One Handsome Devil (22 page)

"She hasn't been physically harmed,” Jack answered. He wished he could tell Sara not to worry. It was advice he couldn't follow himself, however. How had Derrick transformed himself from an ordinary damned pervert to a powerful elemental force? Just weeks before, he had been nothing—someone Jack could manipulate even from within the bonds that had held him. Now, he wondered if he had the strength to confront the man.

"Are we getting closer?"

He sighed, then took Sara in his arms and launched himself into flight. Here on the crowded streets of Dallas's Deep Ellum district, even his restricted flight could speed them up.

Sara sighed, then pressed herself against him, her body molding itself to his own in a gesture as intimate as when they made love.

A sharp-eyed woman spotted them, glared, then made the Catholic sign of the cross.

The wind instantly vanished from beneath Jack's wings and he plunged back to earth. It was a short fall but, even so, Sara gasped for breath at its force.

"What happened?"

"Someone was looking."

"I thought your magic would keep them from noticing us.” Sara's voice didn't hold any condemnation but he felt it strongly.

Jack tugged on her arm steering her well away from that hostile soul. “Some people are hard to deceive. Others are perpetually on the lookout."

Sara wrinkled her forehead. “Why would they bother? I thought hardly any demons made it up from Hell."

He shook his head. “Hardly any. That doesn't keep people from looking. Come on.” He stepped into a dark doorway.

A huge man wearing a brief pair of shorts and nothing else confronted them. Tattoos decorated him so richly that he looked fully clothed. “Ten dollars. Each."

Jack gestured at the man's close-set eyes then brushed his hands against the counter. “Keep the change."

"Hey, thanks."

"What did you do?” It took every bit of his enhanced hearing to understand her words over the band's roar.

"I showed him what he wanted to see."

"You ripped him off."

This was, he realized, the reason Sara should be bound for heaven—would be bound for heaven if he hadn't come into her life and risked everything.

"We can pay him back later. Katra is close."

Sara's lips trembled. “Where is she?"

He gestured toward a closed door. A large sign on it indicated that whatever was on the other side was off limits to anyone not employed by the club. “In there, I think.” He hated the uncertainty but even now he didn't have a perfect fix on Derrick.

"I'll go first.” Sara tried to bull past him.

"The Hell you will. That maniac is armed."

Before Sara could impulsively get them all in trouble, Jack grasped the doorknob and twisted.

The lock resisted and he poured power into it until the mechanism melted into place. He thrust the smoldering door open wondering why a bar would use a locked steel door to separate two interior rooms.

Derrick laughed as Jack stepped through the door. The stalker's handsome face contorted into something Jack would have been completely at home with in Hell but which he hated to see here in the Human plane. He held Katra against him with one arm wrapped around her throat. With his other hand, he pointed a gun at Reverend Bob.

"So look who's here,” Derrick gloated.

"Do we know you?” Ignoring Jack's gestures, Sara pushed herself into the storage room where Derrick waited.

"You don't remember me from High School, little Miss Priss Sara? I remember you. And I've been watching you. Watching the way you kept Katra away from me.” He tightened his grip on Katra's neck until her face turned a pale shade of purple.

"Let them go,” Jack ordered. “Surely you don't think we would just walk in here without calling the police. You don't have a permit to carry concealed, so if you don't want to explain the gun and those bruises on Katra's neck, you'd better just get away while you can."

Derrick giggled. “You're lying."

"I never lie.” Not quite.

Derrick twitched the gun, then shrugged. “I don't know how you followed me here but I'm going underground after this and I'm taking Katra with me. You can have the priest."

"Minister,” Bob protested. “I'm a minister, not a priest."

"You don't want to go with the nice people?” Derrick loosened his grip on Katra's neck enough to let her breathe although he kept her yanked back and off balance. She wouldn't be much help even if Jack managed a signal to her.

"I'll go."

It was up to Jack. He didn't dare let Derrick leave with Katra.

He took one step closer to Derrick, holding his hands by his side but away from his body. If he did it right, it would appear to be a peaceful gesture.

"Back up, pervert.” Derrick was too paranoid to let anything seem peaceful.

