A Hellhound in Hollywood (13 page)

“Don’t listen to him,” Ty rasped. “Don’t let him get in your head.”

It could have been because of all the things I’d been through in the past couple of days, but the demon’s words didn’t cut as deeply as I would have expected them to.

If anything, they made me angry.

I might never reach my mother’s high standard, but that seemed so unimportant suddenly, and my change of heart, I knew, was because of Ty. I’d always lived for the job. It had meant everything to me. But if my feelings for Ty had taught me anything, it was that www.totallybound.com

Amy Armstrong

81

there was more to life than hunting. Family was important, friends were important and love was the most important of all.

Love was worth fighting for.

Ty
was worth fighting for, and I would not let him die at the feet of a demon in a pool of his own blood, not while I had breath left in my body. I could save him.

I
would
save him.

The last thought solidified my resolve and I felt my strength flow through me and all around me. My insecurities about my abilities had kept me weak for far too long, but my heart filled with love for Ty. I felt stronger than ever before. I took the last couple of steps needed to put me face to face with the demon and didn’t break my stare.

The demon furrowed his brow. He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn’t give him the chance.

I struck.

Quick as a snake, I lunged forward then plunged my stake into the demon’s chest. He let out a bark of laughter.

“You think a mere
stake
will kill me, hunter? You know nothing about…”

I saw the very second he realized his mistake in letting me get too close to him.

“A stake on its own?” I asked. “Probably not, no. A stake dipped in holy water? You bet your ass.”

Before I’d even finished my parting shot, smoke wafted out of the demon’s chest, his eyes widened and his mouth opened on a silent scream right before there was a blinding flash of light that I had to shut my eyes against. When I opened them again, the demon had vanished—

vanquished back to hell where he belonged.

I ran back to Ty then knelt at his side. A small smile ghosted on his lips, then just as I pulled out my cell phone to call the council for help, Ty’s eyes fell closed.

Despair unlike anything I’d experienced swept over me.

I called out to Ty in desperation.

He didn’t reply.

www.totallybound.com

A HELLHOUND IN HOLLYWOOD

82

After a panicked call to my handler, I waited for what felt like an eternity for the council to send help. I’d searched for a pulse in Ty’s neck and although I did eventually find one, it was weak. His skin was ice-cold under my fingertips, causing a shiver of sympathy to roll over my own body. Ty didn’t regain consciousness while I waited beside his lifeless body, his frigid hand in mine. An angel, called upon by the council, showed up a little while later and took in the scene in the kitchen. He wasn’t one of the angels from the church, but just like them, there was no mistaking what he was.

The angel’s tall, muscular frame seemed to take up all the space in the large kitchen and he emitted an aura of pure, unadulterated power. He didn’t appear too happy to help, but his mood improved when he saw that I was in possession of a grimoire.

“A hellhound did this?” he asked, casting a critical gaze over Ty’s wounds.

“Yes, the demon sent it away, but I think it’s still in the house somewhere.”

“The demon?” he repeated, his eyes wide. He glanced at the doorway to the kitchen as if he expected to see the demon standing there. “Where did he go?”

“I vanquished him.”

The angel stared at me for a long moment, his disbelief evident. “
You
vanquished a demon?”

I frowned. “Um, yes,” I said hesitantly, the inflection at the end of my sentence making my statement sound more like a question.

“And just how did you manage that?”

“With a stake dipped in holy water,” I said impatiently. “Into his heart. Look, can we talk about this later? I need you to help Ty. His pulse is weak and he hasn’t regained consciousness in over ten minutes.”

The angel’s expression of disbelief changed to cool appraisal. He glanced at the wounds on Ty’s chest then sighed.

“I’ll try to help him, but our healing ability isn’t all powerful, especially not from injuries begot from demons or hounds.”

www.totallybound.com

Amy Armstrong

83

“Please,” I whispered. “Do what you can to save him.”

He nodded, placed a hand over the injuries on Ty’s chest then closed his eyes. I held my breath as I watched him work, remembering the sensation of warmth I’d felt when Malaki had healed me. I waited for Ty’s wounds to close and heal just as mine had done, but the healing process didn’t work in the same way. The wide-open gashes had stopped bleeding, which was good, but it took a lot longer before they began to knit back together—a
lot
longer.

