Page 15 of Helsing: Demon Slayer (The Dragon’s Paladins #1)

P ressure encased Dianne’s head in a blinding cocoon.

She’d barely heard anything since the moment when that immense humming swelled around them.

It had seemed to come straight from her heart.

She’d watched in horror as Germaine had been set upon by three brutal men, who’d laughed— laughed —at Germaine’s terror and pain.

Dianne had reacted on instinct, rushing forward to thrust the heel of one hand under the jaw of the man dragging Germaine from safety.

He'd given Dianne a fiendish grin as if enjoying her weak attempt at defending her friend, then deliberately broken Germaine’s leg, all while holding Dianne’s gaze.

She’d turned in frantic need to Ryan, only to see him grappled by a massive man covered in multiple bleeding wounds while another punched him, over and over, in his lower back. He’d started to crumple under the assault.

Ryan, The Beast. Had she really thought that?

Dianne had opened her mouth to yell again, but the scream caught in her throat, strangled by panic.

They were going to die, and she knew it.

That’s when the pressure had started. The unbearable pressure to do something, anything, to change the outcome no part of her could accept.

She’d fixated on the inhuman combatants battering Ryan, feeling the surreal humming rise in pitch until the one hugging him had clutched his head. Then the other had shrieked, an unholy sound that made the hair on Dianne’s head and neck stand until her scalp tightened.

Then it got truly bizarre.

An awful stench of burnt meat assaulted Dianne’s nose only to culminate in a shocking event. Ryan’s two antagonists disintegrated in a whoosh of fiery smoke and ash followed by howling from the other attackers, who proceeded to combust in fountains of ash and flame.

Their leader had remained standing, however, and Dianne’s heart rose to her damaged throat, nearly choking her as she saw him stand upright after the humming had ceased.

One eye had burst from its socket, the clear jelly dribbling down his cheek, which slumped as if it would melt from his face.

The ghoulish sight seized her in a full-body spasm, raw and involuntary.

Unbelievably, Ryan had straightened his shoulders, gripped that wicked-looking black knife he’d brandished out of nowhere, and stepped forward, motioning to the other man with one hand.

That bastard had only stared in defiant malevolence at Ryan before spinning on his heel and limping away past the sole terrified police officer still brandishing a weapon in shaking hands.

The pressure in her head had abated, at least until the police officer began shooting at Ryan, who, cool customer that he was, turned his back on this new danger and strode toward Dianne.

The large plate-glass windows of the station behind him shattered, sending shards over him in a jagged mist to tinkle on the pavement.

Dozens of bleeding cuts, of which he seemed singularly unaware, opened on his face.

The pressure returned, clogging Dianne’s ears so that it sounded like everything was deep underwater. Everything except Ryan’s voice, whose gruff, clear baritone caressed her as if he whispered into her ears.

Now he walked at a brisk pace with Germaine cradled in his arms toward the parking lot behind the bus station, where passengers and drivers gathered at the windows, staring at them.

Dianne had to jog to stay ahead of him. Overhead, thickening gray clouds moved across the previously clear sky, adding to the tension gripping her.

Around them, bodies lay scattered among dropped backpacks, purses, random shoes, and a smattering of cars with smashed windshields and idling engines.

In the distance, sirens continued to wail.

It was a nightmare scene from an apocalyptic big-budget American movie.

Ryan’s gaze swept the four lanes of roads that bordered the bus station and then the harbor, as if he expected an attack at any moment from any direction, including the Adriatic.

“Shouldn’t we try to take one of these cars?” she asked, shivering as she looked toward the nearest traffic lane. She didn’t know if her tremors were from nerves or the dropping temperature. Or both.

Ryan shook his head. “Negative. Olivia’s sent help for us. They’ll be here any time.”

Germaine, who’d passed out when the evil brute had broken her leg, moaned.

“They’ll be able to give her some emergency medical care faster than we can get her to the local hospital.”

Dianne nodded, though she really had no comprehension of the gravity of Germaine’s injury. But Ryan didn’t seem fazed at it. Likely he’d seen worse on a real battlefield … then it hit her all at once that this was a real battlefield.

“You knew this could happen, didn’t you?” she asked, halting on the sidewalk, carefully avoiding a man and woman whose death throes had tangled their limbs together.

