All that had changed after my mom had died. The Joe I’d liked had been replaced by the Joe who drank. The Joe who sometimes hit. The Joe I would have completely walked away from but for the fact that Rose was stuck living with him, and I’d promised my mother that I’d look after my little sister.
I was beginning to think he’d actually sucked it up and gone to work when I saw movement behind the glass of the front door. Moments later, I could make out his form, distorted through the frosted glass. “Whaddya want?” he demanded.
I cocked my head at Rose, silently giving her the floor.
“It’s me. I’m, um, I’m back.”
The lock rattled, and the door creaked open, revealing Joe in filthy jeans and a stained wife-beater. I’d expected him to at least appear relieved. To look at Rose with concern, silently checking her out for cuts and bruises. She was only fourteen, after all, and she’d been gone for over a day.
He did none of that. Instead, he hocked back a wad of spit, then let it fly into the yard. “You forget your key, little girl?” He swung his head toward me, the motion exaggerated from the drink I could now smell on his breath. He looked me up and down, and I shifted uncomfortably, realizing that it might have been a good idea to change clothes. I was still in grimy jeans, an equally filthy tank top, and my red-leather duster. As a rule, the coat hid the knife I had strapped to my thigh. Right then, though, because of the way I was standing, I could see the hilt peeking out. Joe probably could, too.
He met my eyes. “I know you?”
“I’m—I mean, I
was
—a friend of Lily’s.”
“Huh.” He looked between the two of us. “Well, come on in.”
Rose looked at me, and I shrugged. Then we followed him inside, though “follow” isn’t exactly accurate, as he was already down the long hallway to the living room. By the time we reached it, he was in his favorite chair, his feet on the ottoman and a football game playing on the screen.
He saw me staring. “Classic,” he said. “Cowboys trampled the Redskins. A goddamned thing of beauty.”
“Right. Um, listen. There’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“Shoot,” he said, lifting the remote and increasing the volume.
“I want to take Rose home with me for a while. I, um, think Lily would have liked that. And I think it would be good for Rose,” I added, continuing my spiel at the speed of light, afraid that if he interrupted with a question or an argument, that I wouldn’t have a good response, and I’d lose before I’d even begun. “I mean, she’s got some pretty nasty memories here—her mom, then that stuff with Lucas Johnson, and now her sister getting killed. And I think it would be really good for her to get some distance, and I’m completely responsible and my apartment’s in a good neighborhood. She’ll have to take an incomplete this semester from school, but I really think it’s for the best and, well, that’s it.”
He hadn’t moved a muscle during my speech, just kept his eyes glued to the television, his finger resting over the pause button on the remote. For a moment, I feared he hadn’t even heard me, and I was going to have to go through the whole spiel again. More likely, he’d just say no. After all, he didn’t know Alice Purdue from Adam.
But then he pressed the button to freeze the screen, and he turned to me. “All right, then,” he said, before unpausing the picture and sliding back into his game.
That was it: “All right, then.” And I wasn’t sure if I should be happy it went over so easy, disgusted that he cared so little for his own daughter that he would wave her out the door with a near stranger, or sad for this man who had so little capacity for dealing with the blows that life had dealt him.
Not that I was inclined to hang around philosophizing. He’d handed Rose to me on a platter. Time to get out before he changed his mind.
I found her in her bedroom, shoving clothing into a duffel bag. “Don’t take too much,” I said. “We can always come back and get more.”
She looked up, her expression bland. “We can always buy more,” she corrected.
She stood and started to zip the bag. She stopped, though, then moved across the room to the small wooden desk that we’d painted the summer before she’d turned twelve. A cluster of framed pictures littered the desktop, and she picked one, moving back to the duffel so quickly I barely caught the image: Me, Rose, our mom, and Joe. Happier times.
I met Rose’s eyes, and she shrugged. Not really a whole lot we needed to say about that.
“Ready,” she said, hauling the duffel up onto her shoulder.
I reached out and took it from her, easily hefting its weight. “I’ve got it.”
She pressed her lips together, and I saw tears glistening in her eyes. “I know you do.”
