Collateral Damage (Demon Squad Book 8) Read Online Free Page A

I let the wind die, but I wasn’t finished yet. Flames roared to life around me as I did my best Ghost Rider impersonation, a fiery halo encircling my brow. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I damned sure wanted to make an impression. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything for fear of losing control. I was too close to the edge already.
    The crowd hunkered on the ground in terror—the officers among them, fortunately—their passivity helping me put the leash back on my powers. I willed the fire to recede and let out a wispy sigh, smoke swirling in the chilly air. Before anyone could find their courage or a trigger, I took to the air and was gone.
    As high above the ground as I could get and still breathe, I hovered for a long time without direction, just floating wherever the wind took me. I was lost. The world crept by below while the sky clasped me in its arctic embrace. The chill seeped into my bones, and I let it, begging for a numbness my heart and mind could never achieve on their own. The cold obliged, but it did nothing to ease the anguish that raged inside me. My thoughts warred on. Guilt, anger, sadness, and a myriad of other emotions battled for space within my tortured skull, razing my every feeling, my every thought. Chaos reigned, and I did nothing to defy its callous touch. Blackness shrouded me.
    I was fortunate then for the errant sense that had strayed loose of my stupor and recognized some earthly landmark my conscious mind hadn’t cared to notice. Slowly my gaze came into focus, recognizing where I was. My body responded to some involuntary command and changed directions, drifting downward. Before I knew it, I had settled on the street outside of my old house.
    At least what was left of it.
    Just like the house Karra and I shared, this one was in ruins. Seeing it was salt in the too fresh wound. Yellow streamers fluttered in the breeze, wrapped as they were about the trees that framed the yard, the police having left their own mark upon the mess. While the place had clearly burned to the ground, there was no trace of the fire that had consumed it. All that remained of their efforts to bring the flames under control was a cloying wetness that lingered in the yard. The fire trucks and police had long since gone. I had no question as to who had done the deed but when was still up for debate. It had to have happened before they killed…
    I couldn’t bring myself to finish that thought, the pain of it too fresh. Karra was gone but I didn’t want to believe it.
    My nose tickled as I sniffed back another wave of tears and turned away from the house, unable to look at it any longer, my nerves raw. The bastards had come looking for us, leaving carnage in their wake. If only…
    My eyes flew wide as the old man’s threat repeated inside my head.
    You will find no haven in this world or the next, and all you cherish and value will be brought low…
    I nearly fell over as his words struck home for the first time, cutting through my grief. They knew where I lived, knew well enough to lay waste to my old house even though I hadn’t been there in months. They knew who Karra was, who her father had been, whose power I’d taken on. Whoever these guys were, they had enough insight to carry out their mission of murder and mayhem. And judging by the wreck of my house, they’d started their campaign of destruction before they’d even attacked us. Who else had they targeted already?
    Abby was safe at DRAC headquarters or Michael Li, their resident telepath, would have contacted me, and they’d have to be fools to go after the rest of DRAC or Scarlett. That only left…
    “Oh…shit!”

Three
     
    Blood was everywhere.
    The gate rippled closed behind me, sealed to all but me now, but it was clear I hadn’t left the war on the other side like I’d believed. The killers had tracked me all the way to Hell. It wasn’t me they’d found, though.
    Pieces of dread fiends littered the walls and floor. The