Her phone buzzed, and she nearly jumped out of her boots. She yanked it out of her pocket. It was Josiah, her Guardian from the Brotherhood, texting her an update.
Redcap is heading for the Delta Theta Alpha house. Intercept him there.
With the fetid smell—like a dank cave—wafting into her nostrils, she didn’t even need the text.
She hurried across the lawn. From the top of the hill, she scanned the row of frat houses until she homed in on the aura’s source. There he is. A shiver crawled up her spine. Wispy copper tendrils rolled off him—the redcap’s magic.
His red hat shone brightly under a yellow streetlight, glistening with gore. Crimson drops of blood dripped onto his zebra-print suit. Redcaps didn’t normally wear clothes, and the sight was jarring to Rosalind—like she’d spotted a fox walking on its hind legs, dressed in a wedding gown. Perhaps the demon planned to blend in at a pimps and hoes party, and hoped no one would notice the human blood dripping from his hat.
Stalking along the sidewalk, she gripped her stake. With the two vamps, she’d hesitated. They’d looked so human. But this time, she needed to hit her mark. If she didn’t, dozens of students would die. In fact, if the next few minutes didn’t go the way she planned, the redcap would be dipping his hat into her blood.
He isn’t human, she reminded herself. He isn’t even a person. He’s a thing.
One of these days, she’d just like to stay in, playing beer pong.
Gritting her teeth, she broke into a sprint. She pumped her arms harder, her breath growing ragged. If he managed to get inside the party, the slaughter would be horrific.
Her boots pounded the pavement, and the demon whirled, teeth bared. Good. The less human he looked, the easier this would be.
Twisting her torso, she hurled the stake at his chest with all the force she could muster, but his hand flew out and snatched it from the air.
His grin was a thing of terror.
Uh-oh. That’s not how it went in training. She screeched to a halt, scrambling to grab the handheld flamethrower from her belt. The weapon wasn’t much larger than a can of Coke, but it produced a three-foot flame that burned at 1,000 degrees Celsius.
Before she had the chance to blast him, the creature’s hands were on her, gripping her wrists to stop her from accessing the arsenal on her belt. He was younger than most redcaps—his face elegant, his grasp iron-clad. Beauty and strength were just two of the weapons that demons had in their arsenal.
And what did Rosalind have? A bit of wood and some gadgets.
He inhaled deeply, licking his pale lips. “I like it when my dinner puts up a bit of a fight.” His voice slithered over her skin.
Ugh. Even for a demon, this one was creepy as hell. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to stab him.
She brought her knee up hard into his groin, and his pale eyes bulged. He might be a monster, but he still had nerve endings where it mattered. He loosened his grip on one of her wrists, just enough for her to wrench it free. She twisted her hips, bringing the full force of her palm into his Adam’s apple. Crunch.
As he hunched over, gasping in pain, she grabbed another stake from her belt.
He was lunging for her neck, teeth bared, when she plunged the stake into his heart.
Or, at least, she’d been aiming for his heart. What she got must have been a lung, because he gripped his chest, stumbling back but stubbornly refusing to die. Shit. Josiah would be pissed.
As the redcap ripped the stake from his ribs, she pulled the flamethrower from her belt. The demon’s eyes widened, and for the first time, she saw genuine fear.
Disturbingly human-like fear.
This caused an extra moment of hesitation on Rosalind’s part, and the redcap had the upper hand again.
As he leapt for her, she pressed the button on the flamethrower, but it was too late. The demon knocked her to the ground. Almost instantly, his sharp teeth pierced her neck. White-hot pain exploded through her throat.
At this moment, on the edge of death, she could think of only one thing: I am the worst demon Hunter in the world. Pain blazed through her body.
The knife. She had a knife in her belt. Come on, Rosalind. You got this.
Just as she pulled it out, a pair of strong hands clamped around the redcap’s head, twisting it sharply to the side with a sickening crack.
Her stomach flipped, and she shoved the demon off her. She stared, open-mouthed, as a black-clad Hunter sliced off the redcap’s head with a sword in one shockingly swift motion. With a morbid fascination, she stared as the stranger plunged his fingers into the demon’s chest. For one horrible moment, the air filled with the sound of crunching bone and tearing flesh. As the redcap’s headless body twitched on the ground, the Hunter ripped out his beating heart.
Her first thought was: Shit. I was supposed to kill the demon.
Her second was: How the hell could a human rip a heart out like that?
When she glanced up at the Hunter, her body froze.