Demon's Delight by MaryJanice Davidson Read Free Book Online Page B

consciousness.
    Two of them? Oh, great , as Rhea would say. It certainly explained the number of missing girls…he’d assumed it was a ridiculously hungry demon, not that it had a mate. Demons of any kind were not known for teamwork. He should have remembered there was an exception to every rule.
    Too bad for him.
    He rolled away just as the demon’s left foot came down where his head had been, cracking the cobblestones. He felt something warm drip into his eyes and realized he was bleeding from a scalp wound.
    It’s possible, he mused, that I jumped into this without planning it so well. Anything was better than wondering how things might have been between him and the girl
    (woman)
    he wasn’t thinking about. Even facing an extra demon on a Wednesday night.
    He watched with something close to disinterest as the male scuttled down the wall and the female edged closer.
    He couldn’t think of a thing that rhymed with demon, and he was too woozy to grope for a Post-It and try to read it in the darkness of the alley.
    This is it. Heaven, here I come. I’ll go to heaven, right?
    There was a shhhhk-THUD and another shhhhhk-THUD, and the female, who had been once again getting ready to stomp him, screamed. Chris wiped more blood out of his eyes and saw two arrows sticking out of the female’s back.
    The demon popped her extra elbow joint loose and was able to reach far enough up her back to yank at them, and then screamed again—in anger as much as pain—when she moved them in her flesh but did not dislodge them.
    Shhhhhk-THUD, shhhhhk-THUD, shhhhhk-THUD. More screaming. Now the male was roaring in a rage, but (typical of demons) did not come closer to help his mate, preferring to wait in the shadows to ambush—who?
    â€œYou dumb shit,” Rhea observed, marching into the alley. She was dressed in super-cool badass black from neck to ankles, and—was that a Kevlar vest?
    â€œIt’s nice to see you, too, sunshine. Dressed for the occasion, I see. And by the way, ow, my head.”
    â€œTaker of the Lost?” she asked, studying the wounded female, who had gone down on her knees and managed to claw out one of the arrows. “To think I thought all those stories my dad told me were fairy tales.” Her hand snaked behind her back and she came out with a gun—a really big-ass gun—and emptied six chambers into the female’s head. “And for the record, you stinking big bastard, the only one allowed to make him go ‘ow’ is me .”
    â€œStinking big bitch,” Chris said helpfully. “This is the female.”
    Despite their exotic mythology, demons could be killed with conventional weapons: Destroy enough of the brain and it was a fait accompli. So Chris was not surprised to see the female slowly topple forward and lie still.
    He was surprised to see Rhea squat in front of him and hand him a Wet Nap, which he batted out of her hand. He’d stupidly assumed she had seen the male as well—which was a gross disservice to the girl. Woman. She’d only known about her “duty” for a little over a week, and damned sure didn’t spend spare time casting spells on demons. She was a fucking poet!
    Those thoughts whirled through his brain in half a second, and he brought his knees up and kicked her as hard as he could, square in the chest. She flew away from him like he’d shot her out of a cannon,
    (God, God, don’t let her be hurt, please God, I’ll owe you one, okay?) and then two black feet smashed into the spot where Rhea had been crouching.
    â€œOw,” Rhea bitched from eight feet away. Then, “Two of them? In all the stories I heard—”
    â€œYeah, and all those old stories are always totally truthful.”
    â€œGood point,” she admitted, climbing to her feet and popping the cylinder on her six, grabbing a speed loader and sliding it home, even as she edged toward the male, who, in a