“Shut up,” Nik muttered.
Her heart in her mouth, Shadow hid under the eave of the lower warehouse roof. After several minutes, she peered up at the taller building. Clear. No sign of the big tattooed Neanderthal.
Dammit. He remembered her.
Too bad, she had no plans to be caught again.
She took off in a hard run across the rooftop, leaped from the building to the gabled roof of the next one with the inborn agility of a cat burglar. Heck, her parents would be sooo proud. If she knew who they were, she’d inform them of her great accomplishment.
Breathing hard, Shadow slid down the sloping roof to the gutter and drainpipe where she’d stashed her backpack when she’d sensed demoniis about. Couldn’t fail to miss the disgusting sulfuric odor of the decaying shitheads.
Tossing her bag down to the asphalt, she swiftly glided down the pipe to the ground, grabbed her backpack, and sprinted through the narrow alley. A few minutes later, she slowed and cast another quick look around. Clear. Groaning, she doubled over, pulling in much needed air into her burning lungs.
Talk?
Yeah, right. She spoke to no one.
Shadow sped off to one of the many manholes she used as her getaway.
Five years ago, running from demoniis, she’d fallen into a maintenance hole that had saved her hide. Jeez, Alice fell down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland, and her? Straight into a dark and twisted reality—a world of demons and otherworldly creatures where she was always on the run—a life she could never escape.
With a quick look around, Shadow pushed the heavy iron lid aside and slipped down onto a rickety metal rung. She dragged the rusty cover over the hole again before jumping down, landing in an inch of putrid, bile inducing sludge. Ugh.
Keeping her breaths shallow, she took off through the dimly lit, graffitied tunnel, her footsteps echoing eerily in the dank silence—
Hands seized her. Her heart near exploding from her chest, she spun around. The blade still strapped to her wrist released, and she lashed out.
“Whoa, lassie—” The older man stumbled back, hands flying up, knocking her weapons away.
“Darn it, Eddi,” she snapped, her voice reaching a shrill decibel. “I could have killed you!”
“I still breathe, lass. Don’t fret.” He laughed, flashing teeth stained from the roll-up cigarettes he smoked like he breathed air. He swiped the trickle of blood on his neck with the back of his hand. “But good strike. All I taught you years ago, and you’ve grown better.” His dark eyes crinkled in approval in his leathery brown face.
“Only you’d think so,” she grumbled.
Eddi still guarded these places. If she hadn’t been so shaken from what happened topside, he wouldn’t have taken her off guard. Her gaze lowered to the twin iron daggers he kept sheathed on his belt. “What are you doing out here?” She did a quick search of the tunnels but didn’t pick up anything. “Demoniis?”
Those damn plagues stole mortal souls so they could survive, killing many innocent humans. The gloomy tunnels sometimes became a hiding place during daylight hours for the pests since sunlight, as she’d witnessed, would eviscerate them.
“Just one. Took care of it. But what’s got you all worked up, lass?” he asked as they navigated the tunnels.
“Nothing.”
Eddi scratched his close-cropped graying hair. “You know the rules we abide by, Shadow. We can’t draw attention to ourselves. It’s why we live in this part of the underground pisspot.”
He was only half right. The gangs left them alone because Eddi had gained a certain reputation with his penchant for hunting the supernatural. He wasn’t that old, somewhere in his mid-forties, but living this life had taken a toll. Oh, he could still fight like a terror, but his slowness in stopping her attack troubled her.
“Eddi, I can do the daylight watch around here—”
“No,” he cut her off like he usually did. “It keeps me busy… Rent’s coming up, lass.”
Her lips tightened. In the last couple of months, Rough’s thugs had been around, demanding “rent” for living on the outskirts of his domain. No, not from the migrating homeless, but from those who actually had some kind of home base here. The damn cretin. As if she had money falling into her lap. She and Eddi would have to find another place soon.
“Yeah, no worries. I’m good. I’ll get the money. Gotta go. See ya later, Ed.”
“Shady, wait.” He hurried after her, his footsteps squelching in the rancid water. “What happened? You look a little rattled.”
Much as she liked him—heck, he’d taken her in after she’d fallen down the manhole all those years ago. He’d given her shelter, protection, and taught her how to fight, but right now? He was like a barnacle.
She shrugged. “Usual crap. I was minding my own biz—” He snorted, and she cast him an innocent look and continued. “Demoniis crossed my path. Anyway, I killed them, then it all went to hell real fast. The air literally ripped apart, and huge scaly demons lumbered out, then really tall men in black appeared out of nowhere. Man, I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff, but that…” Shadow shook her head, unable to forget the absolute nightmare stepping out of a portal. Or the fight that took place, the black swords gleaming beneath the moonlight. It was like a movie set or something.
And then there was him.
She sidestepped more puddles of muck. Guilt plagued her for kneeing him in the nuts. But never threaten a girl who’d just seen the worst kind of evil barging into her world. And much as she wanted to linger and find out how to kill those vile demons like those huge deadly men had so effortlessly done, she didn’t want to draw attention to herself out in the open. Not if she wanted to stay alive. Even the streets had eyes, and she preferred remaining undetected.
Besides, she didn’t think she could take on those mammoth monsters and survive.
“I still can’t get over the portal ripping open and those horrible things stumbling out. Their jaws jutted, and their scales appeared like coagulated blood, a mixture of black and red.”
“Giant demons here?” Lines creased Eddi’s brow. “Someone’s stirring up the Guardians.”
Her gaze snapped to him, her stomach doing a relentless yo-yo-ing at his words. “The Guardians?”
“Aye, told ya about ‘em, lass. They’re warriors who protect this realm from supernatural evil. Immortals and real dangerous, with only one purpose—to kill evil. Demons.”
“Oh, right.” She’d never come across them while trying to help the homeless, but then she avoided anyone she sensed was otherworldly. Her throat dried out at her close encounter with one of them.
“If they suddenly turned up in full force,” Eddi continued, “then those demons must be real bad.”
“They could be working for the FBI, you know some unnamed, secret squad?”
Eddi snorted. “I have a few demon friends. They keep me informed. Those Guardians are an antisocial lot. Avoid humans like the plague. Aye, Shady lass, no chance of us lowly creatures catching sight of them, not unless they want you to. Mercifully, we aren’t demons. It’s them they hunt. If they sense evil in you, and I mean like the ones from Hell, you run.”