She pressed her fingernails into her palms again. Enough. He was the one who’d left. He’d made that decision. She would not give her heart to him again. Not that he was asking, but just in case. She promised herself.
Dora nodded and pointed up the stairs.
Without the slightest hesitation, he reached up, lifted Amber off the stairs, and planted her on the floor in front of him. “Go,” he said, his tone brusque as he headed up the steps she’d just been evicted from.
“What? No.” When he turned back to her, she said, “You go. Dora is my client.”
He pointed toward the second floor with his chin and signed, “Demon.”
“Yes. I know.”
He tapped his chest with his middle two fingers. “Demon hunter.”
She blinked in surprise. Demon hunter? Like professionally? Was that even a thing?
It didn’t matter. This was her case. She needed to see this thing through so Dora could cross over, and Amber knew exactly who to send her to when the time came. First things first, though.
She shoved past He Who Must Not Be Named—who would henceforth be known as He Who Shall Not Tell Her What to Do—and headed toward the attic.
He wrapped a large hand around her upper arm.
She shrugged it off. The demon probably wasn’t even up there anymore anyway.
But when she crested the stairs, she felt it instantly. Damn it. Not the demon, per se. But the cold. Her breath fogged the air. She looked around at the boxes and bags of merchandise and supplies that occupied the area. Just as she turned to a hissing sound behind her, she felt him. He Who Shall Not Tell Her What to Do. Close behind her. His warmth as he pressed into her back. Wrapped an arm around her neck. Bent until his mouth was at her ear and whispered, “Shhh,” just as the demon rushed her.
Chapter Four
Sometimes, I shock myself with the smart things I say and do.
Other times, I try to get out of the car with my seatbelt on.
—Bumper Sticker
Quentin tightened his hold to gain control of Amber completely and whirled around as the demon rushed them. The initial attack set fire to his back. He was thrust into the wall, barely able to brace himself with one hand, and knew he was out of his league. As the elfin queen struggled in his hold, he squeezed a fraction of an inch harder.
“Relax,” he said into her ear a microsecond before she went limp in his arms.
He lifted her and carried her downstairs toward the front door, police tape be damned.
“Hurry,” Rune said in his head, urging him faster.
“Friend of yours?”
“Not hardly. But he saw us.”
Us meaning Rune. Quentin guessed that was bad. He got to the front door just as Amber started to come around. He fumbled with the doorknob but couldn’t get it unlocked. He turned back to the woman. Dora?
She hurried forward and tried to open it, forgetting she was incorporeal. Her hand slid through the knob, and she looked at him, confused. “I don’t understand why it won’t open. It’s not locked.”
Quentin bit down and took his now-struggling package back through the house to try the back door.
“I can’t leave,” the man said—the dead one carrying a clipboard. “There’s a barrier of some kind. I’m stuck!” The man was panicking, which was exactly what Quentin needed.
He ignored him and went to the door. It was immovable, too. Not locked. Closed from an outside force. Fuck.
“Fuck is right,” Rune said. “Salt. Hurry.”
Quentin felt Rune’s urgency like a tidal wave of apprehension inside him. Rune had looked up, and through the demon’s vision, Quentin could see the darkness descending around the house.
He looked at the woman. Her eyes were big and round, her fear palpable as his package began fighting him in earnest. He set the wildcat in a chair. Her hair had escaped the band on the top of her head. It fell in long, shimmering waves over her shoulders, and he stilled. She smelled like apples and felt like the sun on a winter’s day, radiating warmth. And her eyes. That crystal-clear blue that he’d dreamed of every night for five years. What had Rune called that color? Cerulean? She still had a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose and on her cheeks. Barely perceptible. But it was the heart-shaped mouth, pouty like a doll’s, that made his water in response.
Those lips thinned as she reared back and took a swing at him.
He easily dodged it, but she followed up with a left hook, clipping his chin. He grabbed her fist and glared at her.
“What the fuck was that?” she asked, forgetting to sign. He didn’t need it, but she didn’t know that. “You made me pass out.”
“Ms. Kowalski,” the man said to her.
She fought to get her fists back. “Kyle, now is not the time.”
“No, you need to see this.”
Quentin stood and turned on him, suspicion narrowing his eyes. But the minute he did, Amber gasped.
“Oh, my God,” she said, jumping up. He turned back toward her, and she urged him back around with her hands on his shoulders. Then she yanked him back to face her as she signed, “Your back. He hurt you.”
He was very aware. He just didn’t know how badly. He’d never seen a demon like that. He’d barely caught a glimpse, but its colors and markings were unusual. And it was angry. Very, very angry. What was the word? Enraged? “It’s okay,” he signed to Amber. “We have to get you out of here.”
“Me? What about you? You need medical attention.”
He frowned at her—how bad could it be?—then walked to a full-length mirror the woman had in a messy craft room next to the kitchen. Yep. Three slashes across his blood-soaked back. “Fuck. I love this shirt.”
Amber blinked up at him in surprise. “You’re worried about the shirt?”
He stared down at her, unable to believe that she was here. After all this time, she was right in front of him, so succulent he licked his lips involuntarily.
“We understand now,” Rune said. “You did not tell us she is otherworld. We need to get her out of here.”
“Otherworld?”
“She is of us. She is passed over and come back, so she is no longer human. She just doesn’t know that yet.”
Guilt assaulted Quentin so hard and fast, it knocked the breath from his lungs. He’d seen her attack. He’d done everything in his power to stop it, but the priest had been too strong. Too powerful. He’d felt like a fly fighting a Mack truck. “Then what is she?”
“She is otherworld. A traveler.” Rune said the words like a lover. Or a stalker. Either way, he was getting far too familiar with the love of Quentin’s life. “Salt!” Rune reminded him. “It will come for us.”
Quentin felt it, too. The demon creeping closer. Which, again, was weird. The demon had killed several times over, and now it was slowly creeping toward them? When it could attack and kill Quentin and Amber with the snap of its fingers?
Then again, maybe Quentin’s reputation preceded him. That would be a nice change.
He pushed Amber onto the table, ignoring her appalled, “Hey!” and grabbed the satchel he’d tossed onto the floor when he first came in. He took out a jar of black salt and sprinkled it on the floor around the table.