Protect Her: Part One Page 4

I slowly took my hand away, and thankfully, she didn’t make another noise.

  She trembled and backed away from the doorway and the body at our feet. “What is it?”

  Almost seven feet tall, green scales for skin, long, talon-like fingers and red eyes told me exactly what it was. “Hytrol demon. Watch the claws. They’re poisonous.”

  “How many kinds of demons are there?”

  “A lot,” I said, scanning the room. My brain was firing across a million different questions, and I needed to think. “Grab the bag by the door.”

  “Riley, what’s going on?”

  I could see that she wasn’t processing the danger that we were in. Hytrol demons didn’t work alone. I assessed what I could carry and what I had to leave. Once I left the room, I couldn’t come back. Non-essential things that I didn’t want to lose, I’d send Halpren back for. At the same time, I couldn’t leave anything that would let him know what other kinds of jobs I was working on.

  I grabbed my laptop and the tube of nylon under the table that held my knife collection. I sprinted to the closet door. Clothes could be left or replaced. Weapons, the kind we needed, were much harder to come by. Luckily, my interrogation kit was still in the truck, so the only thing left was my emergency kit, which housed those extras that couldn’t fit in my regular bag.

  For once, Paige hadn’t questioned my direction. I found her standing next to the open door off to the side. Smart. Someone outside the room would have to step inside to see her. I pulled a loaded semi-automatic out of my duffle. It had special ammunition that I kept for just these types of occasions. But there was one last thing that I needed.

  I knelt down next to the Hytrol demon and yanked the knife out of its skull. It made a sickening squishy noise as it came loose. I wiped the demon’s blood on the back of its shirt.

  “What about the body?” Paige asked. “I think that people are going to know something else is out there when they see it.”

  “They’ll only see what they want to see,” I said. “I don’t have time to explain. We need to get out of here and get you somewhere safe.”

  “Where?”

  That was an excellent question, and one that I wasn’t prepared to answer yet. Instead, I gave her a signal to wait, and then I slowly approached the doorway. The sky was just turning light outside. It was ballsy for the demons to attack in broad daylight. It wasn’t their MO at all, which told me that they wanted Paige badly enough to risk it.

  Making my body as small a target as possible, I edged around the frame of the door and looked outside. I saw nothing but empty parking lot. Other than my SUV, the nearest vehicle was over fifty feet away. Nothing stirred. It was quiet. Too quiet. I scanned the area for a full minute, but nothing moved. I had to make the call.

  “When I say go, stay behind me and as close to me as you can,” I said softly.

  I caught the jerk of her nod. It was now or never.

  “Go.” I stepped out into the open with my gun up. I swept one way then the other then started to move. I felt Paige behind me, and then felt the whisper of her hand on my waist. Before I could even think about how her touch made my body react, I saw a burst of movement off to my left. At the end of the walkway in that direction, the motel rooms ended in a copse of trees.

  I swept my arm up and turned, pushing Paige behind me and propelling both of us backwards toward the SUV.

  “Run and get in!” I called to her. I felt the break in our bodies’ contact.

  Pounding down the path was a dark shadow that obscured everything around it from view. If I had to guess, it was the same Tiphon demon as earlier. Hytrol demons weren’t known for their tracking prowess, so it made sense that the two demons were working together.

  I brought my gun down and slipped the Plythen knife out of the sheath under my arm. My gun’s ammo would be no good on the Tiphon, which was no doubt why it had been so bold in attacking me head on. Luckily for me and Paige, I always carried a back up demon killing weapon. I hadn’t told Paige that the knife had only knocked the Hytrol demon unconsciousness. It would wake up later with one hell of a headache. For the Tiphon demon, however, my knife could take it out.

  I unleashed the blade, and it flew through the air. The Tiphon was quick though, and instead of landing in its inky black hide, it hit squarely in the middle of one of the wooden posts that held up the landing of the motel’s second floor. I scanned the air above the walkway. The demon was gone, but I knew not for long. I was merely a distraction. I wasn’t its main target.

  I spun and ran for the truck. Paige sat in the passenger seat with her hands plastered to the glass. I saw her eyes widen as I got closer and I leapt forward twisting my body in the air. I skidded across the hood of the truck even as I let loose two more knives that I had pulled from my belt. I heard the squeal that told me that they found their target, but I didn’t wait to confirm.

  I landed on my feet on the driver’s side of the truck and was inside gunning the engine a moment later.

  “It’s coming!” Paige yelled.

  “I’ve got it,” I said with more confidence than I felt at the moment. The tires kicked up a cloud of dirt as it reversed, and then I threw it in drive and yanked the wheel to the side to cut out to the street. I looked in the mirror. The Tiphon demon stared at me with its flaming eyes from the space where the SUV just occupied. But it didn’t give pursuit. Given where my knives landed, I was almost certain I had mortally wounded it.

  One demon down. I knew that the poison-laced blade that I used on the Hytrol demon would slow it down, but not for long. I needed to put space between it and us before it regained consciousness and came looking for us.

  I spun out the SUV out onto the street; aware that I jostled both of us up and down hard enough to leave bruises. “It’s okay. We’re clear,” I said.

