Free Pandora's Box by Gracen Miller

gagged on his thick, sludgy blood.
    He jerked backward and an outraged bellow struck her face, the stench knocking the breath from her lungs. Holding her steady by her hair, his other hand wrapped around her throat and constricted. Awful strangled sounds came from her, as he squeezed tighter and tighter until she thought he’d crush her windpipe.
    Amos ….
    Darkness edged her vision as jagged lightening haloed his silhouette. His grip intensified while thunder rattled the windows. If he murdered her, Amos would be all alone with him.
    She struggled to lift her arms and rake her nails down his face, but they weighed too much to maneuver accurately. They ended up banging against her thighs like a loose window shutter in a vicious thunderstorm.
    In the moments before she thought death would claim her, his face transformed with concise clarity. All thought froze; shocked beyond comprehension, she couldn’t believe her eyes. His identity couldn’t be right.
    The door to her bedroom burst open the second before Madison lost consciousness.

Chapter Eleven

    The thunderstorm boomed hard enough to rattle his vehicle, and because of it, Nix almost missed Madison’s scream. Scrambling from his car with pistol in hand, he slammed into her house and took the stairs two at a time to her room. Chambered inside the gun were special bullets. At the beginning of their craftsmanship, a Sherlock priest blessed the lead. Once cast, the maker etched a cross into the tip of the final product. One shot and any demonic bad boy would die screaming in a shitload of pain. Better than what they deserved, in his opinion.
    Locked. The fucking bedroom door was locked! Damn it!
    Taking a couple of steps back, he inhaled and kicked just to the side of the doorknob. The impact jarred up his leg, traveled into his spine and snapped his teeth together. The door held steady. Gurgling sounds penetrated the door, and he fought panic. Losing Madison wasn’t an option. Propelled by this uncomfortable thought, Nix inhaled a long breath, expelled it, repositioned himself and drew one more deep breath. On the exhale, he kicked the door with everything he possessed. The door flew inward, loudly crashing against the wall. He stumbled, caught the doorjamb, and steadied himself.
    His gaze swept the room fast. Amos stood beside a dark apparition. The figure tossed Madison to the bed like garbage. She bounced when she landed and lay limp. From where he stood, with only the hall light illuminating the room, Nix couldn’t tell if she were alive or dead. He’d been right to follow his instinct in returning to Madison’s.
    Nix reacted, aimed, and fired. The creature jerked when the first bullet ripped through his heart and stumbled when the second one entered his gut. A demon should’ve imploded with the rounds. Nix put a third slug into him, straight between the eyes. The shot jerked his head backward hard enough to rip a human’s head off. Unfortunately, the intruder’s remained intact.
    The demon’s features crystallized and a smirk tilted the edges of his mouth before he exploded into flames. Perplexed by the intensity and sparkling whiteness of the fire consuming the entity, Nix protected his eyes with his forearm. The cackle that followed the beast’s departure made abso-fucking-lutely no sense! Demons screamed and died in a dramatic explosion. They never laughed and died in sparkling white light.
    What would Georgie make of this new circumstance?
    His attention jerked to Amos and the orange ring around the child’s eyes spiked and thinned, but remained. Nix ran to Madison and slid across the bed on his knees. Her eyes were closed. The too dark room kept him from seeing if her chest inflated. Lifting one of her hands, he released it, and it landed limp on her stomach. Pressing two fingers to the pulse in her neck, he detected nothing.
    His heartbeat rocketed. Coping with his failure to save her would create a host of emotional problems he wasn’t ready to