Page 33 of Helsing: Demon Slayer
Suddenly Dianne knew that it was only a matter of time before they were attacked again. She couldn’t worry Germaine about that.
“That’s fine. I don’t want to ‘hook up’ with him, either,” she said, breaking off another piece of the lavender-infused white chocolate. She glanced forward at the others. Would it really hurt to let Germaine suck on a small square? “I’m done hooking up. Nothing like staring death in the face a few times to clarify my priorities.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Germaine, her gaze drifting toward the rear window. “It kinda makes me want to live my life to the fullest. That is, if I make it out of this alive.”
This jolted Dianne. She leaned even closer to her friend. “You listen to me. Youaregoing to make it out of this alive.”
As she said this, Dianne didn’t know if she wanted to convince Germaine or herself.
Germaine brought her gaze back to Dianne’s face. She studied Dianne for several long moments. “Are you sure you can trust Ryan? I mean, if you wouldn’t hook up with him …”
“I trust Olivia. She sent him. That’s good enough for me.”
“Well, in that case, can I have some of that chocolate?”
Dianne shook her head. “They said you’re in shock and can’t have food or water.”
“Please? Just a square? It smells so good. Plus, my mom always said if you want food, you’re not that sick. I promise to let it melt on my tongue.”
Dianne sighed.
“I’ll trade you,” said Germaine, her eyes suddenly bright. “Remember that charm bracelet I got in Dubrovnik? The one that the guy said would bring me good luck? I bought one for you, too. I was going to give it to you for your birthday, but I don’t want to wait.”
“What? You have it on you?” asked Dianne surprised.
Germaine nodded. “After last night, I thought I should give it to you this morning. It’s on my right wrist, next to mine. I’m feeling a little weak. Can you take it from me?”
“Sure.”
Now Dianne felt doubly guilty about the chocolate, which she knew was restorative. Reluctantly, she broke off a piece, looking over her shoulder at Ryan.
She sure hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.
Ryan braced himself against turning around and interjecting comments into the quiet conversation between Dianne and Germaine in the Range Rover behind him, He didn’t want to give Dianne any more information about how well he could hear her. It was almost like she was in his ear, like theElioudor anyone acting as Aerie Actual. It was part of his personal harmonic system design, this built-in frequency that kept him in contact with the ops center.
But only the ops center and his demi-angel bosses.
He shouldn’t be able to hear Dianne’s voice so clearly. It’d been one of Olivia’s stipulations, to which he’d agreed. Tracking her onboard the ship had been one thing; listening in on Dianne’s conversations another. They’d agreed that it was an unnecessary invasion of Dianne’s privacy. Under the circumstances, he wasn’t surprised that Olivia would have enabled it somehow, either via the nanotracker or the enhanced tunic. He just wished she’d warned him.
Whatever Olivia had done, the system was buggy. Germaine’s voice had an odd buzzing to it that blurred her words so that they were almost unintelligible. It didn’t matter. Ryan still heard her pushing again at Dianne about not trusting him.
Frankly, Ryan didn’t know why Markos hadn’t knocked the tiresome woman out.
A headache began to push at him. He raised a thumb and rubbed at his temple. He hadn’t followed his own order to eat chocolate and rehydrate. He’d been too busy coordinating the exfil with Mihàil and the helo pilot as well as getting a sitrep from Markos and Barts about thedaemonicactivity in the region. He’d eat and drink now. No telling when or where the next attack came from. Whateverdaemonhad launched such a massive assault on them in Split would be rallying his forces. They were literally endless and didn’t have to possess human vessels, though by this point in his career with the Kastriotis, Ryan understood that human vessels had tradeoffs. More controllable but less powerful.
He prayed that it would bedaemoniacsand notdaemonsthat he faced. He didn’t know if he could take the powerful spiritual beings head on.
He stole a glance at Dianne as he accepted a chocolate bar from Markos.
Despite her hair being a mess and her jeans torn and dirtied, Dianne was unscathed and still heartbreakingly beautiful. Thank God for that tunic. His hand strayed to the St. Benedict medal he wore under his shirt, the pad of his thumb rubbing the engraved image. He’d been one of those battlefield believers he’d told her about. Now he just believed.
If only he believed he was up to the mission.
“That is your first mistake,” said Beta in his mind. He didn’t know if it was a memory, wishful thinking, or her actually casting the thought into his head. All theElioudcommunicated telepathically with each other. He’d never heard that they did it with mere mortals, but if any of them could, Beta Nagy would be the one.
Okay, he’d converse, if only in make believe, with the demi-angel whose knife-fighting skills left him in awe. It was a decent distraction from the creeping feeling of imminent attack. But even his harmonic system had gone on the fritz. He saw nothing outside the Range Rover’s windows to disturb the serenity of the Adriatic sky.
“What mistake?”
