All Wounds by Dina James

you. No one will help you.”
    It let go of her arm. Rebecca pressed her hand tight against the wound then looked at her hand. She was bleeding, badly. She cupped the injury again and looked up at the demon.
    Unconcerned, it clasped a hand around her other wrist. “The pain you feel now is nothing compared to what you will endure if I must force your consent to return with me. Now come. Come, and you will be a queen. A goddess. You will be worshiped.”
    Yeah, before you kill me ! Rebecca thought as it dragged her to the row of sinks.
    “Death for a mortal is inevitable,” the demon replied, and Rebecca knew it had heard her thinking. “Why do you fight against it so? Let us give yours meaning and purpose.”
    It leapt with a cat’s grace into the mirror above one of the sinks. Then the demon turned and grasped Rebecca’s arm with its other hand.
    Her hand smacked the glass. The demon’s hand tightened on her wrist and tugged her forward a fraction of an inch.
    Pain unlike anything she’d ever felt ripped through her. Rebecca’s legs went out from under her as her fingers were forced through the glass of the mirror. She screamed and fought to pull away.
    “There will be more, and much worse than this if you do not give your consent,” said the creature in the mirror.

    “You’ve...got the wrong...girl!” Rebecca panted as she braced her foot against the sink that always trickled a stream of cold water no matter how many times the maintenance man fiddled with it.
    Water.
    The hands on her arm.
    That warm flush went through her, and she knew water didn’t have to be “holy” to hurt a demon.
    Her eyes found the trickle of running water and she shoved her free hand under it. She flung the small palmful at the demon in the mirror and put her wet hand over the demon’s hand on her arm.
    It howled and released her. Rebecca fell back, landing hard on her butt.
    The demon growled and climbed back out of the mirror.
    This time it didn’t look like it was going to ask her to come with it. Her eyes widened and she shrieked as she got to her feet.
    “I have no wish to fatigue your abilities in your attempt to flee. Fighting means you will only exhaust yourself, Acolyte,” the demon growled.
    “Is that like ‘if you run, you’ll only die tired’?” came a dark voice with a heavy Southern drawl from the doorway. “You guys gotta get better TV
    down there, I tell ya. Bad movies lines ain’t scary.” The voice’s owner looked at Rebecca. “Y’okay?”
    Rebecca just nodded, staring at him. He was huge. Bigger than even the largest football player on her school’s team, and he didn’t look any older than seventeen. Well, if he combed his shaggy brown hair a little better and changed his clothes from jeans and a t-shirt to something more...mature, he could probably pass for twenty, but certainly not any older. But that wasn’t why she was staring.
    Not only was he good-looking on the level of Syd’s gorgeousness, this guy’s muscles literally bulged and rippled beneath his t-shirt as he breathed.
    His dark eyes sparkled with what one could only call impishness, and he looked like he was about to start tearing the sinks off the wall before he set the place on fire.
    “Who are you?” Rebecca asked stupidly. This guy was just...standing in a girl’s bathroom grinning at a demon like it was normal ! What...?
    “Name’s Billy. Now how ‘bout you get behind me while I deal with old Armaros here?”
    “Armaros?” Rebecca echoed.
    The demon growled and Rebecca took a step back, inching in Billy’s direction. She didn’t know who the big guy was or where he’d come from, but she’d take any help she could get about now.
    “Oh my God, you see it too,” she babbled. “This is real. This is really real...”

    Before she could take another step, the demon had her by the arm again.
    The demon closed his eyes in seeming relief and relaxation. “Can you not feel it, anubi? Think of the purpose such power