allows everyone in Hell a chance to claim it.” The demon grinned. “But then, this is the first time someone has run over one of his pets.”
“What bounty?” Eve hoped she hid the sudden fear she felt. “Is Satan upset that I ran over his dog? That’s hysterical.”
I’m not laughing, Alec snapped.
1 know. Eve sighed. My life sucks.
She struggled to her feet, favoring her impaled leg. Reaching down, she yanked the ice dagger free and tossed it aside. Blood spurted from the gaping wound, then gushed. She ignored it for now. She had bigger problems.
“What is funny,” the yuki-onna retorted, “is how you will be ripped apart by everyone in Hell.”
“Everyone, huh?” Eve shrugged. “He’ll have to do better than that, if he hopes to take me out.”
That’s my girl, Alec praised. Never let ‘em see you sweat.
But she heard the unease in his voice. She also felt him poised to leap to her rescue.
I’ve got this, she’ said, staying him. She wasn’t sure how, but she would figure it out on her own. Damned if some ice bitch in clogs would kick her ass.
“Sammael wants you,” the demon taunted. Her disheveled hair and wide eyes only made her more beautiful. “And I will be rewarded for bringing you in.”
Laughing through her growing panic, Eve made a third request—not quite a prayer—for a sword. Again, she was ignored.
She deflected the demon’s next icicle with her forearm, then darted to the left to catch another. She threw it back. It was knocked off course by a burst of frosty air. All the while, she closed the distance between herself and the wall that held the katana.
“You can take hostages,” Eve taunted, “but you can’t take me.”
Bravado. Sometimes it was all a Mark had.
“I am beginning to think otherwise,” the demon retorted with a malicious gleam in her dark eyes.
Pounding came to the locked door, followed by a string of anxious-sounding Japanese. Not for the first time, Eve wished her mother had taught her the language. All she knew was that someone wanted to come in, and the demon she was fighting was no longer eager to get out. In fact, the yuki-onna seemed energized by the intrusion.
Eve took another step closer. Her boot slipped on an ice shard and she skidded, her balance compromised by her injured leg. She was inspired by the near fall, her mind seizing on a possible means to the end.
Dependent upon God’s willingness to cooperate and give her a damn break, of course.
Kicking hard, she sent up a spray of water and ice. As the yuki-onna retaliated with a rapid volley of icicles, Eve shot forward, using the slush on the tile to drop to the floor in a careening, feet-first slide into home plate.
“I could really use that sword now,” she yelled skyward, as the white tile rushed past her in a blur. “Please!”
Nothing.
Time slowed to a trickle...
The demon leaped gracefully and was held aloft by icy air currents. Levitating into a prone position, the Infernal’s facade of beauty fell away, revealing the true evil beneath—eyes of blood red, a gaping maw of blackened teeth, and grayish skin with a network of inky veins that spread into her hairline. With arms splayed wide, spears of ice appeared in her hands like ski poles.
Alec and Reed roared in unison, their shouts reverberating in Eve’s skull with such volume they drowned out everything else. In slow motion, she watched the demon hovering like a ghostly apparition, her white robes in tatters, her hair a sinuously writhing mane. Eve raised her arms to ward off the coming attack, then jerked in surprise as a heavy weight forced her forearm to drop to her chest…
…weighted by the miraculous appearance of a glaive in her hand.
Her grip tightened on the hilt and her back arched up. Hurling the blade forward like a javelin, she struck the yuki-onna straight in the chest. The glaive pierced deep with a sickening thud.
The demon exploded in a burst of ash.
Eve continued to slide until she slammed into the wall. At impact, the katana dislodged from its mooring, twisting to fall point down toward her head. She jerked to the side, rolling to avoid the blade. It pierced the floor where she’d been an instant before. Behind her, the glaive—no longer embedded in the demon’s body—clattered to the tile.
“Holy shit,” she breathed.
A pair of steel-toed boots appeared next to her head, then a hand extended into her line of sight. Looking up, her gaze met