“Hey.” He blinked down at her. “What are you doing?”
“Keeping us from getting dead.”
Blinking again, he took in their surroundings. “Damn,” he muttered. “Shit. Sorry, babe.”
Babe. In any other situation she'd have kicked his ass for that, but right now, his pet names were the least of their worries. “What's going on, Creed? Are you okay?”
Lightning flashed overhead as he wiped rain out of his eyes. “Yeah. I'm good. But there's something really wrong here.”
“I know. Bend-over is a chickenshit scumbag who has holed himself up and enlisted demons to watch his slimy back.”
“He's lost control.”
“What?” she yelled over the boom of thunder that shook the ground beneath them.
Creed scrubbed his face again. “He's lost control of the demons. Damn, Annika, this is too big for me and Kat—”
A shot rang out. Annika threw herself at Creed, ripping him away from the tree, and they both hit the soggy ground. Cursing, she drew her pistol from her shoulder harness, rolled, and came up on one knee behind a brick barrier between the driveway and the yard. Creed joined her, keeping low. The window where she'd seen the movement was open, but whoever had taken a shot at them was gone. Still, the mansion's north wing wrapped around behind them, leaving them too vulnerable to remain in place.
“We've gotta go,” she breathed.
“Back to the house?”
She cast a longing look at the rented house, and shook her head. “I don't like it. We could get picked off while we're out in the open. We need to get into the mansion. I couldn't do it by myself, but if you and Kat can deal with the hellspawn, we're good.”
“Let me give ACRO a call first. Tiffany Stuart specializes in demonic activity.” Creed fished his phone out of his jacket pocket and cursed. “Doesn't work. They're blocking us.”
Annika checked hers. “Mine's hosed too. Stupid demons.”
She tugged on Creed's arm, and crouching, led them to one of the places she'd scouted out earlier as being a potential entry point. Another shot rang out, and chunks of brick exploded just inches from her head. Spinning low, she returned fire, putting a bullet through a window in the north wing.
“Cover me,” Creed said. As she drilled more shots into the target, he slipped away, and she heard the shattering of glass, followed by screeches of something very inhuman.
The high-pitched, hellish screams crawled up Annika's spine. “Creed?” A shadow passed by the north wing window, and she fired, blowing out the last remaining shard of glass that clung to the frame. “What's going on? Talk to me.”
She turned in time to see Creed disappear through the basement window he'd broken out. With one final shot at the north wing, she darted to the window Creed had gone through. Gunfire burst apart the air, and on its heels came a flash of lightning and crack of thunder so loud Annika's ears rang. She dove through the hole, tucked, and hit the cement floor with a bone-jarring impact to her shoulder.
Sucking air against the pain, she rolled, and she'd barely come to her feet in the darkened basement when something slammed into her gut. Instinctively, she struck out, but her fist sliced through empty air. Another blow cracked into her jaw and sent her wheeling into a support beam.
Out of nowhere, Creed grabbed her and pulled him hard against him. “Don't move!”
“No problem.” Man, she hated this supernatural crap. Give her a dozen bad guys with guns, and she could handle it. But this...this was like cheating.
Creed tucked her behind him and began some sort of monotone chanting. His head moved as though he was tracking something, and then, in a motion so fast she barely saw it, he hurled a handful of what looked like rock salt. An agonized, high-pitched scream jolted the fillings in her teeth, and a few feet away, where the salt had gone, a twisted, spindly shape took form. Red eyes pierced the darkness, and then it disappeared, and Annika swore the very air breathed a sigh of relief.
“Is it gone?”
“For now. We need to get your terrorist. He bound these things to him, so until he's dead or the object he used to bind them is destroyed, we're screwed.”
“Okay, then,” she said, heading toward the staircase. “We find Bender.”
“Not so fast, babe.” Creed grabbed her by the elbow and swung her around. “Ground rules.”
“Shoot to kill.” She jerked out of his grip. “Those are my ground rules.”
