Demon's Embrace

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“Hey, lighten up. You’re safe.” I patted her shoulder, awkwardly. Give me a gun and I’m all over it. Nurturing wasn’t in my nature.

She shook her head, her eyes round, staring over my shoulder at whatever was standing behind me. “Nicolae.”

Too late, my sense of smell kicked in with a sickly sweet aroma, similar, but not the same as what I sensed around Blaise.

Demon.

Instinctively, I spun, swinging my leg out, while still in a crouch.

I caught the demon’s legs at the shin, knocking him off his feet.

The woman on the ground pushed to a sitting position and swayed. “Get the amulet. The necklace. It’s the key. Get it.”

I only half-heard her as the demon staggered to his feet, eyes gleaming red, his hands rising, fingers curling.

My throat tightened. No air made it through to my starving lungs. I clawed at the invisible fingers that squeezed the breath out of me.

The demon the woman had referred to as Nicolae lifted his arms into the air.

As if a noose tightened around my neck, my body rose from the crouched position, my feet left the ground.

For a moment, I dangled in the air.

In the next second, I was flung twenty feet, hitting a brick wall, my weapon knocked from my grasp, skittering across the pavement, out of reach.

My head bounced against the hard surface, and I slid to the ground, gray fog engulfing me. Not the pleasant cloud of my earlier dream, but the encroaching pall of a nightmare unfolding before me.

Nicolae gathered the woman in his arms and turned to leave.

“Help me.” Her bleating cry for help jumpstarted my lungs.

I sucked in a breath, pushing back the darkness, and lurched to my feet. The demon would not get away with the woman.

“Not on my watch, you don’t,” I muttered as my feet churned beneath me and I threw myself at the demon’s back.

Caught off guard, he dropped the woman to the ground and spun.

I clung to his back, my arm hooked around his throat, hanging on for dear life. I hadn’t gotten around to clarifying how to kill a demon with my partner, no matter how many times I’d wanted to kill him for one infraction or another.

The demon reached over his shoulder and grabbed my jacket, his fingernails lengthening, tearing into the leather, slicing through my shirt and ripping into my flesh.

Pain ricocheted throughout my body, the affected area burning as if he’d poured battery acid directly onto the wound.

I bit down hard on my lower lip to keep from crying out and tightened my hold, one finger wrapping around a leather strap hanging around his neck.

The woman on the ground reached up. “The amulet. Take it,” she cried.

Flipping my wrist, I twisted the leather around all the fingers on that hand.

Then as if shot from a cannon, my body was blasted away from the demon. The force sent me flying. Since I had the leather strap wrapped firmly around my wrist and fingers, the leather tie snapped and the necklace came with me.

Again, I hit the wall, my head slamming against brick for the second time in as many minutes. My vision blurred. I blinked to clear it, but it remained blurred. I couldn’t breathe and my insides boiled, as if each cell was on fire. Had his talons injected me with poison? Was this to be the end of my career as a cop?

As quickly as it blurred, my vision cleared and I blinked up at the oncoming demon, as he ducked low and charged toward me.

I rolled to the side and shot to my feet.

He had me by the throat before I could call out.

“Give it to me.”

“To hell with you,” I squeaked with my last breath.

“You have no idea what hell is.” The man snarled, leaning his face so close to mine I could see the blood in his eyes. “Give it to me or you’ll soon know hell, firsthand.”

I fought to inhale, my feet flailing out.

Then a surge of electricity powered through me. Lightning shot from my fingertips and bounced off the brick with a loud crack.

The demon cried out, releasing me, holding his hands out as if they’d been burned.

As I dropped to my feet, the acrid scent of burning flesh filled my nostrils. The sting in my back where the demon had pierced me with his fingernails eased up until all pain melted away.

“Give it to me.” Nicolae stepped forward, his charred hands reaching for the necklace.

“No way.” I slipped the necklace inside my shirt, tucking it into my bra. “You’re under arrest for assault.”

He turned as if to leave.

I stepped forward.

Before I could think, he backhanded me, his wrist catching me across my cheek, sending me flying backward, once again hitting a brick wall.

For precious seconds I lay dazed, the wind knocked from my lungs, my head spinning.

Nicolae loomed over me and tore at my jacket and shirt.

I fought him, my head reeling. “Isn’t this a bit...much...for a...first date?” I gasped.

Then the demon jerked away from me, and bounced against one of the walls he’d thrown me against.

