He nuzzled my neck. “Stop making me chase you.”
“What?” I elbowed him, jerking free. “This isn’t the time.”
“Completely and utterly slain.”
I whirled around. Ro gazed at me moonily. “Oh fuck. Rohan.”
“Yeah, sweetheart?” He tried to pull me into his arms once more, but I danced out of reach.
His blades, his skin–he’d come into contact with the spawn. The demon had to be the basis of Sweet Tooth and Ro was under its influence. And Rohan had touched me. Was it transferable? I stepped farther away. “The oshk. You touched it.”
“Only wanna touch you,” he said. “Be with you. You’re my light.”
Something heavy upstairs hit the floor with a reverberating thud.
I cast an anxious glance at the ceiling. Mistake. In the spilt second of taking my eyes off Ro, he’d caught me again.
Sweet Tooth made people go fucking bonkers. I couldn’t leave Ro alone if he might hurt himself.
“We need to be together, baby.” His hold on me tightened. Ro’s eye were tinged with the same mania I’d seen in Naomi’s back at the club. I didn’t feel any different though, so I didn’t think second-hand oshk was a thing.
The demon was tearing upstairs apart and howling. Rohan wasn’t phased by it.
I struggled to free myself without zapping him, but I couldn’t. The boyfriend who’d cradled me so tenderly last night was gone.
Glass shattered upstairs.
“Nava?” Rohan’s smile was so sweet. I almost fell for it until I saw the off-kilter glint in his eyes.
Oh, Snowflake. I bit my lip. “Sorry, babe. Demon first, creeper stalker boyfriend second.” I gave him a vicious electric shock. His face crumpled in bewildered hurt. I tore free and ran up the stairs, bolting the basement door from my side.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Goddamn addictive personalities. Of all the times to be proven right. There were levels of cold hard action I was fine with; disempowering Ro wasn’t one of them. I couldn’t get his betrayed look out of my head so I drew it in to myself, letting it fuel me.
The oshk waddled into the kitchen, its tiny head bowed in defeat and its body covered in streaks of red rust. The marks corresponded to where Ro had slashed it. Iron poisoning.
The demon jerked at the sight of me and tried to portal out, but it had been injured enough that it couldn’t go anywhere. It ballooned up, expanding to take over most of the kitchen real estate, quivering more violently the larger it got.
I dove past it, hitting the living room floor in a sloppy roll, and flattening myself against the wall. Liquid splatted against the walls and floor in the kitchen like a hard rain storm but I was safe in the other room. Gag-inducing cotton candy stank overrode the natural mustiness of the house.
The basement door rattled, Rohan yelling for me.
I unleashed a volley of strikes at the oshk. The demon shrank back to its normal, admittedly still massive size, shooting more trippy liquid. It made a hell of a fire hose.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Rohan threw himself against the door. I prayed it held with Old Faithful geysering in there. If Ro got loose and came after me, I couldn’t take both him and the demon on.
Didn’t matter how much I peppered the demon with strikes, methodically covering every inch of it, I couldn’t find the kill spot. That meant that, as with certain other demons, the kill spot was inside it somewhere. I’d have to open it up.
I regretted not having more weapons training. My magic generally served me well, but right about now, it would have been handy having some expertise with something sharp and iron to cut the fucker up. I’d gotten complacent relying on Ro, never thinking he’d be part of my problem. Though this had been an ambush, so I wouldn’t have known to bring a long-range weapon with me.
Rubbing the sweat from my eyes with the inside of an elbow, I raised my arms above my head to dissipate the lactic acid burn in my side, my breaths coming in harsh pants. I was almost tapped out. I tried to shut out Ro’s increasingly more furious screams and pounding. Tried to shut out how Jake had literally killed himself at this point of the drug trip attempting to get his object of desire.
Repeating “sorry,” I called up all the magic I had left into a tight, hard knot.
It wasn’t going to be enough.
The basement door splintered. “Nava!” Ro roared.
Adrenaline flooded my system. My skin turned blue, lightning bolts sliding over my skin.
This isn’t my boyfriend. It’s the drug.
“Stay away from her,” Ro growled.
My blood ran cold. With Ro lost to this addictive drive to get to me, he was in no headspace to take on the demon. I jumped into the doorway humming and crackling with magic. “Yo!” I yelled, turning the oshk’s attention away from Rohan.
I blew the demon to smithereens.
Ever seen those old Bugs Bunny cartoons where the character’s eyes bugged out of their head, then snapped back into place? It was like that, but full-body. For one second, the oshk splintered into tiny pieces. It wasn’t all nice smooth blob either. There were bits of undigested flesh, bone fragments and one fist-sized piece that was beating–its black lumpy heart. They hung there for one impossible moment, then snapped back together.
I stumbled back. At the same moment that I’d blown it up, Ro had slashed out at the demon to get it out of the way and when the demon reformed, Ro’s arm was stuck in the middle of it, buried up to his shoulder, his blade just peeking out.
The oshk and I both froze. Rohan didn’t even blink. He jerked his arm upward to free it, slicing through the oshk’s heart from the inside.
The demon shriveled in on itself and disappeared, dead.
Ro bestowed this beautiful smile on me like he’d found a treasure. “I saved you.”
Say what? “Rohan, listen to me. The oshk produces Sweet Tooth.”
“That’s nice.” He grinned and crooked a finger at me. “Stop being coy and come here.”
I tapped my knuckles together anxiously. Could I wait out the effects? He hadn’t actually been hit with the secretion, just touched the demon’s flesh. Though maybe it was a secretion coating that gave the oshk’s skin its oily iridescence?
His expression shot from glorious sun to the most thunderous of storms when I failed to answer. “Nava.”
Damn it.
Using a roundhouse punch for more force, I clocked Rohan in the jaw. His head snapped sideways and he went down for the count. I crouched down to check his pulse, then assuring myself he was going to be fine, pressed a kiss to his forehead.
I sat down on the floor next to him and waited it out. The house was silent save for the gurgle of the water intake for the furnace. Yay, I’d killed the oshk and stopped any more Sweet Tooth from hitting the streets. But at what cost? I checked Ro’s breathing again, then pulled my knees into my chest, rested my head on top, and kept watch.
The soft dusty rose of dawn tinted the sky.
“Nava?”