Refuge (13 page)

Somewhere in the lower rows of seats, a
popcorn bag rustled. Closer, there was a rattle as a drink cup full
of ice tipped over onto the floor. My nails bit into my palms, and
my heart sped up like a freight train. Shit, shit, shit.
How do I keep ending
up in these situations?

Olivia cried out, and I jerked my head to the
side just as something shot out from beneath the seats on our right
and leapt into the air, coming right at our faces. In the
flickering light from the movie screen I was able to make out a
long, pale gray body and a flash of teeth, just before a blade
whistled through the air and cut the thing in two mid-flight. Black
blood sprayed, and I almost gagged on the putrid stench that rose
up around us as the creature’s severed halves landed at Jordan’s
feet.

“What the hell?” Mark bellowed, jumping back
from the writhing parts. “That’s a goddamn lamprey demon!”

“Yeah, and they never go anywhere alone.”
Jordan kicked the top half of the demon down the stairs and
brandished her bloody sword again. “Incoming!”

“OH MY GOD!” Olivia squeaked, and I followed
her horrified stare to the two six-foot long bodies slithering up
the stairs toward us. I had never seen or heard of a lamprey demon
until this moment, but I knew that if I survived this, they would
be starring in my nightmares. The creatures advancing on us
resembled eels, but they were bigger around than my thigh with
large unblinking eyes on either side of their heads. But it was
their mouths – round and funnel-shaped with row upon row of curved
teeth – that made my bladder feel like it was about to empty.

“You two take the one on the left. I’ll deal
with this one,” Jordan shouted, already moving forward to meet one
of the advancing demons, her blade dripping blood from her first
kill.

Without a weapon, I was helpless to do
anything but watch as Mark and Olivia followed Jordan. The demons
struck first, and the air was filled with gurgling hissing sounds
and grunts as my companions fought them off. Olivia’s whip sailed
through the air and wrapped around one of the thrashing bodies
while Mark tried to get around it to come at it from behind. Beside
them, Jordan was finding her demon a lot harder to kill than the
first one. It dodged her blade and struck back with a speed I would
not have expected from its thick body, missing her by inches.

Behind me, one of the huddled boys made a
mewling sound, and I turned to look back at them just as a demon
flew at me from above. I twisted to one side, feeling it brush
against my arm as it went by. I stumbled and regained my footing,
but not fast enough to jump out of the way as the demon came at me
again. A scream ripped from my lips as sharp pain seared through my
right calf and I stared in horror at the sucker-like mouth clamped
onto my leg. I kicked and pulled frantically at the demon, but its
mouth was attached like a leach. The demon convulsed and swallowed
and fiery tendrils of pain shot up my leg.

Oh God, it’s sucking my blood! It’s sucking my
blood!

Metal flashed and the thing latched onto my
leg jerked and went slack. I reached past the knife protruding from
the demon’s head to pry its mouth from my calf. It hurt like hell
when the dozens of sharp teeth ripped from my flesh, and I was
afraid to look at the damage to my leg.

Mark shouted at me, and I looked down to find
him and Olivia locked in a struggle with their lamprey demon.
“Sara, the knife!” he yelled.

I reached down and yanked the knife from the
dead demon then limped down the stairs to the others. Jordan looked
like she was getting the upper hand in her fight and the demon in
front of her bled from several long gashes. Olivia and Mark were
barely holding onto theirs while keeping its mouth from latching
onto one of them. Olivia had a cut on her cheek and her right arm
hung limp and bloody by her side. If not for the whip around the
demon’s neck, the thing would have broken free of them. Instead of
using his knife on the creature, Mark had thrown it to save me.

“Watch out.” Ignoring Mark’s reaching hand, I
grabbed the knife in both hands and slammed it into the head of the
demon. It took three blows to bring the demon down, and Mark and
Olivia sagged against each other when it finally hit the floor.

Mark panted, looking around fearfully. “Did
we get them all?”

“I think so. I don’t see any – ” I broke off
when noises in the dark theater alerted us to the presence of at
least two more demons.

“Where the fuck are they coming from?” He
shouted, grabbing the knife and moving between me and the
approaching demons. “A little help here, Jordan.”