After another few moments, the angel opened his eyes, swaying slightly as he moved away from Ty’s still limp body. The angel put a hand on the floor to steady himself.

“I’m afraid that’s the best I can do,” he informed me, his chest heaving as if he’d just finished a long run. “If he’s strong, he’ll pull through this. It’s up to him now.”

The gashes on Ty’s chest had just about closed leaving angry red welts in their place. His blood loss was the biggest worry, but his body had stopped shaking at least, and when I cupped my hand under his jaw and ran my thumb along his cheek, I noticed that a little warmth had come back to his skin.

“Thank you.”

The angel nodded then got to his feet. Without another word, he strode from the room.

He was gone for only a few seconds before the hellhound let out a loud, piercing screech. When the angel returned, he marched straight to the grimoire. He placed the tips of his fingers on the cover then winced as if he could sense the dark magic coursing through the book’s pages. He flipped open the cover then cast a cursory glance inside.

“My name is Raziel,” he said, albeit belatedly, still looking at the book.

“Alana.”

When his gaze came to me, he dipped his head in what appeared to be a silent thank you then disappeared in a flash of white light, taking the book with him.

A red-hot burning sensation in my arm drew my attention there and when I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt, my eyes widened as I took in my ravaged arm. Because all of my focus had been on getting Raziel to heal Ty, I’d forgotten about my own injury. The gashes were deep, but not life-threatening, so I ignored the pain, reached out and took hold of Ty’s hand.

“You’re going to survive this,” I told him, unsurprised by the slight catch in my voice.

“You’ve already been through so much in your life and if you could get past all of that, then www.totallybound.com

A HELLHOUND IN HOLLYWOOD

84

you can get past this. You have to.” I squeezed his hand firmly and vowed, “You’ll get through this.”

Ty still hadn’t woken up by the time the clean-up crew arrived some twenty-odd minutes later along with two paramedics who took him to a council-run medical facility. I followed in Ty’s car, praying that I wasn’t about to lose him so soon after I’d found him.

* * * *

When I looked up from my seat in the corridor outside Ty’s room, my hunting partner, Caleb, was striding my way. I’d spoken to him on the phone that morning to tell him what had happened and to ask him to meet me at the medical facility instead of the motel. We’d chatted briefly when he’d first arrived, then he’d schlepped off to feed his unyielding coffee addiction.

“Brought one for you,” Caleb said, handing me a steaming plastic cup.

As he took a seat beside me, I accepted the drink with a grateful smile.

“Thanks.”

Caleb nodded then took a sip from his own cup. He winced. “Ah, hospital coffee—my old friend. Has it really been over twenty-four hours since we last met?”

I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t prevent the smile that tugged at my lips. “If you’re too much of a snob for hospital coffee, there’s a Starbucks right around the corner.”

“Now she tells me,” he mumbled. He took another sip then shrugged. “It’s coffee. It’s hot, black and loaded with caffeine. Even when it’s bad, it’s good.”

I put my cup on the empty seat next to me then turned to face him. “To be honest, I didn’t think you’d stick around. I figured you’d be itching to get back to work. Knowing you, you’ve got half a dozen leads to follow and it’s been, what, two weeks since you last hunted?”

Caleb scowled. “You make me sound like an addict in need of a fix.”

“You are,” I said dryly. “You live for the hunt. Come on. What gives? What are you still doing here?”

“What? I can’t spend time with my partner after I just got out of the hospital and haven’t seen her for a week?”

I stared at him, eyebrows raised, until he gave in.

www.totallybound.com

Amy Armstrong

85

“Fine.” He let out an impatient sigh. “I was hoping to talk some sense into you, get you to change your mind. I mean, you’ve only just met this guy, Alana. How do you know you can trust him? He might be a serial killer or sex offender or something. I mean, he wears a cowboy hat, and you can never trust cowboys.”

My mouth hung open. “He’s a hunter, just like us. Besides, what’s wrong with cowboys?”