Creed caught her wrist again. “Listen to me, Annika. I know you can handle the human in this house blindfolded and with your hands in your pockets. But you've got to promise to stick to me like Velcro.”
She snorted. “You will do anything to get into my pants, won't you?”
“You bet.” His voice was gruff and full of authority that was so sexy. “But this is about keeping you safe. Kat and I are going to handle the demons so you can get Bender.” He fished around in his jacket pocket and removed a vial of liquid. “Take it. It's holy water. I've got salt, too.”
Salt. Holy water. Annika rolled her eyes. She was so much more comfortable with guns and knives. “Fine. Let's go.”
“Annika...” The warning tone had her spinning back around to him, but not without a huff of frustration. They were never going to get Bender at this rate.
“What? We need to get moving.”
“Promise me you'll stick close.”
“Yeah, yeah. Can we go now?”
“One more thing.”
Dammit. “What now?”
“When we're done with this, we finish what we started at the house.”
“Dream on, ghost boy.” She started up the stairs, heart pounding, but not from the impending danger. No, it was Creed's dark chuckle behind her that scared the crap out of her, because she had a feeling he meant for his ground rules to be followed.
* * *
“She shouldn't be here.”
“She's going to kill the bad guy, Kat,” Creed told her before she began to screech in his ear again. Always an effective method of getting his attention.
But this time, Kat's words were calm and probably bothered him more than anything. “She doesn't believe.”
“She will,” he insisted. “She will.”
“As interesting as this one-sided conversation between the two of you is, can we get a move on?” Annika snapped impatiently and yeah, it must be frustrating for her to hear only his voice when he was talking to Kat, but he’d gotten used to the strange looks he got from people who assumed he was speaking to an imaginary friend or to the voices in his head or something.
Annika glared, the energy in this house quickly draining her of any patience. Maybe even making her paranoid and there wasn't a hell of a lot he could do about it.
Kat helped keep the bad karma off him, but Ani would be powerless. And all the same, Creed began to climb the steps from the basement to the kitchen noiselessly, Annika's boots slamming the steps behind him.
He turned before they got to the door. “Listen carefully,” he whispered against her ear. “Demons can't force their way into your mind or body—they need permission to enter.”
“I'm sure not going to give it to them,” she murmured back, the butt of her Sig pressed against his side. “But I'm going to make sure you're covered when you go into one of your trances.”
“Just keep your ears open. Don't answer any questions that sound off.”
“Anything else, ghost boy?” Her words were softer than normal.
“No destructive thoughts. No anger. No resentment. Think happy. Demons hate that.”
“Most of the time, so do I,” she muttered.
Without further talk, he moved aside so he could watch Ani kick the door open with one fluid motion, her body vibrating with energy.
He knew she'd want to take point—and keeping her happy was right up there with keeping her safe on his priority list.
Beyond that, he trusted his life in her hands. Whether she felt the same way remained to be seen.
He stared over her as she bent at the knee, hands outstretched and weapon trained, surveying the scene in front of them. An empty kitchen, shrouded in darkness. Rain slamming against the windows, wind howling and she used a single fingertip motion to zing electricity to the light on the ceiling. It sizzled and smoked.
“Power's cut,” she said. “Probably from the storm. But the room's clear—of humans anyway.”
She stepped aside to let him pass, her gun still at the ready.
“Blood sacrifices took place here,” Kat told him.
That meant the energy in this place was corrupt—the majority of the cleansing would have to occur after the bastard Bender was killed.
“He's in the attic,” Kat said. Which left them three floors to move through. More demons to conquer, and the one in the basement was nothing compared to what was coming.
Quickly, Creed rummaged through the cabinets, finally happening on a box of kosher salt that was full. Good.
He turned back to Ani, who was staring at the ceiling. “If I had an ACRO AK, I could shoot him straight through the floors.”
