Page 8 of Helsing: Demon Slayer (The Dragon’s Paladins #1)
“I’m fine,” he said gruffly. He sat up, dropping his hands from her. “Do you think you can walk? We need to get to my cabin before more of them find us.”
Dianne bent her right leg. The knee protested, but she didn’t think anything was broken or torn. “Can you help me stand?” she asked.
He nodded and reached for her hand, pulling her to her feet without effort. Dianne wobbled and braced herself against the wall until she got her balance. As long as she didn’t have to outrun a horde of crazy people, she thought she could make it down one deck to Ryan’s cabin.
“Ready?” he asked. At her nod, he said, “Take this corridor to the center of the ship. I’ll guard our rear. Stop at the end and stay out of sight until I confirm the stairs are clear.”
Dianne nodded again and began picking her way around the men on the floor, using the corridor wall to keep her balance.
She did her best to ignore the ordinariness of their features, the Hawaiian shirts, the polos, the shorts, sandals, and flipflops.
The blank stares on several of them. The blood and broken bones.
Up ahead, a cabin door opened, and a woman peered around the frame at them. Her eyes widened. Dianne ignored her. As they passed, the woman’s gaze traveled to the corridor behind them. She screamed and slammed her door shut.
Dianne fixed her view on the end of the long, claustrophobic passage and refused to think about anything other than reaching it. She felt Ryan’s reassuring bulk behind her. Her knee throbbed as she walked, and her right eye had swollen completely shut. The whole side of her face ached.
After an interminable effort—which likely only took a few minutes—she reached the opening to the next set of elevators and stairs near the center of the cruise ship.
The whole time they’d encountered no other passengers or crew in the strangely silent vessel.
Just as she stopped and before Ryan could move around her to verify that it was safe to head down the stairs to Deck Four, the ship’s PA carillon sounded, which was unheard of at this time of night.
“Attention, this is James, your assistant cruise director. We’re experiencing a technical issue with our onboard electrical system that requires us to have everyone return to their cabins until further notice. Safety lighting will now switch on, and all elevators will be offline.”
The overhead lights dimmed, and lights along the base of the walls glowed to life.
James continued. “Crew members are stationed on every deck and will assist anyone having difficulty reaching their cabins. Please refrain from calling the service desk with questions for the next two hours. I’ll provide you with updates while our technicians assess the issue.
Please be assured that our backup generators have engaged and that this is simply a precaution.
The ship remains on course to dock in Split, Croatia, at seven a.m., and all passengers will be able to disembark at eight. ”
Ryan, who’d moved to Dianne’s side while the assistant cruise director spoke, glanced behind them and then down at Dianne. “Wait here.” He spoke in a low voice and didn’t stay for her response.
She peered around the edge of the opening while Ryan ran through the empty space in front of the elevators to the stairs, where he jumped to the landing leading to the deck below. He waited a moment, his head tilted as he assessed what he could see of the next deck. Then he waved her forward.
Dianne pushed off the wall, only to be yanked by her hair. A hissing female voice burrowed into her ear and crawled down her spine. “Ah, ah, my pretty. Going somewhere? Come back and party with me.”
Then the woman, whoever she was, began to drag Dianne backwards as if she weighed nothing, even when her knee caused her to stumble and nearly fall.
In fact, they seemed to fly down the passageway that Dianne had only moments before struggled to travel.
The stranger pulled Dianne through an open cabin door not far from where the bodies of the drugged partygoers had fallen.
Not a single body remained.
The cabin door slammed shut on its own. Almost instantly her captor swung Dianne back and forth between the closed wood door of the closet and the metal hull like a dog shaking a prey held in its jaws. She hit her head against the closet door and then her left shoulder.
A moment later a massive boom rocked the cabin door as if under assault by a battering ram.
The stranger began to laugh, an unnatural, high-pitched sound that broke unevenly and ended in a gurgle. “Someone wants to take you back, little girl. Wonder if he’s willing to play tug-of-war?”
The door opened abruptly, and Ryan fell into the cabin and into Dianne, who crumpled to the floor with the force of his impact. She managed to get her left hand out to break her fall, but her face still kissed the industrial-weave carpet.
It took her a moment to realize that Ryan stood above her, straddling her shoulders as he faced the stranger.
“Not today, daemon ,” he said. The authority in his voice sent shivers down Dianne’s back.
She started to push herself up to see to whom Ryan spoke, but her left wrist screamed at her, and she collapsed on the floor again.
When she whimpered involuntarily, Ryan shifted.
An instant later, Dianne slid across the floor and smashed into the foot of the bed, hitting the top of her head.
She sagged into the floor, struggling to remain conscious.
