Ash shook his head. “I’ll take her outside first.”
His brother opened his mouth to argue, but the gun went off again. With amazing agility, he leapt over the bar to take cover on the other side. Ash remained with Eva.
“What was he saying?” she shouted at him. “Who’s here for you?”
“Never mind. We need t—”
The next spurt of gunfire landed a hit, tearing across his back. He went down, blood everywhere. Eva screamed in horror, dropping to her knees, suddenly rendered useless except for her ability to keep screaming and crying and—
He sat up, cursing. “Let’s go.”
“B-but—”
He scooped her up like she weighed nothing and ran. The next few seconds were so impossible, she must have been hallucinating. With her in his arms, he leapt onto the bar and then up, springing off the side of the wall above the crowd. They landed on another clear surface a good ten feet away, and he sprang off that like a freaking trampoline. The rebounds went on until suddenly they were outside the club, milling through the crowds of people, the night air fresh in her lungs.
“What just happened!” she screamed in his face. “Oh my god, you were shot! What the hell just happened?”
“It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“You jumped— The wall— I saw— You were shot!”
“Eva, I have to go back inside—”
“What? No! You can’t go back in there!”
“I need to help my brothers.”
She barely heard his nonsense. “Let me see your back! You were shot!” There was blood smeared all over his face and neck, for god’s sake.
But the crazy man shook his head. “I’m fine. Eva, I really have to go. It was nice meeting you. Really, I— Thanks.” He flashed the tiniest of smiles and then disappeared.
In the blink of an eye he was gone, leaving Eva standing outside on the pavement amidst the sounds of screaming and sirens, wondering if she was dreaming this whole bizarre night.
She stood there listening to the chaos for a good five minutes before her brain plugged back in and she realized what was happening.
Then it hit her like a ton of bricks.
She’d let Ash whisk her away to safety—in some freak, inexplicable way she would dwell on later when she had time—and then let him go by himself back into the club to find his brothers. What if he got hurt? She was certain he’d been shot in the second spurt of gunfire. She had seen the bullets hit him, seen his blood spray, seen him fall. What if he was already seriously injured?
She had to go back for him.
Charged with purpose, she pushed through the crowds, shoving wide-eyed people this way and that to work her way back toward the club entrance. Flashing police lights lit up the outside of the building, but the cops had only just arrived, so no one was guarding the door yet. She reached it at the right time—the club was empty now save for a few stragglers at the entrance, and once she made it inside, she was free to move around.
She immediately dropped to her hands and knees in case the shooter was still nearby. Crawling behind the bar, she scrambled to the other end and peeked carefully around the structure, searching for Ash or his brothers—
She froze. Her eyes widened, her mouth dropped open—all the usual stuff that happened when someone was faced with something that was, quite frankly, impossible. Something that shouldn’t exist and yet was there before her very eyes.
Her first thought was that they were costumes. This was Montreal, after all, and this city was full of funky people. It was one of the reasons she loved it here.
But then, why were people in such elaborate costumes hanging out in a club that had been emptied due to gunfire? Wouldn’t they have fled with the rest of the crowds? Unless the gunfire had been staged and was part of some kind of show? But wouldn’t they have warned the patrons? And the police were here, so wouldn’t they have—
With a shake of her head, she quieted the barrage of unanswerable questions and focused on the spectacle before her, searching for some clue to fit the scene into her accepted reality.
Before her stood five... people. If they could be called that. All of them, save for one, were shirtless and had wings.Wings.
The most noticeable person was huge, at least seven feet tall, with red skin, curving horns, bat-like wings, and a strangely familiar waterfall of silky black hair. The man beside him had black, feathered wings like a raven, and the biggest one, a blond who was even taller than the red monster, had wings of pure, glorious white. Like an angel.
The fourth man had no wings, and though he was completely covered in tattoos, he was the only one of the bunch who looked normal.
