“We’re just leaving him here like that?” I looked back at the guy, lying on his side, groaning with pain. “It seems a little inhumane.”
“That guy tried to kill you, Grace.” He flipped open his phone. “Besides, he isn’t human. That there is what you call a demon.”
At first I thought he was being metaphorical, but then his meaning clicked. “A demon? A living, breathing, bona fide demon?”
“What? Don’t tell me you haven’t seen one before.”
I shrugged. “Well, not really. I met one at a party once. She did this little mind-control trick with her eyes.”
“Ah, an Akh. They’re a terrible sort.” He clucked his tongue. “This one here is a Gelal. They prey on young women. That girl would have gone through all sorts of hell if we hadn’t shown up.”
“How can you tell?” I asked. The guy still seemed like a person to me. I was itching to go over and take off his mask to see what he really looked liked underneath.
“The smell.” Talbot crinkled his nose. “You really are a rookie, aren’t you? I bet you haven’t even figured out how to track someone yet.”
I looked down at the ground. The masked demon let out a loud, angry groan.
“We better go,” Talbot said. “I’m just hoping the police get here before he comes to enough to break free.”
Talbot hit a button on his phone and put it to his ear.
“You have 911 on speed dial?”
“I told you I make a lot of deliveries.”
I followed him out of the alley. “Wait, you mean you do this a lot?”
But Talbot didn’t respond. He was too busy telling the operator on the other end of the line that a young woman had been attacked near Tidwell Library and that they’d find the perpetrator behind a Dumpster near Tidwell and Vine. He hung up before they could ask him any questions.
“You still got the keys?”
“Um, yeah, I hope.” I patted down my pockets and found the keys.
Talbot unlocked the passenger’s-side door and held it open for me. Sometime between Talbot’s shutting my door and his climbing in through the driver’s side, the shock of everything that had happened finally hit me. My hands shook so hard I could barely fasten my seat belt.
“Are you okay?” Talbot asked. “You did awesome back there. Just like I knew you would.”
“But how … how did you know that I could even do anything? How did you know what I am?” I’d already asked how he’d known I was an Urbat earlier, but he’d insisted on taking care of the gunman before we talked about it. But now I wanted answers.
“Your necklace.” Talbot reached over and touched the cracked moonstone pendant that hung from my neck. “Kind of a dead giveaway, if you think about it.” He brushed one of my curls against my neck with his fingers as he pulled his hand away. “And I saw you fight back at The Depot. Most girls can’t pull off a roundhouse kick like that on a guy that big unless she’s packing some serious paranormal heat.” He crinkled his nose again. “Plus, you kinda smell, too.”
“What?” I sniffed both my arms. I smelled perfectly normal to me—okay, kind of sweaty from fighting, but not at all like those guys in that alley.
Talbot laughed, his cheeks dimpling with his smile.
“You jerk!” I punched him playfully in the arm.
He grabbed my hand. “Hey, watch it, kid. You’ve got a mean right hook.”
Talbot’s hand, wrapped around my fist, seemed huge by comparison. I could see the veins stretching along his tendons. He squeezed my fingers, and a pulse of tingling energy ran up my arm and down my spine. It felt like the connection that had passed between Daniel and me when we first held hands in the Garden of Angels. The tingling sensation turned to a shudder. I tugged my hand out of Talbot’s grasp. It wasn’t right to feel that kind of energy with anyone other than Daniel.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest. Talbot shifted his gaze away from my face. He coughed slightly and started the van. We pulled away from the library. After a moment, I asked the question that had been nagging at the back of my mind.