Jack stopped. He was only one step away from Derrick now but that one step would give the man plenty of time to shoot Reverend Bob.

"I said back up.” Derrick shifted the gun's sight until Jack could look up the ugly black hole of the barrel.

Against a normal opponent, it would have been the right choice. Against a demon, it was a mistake. Jack blurred into motion, grasping the gun at the same time he wrenched Derrick's arm from Katra's neck.

Derrick's eyes showed that Jack had caught him completely by surprise. Not for long enough, however. He fired three times before Jack could wrestle the automatic away from him. Each shot plunged into Jack's body.

Katra grabbed Derrick's arm and tried to knock off his aim but she knew she was too late. Jack's body jerked with the impact of heavy bullets plunging into it, yet he came on.

Derrick's breath, suddenly sour with fear, washed over her as he struggled to tighten his grip around her neck.

She kicked back, scraping her heel down his knee and shin and reached her sculptured nails toward his eyes.

Then, suddenly, a Jack's muscled grip wrenched Derrick's arm snapped away from her throat. Derrick he stumbled across the room.

Jack snarled barely able to hold himself upright. His skin had darkened, his bat wings stretched from wall to wall. Thin trails of smoke emerged from the three gaping bullet holes that marred his hairless and muscled chest.

Derrick whimpered clutching his broken arm to himself. His breath came in gasps as he fought for his balance, then crumpled to the floor. “Why don't you just leave me alone?” was his plaintive and ironic plea.

"As if you left me alone,” Katra shouted. She'd spent the past half hour in a panic, certain Derrick was going to kill her, almost hoping he would if the alternative was to live as his slave.

"I wasn't talking to you.” His eyes still gleamed with desire and danger.

"Yet you will leave her alone, won't you.” Jack's horns seemed to protrude more than usual as he bent over his victim. “I will be angry if I hear of you even living in the same city as Katra ever again."

Comparing Derrick's anger to Jack's was comparing her garden hose to the Trinity River. “I don't see it's any of your business."

"You know, I don't give a damn what you see.” Jack stepped closer to the fallen man.

Jack's teeth clenched with each step he took. Each movement of his arm seemed to expand the bullet holes.

Derrick seemed only to notice the threat. “You broke my arm. I'll sue you."

"Do you really want to bring in the law?"

"I don't understand,” Reverend Bob broke in. You're both injured. We've got to get you medical care."

"Yeah, you're a wonderful man of God,” Derrick sneered. “Look at this guy. He's got wings and horns and you're worried about me."

Jack further paled at Derrick's casual use of God. He spoke through gritted teeth. “Who's gone crazy now?"

He had to be using his last reserves of strength to keep Reverend Bob's sight muddled. “We've got to get out of here,” Katra urged.

Sirens echoed through the Dallas streets as the police finally responded to the sound of shooting in Fair Park.

"Good idea,” Jack said. He scooped up Derrick's automatic, checked the safety, and pushed it to Katra. “Shoot Derrick if he moves."

Katra took the gun and pointed it. “Move sucker. Please."

For once, Derrick kept his mouth shut and his hands still. Darn.

"Jack, what's the matter?” Sara wavered in the door, obviously torn between following the male she loved and staying to protect her friend.

"I can't keep up the disguise any longer and I definitely let them take me to the hospital,” Jack gasped too softly for the Reverend Bob to overhear. Whatever energy had kept him going with three huge bullet holes in him had vanished when Derrick had uttered the ‘G’ word. Jack stumbled as he headed out the door.

"I'll just shoot him and we can all leave,” Katra suggested. Would it really be a sin to rid the world of pond-scum like Derrick?

"You can't do that,” Reverend Bob protested. His eyes had bugged from his head when Jack had fled the room.

"The hell I can't,” Katra answered. “He kidnaped both of us and shot Jack. If shooting him isn't self defense, what is?"

"Doing it when it's happening,” Sara reminded her friend.

"I'm going to get you too,” Derrick promised Sara. “I think I'll package you up neatly and use you as a footrest."

Sara's hand whipped out like a scorpion's stinger, striking Derrick's cheek. “Trust me, little man, you wouldn't want to try."

