Free Demon's Embrace by Abby Blake Page A

drying himself off when the perimeter alarm sounded again.
     

Chapter Seven
    Ronan already had his gun in his hand. He shook his head as Alex looked ready to slip travel them to another destination. It would give them a few moments before the pixie could follow, but their position was probably more defensible here than anywhere else. With the wards reengaged the pixie wouldn’t be able to slip travel away from them. Obviously the spray glue hadn’t worked. Maybe if they gathered the dust in several airtight, glue-filled jars she wouldn’t be able to re-form. He’d try that next time.
    They held their ground, the bathroom almost as defensible as the bedroom. It had only one small window not even large enough for a child, or pixie of childlike size, to climb through. That left only the single doorway, and with Ronan and Alex both armed and ready their attacker had little chance of getting past.
    The minutes dragged on, the screech of the alarm getting more and more annoying by the moment. Just when Ronan was beginning to wonder if the pixie planned to wait them out, something flew toward them. At first it seemed to be a very big dragonfly, but as it drew nearer Ronan recognized its petite features.
    “Is that what I think it is?” Kali asked as she peeked out from behind Alex.
    “I guess that explains what happens to a pixie who gets most of her ashes glued together,” Alex said with what was obviously meant to be a mocking laugh. Despite her size, Ronan wasn’t willing to relax his guard, and he was quite grateful to his friend for trying to fire up their enemy’s temper. Chances were if the pixie got angry, she would do something poorly thought through.
    Fortunately, Alex’s instincts proved correct a moment later as the irate, miniature pixie made a strange sort of hissing noise and went for Ronan’s face. He managed to grab her in the palm of his hand, but the little bitch burned him a couple of times before he could get her into a jar in the kitchen. Fortunately, her size meant the burns were no worse than the touch of a lit cigarette—annoying but ultimately not fatal.
    She carried on for a while, hissing as loudly as she could—which wasn’t really all that loud—and beating her fragile-looking wings against the confined space of the jar. Surprisingly she cringed away in fear when Ronan grabbed a nail and hammer but seemed to calm down when she realized he only intended to punch a couple of holes in the lid so she could get some air.
    “Too bad she doesn’t glow in the dark,” Alex said with a smirk. “She’d make a rather pretty lantern.” The pixie gave him a nasty look and used her finger in a way Ronan thought was typical only of humans. “I’m assuming that she can still slip travel, so the jar will only hold her while the wards are in place.” The pixie looked rather interested until he added, “And since I have no intention of turning them off, we should be able to hold her indefinitely.” She slumped to the bottom of the jar. It was obvious that she was saying something, but between her size and the glass Ronan wasn’t able to hear her.
    “Were you able to catch any of that?” Ronan asked Alex.
    “Not a word,” Alex said, smirking when their captive flipped him the bird once more.
    “I’d really like to know why she still came after us. If that’s as big as she’s going to get, it put her at a tactical disadvantage. A human assassin would have cancelled the job or maybe called in help.”
    “Didn’t I see karaoke equipment in the television cabinet?” Kali asked. “Maybe we can rig up one of the microphones to the TV.”
    Ronan shuddered at the thought that he’d spent time in a house that was harboring such equipment. Thank God nobody had asked him to sing. There was a limit to how much one man should be asked to sacrifice in the name of keeping his woman safe and happy.
    They had the microphone set up a few minutes later, and of course that was when the annoying little