Chapter 12
TWELVE
Of course, I have flaws,
but my boobs usually distract people from them.
—T-shirt
His bravery was staggering. Amber had never been more in love in her life. There simply weren’t many men in the world who would risk facing a demon just to save a few people. A few people he did not know and would never meet.
He wrapped a hand around the back of her head and pulled her close, his mouth warm at her ear as he whispered, “Run.”
She’d used the kiss as a distraction and grabbed some of the salt from his pocket. She put it into her jacket and nodded. “Sarah, come on.”
“There’s a back door,” she said, suddenly willing to cooperate if it meant saving her sociopathic ass.
“Hawaii,” Amber said since he was the only one left in the Tavern. “Time to go.”
He’d been paying attention. He folded the paper and followed them without question.
Sarah led them through the kitchen and toward the back, but Amber stopped. “You guys run. Hawaii?—”
“Steve.”
“Steve, whatever you do, don’t follow Sarah.”
“You got it.” He hurried out the back exit, his flip-flops slapping the wood floor. Sun streamed in when he opened the door. Little man could run.
She turned to Sarah. “Go.”
“I thought…you have to protect me.”
“The only person who can protect you is in the dining area, and I’m not leaving him.”
Sarah grabbed a knife. “Yes, you are.”
“Really?” Amber asked. Sociopaths sucked.
When a thundering bang shook the building, Sarah gasped, her eyes wide with fear.
The cook stopped cleaning up and looked around.
“You need to leave,” Amber said to him.
Dora appeared, pointing toward the front. “It’s here, Madre de Dios .”
The cook looked around. “What the hell?”
“You need to leave,” Amber repeated.
“Come on, Sarah,” he said when another loud crash sounded. This time, chairs had been upended. The demon was not happy, and Quentin was in there with it. Alone.
Amber took the opportunity to run to the swinging door between the dining area and the kitchen. She looked out the small window. The room looked as if a tornado had hit it, and Quentin stood there waiting as he basically watched the demon throw a temper tantrum.
Then he was hit. He crashed through the door, taking her with him. They landed in a heap by the refrigeration units. The demon came barreling through the double doors, clearly hurt. Even angrier. Quentin had gotten it with the salt again.
Sarah stood staring at the creature. It was solid, so she got a very good view of what she had summoned. She couldn’t move. Fear had frozen her to the spot. She only looked up at it, her jaw hanging open.
Amber and Quentin scrambled to their feet as the demon spotted its summoner.
“I thought I told you to run,” Quentin said over his shoulder. He took the lead and kept himself between Amber and the demon.
“I did run. Just not very far.” Amber checked the area. The cook was gone, thank God.
The demon took a step closer to Sarah, its claw scraping on the wood floor. But with each step, the floor faded away, and another dimension appeared beneath its feet. The other dimension spread, its energy building and twisting around them until they were standing in the funnel of a tornado.
“Stay behind me!” Quentin yelled, but Amber pushed past him as the demon bore down on Sarah.
“She didn’t know you were real!” she said to it, hoping to reason with it.
It spared her a quick glance, but before Amber could process what was happening, it pounced on Sarah and swallowed her whole.
Amber gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth as the demon looked at her and uttered in a guttural, gravelly voice, “She does now.”
The demon swung. Its claw caught Quentin across the chest, but Quentin cut its talon with the dagger. The demon let loose an unearthly screech. It bought them some time.
As Quentin doubled over, blood soaking his T-shirt alarmingly fast, Amber covered him with her body, reached into her pocket, and released salt into the wind.
The entity screamed, and the dimension fell away, but it wouldn’t stop the demon for long. She had to get Quentin out of there. The demon had done what it set out to do. It’d killed the summoner. Surely, it would just leave. Instead, it turned toward them, its eyes glistening as its tongue slithered out.
“No, goddammit,” Quentin said, almost to himself. He was talking to Rune. Arguing with him.
And Amber realized that Rune was likely trying to talk Quentin into releasing them to the demon. To feed it. Rune knew the demon would kill Quentin to get to them.
Just then, someone shouted from behind it. “Hey!”
The demon turned, and they all saw Kyle standing there, pointing his pen at it.
“Get away from them!”
It was the opening Quentin had been waiting for. He vaulted over Amber, landed on the demon’s head, and used all of his weight to flip it onto its back.
They crushed the prep station and took out half the ceiling in the process. Sheetrock and paint snowed down on them as Quentin jumped on top of the demon and pressed a knee into its throat. But the demon was too strong. With one swipe, it could take Quentin out for good.
Amber reacted without thought. She scrambled to the demon and straightened onto her knees over its head.
It couldn’t help it. It spared her a glance.
It was all she needed. She dove . She let the world fall away around them and dove into its mind, paralyzing it.
“Tra-vel-er,” it croaked, completely helpless. “What are you doing?”
Quentin answered for her. “The compass or the knife?”
She could see in her periphery that he held the dagger perpendicular to the demon’s heart with one hand, and the compass in the other, but he was fading fast. Blood flowed from him in rivers. It pooled onto the demon’s chest, and Amber almost lost her concentration.
“The compass or the knife?” he repeated, his eyes as black as a moonless night.
Amber bounced back and kept it paralyzed as she plundered its memories. Someone, it didn’t know who, had figured out how to summon it. It didn’t want to leave the plane until it found out who, but it would have little choice now.
Quentin sank the knife into its chest just a fraction of an inch, and it screamed again, but only in its mind. Amber had paralyzed its vocal cords. It was so hungry. It just wanted to eat.
“ Compass, ” it said to her with its mind.
“ I am going to release you. If you do anything other than go into the compass, you will die. Painfully. I will see to it myself. ”
“ Traveler, ” it said almost lovingly.
She released it, and it dematerialized just as Quentin opened the compass. He turned the face, and a burst of light exploded from it. He held it steady and waited. Even if the demon had changed its mind, the compass would’ve captured him, and she realized it was another dimension. With four jewels on it, it could actually be four dimensions, probably each inescapable. Hopefully, once there, the demon could no longer be summoned onto this plane.
They would have to figure out who’d started it all before he or she found another demon to do their bidding.
When the blinding light dissipated, Quentin closed the compass and sank to his knees. Amber caught him just in time for them both to faceplant on the floor.