A collective gasp filled the room. Everyone was getting nervous now.
Maddox had to force himself not to smile. The playing field had just been leveled. It no longer mattered that they were outnumbered and outgunned.
Amonate’s eyes widened in recognition. “Is that what I think it is?”
Maddox sucked on his cigarette. “Dynamite? Yeah. It is.” He released a long stream of white smoke and made a vague gesture with his hand. “We brought a lot of it with us, too. Enough to make this entire fucking place disappear.” He snapped his fingers. “Boom.”
Amonate smirked. “It is an interesting threat, but not lethal enough. I can always turn more souls.”
“Not on this earth.” Grinning like a maniac, Reyen flicked the lighter, bringing an instant flame to life. “See you in hell, babe,” he said, and lit the fuse.
Contempt swept over Amonate’s face. Facing down a burning stick of dynamite didn’t seem to ruffle her in the least. “I was born there,” she snapped with obvious disgust. “Your threats mean nothing.”
Reyen laughed. The fuse was burning away, fast and furiously. “I never make threats,” he sneered. “Only promises.” Seconds before the sparks ignited gunpowder, he tossed the stick into the crowd.
A loud explosion shook the room. Vampires and humans alike scattered.
Maddox went to his knees under the impact that shook the very floor beneath his feet. The air around him began to thicken with swirling lines of smoke and flames. Amonate glowed within the dense fog. She seemed to tower above them all, tall and commanding. “I am not as weak as you believe me to be.” She lifted her hands, and Maddox saw the tips of her fingers blazing like live coals. Seconds later a blast of lightning hurled toward the Indian.
Struck across the legs with a blast of pure heat, Reyen cried out in pain and rage. He beat frantically at his burning clothing.
It took a fraction of a second for Maddox to realize that fire, flames, and any sort of explosion meant nothing to a creature cast down to the underworld. It dimly occurred to him that their strategy was failing—badly.
Unwilling to spend his last few seconds on Earth thinking about how they’d screwed up by underestimating the enemy, Maddox knew he needed to do something, anything, to make one final mark on Amonate.
This bitch is in for a surprise
, he thought, and lifted his gun. Drawing on the final reserves of his strength, he poured all his concentration on making every shot count.
Maddox’s finger slammed into the trigger, repeatedly and without hesitation. Even as he fired, he experienced a rush of outwardly expanding consciousness, a heightened awareness of sorts. The gun in his hand seemed to be flickering, throbbing like a live thing. The consecrated silver bullets it spat out sped with unerring accuracy.
Once, twice, thrice . . . He lost count as the shots rang on.
Struck point blank, a gush of stinking black blood poured from Amonate’s chest. “Silver,” she said almost matter-of-factly as she looked down.
In the space of seconds, her body took on a strange glowing radiance. A series of sparks raced over her skin as her limbs took on a new shape. Her skin darkened, becoming as black as night even as the hair on her head dropped to her feet, the thick strands morphing into snakes that slithered away. A giant pair of ebony wings spread from her shoulders. As her eyes raged with yellow fire, a long set of fangs sprouted from her ever-widening mouth.
Maddox threw up a hand, shielding himself from the great beast taking shape before them. Soaring in menace and majesty, this was the face of evil—a fallen angel, in its truest form.
Rising and spreading clawed hands, the creature unleashed a terrible roar. Its tarry wings flapped, and then it burst apart. Thousands of bats swarmed straight toward him.
Maddox felt the searing heat from their bodies, then felt his skin tearing under the slashing of razor-sharp claws, teeth, and wings. Blinded by the attack, he beat his arms around his face and neck, attempting to keep the beasts from latching on and sucking him dry. A wild shout ripped from his lips. He was going to die, and it wasn’t going to be pretty or painless.
Just when it felt as if the creatures would cover and consume him, they abruptly withdrew. A great sheet of black, the bats eddied through the doors and windows in a mass exodus. They scattered into the air, vanishing without a trace.
Abruptly, there was silence. The air around him was dull and heavy, redolent with the scent of sulfur.
Panting heavily, Maddox dropped his hands. Everyone was gone. Only he and Reyen remained. Both men were worse for wear, but they were alive.
