Dark Light of Mine Read Online Free Page B

could finish securing Katie's grief-stricken form.
    "Hellhound howls," Dad said.  "I'd have thought Templars might know how to protect against those."
    "I've never encountered them."  Elyssa squeezed her temples.  "My head's killing me."
    "It'll pass."
    "Okay, so they howl, pant, slobber, and yelp, but they still look like men," I said.  "Are they shifters like Stacey?"
    "The reverse," he replied.
    "Huh?"
    "Stacey is a felycan—a human who can shift into feline form.  Hellhounds are huge mindlessly-devoted creatures who can shift into human or other forms as a sort of camouflage."
    I drifted around the parking deck ramp, tires squealing as I wrestled the big truck under control.  A car pulled out a few slots ahead, but my preternatural senses and reflexes guided me around it without a second thought.
    "No wonder Edward was such a crazy driver," I muttered.
    "Who's Edward?" Elyssa asked.
    "You know, from Twilight."
    Katie perked up all of a sudden, her eyes red and puffy.  "I love Edward."
    Elyssa groaned.
    I screeched to a halt at the parking deck exit and cursed.  A steel gate barred the way, and it looked too solid to smash through.  "Crap.  What now?"
    Elyssa reached between the seats and jerked a gray fob off the keychain dangling from the truck's ignition.  "Scan it."  She pointed to a pad on a console outside the window.
    I rolled the window down and thrust the fob at the pad.  It dinged and a light turned green.  The steel shutter slid up.  Slowly.  Like old-man-crossing-the-street-with-a-walker slow.  Tires squealed.  Metal crunched.  Glass shattered.  I looked past Dad through the passenger window.  A car at the corner of the ramp bounced and rolled, sparks flying before smashing into a Bentley across the driveway as the hound burst around the corner.  In mid-stride, the man morphed into a huge ebony dog, fangs bared and tongue lolling.  A yellow glow pulsed from within its eyes.
    The shutter wasn't halfway up yet, its bottom about level with the middle of the truck's windshield.  Dad rolled down his window and crawled into the narrow space between concrete wall and truck.  He reached for the bottom of the shutter.  Cursed.  Jerked it up.  The metal groaned.  Something gave a metallic pop and the shutter sprang up, slamming into the stops at the end of the rails overhead.
    The second Dad had his body back through the window, I gunned it.  Katie screamed.  I looked left in time to see the other hound, still in human form, bolt down the sidewalk.  It was too late to get away.  The truck shuddered with the brute's impact, and agony shot into my arm as the door imploded on me.  A screech of rubber and the scream of torn metal sounded for an instant.  Then silence followed as the truck flipped sideways through the air.  Time seemed to slow in my head as my reflexes shot into overdrive.  Glass flew sideways.  Katie and Elyssa's hair hit the ceiling as the truck went upside down some ten feet off the ground.
    Dad's eyes met mine.  He didn't have to say what I was thinking.  If the truck landed on its roof, this was going to hurt.  He, Elyssa, and I might survive, but not Katie.  I tore my seatbelt off.  Dove into the back seat.  Gripped the top and bottom of Katie's seat tight and pressed her hard against the cushions, forming a shield around her.  Elyssa gave me a look of concern mixed with something else—jealousy?  Sadness?
    The truck slammed into the ground before I had a chance to figure it out.  Metal met asphalt as the roof crunched.  The roof buckled but somehow didn't cave in completely.  Then the truck rolled onto the side Katie and I were on and slid down the hill toward a busy intersection at the bottom.  The remaining windows shattered, spraying us with safety glass.  Agony ripped into the skin on my back as my flesh kissed the rough surface of the road, searing it as we slid.
    I cried out in pain, trying to force myself up.  Elyssa gripped Katie and pulled