Alec, you can't fight her. You don't have a weapon. She'll just carve you up like a rotisserie chicken.
I would thank you for your faith in my abilities to protect you, but I'm a little busy at the moment.
I searched desperately for something that he could use for fighting her. I'm sorry. All I can find are rocks.
The demon laughed as her sword danced around Alec. He moved steadily backward as he dodged the worst of the sword cuts, shielding me with his body. I could feel the pain each time the sword struck true, driving my own level of frustration sky-high.
I don't need rocks. Just stay behind me, out of her reach.
Without warning, the woman suddenly lunged forward, the sword she wielded piercing clean through his body, popping out his back.
"No!" I screamed, flinging my handful of rocks at her head as I jumped forward.
"Stay back!" Alec yelled, twisting to catch me as I tried to fling myself on the woman.
She snarled words that hurt my insides, tearing away something within me. My inner devil screamed in agony, and as Alec's hands closed around my waist, reality seemed to shift and refocus itself, a buzzing sound like that of a thousand hissing voices filling my ears, and I froze, locked in position, as the buzzing grew louder and louder until it burst out of me.
A high, horrible scream tore through the air, followed by the metallic clang of an object hitting the ground. The buzzing in my head faded to nothing, leaving me reeling against Alec, staring in stupefaction at the sword lying on the rocky ground before us.
The woman was gone, a faint black whiff of smoke slowly curling around itself the only indicator of her presence.
"What . . . what happened? " I asked, instinctively clinging to Alec as he bent to pick up the sword. He looked at it curiously for a moment, then turned his head to consider me.
"I believe we just received confirmation of our suspicions. You destroyed Bael's wrath demon."
"I did? How? I was just standing here - "
"I think . . . I think I used you." He looked back at the sword in his hand. "Just as if you were a Tool of Bael, I used the power you harness to destroy the demon's form and send it back to Abaddon."
"Are you saying I've got some sort of demonic powers ? Because I may be a lapsed Catholic, but that's going to definitely send me screaming to the nearest priest."
"No, you don't have the power itself," he said, now examining his stomach.
"Aieee!" I screamed at the blood that soaked the lower half of his shirt. "Oh my god! Lie down! No, don't move! I'll get a . . . a . . ." I spun around, searching for something I could use to stanch the flow of blood. "Good lord, what sort of place is this that they don't have a first aid kit?"
"I'm all right. The bleeding has stopped."
"Don't be ridiculous," I said, coming to a swift decision. I took him by the arm and gently but firmly guided him over to the nearest butt-height rock. "You were skewered clean through. Those sorts of wounds simply do not stop bleeding. Now, you sit here, and I'll go find someone to help you. Try not to move around."
He dug in his heels midway to the rock, his expression alternating between incredulity and annoyance. "You don't want to listen to me, do you?"
"It's not that I don't want to," I said, tugging on him as gently as I could. "You're in shock. You don't know what you're saying. I'm simply doing what's best for you."
A little ripple of surprise claimed him. You're . . . tending me?
If you want to call it that.
No one has ever done that. No one has cared.
Well, sheesh, you're hurt, badly hurt, and although I may not want to have sex with you again -
You do, though. I can feel your interest in me just as you can feel mine in you.
- although I may not want to have sex with you again, I'm not so callous that I'll let you die here. Or come close to dying again.
Why not? You think I'm a murderer and abuser of women.
"I never said you abused a woman. I just said you killed one."