Demons Grace Ch 07 08

We did leave that night, unfortunately Taurin went with us. We drove north to Washington, to my cabin in the woods.

The first few days were uneventful. Taurin was busy working to find a clan of flesh eaters, making jokes about Ezra being a domesticated demon, and constantly hounding me to have sex with him. It wasn't until I finally told him that he could live in the abandoned dog house if he didn't stop harassing us that he finally decided to show some manners. After that he was gone frequently and Ezra and I had some wonderful secluded time for our selves.

"He is such a pain in the ass," I complained one night to Ezra. We sat on the porch swing, my foot absently swaying us back and forth. He turned to look at me.

"You have such beautiful eyes. Like ancient amber with prehistoric bugs caught in them."

"That's because a bug just flew into it," I said while rubbing to get it out.

"I noticed," he replied somberly.

After a few seconds of us looking at each other in silence I snorted out a laugh. I felt my face relax as I gazed at his rare smile of amusement.

I almost resumed swinging when I noticed the uncanny silence coming from deeper in the woods. We both grew still and attentive. Ezra inhaled deeply and growled "wolf." I stood up and just as quickly Ezra grabbed me and threw me down to the porch. I let out an umph and looked over Ezra's shoulder as a rifle bullet cracked the wood of the swing where he was sitting. I frantically pushed my hair out of my eyes while saying, "Mother fucker" over and over again. I moved fast and crawled for the screen door.

Crack.

"Mother fucker, we should have killed that fucking demon."

I reached the handle of the door and clumsily crawled into the house, Ezra right behind, covering me. One more bullet was shot through the screen of the door, planting itself in the living room chair. When I felt that I was out of range I got up and ran to the kitchen. I just knew they were coming in. Bullets showed they were aiming at Ezra, but me, they would relish tearing apart with their teeth for fun. I nervously cupped the leather sheath of one of my daggers still belted to my thigh.

Two things happened at once, I heard a wolf howl, closer then I wanted, and the electricity went out. I was standing up against the wall away from the kitchen window and distinctly aware that the back door and fuse box were to my left. I saw reflected firelight from the front entranceway and knew it to be Ezra's burning eyes.

This was how I first saw him. In the dark, only his eyes flickering in the distance. It scared me then and scares me still. Having a 6'5" demon with wings out, striding toward you does not help your nerves, which is exactly what he was doing now. He handed me my blade from the bedroom and I tapped it on my thigh.

"Are you trying to help me or scare the shit out of me?" I whispered.

He tilted his head and blew smoke in my face, so I just rolled my eyes and turned away from him. He could see my annoyed response just fine in the dark.

Ezra whispered, "Shape shifters."

I grabbed his arm and made him follow me down to a crouch. We stilled as we listened to movement coming from the front and the back. Then, it didn't matter anymore because I heard wolf claws running on my kitchen floor. We ran out of time. I stood up, sword ready. There was a furious noise coming out of the wolf's mouth as it did a flying leap over the kitchen counter separating us.

I don't deal with wolves, natural or supernatural, but this one seemed huge. It's mouth could easily fit half of my head. I knew this because I got a close up view as it came straight towards me. I angled my sword in front of the wolf's face and it did a lightning quick move to turn its momentum. Fortunately for me, it turned the wrong way and almost hit the wall. It used front and hind feet to push off it and effortlessly bound over me, faster than my upward thrust. It then jumped over the table and twisted midair so it wouldn't land on its companion fighting Ezra.

I turned with its flight and we ended up facing each other. As I crouched down I heard a thud and quickly looked up into the kitchen entrance to see a man with a hand gun. I wondered briefly what kind of bullets he had that made him think that he could kill a demon with it.

My mistake. The wolf took my distraction to charge. Not the best of moves since the other two were struggling close by. I turned to protect my face and got a glimpse of Ezra's arm in the other wolf's mouth. Then all I cared about was the fact that my head was smashed backwards into the corner of the wall and the counter. Instinctively my right arm came up and I punched the wolf's head with the fist holding onto the pommel. The wolf's head whipped to the right putting it off balance enough for me to get my knees and feet under its belly. I pushed it away and got to my knees swinging, slashing into its left shoulder hard enough that it whimpered and was knocked into the wall of the counter.

My left hand already had a dagger in it and I let it fly into the man who was aiming his sights on Ezra. I was aiming for his eye, it stuck in his jaw. Not necessarily a good thing because he was turning into wolf man while shouting in anger.

I was showered in a spray of blood, the edge of my vision showing a wolf head flying through the air. Shape shifters are hard to kill, silver or not, and as far as I was concerned, off with their heads. Ezra was up in a second, heading towards the wolf man who now held my dagger in his fist.

