Bite Marks

We all do! Look, see? Raoul’s trying to lure them toward the trap. Follow him! No, you—this wasn’t the plan and you know it!

Ignoring me, he swung at Kyphas, who easily avoided his attack since he’d telegraphed it half an hour earlier.

I snapped, “Astral, protect Bergman!” fully realizing it might be an empty command. But my hands were full with the female slyein. With Vayl fighting the male and Cole trying to deal with the toddler, that left Raoul to save the crazed genius. And he’d only just realized nobody had followed him to the corner of the house.

As he rushed back to us, I slashed at the female’s wing, forcing her to abandon her first run at me. That gave me a second to check on Miles. Kyphas’s hat, which had done its boomerang trick, was just about to hit him. He turned aside, clearly forgetting that his shield still hung over his shoulder. The boomerang thumped against it, causing him to stagger backward, but doing no major damage.

Astral leaped into the air, snagging the boomerang between her teeth before it could return to its owner’s outstretched hand. At the same time, George Thorogood and the Destroyers began rocking “Bad to the Bone” out the sides of her mouth. Talk about multitasking! Those metal alloy jaws clamped down and refused to let go, even when George kept insisting he was “b-b-b-b-b-bad,” and her weight wasn’t enough to stop the spin of the weapon.

Together Astral and the boomerang slammed into Kyphas, making her screech as something snapped in her forearm. But even that crash wasn’t enough to stop their momentum. They spun into her chest, knocking the wind from her, and then bounced up into her face, bloodying her nose before flying off into the night like a demented whirlybird with kitty paws for landing gear.

Even Bergman recognized an advantage in a fight. While he pressed forward, slashing at Kyphas like she was an impassable jungle path and he wielded a machete, I ducked a dive-bomb designed to take off the top of my head.

I shoved my sword into the slyein’s side. “ ‘Hear, O Israel,’ ” I whispered as the creature who’d once murdered a teenage girl shrieked and yanked itself off my blade, “ ‘The LORD our God is one LORD.’ ” Don’t kill it , I reminded myself. Even though you want to. Even if you can .

Bergman’s satisfied grunt followed by Kyphas’s moan told me he’d struck at least one blow for the good guys. He bellowed, “ ‘And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might!’ ”

Beside me Vayl allowed his foe to slash into his forearm so he could gain the position he needed to strike. Scripture would probably singe his tongue if he quoted it, even the verses specifically designed to damage demons. Still he nodded sharply as Cole said, “ ‘And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:’

“ ‘And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children,’ you son of a bitch.” Sorrow twisted his face as he dodged the slyein’s grasping claws, its dripping fangs, and punched it so hard in the jaw you could hear the surgeons discussing how many wires they’d need to repair it from three days away.

“Aah!” Bergman’s cry of surprise brought me running. Kyphas had managed to disarm him and, despite heavy bleeding in her midsection, lift him over her head.

“Jaz!” Raoul yelled. “Behind you!”

I saw him begin his swing at Kyphas. Then I hit the ground, rolled and kicked as the slyein tried to tackle me. It missed its original mark, but slashed at my leg as it flew past. I only knew I’d been hit because the blood spattering the air like thrown paint couldn’t have belonged to anyone else.

Glad I wouldn’t have to deal with the pain until the adrenaline wore off, I leaped to my feet as the slyein spun away, momentarily stunned, its chest covered in blood, spitting something even blacker from the previous wound I’d given it.

I’d lost my sword in the fall, so I went for my bolo. In the time it took me to draw, Kyphas took Raoul’s blow square in the back. She arched, crying out in rage as she threw Bergman straight down to the ground. Hard. Blood spurted from his mouth.

I screamed, no longer rational enough to form the words to tell her what damage I’d cause if she’d ruptured anything he couldn’t live without. My throw, powerful and accurate, buried the bolo in her groin.

She dropped with an agonized shriek.

“Move!” Vayl bellowed, the urgency in his tone returning my reason.

Together Raoul and I reached for Bergman’s arms. “Can you run?” I asked.

“Yeah, I thig tho.” He stuck a finger inside his mouth as we helped him up. It came out bright red. “That bith made me bite my tug!”

Relief made me grin. Tongues heal fast. Bergman would be fine—if we could get to the flaming plane portal before anybody else decided to pull another WWE move on him.

“Cole! Come on!” I yelled.

“Right behind you!”

The smallest slyein disagreed. It wrapped its wings around Cole’s head, blinding him as it sunk its teeth in, tore out tufts of hair. He flailed at it, trying to hit what he could no longer see.

I left Bergman to Raoul, ran up behind Cole, and buried my fist in the slyein’s kidneys.

This thing is not a toddler. It killed somebody’s baby, I reminded myself sternly as its cries filled the air, so much like an injured infant’s that involuntary tears filled my eyes. Goddamn, I don’t care. My job sucks today!

It dropped away from Cole and together we ran across the dying lawn. We passed Vayl and his demon as my sverhamin delivered a brutal blow. The slyein dropped to the ground, moaning, one of its wings completely severed.

I wanted to reach out for my sverhamin . If I could just take his hand, I knew somehow nothing could defeat him. But he held his sword in one, his scabbard in the other. And my original foe, urged on by Kyphas’s demands, had come after him.