“Get out of there!” he shouted at the woman as he raced up three cracked cement stairs toward her. He could hear the heavy footsteps of Madoc and Logan pounding behind him.
She didn’t turn to look at him, or even bother to acknowledge that she’d heard him. In fact, she showed no sign of the greasy, paralyzing fear the Synestryn usually caused in humans. She appeared to be completely calm, as if she waited for demons to attack her every day.
The sgath closed in to within fifteen feet and showed no signs of slowing. He was still too far away to help her. He was going to see her die before he even had a chance to touch her and learn whether she was meant to be his, whether she could save him.
She fired her shotgun at the closest sgath. Her body rocked slightly against the force of the weapon and the deep boom echoed in the stillness of the night. She’d hit one of the demons. It flew back a couple feet, spraying black blood across the warehouse. Beneath the thick, oily drops, the wooden floor began to sizzle as the caustic blood ate away at it.
If any of that blood had hit her, it would eat away her skin just as easily.
Paul finally reached the woman. He wanted to stop and touch her, but there was no time. Another sgath was right there, only feet away. Whether or not she could save him, the fact that she faced the sgath down without fear proved she was a rare gift and had to be protected at all costs.
Paul shouldered her out of the way and charged through the doorway, sword poised and ready to strike. She hit the wall a little harder than he’d intended and let out a pained grunt, but at least she was out of harm’s way.
An uninjured sgath saw Paul charge and its eyes lit with a sickly green fire of excitement and hunger. It lifted its muzzle and let out a haunting howl to the rest of its kind, likely alerting them to the food that had just arrived. There was nothing the demons liked more than to feed on the flesh and blood of a Sentinel, and Paul and his companions were a walking feast.
It took Andra a couple of seconds to recover from being slammed into the brick wall. Good thing it had been her shoulder that had hit first instead of her head. Otherwise, she’d have been out cold. When this was over, she was going to have a long talk about manners with the man who’d pushed her, but right now she had to get Sammy out of here.
By the time Andra had shaken off the impact, two of the three men who’d shown up were already inside the warehouse. She wasn’t sure who they were, or why they were here, but she wasn’t about to question her good fortune. Or their swords.
The monster she’d shot was still on the floor, but it was moving sluggishly, lapping up pools of its own blood with its long, forked tongue. She knew from experience that if it got enough of its blood back inside, the thing would stand up again, all patched up and good as new.
Andra couldn’t help but shudder at the sight. It was one that was going to stick with her for a lot of nights to come.
Great. Like she needed any more nightmare fuel.
Another monster was backing away from the man who’d pushed her. He had dark blond hair and stark, angular features. He wielded a sword a little shorter than his arm, and from the muscular width of his shoulders and the ease with which he moved the weapon, it was obvious that he’d had plenty of practice with it. Thank God he was apparently on her side.
The monster crouched, then sprang up unnaturally fast, but the man was ready for the attack. He ducked below the monster’s leap and swung the sword in a powerful arc that sliced open its belly. The man leapt aside gracefully, dodging the spray of filth and gore that spilled from the monster.
The thing landed with a wet, squishy sound and let out a roar of defiance as it tried to regain its footing. The man moved in what appeared to be an almost lazy circle, and his sword gleamed in a dim yellow arc of light. When he came to a stop, the head of the monster lay ten feet away from its body.
Black smoke rose up from where the thing’s blood pooled on the wooden floor, burning it. The smoke created a stench so violent that Andra had to fight back the urge to puke.
“How we doing, Madoc?” asked the man, never moving his eyes from the remaining threat.
On the far side of the warehouse, Andra watched the second man—an angry-looking guy with blunt features and thick black hair—as he cut down another one of the monsters. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
“One down, one to go,” he said as he prowled closer to the last monster standing. The thing had backed itself into a corner, and Andra was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to make it back out alive.
“I smell more closing in,” said a deep voice from behind her. Too close.
Andra jumped in surprise and whirled around, pointing her shotgun at the third man in the group. As she laid eyes on him, her brain leaked out her ears and she stood there, staring, unable to do anything else.
He was beautiful. Heart-stopping, seizure-inducing beautiful, with dark hair, bright silvery eyes and a cover-model face. He was a little thin for her taste, but he made it work well enough that she changed her mind right then and there.
He gave her a knowing smile full of bright white teeth and said, “I’m Logan. My friends and I have been looking for you.”
Andra gave herself a mental shake and blinked so she could stop staring at him. “I’m not taking on any new cases right now. Kinda got my hands full with Sammy here.”
He frowned slightly in confusion and waved an elegant hand. “We’ll talk later. Right now, we need to get inside before the rest of the Synestryn show up.”
Just then, Andra looked over his shoulder into the surrounding darkness and saw the faint glowing green eyes of more monsters closing in. “Right. Inside.”