Nearby, the blood coming out of the wolf's shoulder had stopped and I was being growled at. My position still constricted as I slowly followed the wall sideways. The blood on the floor hampered my efforts and my boots slipped. The wolf jumped me and I brought my sword up directly into its thick throat. My butt landed hard on the slick floor, causing me to slide under while it flew over me with my sword in its neck. The force of the jump almost wretched my hand off the pommel. I held on and continued to slash downward using the fall of its body for momentum, partially gutting it. Wiping its blood out of my eyes I quickly stood up and swung my sword through its neck, beheading it. I spun around just in time to watch Ezra brake the wolf man's neck, letting the body fall to the ground.

My breathing sounded harsh in my ears as I stood there assessing the carnage. I swallowed around the hardness in my throat, "Not that I particularly want to see the mess in my kitchen, but I need some light."

Ezra didn't turn around. I knew he was in the midst of battle lust. I also knew that he was good at controlling it. He brought his right hand palm up and a flickering flame appeared. His wings slowly closed and fitted themselves close to his body. It was then that I noticed that he was wearing pants. "You're wearing pants," I stated badly.

"I thought it would be appropriate."

I snickered and walked up to him. "Yeah."

He turned around then and although he had a smile on, his eyes remained serious and bright. "Check the fuse box."

We walked through the back door into the laundry room. A quick switch and I had the pleasure of seeing my kitchen. I had two dead men, a head, and one dead female sprawled on my floor. Not a happy prospect to clean. I grabbed a towel out of a drawer and drew it hastily across my blade as I gave a cursory look for my dagger. Oh, there it was, on that part of the bloody floor.

Ezra brought the bodies outside and collected the imbedded bullets. We looked at them curiously to see if they were modified in some way. I didn't see anything remarkable, but Ezra put them in his pocket without comment. He then took the hand gun and emptied it. He distractedly stared at the bullets. I could tell he wasn't in the mood to talk so I decided to clean.

I cursed Taurin up and down while using bleach and soap on my kitchen and dining area. I looked up from the floor feeling eyes on me. Ezra looked down at me with his arms crossed.

"What?" I asked in agitation, blowing blond tendrils of hair out of my face.

Smoke expelled out of his nostrils. "Nothing," he said angrily.

It most certainly wasn't nothing, but I let it go.

"Fine, then get down here and help me clean." Surprisingly he did.

That was how Taurin found us. I left it to Ezra to tell him because I really wanted to cut down on my swearing.

CHAPTER 8

With the area clean we went into the living room. Taurin oddly respected my silence and started to tell us what he uncovered. It seemed that there were a clan of gordons that lived underground next to a factory. They had an agreement with the business men who could redirect their polluted waste through the caves where they lived. For their trouble, Taurin looked at me when he said this, sometimes living things went missing. My eyes widened at this news, but wisely I didn't ask what kind of living things. Like I said, I was trying to cut down on my swearing. Taurin finishing up by saying, "...so they said they would send a new family out here to deal with our little problem."

I finally decided to speak up, "I'm sorry, repeat what you just said."

He did, word for word.

"What!?"

He started again.

"Shut up!"

"They'll live in the woods, exactly where they prefer. They'll stay alert for activity and promptly show up. After the fight is done, that is."

"Great. And if just happens to be us they eat, who cares," I said sarcastically.

Taurin shrugged to this. "They said they wouldn't attack us."

"Yeah, unless we just happen to be in the woods and injured."

Taurin gave me an amused look, "I never thought of that." Then he laughed and I gritted my teeth and glared at him.

I turned to Ezra, "If I don't die from his bullshit I'll surely die from his humor."

Ezra crossed his arms and eased back against the couch the three of us were sitting on. "Do you want to go into the city. That would keep the damage down to a minimum on your cabin." At those words he turned and looked at a chair that had a nice hole in it from the rifle."It's a good thought," I mused.

"No, it's not," Taurin said forcefully. "We leave for the city and there will be more witnesses."

"Which will keep the attempts down to a minimum or at the very least make the assassins think harder for their money," I argued.

"And have more casualties. Why would you think that killers would care about innocent bystanders?"

I looked at him with a suspicious expression, "Why should you care?"

"Only because you would, my darling," he said sarcastically.

"Fuck you, Taurin."

"He does have a point," Ezra offered.

I rolled my eyes at him and looked back at Taurin. "How many Affair members have it in for you?"

"Three."

"You made a bargain with a werewolf?"

"Not quite"

"Huh." I paused while I thought about what needed to be done. "When will they be here?"

He actually looked sheepishly at me, "They're here already."

"The fuck you say!"

"Look, the bodies will be gone. They prefer the newly dead anyway. Still warm."

"The fuck you say!"

Ezra shepherded me away when I heard Taurin say, "You really do swear a lot."

I charged towards Taurin and Ezra caught me around the waist, forcefully dragging me into the bedroom. I swore obscenities at both of them all the way there.