Caleb ignored me. “You can’t just ride off into the sunset with him, you know. Real life isn’t like that. You don’t know anything about him.”

“My mother speaks highly of him,” I said. When Caleb’s eyes widened, I went on, “She’s hunted with him before and she likes him. You know how difficult she is to please. Besides, the reason I want to work with him for a while is so that I can get to know him better and he can get to know me. I like him, Caleb.
A lot
. I want to see what develops. We both do, and this is the only way we can do that.”

When Caleb jutted out his bottom lip, I tried to hide my smile. He always pulled out the pout when he was losing an argument. The lips coupled with his brown, puppy-dog eyes and cute floppy brown hair worked well on a lot of people—particularly women. I’d seen it dozens of times first-hand.

I, however, wasn’t one of those women.

“I’m sorry, I really am, but I’ve made up my mind. I owe it to myself to try.”

Caleb hunched his shoulders. “What am I going to do without you?” There was a stark vulnerability in his voice that I’d never heard in it before, and it gave me pause.

“You’ll be fine,” I reassured. “The council will find you another partner to team up with.”

“Yeah, but they won’t be as good as you are.”

I felt a warm glow surge through me as Caleb’s praise registered. He’d never said anything like that to me before and I appreciated it more than I could vocalize. I put a hand on his shoulder then squeezed it gently. “Thanks, Caleb, that’s really sweet of you to say.”

He shrugged. “It’s the truth.”

“Hey, who knows? You might even get paired with the woman of your dreams, then you’ll be thanking me for giving you some space.”

Caleb’s eyes lit up at the suggestion. “Tell me more about this woman.”

I laughed. “That’s the spirit. See? Silver lining. Did you speak to Roland before you got here?”

www.totallybound.com

A HELLHOUND IN HOLLYWOOD

86

I’d talked to our handler after I’d arrived at the hospital the night before to inform him that the job was complete and that we’d recovered the grimoire, which was now in the possession of the angels. I’d also told him what the demon had said about Malaki, and Roland said he’d call as soon as he heard anything.

“I spoke to him just now, briefly. He sounded flustered and didn’t have much time to talk.”

“Did you ask about Malaki?”

He nodded. “Yeah. There’s no news.”

I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth as a heaviness centered in my chest.

“I guess no news is good news, right?”

Caleb’s lack of response was telling. I grabbed my coffee then took a sip and stared at the blank wall opposite us, all the while thinking about the conversation I’d had with Malaki in the church. He’d looked and sounded worn out and I’d sensed that the war was getting to him in more ways than most. He’d intimated that he felt responsible for dragging hunters into the fight and maybe because of that he was taking on too much, working himself into the ground.

Malaki and I hadn’t ever been bosom buddies, but I’d felt closer to him after our chat. I hoped nothing bad had happened to him. That would suck.

It had taken Ty five hours to come around after we’d brought him to the hospital, but he’d only been awake for a couple of minutes. The pain meds they’d given him kicked in and knocked him out again, then he’d slept for a couple of hours and sporadically for another couple after that. When he next awoke, he hadn’t been up for much conversation—

understandably. Mostly, I just sat beside his bed and watched him doze until the nurses came in and threw me out around two that morning.

The doctor who was treating him told me it was lucky an angel had healed Ty so soon after the attack or he likely wouldn’t have lasted through the night. That news had played on my mind all the way back to the motel, and I’d slept in fits and starts until I finally crawled out of bed at just after seven. Now it was eight-thirty and I’d met the doctor outside Ty’s room just as he was going in to see him, so I hadn’t been able to visit yet. Caleb and I sat together in a comfortable silence for a little while longer then the door to Ty’s room opened and the doctor walked out.

I stood and greeted him with a hopeful smile.

www.totallybound.com

Amy Armstrong

87

“How’s he doing?”

“I’m sure he’ll be doing just fine after you’ve been in to see him,” he said with a wry smile. “I’ve told him he needs to rest for at least another couple of days, but I don’t think he’s used to doing as he’s told. You think you can have a word with him? He lost a lot of blood and his body went through a severe trauma. It will take time to heal properly from all that.”