All Wounds (11 page)

Rebecca didn’t waste a second in screaming. “HELP!” The demon laughed. It grasped her upper arm and jerked her to her feet, its black claws digging deep into her skin. Rebecca screamed again, this time from pain.

“No mortal can hear you now,” it said as it leaned down to lick her face. Rebecca tried to cringe away from its foul breath. “No one can help you. No one
will
help you.”

It let go of her arm. Rebecca pressed her hand tight against the wound then looked at her hand. She was bleeding, badly. She cupped the injury again and looked up at the demon.

Unconcerned, it clasped a hand around her other wrist. “The pain you feel now is nothing compared to what you will endure if I must force your consent to return with me. Now come. Come, and you will be a queen. A goddess. You will be worshiped.”

Yeah, before you kill me
! Rebecca thought as it dragged her to the row of sinks.

“Death for a mortal is inevitable,” the demon replied, and Rebecca knew it had heard her thinking. “Why do you fight against it so? Let us give yours meaning and purpose.”

It leapt with a cat’s grace into the mirror above one of the sinks. Then the demon turned and grasped Rebecca’s arm with its other hand.

Her hand smacked the glass. The demon’s hand tightened on her wrist and tugged her forward a fraction of an inch.

Pain unlike anything she’d ever felt ripped through her. Rebecca’s legs went out from under her as her fingers were forced through the glass of the mirror. She screamed and fought to pull away.

“There will be more, and much worse than this if you do not give your consent,” said the creature in the mirror.

“You’ve...got the wrong...girl!” Rebecca panted as she braced her foot against the sink that always trickled a stream of cold water no matter how many times the maintenance man fiddled with it.

Water.

The hands on her arm.

That warm flush went through her, and she knew water didn’t have to be “holy” to hurt a demon.

Her eyes found the trickle of running water and she shoved her free hand under it. She flung the small palmful at the demon in the mirror and put her wet hand over the demon’s hand on her arm.

It howled and released her. Rebecca fell back, landing hard on her butt.

The demon growled and climbed back out of the mirror.

This time it didn’t look like it was going to ask her to come with it. Her eyes widened and she shrieked as she got to her feet.

“I have no wish to fatigue your abilities in your attempt to flee. Fighting means you will only exhaust yourself, Acolyte,” the demon growled.

“Is that like ‘if you run, you’ll only die tired’?” came a dark voice with a heavy Southern drawl from the doorway. “You guys gotta get better TV

down there, I tell ya. Bad movies lines ain’t scary.” The voice’s owner looked at Rebecca. “Y’okay?”

Rebecca just nodded, staring at him. He was huge. Bigger than even the largest football player on her school’s team, and he didn’t look any older than seventeen. Well, if he combed his shaggy brown hair a little better and changed his clothes from jeans and a t-shirt to something more...mature, he could probably pass for twenty, but certainly not any older. But that wasn’t why she was staring.

Not only was he good-looking on the level of Syd’s gorgeousness, this guy’s muscles literally bulged and rippled beneath his t-shirt as he breathed.

His dark eyes sparkled with what one could only call impishness, and he looked like he was about to start tearing the sinks off the wall before he set the place on fire.

“Who are you?” Rebecca asked stupidly. This guy was just...standing in a girl’s bathroom grinning at a demon like it was
normal
! What...?

“Name’s Billy. Now how ‘bout you get behind me while I deal with old Armaros here?”

“Armaros?” Rebecca echoed.

The demon growled and Rebecca took a step back, inching in Billy’s direction. She didn’t know who the big guy was or where he’d come from, but she’d take any help she could get about now.

“Oh my God, you see it too,” she babbled. “This is real. This is really real...”

Before she could take another step, the demon had her by the arm again.

The demon closed his eyes in seeming relief and relaxation. “Can you not feel it, anubi? Think of the purpose such power could be put to—” Billy growled, and Armaros opened his fluorescent green eyes.

“Or do not,” the demon continued with a contemptuous glare down at Billy. “I forget your kind is incapable of rational thought.”

“I’m about to rationalize you, buddy,” Billy warned. “Back in your hole, before I really get mad. And leave that little bit of nothin’ you got your dirty mitts on. She ain’t worth the hurt I’ll put on you.” Armaros laughed and shook his head. “Anubi,” he said with a wry smile. “Forever looking at what is in front of them, never what is behind.

