"What car?"
He didn't answer since he was focusing all of his power on masking their presence from the demons and on locating the rest of their crew. There were at least ten of them crawling through the hospital. He could shield his powers from them and mask Tory's looks.
At least from everything except an archdemon. Born of a demon's union with a god, they were a unique and highly unpredictable breed. And one of them was in the hospital leading the others.
Ash led her to the parking lot and over to his silver metallic Porsche 911 GT2. He opened the passenger door while he scanned the lot.
She paused in the opening. "Please tell me we're not stealing this."
"It's mine." He dangled the fat Porsche key in front of her.
Tory was still suspicious. Having done the Porsche driving school a few years ago just for fun, she'd learned the various models and their price tags. This was the creme de la creme of Porsche—and it drove like a badass dream. She'd wanted one so badly she could taste it, but the price tag was way out of her reach. "You own a quarter-million-dollar car?"
"Give or take a few ten thousand, yeah. Now get in."
Tory wasn't completely convinced. How on earth could he afford a car like this? But as she looked over at the driver's seat and realized that it was definitely designed for a very tall human, she couldn't deny the obvious. It had to be his. She got in as he slid into the driver's side.
Yeah, the car fit him like a glove and the fact that he knew the key went in on the left hand side said he'd been in the car enough not to hesitate with it.
"Acheron!"
As Ash shut his door, she looked up at the shout to see a large brown-haired man running toward them.
"Buckle up." Ash slammed the gearshift into reverse.
The man ran up onto the back of Ash's car.
"Oh you fucker," Ash snarled angrily. "Getting paw prints on my car . . . I swear, you scratch it, you die." He slammed on the brakes and sent the man flying onto a parked blue sedan.
Ash turned the steering wheel sharply and headed straight for the man who had rolled to the ground.
Tory cringed as she expected them to plow straight into him. Just as they reached him, he jumped out of the way with an astounding agility.
"You're crazy, aren't you?"
Ash didn't answer her as he took a corner so fast, she swore she felt a 2G pull. There on the street was a white BMW that fell in behind them.
"We're being followed."
Ash cursed at the sight of them in his mirror. More demons. But he was grateful they were at least attempting to blend in. Stryker must have had a talk with them about keeping anonymity in the human realm. Their inhibition to blast him leveled the playing field since he couldn't use his powers outright either.
Downshifting, he cut through traffic, heading toward the interstate. He needed to get them out of the populated areas before an innocent was hurt. Something easier said than done as two more cars appeared and then opened fire on them.
Ash threw a shield up to protect the car. He tried to use his powers to flip over the cars chasing them or at the very least stall the engines, but because they were demons inside and not humans, they countered his abilities with their own.
Damn them!
"My God," Tory gasped. "Do they suck at shooting or what?"
He didn't comment as he caught sight of four sleek black Honda Blackbirds closing in on them. Two of the bikes had double riders and the rider on the back was loaded for bear with KACs 6x35mm PDW that they pulled out from under their jackets.
Ash cursed. "Looks like they're opening for business."
At least that was what he thought until one of the motorcycles opened fire on the cars after them.
Tory scowled at the sight of the bikers helping them. "Friends of yours?"
"Not that I know of." If not for the fact they were using guns, he'd suspect Were-Hunters since many of them used motorcycles to travel by while in human form. But Were-Hunters would be fighting with magic.
The bikes fell into formation, forcing the BMW to drive into the retaining wall. Then they moved on to the other Beamer before they made short work of it, too.
Ash gunned the engine as they approached. At least until he realized they were definitely on his side. He swerved to the shoulder, then slammed on the brakes.
"Wait here," he said as he got out to confront the riders.
They stopped a few feet behind his car. The two who were armed swung off first and turned their backs to him as they scanned the road for more demons. But what caught his attention most was the gold sun symbol emblazoned on the back of their Brazilian leather Stitch suits.
His mother's symbol.
The drivers got off the bikes in unison and approached him like a single trained unit. They stopped before him and stood wide legged until they each brought their right fist to their left shoulder and bowed their heads. Then they sank down to one knee right there in the street.