he paused to eye the stunning beauty walking down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. He’d not seen her in Tangle Lake before. Blade had seen a lot of pretty women pass through this tiny Minnesota town. Most visitors hailed from the big city. Some liked to do an antiques run through the smaller towns along the highway that stretched from the Twin Cities north to the shipping harbor of Duluth.
So he was unusually curious about this beauty who looked as out of place as a demon in a salt factory.
Long red hair spilled down her back. He wouldn’t exactly call it red, more like copper that caught the sun in glints much like polished metal. Her skin resembled creamy caramel. A flowery skirt flitted between long legs as she strode the sidewalk, her attention taking in the house fronts and tidy yards. A faded T-shirt with an obvious hole at the back hem topped off the bohemian look. She scampered through an overgrown yard, which Blade wondered if he should offer to mow the lawn. Could be a hazard to an elder person trying to navigate the long grass.
He observed the sexy bohemian chick speak to an elder woman who seemed a bit too spry as she bounced back into her house. Blade could see the old woman’s shadow through the front window that wasn’t obscured by drapes. He kept her in peripheral vision while he satisfied his need for beauty.
The woman in the skirt scampered toward a dirt field. Did she have something to do back there? It was a big empty expanse. And across the stretch of black dirt was forest, which, after dozens of acres, backed up to Tangle Lake. Maybe she owned a strip of the black earth and intended to plant a garden? It was a little late in the season for that and she hadn’t any gardening tools on her.
An odd commotion inside the house made Blade turn his attention to the front window. The old woman’s silhouette was...changing. One moment she stood hunched, her head hanging and shoulders curved forward and down. The next moment, she’d grown another head. And another.
Instincts kicked in and Blade tugged out the silver bowie knife he kept stuffed in his combat boot. He closed the truck door. He knew better than to doubt his instincts.
The silhouettes in the house were now three separate entities, and big, and...
Blade sniffed. A faint trace of sulfur curled into his nostrils.
“Demons,” he muttered. “I do hate demons.”
Running along the side of the house, Blade veered around the corner and toward the back door, noting that the woman with the copper hair stood three hundred yards away in the field, her back to him. Unaware of the weirdness brewing within the house. Or so he hoped.
He opened the door and dodged to avoid the slash of obsidian talons. Pulling the door shut behind him, Blade hoped to keep the demons contained. And the beautiful woman safe.
The threesome of demons growled and spat at him, and lunged. Blade leaped to the top of a laundry machine, and jumped, flipping in the air and landing behind the nasty trio. Bowie knife at the ready, he defied them with a come-on gesture of his fingers.
“Are you the rage Sim spoke about?”
In a rare pause from attack, the demons glanced at one another. Black-hooded red eyes blinked. It was obvious they knew nothing about what he’d just asked. And really, a rage of demons would blacken the sky with their numbers. These three were barely a denizen.
“Is the woman one of your own?” he asked. He knew some demons could take on human form, many of them, actually, but he doubted the woman in the field had anything to do with this bunch.
“She is ours,” one of them hissed. “Keep away!”
“I don’t take orders from demons.” He twirled the knife and caught it, blade pointing toward the speaker. “Want to try asking nicely?”
The next hiss was accompanied by burning spittle that sizzled on Blade’s wrist. Wrong move.
The best way to kill a demon was with a blast of salt to its black heart. Blade did have a salt knife, but rarely carried it. In lieu of salt, he’d have to do this the old-fashioned way.
Leaping to the left, he feinted right, ducking to avoid attack. With that demon occupied in missing him, Blade slid under a groping talon and stood before Thing #2. He jammed up his knife, catching it deep in the rib cage of the surprised demon. A knife wound wouldn’t take out a demon. Unless it was more than a wound, and the weapon had been warded against demons. Dragging the blade upward, he cut open the creature from gut to throat and flung its spasming body aside to scatter in a spray of black ash.
Grabbed by the shoulders, the creature’s talons pierced his skin. Blade growled, and slashed blindly, feeling resistance and tasting a spatter of black demon blood. He lashed out his tongue, even as he bent to fling the one on his back toward Thing #3. The taste of blood frenzied his faery’s wicked craving. His fangs descended as he snarled. He tightened his grip on the knife.
“Now I’m angry,” he muttered.
Standing tall, Blade turned to face the two, who actually cowered at the sight of the vampire with black blood dripping from his mouth.
Charging, he continued his assault. Catching one demon about the neck in a clothesline, the other demon he stabbed with the knife. He gouged his hand upward, tearing the warded steel through the shrieking demon. As the blade tore out of viscera, he curled his hand around to land the other thing through the skull. Both demons scattered in ash behind him.
Blade licked the side of his hand, coated with black blood, and growled in satisfaction. Nasty stuff, but it hit him with a jolt of power and comforting darkness. And that was an irresistible high. Mmm... He could feel it move down his throat. Delicious strength shimmered in his muscles. His wings trembled for release, to allow the wicked blood to course through their very structure like cocaine to an addict’s soul.
“Hello?”
Kicked back to reality by the female call from outside the back door, Blade shook his head and stopped his wings before they could unfurl. Right. Keep your head, buddy. He shoved the knife down the side of his boot and stepped out the door and marched across the unkempt backyard. The woman in the long skirt strolled toward him, oblivious to what had just gone down inside the pink house.
Demons didn’t follow humans around. Not that he was aware of. And the woman had purposely gone to this one; he had seen her speak with it. Had she known it was demon? And if so, what was out in the field that the demon had directed her to?
Blade wiped the blood from his mouth and retracted his fangs. The woman’s face brightened as she neared, and she lifted her long skirt to run toward him. “Hello! Do you live in the house? I didn’t find what I thought I would find—”
Blade grabbed her by the upper arms and growled. “What are you?”
* * *
The man’s grip was too firm, Zenia thought. He actually looked angry, his dark brows narrowed, and the sun shone on his hair, bluing it around the one eye that was visible. A fathomless, gray eye. He had seen tribulation. Zenia knew that with certainty, as she knew so many odd facts.
And he was sexy. Devastatingly so. His broad chest stretched a charcoal-gray T-shirt in ripples, and thick veins corded his massive biceps. Combine his remarkable physique with a handsome face and he was the complete
