Chapter 36

Becca was getting tired of waiting. She crouched in the darkness, staring up at the stars. Out this far from the bigger cities the skies were huge. Millions of stars were visible in the dark night and with a waning moon and cloudless sky it was easy to feel overwhelmed.

And she did. She had been keeping her connection to Michael in order to keep track of their movements yet thus far they had made none. Her previous jumps had been brief, lasting only minutes. Tonight she had been holding her focus for over an hour and counting. It was taxing.

Becca could see that Michael was maintaining a position a healthy distance downhill from the cabin. Black was beside him. Neither spoke, Michael stared at the building, only occasionally averting his eyes up to the dazzling sky or down to catch the activity of a scorpion just waking or lizard seeking warm shelter for the night.

In their camp, the wolves stood vigil, binoculars in hand awaiting something either from the cabin or Becca. Danny and Kyle were sitting on rocks and flicking the random night creatures away with sticks. The moon provided some light, though it was reduced by the presence of the outcropping casting its long shadow over them all.

Looking for a change of scenery, she rose and approached Danny and Kyle. Danny grunted and got up, walking a few paces away to crouch again.

"What the hell, Danny. We were partners over a year and you're going to be like this now?" she whispered hotly at him.

The whites of his eyes flashed in the light as he rolled them at her. "You're not you when you do that." He waved a hand at her. "When you do your mind meld thing with him, you're just like him in my eyes."

That he meant that hurt her more than she cared to admit. "I'm still me," she pouted stubbornly.

"Not to me you're not." Danny poked intently at something in the sand with his stick, his side of their argument over.

She growled, kicking the sand in frustration. She'd forgotten about her brother and her kick landed a dusting directly in his eyes.

Kyle stumbled backward, clawing at his eyes in surprise. Spitting the grains from his mouth, he coughed and choked. "Agh!" he shouted before he could stop himself.

Becca recognized her mistake as soon as her foot flew and she raised her eyes to see the trajectory but there was nothing she could change once the spray was airborne.

When Ryan and Gabrielle spun around to see the source of the commotion, they refrained from cursing, barely. Ryan was on Kyle after his first sound, clamping a hand down hard on his mouth. Gabrielle zeroed in on the cabin and Becca heard her utter an oath.

Just before her concentration was broken and Becca was pulled from Michael again, she saw his sight change. A lack of soft grasses and leafy trees offered poor sound absorption and the sound travelled far. He had heard them from all the way over there. That meant more than likely so had the demon. That was when she lost him.

Gabrielle's mouth began to move in a constant stream of what Becca learned when a few she recognized flew past, were oaths in languages she'd never even heard of before, as well as some more popular favorites. Swearing herself proud, Gabrielle launched herself and took Becca to the ground.

Once Becca was down, Danny dropped under his own power. With a glare that could have dropped an ox, Gabrielle left Becca lying in the rapidly cooling desert sand to look again upon their target.

Becca watched the binoculars shifting more frantically in the blonde's hands between dancing white lights and she felt her stomach drop, knowing what that meant before Gabrielle announced it.

"They've moved in but it's ready. The door's open now but I didn't see it come out. I lost it."

More than what she was saying, it was the inflection in Gabrielle's voice that made Becca's blood chill in her veins. The unflappable soldier was scared. Becca felt her own racing pulse pounding in her ears and part of her longed for Michael's touch to calm her body's reactions. She was on her own on this one.

Kyle was busily apologizing, muffled beneath Ryan's hand still slapped over his mouth.

"What do we do now?" Danny stood, brushing sand off of his pants.

Ryan asked the same thing Becca was thinking. "We're a 'we' now?"

"Well, I would assume a demon is worse than a vampire, right?" was all he said with a shrug.

"We move in a scatter formation. Put in your earpieces, we stay in constant contact." Gabrielle took control with no argument. "Anyone sees Black or Michael, alert the others. We stay in contact so no one gets hurt."

"What about the demon? What if we see the demon?" he wanted to know.

"Humans," she said through tight lips, "need to go in with an incendiary. Only one type of demon cannot be destroyed by fire that I know of and that is a fire demon." She cut a sharp look at Becca. "Be damn careful with those incendiaries. You can kill any of us with one misaimed device."

Becca watched her eyes dart toward Danny before she could stop herself. It was a rational fear Becca didn't know the answer to and she knew him better than anyone there. Would Danny use this chance to kill one of theirs?

Swallowing, Becca tossed off her pack to dig inside for an orb about the size of her fist. The grenade was filled with napalm and would stick to and burn anything within a ten foot radius. She held it out for Kyle and Danny to see. "Dig in your packs, you're looking for one of these."

Kyle took a matching device from his pack before returning it to his shoulders. Danny didn't have to look. He knew these types of weapons well enough to pick it out by feel; they'd worked with them in training.

For her part, Becca couldn't help but see the dummy they had incinerated with one of these grenades. The sticky fluid inside had splashed up upon hitting the ground, spattering the dummy and instantly igniting. Flames quickly engulfed the plastic man on contact. She could see Michael's face on the burning figure and shook her head violently to clear the image.