Maddox wiped at the blood and sweat stinging his eyes. A smile tilted his lips. “Shit,” he gasped through one grateful breath after another. “We did it.”
Climbing to his feet, Reyen looked none too steady. The fronts of his leather chaps were charred beyond recognition. Only his thick jeans and fast action had spared him from some nasty burns. “That whore,” he rasped under his breath. “These were new leathers.” Still wired with dynamite, he didn’t seem to care that he’d almost been blown into thousands of tiny pieces.
Maddox let go with a heavy breath. “Forget your damn pants,” he said, already sprinting into motion. “We need to find Jesse.”
“This place is huge, and she could be anywhere,” Reyen reminded him through a frown. “It might take hours to find her.”
A volatile mixture of emotions coiled inside him. As tempting as it was to get the hell of out this place, that simply wasn’t an option. He wasn’t leaving unless Jesse was with him. He shot his partner a stern look of warning. “Then you’d better find a way to hold them off after the sun goes down.”
The big Choctaw patted his chest. “Still got plenty of dynamite left.” He looked around the half-destroyed room and grinned. “Looks like I should do a little more redecorating.”
Chapter 19
T
ime was completely out of focus as Jesse hovered in an airless void. Walls of darkness surrounded her. Blackness flowed through her senses like ink. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally drained. With each sluggish beat of her heart, she was slipping farther and farther away from consciousness.
But it wasn’t to last.
Pulled back from the edge of an all-consuming oblivion, she hovered, disoriented by the tug of a familiar presence. Jesse couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard Maddox saying her name repeatedly. Yet as the moments ticked by, his voice sounded farther and farther away. There was a low throbbing all around her, but it was all in the distance, held at bay by the voice brushing against her ears.
Moaning, she twitched, the feeling of abject helplessness only adding to her numbness as her senses reeled and stumbled through unfamiliar territory. She could not control her limbs or rise to her feet. She suddenly became conscious of the beating of her heart. The organ hammered inside her chest, a hollow, irregular rhythm.
“Don’t do this,” she heard Maddox call through the emptiness surrounding her. “Damn you, Jesse. Don’t die!”
Jesse felt herself lifted into strong arms. Strange, but no sooner did Maddox touch her than the darkness shrank back a little. A sliver of illumination appeared in the dark veil surrounding her. It was thin and faint, but it was there. She tried to open her eyes but couldn’t.
Although her eyelids were closed, she was somehow aware that Maddox was bending over her. Without really knowing what was happening, she stretched out with her psychic sense. Through some third eye, she saw gentle illumination emanating from the hearth and, bathed in it, his haggard and pale face. His hand stroked her damp, cold forehead. “No, no, no,” he pleaded with her. “Not like this.”
Reyen’s voice broke through, sharper, clearer. “Let her go. I don’t think we can save her.”
A curious sensation, something akin to a warm breeze caressing her insides, passed through her. And then it happened. The coldness of death washed through her. Her heart stopped. The blood in her veins came to a halt. Only the electrical charges in her brain remained intact.
Something inside her shifted, and she suddenly found herself floating outside her body, looking at the scene in the chamber. Every detail was crystal clear.
Reyen was there. He looked ragged, charred, but still very much intact.
Maddox was there, too. Her gaze swept the length of him. She wished she could somehow touch him, let him know she was still there.
Shaking his head, Reyen turned away. He crossed the chamber, hunching over Razor’s body. “She fought hard,” he said. “She deserves to die with honor.”
“She’s not going to die!” Maddox barked back. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Jesse watched as he snatched at the bottom of his shirt. He ripped the material into strips, wrapping the pieces around the long gash in her forearm, careful not to bind the wound too tightly.
Taking a small piece of torn material, Maddox gently moved aside the hair clinging to her face, then wiped away the blood on her brow and cheeks. “Jesse,” he pleaded, “don’t leave me.”
As her spirit floated across from him, Jesse peered into his eyes. The fathomless suffering she read in them was nearly her undoing. She struggled against the inertia holding her in place. But the tenuous silver threads binding her soul to her body were beginning to fray.
