Page 109
I thought that a healer would have been able to reverse the infection, but in the wake of what Lana told me, I had to face another possibility—that rapid healing accelerated the decay.
And Lana had been pouring her magic into healing.
That’s why the onset was so rapid.
A late-stage infection, like what Lana had, would kill a demon every time.
What she needed was penicillin, and she needed it within the hour.
Or she would die.
Every minute that demon had her was a minute less she had to live.
At the thought, a terrible fear took hold low in my gut, sinking in like claws—a fear I hadn’t known in two years.
Fear for another’s life.
Fear for Lana.
In the five days since White Sulfur Springs, I had gone from her captor to her reluctant ally. At some point in the last twenty-four hours, I had become her protector.
Maybe it was seeing her sick and hurting, the pang of sympathy every human feels for a wounded creature, maybe it was seeing her own kind turn on her, or maybe it was the fact that she’d helped me find the portal.
All I knew was I couldn’t let her die.
Not now, not like this, not at the hands of the very demons she had sworn to protect.
That just didn’t seem fair.
I reloaded my Glock, then dug under the backseat for my sawed-off shotgun.
Locked and loaded, I muscled my way into the foliage, following the trail of trampled grass.
Low ferns scraped my bare calves and wedged under my flip-flops, while the sun winked through a high canopy of palms and broad-leafed hardwoods. As I pushed into the underbrush, the shadows deepened.
I imagined what would become of Lana. Demons didn’t understand antibiotics. Nor did they care. They would let her die, unable and unwilling to help her.
The ground began to rumble.
I paused to listen, knuckles tight on the shotgun’s pump-action handgrip.
It built like a slow thunder, vibrating up through my knees. On the ground, pebbles danced and settled into quivering piles. A wet breeze blew in from the side, whipping the broad leaves to and fro and popping my ears.
I spun toward the approaching thunder.
My hunch had been right; I knew exactly which demon I was up against.
Fuck.
A wave of water crashed through the trees, splashing around their trunks and uprooting bushes, rising ten feet over my head. The wall of seawater slammed into me, dragged me backward, tore the gun from my hand and flooded my nostrils.
Then I was tumbling like a rag doll, dragged under by the currents, pummeled by rocks. My head broke the foamy surface, and I gasped for breath. A swirling vortex slammed me into a low tree branch, and I clung to it for dear life as the flood swept past me, finally draining to rivulets and puddles. With a groan, I dropped to the ground, soaking wet and bruised everywhere.
Then, from out of the dripping trees stepped the demon.
Clad in a skintight suit made of blue fish scales, she had long, flowing blonde hair and watermelon-pink eyes. The demon was more mermaid than girl.
Aecora, tamer of oceans.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109 (Reading here)
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156