and the wrecked carcass of a car tumbled out of the mist to land roof down. That was probably my cue to summon my fire, but I still wasn’t entirely sure what I was dealing with.
A howl cut through the melee, so loud I hunkered down, covering my ears. Glancing behind me, I caught sight of the black-clad enforcers scurrying forward before the rolling mist swallowed them up. They were going to get themselves killed. I waved the enforcers back, faced forward, planted my feet, and released my demon. She came hard and fast, staggering me and almost sundering my control. Rage, hot and heady, boiled through my insides, and the latent heat slumbering in the street reared up like a storm surge. So much for a stealthy approach. A demon gaze washed over me as though I’d been blasted in the face with hot coals. The vapor hissed and withdrew, revealing the daddy of all hellhounds. Crimson eyes burned with a killer’s glare. The thing was massive, easily the size of a tank. It made little ol’ me look like a chew-toy. Oh hell. The lance-like quills protruding from its back rippled, sounding a deafening hiss. Then it lunged, springing off its hind legs, right at me.
Hunkering down, baring teeth, I thrust out my hands, spread my wing, and funneled a blast of heat ahead of me. I could do this. I was the Mother of Destruction, a powerful she-demon who could turn a crowd of demons into ash. This was just one big demon. Easy.
Stefan plowed into the hound’s side like a missile, altering its course. They tumbled and rolled. Sharp quills and jagged crystal tangled in a heap. Stefan staggered to his feet first. He saw me and held out a hand, shaking his head, indicating I shouldn’t intervene. The hell I was going to sit back and watch.
The hound planted its huge paws and dropped its head, opening its maw to reveal dagger-like fangs. Its lips pulled back in something like a grin. I could have sworn those ruby eyes sparkled with intelligence.
A crack of sniper fire shattered the quiet. Near the cresting rise of Stefan’s left wing, a fist-sized hole blasted through his crystal feathers. He flinched and turned his gaze on the rolling mist behind me. The hound lunged, jaws dropping open, eager to snap shut around Stefan. Instinct had me lashing out with a whip-like tendril of heat. The liquid arc of heat slashed across the hound’s face. It recoiled, threw its snout skyward, and howled like something out of a nightmare. The sound of it plucked on my fear, urging me to run screaming. As the howl died, a deadly quiet rushed in, bearing a new weight, one of impending devastation, as though the city held its breath. I saw them: orbs of red floating in the mist, moving closer. Eyes. Many, many, pairs of demon eyes. This was bad. I tagged a dozen pairs, and all the time, more blinked into existence.
Stefan threw up his hands, palms up, and shot me an incredulous look, as though this was my fault.
I shrugged, raining ashes around me. A blast of hot breath puffed against my wing. I spun, sweeping a wave of fire before me, making quick work of the hellhound that got too close. It wailed and pulled back to the pack spilling out of the mist. Five, six, no more. I whipped up a firestorm around me, affording me some protection, and went to work. Caught up in the melee, I couldn’t find Stefan among the wave after wave of quivering flanks of hellhounds, but gauging from the intermittent thunderous howls from the pack-leader, I could assume he was still in the game. I just needed to stay upright. Rifle fire whizzed by me, too close for comfort. I wouldn’t put it past Adam to have his men accidentally shoot me on purpose. They would shoot Stefan. He was on the enforcers’ Most-Wanted-Dead List.
I ducked a swipe from glistening jaws and spun, cracking a punch into the beast’s skull. It whimpered and went down, but not for long. Shaking some sense back into itself, it eyed me with a snarl and came at me again.
Time to bring out the big guns. I pinned the pack’s heat on a map inside my mind. At least twenty hounds stalked the mist. Some loitered where I’d last seen the enforcers. There was an oddly vacant patch where the cold sapped them of their heat—Stefan.