The Dark Artifices: Lady of Los Angeles

Chapter 32

     What was it with Dylan and demons? Did he have some kind of magnet?

     “Dylan, I have to…”

     She didn’t care to finish. Instead she ran towards the behemoth while taking out her seraph blades. Behind her she heard Dylan shout at her.

     “There are two of them!”

     Two. He was right. Following the first one came a second. She stopped dead in her tracks to come up with a way to kill both of them and at the same time protect Dylan. The thing with these demons was that they were so damn hard to kill. You needed to wound them several times just to exhaust them. They healed themselves so you had to be fast. That had to be her plan. Stab it so many times it just…died. Working out plans wasn’t really her field. More like Cristina’s or Jules’. It was easier said than done though. She was on the edge of being killed several times before she killed the first one. It disappeared and she looked over to the second one. It was a bit bigger than the first one. Then that was the first time she thought of Dylan. She hadn’t given him a second thought since she’d started fighting the behemoth. She looked behind her at the spot where she’d seen him last. Behind the container. He was gone. Where was he? She really hadn’t time for that now.

     “Dylan!” she growled as she jumped up on the second demon. She sliced the surface of its skin and couldn’t help but feel disgusted by it. That was one giant…slugroach.

     It moved and she lost the balance. Her head knocked against the asphalt. The world before her was moving and she couldn’t will it to stop. Quickly she shook her head to make it stop, but it hadn’t changed when she opened her eyes again.

     “Dylan!” she shouted again. She needed to know where he was. He couldn’t be left alone with a demon if she passed out.

     She could feel arms carry her then. “Dylan?”

     “Easy there, Ems”, he whispered in her ear. At first she thought it was Jules. Dylan had never called her anything besides Emma. But she knew it was him as she looked up at him. His face was stern. He put her down on the ground with one arm to carry her up. He stretched out the other hand against the demon as if to tell it not to get any closer.

     “Dylan, it won’t work…”

     But it did work. Not telling it to not come any closer but what he actually did. Light stronger than fire shot out from his palm and Emma had to close her eyes not to be blinded. When she opened them again she saw ash on ground before it disappeared.

     “Dylan…”

     She stared at the spot where the ash had just been. What had he done? What was he?

     “Can you run yourself?” he asked as if what he’d just done was just normal. He was a mundane for the angel’s sake!

     “Dylan, what…?”

     He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “We need to get you to the Institute. Now. Can you run or not?”

     “I can run”, she answered weakly. The Institute. He knew what she was.

     He started running and she followed him no matter how much she wanted to stop him and confront him. If he, whatever he was, wanted her, a shadowhunter, to run he must have a good reason. Because shadowhunters don’t run away.

     They stopped by Dylan’s car and she hesitated before she hoped in. Was it safe? She still didn’t know what he was. He opened her door from the driver’s seat and motioned for her to get in. She didn’t move.