“Let me take care of this bastard first.”
Jordan brought her sword down in a graceful arc and sliced cleanly
through the neck of the demon. She gave a triumphant smile and
kicked the dead demon for good measure before turning to meet the
new threat. “How many?”

“At least two, it’s hard to tell in here,”
Mark called to her.

I scanned the dark theater. “What should we
do?”

Jordan replied without looking back. “We’ve
got this. You get the hell out of here.”

“Are you nuts? I’m not leaving you guys in
here with those things.”

“Sara, you and Olivia are bleeding and
neither of you can fight. The last thing I need right now is to be
worried about keeping your asses safe.”

I looked at Olivia’s pained expression, then
down at the dead demon on the stairs. Smoke curled from it where
the silver tip of the whip touched its sickly gray skin.

“Here they come!” Mark yelled. “Oh Jesus,
there are three of them!”

I pushed Olivia aside and grabbed the handle
of the whip, yanking hard to unroll it from the dead demon’s body
and sending the creature thumping down the stairs. Whip in hand, I
spun around as Jordan and Mark were attacked. Mark went down,
stabbing at one demon that was ferociously trying to latch onto his
neck. Jordan moved fast, but the demons were just as fast. No
matter how good or fast Jordan was, she was outnumbered this
time.

I put my fingers to my lips and let out a
sharp whistle. “Hey, you fat ugly worms, come and get me.” One of
the demons turned my way, and I gripped the whip handle so tight my
knuckles turned white. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, you overgrown
maggot!”

The demon made a sound somewhere between a
hiss and a shriek and came at me.
Oh shit!
This ranked way up there on the
list of the stupidest things I had ever done, and that was a pretty
big list.

I struck out with the whip and felt it
connect with the demon’s body, leaving a long smoking gash along
its side. It wasn’t enough to stop the demon, and I dropped the
whip to fend off the thing with my bare hands. The force of its
body hitting mine sent us both tumbling down the stairs and knocked
the breath out of me when my back hit the bottom landing. The demon
recovered fast and struck, and my hands came up just in time to
grab it and keep its nightmarish jaws away from my throat. It
thrashed its powerful body, and I grunted as I fought to hold it
away from me. No way could I fight this thing off alone. I was
totally screwed if help didn’t come very, very soon.

“Sara! Are you okay?” Jordan bellowed.

“Could . . . really use . . . some help!” I
panted.

The demon twisted violently, and I suddenly
found my body pinned beneath it. “Argh!” I pushed with all my
strength at the head mere inches above me. Drool dripped onto my
face and neck, and I nearly choked on the fetid breath invading my
nostrils. As I stared into the deep funnel-like mouth with its rows
upon rows of undulating teeth, I swore there was no way I was going
out this way. I had not survived all I’d been through just to be
taken down by an overgrown grub with teeth.

Static sizzled across my skin and crackled
through my hair. My whole body felt like there was electricity
buzzing just below the surface, building in intensity and looking
for a way out. Instead of fearing it, I welcomed it and fed it with
more power. Heat spread through my arms and filled my hands until
they began to glow like they did for a healing, and the air around
me sparked and filled with the thick smell of ozone.

The demon began to writhe and thrash
frantically as it tried to tear away from me, but my hands were
welded to its head. Tiny bolts of electricity leapt from my
fingers, and it felt like I held a lightning storm in my hands.
Power surged forward into the demon until the creature began to
swell and glowing cracks appeared in its skin. I watched its
fishlike eyes bulge in terror a second before it let out a gurgling
shriek and exploded, raining me with hot, stinking blood and guts
and thousands of demon bits. Stunned, I stared at my raised bloody
hands for few seconds before I rolled over onto my side and puked
up my popcorn lunch.

Jordan was the first to reach me. “What the
fuck?” she swore when she caught sight of me and what was left of
the demon. “What happened? What did you do to it?”

I held up my hand and shook my head as Mark
and Olivia crowded behind her, staring at me covered from head to
toe in demon guts. There was no way to tell them what had happened.
Even if I could share my secret, I wasn’t even sure what I had
done.