  “How did it find us? I thought you said that the medicine you gave me would mask the smell of my blood?” Paige asked. She sounded much calmer than I would have expected.

  It was another perceptive question, and one that I would need to think about. “We’ll worry about that as soon as I find us a safe place to camp out until I can think up a plan. Can you pull out the map that is in the glove compartment?”

  I pulled up to the stoplight three blocks from the motel. What I should do was call Halpren, but I still wasn’t willing to share that I had found the demons’ target. Until I figured out a plan that included making sure Paige was safe, and extricating myself from all of it, I was going to have to improvise.

  “Maybe we should take the ferry to the mainland,” Paige suggested as she unfolded the map.

  “Too obvious,” I said quickly. “You’ve lived here for three years. Look at the places that are marked. We need secluded and out of the way.” I had done some recon as soon as I got to the island to ensure I had safe places for my interrogations.

  “These are all pretty secluded,” Paige said, frowning as she looked over the map.

  “A place that even locals would have forgotten about,” I said. I kept looking in the rearview mirror. I had no illusions that the two demons we had just left behind at the motel were the only two demons in town. At this point, I expected that the place was crawling with them. I just hadn’t seen them yet.

  “Then the place that you want isn’t on this map,” she said, folding the map back up into a neat rectangle.

  I looked over at her in surprise. But she knew the area far better than I did. “Tell me where to go.”

  She looked up through the windshield and read the street sign at the intersection in front of us. “Two more blocks and then we’ll take a left.”

  “Care to share this ultra secret location?”

  “Christopher keeps a fishing cabin up by Lake Braken. It’s off the beaten path, secluded, and no one other than Christopher and a few close friends know it even exists.”

  “Perfect.”

  CHAPTER NINE - PAIGE

  Riley stopped the SUV as soon as we were on the outskirts of town.
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  “Why are we stopping? It’s on the other side of the island,” I said, looking around wondering if we were about to be attacked.

  “We both need to change and get rid of these clothes,” he replied. “That’s the only thing I can think of that the Tiphon used to track us back to the motel.”

  “I thought you said that they tracked by blood scent?”

  He shrugged. “That’s what I’ve always been told, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had other methods. Demons seldom divulge all their secrets. Believe me, the next time I run across one, I’m going to ask.”

  That was a strange response, and I made a mental note to ask Riley what exactly he did that brought him into contact with the demon world.

  “The sooner we ditch these clothes, the better.”

  I flushed. “I don’t have anything to change into, and I’m guessing with how fast we left the motel, you don’t either.”

  He tapped the glass, and I realized that he had parked across from the Calamata Island General Store. I tapped the display on the clock in the dashboard. “It’s not open yet.”

  He flashed a smile. “A minor detail. We should probably grab a few supplies while we’re at it if we’re going to be in the woods.”

  “I’m not really comfortable with this,” I said.

  “You stay here.” He took a gun out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Have you ever used one of those?”

  “No,” I said.

  “It’s easy. Point and shoot. Just remember to take the safety off first.” He winked at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back at him. We were fugitives running from demons, but yet I could swear that he was flirting with me. Stranger yet, I found that I didn’t mind.

  “I’ll do my best,” I said. “Don’t take too long.” I wasn’t crazy about being left alone, but that was more palatable than breaking into a store that I visited almost every day. The General Store stocked flowers from Christopher’s shop, and I often handled the delivery runs.

  “Back in a flash,” he said. Then he was gone.

  I looked at the gun in my lap. Then I picked it up and examined it closer. Smith and Wesson semi-automatic .22mm, sprung into my mind. I have no idea how I knew that. As far as I knew, I had never held a gun before in my life. But as current events were proving to me, there was a lot about my life that I was painfully unaware of. I picked up the gun, and flicked my wrist around so that it pointed at an area outside of the windshield. Then I turned so that it was pointing out the back. It felt natural to have a gun in my hands, and suddenly I was more than certain that I knew how to shoot it.

  As I started to process that revelation, the driver’s side door opened, and I swung the gun back at the opening.

  “Hey, it’s just me. Don’t shoot,” Riley said. His hands were full.

  “Sorry,” I said. I reached over and grabbed one of the bags pulling it inside the truck. I could see clothes inside.

  Riley climbed into the truck and set the other bags in the seat behind us. “You should find a few things in there. If you jump in the back, you can change. I promise not to look.”

  “Here? Out in the open?” I was definitely uncomfortable with that.

  “The glass is tinted. No one can see inside. Plus I haven’t seen a soul on this street yet. We can be out of here in less than ten minutes. I don’t want to give any indication of which way we headed from here.”

  I couldn’t argue with his logic. I climbed out of the front seat and into the back. I rummaged in the bag and found everything I needed, including undergarments. I checked the sizes and was surprised to see that Riley had managed to nail each one perfectly. Apparently he was a man with many skills.

  I caught his eyes in the rearview mirror. “You promised not to peek.” There was something about Riley that totally rattled me, and not just mentally.

  “Sorry,” he said with a chuckle.

