Page 31 of Helsing: Demon Slayer (The Dragon’s Paladins #1)
Eventually the tension and Ryan’s still form got to Dianne, whose adrenaline waned into exhaustion as the night elapsed.
She began to imagine that the sheer white tunic she wore took on a faint, ethereal gleam.
Blinking her eyes several times, she succeeded only in seeing ominous ghostly figures on the landscape.
Unnatural elongated figures that seemed to keep pace with the car.
“Aerie Actual,” said Dianne. The music in her ear cut off.
“This is Aerie Actual, do you have a situation to report?”
“A ‘sitrep’?” she asked, trying to inject humor into her question. Instead, she sounded tired and scared even to herself. “No, just needing to hear a human voice.”
“Not a problem. I’m here with you every step of the way.”
“What’s your name?” asked Dianne, gripping the wheel. “I’m Dianne, Olivia’s little sister.”
“Yes, I know.” The voice paused. “I’m Miles Baxter. I used to work with your sister at the CIA.”
“ CIA? ” That woke Dianne right up. “Olivia was a spy?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Miles chuckled dryly. “It’s not exactly Christmas-dinner conversation, if you know what I mean.”
Dianne shook her head, half laughing. “It explains a lot.”
She went silent, mulling over the craziness of Olivia being a spy. After everything she’d learned and experienced in the past twenty-four hours, her sister working for the CIA seemed as normal as a day at the spa followed by cocktails for her.
“Hey,” said Miles, bringing her back to the present. “You’re a lot like her, you know?”
“How’s that? Olivia hasn’t been a damsel in distress waiting for a knight in shining armor to rescue her in her whole life.”
“From where I sit, you’re the one doing the heroic rescue.”
Dianne scoffed but didn’t deny his observation.
She looked at the creepy ethereal forms that had thickened around the car, turning the night into an oppressive otherworld.
Her tunic glowed brighter, almost in counterpoint.
At the same time, her heart felt inexplicably heavy, as though an unseen weight pressed against her chest with each passing moment.
Up ahead, buildings clustered. She prayed that it was Shkoder, that the safehouse was just inside the city limits, and there was a medical team there, just waiting to save Ryan.
“Listen, Dianne, we have a team on its way to you. They’ll be there in just a few minutes.
You just have to keep your head on straight and keep driving, no matter what.
” Dianne heard a thread of tension in Miles’s voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“Ryan’s counting on you. Your sister’s counting on you. We’re all counting on you.”
She could no longer see beyond the car's windows. An impenetrable fog surrounded them now. He knows about the ghostly figures .
Dianne felt a chill enter the car. Disembodied fingers began to run over her skin. The charm bracelet Germaine had given her felt cool against her wrist, a sensation that crawled up her arm like a whisper she couldn’t quite hear.
“Miles,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “Can you teach me St. Benedict’s Prayer? The one for exor—”
He cut her off. “Absolutely I will. There are three lines. It starts crux sacra sit mihi lux .”
“ Crux sacra sit mihi lux ,” said Dianne. When she opened her mouth to repeat the line, her throat constricted, the words catching as if something inside her resisted. Her voice shook a little, but each word resonated. She imagined eyes and maws pressed against the windshield.
An unholy chorus of whispers filled the car interior, pushing against the words of the prayer. The fog thickened, tightening an invisible noose around her throat. For an instant, the thought skittered through her mind: what if the prayer wasn’t enough?
“ Non draco sit mihi dux, ” said Miles, his words clipped, his tone sharpening like steel.
As she repeated that line, her own voice strengthened. Light seemed to emanate around her and Ryan. An answering glow radiated from the pendant he wore, just as it had done last night when the daemons attacked on the ship. The beacon pushed the fog back, casting fleeting shadows over it.
The daemonic faces sneered in response. The whispers turned to growls and hisses, and the temperature in the car dropped further. Grotesque shadows flickered like smoke around the edges of the light enveloping them.
“Vade retro Satana .” Miles’s voice hardened into command.
The glow from Ryan’s pendant flared higher and brighter with each line of the exorcism prayer, its light weaving into the cocoon around them.
“Vade retro Satana .” As Dianne struggled to repeat the final line, the daemons writhed and twisted as they breached the barrier of the windshield, their forms rippling like molten shadows.
In an instant they were on her, their claws and teeth burning where they touched her skin.
A cold, sharp pain lanced through her chest as the daemons smothered her, a sensation she couldn’t explain but knew wasn’t entirely their doing.
She jerked the steering wheel, a scream caught in her throat, forcing the Opel’s tires to grate across the pavement.
As the unnatural night swallowed them, Dianne braced herself, one thought looping in her head: Vade retro Satana .
Without knowing why, she knew what the Latin said.
Get behind me, Satan.
In the silence that followed, the words of the prayer hung in the air like the glow of Ryan’s pendant—fragile, yet unyielding, a thin thread of hope against the encroaching void.