House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

They were almost at the Istros. A snarl and roar rent the air ahead. It had come from another connected alley, more of a dead-end alcove between two brick buildings.

She hefted the table leg, wishing she’d grabbed Danika’s sword instead, wondering if Danika had even had time to unsheathe it—

No. The sword was in the gallery, where Danika had ignored Jesiba’s warning and left it in the supply closet. Bryce launched herself around the alley’s corner.

Blood everywhere. Everywhere.

And the thing halfway down the alley … not Vanir. Not one she’d encountered before.

A demon? Some feral thing with smooth, near-translucent gray skin. It crawled on four long, spindly limbs, but looked vaguely humanoid. And it was feasting on someone else.

On—on a malakh.

Blood covered the angel’s face, soaking his hair and veiling the swollen, battered features beneath. His white wings were splayed and snapped, his powerful body arced in agony as the beast ripped at his chest with a maw of clear, crystalline fangs that easily dug through skin and bone—

She did not think, did not feel.

She moved, fast like Randall had taught her, brutal like he’d made her learn to be.

She slammed the table leg into the creature’s head so hard that bone and wood cracked.

It was thrown off the angel and whirled, its back legs twisting beneath it while its front legs—arms—gouged lines in the cobblestones.

The creature had no eyes. Only smooth planes of bone above deep slits—its nose.

And the blood that leaked from its temple … it was clear, not red.

Bryce panted, the malakh male groaning some wordless plea as the creature sniffed at her.

She blinked and blinked, willing the lightseeker and mirthroot out of her system, willing the image ahead to stop blurring—

The creature lunged. Not for her—but the angel. Right back to the chest and heart it was trying to get to. The more considerable prey.

Bryce launched forward, table leg swinging again. The reverberations against bone bit into her palm. The creature roared, blindly surging at her.

She dodged, but its sharp, clear fangs ripped her thigh clean open as she twisted away.

She screamed, losing her balance, and swung upward as it leapt again, this time for her throat.

Wood smashed those clear teeth. The demon shrieked, so loudly that her Fae ears nearly ruptured, and she dared all of one blink—

Claws scraped, hissing sounded, and then it was gone.

It was just clearing the lip of the brick building the malakh lay slumped against. She could track it from the streets, could keep it in sight long enough for the Aux or 33rd to come—

Bryce had dared one step when the angel groaned again. His hand was against his chest, pushing weakly. Not hard enough to stop the death-bite from gushing blood. Even with his fast healing, even if he’d made the Drop, the injuries were substantial enough to be fatal.

Someone screamed in a nearby street as the creature jumped between buildings.

Go, go, go.

The angel’s face was so battered it was barely more than a slab of swollen flesh.

The table leg clattered into a puddle of the angel’s blood as she dove for him, biting down her scream at the burning gash in her thigh. Someone had poured acid onto her skin, her bones.

Unbearable, impenetrable darkness swept through her, blanketing everything within.

But she shoved her hand against the angel’s wound, not allowing herself to feel the wet, torn flesh, the jagged bone of his cleaved sternum. The creature had been eating its way into his heart—

“Phone,” she panted. “Do you have a phone?”

The angel’s white wing was so shredded it was mostly red splinters. But it shifted slightly to reveal the pocket of his black jeans. The square lump in them.

How she managed to pull out the phone with one hand was beyond her. Time was still snagging, speeding and stopping. Pain lanced through her leg with every breath.

But she gripped the sleek black device in her wrecked hands, her red nails almost snapping with the force as she punched in the emergency number.

A male voice answered on the first ring. “Crescent City Rescue—”

“Help.” Her voice broke. “Help.”

A pause. “Miss, I need you to specify where you are, what the situation is.”

“Old Square. River—off the river, near Cygnet Street …” But that was where she lived. She was blocks away from that. Didn’t know the cross streets. “Please—please help.”

The angel’s blood soaked her lap. Her knees were bleeding, scraped raw.

And Danika was

And Danika was

And Danika was

“Miss, I need you to tell me where you are—we can have wolves on the scene in a minute.”

She sobbed then, and the angel’s limp fingers brushed against her torn knee. As if in comfort.

“Phone,” she managed, interrupting the responder. “His phone—track it, track us. Find us.”

“Miss, are you—”

“Track this phone number.”

“Miss, I need a moment to—”

She pulled up the main screen of the phone, clicking through pages in a haze until she found the number herself. “112 03 0577.”

“Miss, the records are—”

“112 03 0577!” she screamed into the phone. Over and over. “112 03 0577!”