Night Call (Book 2): Demon Dei by L.J. Hayward

from my throat as a low, rumbling growl. Under me, Erin shook.
    Sur e, the berserker rage had got me into trouble many times, but it had also saved my life more than once. Didn’t mean I could let it out uncontrolled, however.
    Unlike in the elevator, I was sort of prepared for the effect of the demon on Mercy and hence me. Thanks to my practice with the finer points of my psychic-coolness, I had learned to channel energy into them.
    I balled up all the rage and fear and red hot need to hurt something and shoved it deep into my chest. It consumed the well of energy already sitting there and I was suffused with a powerful tremble.
    Before it could explode out of me and flatten Erin, I lifted myself off her and faced the demon. A quick snap down the internal line and Mercy dropped to the ground. I slammed the power forward and it smashed into the demon, collecting the fired bullets on the way. It pulverised the bullets and hit the demon like a battering ram, shoving her into the wall. And I mean into the wall. It was like she melted into it.
    She screamed that bone weakening sound again and I pushed her head back into the bricks. Shut her up for good. All that stuck out was her legs and the outer half of each wing, which twitched and then stilled.
    Talk about a head rush. The world around me went hazy and spun in all directions all at once. I crashed down. Erin caught me. At least, she softened the impact and swore about it.
    Weakened, Mercy’s driving need to kill ebbed. She hauled herself up and crawled over, careful not to drip her toxic blood onto us.
    “Jesus,” Erin said and I wasn’t sure if it was a curse or a prayer.
    I said something. No idea what, and apparently no one else did either. They looked at me strangely.
    “It’s doing something,” Erin warned.
    I tried to struggle up and settled for rolling over so I could see. The bits of the demon still showing faded, then vanished. All that was left was a dint in the wall. The last of Mercy’s rage vanished along with the demon.
    We looked at the empty space, at each other, then back at the wall.
    “Think it’s dead?” Erin asked.
    Mercy tilted her head. “It’s not here anymore.”
    “And that’s about all I care about.” I let my head drop back to the ground. Nice, soft cement.
    The next thing I knew, I was in a car—a quick look around revealed it was mine—hurtling down the motorway toward home. Erin was driving and Mercy was in the back seat, an old blanket waded up over her wounds.
    “How?” I mumbled.
    “Mercy and I put you in the car. She’s too out of it to drive, so I am.”
    I checked out again for a while, came back in when we were pulling into the driveway.
    I had the wits to stagger into the house under Mercy and Erin’s steam. They tossed me on my bed and I gave Erin the blood fridge key and firm instructions for one bag only of O pos. Mercy sulked and trundled out after Erin.
    After that, it was sweet goodbye for Matt Hawkins.

Chapter 10
    Mercy took her bag of blood and mooched out of the kitchen. Erin followed her. She wasn’t willing to let herself think the vampire was back to normal—whatever normal was for Mercy. The other vampires Erin had been exposed to—opposing armies on top of Mount Coot-tha—had been more mindless machines than autonomous creatures. Mercy was different, which probably stemmed from the fact she was under Matt’s control.
    Or was it other way around?
    It had been clear in the elevator Mercy had been the first to succumb to whatever terrorising influence the demon had, and Matt had followed suit.
    She’d seen him go into a mindless rage twice before. Once, he’d been lost to it completely, going up against a 300 year old vampire strong enough to think for himself and smash Mercy around as if she was a bothersome fly. The second time, he’d come after her, a deadly, predator gleam in his eyes that spoke of emotionless, cold calculation. She had been nothing to him in that moment, a mere source of