Page 46 of Helsing: Demon Slayer
Perhaps it was the earlier events as well as Ryan’s shocking claims that Mihàil and Olivia had angel blood, but something washed over Dianne as they joined the masses of people behind the church. Something that touched her heart as the voice of the second man outside Trnbusi had.
Uneasiness brought her to a halt on a broad paved walk leading away from the church. Ryan, looking down at her, had a wide-eyed expression that looked totally foreign to him. He appeared decades younger under the rough stubble and scattered lacerations. Softer. More innocent.
Dianne reached up and touched his jaw. He placed one large palm over her fingers as their gazes locked. She caught her breath and waited.
Humming so low that she felt it in her bones filled the air around them as people stilled, expectant, gazing toward Apparition Hill. Static electricity danced over her skin and sent her hair fluttering in an invisible current. A palpable sense of raw power permeated everything—an exhilarating yet slightly unsettling sensation, as if every molecule around her vibrated with potential, ready to discharge at any moment.
A sound—not just a sound, but a melody woven into the very fabric of the air—rose, ghost-like, between the stillness and the coming shift. It wasn’t music in the ordinary sense, but something older, deeper, rawer, reverberating beneath her skin, threading through her bones. A harmony just outside perception, one that had always been there but never recognized until now.
As the luminous hum swelled, the worldseemed to align around it, each breath falling into the unspoken cadence. It was his frequency, his essence, wrapping around hers in invisible strands, pulling her toward a truth she hadn’t dared to speak aloud.
Ryan’s gaze dipped to her mouth. A moment later, he gripped the back of her head and brought his lips to hers. The pressure of his kiss, the warmth of his breath, the tremor of his touch—all of it resonated in sync with that song, a symphony only they could hear. A current rippled through them, electric, harmonic, inevitable.
And then, silence descended as everything using electricity quit working.
Thirteen
Foramoment,Ryancouldn’t speak. The reserves of his harmonic tactical gear filled to max capacity and spilled over into his very being. The lingering pain from his gut wound evaporated. Wordless, complex music swelled inside his head as he kissed Dianne.
It took all of his willpower to pull away from Dianne. When he did, it felt like he’d ripped his own arm off—with a rusty claw. In fact, ghostly ligaments trailed like ethereal contrails and broken glass tinkled. A faint aura limned his skin and energy crackled around them.
Across from him, Dianne’s sheer robe radiated a soft, white glow that bathed her in an otherworldly light. She looked like an angel, too ethereal for this unforgiving and harsh world.
Ryan swallowed, hard.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, his voice rusty.
Confusion tumbled over Dianne’s features, mixed with all of the other feelings that Ryan felt himself: longing, desire, hurt, hope, need.
“What?” Her voice sounded husky, vulnerable. She blinked as if half asleep.
A vision of Dianne lying against white sheets, her blond hair mussed and her cheeks pink just like they were now, knocked the breath from him. He wanted nothing more than to take her someplace secluded and make love to her before the world exploded. To anchor this fledgling bond, this perfect and pure bond, between them in the corporeal.
It would be the wrong thing to do. Hadn’t he already learned that lesson with Arly? Put a relationship above his duty? In this case, it wouldn’t even be that. It would be sex with a stranger. With his commander’s sister. He wouldn’t do that. Hecouldn’tdo that. In consummating his desire, he would be seeding its destruction.
He was a Ranger. He would finish this mission or die trying.
That’s when he noticed fine, black filaments weaving into the gauzy fabric of the garment, ominous threads that he knew hadn’t been there when Miró manufactured it. They didn’t seem like added harmonics. In fact, from his untrained eye, it looked like the filmy garment had narrow bands missing …
He growled to wake them both the hell up and put some distance between them.
Taking a step from Dianne, he said, “We’ve got to keep going, Markham. I don’t know what happened here. My neck’s itching. It’s like there was adaemonicattack without thedaemons.” He scanned the area around them. “These people will be fine. My guess is that it’s too much work here fordaemonswhen there’s low-hanging fruit elsewhere.”
“Then shouldn’t we stay here?” she asked, her gaze also taking in the crowded plaza where hushed whispers had broken out among the people gathered there. “At least until we find a way to contact Olivia.”
She made a good point. Ryan raised a hand to massage the back of his neck. Despite his gut urging him to keep moving, to get Dianne to safety in Fushë-Arrëz, it would pay to learn more about whatever had fully charged his system but knocked out the power at the church. Rudimentary diagnostics embedded in the nanotech had sent him an audio alert that a powerful electromagnetic wave had moved through the area, that in fact everything for at least the surrounding five kilometers—the limit of his system’s range—retained an electric charge.
Dianne saw his hesitation. “Just try whatever way you have to communicate with her.”
Before Ryan could act on that suggestion, Olivia’s voice sounded in his ear. “Demon Slayer, this is Aerie Actual. Come in, over.”
Ryan, tugging Dianne by the hand to follow him, tapped his earlobe, initiating his mic. “Go for Demon Slayer.”
“Thank God,” said Olivia, breaking comms protocol. “Tell me Dianne’s safe.”
He stopped twenty meters from the outdoor church and any potential listeners. “Dianne’s safe. We’re in Medugorje. Tell me you registered whatever harmonic event just blew through here, Aerie Actual. It’s like we’re standing right under the rotors of a Blackhawk.”
As he spoke, he watched Dianne, who’d turned away from him while rubbing her palms over her upper arms, as if she were cold. He stepped closer and wrapped an arm around her. He could see gooseflesh on the back of her graceful neck. She shivered and leaned into him. It was like holding a live wire. His heartrate kicked up a notch.