She turned her face where it rested on the scratchy fibers and lifted her gaze.
In front of her stood the woman who’d watched them walking through the passageway earlier. Instead of a fearful expression, she now wore a sly smile. She took a step.
“Stop! I command you in the name of Elohim , the Creator of Heaven and Earth,” said Ryan as he advanced again to stand over Dianne.
“Please,” said the woman, her oddly modulated voice wheedling. She eased another foot in front of her. “I meant no harm, paladin.” The last word grated like a fork caught in a running garbage disposal.
The temperature in the cabin dropped. Dianne quaked. When she breathed out, she saw a frosty cloud.
“Stay back.” The Beast had returned in a growl. He lifted Dianne in his arms. She shrank against him, trying to burrow into his warmth and away from their sinister antagonist.
“Or what?” asked the woman. “You won’t harm a woman, will you?” She opened her mouth and exhaled. A miasma of decay enveloped Dianne, who began gagging.
The low light in the cabin extinguished.
Bodiless voices laughed around them in an icy whirlwind, tearing at Dianne’s hair and pulling her scalp. She shrieked, but the foul breeze swallowed the sound and grew in strength.
Ryan clutched Dianne to him, straightened his shoulders, and lifted his chin. Then he began chanting, his rich, husky baritone vibrating his chest and instantly allaying Dianne’s terror. “ Crux sacra sit mihi lux . Non draco sit mihi dux. Vade retro Satana .”
As he sang, light emanated from a pendant on his chest that Dianne hadn’t noticed before.
The daemon hissed and sprang ten feet into the farthest corner of the cabin, its black hair wild and limbs splayed.
Ryan continued singing in unfamiliar, yet somehow soothing, Latin.
The blue light expanded, glowing softly until it created an ethereal cocoon around Dianne and him.
Shadows played on the possessed woman’s face as if a legion of dark spirits tormented her.
The cabin shook violently as if the ship was being tossed in a hurricane. A thousand tormented voices rose in mind-numbing babble.
But Ryan’s gaze held Dianne’s. It promised safety. It promised victory.
Without warning, the window in the cabin exploded outward, and the mineral scent of the sea rushed in. The unholy cataclysm quieted.
After Ryan’s chant ended, the only sound to be heard in the strangely quiet room was the woman’s sobbing. The celestial glow remained around them, if dimmer.
In the otherworldly light, Ryan’s gaze had turned inscrutable. “Let’s go. We won’t have any more trouble before we dock in Split.”
He slipped his hand into hers and turned to leave. Dianne looked back toward the woman, who sat in the far corner of the cabin with her arms around her knees, rocking back and forth and muttering between sobs.
“What about her?” she asked.
Ryan glanced at the woman. His gaze, already inscrutable, shuttered. “There’s nothing I can do for her. If I had a harmonics modulator keyed for humans .…” He squared his shoulders. “But I don’t.”
He tugged Dianne toward the door, leading her back along the corridor toward the stairs.
In the dim emergency lighting, the faint glow surrounding them threw odd shadows on the walls and closed doors.
Many doors had been thrown open, the contents inside the cabins tossed around.
But they appeared empty. Shivering, Dianne leaned closer to Ryan, whose stride matched her hobbling one.
They made it to the stairs without being accosted. They’d gone halfway down to Deck Four when a crew member wearing a sidearm appeared on the deck below. He stopped when he saw them, his hand coming to rest on the weapon at his waist. Even in the gloom, she saw that his gaze took them in.
“Where is your cabin?” he asked. “I will escort you.”
Ryan lifted his chin toward the far side of the deck landing. “4458.”
The security officer waited for them to exit the stairs before walking alongside Dianne. Tension rolled from him. When they reached the cabin, Ryan turned back to him.
Touching something that glinted on the security officer’s chest, he held the man’s gaze. “Do you believe?”
The fear in the man’s eyes shifted to confidence. His shoulders pulled back. “I do.”
To Dianne’s amazement a new radiance revealed a crucifix on his chest, expanding to meld with the faint glow that still emanated from Ryan’s own pendant.
“Good.” Ryan nodded. “Because it will keep you safe.”
The man nodded back. He waited until Ryan had swiped his keycard before pivoting and walking away. A pale aura limned his figure as he disappeared in the murky light.
Ryan drew Dianne inside his cabin where emergency lighting illuminated the gloomy space.
She waited until he’d shut the door behind them before asking, “What in the hell is going on? What happened to those people? And why did you call that woman a demon?”
Ryan ignored her. By the sounds and his shadowy movements, he seemed to be searching for something. A moment later, artificial light sprang from an object in his hands as he turned to Dianne.
“That’s because a daemon possessed her,” he said, his voice grim. “The daemon sent for you.”