Andra peered through the door into the warehouse and saw both men slicing and dicing the remaining monsters. They had their hands full at the moment, and Logan didn’t look like he’d be much good in a fight as thin as he was. In fact, he looked downright breakable, which revved up her protective instincts.
Andra grabbed Logan and hauled him through the door with her. She picked up the biggest part of the door she’d wrecked and propped it across the open doorway. Thank goodness she’d been hitting the weights lately or she never would have been able to lift the solid oak slab.
“Start shoving these old pallets in the way to slow those things down,” she ordered Logan. “I’m going to get Sammy.”
She sprinted across the floor, leaping over a gaping hole in the wood. They had only a few seconds before those new monsters arrived, and with any luck, they could free Sammy and find a back door out of this place before the nasties broke through the barricade.
She reached Sammy, but he was silent and staring off into space, which wasn’t a good sign. His eyes were wide with shock and fear, and he cringed away from her as she approached. Tears still overflowed his eyes, and were so abundant they wet the collar of his pajama shirt.
Andra was wasting precious seconds, but she couldn’t stand the thought of adding to his fear. She found a smile somewhere and forced herself to wear it. “It’s okay, Sammy. Your mom and dad sent me. I’m here to take you home.”
As gently as she could, she removed the dirty rag from his mouth and sliced through the ropes that bound him. It took only seconds, but by the time she was finished, the blond sword-wielding man was standing a few feet away, guarding her back.
The monster she’d shot and barely damaged was now lying in several sloppy pieces strewn across the warehouse floor. He’d done that for her, and from the black blood leaking out of the rest of the monsters, he’d done more as well.
“Are you hurt?” he asked her.
“No, but Sammy doesn’t look good.”
The man nodded once, as if he understood exactly what she meant. Then again, he seemed prepared for a fight like this. Maybe he did know what was going on here.
“I’m Paul. I’m going to get both you and the boy out of here alive.”
It didn’t sound like an empty boast. His words were solid and heavy with confidence.
“So, you’ve done this before, Paul?” she asked him in a conversational tone.
He turned and gave her a wink. “Once or twice. Stay well behind me. Their blood is caustic.”
“I’m going to take Sammy and look for a back door.”
“No. Stay where I can see you. There may be more hiding out in the building.”
Andra thought about arguing and realized he could be right. She wasn’t willing to risk it, especially since Sammy would be with her.
The first monster hit the barricade. The broken door and rotting pallets shifted easily.
Paul moved toward the barricade. The angry-looking man stepped up beside Paul, facing the threat. They both lifted their swords like they knew how to use them. Then again, there was proof of that fact scattered all over the warehouse floor.
The beautiful Logan moved to the back of the warehouse near Andra. “I’m going to go locate another exit. Paul and Madoc have handled worse than this before, but it pays to be prepared.”
“Didn’t you hear what Paul said? There may be more hiding in here.”
“If so, I’ll be able to smell them coming. Don’t worry. I’m not one to risk my life needlessly.” He smiled at her again, only this time she was pretty sure she’d seen fangs. Lovely.
Andra picked Sammy up and backed away until they were against the far wall. Whoever these men were, they weren’t normal. Until she found out more, she wasn’t going to let Sammy get close to any of them.
He let out a soft, hopeless whimper. Andra looked down and he was staring back at her with unseeing eyes. She’d seen that exact look before on a night much like this one, and every week since, for the past eight years.
She was too late. Even if she got him out alive, Sammy was lost forever.
The monsters crashed through the barricade—two more of the wolf-chimpanzee things and two of the larger, roachlike monsters that kept them as pets. They were easily six feet tall and walked upright on short, spiny legs. Their tiny heads held four beady black eyes that zeroed right in on Sammy.
One of them let out a metallic hiss that sounded like the word child, then pointed toward Sammy and Andra. The other nodded, let go of the leash it held, and unfurled a wide pair of wings. It leaped up into the air and landed clinging to one of the warehouse support beams.
The furry monsters charged the pair of men while the second roach thing held back.
Andra set Sammy safely behind her and aimed her shotgun at the roach thing on the beam. She fired and her shot took a big chunk out of where the monster had been. Unfortunately, it had jumped out of the way, avoiding her blast. She scanned the ceiling as she reloaded, looking for it, but it was nowhere in sight. She heard a buzzing noise behind her and whirled around to find the roach thing flying right toward her and the boy.
She didn’t have time to finish reloading and get off another shot. She grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and leveled it in front of her face to keep those snapping insect jaws away.
It slammed into her. She heard something crack and pain screamed up her arm. She screamed right back at it, unable to hold in her cry of agony. The weapon clattered to the ground, and Andra tried to bring her hands up to grab ahold of the roach’s neck, but her left arm didn’t respond. It hung uselessly at her side, burning with bone-deep pain that made her stomach spin.