Invision - Sherrilyn Kenyon Page 0,81
but before she could, a furious knock sounded on the door.
Nick stiffened as he felt a surge of something profoundly deadly on that porch.
As Menyara reached to open the door, he started to tell her no.
He never got the chance.
A preternatural wind blew the door from the hinges and shattered it into a million splinters. Nick grabbed Kody to shield her with his body.
Ready to battle, he looked up and saw Aeron rushing into the room to join them.
Aeron met Menyara’s gaze. “Drop shields to let me friends in.”
“Friends?”
“Aye, we’re coming in hot and there’s the devil on our tails.”
CHAPTER 16
Nick manifested his sword as he glared at Aeron. “Dude, it’s good to see you. But really … did you have to break the door apart? Makes it hard to slam splinters in their face.”
“Wasn’t me!” He gestured over his shoulder at the …
Nick didn’t even have a word for that. No frame of reference whatsoever.
“Honey, what did you bring home with you? You know mountains don’t fit at the dinner table. And it don’t look like it eats gumbo, either.” Then the sarcasm died as Nick saw the two wolves running at them.
One white, shooting flames from its nostrils as it ran.
The other was a huge piece of familiar ebony rage.
“Zavid?” he asked in disbelief.
Aeron clapped him on the back. “Aye, we found him just lollygagging about. Thought you might be missing your playmate.”
The two wolves were being followed by a terrifying female demon. One with hair the color of Artemis’s and eyes painted black to match her soulless eyes. When Nick stepped forward to blast her, Aeron caught his arm.
“Nae! One of ours, too.”
“Pick up anyone else on your way home?”
Aeron laughed. “Nae, boyo. Just these two of me old mates and yours. Try not to kill them.”
“Noted.” Nick grimaced at the foul demons chasing them. “How many hell-monkeys did you invite over this time? No offense, we’re going to have to go to Winn-Dixie and make some groceries. ’Cause the one thing hanging around Simi has taught me—demons all got tapeworms and hollow legs, and I don’t think Menyara can cover it. They don’t look like a sugared grapefruit will satisfy their cravings and I’m not about to give them sugar-coated Nick.”
Caleb eyed the demons then Nick before he grinned at Xev. “Remember the story of Medea and Jason?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“I’m thinking we start cutting up the Malachai and chucking pieces of him at them ’til they go away.”
“I’m good with that. But you have to tell Cherise what you did to her boy. Because honestly? I’d rather face the hell-monkeys.”
“You’re right. Anyone else got a bad idea?”
“Yeah,” Nick said with a laugh. “I got lots of bad ones, but I’m trying to hold out for a good one for once.”
Kody gulped at the giant demon that was leading the hell-monkey pack. “I’m terrified past all rational thought.” She manifested her bow.
The other girl was stopped at the door by Menyara’s protection. She literally slammed into the invisible force field and cursed.
Menyara narrowed her gaze on Aeron. “What is she?”
“He is a cyhyraeth … a bean-sidhe.”
She gave Aeron an irritated smirk. “I know what a cyhyraeth is, Aeron.”
“Sorry, love. Most just stare at me blankly whenever I use the term. Didn’t mean to judge you by their ignorance of me culture.”
She dropped the shield to allow the cyhyraeth in.
Aeron inclined his head. “Everyone, meet Vawn. Now, me lovely, shall we light them up?”
A slow insidious smile spread across Vawn’s face. “Aye, like it’s Nos Galan Gaeaf.” And with that, he manifested a blue spectral ball of light while Aeron conjured his own short Welsh war bow.
“Is that a god-bolt?” Nick asked Vawn.
“Much better, like. It be a corpse-light. Care to see why we call it that?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Vawn let it fly out the door, toward their enemies. The moment it neared them, Aeron dipped his arrow down for Kaziel to set on fire with his breath, then released it to ignite the corpse-light.
The instant those three things came together, they formed what had to be the equivalent of demon napalm. It let loose a wave of energy that backlashed and knocked everyone except Aeron, Kaziel, and Vawn off their feet. It shattered glass across the entire neighborhood, overturned cars, and set off every alarm within a two-mile radius.
It also wrapped around the demonic mountain and his friends like an inescapable, spectral webbed hand that plucked them up, slammed them down, and sucked them into some kind of