The Nightflyer cocked its thick, hairless head to the side and stared at her. She made a quick move to one side but it mirrored her movement to block her. An icy chill went down her spine. She couldn’t hear Nathaniel anymore. Just the flapping of wings. Her heart unexpectedly ached at the thought of losing Nathaniel.
He was gone.
And she was next.
“Uh, Val . . .” Reggie whimpered. “What now?”
The Nightflyer licked its lips with a dark forked tongue and seemed to smile at her, showing its long sharp teeth, each one like a razor blade. It reached out with its horrible clawed hand and she staggered out of its reach, tripping over the curb behind her and falling to the ground.
She scrambled backward until there was nowhere left to go.
The Nightflyer got closer and closer until it was only a few feet away . . .
. . . And exploded.
Small dry, dusty pieces of it shot out everywhere, including over Val. It felt like dirt, like someone had just thrown a ball of crusty dirt at her.
The other Nightflyers squawked and flapped their wings violently. She heard the sound of a gunshot—loud and shattering in the dark silence. The Nightflyers lifted off the ground and flew away into the sky, leaving Nathaniel’s body behind. Val swallowed hard as she looked at him lying on the pavement to her left. He wasn’t moving.
Then she looked back in front of her. The darkness was so thick it was like ink. Or like the gravy they served at the Downtown Niagara Diner. Thick and dark and slightly lumpy. The main lump was moving through the darkness toward her holding a big gun.
She took in a sharp inhale of breath. It was a creature, quickly approaching her, and it was even more hideous than the Nightflyers. Seven feet tall, one large eye in the middle of its forehead. Sharp claws on its four-fingered hands. Pointed ears. A wide nose and thin lips on a gray, hairless, wrinkled face.
She looked down from its hideous countenance. It wore a T-shirt from Madonna’s Who’s that
Girl? concert tour. And blue jeans.
“You okay?” It rested the shotgun over its shoulder and offered her a clawed hand.
She eyed the monster warily, but couldn’t take her eyes off the T-shirt. The monster looked down at itself.
“The woman is a goddess,” it said. “Even back in the Sean Penn years. I’m Lloyd, by the way.”
She tentatively took his hand and he helped her to her feet. She looked at his smiling face. He had sharp teeth, too. But the fact he was a Madonna fan made him less scary. “Lloyd?”
He nodded, then looked over with a frown to where Nathaniel lay. He hurried over and knelt by the demon’s side. Val ran to join him.
He gently ran his clawed hand over Nathaniel’s bruised and bleeding face, resting for a moment on his forehead. Nathaniel looked like he’d been run through a paper shredder for all the cuts he had on him. His shirt was torn down the front to show the bloody ruin of his chest.
“Is he . . .” Val began. “Is he gone?”
Lloyd looked up at her. “Nah. He’ll be okay. Nathaniel’s a trouper. It would take a lot more than this to do him in.”
She felt surprised by that. “You know him?”
“Yeah, we go way back. Who are you?”
“Valerie,” she said absently. “And this is . . .” She reached up on her shoulder to touch Reggie but he wasn’t there. She looked frantically around the dark, deserted street. “Reggie? Where are you?”
She saw a little furry bump on the road over where she’d faced off against the Nightflyer. She ran over to see Reggie lying on his back, legs in the air. She took her index finger and pressed it against his furry chest and was relieved to feel his wildly beating heart.
“Reggie, snap out of it.”
A paw twitched and he moved his furry face to the side to look up at her. “My life flashed before my eyes.”
“And?”
“I think I need to do some good deeds. ASAP.”
“You do that.” She leaned over and let him crawl slowly up on her still unpleasantly damp shoulder before she stood. “Reggie, this is Lloyd.”
“Eeeekk!” Reggie yelped. “Err . . . I mean, nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
“How did you know we were out here?” Val asked. “So you could rescue us?”
“Actually, I didn’t. Just doing a little Nightflyer target practice. I find that it helps me reduce stress.” Lloyd picked Nathaniel up as if he weighed next to nothing. “It’s still not safe outside and I’m nearly out of bullets. I think we should head back to my place. It’s close by.”
That was the best suggestion Val thought she’d ever heard.
Lloyd’s semi-attached home was three blocks away. He fiddled with a key to open the front door, flicked on a light, and let them inside. The interior of his home was different from what
Val would have expected for a one-eyed monster. Very nice, mostly a color scheme of roses and pinks. Warm and inviting. A narrow hallway led to a living room. Stairs led up to the second floor.
“Your wife decorates?” she asked. After her brush with death she was now feeling as sober as she had before their visit to the faery pub. Although, a headache had set in: an instant moonshine hangover.
Lloyd smiled and shook his head. “Nah, you’re looking at a confirmed bachelor.” He glanced around his place. “Oh the pink? Can’t help it, it’s my favorite color. So soothing. Also, it helps to stimulate creativity.”
Val followed as he carried Nathaniel up a flight of stairs and placed him onto a double bed.
Nathaniel lay there very still and unconscious and broken.
She turned to Lloyd’s shadowed hulk of a figure in the quaintly decorated room. “You’re sure he’ll be okay?”
He nodded. “Promise. He’s pretty cut up, but demons tend to heal quickly. Don’t worry your pretty little head.”
She looked at him sharply. “I’m not worried.”
Lloyd fiddled absently with a bedside arrangement of gerbera daisies. “But I thought you said—”
“I’m not worried.”
He nodded again. “Why don’t I go make some hot chocolate while we wait for him to wake up?” He left the room without waiting for an answer.
Val looked down at the unconscious demon. His severe wounds had already started to heal.