Foolish creatures, the lot of them.”

The demon nodded and the door to each of the bathroom stalls opened to reveal a demon, each holding a thick chain leash attached to metal collars of large black dog-like creatures.

Hellhounds.

One of the hounds snarled, black drool glistening at the corners of its mouth. Some of the creature’s drool dripped in gold-colored threads to the floor where it hissed and smoked like acid.

Rebecca’s eyes widened.

Billy laughed and shook his head. “If that’s the way you boys want to play...”

Coarse, shaggy brown fur grew from his skin. The hair on Billy’s head lengthened to meet the identical hair on his back while his ears lengthened into furred points and moved up and closer to the top of his face.

He simply...all Rebecca could think of was that he
melted
—clothes and all—into a very large...beast.

She did her very best not to scream. Not only did this new creature
—

what had just called himself “Billy”
—
tower above her, he stood on two legs. The fur that now covered his chest didn’t hide obvious scars. If the fur along them wasn’t missing entirely, it grew in all-opposite directions, unlike the smoothness of the undamaged parts of him.

Anubi
, the demon had called him, and Rebecca knew that she was staring a werewolf in the face.

The face. That was perhaps the most frightening thing of all.

The left side looked like it had been torn away then put back together again with glue that never dried. His left ear drooped much further down than the right one, and his left cheek did the same.

Large, sharp canine teeth protruded from the top and bottom of Billy’s long, pointed muzzle. The undamaged right side of his wolf ’s face curled in a sneer at the five other demons that had shown themselves. Rebecca was shocked to hear him speak again.

“So, we gonna do this or what?” came Billy’s voice faintly through the darker, deeper growling that the beast was using to talk.

Armaros laughed. “A lone anubi and an untrained Healer against us and our guardians? I believe you are greatly overestimating your chances.”
Billy
was
on her side!
Rebecca hadn’t been sure.

“There ain’t enough of you,” the anubi scoffed. “Pups and all, you wouldn’t make a mouthful. I thought you knew better, Armaros. But I forgot, you can’t count. Six against one makes for poor odds...on
your
side.”

“One does not need an entire force if one does not intend to fight,” Armaros replied. He smiled, though it emanated nothing but cruelty, and gestured at Rebecca. “We wouldn’t want to damage—”

“Touch her and it will take you a month to find all your parts,” Billy cut Armaros off with a deep growl. “You can’t have her.”

“And why not?” Armaros replied, raising an eyebrow.

“’Cause she ain’t yours to have,” Billy replied.

He jerked his head in the direction of the bathroom door behind him without taking his eyes off the six demons in front of him.

“Bit, these boys want to dance, I’ll be glad to show them the steps.

Move your butt and get out of here.”

Rebecca took another step back. Strong hands clamped around her upper arms. She screamed.

Armaros laughed and shook his head. “You can’t hide her now, and no anubi lapdog is going to interfere in our business.”

“And you just done what I told you not to,” Billy said with a grin. “Eat it, demon boy.”

Billy snarled, his warped face contorting into an even more fearsome shape. He reached with one of his clawed hands for the demon holding Rebecca and tore her from its grasp with the other.

“Get out of here!” Billy yelled.

Rebecca screamed again as Billy hurled her through the air by her arm, over his head and away from him and the demons. She landed hard against the floor, but was somehow unhurt. She looked up to see Billy leap with a vicious growl upon Armaros, his dangerous wolf ’s jaws snapping shut on the neck of the demon.

All the lights in the bathroom exploded, drowning the room in instant darkness. Rebecca broke into a sweat as she scrambled to her feet. She’d seen the door next to her somewhere! She didn’t have time to think as she let out a frightened squeak.

Darkness wreathed in flames was bearing toward her. Eerie candle-flame eyes grew ever larger as the hellhound moved with frightening speed, chain flying behind it illuminated by the fire-tipped ridge of hair along its back. Rebecca did the only thing she could think of and ducked as the hound leapt toward her. The hound crashed hard into the wall behind her, vibrating it and shaking the door loose from the top hinge. The door folded in on itself, blocking the exit. Even though she could see light from the hallway now, there was no way she could get out of that!

