Page 29 of Helsing: Demon Slayer (The Dragon’s Paladins #1)
M iles sat in the nearly empty Aerie, his chin in his hand, lost in worst-case scenarios that felt less hypothetical by the hour.
Somehow over the last year since joining the Kastriotis and their merry band of demi-angels and an unbelievable bevy of devoted human assets, he’d started believing that the good guys could actually make a difference in the world without being corrupted first. Hell, he’d had to see more than a few miraculous things in order to believe in the ultimate good in the first place.
Yet Mihàil Kastrioti, the demi-angel commander of this group of Elioud defenders of humanity, had seemed indomitable.
Now he laid in a hospital bed, a large white patch where his left eye had been and severe burns over most of his body, burns that were worse than those scorched on his epidermis by an enraged kulsheder , a legendary seven-headed Albanian dragon once imprisoned by the Archangel Gabriel.
Miles was confronted with the real possibility that what he’d thought was the epic war-ending battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell only six months ago was simply the opening skirmish.
A young subordinate brought him a cup of fresh coffee without being asked.
Miles looked up at her. “Thanks, Greta.”
The young Danish woman had been rescued by Mihàil on a business trip and then recognized him as a former European playboy known for socializing with the Danish royal family.
Obsessed with him, she’d read up as much as she could online about his life.
It was during this self-imposed investigation that she realized that he matched a story that her grandfather had told her from when he was in secondary school and nearly drowned on a holiday in Greece.
Her grandfather had believed he’d been saved by his guardian angel.
Greta, intrigued, had staked out Mihàil’s hotel and then caught him and Olivia as they attempted to sneak back into their room after an evening of Elioud heroics. She’d asked for a job, and the zoti had hired her on the spot.
As he watched the self-composed woman return to her ops station where she monitored reports from their network, Miles couldn’t help but be a bit envious.
If only he’d been as prescient as a young man …
but he could regret nothing because, as the saying went, the Creator writes straight with crooked lines, and, boy, howdy, had his life been filled with some crooked chapters.
Yet now he was here working on behalf of the innocent with a squad of demi-angels, trying to redeem himself by writing a whole new book.
For a moment, green eyes in a frightened yet resolute face wavered before his mind’s eye.
Tadeja had caught his attention while undercover for the Company.
Nothing had ever felt as good as taking down the sex-trafficking operation that held her captive.
He thought of the young Croatian woman often with a mix of regret and longing.
He’d been aware that she’d returned his interest, but he also knew that it was better for her in the long run that he not pursue anything more with her.
He’d checked on Tadeja every now and then, and she’d been happy and safe working as a general manager of a high-end resort on the island of Hvar.
He hoped she was still safe, but there was no way for him to find out.
Their asset network didn’t include the island.
Miles pinched the bridge of his nose and took a long, deep sip of the potent brew.
Hot coffee . Sign that the apocalypse hadn’t arrived after all.
For a start, it meant they had full power at the Kastrioti estate as well as in Fushe-Arrez.
At minimum, it meant that Mihàil not only got the medical care he needed, but Dr. Armand had been able to layer on additional harmonic therapy with Willem’s help.
Anywhere else in the world without power after the flare, all those patients in hospitals, in surgery or using life-saving equipment …
“We will be fine, bello ,” said a husky female voice, its warm tones soothing the aching muscles at the back of his neck and rejuvenating him, despite the late hour and his unending shift. “We have been preparing for the worst ever since Asmodeus set K?kab?êl free from his underground prison.”
Miles looked toward the door of the TOC where Stasia Kos stood with her husband Miró.
The diminutive Italian, whose swollen belly attested to how close she was to giving birth to her first child, radiated concern and understanding.
On the other hand, her husband’s almost-inhuman light-blue stare gave nothing away.
Miles sat upright, his back straight, and set the coffee cup onto his desk. “Ma’am,” he said, nodding at her. He looked at Miró, who watched him much as a wolf watched its prey. Miles held the Elioud ’ s stare without flinching. “Sir. I didn’t expect either of you in the ops center this late.”
