The Daemon's Disguise (Sequel to He Was A Dog + previously Out There)

Out There (Sequel to He Was A Dog) - Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

Isaac:

I panted, breathing deeply as the Walby Bird took flight into the night through the broken windows. At my feet, India and Phillip lay, knocked out by the scream. The other diners had fled into the night, leaving the restaurant silent.

What a mess.

Swallowing, I cast my hand over the mess, righting the chairs and tables to their former positions. If magical creatures were descending on the humans, then that meant that the rift between realms was growing bigger and bigger. And with something like the Walby Bird flying around London? Well, it didn’t take a genius to work out the ramifications.

“Ronan,” I growled quietly. “Here. Now.” In a flash of fire and ash, Ronan stood in front of me, scales rippling up his freckled arms.

“Isaac!” he hissed. “I was in the middle of something.” By something, he probably meant his wife. And that was enough imagery for me to wrinkle my nose in disgust.

“This is more important,” I snarled, waving my hand to indicate the utter mess that had just occurred. Ronan’s eyebrows furrowed almost comically as his eyes darted around the destroyed room before finally resting on the still bodies of Phillip and India.

“Shit,” he said finally, running a hand through his hair. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Precisely. How on earth were we going to sort out this particular mess?

“The Walby Bird,” I told him flatly. “It must have come through the rift.” Ronan paled slightly, looking back to me.

“Something as big as a Walby got through?”

I nodded once. Hadn’t we already established this?

This was what happened when you worked with amateurs.

“You’re going to take them back to the safe house,” I said. “Keep them in the cellar for the time being whilst I sort out this mess; keeping Elijah safe is our main priority. Our second, is getting that bloody beast back through the rift.”

I considered the humans on the ground, clenching my jaw slightly. It was so bloody typical of Phillip to get involved in something like that. He couldn’t have just been normal. He couldn’t just have stayed in his own world and left the humans well enough alone.

Ronan kneeled down on the floor, flames beginning to lick at his freckled wrists. He rested his hands on the shoulders of the fallen, gritting his teeth in pain as the flames intensified, wrapping themselves around his body. With a scream not unlike the sound of a fallen bird, my brother and India disappeared along with the dragon, leaving scorch marks in the already ruined carpet.

The resounding silence was deafening. The lack of noise reminded me of the fields after the Great War of Rosenburgh. A stabbing pain shot through my chest at the memory, the flashbacks twitching at the corner of my mind; there was no reason to think of the War, no purpose in remembering the repercussions of our world being torn apart.

Nevertheless, my mind drifted away to her laugh, the feel of her skin on mine, the taste of her lips.

The feeling of her cold, dead hand after the crossfire.

My palm hit the table before I knew anything about it, and hardly registered the pain that I knew must be shooting up my arm. There had been wars because of Phillip and his love affair with humans. People had died. And now more people were going to die because of the rift. A rift that wouldn’t even be open if Phillip hadn’t broken all the rules and fallen in love.