Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet - Darynda Jones Page 0,32
as he pitched toward me, Artemis shot across the floor and bolted straight through him like a dart. She tore the demon out of him and proceeded to maul the thing to its smoky death.
The boy dropped the second the demon left him. He curled into a ball, and that’s when recognition hit. It was the kid from my backseat. The kid I thought was dead. His blond hair was matted and dirty. His blue eyes somehow darker. Had the demon occupying his body sent his soul somewhere else? Maybe there wasn’t room for the both of them.
I blinked in startled realization until Reyes lifted me off the ground. Again. Being manhandled by the son of Satan was getting old, but I was too weak to do much about it. He started dragging me toward the door once more.
“Wait,” I said, fighting his hold. “Get the boy.”
“No.”
With a jolt of stubbornness, I twisted and jerked out of Reyes’s grip. He stopped and glared.
“Fine. Glare, glower, scowl, I don’t care, but I am not leaving this warehouse without that kid.” When Reyes crossed his arms over his chest, I continued. “He was possessed. An innocent boy.”
Artemis leapt up to me then and barked playfully. I kneeled down and nuzzled against her before looking up at Reyes again, thrilled that she hadn’t attacked him.
“Why would they choose a boy like that?”
“They have their reasons. The same reasons you need to leave.”
“Can he be possessed again? Will they come after him again?”
He looked back in thought. “It’s possible.”
I rushed over to the boy, knelt down to push his hair back from his dirty face. Artemis came over and tried to lick it. When she realized she couldn’t, she hunched down beside him. “How can we make sure they don’t?”
Reyes knelt, too, and checked the kid’s pulse. Artemis seemed completely uninterested in him until he reached for the kid. “They can’t touch him on hallowed ground,” he explained as Artemis scooted forward and licked his wrist.
“Really?” I asked, surprised by both the information and Artemis’s reaction to him. I was worried that since he was the son of Satan, she’d try to rip out his jugular. “You mean like churches and cemeteries?”
“Yes.” He offered her ears a quick rub, then turned the kid’s face up and lifted his eyelids. “He’s in shock.”
“We have to get him to safety.” I put a hand on his forearm. “Please, Reyes.” Artemis whined as though asking for his help as well.
Fighting the frustration he felt, he bent down and lifted the kid into his arms. He wasn’t exactly small, but Reyes had no difficulty rising to his feet with a sixteen-year-old kid in his arms. Artemis barked in excitement, offered me one last nuzzle, then disappeared to wherever she’d come from, leaping into the earth beneath us. I couldn’t help but be in awe. Where the heck did she stay?
I looked back at the other man who’d been possessed, Reyes’s opponent. A current of guilt jolted through me. He’d been innocent, too.
“Not that one,” Reyes said, kicking the door open. Most of the cars were gone. Thankfully, the rain had stopped. I followed beside them, watching the boy carefully.
“Which one?”
“The man inside. He was not worthy of your sympathy.”
“But he was innocent.” I hurried around and unlocked the passenger’s door.
“No, he wasn’t. Pull the seatback forward.”
I noticed the kid’s incorporeal essence was no longer in my backseat. Was he back in his body? Is that how it worked? I pulled the seat forward and Reyes deposited the kid in the back.
“Keys.”
“Wait—are you driving my Jeep somewhere?”
“I’m driving you away from here. Give me the keys and get in.”
“I can drive myself, thank you very much.”
“And what if he gets possessed again while you’re driving up I-25?”
I tossed him the keys. “The transmission sticks a little.”
He climbed in the other side as sirens sounded from the east. We headed west, skidding through the wet parking lot and swerving onto Second. “Where are we taking him?” he asked.
“I know just where to keep him for now. They’ll know what to do. Just get to Central and head east.”
Only after the sirens grew too distant to hear did I remember that we’d left Elaine Oake at the warehouse. I wondered if I should mention it, then realized I had to get over my pettiness. She could be in danger. “We left your girlfriend back there.”