The Obhirrat shuffled into the living room, its pale snout sniffing the air. The foot-long, razor claws on one hand clacked together in a spine-tingling, steady beat. Beneath its transparent skin, maggots writhed, the grind of squirming bodies so nauseating that few could look upon the creature for more than a few seconds, but Eidolon steadied his gaze even as he swallowed bile.
Slowly, casually, he pushed off Tayla. He didn’t help her up; any show of weakness would set off the creature. Tayla must have known, came to her feet smoothly and moved with deliberate arrogance as she squared her stance next to him.
As if they were a team.
Given the situation, he wasn’t about to complain or analyze.
“I . . . hunger . . .” The Obhirrat’s snakelike tongue slipped between long teeth, tasting the air.
“I destroyed the injured vampire you trailed,” Eidolon said, focusing on the beady red eyes that kept shifting to Tayla, “so there is nothing for you here.”
The creature’s claws clicked faster. The maggots beneath its skin writhed anew and even the air seemed to shimmer with its agitation. “She was mine . . .”
Eidolon stepped forward, and Tayla moved with him, a show of unity and power, but the Obhirrat’s burning concentration on her made him wish she’d stayed back. “Tell me where you picked up her scent.”
“Why should I help the one who stole my meal?”
The knowledge that the creature would have started feasting on Nancy’s flesh while she was still alive set Eidolon on fire.
“Ever met an Aegis slayer?” he said with a deadly calm he didn’t feel, and the Obhirrat hissed, the hunger in its eyes replaced by alarm. “I’m a doctor, you ugly fuck, and I can tell her exactly how to take you apart so your little maggots can’t do a damned thing.”
It wasn’t true, but the creatures were big on size, small on brains, and Eidolon had always been a good liar. Cutting into an Obhirrat released its primary means of defense, the maggots, which made them one of the three species that would never be treated at UG.
“Crossroadsss . . . ssssweeeeet blood.”
Without taking his eyes off the creature, Eidolon inclined his head at Tayla in a silent message. She had warrior instincts, read him like a battle plan, and immediately edged around the Obhirrat to wait at the kitchen entrance. Eidolon palmed the cleaver he’d parked in the wall, skirted the beast, and then they both slipped into the dank passage. For an instant, he regretted not finding shoes for her, but she padded unimpeded down the tunnel. If the sharp stones beneath her feet bothered her, she didn’t show it. The darkness posed no problem for Eidolon, and Tayla seemed to have little difficulty, as well.
The crude passage opened up into a wide brick tunnel. Tayla made no sound as they followed the blood trail, though he suspected that she’d manage the same silence in boots. Even injured, she moved with a deadly, powerful grace that he admired when she wasn’t looking. Which was often, since her attention focused on their surroundings, her sharp gaze taking everything in, cataloging, planning.
“What did you get us into, Hellboy?” she whispered.
“Isn’t this what you do for a living? Skulk around in sewers to find demons?”
“I don’t skulk, and I’ve certainly never done it with a demon.”
Oh, you did it with a demon, and did it well . . .
Abruptly, his skin grew warm, which cracked him up in a this-is-pathetic way. He’d always prided himself on being more civilized than his brothers, but so much for that; he was becoming aroused in a damned sewer.
Cursing, more at himself than at her, he caught her arm and dragged her around. “Then why? You could have avoided all of this. You could have left me alone with the Obhirrat and escaped through Nancy’s front door.”
Her gaze went steely, a hard challenge. “You accused The Aegis of torturing the vampire. I’m going to prove it wasn’t my people.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired of being accused of things I didn’t do.”
He wanted to ask more, but instead, he released her. “For your sake, I hope you’re right.”
“Is that a threat?”
Truthfully, he wasn’t sure. And he was rarely unsure about anything. This human was a menace to everything that made him a demon. “Take it as you will.”
She muttered something about hating demons and started moving again. The trail ended at a crossroads in the tunnel. Someone must have carried Nancy to the junction, then left her to the carrion-eaters like the Obhirrat. There were four possible directions from which the person had come, because the fifth wasn’t a possibility.
The Harrowgate.
One of hundreds in New York City alone, it shimmered across the width of the north tunnel like a gossamer curtain, visible only to demons. Humans would pass harmlessly through it and continue down the tunnel.
“What is that?” Tayla asked, staring at the gate.
He scented the air for danger, detected nothing but the usual rancid currents of sewer rot. Tayla waited, her thick hair falling in soft, feminine waves around her shoulders, at odds with the hard, alert stance she’d taken.
“What do you see?” he asked.