Miró nodded. “Understood. Given the situation, however, we thought it best to talk to you about the command structure going forward. András and Beta will join us in the conference room in a few minutes for a sitrep and planning.”
This wasn’t entirely unexpected. Miró, despite running the burgeoning research and development of the new Kastrioti Security Group, remained Mihàil’s most senior Elioud lieutenant after the zonje .
But the Croat needed to get the helicopter and other ground-based vehicles operational.
With Helsing in the field on a recovery mission, he would likely be transferring general command of their human forces to András to relieve Olivia, who was exhausted and torn between her nursing infant and wounded husband.
Miles stood and followed the Elioud couple to the door of the operations center.
As he passed Greta’s desk, he said, “Greta, I’ll be in the conference room.
You’re in charge here until I come back.
Forward all of the incoming situation reports to the conference-room display so that I can review them with the Elioud .
If you get time, ask Stefan to go to the kitchen and have something sent up for everyone to eat. I know you missed dinner.”
Greta gave a single, sharp dip of her head. “Yes, sir.”
As Miles caught up with Miró and Stasia, he caught a secretive smile on the former operative’s face. Working around her always unsettled him a bit, as if she understood him better than he did himself.
Inside the room, the large Hungarian sat on one side of the polished mahogany table while his wife paced around the space next to him, an Indonesian fighting knife called a karambit flashing between her hands in a deadly display.
Miles had long had the impression that she practiced opening and closing the hooked blade of the knife to keep from sinking her own claws into anyone who annoyed her.
When Miles started to head to a seat on the other side of the table, Miró stopped him. “It is your command, Baxter.”
Miles halted, his gaze meeting first Miró’s and then the other three Elioud warriors. Stasia gave him a particularly warm smile. Beta narrowed her eyes and dipped her chin.
When he came to András, the big man leaned forward over the conference table and held Miles’s gaze with his hard blue one. “When do Beta and I get to annihilate some daemons ?”
Miles nodded and moved toward the chair at one end, the seat that Mihàil normally occupied.
Then he turned to the curved OLED monitor hanging on the wall behind him—one of several in the large room—where Greta had sent the livestream of the incoming sitreps from their forces and assets in the region.
A summary pane presented Greta’s analysis of the regional situation following the geomagnetic flare as well as a map highlighting critical incidents within five hundred kilometers.
He checked to confirm that his first order wasn’t contradicted by any other status before swiveling and pinning the Elioud warrior with an equally hard stare.
“Well, Giant, funny you should ask. You and Draka head out as soon as Blackbird can task an operational vehicle. We have two assets, one critically wounded, who need evacuation before that black cloud you see off the Montenegrin coast erupts into a tsunami of daemons .”
Ryan heard Dianne shouting a warning as he knelt next to the van, one end of a medical-grade rubber hose in his mouth and the other in the van’s gas tank. Startled, he inhaled a mouthful of gasoline, causing him to sputter and choke on the poisonous liquid without actually swallowing any.
An instant later, the sound of a Glock 19 firing cleared his momentary confusion.
He pulled the tube away and spat the gas onto the pavement under the van before swiveling to see what happened behind him.
The movement clawed at his wounded side, sending a wet gush of fresh blood through his sopping T-shirt and a wave of dizziness through him.
Rapid footsteps sounded, followed by another shot, then another.
Grunts and the meaty slap of bullet hitting flesh punctuated the unseen action.
Ryan gritted his teeth and shook his head vigorously to clear it.
When he opened his eyes, he took in two crumpled bodies ten meters away.
A third person held her folded arm against her stomach as she bent over one of the fallen figures.
In the dim shadows under the trees at the edge of the lot, he caught movement from human-sized silhouettes, like wolves wary of a campfire.
Three bullets, three hits.
“Olivia never said you can shoot,” he said, pressing a palm against the van’s side to keep from passing out.
“That’s because I’ve never shot a gun before,” said Dianne, glancing back at him while keeping the gun raised in both hands, which remained steady. She’d adopted a wide stance and looked like a trained shooter despite her answer.