My partner stood over Nicolae, his chest heaving, his pitch-black gaze boring into the demon’s. “Don’t ever touch her again.”

Nicolae snorted, dragging himself to his feet. “She stole something from me, and I want it back.”

“You’ll have to take it up with the Tribunal.” Blaise held out his hand to me. “Give me your cuffs.”

I stood, brushing the dirt off my jeans, reaching into my back pocket for the handcuffs. “I didn’t bring cuffs. Will this do?” I handed over the zip tie from my back pocket.

“It’ll work.” He grabbed Nicolae’s hand and twisted it up behind the demon’s back and yanked the other over it, pulling the zip tie together until it was snug. “Go get the car. And hurry, before his minions come calling.” Blaise gazed at me, a smile quirking his lips. “And ignore the pounding on the trunk.”

“Jimmy?”

He nodded. “I used some of your duct tape to gag him, or he’d be howling his head off.”

Though I didn’t appreciate being ordered around by man or demon, my knowledge of what demons were capable of was minimal. Blaise knew all the tricks. I took off at a run, working my way back to where I’d stashed the car.

I could hear the noise before I reached the vehicle. Ignoring the pounding, I slid into the driver’s seat and pulled out onto the practically deserted street, while checking in with Detective Thomas. A nearby containment wagon and an ambulance were in route, and Detective Thomas would meet us to debrief on location. I hoped all the paranorms would still be there when the powers-that-be converged.

Half expecting the injured werewolves and the red-eyed demon to be gone when I returned, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Blaise had them all under control.

I went to the female first, checking her over to make sure the demon hadn’t injured her further. “Hey, can you stand?”

She clutched my hand, her grip weak, listless, like she could barely hold her arm up. “The others.”

“What others?”

“Shut up,” Nicolae snarled.

The female werewolf’s head lolled back. “He has others like me. Prisoners.”

“Where?”

The female’s eyes closed, her breathing shallow and growing more shallow by the moment, her hand rising to her throat.

My gaze captured Blaise’s. “She’s choking.”

Blaise’s eyes narrowed and he jerked Nicolae’s arms up behind his back. “Let go of her.”

The demon laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Blaise slammed the demon into the brick wall and pushed him up off his feet, until he dangled like I had.

The female gasped, dragging in a gulp of air. Then she sagged against me. “Please. Help them.”

Sirens wailed, echoing in the night, growing closer.

“What do you mean?” I hesitated, then brushed the hair for her face. “What others?”

“Women. Help them.” Her eyes closed and she passed out.

I stood and walked over to where Blaise held the demon pinned to the wall. “What women?” I demanded.

The creep laughed.

My fists clenched. “If you’re holding women captive, we’ll find them.”

He laughed again.

A surge of anger roared through me. I counted ten in my head, only it made me even angrier that this demon had information I needed and he refused to give it to me. The anger intensified, building. A gust of heated air lifted the stray tendrils of hair from my neck and wafted across my face.

“Tell me where you keep the women.” My voice boomed, echoing off the brick walls.

The demon’s eyes narrowed.

I touched a hand to my chest where the amulet nestled inside my bra. For a second, I could see a large room divided by curtains. Inside each room a woman lay on a pallet on the floor. The image appeared so vivid I could feel the pain, sadness and hopelessness of each woman’s thoughts. “You’ve got those women drugged.” I grabbed the front of his shirt and planted my nose to his. Where are they, damn it?”

“You have no idea what you have or how to use it.” He spoke in a low, steely tone that sent shivers coursing down my spine.

“You’re stalling.” I shoved him away. “We’ll see what the Tribunal has to say when we find them. Trafficking people for sex is illegal, immoral and just wrong now matter what kind of creature they are. I wish I’d killed you while I had the chance.”

“Killing him out of anger would only make you as bad as he is.” Blaise shook his head. “The Tribunal will punish him.”

Nicolae growled like a cornered dog. “You have something that belongs to me. I will get it back. When I do, I’ll kill you.”

Chapter Three

A chill slithered across my skin, raising gooseflesh. I forced a laugh. “Seems you’re not in a position to do much of anything.”

He didn’t respond, just stared at me, his gaze like daggers.

I turned away. I didn’t want him to know that his threat had made me more afraid than even the zombie attack during my first case.

Before long, the deserted street filled with ambulances, police cars and the transport vehicles specially designed to haul paranorms to the containment cell in the basement of the warehouse where the Paranormal Tribunal held council to decide the fate of rogue paranorms.