Brady's Hellion by Linda Wisdom Page B

silently ordering
her to look at him and not up or down. Not that she could look down
even if she wanted to. She hadn’t lied to Brady. The idea she could
fall onto the pavement had her feeling nauseous and dizzy. It was
only by focusing on his face and the glint in his eye that she
managed to make it to the ground without having a full blown panic
attack.
    Once they reached the ground, he had the rope off her
in quick order and back in his backpack. He pulled her around the
perimeter of the hotel and toward one of the popular hiking trails
leading up the mountain.
    Raven remained quiet and close behind him, sometimes
even touching his back for reassurance. She was a demon with more
strength than the average human and gifts that she could call on to
protect herself and Brady, but she didn’t feel this was the time to
bring them on. Every so often he stopped to look down at the
resort. He eventually steered her off the trail and they moved
upward at a fast and steady pace. He didn’t stop until they were a
good distance up the mountain and in a protected area that
overlooked the resort.
    Never so happy to stop, Raven dropped to the ground
and just sat there.
    “This will help.” He bumped her arm with a bottle of
water.
    “If this is your idea of a pre dawn hike, it so
sucks,” she grumbled, drinking half the contents of the bottle
before slowing down to only take small sips. “What was really wrong
with those people? And why is it so quiet down there?”
    He dropped down beside her and rummaged through his
backpack again, bringing out a couple of packets and a pair of
high-powered binoculars. He dropped one packet in her lap. “Trail
Mix. You’ll need the energy.”
    “A triple espresso would have been better.” She
opened the packet and picked through the contents, eating the
chocolate candies first then the cashews and peanuts.
    Brady upended his packet and poured the contents into
his mouth. “The raisins won’t hurt you,” he said, amused by the way
she carefully picked around them.
    She wrinkled her nose. “You can have them. I won’t
even tell you what they remind me of.” She set the packet to one
side. “Now are you going to tell me what’s going on and why we
snuck out of the resort?” She glared at his back as with binoculars
in hand he edged closer to the edge. “Brady!” She smacked his
back.
    He ignored her for about five minutes then looked
over his shoulder. He gestured for her to join him then scooted
back, settling her in front of him and handed her the
binoculars.
    “Look down there at about two o’clock,” he
murmured.
    “Two what?”
    “Think of a clock and look in that direction.”
    He kept his arms around her and guided the
binoculars. When he heard her swift indrawn breath he asked, “What
do you see?”
    She handed him back the binoculars. “They shouldn’t
be here. It’s not allowed. It took me centuries to gain permission
to come up here.”
    Brady took another look, the binoculars bringing the
images so close he felt as if he could reach out and touch them.
Not that he cared to touch what he was looking at.
    The leader of the group was in no way human even if
he tried to look that way. The stiff way he walked and the way his
head moved in an odd manner told him what he was looking at came
from Shar’s part of the world. The creatures behind the leader
didn’t bother with a human disguise. Their reptilian bodies
reminded him of the creature from Alien times fifty as they
slithered down the walkway. And here he thought Shar’s private
guards were ugly.
    What the hell did they do to the people down there
and how were we spared? Or were we?
    Then Raven’s words kicked in. They shouldn’t be
here.
    He turned around and faced her. “What the fuck are
those things?” Brady’s whisper may have been barely audible, but he
may as well have shouted the words for the fury in his voice. He
laid his binoculars to one side. He’d seen enough to last a
lifetime.
    Raven’s