The Better Part of Darkness

gun dropped from my hand.

Before I could recover, I was moved again by an invisible force, this time flying backward and straight through the drywall, between the studs, scraping bloody trails down my arms and shoulders and seriously bruising my hips, and then through another wall.

The breath got knocked out of me again when I landed in a cloudy heap of dust and debris inside a room.

Something had pulled me through.

Correction. Two somethings. So much for there only being one Abaddon down here. As the dust settled, my vision cleared. Two Abaddon females stood in front of me, one with long, straight black hair, thigh-high leather boots, and a tight black mini dress, and the other whose black hair was pulled into a bun so tight it pulled on the corners of her eyes. But her taste in clothes, black slacks and a white T-shirt, was far more subdued.

I pushed to my feet, using my hands to brush off my jeans. “So which one of you bitches grabbed my kid?”

Bunhead smirked. “That would be me,” she said in a thick accent that reminded me of Romanian or Russian.

“Good to know,” I said, right before punching the other one in the jaw, catching her off guard. She went down hard as I went to draw the second Nitro-gun from the back of my jeans.

Bunhead smirked again and raised her hands, shoving me back into the wall without even touching me, without giving me a chance to grab my gun. An invisible hand closed around my throat. I couldn’t even gasp for air. Pressure built in my head and face. Legs and arms flailing, I fumbled for my human firearm on my hip, relief washing over me as my hand slid around the cool metal handle.

My finger flipped the safety on my gun. I let off four rounds into her stomach. She flew back, but I knew it would be temporary. Bullets did not kill beings from Charbydon. Released from her vicious hold, I dragged in large drafts of precious air, my lungs burning.

I was hit from behind by Mini. She flipped me over with a thought and then blasted my mind with horrors.

A scream tore from my bruised throat. Searing heat engulfed my brain as I grabbed my head with both hands. Nightmares ripped through my mind and stole my breath. Flashes of death, torture, blood. Me. Emma. The fear on her face. The hurt. No! No! No! My mind was being torn apart by them. Tears closed my throat. So real. It felt so real.

But the shock wore off and the sickening images began to bring out my sense of justice.

God, this was low, even for an Abaddon bitch.

She was trying to incapacitate me with horrors of my daughter. Big-ass mistake.

The anger of it allowed me to fight back. I remembered my power. I was Abaddon, too. What she could do, theoretically I could do.

I sat up, eye to eye with her, and grabbed her face, sending my anger, and with it my power, through my arm and into my hand. I gave her a nightmare all Charbydons feared. Cold. Snow. She was trapped in it. Ice crept up her legs, freezing and cracking flesh, so cold it burned her. I poured it into her. All that I had. And up it went until it covered her face and chilled my own hand.

I let go.

Jesus.

I scrambled back. My back hit the wall, and my breathing was labored and loud in the sudden quiet.

She was frozen solid.

Abaddons could give nightmares that left the mind wounded beyond repair, but as far as I knew they couldn’t make them real. I blinked and glanced down at the hand that had caused such unbelievable damage, my hand, right before Bunhead lifted me off the floor and sent me flying into the window.

Shit.

Two seconds later, the flesh peeled from the bone of my elbow as glass met skin. Then I was falling, a brief feeling of weightlessness before I slammed into the soft dirt below.

CHAPTER 17

The landing knocked the breath from my lungs. Pain shot through my back as the second Nitro-gun in my waistband shoved deep into my kidney. White dots danced in my vision. I moaned, forcing down a queasy swallow. Minuscule particles of glass, wood, and dirt floated from the second floor. I coughed and a sharp sting of pain burned through my side. Lifting my head, I saw a sliver of glass pierced through my left side. My head was too heavy to hold. I let it fall back into the dirt. I fumbled around with my hand, trying to find the sliver. Thank God it wasn’t near my organs. But it was enough to stop me cold.

Bunhead would be coming down the steps. I had to get this out and move.

Shouts and gunfire echoed from somewhere far off.

Gasping and trying to stay lucid, I wrapped my hand around the sliver and pulled, screaming. The glass digging into my palm was nothing compared to the excruciating pain that seared my flesh and turned my stomach. The end of the sliver came out with a sucking sound, the faint slurp of flesh and blood making bile rise to my throat. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I turned and vomited, letting the sliver fall into the dirt as a warm rush of blood oozed from the entry and exit wounds.

Charlie? Carreg’s voice swept through my mind all harsh and commanding. You need to get—

I’m a little busy right now, I said in my mind, rolling back to stare at the ceiling. The sound of the shouts and fighting suddenly seemed so far away.

Listen to me.

I didn’t. Instead, I rolled to my uninjured side, onto my stomach, and then pushed up using my hands and knees. Fuck. I hurt.

Where are you? I asked him. You should be here. Oh no, wait. Let me guess. It wasn’t to your benefit to be here.

I felt his huff and frustration more than heard it. I met with Mynogan. Get everyone out of there now, Charlie. You don’t have much time.

I pulled one foot from underneath me and used my hands braced on my knee to stand. Not without Emma.

Emma is already gone.

Glass crunched under feet. I lifted my head to see Bunhead sauntering toward me, victory gleaming in her black eyes. Carreg’s words settled in my empty stomach.

Emma was gone. I was too late.

My nostrils flared. Failure and rage stung my eyes and sent a new batch of adrenaline surging through my system. With an angry scream I rushed her, tackled her, and we both went flying to the ground. I recovered before she did, sitting on top of her stomach and wrapping both hands around her throat.

“Where is she?!” I shouted, the pain forgotten in favor of desperate frustration and wrath. “Where is my daughter?!”

Amusement made her dark eyes glitter. I eased my hold on her throat so she could speak. Her lips curled. “Get off me, you stinking human.”

I pulled the gun from the back of my waistband and rested the nozzle between her startled eyes. The familiar zing of the building nitro charge sounded in dead silence. I cocked an eyebrow. “Where is she?”

“Fuck you.”

Coldness settled over me. I shoved the gun into her mouth. “I’m going to ask one more time. Where’s Emma?”

She flipped me the bird, waving it in front of my face.

I pulled the trigger.