I opened my mouth, wanting to say that I was sorry—sorry for every horrible thing that had happened to her, sorry for failing to protect her, sorry for not being the sister to her that I knew our mom wanted me to be.
I didn’t say any of that, even though I knew damn well the opportunity might soon be lost, that Johnson might be back any second. Instead, I just smiled, and said, “Come on.”
With the duffel strapped onto the back of the bike and Rose crammed in behind me, I gunned the engine and took off down the road. Twilight had fallen while we were inside, and the world was painted in shades of gray, apropos of my mood.
Rose squeezed me tight around the waist but didn’t complain, and I had the feeling she wanted away from that house as much as I did. There are all kinds of demons in the world, and not all of them come from hell. Those just happen to be easier to fight.
I rolled to a stop at a red light, idly revving the engine in time with my wild thoughts. The light changed, and I kicked the bike into gear, ready to peel out of the neighborhood.
I didn’t make it.
Because suddenly this dim, empty street at the edge of the Flats wasn’t so empty anymore. Suddenly, there was someone standing in the middle of the road.
He was huge—his head shaved bald, his face a mass of strange tattoos through which I could barely make out the cold, hard gleam of his eyes.
He stood, legs spread and arms flung out wide, and around him I swear the air seemed to ripple.
Then he reached back and pulled the most big-ass sword I’d ever seen from a scabbard on his back.
Holy shit.
I didn’t know what kind of demon this was, but I wasn’t inclined to hang around and find out, not with Rose on the back of my bike.
“Go,” she hissed, though I was already turning the handlebars to swing the bike around. “Leave.”
I realized then that she wasn’t Rose anymore. She was Johnson. And Johnson wanted out of there at least as much as I did.
I gunned it, the back tire fishtailing on the gritty street. And as I accelerated down the road, willing the bike to build up speed, I heard the beast behind me release a loud, hell-shattering war cry.
I didn’t turn around, though I wanted to. Wanted to see this thing I was escaping. But I knew that if I
did
turn, we wouldn’t get out of there. I had to keep going, keep moving, and I was trying—trying so damn hard—to will the bike faster.
No use.
We were about a block and a half away when the cry echoed again, this time followed by an odd
whoosh
and then the sharp
clank
of metal on metal.
The sound confused me, and it was only when we were skidding out of control that I realized the source—the warrior demon had heaved that sword, sending it flying down the street to intersect with the back tire of my bike.
Of course, by the time I realized this, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. The back tire locked up, the bike jerked, and though it all happened so fast that the details are a blur, somehow Rose and I ended up on the side of the road, with the bike on top of us—and our view down the street unimpaired.
A view that was dominated by that massive warrior demon, marching straight toward us, the lust for the kill shining bright in his eyes.
NINE
“Get itoff! Get it off!” Rose screamed,evenas I was scrambling to do that very thing. “It’s burning me!”
Her leg was wedged under the exhaust pipe, and I was trying to move fast, but even über-girl-superchick strength wasn’t instantaneous, and I’d landed at an off angle, meaning I was wasting precious seconds.
I twisted at the waist, leaving my legs trapped, and closed my hands over the gas tank. With one deep groan, I shoved up, ordering Rose to scoot backward as I did.
She didn’t hesitate, and soon she was clear of the bike, the smell of burning denim and flesh wafting in the air as she moved.
“Lily! Hurry!”
In my peripheral vision, I could see her climbing to her feet, looking at something back the way we’d come.
I didn’t need to turn to know what it was—the warrior demon was coming closer.
I drew in another breath and shoved again—hard—lifting the bike enough to free my own legs. I dragged myself back over the rough surface of the street, gravel cutting into my hands, my head twisting only once to gauge my enemy’s approach.
Immediately, I wished I hadn’t.
That sucker moved fast, and I grabbed Rose’s hand, yanking her to her feet with me. “Run!”
She didn’t hesitate, didn’t argue, but she was limping, her burned leg slowing her down, and the demon was coming. Closer, closer . . . >
“Go, Lily! Just go!”
“Are you out of your mind? I’m not leaving you.”
“He’ll come out,” she said, and I knew she was referring to Johnson. “He’ll come, and he’ll fight. I’ll be okay,” she added, but from the pure terror on her face, I knew she didn’t believe it.
