Page 7 of Helsing: Demon Slayer (The Dragon’s Paladins #1)
D ianne tripped on someone’s foot and went down, hard, on her right knee. The sharp pain cleared some of her fuzzy thoughts, but now she struggled to stand. People jostled around her, and several of them stepped on her bent leg or pushed against her back.
“Jaz! Tess!” she said, raising her voice almost to a shout as she looked for her friends, who seemed to have disappeared.
As she came to her feet, someone’s elbow connected with her cheek.
That pain wiped her head clear, brought water to her eyes, and nausea to her throat.
Retching, Dianne threw out an arm to keep her balance, hit a meaty body part, and heard a grunt.
She couldn’t see because her eyelids refused to stay open after the inadvertent punch.
Terror rolled through her as she felt herself pinned in, nearly blind, and being pummeled by endless elbows while bodies rolled her farther away from Ryan like rollers in a car wash.
Almost as soon as she thought of him, The Beast appeared next to her.
Her eye above her injured cheekbone had started to swell, but the uninjured eye widened enough to see his massive form blocking the demented dancers behind him while he grappled with the others surrounding her.
He pulled Dianne into his side, holding her easily with one arm as he pushed people out of his way.
He looked like the god of thunder and felt like heaven.
She’d never been so glad to see someone in her life.
Unfortunately, there was no way off the pool deck from this side.
They would have to either fight their way through the mass of people in front of the band or head along the side where fewer people watched the end of the party, mostly sitting at the tables.
The Beast turned to head that way, but her injured knee crumpled, and she staggered, kept upright only by his firm grip.
And people began streaming from the pool deck as the song ended, clogging their path forward.
Without warning, The Beast lifted Dianne, one handed, up and over his shoulder, his forearm pinning her thighs against his rock-hard abdomen. Giving a little shriek, Dianne clutched at his neck to keep from sliding sideways.
“I’ve got you,” he growled. He growled . The words rumbled through his chest and the soft bristles of his beard rubbed against her forearm.
The people on the side of the deck, who’d remained more subdued than those dancing, moved out of their way like the Red Sea parting. Dianne saw the slack look on some of their faces, but on several she thought she saw something sly, malicious even. A tremor rolled through her at this vision.
Behind them, shrieks filled the air. Dianne looked up to see other men carrying other women, some struggling.
Worse, she thought she saw some of the preteen children also being roughly handled, while in the dim light and confusion, she imagined that there were knots of people on the deck boards in sexual positions.
Most seemed enthusiastic, but to Dianne’s horror, she saw a teenaged boy grabbed from behind and held by a middle-aged man while another man shoved his own shorts down. She looked away.
What was happening here?
Germaine appeared out of nowhere to block her view as they entered the hallway into the ship’s interior.
She looked disheveled. Her light-brown hair frothed around her face, wild and tangled.
Her clothing sported rips and tears. Only one foot still wore a sandal, whose strap was broken.
She clutched at The Beast’s arm holding Dianne, hardly slowing his stride.
“Dianne! Thank God you’re okay!”
“Keep moving,” said The Beast without looking at Germaine, who tripped along at his side. “We’ve got to get clear of this deck before they seal the exits.”
“What do you mean?” asked Germaine as they rounded the corner toward the elevators.
“Put me down. I can walk,” said Dianne at the same time.
Ryan ignored both of them. To Dianne’s surprise, he passed the elevators and headed toward the stairs in the middle of the deck.
She saw a small group of passengers waiting in front of the elevators watching them with their mouths hanging open.
Then Ryan plunged downward, the relentless rhythm of his jogging causing Dianne’s stomach to clench as her blurry monocular vision sought to make sense of their surroundings.
Germaine paused at the top of the stairs, looking over her shoulder toward the hall that they’d just left. Violence and noise rumbled their way. She shook the broken sandal from her foot and then plunged after Dianne and Ryan, practically running to keep up.
They went down three decks. At the landing to Deck Eight, Dianne gasped out in time with his steps, “I’m going to throw up if you don’t let me walk.”
Instead of putting her on her feet, The Beast switched his hold so that he cradled her in his arms. Then he turned toward the stairs again.
“Where are you taking me?” asked Dianne, realizing that it wasn’t her cabin on Deck Eight.
