He was easily one of the most handsome men that I’d ever seen, a total Adonis. But, his eyes stopped me cold. They were the palest blue, almost white, so that the pupil looked particularly black. Even after Jez’s and my own, those were easily the most eerily inhuman eyes that I’d ever seen.
I don’t know if I was expecting him to speak, maybe introduce himself. But, when his first reaction was to backhand me off my feet, I knew that this fight was not off to a good start. My back slammed into the mirrored wall, which rained a shower of shards around me. Instinct placed my arms over my head. I crouched on my knees, motionless, until the glass stopped falling. I heard Kale move rather than saw him. With a growl, their bodies collided as I slowly got to my feet.
Shaking the glass out of my hair, I winced as I plucked one stray shard from the back of my hand, the only one that had impaled me. Lucky. The small cut would heal by morning. Of course, I had to live to see the morning, first.
Kale had launched a physical attack on the demon. Wrong move. The demon trapped him inside an energy circle that glowed with a red haze. My breath sucked in with an audible hiss. The demon didn’t even look at me when he released a bolt of power.
If my reaction time were any slower, I would have died in that moment. I threw my hands up and pushed back right in time to meet the blast with my own energy. Hmm, and what appeared to be a little of Arys’s energy, as well. My blue and yellow psi ball was tiny in comparison to what the demon had thrown, but it was enough to offset the impact and defer it from me.
Both the demon’s power and my own crashed into one of the Roman statues near the hot tub. It burst into dust. Before he could throw another one, I surrounded myself in a protection circle. Since I used solely my own energy, that barrier wouldn’t last long.
The demon grinned then, with his perfect teeth. He dismissed me and turned to Kale with a sneer. “Now look at what you’ve done.” He pointed one long finger to Greg, who still writhed on the floor with his neck at a hideous angle. “He’s no good to me like that. Damned pain in the ass vampires.”
I watched in stunned silence. As the demon walked softly over to Greg, he carefully stepped around the glass on the carpet. Before I could even guess what he intended, he raised the heel of a fine Italian boot and brought it down on Greg’s skull with a shattering blow.
A small scream escaped me, and the woman in the chair let loose with a loud, long wail. I turned my eyes from the gore on the floor and looked instead to Kale, who attempted a reassuring expression despite his prison of evil, demonic energy.
“Now.” The demon whirled once again to face Kale. “Would you like a chance to explain why you’re interfering with my little business venture, or shall I just gut you now and get it over with?” He made a show of straightening the cuffs of his Italian suit.
“Look, I can explain. We were acting on the assumption that he was running this little show. That is all.” Kale was back peddling fast now, which had me scared. We were out of our league here.
“Is that so?” The demon walked around the energy cage so that Kale had to turn in order to keep an eye on him. “Now, who do you suppose is going to take his position, vampire? You?”
Things were very quickly going from bad to worse. Sweat began to trickle down my back, and I focused to maintain my circle as I tried to think. If only room service would show up right now, I thought. Dammit.
Kale stammered but didn’t speak. He knew as well as I did that a demon will literalize your words. Too easily, they could manipulate your words and effectively use them against you.
“You’ve carelessly allowed for a witness.” At his words, all three of us looked at the sobbing woman in the chair. “She must be eliminated. Do it, vampire.”
With a snap of his fingers the demon’s circle dropped. Free, Kale stood there uncertainly. The demon waited, fully expecting him to do what he was told. When Kale didn’t budge, the demon stomped his foot impatiently.
Oh God, I prayed. Please get us out of this one. The look on Kale’s face said clearly that he didn’t want to kill an innocent victim. He hadn’t lived that way in hundreds of years.
“What are you waiting for? Bleed the bitch or consider kissing all three of your asses’ goodbye.” The demon spoke very matter of fact with a tone that held no room for argument.
“No.” Kale spoke so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.
The tension in the hotel room grew to the point of unbearable, as the demon stared into him, clearly unaccustomed to the word, “no.” I took a deep, shaky breath. We were so dead.
Instead of replying to Kale like I expected, the demon strode silently to the crying woman. As he raised his hands, I realized what he was about to do.
“No!” I cried out. But, it was too late. He snapped her neck with the ease of breaking a dry twig in half.
“Save your enthusiasm, wolf. There is always room in hell for more hounds.” He winked, and my guts shriveled in response.