Page 48

Crap.I dove behind the bed.

Fire roared from his mouth in a white-hot jet. In an instant, the room blazed in an inferno. Rippling heat rolled up the walls, the blankets caught fire and combusted, flames singed my hair. Making an ungodly screaming noise, the demon swept the stream of fire around the room, incinerating everything on contact.

Major affinity: fire breathing.

They wanted to burn me, like I burned them. As retribution.

The bed made a tiny bubble of shelter, but already flames licked around the edges, nipping at my extremities. I laid low, eyes watering from the heat, and I choked on a lungful of blistering ash.

Through tears, I risked a peek at the top of the bed, where the fire parted around me like a river of lava.

I had to reach up into that to shoot.

Nuh-uh, I’d lose my hand and the gun.

But I couldn’t do nothing. The whole room had turned into a furnace. I’d get roasted alive.

Already, the edges of the steel bed frame were beginning to glow. My skin tightened and began to prickle, then sting.

He had to run out of breath eventually.I just need one shot...

Yet his flamethrower mouth continued to spew fire.

This was magic. With seven billion humans on Earth, and five liters of blood apiece to cull from, demons had a near infinite supply. And this demon, he appeared to have stocked up before he paid a visit.

My gaze darted to the window behind me, my only escape. To get to it I’d have to walk through fire.

Cornered like a rat.

No, I refused to die in my own house.

Lightheaded from the smoke, I locked my fingers under the bed frame—hot to the touch—and gave a mighty heave. The bed lifted, deflecting the fire over my head. Grunting, I drove my shoulder against the underside and tipped the massive bed on end. I muscled it toward the demon. With a wrench of metal, it toppled against the doorway, blocking the creature’s attack.

Blue flames slithered around its edges. As I stared, the center of the mattress caught fire and began crumbling to ashes.

He was burning right through it.

Fanning away the scalding fumes, I flung myself to the window and gripped the sill through the fireproof fabric of my ammo vest, then yanked it upward. Clean, cool air swirled up my nostrils. Behind me, the mattress went up in flames. I kicked out the screen and threw myself clear of the structure just as the demon stepped through the cinders and the room once again filled with fire.

I landed in a thorny rosebush, and winced. Crawling free, I staggered to my feet and took aim at the demon through the windows.

“Suck on this, fucker!” The M4 lit up in my hands.

The demon receded into the flames.

I circled the suite, tracking him and firing on full automatic. The stream of bullets blasted out shards of plaster and wood, and it blew out glass until the gun fell silent. I reloaded and emptied a second clip, my finger numb from squeezing so hard.

As I fired, the inferno spread to the rest of the house. Either the demon was burning to death inside or getting mowed down outside. One way or another, this bitch was toast.

Except it wasn’t.

My bullets could have been BBs. Ignoring the gunfire, ignoring the flames blazing around it, ignoring everything, the demon strolled through the burning bedroom and crouched in front of the closet, then blew out another blue-white jet of fire, focusing it like a laser beam at the floor.

I let go of the trigger, and the gun sputtered and died in my hands.

Of course. The demon breathed fire. Part of its major affinity must be immunity to heat—itcouldn’tbe burned.

Fuck.