“My aunt?” I sighed and shrugged. “I’ve been a few times. But it’s not her. I mean, she’s not there, and it feels really weird sitting in a room visiting the empty shell. It’s like visiting a chair.” I toyed with a limp fry, dragging it through the ketchup. “But I know it’s expected of me, so I go every now and then, enough to keep people from saying I’m a lousy niece.”
He surprised me then by reaching across the table and gripping my hand. I looked down at his hand on mine and then up at him. “Not everyone’s against you,” he said. “Give it time. Like you said, stuff blows over.”
I forced a smile. “I know. It’s cool.” A busboy entered through the back door, and I had to breathe shallowly as the smell of rotting garbage from the alley wafted in with him. “Okay, I’m officially blaming you for choosing this place.”
“It’s pretty vile,” Ryan agreed.
I looked up as the busboy came over to the table, and I pushed the barely eaten burger away from me. “You can take that,” I said, gesturing to the plate. “I’m finished.”
The busboy scooped up the plate but nearly dropped it again as a din of barking and snarling erupted from beyond the back door.
The waitress looked up from her lethargic table-wiping. “Tommy, go chase those damn dogs away. I told you to stop feeding them scraps.”
Tommy dumped my plate into a plastic bin, then set the bin on a table near our booth, casting a black glare at the oblivious waitress as he slumped out the back door.
“Next time you can take me to someplace really classy,” I murmured to Ryan. “Like maybe the fried-chicken stand at the gas station.”
Ryan laughed and opened his mouth to respond, but a sudden nauseating roil of potency swept past us, momentarily robbing us both of breath before it was gone, leaving what felt like a taint of sewage in the arcane. “What the fuck was that?” Ryan gasped, gripping the edge of the table.
“The parking lot … by your office,” I managed to say, fighting back the taste of bile. “Feels the same.” A heartbeat later, a shrill scream of pain and terror came from the alley.
“That’s the kid,” Ryan said, already out of the booth and moving to the door. I wasn’t as fast but managed to stumble after him, only a few steps behind. It was hard to move quickly when you were trying hard not to throw up. Obviously Ryan hadn’t felt that awful surge of yuck as intensely as I had.
Ryan yanked the door open—not bursting through like an idiot but taking an instant to assess the situation in the back alley.
Not that it made a difference. In the split second that it took Ryan to finish pulling the door open, a sleek black shape hurtled through the door, striking Ryan square in the chest and knocking him flat. I caught a flash of teeth and claws as Ryan twisted as he landed, throwing off the … dog? That was the closest analogy I could come up with in those rushed seconds. Caninelike head and snout, lots of teeth, four legs, but with a slick, reptilian way of moving.
I yanked my gun from its holster as the thing launched itself at Ryan again. But Ryan reacted with a speed that impressed me, getting his legs up in time to catch the creature in the chest, shoving it away.
“Shoot it!” he yelled over the shrieking of the waitress. I didn’t need the encouragement. I squeezed off three quick rounds, the sound of the shots slamming through the restaurant, setting my ears ringing. The dog-thing jerked and shrieked as at least two of the shots found their mark, but a heartbeat later it was back on its feet, snarling at the two of us. Now I could get a better look at it, but it didn’t help. It was still vaguely doglike and really fucking scary-looking.
Ryan was breathing hard. “Did you hit it?”
“Yes! Shoot it some more!”
We both lifted our guns and started shooting, but this time the demon dog was ready, twisting to evade with unnatural speed that allowed only a few of the rounds to find their mark.
“Sonofabitch! Is it a demon?” Ryan demanded, as it appeared to shake off the effects of being shot as easily as shaking off a mosquito bite.
“Not one of the kinds I know,” I shouted, probably louder than necessary, but my ears were ringing from the shooting. “But it’s definitely other-planar.” I could see the telltale light instead of blood streaming from the wounds. I tried to remember how many rounds I’d fired. I didn’t have a spare magazine on me. I’d been going to lunch, damn it!