Nowhere to hide.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here,” a deep voice said.
“Who would steal anything from this shithole?”
Laughter belonging to several people filled the tiny apartment.
“Let’s just get this done. We have demons to string up.”
A wail of terror welled in Gem’s throat. There were five of them, at least. She might feel comfortable going up against one, maybe two. But five trained killers? She was outnumbered, outgunned, and she definitely didn’t have a death wish.
Quiet as a were-rat, she slipped into the closet. The restraining tats circling her neck, wrists, and ankles burned, making themselves known. Inside, her inner demon was clawing to get out.
She prayed it didn’t get its wish.
Tayla put her time alone in Eidolon’s condo to good use. Mainly, she snooped, partly to learn more about him, and partly to keep from thinking about what had happened between them.
Because what had happened had shaken her to the core. She’d needed him. Wanted him. Had let her guard down and couldn’t get it to come back up. He’d exposed every single one of her vulnerabilities, and somehow, she had to find a way to mash them back into the place she’d been keeping them.
Shaking off the thoughts she’d been trying to avoid, she went back to snooping while Mickey followed her, chattering endlessly as he explored every nook and cranny.
Eidolon’s living room, decorated in masculine browns, greens, and leather, revealed nothing except that he had expensive tastes.
A search of the den turned up little more than what was on the surface—wall-to-wall bookshelves filled with medical titles and strangely bound texts, most of which she couldn’t read.
Her stomach growled before she made it to either of the bedrooms, so she detoured to the kitchen. The contents of the fridge were a surprise; not that she’d expected quarts of blood and Tupperware containers full of brains, but the fresh fruits and veggies, lunch meats, and soy milk didn’t match up to her expectations. Then again, mixed in with the ketchup, margarine, and jars of pickles were containers she didn’t recognize, marked in languages she didn’t know.
Probably the brains and blood.
She reached for a package of sliced ham, but a thumping noise drew her up short. She closed the fridge door, snagged a knife from the block on the counter, and slipped quietly into the hallway. Easing along the wall, she followed the sound of raspy breathing, her heart pounding painfully in her chest.
Knife ready, she stepped into the den. Eidolon was on his hands and knees just outside the circle, every inch covered in blood, his head hanging so she couldn’t see his face.
“Oh, Jesus.” She crossed to him in three strides and sank to her knees in front of him. “Hellboy?”
A shudder wracked his body. She wanted to comfort him with a touch, but where? Deep slashes scored the skin of his back, his arms, his legs . . . even the soles of his feet had been laid open like overplumped hot dogs. Bone and muscle erupted from the shredded flesh, and blood dripped to the floor in a gentle patter of grotesque rain.
“I’m taking you to your hospital.” Unsure exactly how she was going to accomplish that, she pushed to her feet because she had to do something.
“No.” His voice was low, gurgling, as if he’d been flogged on the inside as well as the out. “Call . . . Shade.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” she said, but when his only response was to shudder again, she ran to the foyer, where he’d left his cell phone on a shelf.
With trembling fingers, she cycled through his address book to Shade’s cell number, and dialed.
“What’s up, E?” Shade’s voice, deeper than Eidolon’s, echoed in her ear.
“It’s Tayla. Look—”
“Where is he? What did you do to him?”
She lowered her voice and drifted farther away from the den. “I didn’t do anything to him. But he’s hurt. We’re in his condo . . . he went through that portal, and when he got back . . .” He’d looked like he went through a meat grinder. “He’s messed up. Bad.”
“Shit.” The sound of something breaking on the other end of the line was loud enough to make her jerk the phone away from her ear. “Turn up the heat as far as it’ll go. He’s probably in shock, but you can’t put a blanket on him because it’ll wick the blood out of his wounds. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He hung up, leaving her with the distinct impression that this had happened before. Sickened by the thought, she located the thermostat, set it for eighty-five degrees. As the hum of the heater filled the apartment, she hurried back to the den.