Nightwalker by Connie Hall Page A

Takala’s hopes and daydreams. She had always seen her mother as a replica of her grandmother, Meikoda. Meikoda was exacting and severe, but she could also be loving and kind, with a heart of gold. But Takala felt little warmth in this stranger. Well, they couldn’t part just yet. Lilly left Takala no choice but to follow her.
    The airport didn’t seem quite so busy in the early morning. A few people were awake, sitting at food counters, or reading, but most were sleeping, slumped in their seats as they waited for flights.
    Takala couldn’t shake that feeling of eyes on her, and she glanced around. Only passengers on the flight. Several women struggled with tired, crying children.
    She and Lilly hopped on the shuttle that took them past the baggage-claim area. They passed through customs and had to wait for Takala to get her Glock. At first they wanted to keep the gun while she was in Paris, so she had called Blake. He used his connections to contact someone in charge of airport security. After a fifteen-minute wait, they handed her the Glock with a warning not to use it. It helped to have good friends in high places.
    She thanked them for the advice. Then she and Lillyheaded for the taxi pool. They stepped through double glass doors and out into a covered portico. It stretched from the main airport to a parking garage across the street. Moths fluttered around yellow fluorescent lights. Beyond the lights, Takala could see only darkness.
    She turned to look for the porter and saw an empty desk. Strange. Most airports kept porters on duty all hours of the night. Late flights or not, passengers always demanded help with their luggage. No one home here.
    She couldn’t see one taxi visible in the four lanes, either, but she smelled remnants of car exhaust lingering in the air. It mingled with the dense humidity of impending rain. But there was also something more tangible weighing the atmosphere down, something that made the skin at the back of her neck crawl.
    â€œI don’t like this,” Lilly said, voicing what Takala felt.
    â€œMe, either. Smell that sudden stench?” Takala sniffed the air.
    â€œRotten eggs?”
    They both looked at each other and said simultaneously, “Demons.” Some demons had a decaying odor that accompanied their dark magic and signaled their arrival.
    Unfortunately, the warning came too late. Eight hover demons materialized, floating right out the side of the brick parking garage. They lifted their scythes in unison.
    â€œNightwalker strikes again,” Lilly murmured. “He really wants me dead.”
    â€œNot if I can help it.” Takala decided she had a lot of questions for this Nightwalker vamp—if she ever methim face-to-face. “Run, Lilly!” Takala turned to face their attackers.
    â€œToo late.” Lilly took up a fighting stance behind Takala’s back.
    The hover demons separated, circling them. Drooping hoods obscured most of their faces. All Takala could see were dark, indistinguishable features and two glowing green eyes.
    One grew bold and lunged at Takala.
    She grabbed the scythe before it struck, then whipped the weapon back at the demon like a javelin.
    The scythe careened through its body, the blade’s tip protruding out the other side. It squealed and buckled. Green goo, demon blood, spewed from the gaping hole left in the demon’s body and robe. As soon as the blood hit the air, it left only green smoke in its wake. The hover’s dead spirit coagulated and frothed into a green gelatinous mass. The wool of its mantle, like the green blood, disappeared in a poof of gray smoke. Takala watched as the hover’s spirit whirled out of the portico and up into the air. She knew it would be sucked back to hell’s dimension and reappear again in some other noxious form. Like angels, demons’ spirits never died; they were just recycled. Made killing demons frustrating.
    At the death of their brethren, the