Page 18 of Broken Moon

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

Oh God, the taste. The feel.

I found his black center withhis former blade and he roared—his voice filled my head, making me dizzy andshivering 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 wasseeping through the cut across my chest, the cut that had healed into a thinscratch.

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

I grabbed the salt and shovedup the spout, then as he zoomed toward me, the blurry image of the demon he’dbeen blinking in and out, I sent an arc of salt straight at him. It hit him andfor a few moments, he buzzed and sparked like a live wire. And all I neededwere a few moments.

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

Gone for now, but not for long.

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

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

My mouth tasted like a dozenskunks had crawled inside and sprayed me, then vomited rotten eggs down mythroat.

I squeaked, startled when Rickcrouched suddenly beside me, his sharp stare darting around the kitchen. “Youokay?”

“Yeah,” I managed.

“What was that?”

“Demon.”

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

“I’m okay.” I took a deepbreath as we walked from the kitchen back into the living room. He wouldn’t beback, not here. But he knew he could fuck with me now, and I had no doubt hewas 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 toldhim, 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 thefresh, cold air, downed a bottle of water, and still couldn’t get the taste ofhim out of my mouth. “He was a…boss demon, I like to call them. He’s strong. Hetried to get inside me, and if he had been successful, he’d have taken over mybody and sent me on a rampage of murder.” I swallowed hard, the first tearsthreatening. “Rick, that’s what happened in that apartment. He climbed insideone of those people and had him—or her—murder everyone in the place. Then heblew apart the body, which is how so much of her ended up on the ceiling.”

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

I shook my head. “I haveanti-possession tattoos. And still the bastard was stuffing goo and shit downmy throat when I grabbed the salt. Carry salt in your trunk and a baggie of itin 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 stopuntil I stop him. He’s going to find another family, and he’s going to stayclose to this area.”

He frowned, his eyes droppingfrom who knows what on my face to the fresh blood staining my shirt. “How doyou know that? And…” He nodded at my chest. “How does a spirit make a personbleed, Kaitlyn?”

I wasn’t going to tell him Iknew the demon, that the fucker was killing because I’d destroyed his body andtrapped 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 tophysically touch something here. Not often and not many, but it happens. Heprobably scratched me.”

Why the hell do I keep lyingabout the damn demon?

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

“Kaitlyn.”

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