Bad Influence (Seven Deadly Sins #2) ✅ Completed

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Eleventh Hour

 I lifted my head, coughing through a dust cloud as big as Rhode Island as I took a look around. There were pieces of stone all over the place where the shells of Caroline and Pete had exploded off. Somehow I’d assumed “stone will bleed, freeing flesh” would be a slightly less explosive phenomenon.

This only went to show how little I knew about such things.

Thankfully their bodies hadn’t suffered the same fate as the solid rock encasing them. Both were on the ground, appearing whole and in one piece if unconscious for the moment.

At least I hoped they were just unconscious.  

I turned and found Andy. She’d stopped screaming but was pointing over my shoulder. I followed the direction of her finger and felt my chest seize up for a second as several figures closed in around us. They were terrifying – tall, hulking shapes clad in red body armor with teeth too large for their faces and lidless white eyes.

“What are those things?” I gasped.

“Arkaanen Demons,” Dante spat out like a curse. He was the projectile that all but knocked me out of my converses. He must have seen them coming a split second before Andy had and brought me to the ground though I hadn’t moved very far. Most of my torso was still touching the bottom part of my X.

“They look like a problem,” I said, waiting for my flight or fight instinct to kick in big time. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t take long.  

“They are,” Dante agreed, rolling over to the side. He kept one arm across me, pushing his palm against my back to make sure I stayed flat on the grass. I felt the brand beneath the thin cotton of my t-shirt first warm then start to itch at his touch.

I squirmed, moving my back involuntarily as I tried to get his hand off. Whatever was happening under my shirt, I did not want Dante making it worse.

“Stay down and don’t move until I tell you,” he instructed under his breath, pulling his hand away, acknowledging my discomfort.

I watched the Arkaanen Demons slowly tighten their circle around us. They didn’t appear to be in any big hurry but the silent way they moved was causing my skin to break out in a sweat.

Creepy didn’t even begin to describe the vibe these guys gave off. It was more like creepy on meth – the super blue batch kind.

“Shouldn’t we be running away now?” I asked, dropping my voice into a nervous whisper.

“Not yet,” he replied but didn’t offer any more detail. I just had to trust Dante knew what he was doing.   

My eyes flicked around, doing a quick count of the approaching Arkaanen demons. There were seven of these scary looking monsters altogether. Even if Chase hadn’t been watching the store, we were still out numbered nearly two to one.

I was really going to have to reconsider how I spent my Saturday nights.  

“Can they see us?” As hard as I tried, I couldn’t keep staring at them with growing unease. Their eyes were filmy and so unsettling I could feel my stomach roil at the sight. It was like watching a car accident in slow motion – it was horrible but also impossible not to watch.   

“No,” Dante said answering my question.

“That’s good, right?”

“They don’t need eyes to track us,” he said effectively killing my happy thought.    

“You mean they can smell us?” I didn’t know which was worse – their gross eyes or their ability to smell us.  

“And hear us. Andy’s done a pretty good job of giving away our position already,” he pointed out.