He didn't doubt it. Annika had training most special forces soldiers would kill for. She'd been practically bred in the CIA with some special child training program and she'd worked on more covert ops by the time ACRO had taken her in than most agents worked in their entire careers under ACRO’s leader, Devlin O'Malley.
She was strong and sure, handled weapons better than any man and that was before she got to use her special powers. The woman was a force to be reckoned with, although he'd much rather tussle with her in bed.
Wind whooshed through, nearly knocking both of them down. He grabbed for Ani but she'd already latched onto him as they lost their footing. Kat had begun to chant but she had to be careful of the demons too—their influence extended to ghosts and although she and Creed and never been torn apart on a hunt like this, they couldn't afford not to be cautious.
He actually felt Kat's fingernails clawing at his neck as she held on too.
“It's forming,” Kat warned.
Creed began to chant with Kat as he felt himself fade away. He heard Ani saying his name but when he faded out like this, it was hard to come back until the job was done.
“Creed, I can't move,” Annika persisted and yes, the demon had taken an opportunity to circle them in one place, to bind them to the floor.
“Welcome, Annika.” A smooth male voice. Bender. “I was hoping you'd come by.”
Chapter Three
If glares were lasers, Bender would have four smoking holes in him. But since Annika didn't have laser eyes like one of ACRO's newest operatives, she'd just have to make those holes the old fashioned way.
She raised her weapon...only to have her arm gripped by some invisible force and pinned to her side. “You son of a bitch,” Annika gritted out. “Can't play fair, like a normal bad guy. Have to hide behind ghosts and demons.”
“Normal?” Bender laughed. “You're one to talk. Is anyone at ACRO normal? Are you?”
Okay, he had a point. But still, using the supernatural to do your dirty work was just low. She opened her mouth to tell him how low, but Creed cut her off.
“Annika! Don't talk to him. Don't say another word.”
Thunder shook the house, rattling windows and Annika's nerves. She really, really hated this supernatural crap. And no, she didn’t consider special gifts like hers to be supernatural. Most of the operatives at ACRO, with their super speed or ability to control the weather, were considered anomalies of evolution. But the ghosts and demons and freaky mind-reading stuff? Yeah…if Annika couldn’t see it, she didn’t want any part of it. “I think I know how to handle a pathetic little human bad guy, Creed.”
“He's—” Creed clutched at his throat, eyes wide as he struggled to breathe.
“Stop it!” She lunged at Bender—tried to, anyway. Her feet were frozen to the floor, her weapon arm still as useless as if it were Superglued to her body. “You son of a bitch! Call off your dogs. Hellhounds. Whatever they are.”
Bender gave a dismissive snort. With his spiky blond hair, emerald eyes, and sharply defined facial features, women probably panted after him. But Annika thought he'd look so much better with a bullet hole in the center of his forehead.
“Tell me,” Bender said, as he circled them, trailing his fingers over the dusty dining room table on his way past, “how many more agents can I expect to show up?”
“Screw you.”
“If you want your partner to live, you'll answer me.” Bender halted in front of Creed. He cocked his head, and suddenly, Creed's face turned into a crimson mask of pain and his struggles became more frantic, as though what little air he'd been getting had cut off.
Annika's pulse pounded in her ears as bands of panic tightened around her chest. Not that she'd ever let Bender know she was anything but cool and collected. “A dozen,” she said. “They're on their way right now.”
“You lie.” Bender waved his hand, and Creed let out an agonized hiss and dropped to his knees.
Don't react, don't react... “You won't believe me no matter what I say, so why are we playing this game?”
“Game,” Bender snarled. “This is no game. You will tell me the truth, and trust me, I'll know if you're lying.” Roughly, he gripped her hand and pressed two cold fingers to the pulse in her wrist. She resisted the urge to shudder, but couldn't stop her skin from crawling at his touch. “How many agents are on their way?”
