Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
“ W hat?” Disbelief rippled through him as he forced himself to keep the protection barrier up against the damned demon. “Now?”
This was not possible. She couldn’t be having the baby right now.
She stepped backward toward the door and gulped with a cry, holding her belly.
Moloch was just a few feet ahead and all that was preventing him from swooping them with his monstrous claws was Cass’s feeble shield. He had no idea how long he could hold it. But he knew one thing, magic was not infinite.
He scooped her to his side, helpless as she breathed through her pain.
“I’m having contractions,” she informed him with a tense expression. “They’re close.”
“I’ll get you out of here.” Could he trap the monster inside and bring the building down on him? But how? That was Mom’s magnitude of magic. Nothing he knew how to do.
He took his gaze from the monster to glance at Tilly. Her cheeks were bruised from the tape, her tour sweatshirt bloody. She still had bits of twine on her wrists. He had to save her. Save their baby.
He stared back up at Moloch who was trying to kick his way through Cass’s magical barrier, his heavy cloven feet piercing farther with each strike.
“Step back.” He held one arm in front of her to protect her. “We need to head outside.”
After they retreated past the entrance, his shield barely holding back the devil growling and spitting fury, Tilly shut the church’s doors. Cass put his whole back against them, hoping the thick wood would hold long enough for her to escape.
The wind had picked up and the rain pummeled down on them.
There was no way he could go alone against a hell demon and survive, but he could buy her time.
Hefty blows from the other side of the door reverberated through his body as he gazed upon Tilly’s striking face, now blotchy from the effort of the impending delivery. And he knew for sure that he loved her more than anything. More than his own life itself.
His heart broke that he was once again failing her. He’d promised he’d be there for their child’s birth. But she’d have to fight that battle alone.
“Get out,” he insisted. “Run. Find help.”
He was torn. He could carry her up right now at vampire speed. But he could not let this demon rampage the city. He had never set out to save anyone like his brothers did but here he was. Trying to be a hero.
At least to her.
Another heavy thump at the doors shook him and he turned around to press both palms on the carved wood.
“Vahrasth hyenthx.” He called out the protection spell against evil again to strengthen his hold, the strain of the magic coursing through him causing his entire body to hurt.
“Cass, I can’t leave you.” She was right beside him, bent over herself again and starting the short, fast breathing of childbirth.
“Please, Tilly. Save our baby.” He wouldn’t be able to hold the demon inside the church for much longer.
“You’ll die.” Her face was wrought with pain and sorrow.
“It takes a lot to kill me,” he insisted with a half-smile, trying to convince her to leave.
“He’s here. Isn’t he?” a strange voice suddenly echoed beside him.
Tilly’s eyes widened in shock, and Cass spun his head around.
He blinked at an old-fashioned man in small round glasses standing right beside him. The gentleman seemed completely relaxed while Cass was bucking his arms against another of the demon’s blows. This time Moloch’s kick managed to crack the bottom of the door.
“Hold tight, son,” the man urged.
Son? What the hell. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Ambrus?” Tilly said, fear and awe in her voice.
“Sorry, son.”
The man in the blood-red waistcoat and dark cravat just couldn’t be his long-lost birth father.
“We’ll do the introductions later. I must contain my brother.”
“That monster’s your brother?” Cass had no time to process the disbelief of the startling encounter with his progenitor.
“Moloch. Prince of Hell. Overseer of the Dominion of Tears. My younger sibling.” Ambrus pointed his raven-pommeled cane at the door and the whole surface slowly turned to steel, from the top all the way to the bottom, one metal layer dribbling down after the other like a rain of shiny silver.
“You’re a prince of hell?” Cass asked, still astonished. He released his hold on the doors but maintained his shield with one palm.
“One of them.” Ambrus scrutinized him with dark-brown eyes, not unlike Cass’s own.
Cass had no time to explore any feeling of kinship before Tilly grabbed his arm with a yelp.
“Oh god,” she whimpered.
“Take her far from here,” Ambrus ordered.
“I need to lay down,” Tilly sobbed. “It’s happening. I’m giving birth, right now!”
He knew in an instant where his place was. By her side. Forever.
He wrapped her into his arms again while the whole door came crashing with a raging Moloch right behind it.
The monster was shaking his large snout back and forth, scouring down the church courtyard with his wild eyes. The warm and foul breath coming out of his thick, flapping nostrils smelled of sulfur and decades-old decay.
“Brother.” Ambrus raised a palm in front of him as he addressed the demon. “By Belzebuth, you look awful. The crossing over to this realm did not do you much good.”
The giant turned his bloodshot eyes to Ambrus and roared a deafening snarl, revealing multiple rows of sharp jagged teeth.
“He was never one for conversation.” Ambrus shrugged, looking back at Cass before thrusting his cane at Moloch who eyed him watchfully.
“Cass! I have to push!” Tilly grabbed his arm hard, digging her nails into his flesh. “No time for a hospital.”
“Get her away. I’ll contain him.” Ambrus casually pushed his black-rimmed round glasses up his nose while still leveling with the monster. “Come on, Molochai, you can’t be hurting my grandchild now.”
Moloch tilted his head to the side and took one heavy step forward on the church’s quad.
“Du Akular!” A blast of light shot from the pommel of Ambrus’ cane and Moloch was blasted backward inside the church.
“Cass!” Tilly shouted again.
Holding her tight in his arms, Cass bolted into the neglected old cemetery and stopped at the very end wall, right under the overhead ledge of a decrepit gothic mausoleum. It would have to be enough to protect Tilly from the rain.
He laid her on the mossy stone steps and stripped off his jacket to place it under her body.
Lightning cracked in the sky, illumining the weathered tombstones and dead leaves of the unkept surrounding grounds. He could hear Ambrus shouting spells he didn’t recognize before thunder boomed above them.
Tilly’s breaths sped up, in and out, wheezing into a high pitch.
“You’re going to have to do this,” he urged, brushing back her wet hair from her forehead.
“I don’t know if I can.” Panic tainted her voice. Her big blue eyes stared at him with alarm. “This is going too fast.”
“Focus on our baby.” He was trying to sound competent for her but had no idea how to do this, either. “You’re so brave. We’ll do this.”
She breathed hard again.
“Women have done this forever.” Oh god, he had no clue and sounded like a complete idiot. “Try not to panic.”
A blast of fire from the church lit the night. Moloch’s roar exploded all the way to the mausoleum. “Let me pass, brother. I will devour this world!”
Tilly muffled a cry. “Baby’s coming. I have to push.”
“You can do it, sweetheart. I’m here. I love you. I’m never leaving you.”