| |
Life is—crazy.
If you told me six months ago that I’d be running through Emmettsville on a cold spring day, chasing after an adolescent monster that no one else could see, I would have laughed, and felt more than a little sorry for your family.
But there I was, Sam on my heels, chasing after the slippery bugger, dodging the people who couldn’t see us.
“Alex—use the bow!”
I didn’t want to. We had learned how to stretch the “can’t see me” field on the rune necklaces. Yeah, necklaces, plural. Sam had found a drawer full while they were renovating the haven. But a flying object like the arrow I had fashioned, with a plunger style tip instead of an arrowhead, would fly straight out of the field and be visible. I considered it a last resort action.
And I wasn’t about to fire it on a busy street, in the middle of lunch hour.
The little demon shot across the street, headed for the beach. I waited for a lull in the coast road traffic and dashed after it—him. I had to stop calling them it, even when I couldn’t tell male from female.
Oh, yeah—my life has definitely taken a turn into crazy town.
When the demon hit the sand, he slowed, not able to balance as well. Those clawed feet made him as fast as a—well, demon—on a hard surface, but hindered him on the soft, shifting sand. He also ran away from the lunch time crowd, loping toward the stretch of private beach.
Now I could use my bow.
I stopped, Sam running past me, careful to stay to one side, out of the line of fire. I pulled an arrow out of the quiver on my back, checked the plunger tip; the uber sticky but harmless goo coated it, glistening in the sun.
With a slow, even breath, I nocked the arrow, lined up my target, and let it fly.
The long, thin length of rope attached to the arrow, just in front of the fletching, unspooled from a reel on my utility belt. I watched it shoot past Sam, and hit the demon square in the back.
Before he could rip it free—and yeah, he was strong enough to do it—I jerked on the rope. He flew backward, plopping to his flat butt on the sand. Sam skidded, halting next to him.
I could hear the demon’s gravel voice from here, the cold spring wind carrying it over the sand and water. “But I just wanted to see! Mama won’t let me go more than ten steps outside our front door. I wanted to see the water—”
“And now you have.” Sam hauled him to his feet, his hands gentle when they closed over the hunched, spiked shoulders. “All you had to do was ask me, Hern. I would have been happy to take you out myself.”
“You would?”
The demon gazed up at him, adoration and more than a little fear in the slitted yellow eyes. Everyone in the haven knew Sam was a Fenris Wolf, and able to change at will now, since the necklace Mrs. Hyatt used to control him no longer worked. Not with the shield that guarded the haven gone.
He smiled down at the demon, the breeze ruffling the ends of his streaked blonde hair. “Anytime. Let’s go home, before your mother tears up the boardwalk, again.”
Hern laughed, letting it die quickly. He was the reason she’d lost her short temper the first time.
“Sorry.” He lowered his head, twisted one clawed foot into the sand.
“Hey.” Sam tipped his chin up. “No harm. Lesson learned, I take it?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” He waved to me, and I limped down the beach, slinging the bow over my shoulder. My ankle was not happy about that wild dash through town. “Apologize to Alex, and we’ll be square.”
I could feel the embarrassment radiating off him. Literally, I could. Aura demons project their feelings, and the younger ones could smack you off your feet with it. Hern had more control over his now, since coming to the haven.
“I’m sorry, Alex.”
“Apology accepted.” I kept from smiling. He was so nervous, I didn’t want him spewing emotion. “Ready to go home?”
“Not really.”
This time I did smile, and he returned it, showing his wide, flat teeth. I pulled the nail polish remover out of my utility belt, moistened a scrap of cloth and loosened the glue until the arrow came loose from his back.
Sam took his hand and led him back toward the main beach. I followed after them, tucking the arrow in my quiver. There he was, the man I loved more than anything in this world, walking along the beach with a demon.
Oh, yeah, my life is strange.