The next impact was the loudest, and my heart leapt. Maybe the fight was over. The two shapes parted, but while the dark one rose, the light one was falling with alarming speed toward the ground. Gavin!
The darker shape suddenly swung around and sped in our direction. I slammed back against the outside of the dome, pulling Hunter with me. I wished the doorway back inside was closer, but I didn’t want to risk running toward it in case I could somehow be lifted off and carried away—maybe when I was airborne off the protective cathedral for just the slightest second in between steps . . .
“It’s coming straight at us!” Hunter screamed.
The demon hurtled toward us in a streak of dark smoke, like a heat-seeking missile, at a terrible speed. Maybe the demon isn’t going to try and take us, I thought. Maybe he’s going to smash into us at a million miles an hour and kill us that way.
I closed my eyes and braced for impact. The high-pitched screaming soon filled my ears. I spread myself as flat against the stone wall as I could, wishing I could liquefy and slip into the cracks toward safety.
A whoosh of air fluttered past my cheeks, and then . . . nothing.
I opened my eyes a tiny bit and saw that the demon was hovering an inch from my face. He wasn’t technically touching me, but he was as close as he could possibly be.
In total shock, I opened my eyes all the way, and found myself staring straight into his. His eyes were dark, almost black, but long lashes curled around them, making them unexpectedly beautiful. He had a handsome human face with sandy, reddish hair. He grinned at me—wickedly, and yet somehow flirtatiously. The smile of a confident guy who could get anything he wanted and liked what he saw. He inhaled deeply, sucking in the scent of me, like a lion getting his first taste of an upcoming dinner via the wind. The rest of his body looked human as well, except for the tail flicking between his legs, his large batlike wings—thin, tissue-y, and covered in veins—and his scaly red claws. He was wearing all black, from the pants to the shirt over his muscular torso, and I wondered if his entire body was covered in scales.
I heard a soft groan and saw that the cigarette guy was slung over the demon’s right elbow like an unstuffed teddy bear. The demon looked down and, as if remembering the boy was only a useless decoy, opened his arm. The guy fell stomach-first onto the railing and lay suspended there, unconscious, his feet dangling toward the roof.
The demon swung back to me with a blast of hot wind. I could taste his breath in my mouth. He licked the corner of his lip with the forked tip of his tongue, slowly, disgustingly. I clenched my lips closed, trying not to vomit.
I saw the demon’s head contorting to the side before I saw why. Even though it happened at light speed, almost too fast to see, for me it played out in slow motion: Gavin’s foot flying in from the left, smashing into the demon’s face, knocking the demon a hundred feet away; Gavin following with fists and kicks and airborne fighting maneuvers that looked more like a graceful acrobatic dance than a deadly attack. But it was a deadly attack, for after Gavin landed a ferocious punch on the demon’s neck, the creature’s wings stopped flapping, and it fell straight down like a rock.
As soon as the demon’s body hit the cathedral’s roof, it began sizzling, bubbling, and then melting until it disappeared, leaving nothing but a black smudge in its place. I noted all the other black marks on the cathedral’s surface, marks I’d thought were signs of pollution and time, and wondered if they were also demon residue.
I couldn’t stop my body from shaking. Even my teeth chattered as I physically reacted to the supernatural carnage. Gavin appeared and hovered in front of me, his gorgeous white feather wings a welcome, calming sight. He cupped my face in his hands and looked deeply into my eyes.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he said. “I promise you will come to no harm as long as I have breath. Do you believe me, Maren?” I nodded. He smiled. “You have to say it.”
“I . . . I believe you,” I stuttered.
“Good.” He drew his fingertips from my cheeks, picked the cigarette guy off the rail, and threw him over his shoulder. “I’ve got to get this chap back to his friend, but I’ll be back in a flash, okay?”
I nodded again, and he shot off toward the bridge. I turned to Hunter. “Are you all right?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she hit the ground.
CHAPTER 25
Hunter had passed out. Miraculously, she didn’t hit her head on the way down.
In less than five seconds, Gavin was back, his wings tucked in before his foot touched the ledge. He checked Hunter’s pulse, made sure she was breathing, and then lifted her up into his powerful arms. I followed as he carried her back inside like a baby.
I was a little jealous to watch him carry another girl, but I took solace in the fact that it wasn’t my heartbeat that had caused the entire attack. It wasn’t Hunter’s fault, of course, but I could see how she got overwhelmed.
By the time we stepped back down on the cathedral floor, Hunter was awake. Gavin set her down on a nearby chair.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” was all she could say. She rocked back and forth a bit, changing her chant. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”
“Of course you can, Hunter,” Gavin said. “You’ll be fine. You’re strong.”
“No, I’m not,” she said, looking at him with big, tear-filled eyes. “I’m not. I pretend to be, but really I’m not.”
He knelt down and took her hand. “I know you’re scared, Hunter, but we’re going to get you out of here.” I wondered why I wasn’t freaking out as well, especially considering what I’d just come face-to-face with. Somehow, Gavin made everything seem all right.
“Let’s go get you something to drink,” he continued. “I think we all need a little break right now.” He led us to the steps that curled down to the crypt and the café.
The café was much nicer than I expected—a small, upscale bistro with warm, terracotta tiles on the floor and cheery white paint on the walls. The arched ceilings were filled with tiny spotlights that made you forget you were actually underground.
As the three of us ate, we talked about our next steps. I told Hunter about the sickness in Aviemore, about Jo and the other kids being hospitalized, and how we had to hurry to get the antidote from Magnificat.
Gavin still thought the safest way to Magnificat was the quickest way, which meant going in a straight line instead of meandering around the city in a cab or a subway. We’d been warned about the subway, and we’d already found out how the cab thing would go.
“I get that crossing the Thames is the fastest way,” Hunter was saying, now back to her regular color and energy level after some nourishment. “But we can’t get over that pedestrian bridge. It’s impossible.”