Broken Moon by Laken Cane

Chapter Eight

I shoved the guilt and horror away. It served no purpose. I hadn’t set the demon upon the world deliberately, and I would find a way to truly kill him or to send him back to hell. Right now, I just had to survive. I had to keep him from climbing into my body and taking control of me.

The holy water made him scream, though it didn’t stop him—nor did the blade that had once belonged to him. I had salt in my bag, but not enough, and no time to rummage for it, anyway. The box of salt sitting on the countertop would do great things, if only I could get to it. The demon had no blade, but he was on the offensive. He didn’t want to kill me. Without a body, he couldn’t kill me. He wanted to possess me. He wanted a body, and because I’d been the one to destroy his, he had set his sights on mine.

I’d gotten anti-possession tattoos long ago, but I wasn’t sure they’d keep him out of me. I wasn’t sure at all.

And if I couldn’t kill him, I needed to trap him until I could figure it out.

Without his body, he was like a bright, sharp light, blue around the edges, then red, and finally, in the very center, a deep, pulsing greenish black. The image of his face was floating in all the light with his long red eyes, his sharp teeth, his hooked nose. Evil. It was the face of evil.

I’d defeated him once, and I’d do it again. There was no room for doubt.

The odor coming from him was growing stronger by the second, and it was nearly enough to kick my ass all on its own. He smelled like sulfur, only worse. I had nothing to compare it to, but sulfur was as close as I could come.

And then I got a taste of it, and it was like…dusty pieces of gravel, but also like sludge and slime, dry and wet at the same time. I could taste it, because the demon had charged through the barricade of my blade and my wolf’s rage, and he was attempting to stuff the essence drifting around him down my throat.

Oh God, the taste. The feel.

I found his black center with his former blade and he roared—his voice filled my head, making me dizzy and shivering across my brain—and then he was forced from me and he reeled away, his light somewhat diminished.

I don’t know if I forced him away, if the blade did, or if my wolf did. Maybe my strange blood did, for it was seeping through the cut across my chest, the cut that had healed into a thin scratch.

And while he reeled, I had mere seconds. I didn’t hesitate.

I grabbed the salt and shoved up the spout, then as he zoomed toward me, the blurry image of the demon he’d been blinking in and out, I sent an arc of salt straight at him. It hit him and for a few moments, he buzzed and sparked like a live wire. And all I needed were a few moments.

I raced around him, trailing salt as I went, and the very instant before that circle would have closed, he shot back, his light stuttered, and he was gone.

Gone for now, but not for long.

Not until I figured out what was holding him here, so I could destroy it and get rid of him once and for all. But I had a very bad feeling it was going to get worse before I completed that little task.

Once the crisis passed, I slid down the refrigerator with my shaking hand to my throat, coughing out the residual goo and smoky debris, swearing between the wet hacking because I hadn’t caught him. He was going to kill again, there was simply no doubt.

My mouth tasted like a dozen skunks had crawled inside and sprayed me, then vomited rotten eggs down my throat.

I squeaked, startled when Rick crouched suddenly beside me, his sharp stare darting around the kitchen. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I managed.

“What was that?”

“Demon.”

He gave me a few minutes to catch my breath and to try a little more discreetly to cough all the gross from my throat. Then he helped me up, lifting my hand once to show me the swollen fingers and bruises covering it. “You need to get checked out.”

“I’m okay.” I took a deep breath as we walked from the kitchen back into the living room. He wouldn’t be back, not here. But he knew he could fuck with me now, and I had no doubt he was going to do exactly that. He was so enraged.

“A demon,” he said, finally. “You’re telling me that actual fucking demons are in this world.”

“You know they are,” I told him, my voice hoarse. “You’ve seen things that can happen.”

“Not like this,” he muttered.

“This wasn’t a regular demon,” I told him when we leaned against my car a few minutes later. I’d inhaled the fresh, cold air, downed a bottle of water, and still couldn’t get the taste of him out of my mouth. “He was a…boss demon, I like to call them. He’s strong. He tried to get inside me, and if he had been successful, he’d have taken over my body and sent me on a rampage of murder.” I swallowed hard, the first tears threatening. “Rick, that’s what happened in that apartment. He climbed inside one of those people and had him—or her—murder everyone in the place. Then he blew apart the body, which is how so much of her ended up on the ceiling.”

“How did you keep him from possessing you? That’s a trick I’m going to need to learn.” He crossed his arms as he stood with me, constantly but subtly surveying the area, watching the pedestrians, on the alert for a demon who had just killed an apartment full of humans.

I shook my head. “I have anti-possession tattoos. And still the bastard was stuffing goo and shit down my throat when I grabbed the salt. Carry salt in your trunk and a baggie of it in your pocket. Salt repels them and can even trap them, at least for a while.” I hesitated, because I didn’t want to say the next bit. “He’s not going to stop until I stop him. He’s going to find another family, and he’s going to stay close to this area.”

He frowned, his eyes dropping from who knows what on my face to the fresh blood staining my shirt. “How do you know that? And…” He nodded at my chest. “How does a spirit make a person bleed, Kaitlyn?”

I wasn’t going to tell him I knew the demon, that the fucker was killing because I’d destroyed his body and trapped him here. It wouldn’t change anything and also, the moment had passed.

“Some of them,” I told him, pulling my shirt away from the strange wound, “are powerful enough to physically touch something here. Not often and not many, but it happens. He probably scratched me.”

Why the hell do I keep lying about the damn demon?

“I have to go,” I said abruptly. “You have my number. Call me when he turns up.”

“Kaitlyn.”

I opened my car door but turned my head to look at him. “Yeah?”

“Are you all right?”

“I…yes. I’m fine.”

Then I climbed into my car and went to meet the alpha of the Stone Moon Pack.