Read 17 - A Hard Days Night Searcher.doc for Free Online

me."
    The Daimon female beside him smiled, showing off her fangs. "We can't really eat him, since his blood is poisonous to us, but killing him should have some entertainment value. What do you think?"
    Yeah, he'd walked right into the lion's den. There were at least twelve Daimons that he could sense. And another twenty Apollites. Normally Apollites didn't fight against Dark-Hunters, since Dark-Hunters were forbidden to touch them until they stopped feasting on fellow Apollites and began feasting on human souls, thereby becoming Daimons. Then it was open warfare between them.
    However, this group didn't seem too concerned with keeping the unspoken truce between Dark-Hunters and Apollites. They truly were bloodthirsty.
    And now they were attacking.
    Reaching under his coat, Rafael grabbed his steel stake and plunged it into the heart of the first Daimon to reach him. With an anguished cry, the Daimon exploded into dust. Two more came at him. He caught the first one a quick hit that sent him flying backward, into the arms of another Daimon, while he flipped the second one over and stabbed him straight in the chest.
    Before he could straighten up from the kill, the Daimons overran him like ants over a sugar cube. He hit the ground face-first as they clawed at him. He could feel something biting into his back that felt like a knife wound, but it was hard to tell as he struggled to get them off him.
    Celena knew she was breaking the rules, but Rafael didn't have to know it. All she was going to do was make sure he was okay, then head back to his house. No one would ever know what she'd done. No one.
    She parked her car as close to the docks as she could before she took off running toward where the tracer in her hand said Rafael was. A thousand fears shredded her as she relived the night Sara had died. Celena had been trying to get to her. They'd been on the cell phone together as she raced to make it in time.
    The last sound she'd heard had been Sara screaming as she burst into flames.
    Grief threatened to overwhelm Celena. She couldn't lose another Dark-Hunter. And especially not Rafael. She'd loved him far too long to let him die.
    With no clear thought of what she had in mind to do to help him if he was in trouble, she ran onto the boat, then skidded to a stop.
    It was total chaos.
    But more than that, there was no sign of Rafael anywhere. He appeared to be buried by the large stack of Daimons and Apollites in the center of the boat.
    Her eyes welling with tears, she met the gaze of a woman in a wedding dress for only an instant before she pulled a stake out of her coat.
    "Rafael?" Celena cried, heading for the fray.
    A Daimon turned on her then. Celena kicked him back and kept going toward the largest group of them. She knew that was where Rafael had to be.
    She couldn't see anything as she pushed, kicked, and fought until she finally saw what she'd come for. Rafael knocked a Daimon off him while another was trying to pin him to the ground. But what made her panic swell most was the Daimon coming toward them with an ax.
    If they managed to cut off Rafael's head, it was over.
    The Daimons pulled back as someone grabbed her from behind. Reacting on pure instinct, Celena head-butted her assailant with the back of her head and launched herself at Rafael who still lay on the ground. From the corner of her eye, she saw the ax falling.
    She curled herself around Rafael's head and waited for the pain of the ax slicing through her.
    It never came.
    There was a sudden silence that rang out as everything seemed to freeze into place. Her heart racing, Celena opened her eyes to see the Apollites and Daimons staring above her. She rolled over to find the Daimon who'd held the ax. Only now the ax was gone.
    It was in the hands of the groom who stared not at them but at the others with a stern glare. "Enough!" he roared. "This is supposed to be my wedding!" He looked over at the bride, whose face was pale, her delicate lips trembling. "And