  I changed as quickly as I could, and then stood outside with the gun in my pocket while Riley did his quick change. He emerged from the truck next to me with his old clothes in his hands. I pointed at the garbage can where I had deposited the remnants of my running gear. As he brushed past me, I couldn’t help but admire his muscular torso in his new tight blue t-shirt.

  He looked back at me, and I watched his eyes flow down my body just as appreciatively. He gave me an inquisitive look. “Acceptable?”

  “You have a good eye.” That was all I was willing to give him.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  That was one sentiment I was completely on board with. As I directed him out of town, we settled into silence. For all my efforts to try to avoid getting involved any deeper in whatever was happening around me, it seemed inevitable that it was going to catch up with me. Riley was right. I needed to know, and I needed to understand.

  “What’s the sigh for?”

  “What?” I swept my glance back to the man next to me.

  “You just sighed in that heavy, oppressive, disapproving way that women do. Look, I realize that our little shopping excursion was a bit unorthodox, but I left cash on the counter for everything. I may be many things, but I’m not a thief.”

  I felt horrible that what Riley had done to procure our new clothes and supplies hadn’t even crossed my mind since we left the store. That wasn’t like me, but then again, I had days where I was still trying to figure out who the real ‘me’ was.

  “Oh, that’s good,” I said with a short nod. “I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. McAllister will appreciate it.”

  “But that’s not what you were thinking about.”

  I had to give the guy points for perception. Now that I had to accept the fact that we were going to be thrown together for at least a little while longer, I found that I was curious again about him. What kind of guy gets mixed up with demons?

  “I was thinking about you.” I wasn’t ready to talk about me yet because I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. It terrified me that once he knew my secret, it was possible that he knew more about me than I did. He seemed like the kind of guy who knew a lot of things.

  “That sounds more ominous than favorable the way you say it,” Riley said.

  “I guess I could see that. It’s favorable because you saved my life,” I replied thoughtfully. “Ominous because in the extremely short time I’ve known you, I’ve almost been killed. Twice.”

  “But then we’re back to the start which is I’ve saved your life. Twice.” Riley grinned.

  “By that logic, we circle back to the fact that my life was in danger to begin with.” Before he could follow that thread to the question of why my life was in danger, I turned the conversation back to him. “Why do you know about demons?”

  “That’s a long and sordid story,” Riley said evasively.

  “We’re going to have plenty of time,” I said, trying to coax him. “I assume it has something to do with these skills you keep bragging about.”

  “That’s the why but not the how,” he said.

  He wasn’t going to open up to me yet. While I was a bit chagrined by it, I couldn’t blame him at the same time. I wasn’t willing to share my past with him yet either. There were plenty of other things that seemed harmless to talk about though.

  “Your accent tells me that you aren’t from around here,” I said.

  “That is rather obvious, isn’t it, Ms. Paige?” he said in a long, Southern drawl.

  I chuckled. “Not that obvious. I have an ear for that kind of thing. We get a lot of tourists coming through the shop. I like to hear all the different ways of saying the same words. I always ask lots of questions, and people like talking about themselves. That probably sounds dumb.”

  “Not dumb at all. That’s a fun way to explore the world without ever leaving home,” he said.

  His words warmed me, and made me feel less pathetic. The truth was that what he said wasn’t far from the truth. I had managed to save up a little stockpile of money over the last three years. I thought that I’d travel places and
make new memories of the world, but whenever I sat down to actually book a ticket, I couldn’t pull the trigger on the transaction. I felt safe on Calamata Island, and it was difficult for me to consider leaving it.

  I pointed out the next turn, which was onto an unpaved, narrow gravel road. Riley had to slow the SUV considerably to navigate around some of the larger potholes. “You sure there’s a cabin out here?”

  “Christopher grew up here. Since he took over the shop, he doesn’t have a lot of time to take off of work. A few times though, he brought me up here during a holiday when the shop was closed. His parents died when he was young, so neither of us have close family.”

  “Sounds like you two are close.”

  “I don’t know where I’d be right now without him,” I said. It was the complete truth. Christopher had seen my picture in the paper and so he knew who I was when I called about the job. I hated taking advantage of his pity toward me, but I didn’t have any other options at the time.

  I pointed at the sign next to a driveway that said “9540.” “That’s it. We’re here.”

  CHAPTER TEN – RILEY

  On one hand, it pleased me that Paige was opening up to me. On the other hand, it made me less than thrilled that she was opening up to me about her relationship with Christopher. I examined her words trying to pull apart the nuances to cull out the things that she wasn’t explicitly telling me; namely if she and Christopher were together. Her words, while they held warmth and affection, didn’t feel as if there was more there, but I couldn’t be sure yet.

  I was grateful that I spent the extra cash to upgrade to an SUV rental for the trip. I wasn’t sure the path we were on could even be classified as a road. The leaves hanging from the limbs of the trees that lined the road brushed against the top and sides of the truck. I could barely make out the sun that was finally starting its ascent into the sky.

  I followed Paige’s finger and pulled the SUV into the even narrower dirt road that she claimed was the driveway to the cabin. A moment later, the trees fell away and we were in a clearing in front of a small house that I wasn’t sure was even big enough to be called a cabin.