Dain’s arm hung halfway out his open window, and the wind tossed his hair and beard. He didn’t seem to be listening to me at all.
“Dain?”
His phone rang from its perch in a little holder on the dash. Dain pressed the button, and Nancy’s voice came roaring out.
22 Coren
I held my breath, wondering if Nancy was about to order them to kill us. Magic snaked across my knuckles, singeing the leather seat. I wasn’t sure I could kill these guys. They were awful, but they didn’t deserve to be roasted. They needed to be shown the reality of things.
“Will do, Auntie.”
Auntie. I rolled my eyes. “Nancy! You don’t understand. We should be banding together to fight that thing my neighbors saw. I have a weapon I can use to fight it. It’s inside that castle.”
“Shut that witch up,” Nancy said. The phone clicked off.
Evan smirked, then knocked the end of his gun across my jaw. “Shut up, crazy bitch.”
Pain flared across my mouth, and blood dripped onto my skirt. I smiled at him and let the blood flow. “Oh, you’ll pay for that, pretty boy.”
Evan moved back in his seat, then cocked his gun and aimed it right between my eyes. The truck jostled as we merged onto the interstate.
“You’re going to shoot me and go to prison, Evan,” I whispered. “You won’t like that. You are way too bougie for jail.”
At the exit, Dain pulled into the gravel beside the ramp, and dust billowed around the SUV. The vehicle Hekla was in skidded to a stop beside us. Our abductors got out of the vehicles, murmuring to one another. Dain unbelted me and threw me to the ground while Nancy herself came around the other SUV with Hekla in tow.
Nancy pointed to the bushes where something metallic glinted between the leaves. “Your bike is there. Take it and leave. Do not come back.”
My jaw ached from gritting my teeth. “You stole my motorcycle. Kidnapped us at gunpoint. And now you’re saying we have to leave everything we own just because you can’t handle the truth of the situation.”
“If you return, you die.”
I crossed my arms, Kaippa style. “Oh, yeah? How exactly are you going to manage to do that when there are things called policemen?”
A scary grin spread across Nancy’s lips, cracking the pink lipstick dried there. “I have an understanding with the sheriff.”
The sun beat down on my shoulders, making the straps of my sleeveless shirt stick. “Do you or do you not believe there is a monster attacking this area?”
“I do not.”
Hekla threw her arms wide. “But what about Coren’s neighbors? They told you they saw it.”
“They were frightened by more of your…activities in the street, I’m sure. You are of the devil, and as soon as you leave, the earthquakes will cease.”
“You are the worst journalist ever.”
“I know the truth.”
“See? That’s the problem. You think your job is to sum it all up for people. It’s not. Journalism is about reporting facts. A lot of folks in your industry need to relearn that.”
“And this coming from a dirty girl running a diabetes castle.”
For a second, I thought she was talking about the Duke’s castle, but I realized she meant the bakery. A laugh popped out of me. “Diabetes castle? Oh, I love that. Can I use that?”
Even Hekla was half laughing, her fear-paled cheeks twitching.
“Did you get that idea from the actual castle you saw this morning? You know you saw it. And yet, you deny it. The castle is real. The demon dragon is real. Just like Lucus’s horns and wings. Magic is real!”
Dain, Evan, and the other Striffer relatives looked from Nancy to me.
Dain tilted his head. “Can you show us the monster?”
“Yeah, if you can, then maybe we’ll listen to you,” Evan said.
“No!” Nancy’s voice lifted into the stratosphere. “She is a liar and a sick freak who worships the devil. Boys, we are leaving.”
I couldn’t let them turn their backs on this. We had to get back to the castle and to my Yew Bow. Even if Lucus and Kaippa came to get us and had secured my Bow, without the town behind us, none of this would work. They’d be on us constantly, getting in the way and getting themselves killed.
“Nancy! Please. We are on the same side.”
A car up on the interstate swerved as Lucus and Kaippa landed beside us. Tires squealed as interstate drivers gaped at their wings and horns, at the true forms they no longer tried to hide.
Nancy shrieked, holding her purse to her chest, then ran for the SUV’s side door.
Deafening cracks sounded above the car horns and tires skidding. The interstate buckled, and a massive hole opened in the center lane. Dain, Evan, and the rest of Nancy’s boys ran toward the barrier to see as the demon dragon shot through the hole. A dozen cars smashed together as people tried to stop and avoid the hole. Nancy’s purse sat at her feet, and her screams rivaled the demon’s roar. The demon launched itself out of the opening in the interstate, expanded its wings, and hovered above the SUVs.
Nancy just kept screaming.
The demon’s gray eyes shifted to focus on her, then with one great diving movement, he came down on her, mouth open. The demon devoured Nancy and the earth under her as it drove underground.
Hekla stood at the very edge of the new hole, her face slack. “Oh. My. God.”
Lucus and Kaippa swooped low and lifted each of us. We flew away from the continued rumbling of the demon dragon under the interstate ramp.
I reveled in the feel of Lucus’s powerful muscles against my back and under my knees. “Now what?”
“I suggest we get back to your growing army.” The wind whipped his black and emerald hair, tangling it around his horns.
“My army.”
“Yes. Your neighbor Raven has rallied the troops, so to speak.”
Raven? We’d hardly spoken in the years I’d lived here. I certainly hadn’t earned her support. Damn. “It must have