A yelp and a low howl reached her ears.

“Billy!” Rebecca screamed.

She heard another snarl, but couldn’t see if it was Billy. It was so dark!

Or, at least it had been for a moment. The hellhound against the wall started to get up, glaring at her with scarlet eyes as its flames burned brighter.

“He is dead,” the hound snarled as it rose. “As you are soon to be.”

“No!” Rebecca managed as she took a step back, shaking her head.

The hellhound laughed, showing its teeth. Rebecca was again reminded of a shark’s mouth, only in the darkness she could see the fire burning in the back of the thing’s throat, making the serrated teeth glow white-hot. She remembered looking up at Lord Notharion and something inside her told her what she needed to do. She looked the hellhound directly in its’ candle-flame eyes and made herself keep at it, though it was hard.

“You won’t hurt me,” she ordered as firm as she could. “Try it and...

and you’ll answer to Lord Notharion.”

A yelp echoed through the small tiled room again, recalling the hellhound’s attention. It left Rebecca and bounded in a smooth leap back toward the fray. The lights flickered and Rebecca glimpsed a patch of dark brown fur in the middle of a writhing mass of gray and black and flames before the entire room once again went black.

Silence fell with an abruptness unlike anything Rebecca had ever experienced. She listened hard for any kind of noise and didn’t hear a sound.

She remembered what the hellhound had said about Billy being dead, and what Billy had said about six against one. Was he...?

“Billy!” Rebecca screamed again.

Silence answered.

“BILLY!” she yelled again, as loud as she could. Her bottom lip trembled and she caught it between her teeth, biting it hard as her eyes started to burn with tears. “ANYONE?!”

“Not so loud, Bit,” came a weak voice in the dark near her. “I ain’t got nothin’ left to fight another bunch, and demons come out in droves. Really lucky it was just Armaros and his little gang of wimps, though you know he probably called for backup the second he got jumped. C’mon, before there’s more or they get their act together.”

Strong furry arms wrapped around her. Rebecca hugged the form hard and choked back a sob. She was such a baby. Maybe she wasn’t brave enough to be a Healer. The lights flickered as though in agreement and tried valiantly to stay on.

“Hush up now,” Billy said. “You know how to ride piggyback, don’t you? Do that while we get out of here. They’re already starting to figure themselves out, see?”

Billy pointed to a dismembered gray-green arm near their feet, dragging itself along the tile floor by its black claws back toward the center of the darkened bathroom.

“C’mon.” Billy shoved her on his back and Rebecca dug her hands into the loose fur at his shoulders, gasping as they met something wet and cold.

“You’re hurt, Billy,” Rebecca said, hating herself for crying when he was the one who was torn up. “You’re bleeding.”

“So’re you. Ain’t nothin’,” Billy said, though Rebecca knew. .could
feel
. .

different. “Now watch your head. We gotta get out of here quick.”

“Um...” Rebecca stammered. She took a deep breath as they crashed through the broken door. Billy landed on all-fours in the middle of the hallway and moved into an easy lope, rushing down the corridor at a frightening speed.

“Wait! Stop!”

Billy skidded to a halt and growled as he pulled her off his back. He stood her in front of him and clasped her upper arms in his huge, clawed hands.“What?” he demanded.

“Who...I mean what...I mean...?” Rebecca couldn’t think of what she wanted to ask and just buried her face in her hands with a sob.

Billy grumbled and took a deep breath. Rebecca heard a grunt and felt his hands on her arms move. She lifted her head to look at him.

Before her stood the young man she’d seen earlier in the bathroom.

“Listen, I know you’re scared,” he said. “But there ain’t no time to explain, so stop your crying. Can stand most anything but a female crying!

Now let’s go!”

Rebecca jerked her arm out of his hands. “Go where? Who are you?!”

“Your bodyguard, Little Bit, now move!”

Without waiting for her to ask any more questions, Billy clamped a hand around her wrist and dragged her along behind him as they ran down the hallway.

“Hey, you can’t just take me out of school! Hey!” Why wasn’t anyone seeing this? Hearing her? There were kids and teachers milling around the halls, getting ready for their next classes.