Me either. In no form or fashion did I consider Johnson popping up inside her to save the day a good thing. No way, no how.
I yanked hard on her hand and pulled her behind me. I didn’t want to do this—didn’t want to fight with Rose right there—but he was coming too fast.
Time to make a stand.
I closed my hand around the hilt of my blade and pulled it from its sheath. Behind me, Rose was saying, “No, no, no,” over and over again.
“
You
run,” I said. “I’ll be okay.” I steeled myself, holding my knife at the ready. “This is what they made me for.” And, dammit, I hoped that was true. Because this demon was more fierce, more bold, more
everything
than any I’d faced before.
“No,” she said. “I’m not—”
“Dammit, Rose,
run
!” She gawked at me, nodded, then scampered down the street, favoring her injured leg. I only watched for a second, then turned back to the warrior, now about three houses away. It had slowed its pace and was watching me, head tilted to one side as it took my measure.
“Come on, you son of a bitch,” I murmured. “Let’s get this over with.”
And then, as if it had been waiting for the invitation, the demon rushed me, his strides eating up the pavement, moving so fast, I swear he was only a blur. I heard a sharp screech and smelled burning rubber, and as I thrust my knife forward, trying to find a damn target and fearing that I was about to be soundly and utterly destroyed, I had the absurd thought that the demon was moving so fast he was burning up the soles of his shoes, and that was the pungent odor that had caught my attention.
“Get in!”
Not his shoes, I realized.
A car.
It had careened to a stop behind me, and now the female driver was shouting at me through the open passenger-side window. I didn’t hesitate, instead turning fast on my heel and diving headfirst through the open window, pushing a pile of weapons across the bench seat even as the demon reached out and grabbed my foot.
I kicked hard, then yanked my legs into the car. And into safety.
The girl hit the gas, and as I righted myself in the car, I saw the demon in the side mirror. He was standing there, his face a mask of fury and frustration beneath the blue and black tattoos.
“Rose!” I said, pointing to the side of the road, and my sister, now hobbling toward us. I thrust my leg over to the driver’s side of the car, and slammed on the brake.
“Are you crazy?” the girl shouted as Rose yanked open the back door. The driver kicked my leg away and accelerated, but the pause had been enough—Rose was in the car, the door hanging open, but inside and safe.
I climbed over the seat and into the back, hanging half out of the speeding car as I grabbed for the door and slammed it shut.
“Is he still on us?” the girl asked, her short-cropped hair a pink blur as she whipped around to face me.
I pivoted to look out the back. “No.” But only moments after I answered, the car shook, rubber burning on the asphalt as the car inched backward. “What the fuck?” I whipped back around to face the girl. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Me?” she retorted. “I thought you said he’d given up on us.”
I looked back and saw that, sure enough, the demon was standing stock-still in the middle of the road, his arms outstretched, the air between his hands shimmering as if from a rising heat wave.
This wasn’t good. This really, really,
really
wasn’t good.
“Do something!” the girl shouted, as Rose cowered in the corner.
“What? What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Distract him. Stop him. Slow him down. Something,” she howled. “But do it now, because we’re going nowhere fast, and he’s getting closer.”
Distract him?
What the hell was I supposed to do? Strip naked and do the hula?
Probably not the best option, and instead I hung over into the front seat, scouring the weapons cache I’d bar reled into when I’d first jumped into the car. I found a crossbow, hefted it, and pulled it into the backseat with me, along with a handful of arrows.
“Hurry!” the driver screamed. Beside me, Rose was still silent, but she’d turned around and was facing the back window, her expression worried.
I clenched my jaw, determined to wipe the fear from her face, and leaned out of the open window, the crossbow at the ready. The car was thrumming, vibrating, and it wasn’t easy to aim, but I got the demon in my sights, aiming for the broad expanse of chest. I said a prayer and let the arrow fly, and it wasn’t until the shaft was zipping through the air toward him that it occurred to me to wonder if that strange shimmer between his hands was impermeable. If it was—if the arrow bounced back uselessly—then I was going to have to go hand to hand with the big guy. And
that
idea was really not rocking my boat.