“It would be a shame if any harm came to your pretty human.”
A low growl rumbled in Ash’s chest, and he stepped backward, closer to her. Eva’s hand tightened around the knife. It suddenly crossed her mind that they were both still naked, but it was the least of her worries at the moment.
“You can’t hurt her, Mist. It’s against the rules.” Ash’s tone was mocking.
The creature bared his teeth in a horrifying, sharklike grimace. “I was given dispensation to do whatever is necessary to return you to Hell alive. It is understood that there might be collateral damage.”
“If you lay a claw on her, I will destroy you. You know as well as I do that I don’t make idle threats.”
Mist’s head cocked to one side in a feral way, shifting his mane of shoulder-length black hair. “You have formed an attachment with this female. You actually care about her wellbeing.” He appeared perplexed. “I do not understand this phenomenon.”
His head jerked back up to center, and he hissed between his saw-blade teeth. “You’re lucky it was I who found you. Come with me now, and your failings will remain a secret. If anyone else learned of this, you would find yourself in worse trouble than you’re already in.”
Ash’s growl was starting to sound less and less human.
“Careful or you’ll scare your human,” the monster said. “Or does she already know what you are and accept you?”
“Leave her out of this.”
“You are the one that involved her. If you really cared for her, you would have left her alone.”
Ash was still growling, his hands curled into fists, his stance spread like he was ready to spring into battle at any second. Eva just stood there naked as a jaybird, knees trembling, clutching that knife with a white-knuckled grip.
“I don’t want to fight you, Mist.”
“I have my orders, and I must fulfill them.”
“You could choose to disobey them like I did. You could be free.”
“That is not an option for me.”
“Why not? Why are you so loyal to Paimon? What does she have on you?”
Mist growled and tensed to attack, and then several things happened.
First, giant wings exploded out of Ash’s back—the very same wings Eva had seen back at the nightclub. Similar to the monster, they were black and leathery and had fine, fingerlike bones separating them into jagged sections, and a large, curved talon at the top.
Not a hallucination.
Then, Ash started to... grow. He got bigger and bigger until he was nearly as large as the other monster. And then his skin turned red. Bright, crimson red. Foot-long black claws grew out of his hands. Huge, black horns extended from the sides of his head, curving along his skull and then swooping upward to sharp points. Just like she’d seen at the club.
Oh god, Ash really was a demon.
Eva screamed.
Ash lunged.
And the other demon... dissolved into smoke.
He reformed in front of Eva, but Ash must have predicted this because he attacked again from behind. The two demons collided in a whirlwind of movement, far too fast to be detectable to human eyes. Flashes of red skin and black wings passed before her amidst animalistic growls and grunts.
The other demon dissolved again, and reformed behind Ash, and then there was a great crash as Ash was thrown—literallythrown—across the room. He hit the brick wall hard enough to kill a man and crumpled to the floor.
Eva screamed yet again as Mist reformed right in front of her. He was reaching for her, about to grab her. Up close, she realized his skin was a dark, ashy-gray color, almost black, and patterned with strange designs around his neck, forearms and chest. He was seconds from grabbing her—
Huge, red Ash attacked again from the side, and the tornado of fury spun around the kitchen, drowning out Eva’s continued screams. It traveled across the room, ramming into the fridge, the walls, the piano, the sofa—
There was an enormouscrash!as they smashed into the wall of windows, shattering the glass. The two battling demons went right through and disappeared into the night.
