Homecoming (A Finn McCoy Paranormal Thriller #1)

  Chapter Fourteen

  Amanda saw McCoy take off at a sprint out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw him, Cynthia, and the demon. It took her only a second to realize what was happening.

  “Finn!” she screamed. “No!”

  McCoy paid her no heed. He raced toward the demon, which was only moments away from reaching the girl. Cynthia, her attention fixated on her father, had not even realized the danger she was in.

  Baracheck, alerted by Amanda’s scream, turned and saw what was happening.

  “Cynthie!” he yelled. “Cynthie, look out!”

  Cynthia heard her father shout and followed his gaze. At first, she saw the Hoodoo man racing toward her and thought that he meant to intercept her, but then she turned her head a little further and saw a massive shape closing in. Startled, she tripped and went sprawling to the ground just as the demon lunged at her.

  The demon saw her go down, but it was already committed, in mid-flight. Trapped as it was in its corporeal form, it had no choice but to follow the laws of physics. It knew it was going to miss on the first pass, but that would be all right. It could turn as it landed and be upon her before she had a chance to get back to her feet.

  Even as the demon thought this, something slammed into it, changing its trajectory and plowing it into the ground. The entity turned its head to see McCoy, winded but irate, scrambling to get on top of it.

  “McCoy!” the demon growled, enraged to see that the bane of its earthly existence was trying to step between it and its prey. The demon had thought earlier that it had little chance of beating McCoy because it had assumed the man would never allow it to get close enough for a physical attack. Now that the two were grappling in close quarters, however, all bets were off.

  The entity snapped its head forward in an attempt to bite McCoy, but the handler deftly dodged the attack and planted a punch of his own on the demon’s snout. The fiend wailed in rage and pain. It struggled to get out from under the pesky human and mount its own attack.

  Cynthia had been frozen by the spectacle taking place on the ground beside her. Shaking herself out of her daze, she jumped to her feet and ran to her father. She fell into his arms, sobbing with relief. Baracheck held her tightly and stroked her hair.

  “It’ll be okay,” he told her. “I promise you, it’ll be okay.”

  Amanda turned to John. “”I’m going to help Finn. You and Deidre watch those two.”

  John nodded. He turned and surveyed the battlefield. The fighting was intense and the combatants were dropping fast. It would soon be over, and from the looks of things there would still be some Sluagh to deal with. He motioned Deidre closer and they positioned themselves between the fray and the newly reunited father and daughter.

  Amanda stopped long enough to grab McCoy’s knapsack. She quickly rifled through it, but doing so did her little good. She didn’t know what most of the items were, and had no idea which, if any, might be effective against a demon. She cursed herself for not having learned more in the previous six months. With a squeal of frustration, she closed the knapsack and ran toward McCoy.