Swallowing dryly, she glanced at Creed. He was clawing at his throat, gasping for air, but he shook his head fiercely at her. The message in his dark eyes was clear; don't tell him anything. What the hell was he thinking? Yes, every special operator, whether they were military, paramilitary, government agent, or ACRO, accepted the risks and knew they might have to give their lives in service to their country.
Annika might not like Creed, but she wasn't going to let him sacrifice his life right now. She'd been in worse situations than this before, and no way was Creed going to die over a dumb answer. Besides, she had a plan. She always had a plan.
“None,” she snarled. “We couldn't call in backup because your minions screwed up the signal.”
Bender's evil, twisted smile froze the blood in her veins. “Thank you.”
She smiled right back at him, and fired up her special gift. Electricity rippled through her, starting somewhere deep inside and forming a circuit through every cell until she was a giant live wire. Bender's eyes shot wide open as she slammed ten thousand volts into his body. A split second later, in a blast of fire and smoke, she flew backward, crashing into a cabinet and dropping, stunned, to the floor. In her fuzzy head, she heard laughter. Inside her head. In her veins, evil ran like a sludge. Distantly, she heard Creed yelling her name, and then his hands were on her and he was chanting again, and she was raising her weapon to blow his brains out.
No! Her arm kept lifting, bringing the barrel of her pistol even with his temple. Noooo!
Her finger slipped from the trigger guard to the trigger. Deep inside her mind, she screamed at herself to stop, but something had taken control and oh, God, what if it was stronger than her?
More chanting, urgent, loud. and then, in a whisper of air, the evil was gone, and Creed was holding her tight. She trembled in his embrace no matter how hard she tried to control it.
“Annika? Hey, are you okay?”
Numbly, she nodded. “What happened?” she whispered against his chest.
“He possessed you. I tried to tell you he wasn't human.” Creed inhaled raggedly. “And I told you not to talk to him, dammit!” He pulled back, gripped her shoulders and met her gaze head-on. Angry red splotches put color in his cheeks, and oh, yeah, he was royally pissed. “I told you not to answer questions. He was a freaking demon, and you never, ever tell a demon the truth. When you did that, you allowed him inside your head, and when you tried to shock him, you gift-wrapped a conduit to inside your body too.”
Oh, God. With that demon contr
olling her body, she could have killed Creed. Could have gone on a rampage few people could have stopped. “I'm sorry, Creed. I didn't know.”
“That's because you didn't trust me.”
The truth of his statement hit too close to home, so she dredged up some righteous indignation. “You were going to die! What was I supposed to do? Let it happen?”
He shook his head. “Kat was working on it. And even if she failed to keep the demon from strangling me, better that than letting the demon gain control of your body. What do you think would have happened if a demon was running around with the freaking power to electrocute people? He could have gotten inside ACRO by pretending to be you. How much damage could that have caused?”
Nausea turned her gut inside out at that last thought. “I told you, I'm sorry—”
He cut her off with a gentle shake. “Annika, this is my job. I know you're unmatched at yours, but you've got to trust that I'm just as good at mine. We're in this together, like it or not, and you've got to listen to me, just like you would any other agent you work with. I know you don't like the fact that we've slept together, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm fucking great at what I do. Got it?”
Man, it bit to admit she was wrong, but she'd just nearly gotten him—and maybe herself—killed. She knew she'd made all of this too personal, which pissed her the hell off. She was normally a cold, efficient agent with no emotions, and the fact that she'd put that aside the moment she'd seen Creed was inexcusable. “Okay, yeah. I'm sorry. I trust you.”
For a long, tense moment, he just stared at her. And then, with a nod, he stood and held out a hand to her. Annika's first instinct was to ignore the offer and get up without his help. But something told her this was a test, and one she couldn't fail.
Taking a deep breath, she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.
* * *
One floor down—two to go. Creed's throat felt like he'd swallowed fire but otherwise, he was all good. Ani held him by the biceps as if to steady him and he felt Kat leave his side and head up the stairs, leaving them alone for a second.