Page 26 of Helsing: Demon Slayer
“Well, Demon Slayer, given that you’re taking your sweet time, transpo will meet you in the bus parking lot in ninety seconds. Do you think you can manage that?” His boss’s dry tone reassured him.
“Wilco,” he said.
Then, nodding at Dianne to lead, he stepped away from the bus station and headed for the parking lot behind the building.
Olivia let out a deep breath and leaned into her hands. The calm hum of the TOC contrasted with the tension she’d felt as she’d watched the discordant energy swarming after Ryan and Dianne. For a brief instance, she’d even imagined that she’d connected to Dianne using angelic sonar as she’d done when the DarkIrimAsmodeus had held Mihàil in frozen storage in a meat-processing plant years ago, before they’d been married.
Her sister’s terror had been Olivia’s terror …
“What exactly is going on here,zonja ime?” asked her husband, thezoti. The lord.
It was never a good sign when he addressed her as ‘my lady’ in the tone of voice he reserved for command operations.
Olivia dropped her hands to her lap and swiveled the desk chair around to face Mihàil’s thunderous blue gaze.
“Or do you intend to keep me in the dark about the legions ofdaemonsrampaging in Split? The ones you sent Helsing—a mortal human—to face alone?”
Eight
PressureencasedDianne’sheadin a blinding cocoon. She’d barely heard anything since the moment when that immense humming swelled around them. It had seemed to come straight from her heart. She’d watched in horror as Germaine had been set upon by three brutal men, who’d laughed—laughed—at Germaine’s terror and pain. Dianne had reacted on instinct, rushing forward to thrust the heel of one hand under the jaw of the man dragging Germaine from safety.
He'd given Dianne a fiendish grin as if enjoying her weak attempt at defending her friend, then deliberately broken Germaine’s leg, all while holding Dianne’s gaze.
She’d turned in frantic need to Ryan, only to see him grappled by a massive man covered in multiple bleeding wounds while another punched him, over and over, in his lower back. He’d started to crumple under the assault.
Ryan, The Beast. Had she really thought that?
Dianne had opened her mouth to yell again, but the scream caught in her throat, strangled by panic.
They were going to die, and she knew it.
That’s when the pressure had started. The unbearable pressure to do something, anything, to change the outcome no part of her could accept.
She’d fixated on the inhuman combatants battering Ryan, feeling the surreal humming rise in pitch until the one hugging him had clutched his head. Then the other had shrieked, an unholy sound that made the hair on Dianne’s head and neck stand until her scalp tightened.
Then it got truly bizarre.
An awful stench of burnt meat assaulted Dianne’s nose only to culminate in a shocking event. Ryan’s two antagonists disintegrated in awhooshof fiery smoke and ash followed by howling from the other attackers, who proceeded to combust in fountains of ash and flame.
Their leader had remained standing, however, and Dianne’s heart rose to her damaged throat, nearly choking her as she saw him stand upright after the humming had ceased. One eye had burst from its socket, the clear jelly dribbling down his cheek, which slumped as if it would melt from his face. The ghoulish sight seized her in a full-body spasm, raw and involuntary.
Unbelievably, Ryan had straightened his shoulders, gripped that wicked-looking black knife he’d brandished out of nowhere, and stepped forward, motioning to the other man with one hand. That bastard had only stared in defiant malevolence at Ryan before spinning on his heel and limping away past the sole terrified police officer still brandishing a weapon in shaking hands.
The pressure in her head had abated, at least until the police officer began shooting at Ryan, who, cool customer that he was, turned his back on this new danger and strode toward Dianne. The large plate-glass windows of the station behind him shattered, sending shards over him in a jagged mist to tinkle on the pavement. Dozens of bleeding cuts, of which he seemed singularly unaware, opened on his face.
The pressure returned, clogging Dianne’s ears so that it sounded like everything was deep underwater. Everything except Ryan’s voice, whose gruff, clear baritone caressed her as if he whispered into her ears.
Now he walked at a brisk pace with Germaine cradled in his arms toward the parking lot behind the bus station, where passengers and drivers gathered at the windows, staring at them. Dianne had to jog to stay ahead of him. Overhead, thickening gray clouds moved across the previously clear sky, adding to the tension gripping her. Around them, bodies lay scattered among dropped backpacks, purses, random shoes, and a smattering of cars with smashed windshields and idling engines. In the distance, sirens continued to wail.
It was a nightmare scene from an apocalyptic big-budget American movie.
Ryan’s gaze swept the four lanes of roads that bordered the bus station and then the harbor, as if he expected an attack at any moment from any direction, including the Adriatic.
“Shouldn’t we try to take one of these cars?” she asked, shivering as she looked toward the nearest traffic lane. She didn’t know if her tremors were from nerves or the dropping temperature. Or both.
Ryan shook his head. “Negative. Olivia’s sent help for us. They’ll be here any time.”
Germaine, who’d passed out when the evil brute had broken her leg, moaned.