“To my cabin,” he said. “On Deck Four.”
“Di, you don’t know this guy. Don’t let him take you anywhere.” Germaine sounded breathless. She halted on the landing in front of the elevators. She looked up the stairs where tumultuous, discordant voices rushed towards them. “We should wait this out in our cabin.”
The Beast looked at Dianne, his eyes serious and direct. “It’s not going to get better. You need to trust me. This is why Olivia sent me.”
Dianne went with her gut. Looking at her friend, she said, “Come with us.”
Germaine shook her head, panic clear on her face and in her voice. “I can’t.”
Behind Germaine, the elevator dinged, and the doors started to slide open. Hands began pulling at the edges, trying to force them wider. The deranged babble on the stairs sounded like it was only one deck above them.
Ryan didn’t wait for more discussion. “Hold tight,” he said, his jaw set.
Dianne’s hands came around his neck of their own volition just before he headed down the stairs. The last view she had of Germaine was her friend’s back as she sprinted barefoot toward the hallway leading to their cabin.
Ryan made it to Deck Six before a handful of teenagers appeared on the stairs behind them.
Dianne’s heart nearly stopped when she saw them.
It was like something out of a horror movie.
A zombie movie. Only these kids weren’t dead, nor did they have bloody mouths, slack jaws, and unfocused gazes.
No, they’d been transformed in some way that Dianne couldn’t process.
They looked like nightmare creatures from a medieval painter’s fevered dream.
Eerie glowing energy leapt and sparked around them in a visible cloud.
They locked their malevolent gazes on Ryan and her.
A moment later, the tallest male teen landed in a crouch next to Ryan just as he reached the landing.
A wave of energy rolled over Dianne, blacking her out for an instant.
When awareness returned, she saw the teen crumpled on the stairs above them in the midst of the other adolescents, who writhed and struggled to get free of him.
Ryan threw Dianne over his shoulder again before she could protest, holding her with one arm.
The world around her moved again. One stride.
Two strides. And then he grabbed the banister and jumped to Deck Five just as the elevator doors opened, regurgitating adults who surrounded them in a hissing, screeching, seething mass.
Rough hands pulled Dianne from Ryan. Painful electric jolts stung her all over her body.
She came violently alert, but her vision had come unmoored from her brain.
Nothing that she saw fit together in any meaningful way.
Vivid flashes of vermillion, lime, and dirty eggplant pierced her good eye like glass shards.
Worse were the sounds. Like hundreds of snakes, insects, and wounded animals.
She felt herself being carried and struggled to get free. But the stench of rotten eggs smothered her. Coughing and flailing, she struck bone and flesh, a scream clawing at her throat but her lungs too clogged to give it breath.
Ryan appeared, distinct and clear in the sensory morass. Dianne’s gaze locked on him. A visible blue-white aura surrounded him, and his gaze flashed with lightning under thunderous brows. He looked like an avenging angel.
Ryan grabbed one of the creatures clutching Dianne. She heard bone snap, followed by a sickening howl and its weight lifted from her. A thud coincided with Ryan engaging the second creature still gripping her.
After an interminable period of grunting and snarling, the creature’s grasp slackened. As it exhaled, the scrabbling of thousands of claws crawled up Dianne’s spine and then faded away. Her vision cleared at the same time, leaving her cold-stone sober and shaking.
Ryan pulled the man from Dianne. She didn’t know if he was alive or dead, which terrified her.
Other bodies lay slumped along the corridor where the creatures had sought to escape with her.
Some of them lay in unnatural positions.
Dianne snatched her gaze away and sat up, pushing herself against the wall between two cabin doors.
Ryan leaned over, his hands on his thighs, panting. Dianne focused on his face, which had dozens of razor-thin cuts that bled into the sweat streaming from his brow. His clothing, soaked in blood and sweat, hung in tatters.
He turned his head towards her. Their gazes met and held for a moment.
“Are you hurt?” he asked as he knelt and began running his palms over Dianne’s body. Something about his efficient, but gentle, strokes almost undid her.
But she couldn’t allow herself to cry now, not when this stranger had just put himself into harm’s way for her sake.
“I don’t think so.” Her voice croaked from her. “At least, not as badly as you.” She raised a finger to touch his cheek as he bent over her, probing her bruised knee with sure, careful fingers.