Page 39 of Helsing: Demon Slayer
“Just what I said:I don’t know. Abaddon doesn’t normally visit humanity. In fact, he’s only mentioned in Revelation as a sign of the End Times.”
“Seriously?” She sounded both skeptical and worried.
Ryan shot Dianne another look. She still stared out the front window, but now her teeth worried her lower lip. It was getting harder to focus on both driving and talking—not a good sign. He clenched the steering wheel and sucked in a shallow breath, beating back the black velvet seeping into his vision before answering.
“Look, I know this is a lot to take in. When I met theElioud, I at least had combat experience. And I’d seen a lot of truly evil things, not just watched fantasy versions in movies.”
As he said this, Ryan thought of Arly. It had been a serious point of contention between them, this lack of understanding of the grim realities of warfare and man’s inhumanity to man. Even if he’d wanted to share some of the nightmares he’d lived through—and he didn’t—Arly had never shown an interest in sharing that burden with him. She hadn’t seemed to want to share much of anything with him besides his bed and his paycheck, nor help him shoulder any of the burdens of fitting back into civilian life.
To his surprise, Dianne placed her hand on his forearm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry.” She sounded sincere.
He glanced at her. Her pupils had returned to normal, revealing the mesmerizing blue of her irises. A sudden desire to protect her from the full knowledge of evil gripped him. But if he didn’t deal with his gut wound soon, he’d be in no shape to do anything.
Dianne dropped her hand and turned to look out the side window. “If you don’t know what happened to Mihàil, does that mean you haven’t heard from anyone?” She looked back at him. “You seem to have some mysterious way to communicate with Olivia.”
He shook his head and immediately regretted it. A wave of dizzy weakness washed over him. The car swerved abruptly. Thankfully, this stretch of highway seemed little traveled. Ryan pulled the car back into its lane.
Damn.He must have lost a lot of blood. He hadn’t felt this weak since that Russian asshole had shot him last year. Come to think of it, this felt worse.
“Ryan!” said Dianne, her voice rising and sharp with concern. “Are you okay?”
He swallowed. He just needed to hold out until they got to Trnbusi. His sense of time had attenuated, and he couldn’t focus on his watch, but surely they didn’t have more than another fifteen minutes to reach the extraction point …
“Just get me some chocolate,” he said, shocked at how much effort it took to say that. “It’ll be enough … to keep me going … until I can make sure you’re safe.”
The black velvet seeped farther into his vision. Rushing white noise muffled his hearing. Ryan gripped the steering wheel, struggling to keep the highway ahead of them in sight until Dianne pressed chocolate against his closed lips.
He couldn’t open his mouth to eat it. Inhaling as much of the spicy-sweet scent as possible, Ryan jerked the steering wheel toward a field on the side of the road.
He managed to brake and stop the car before surrendering to the smothering dark.
Dianne realized that Ryan had lost consciousness in the same instant the car veered off the asphalt and down a slight incline before the car slowed and stopped at the edge of some low vegetation. Up ahead around a curve in the road, she could make out a small spire on a stone church behind a stone wall. Her heart, which had gotten tired of terror-filled shock, remained steady for the first time in the last hour.
Oh, God above, what should she do now?
First: turn the engine offshe told herself.
Dianne reached over and turned the key in the ignition.
Second: put the car inPark.
Dianne lifted Ryan’s surprisingly heavy hand from where it had slipped onto the gearshift in the center console before moving the lever into the topmost position.
She let out a breath. Taking it one, small step at a time was the trick. She could do this.
Third: check on Ryan.
Dianne forced herself to look at the large, unconscious male next to her. He was well over six feet tall and broader than any living male she’d ever been this close to save for her brother-in-law, whom she’d only a short while before learned was a demi-angel.
Ryan was clearly no demi-angel. The cut on his cheek and the ugly, oozing bite on his forearm attested to his humanity. And somewhere in his midsection was a hand-shaped puncture wound as deep as a woman’s fingers.
Dianne studied Ryan, scanning for evidence that he still breathed, scarcely aware that she held her own breath. After an excruciating interval, she identified regular movement in his chest. Then she could resist touching him no longer.
She extended a tentative hand toward Ryan’s relaxed face, her fingertips brushing his beard. She remembered how it had felt against her cheeks. She remembered how it had felt to kiss him. To be kissed by him. His hand had covered the entire back of her head as he drew her closer. She’d felt for the briefest moment as if he would consume her, and she wanted nothing else.
She allowed herself to trace his lips with a feather touch but then sat back, thinking.
They needed to get off this dangerous, if quiet, coastal highway before thedaemonscame looking for them. And she needed to do something about Ryan’s injuries, which she now suspected required more than chocolate infused with unspecified healing properties.