"You'd better get rid of the gun,” Rev. Bob suggested. The police sirens continued to undulate but now Katra could hear the sounds of police radio as well.

Bob was right, of course. Much though she might regret it later, she couldn't quite bring herself to shoot Derrick. The one thing her father had taught her before he'd abandoned his wife and two daughters is not to take a gun if you aren't prepared to lose it.

"Hold him down,” she instructed Bob. With a broken arm, Derrick shouldn't be too serious a threat.

She unchambered the live shell and dropped out the magazine before kicking the weapon toward Derrick. “Pick it up, big boy. Maybe you should try to shoot it out with the police."

Derrick glanced at the weapon, then shot his good fist into Bob's stomach, twisted away, and hurried out a back door slamming it behind him.

"I'm sorry,” Reverend Bob said, gasping for air. “I didn't think he'd be so strong."

Sara hammered on the door Derrick had used to exit. “Locked."

"Put your hands in the air and walk out of that room,” an overly amplified and Texas twanged voice shouted into the storage room.

Sara moaned. “Now we're really screwed."

"Walk out slowly, then keep walking,” Jack murmured into Sara's ear. His hot breath sent tingles to parts of her body she'd never noticed until Jack came into her life.

"I thought you were gone."

"I, uh, bought a hat and jacket."

All you could say for them was that they covered the worst evidence of his demonic nature. What said a lot more was that he had come back. With Derrick gone, there wasn't really anything for Jack to do, but he'd still come back. Sara could only figure that he'd come back for her. Jack's tough-guy demon act was starting to show its seams.

"So how are we going to get out of here?” she asked.

His face was so pale, it looked almost skull-like. “Follow Derrick?"

"Where is he?"

If anything, Jack's face grew paler. “I don't know. He's vanished again."

"This is your last chance.” The bullhorn-amplified voice could have been a trumpet of doom.

"Can't you do the invisibility trick again?” Sara asked. We could just walk past them.” Wherever they walked, they needed to do it in a hurry. Jack looked like he was leaking demon essence more quickly every second.

"I'll go out and set them straight,” Reverend Bob volunteered.

Katra opened her mouth in amazement, then shut it with a snap. She must not have expected any type of bravery from Bob. Sara wondered how Derrick had managed to capture both of them and end up with Reverend Bob's gun. They could talk about that later, though.

Reverend Bob straightened his clerical shirt and opened the door. “Just a lovers’ spat,” he announced to the police.

"Lovers’ spat,” Katra repeated. “How am I supposed to press charges against Derrick now?"

"Have to get me out of here,” Jack murmured. He slumped against Sara.

"Lovers or not, you've got to come out of there,” the police announced over the bullhorn. “We have you surrounded."

"If they had us surrounded, they would have caught Derrick,” Katra said. She grasped the door that Derrick had exited and yanked.

"Want to give me a hand here, Sara?"

She was torn between caring for the injured Jack and helping her friend but tried to think logically like Jack. If the police found him, they'd take away his hat and jacket, see his horns, and he'd be in serious trouble. She joined Katra at the door.

They rushed it together, bending every bone in Sara's shoulder and, from Katra's gasps, in Katra's shoulder too but the door finally burst open.

"We're coming in,” the police voice announced.

"And we're going out,” Sara told Katra. “Grab Jack's legs and I'll take his arms."

If Jack had been a human, they could never have carried him. Now, however, he weighed so little.

"Get him to my car,” Sara urged.

They slipped through the refrigerated back room of the bar, walking past dozens of kegs of beer and cases of cheap gin.

"What if Derrick is hiding in here?” Katra asked.

"Do you really think we could be in worse trouble?"

Katra didn't look completely satisfied by that answer and Sara couldn't really blame her. With what Derrick had done for her, maybe a night in jail would sound like an escape.

"Come on,” Sara urged. “We've got to take the chance."

They reached another door and stepped into an alley behind the bar. A police cruiser sat at the end of the alley, its lights flashing, and Katra rushed back into the storage room, grabbed a bottle of gin, and poured it over Jack's head.

"I had two babes like you, I wouldn't get drunk,” a youthful cop observed as they stumbled past trying to look like they were taking their overly indulged friend home.