Page 28 of Loup Garou
“Don’t you know? You seem to know everything else about me.” I let more power out, mentally directing it to coat him. It did and he gasped.
“Lindsay?” The fear in his eyes spurred me on. I released more magik and let it move in on him, suffocating him slowly. Stan went to his knees and the strangest thing happened—I laughed.
I’m not a monster.
The thought jerked me out of the moment, giving Stan a reprieve from my magik. He lunged at me, knife in hand. I let instincts take over. I pivoted my entire body and jerked my arm out of the way while twisting. Time seemed to still as I watched his knife hand move in slow motion. I caught hold of his wrist with my right hand and brought my left arm up quickly, elbowing Stan in the face.
I felt it then. Evil moving in on us.
Stan’s entire body convulsed. The minute I realized that the evil had centered on him, it all made sense—the pale face, glossy eyes, erratic behavior. Demonic possession. I took control of the knife, and Stan, or whatever was in charge of him, rushed out the door.
I ran after him, knife still in hand.
Suddenly, it sounded like the music was coming from every direction. It should have scared me. It didn’t. It was oddly comforting. It made me feel safe.
I caught sight of Stan turning at the end of the hallway, into the lobby. Picking up my pace, I kept going. As I came around the corner, Myra and Gina were walking in. “Get down!” I shouted, sensing the highly charged buzz of demonic power in the air.
They did, just in time. A blast of negative power flared over their heads and bounced off the wall. It came hurtling back towards me. Jay picked that moment to come rushing through the door, followed closely by Exavier. I did the only thing I could think of. I screamed. It worked. They both stopped and the power just missed hitting them. Instead, it kept coming at me.
The last thing I wanted to do was take a direct hit from the dark evil thing zipping at me, so I dropped into the splits and pressed my upper body to the floor. It came so close to hitting me it moved my hair.
“Lindsay?” Jay asked, staring down at me with a questioning look on his face. “Uhh, what are you doing? And why did you scream? Why the hell do you have a knife like that?”
Talking bad. Fighting good.
Looking at Myra and Gina for assistance, I drew a blank. Jay was a were-wolf. He understood creepy things. Exavier didn’t. Telling Jay would mean telling Exavier. Not good.
Gina got to her feet. “Uhh, didn’t you see that huge rat?”
“A rat?”
I wasn’t sure I heard that right, but since something had just tried to kill me I wasn’t really all that focused at the moment.
She glared at me. “Yeah, arat.”
My lips pursed as I realized she was doing her best to keep Exavier from knowing the truth. Forcing a smile to my face, I did my best to ignore the presence of evil all around us and appear normal. “Oh, right. It was big. Huge. Mongo. Uh, you should go with Myra and Gina to find it. Now!”
Jay’s brow furrowed. “Why in the hell would you get down closer to it? Were you hoping to stab it with your Rambo knife?”
As much as I wanted to invent some creative reason for being on the floor, I came up blank. It didn’t matter. The buzz of negative energy increased again. I locked gazes with Myra. “Return of the rat.”
Her gaze darted around as she shook her head. “I don’t sense anything.”
Gina nudged her. “You know that she senses shit way before we do.”
“You’re sensing rats now?” Jay asked, putting his hand out to me.
I gave him a droll look and made a mental note to slap him for being too stupid to figure out I wouldn’t just drop into the splits for no reason in the middle of the lobby. He’d probably like the abuse and start begging me to spank him. It would be a very “Jay” thing to do.
Exavier moved up next to him and swallowed hard as his gaze raked over me. “You’reverylimber.”
“What’s with the music? Loud enough for you?” Jay grabbed my hand and lifted me to my feet with ease, still oblivious to the fact bad things wanted us dead. Some detective. Geesh. I kept the knife close to me. “Hey did you know that this song is one of—”
The power went straight at Jay’s head. He didn’t seem to notice it. The urge to smack him myself was great. Somehow, I managed to hold back, opting instead to go with a more subtle approach for keeping his head attached to his shoulders. “It’s one of those songs that makes you want to bang your head.” I grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled hard. “Great, lesson one on having rhythm.” The power whizzed past him and he stiffened.
Sniffing the air, he jerked to the side a bit and went on full alert. “What the fuck was that? It smelled like sulfur and evil.”
Hallelujah, the man may not be quite the moron I thought him to be.