The stillness surrounding her became a heavy, suffocating cloak.
I don’t want to go
, she thought in panic. But she had no choice. Her body was drained, as dry as the Sahara at the height of summer.
Maddox, it seemed, wasn’t ready to give up on her, either. Searching through his pockets, he retrieved a small penknife. Opening it up, he cut into the center of his palm. He did not wince. Blood welled to the surface in a quick rush of crimson.
Tipping his hand, he let his blood trickle past her lips. “It’s not going to end this way.”
Realizing what Maddox was attempting to do for Jesse, Reyen rushed across the chamber. “That’s not what she wanted,” he warned, savagely jerking Maddox’s injured hand away from her mouth.
Maddox yanked his hand out of Reyen’s grip. “A Palindrome’s blood is different from a human’s blood,” he insisted. “Instead of activating the demon, there’s a chance my blood might help destroy it.”
“I think it’s a mistake,” Reyen warned.
It was.
The parasite living inside her seized its chance. For a moment, her physical body seemed to melt away, giving her a complete view of the beast inside. It was black and sleek, its snakelike body covered with billions of tiny tendrils. Its hands and feet were talons, and glossy black wings were outspread at its back. Looking up at her through glittering yellow eyes, it repeatedly snapped the long curving beak that was its mouth. The aura surrounding it reeked of death and decay.
Desperate to survive, it strained to maintain its hold on her body. The moment it had been waiting for had finally arrived. A reflex not entirely her own caused her throat to contract, and she swallowed Maddox’s blood.
Jesse screamed within the confines of her mind even as some invisible force dragged her astral self back into her body. Horrendous, ear-shattering wails swirled around her with the force of a tornado. Raw energy coursed through her, flooding her veins with liquid electricity. Long claws sprouted from the tips of her fingers. Her canine teeth elongated into sharp, pointy fangs.
The coldness enveloping her quickly ebbed away. Her sluggish heart thumped, raced, and then resumed its normal rhythm. She was sure her eardrums were about to explode, when the wails trailed off.
Her transformation was complete. A mortal’s death had taken place inside her, giving the demon the power it needed to latch on and take control of her body.
Jesse had crossed.
Her eyes immediately shot open.
Ignoring Maddox’s gasp of surprise, she shoved him back and stiffly rose to a sitting position. “Get away from me,” she panted, half coughing on the words. The chamber was rank with death, the stench making it difficult for her to breathe. She doubted there would ever be enough heat in the world to warm the icy block that had formed inside her core.
Face shadowed with guilt, Maddox refused to obey. He pulled her closer, holding her tighter. “Jesse . . . You’re going to be okay, sweetheart,” he said, brushing a kiss into her matted hair.
Her head tipping back, Jesse’s gaze traveled toward his face. Her senses were so heightened that she could hear his blood pumping through his veins and his heart slamming erratically against his chest.
Emotion drew her nerves taut. For the first time she noticed he was dirty, ragged, and his face and neck covered with slices. He’d obviously gone through hell to reach her. She couldn’t begin to imagine how he’d gotten past Amonate and her legion, nor was she sure she wanted to know.
A horde of feelings was trying to form in her mind, but she couldn’t concentrate enough to bring those feelings to completion. “Oh, Maddox,” she finally managed to lisp, struggling to work her tongue around the protruding fangs. “What have you done to me?”
Reyen scrubbed his hands across his face. “Shit,” he muttered. “I think you just fucked up. Big-time.”
Maddox ignored him, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. “As long as she’s alive, I don’t care what she is.”
His words resonated in Jesse’s mind like a sepulchral litany damning her existence. Light-headedness washed through her. It took all her willpower to remain conscious. At the same moment, a strange impression wormed its way into her psychic awareness. She’d just become a wild card in the battle between the opposing entities, serving neither heaven’s will nor hell’s whims.
A gasp of dismay slipped past her numb lips. The prospect of such foreknowledge was more frightening than anything she’d ever encountered. For if she’d truly been granted a glimpse of her future, then her notion of becoming the most powerful entity on Earth could also be a grim forewarning.