The minute the immediate threat neutralized, Tom flipped the bastard holding him and Raven slammed her heel into the demon’s foot but he tightened his grip around her neck.
A white blur shot through the air, hitting the demon holding Raven, peeling him off her and leaving her shaking. Naomi’s snarl drowned out the demon’s dying screams. Tom grabbed Raven, pulling her to where we stood. I didn’t wait for the second demon to react, instead, I tried to do exactly what CJ had willed to happen to me and I blinked in shock as the bastard flew into the wall, cracking the drywall and pulling Naomi’s attention away from her dead catch.
“How did you find me?” I asked and the bastard smiled, his gaze dropping to the cut on my leg. The cut made by a hellhound’s teeth.
“You’re marked,” he said and laughed.
I roared with the anger filling my soul, willing the unthinkable.
Blood mist filled the room and I blinked, staggering back a step before dropping to the couch. I didn’t understand what just happened and Steve waved his hand in front of my gaze, pulling my attention away from the spot the demon had been. My ears buzzed and my gaze dropped to the massive tiger nuzzling my lap. Naomi’s tongue ran a warm path across my cheek and she pushed into me again. I scanned her blood soaked fur and looked up at Steve. He wore the same gory mess that the rest of us did.
“What happened?” I asked, looking from Steve to CJ and then beyond to Tom holding Raven in his arms. My gaze transitioned from the people to the actual room and my mouth dropped open. Blood even dripped from the ceiling.
“You made him explode.”
I turned toward CJ, meeting his horrified gaze and then I looked beyond him at the pristine angel behind him.
“I did that to someone once,” he said glancing around the room and then back at me. “It’s pretty fucking messy.”
I let out a bark of a laugh.
“It happens when the juice gets away from you, and I’d say that’s exactly what happened here.”
Instead of dignifying his comment with an answer, I ran my fingers behind Naomi’s ears, glancing up at Tom and Raven. “Where did they ambush you?”
“In the garage, after we got out of the car,” Raven said.
“And you didn’t warn us?” CJ glared at Tom.
“No time,” he signed.
Naomi’s ears flattened and she hissed at the back door.
I turned and stared at the pack of hellhounds keeping watch.
“Fuck,” I whispered and chanced a glance in Steve’s direction.
He bolted for the training room, his fear hanging on the air and agitating the dogs outdoors. Jennifer argued with him until he pulled her into the family room and then she dropped silent, letting him move her beyond Naomi and me to where the rest of their family stood together.
It wasn’t until the air outside shifted and the pack parted that I felt the first threads of fear.
“Do you have salt?” I asked. A moment later, a container of Morton’s salt appeared. I pulled my gaze away from the man standing in the midst of the hellhounds and looked up at Steve. “Pour a line in front of the doors and on the window sills. Now.”
Steve crossed and laid a patch of salt across the floor in front of the sliders and then the garage door. He disappeared and did the same to the front door and the windowsills, coming back with a near empty container that he set on the counter.
I knew it wouldn’t stop Lucifer, but it would stop demons.
The tap on the back window pulled all of our gazes and I stared into Lucifer’s angry glare. He scanned the room and his expression turned to disgust, but it wasn’t his face that had my attention. It was the wings. Lucifer came calling in his deadliest form.
Wings next to me fluttered into view and Ty Ryan chose to appear in full glory.
Lucifer bared his teeth at the angel next to me. “Uriel,” he growled loud enough to hear through the glass and Ty laughed shaking his head.
“Try again, asshole,” he said.
Lucifer focused on Ty, his gaze narrowing
I took the opportunity to meet Steve’s wide gaze. “Go,” I whispered and nodded toward the stairs. “He can’t get in and neither can anymore demons.”
I wasn’t so sure about the hellhounds but they seemed to be held at bay for the time being. I grabbed the salt and lined the bottom stair, creating a buffer to the rest of the family.
Naomi hissed, pacing in the small space.
Lucifer snapped his fingers and Ty’s smile disappeared. Standing next to the devil was a bloodied and beaten man, his haunted eyes matching that of the angel standing next to me.
“Chris,” he whispered stepping forward.
I reached out and grabbed his arm, my fingers gripping solid flesh and not air like I expected. Ty looked down at my grip and then into my eyes. The window to his soul opened and I saw even more than what I gleaned from Steve.
The hellhounds surrounded Chris, toying with him. The first rip of flesh brought forth a soul-crushing scream and Ty struggled against my grip.
“That’s my brother,” he said.
“He’s already dead,” I said.