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Once you cut off the head, even if the flesh still lived, the organism would cease to function in any real capacity. That was simple anatomy. A decapitated demon you could safely treat as dead until you got the chance to burn the body.

Only this one didn’t play by the rules.

Suddenly, my quarry feinted left, veering toward the thickest part of the woods. Cursing, I gave the wheel a desperate yank, fishtailing in the mud before the off-road tires gripped, and the vehicle plowed into a nest of undergrowth. Bushes whacked the front grill, clawed at it like skeletal hands before they were dragged under. Visibility down to zero.

“C’mon, c’monnn,” I muttered, white-knuckling the wheel.

I burst clear onto an overgrown trail, wrestling the Hummer back up behind him, riding his ass hard.

My eyes narrowed on the speedometer.The hell...?

The needle crossed twenty... then twenty-five... then thirty...

This guy was freaking Seabiscuit.

His legs pumped faster and faster, whipping back with inhuman speed, driving him straight toward a thicket at the end of the trail.

He topped out at 45 mph—the speed of a thoroughbred racehorse. No, even demons couldn’t run that fast.

He was being helped.

And demons didn’t run in straight lines.

Normally, they zigzagged, ping-ponged all over the place, skittered back and forth like spiders, never straight lines. They knew better.

I sensed it then.

Trap.

I slammed on the brakes just as the demon vanished into the thicket.

The Hummer blasted into it and careened through a tunnel of vegetation. Once the vegetation fell away, I got a good look at what lay ahead of me.

Open air.

Fifty feet away, land ended. Now thirty. The Hummer was eating up the distance far too quickly. Twenty feet remained. I gritted my teeth as my foot held steady on the brakes.

Ten feet.

At last, the vehicle shuddered to an agonizing stop, the front wheels crunching over the edge of a cliff. I could only stare as the demon soared off the sixty-foot drop, arms and legs spread-eagled before it landed on a slab of bedrock at the bottom of a ravine, bounced into a roll, and hit the ground running, utterly unharmed.

Bitch had been leading me toward a cliff.

Clever animal.

I had one more shot at this. Seconds left before he slipped out of range.

I punched the roof hatch open and from behind the seats dragged out mycoup de grâce—the six-barrel machinegun I’d paid a fortune for—and locked it in place on the roof mount, my ammo belt clanging against the metal.

Then I lit up the ravine.

The weapon blazed like a torch, firing off a constant stream of bullets. Down below, the bedrock erupted in a shower of sparks. Screaming my lungs horse, I fired the shots across the demon, then back again, cleaving him in two, in four, ripping him to shreds.

He fell to the ground, his flesh flayed under the onslaught. His clothes caught fire, yet what remained of him continued to writhe.

Still, my finger crushed the trigger, still I sprayed bullets. After a minute of continuous fire, the gun fell silent, its smoking barrels glowing a dull red as they finally spun to a stop.

Out of ammo.