He stopped next to her. For the first time since they’d left the ship, he held her gaze. His was grim. “Yes.” He paused, his gaze searching hers now as if he wondered how much to say. How much she could handle. “But I had no idea it would go from zero to one-eighty this fast.”

Something changed in the air around them. Dianne wasn’t sure what. It felt like the sudden drop in pressure before a major thunderstorm.

Ryan’s gaze came up, like a gazelle scenting a lion. “They’re coming again.” He lifted his chin toward a nearby café. “Let’s get inside there. At least I can defend against them until our ride arrives.”

He left unsaid that they might be trapped inside.

Dianne hurried forward to open the door, her own gaze scanning the area. An invisible warning slid over her skin, raising goosebumps in its wake.

The door to the café turned out to be unlocked, thank all that was good and holy.

Dianne had pulled it wide for Ryan and a moaning Germaine when she observed a mass of people marching toward them from the pier, their faces without expression and their eyes flat.

They clogged the road next to the station and the lanes beyond the divider, filling all the pavement to the edge of the water.

She darted a glance over her shoulder north toward the city center where the Roman ruins stood watch over the harbor.

It was worse.

Way worse.

The mob moving toward them at an ungodly speed stretched as far as she could see.

It was a veritable army, loudly discordant even at this distance.

But not as disciplined as the mass from the south.

Pockets of brutality broke out like bubbles in lava: snarling and violent clashes disrupted the army’s progress only to disappear in the inexorable flow.

The air shimmered above them, as if indeed the bodies below radiated magma-levels of heat.

It would be only a matter of minutes before the two groups of daemon -warped humans met. She, Germaine, and Ryan would be caught between them.

A massive headache hammered at her.

“Close the door,” said Ryan behind her.

Dianne didn’t move, caught in the grip of tension from within and without.

“Markham!” Ryan’s voice pierced the invisible veil holding her hostage.

Blinking, Dianne slammed the café door shut, locking it for all the good it would do. She whirled around to find Ryan laying a now-writhing Germaine on the floor.

“What are we going to do?” she asked, hearing the stark fear in her voice.

Ryan stood upright and caught her gaze with his astonishingly clear one. “ We aren’t going to do anything,” he said. “You’ll be fine as long as you don’t take off that tunic. And Markham?” He paused. “Stay out of my way.”

Then he spoke into thin air as he’d been doing all morning. “Harlequin, this is Demon Slayer. Where’s that transport you promised me?” His voice sounded as implacable and rough as unpolished granite.

To Dianne’s shock, Olivia’s voice slid into her ear—tight, breathless, and underlaid with an intensity that made her skin prickle. She couldn’t explain how she knew it, but the sound whispered things the words didn’t say.

“Understood, Demon Slayer,” said her sister. “Transport vehicle has gotten caught in a traffic jam on the D410. Can you hold that location until they clear a path to you?”

“Do I have a choice, Harlequin?” Now Ryan sounded grim. As he talked, his eyes scanned the shelves behind the counter in the café where bottles of alcohol stood. Then his gaze snagged Dianne’s. “Looks like it’s time for some good old-fashioned Molotov cocktails.”

Miles Baxter, who’d spent the previous day running NAV teams on defensive maneuvers around the perimeter of the Kastrioti estate, yawned as he filled his coffee cup in the breakroom for the tactical operations center.

The Nano Aerial Vehicle technology had become more reliable since they’d first deployed it last fall, especially with the addition of fixed physical anchors that also acted as tuners and amplifiers around the sprawling, mountainous grounds.

Now it was just a matter of training the human operators in using the Elioud tech, especially the riflemen who’d benefit from the invisible spotters and targeting systems.

Once they’d completed incursion testing and hardened the mesh network that the riflemen relied upon, they’d deploy more of the anchors farther afield, eventually along the borders of Albania itself.

Provided that they could recruit enough local operators for the additional NAV teams necessary to operate the expanded mesh network, nothing short of a nuclear warhead would penetrate the Balkan country, even if Mihàil Kastrioti, who defended the border as drangùe, died.

Miles had also spent the better part of another shift in the TOC itself, working with his new second-in-command, who’d been a team leader for those same nano drone operators until a week ago.

It had been two years since Miles had pulled long shifts in the field as a CIA recovery expert, and he was growing soft if his fatigue was anything to go by.

Or old.