Ilona Andrews - Dark and Stormy Knights

“If what you’re saying is true, and something terrible is coming here tonight, then why not kill it instead?”

“Because there’s no way to kill it. Others have died trying. The Terraphage is unstoppable.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“My grandfather did.”

“And?”

“And there wasn’t enough left of him to bury. Just mangled pieces of his armor covered in blood. Nearly two hundred people died before the sun came up and forced the Terraphage back where it came from.”

“If that’s true, then why didn’t any of us hear about it? That kind of thing makes news.”

He shook his head. “It was years ago. Local authorities chalked it up as a tornado from a storm that came out of nowhere. They kept thinking that eventually they’d find the remaining bits of folks spread out across Oklahoma, but they never did. The Terraphage ate them. It gorged itself on human flesh, wrecked the town, and is going to do so again tonight.”

Jordan could almost picture her beloved town torn to ribbons, her friends broken and bleeding. She couldn’t let that happen. Especially not to Anne.

“How do we stop it?” she asked.

“Weren’t you listening? We don’t. We just pray that we’re among the first to go.”

“So, what? You’re just giving up?”

His wide shoulders lifted in a tight shrug. “Looks like. Besides, if I live, I’ll just have to go back to killing other innocents. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime, and there’s no retirement option for this line of work.”

“I should take Anne and run. Even as dangerous as the roads are, they can’t be as bad as whatever’s coming.”

“You can run. Anne can’t. Wherever she goes is where the thing will show up. She’s the one drawing it here.”

Jordan refused to believe that. She refused to give up and let some beast eat her daughter. “There has to be something we can do.”

His dark eyebrows twitched in irritation. “I was trying to think of an idea when you bashed me over the head.”

“I’m not sorry I did it.”

“Gee. Really?” He rolled his eyes. “I suppose we could wait until the last minute. As soon as the thing shows up, you two can run and I’ll hold it off for as long as I can. The town will still be destroyed, but you two might make it.”

“How can you say that so casually? You’re talking about the possible death of hundreds of people, yourself included.”

He gave a negligent shrug. “Wrong place, wrong time. Life sucks.”

“You’re serious. You’re going to stay behind and fight this supposedly unstoppable thing.”

“Unless you’ve got some better ideas.”

Beneath them, the ground began to shudder. The mug of hot chocolate shimmied to the edge of the table and toppled over, shattering on impact.

The man’s eyes widened. “Time’s up. It’s coming. Cut me loose.”

Jordan grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself. “How did you do that? How did you make the floor shake?”

“I didn’t. This isn’t a trick.”

“It has to be.”

“So, you think I found some way to rig your building to shake without you knowing it in order to convince you to let me go because I knew before I walked in here that you were going to manage to tie me up? Is that more believable than monsters?”

He had a point. He couldn’t have known he’d end up trapped unless he was psychic or had a time machine—neither of which seemed any more plausible than monsters.

“I’m not lying to you,” he said. “How could I know about your girl’s dreams unless I’ve been through this before?”

“You could have broken into her therapist’s office and stolen the records.”

He snorted in disgust. “Why? Why the hell would I do that?”

“I don’t know. None of this makes any sense.”

The floor trembled again, the motion swelling like the crest of a wave rising from the ocean. Chairs toppled. Dishes rattled on their shelves.

“We’re out of time,” said the man, his voice tight with urgency.

Jordan didn’t want to believe him. She wanted to wait until the police showed up and helped her straighten out this mess. But he was growing more desperate, struggling to stand even though she knew he’d simply fall over again. His powerful body strained to move, making a vein on the side of his head pop out.

“Please,” he said, looking right at her, hiding nothing. “Let me try to help. It probably won’t make a difference, but at least I won’t die lying down.”

Whatever was going on, he believed what he was saying. Of course, that could simply mean he was insane.

Beneath her feet the floorboards trembled, cracking as they moved. A large bulge rose up near the stairway as if something below were trying to push its way up through the floor.

Until this moment, Jordan had hoped that all of this was some kind of sick joke. But standing here, watching the floor pulse as if alive, she knew that had been wishful thinking. Something was trying to break through.

She grabbed a pair of scissors from behind the counter and sliced through the duct tape in a matter of seconds, praying she wouldn’t regret freeing him.

He ripped the tape from his sleeves, destroying the leather. “Where’s your car?”

“In the back alley.”

“The tiny POS covered in snow?”

“Yeah.”

“Not going to cut it.” His hands were free, and he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “I’ll start my truck for you and pull it up close to the door. It’ll get you where you need to go in this snow and do so in a hurry.”

Jordan didn’t want to leave this man behind to die, but she’d do so in a heartbeat if it saved her baby. “Thanks.”

“Good luck, Jordan. You’re going to need it.”

She sprinted for the stairs, leaping over the protruding bulge, yelling for Anne to grab her coat.

The floor near the stairway had settled again, but it wouldn’t stay that way long. Ryder didn’t know how long it would take the Terraphage to break through into this world, but he knew for a fact that he wanted to be armed by the time it did.

His Glock was on the counter, but he didn’t think that 9 mm rounds were going to do anything more than piss the thing off. He needed more firepower—the kind he kept stashed in the back of his truck, just in case.

Only seconds had passed, but the woman already had her daughter in tow, heading down the stairs.

“Stay there,” he ordered them. “You can’t leave until the last second, or it’ll just come in wherever you are.”

“Mama, I don’t want to see it,” said the girl. “I see it when I sleep. I don’t want to see it when I’m awake, too.”

The fear in her voice tore at Ryder’s heart. He’d never once felt sympathy the way he did for the tiny moppet. He wasn’t sure what to do to make her feel better, but he knew he had to try something. “Close your eyes, honey. I won’t let it get you.”

The woman hugged her daughter closer. “How much longer?”

“I don’t know. Never done this before. I need to get some guns out of my truck. I don’t know how much good they’ll do, but it’s the only chance we’ve got.”

“Don’t be long.”

He wasn’t. It took him less than a minute to start the truck, move it close to the door, and gather his supplies. The metal box was too heavy to lift, so he dragged it over the ground, plowing away the snow as he went. Now the girls had a nice clear path to the truck, at least until the driving snow filled it in again. At the rate it was falling, that wouldn’t be long, but he didn’t think that was going to be a problem. The Terraphage would show up at any moment.

He pushed through the door. Snow billowed into the room, driven by the wind. Ryder shoved the door closed to keep out the chill and to keep Jordan from leaving until it was time. He really didn’t want the Terraphage to eat his truck.