp became more enraged. And while its bellows no longer belched flame, they did send ichor spraying. It burned through whatever it touched, be it fiberglass, metal, wood, or skin.

I was on the farthest side of the boat, my path blocked by rubble and fallen bodies. I could dive into the water, but then everybody else on board would be toast. There was no way I was strong enough to beat it hand-to-hand, and I didn’t dare risk closing with it enough to try out my fangs. It stalked toward me and I had nowhere to go.

The gulls wheeled and dived overhead, drawn by the scent of blood on the wind. They squawked and squalled above me. I screamed up at them, “If you want to do something useful, attack that damned demon!” I pointed at the imp and, I shit you not, they actually did it. The imp screamed as a hundred talons grabbed at it. Birds were thrown to the side, hopefully not wounded beyond repair. But they were actually beating the demon back.

Holy shit.

Creede’s voice shouted something incomprehensible and a whirlwind formed around him. Magic flared so hard it made my skin hurt. There was something amazing about seeing Creede on the deck of the boat, arms outstretched, eyes glowing with fire, wind whipping at his clothes, looking for all the world like a pirate mage from a history book. All he needed was a red cape and sword to complete the image.

He advanced, words spewing from his mouth in a jumble of incomprehensible syllables. Though I didn’t understand the sounds, the demon did. It froze in its tracks, howling in frustrated fury as the birds continued to tear at it. Again Creede called out and this time I felt a wave of magic accompany the words. The beast shuddered and seemed to waver, as if it were a heat shimmer or a mirage. A third call and with it the crack of ceramic breaking. The air pressure changed as our dimension opened just enough. The birds scattered frantically and I grabbed onto a railing as my feet rose into the air as a sudden vacuum tore at me. Though it fought and clawed with every ounce of its being, the imp was sucked back into hell.

I collapsed onto the deck, my heart pounding so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else.