The doors below us slammed open, and Niall
and Seamus burst into the theater. They came up short when they saw
Jordan, Olivia, and Mark standing over me lying on the floor,
covered in blood and guts. Their sharp eyes quickly swept the scene
and took a count of the dead lamprey demons littering the stairs
and the four of us, bloody but standing. Well, most of us were
standing.

“Sweet Mother!”

One of the twins crouched beside me. “Are you
alive beneath all that, lass?”

I raised an arm and tried to wipe some of the
gore from my face. “Yes, but right now I kinda wish I wasn’t.”

He grinned and held out a hand to me, easily
pulling me to my feet. I wasn’t the only one who blanched when
demon pieces slid off me and slopped onto the carpeted floor. I
looked around at the expressions of shock and revulsion and then at
the wide area spewed with black demon blood and guts. I had seen a
lot of strange and awful things in the last few months but
exploding demons definitely beat them all.

I am so glad I don’t have to clean up this mess.
I
imagined the expressions of the theater’s cleaning crew when they
saw this and a giggle burst from me, earning me confused stares
from the two warriors and the three teenagers standing a few steps
above me. Something in their expressions struck me as incredibly
hilarious and I couldn’t help myself, I started to laugh. The
harder they stared, the harder I laughed until my stomach hurt and
tears ran down my cheeks.

“What’s wrong with her?” Olivia asked, her
voice quivering.

Jordan narrowed her eyes at me. “I think
she’s hysterical.”

“N-no,” I stammered, straightening. “Can you
imagine being a janitor here and having to clean up
this
?” I waved at the
gore around us. “Talk about a realistic zombie movie.”

The twin who had helped me up shook his head
at me as he put his phone to his ear. “It’s Niall. We need a
clean-up crew. Bloody lamprey demons in the movie theater. Hell,
your guess is as good as mine.” He looked at us. “No, they’re all
okay, just a little beat up. No, they took out the lot of them on
their own. Some civilians were hurt, too, and we’ll need to treat
them. It’s a pretty big mess so put a rush on it.”

He gave them directions and hung up. Pursing
his lips, he studied the carnage at his feet. “Someone want to tell
me what in bloody hell did this?”

I was still fighting back laughter, which
probably made me look slightly unhinged, so he addressed the
others. Jordan shrugged and pointed at me. “Ask her. I was busy
keeping one of those bastards off my ass when she did . . .
whatever she did.”

“Same here,” Mark added.

“All I saw was Sara and the demon falling
down the stairs,” Olivia supplied. “I saw a white flash and
suddenly the demon exploded everywhere.”

Niall looked at me, and I shook my head.
Whatever he was thinking, he did not push the matter and instead
pulled off his coat. “Remove your coat, lass, and try to wipe off
your face and hair as best you can. Then put this on. It’ll cover
the worst of the mess.”

I did as he instructed and let him put his
much larger coat on me. Jordan, Mark, and Olivia did what they
could to clean up as well. All we could do after that was wait for
backup. Niall and Seamus managed to lock the doors to keep the
civilians out, except for the two boys who were sitting in their
seats now and staring at us like we were a satanic cult about to
sacrifice them. I didn’t know if the Mohiri had something to modify
memories. If so, these two were going to need a strong dose of
it.

The cleanup crew wasted no time, and fifteen
minutes after Niall’s call, the employee door to the left of the
screen opened and they filed in. The eight-man crew could not hide
their surprise as they took in the number of dead demons as well as
what was left of the one I had exploded. Their initial reaction
passed quickly, and two of them headed for the teenage boys who had
witnessed everything while the others began to assess the
situation.

“You weren’t kidding about the mess. We’ll
need to bring in another team,” one of the men said to Niall.
“Paulette is waiting in the van to take the trainees home. Looks
like they all could use some medical attention.”

“How did they get here so fast?” I asked
Seamus, and he told me they kept teams in the major cities in every
state. It made it easier to respond to situations like this
one.

Before I knew it, we were shuffled outside to
a black van where a tall blond woman gawked at my bloody hair and
clothes before she started ushering us into the vehicle. I hung
back while everyone else climbed in, wishing I could change my
clothes before I crowded in with them.