The stucco walls were so pale against the night sky that they almost glowed with a life of their own. With the arched doorway behind him, Giles walked through dark halls, passing rooms whose abandoned air suggested that light and friendship had not touched them in ages. The interior courtyard, open to the sky and lit by moonlight, was overgrown but tameable. Giles had yet to detect the demon that had spooked Tucker. It was possible the lad had invented the creature, but that seemed unlikely. His terror had been too convincing. Giles tightened the grip on his sword.
The house was silent outside of the creaking floorboards underneath his feet. No mice scuttled behind the walls. No owls hooted outside the windows. He felt as if the house was listening to him, watching him, as he made his way through it. The wail, as weak as it was, sounded as loudly as a siren against that silence. The sound wrenched at his heart. An infant abandoned here? It was a feint, an illusion, he knew that but he had to force himself to stillness all the same.
The wail died abruptly as if cut short. Giles knew, with a certainty so deep he didn't even question it, that some thing had stolen the child's breath away. This was the demon Tucker had spoken of. Giles had to stop it before it killed again. Giles had to save the child.
He tried to rush forward but his limbs wouldn't obey. He couldn't move. He was trapped. The demon, it must be the demon. He struggled to turn his head, to see it coming.
"Keep still you bloody berk."
The words had come from his own mouth but he hadn't spoken. It couldn't be Rupert. He was safely asleep. "Ripper?"
"I said keep still."
"But the child, we have to save …"
"It's not a child."
It was, he could hear the infant wailing. Terrified. Desperate. Alone. Why would anyone abandon a child here? The question, the logic of it, broke the spell. The child might not have been abandoned. The demon could have stolen it, but Ripper could be right. The demon might be mimicking a child, using natural human instinct to draw its prey to it. And he was the prey.
He heard a sound, a whisper, a brush of skin against skin. Letting go of his body, Giles allowed Ripper to take control. A clattering raced toward him, a thundering of claws against floor. There was a face, that of a woman, pale and as detached as the moon. It rushed at him, but no, it wasn't just a face. There was a body underneath, big and bulky. As he threw himself to the left, out of the demon's path, Rupert got a sense of feathers and a glimpse of talons, sharp enough to tear his gut out. He slammed against the wall with a thud and lost sight of the creature as he scrambled for the relative safety of the hall. Crouched on the floor, panting, Ripper listened, trying to hear past the silence. There was nothing. He rose slowly and peered back into the room. The demon had vanished.
"Bloody idiot." There were five doors, all open. The demon could come through any one of them. Giles could have shut them on his way through when he'd been casing the joint, but no, he'd been too busy searching for the demon to think about watching his back. Cocky bastard.
Ripper stepped back into the room, but felt only slightly more secure. He'd thought he'd been lucky, getting through that attack with nothing more than a few bruises but now he wasn't so sure. The demon had been ungainly in its attack. It hadn't kept up with him. Perhaps it couldn't. Based on the feathers, it could be some sort of harpy, which meant it'd be deadly in the air but awkward on the ground. If so, the house would provide some defense. The demon wouldn't have room to fly.
He had to control the situation, to draw the demon out and choose the time of it's attack. Standing at the edge of the room, with his back to the wall, that left the ball in the demon's court. It could wait before attacking, but if he moved into the center of the room, where it could see him, that might set if off. Most demons weren't known for their patience.
Ripper stepped into the middle of the room. A dark mass moved, rushing at him. Riper swung his sword, sending feathers flying. A claw raked his leg as a high-pitched scream, like that of a baby, tore through the room. Ripper fell against the wall, holding his sword at the ready. The demon's pale face glowed from the far side of the room. It wasn't attacking. He must have hurt it. Shifting away from the wall, Ripper tested his leg. It would do. He took two steps forward and slashed his sword across the demon's eyes. It screamed as it scuttled back. He stepped forward and thrust his sword straight through its chest.
Ripper kicked at the corpse. An owl-like creature as tall as a man but with the face of a woman? It wasn't any demon he'd ever heard of. Giles would want it gone. A decomposing demon of this size would stink up the place up right quick, but that was Giles' problem. Ripper killed them. Giles dealt with the rest. If Giles had any brains at all, he'd find someplace to burn it and get that Tucker lad to cart it away. What use was a minion if you didn't make him do the dirty work?