" i saw them," Yan Lie grimly informed the others.
He stated that Jiang Lang hadn't killed all of them, and Feng Yue and Bai Long must have missed them when they went scouting. He confirmed there were more Hunters, gathered in the city even now.
He thought he heard one of them mention the word "tonight," but he was too high in the air to be sure.
For the second time in two days, Yan Lie was sitting on the couch in the entertainment room, surrounded by warriors.
He rarely came here, preferring instead to find his own entertainment outside.
From the outskirts of the city and the safety of the shadows, he would secretly watch mortals interact and wonder why they weren't more concerned about their weaknesses.
Now, he couldn't seem to get away from this chamber.
Feng Yue had returned and was watching another movie.
Bai Long was pounding away at the punching bag, Lin Fan was leaning against the corner at the far end of the room, and Luo Chen was shooting pool, having barricaded his bedroom door with timber and nails to free himself from guard duty.
Only Jiang Lang was absent, but Yan Lie was glad for that.
He felt Jiang Lang was too unpredictable today, not to mention too wrapped up in his human, woman.
Yan Lie snorted, thinking that would never be him.
While he liked to study that foolish species, he had never joined them.
Even the pretty blonde had not tempted him. Humans were too weak, and his demon constantly urged him to destroy them in ways that mirrored their own sins.
A rapist would lose his manhood.
A wife-beater would lose his hands.
More and more, Yan Lie liked what he did, liked meting out his own form of vengeance, which was why he was so close to the edge.
The girl, though...
When they had returned from the city, he had deposited her in Luo Chen's bedroom, her curves were perfectly imprinted in his mind but his body was completely unaffected.
She did nothing for him.
None of those puny humans did.
They were too easily broken, too easily scared, too easily taken from those who loved them.
But he still did not want to hurt her.
"How do you know they are Hunters?" Luo Chen asked him.
His features were strained, his usual calm beginning to crack as he nailed the eight ball into the corner pocket.
Yan Lie explained they had guns and knives strapped to their bodies, and he saw the mark of infinity on one of their wrists.
He thought branding themselves was foolish, like putting a neon sign around their necks that read "Shoot here."
"How many?"
"Six."
"Well, this sucks." Feng Yue dropped his head in his hands.
He wore a pair of unfastened jeans and nothing else.
Yan Lie had spotted him in the city, having sex with a woman in a shadowy corner of a building, and had told him to finish quickly and hurry home.
Feng Yue's promiscuity must have taken the request to heart.
He lamented that where there were six, there were six more, and so on.
"Damned Hunters," Bai Long snarled, hitting the bag with more force.
Yan Lie observed that Bai Long was in a dark mood, darker than usual.
He stated he did not wish to pack up and leave this time, as this was their home and they had done nothing wrong yet.
He proposed that if the Hunters had come to fight, they should fight them.
"They haven't challenged us," Luo Chen said, rubbing two fingers over his jaw, a habit of his. "Why?"
Yan Lie responded that their coming up the hill was challenge enough.
And what about Jiang Lang's girl?
The Hunters could be waiting for her signal.
"She's more of a complication now than ever," Lin Fan muttered.
"I still wonder what role the gods are playing in this."
Yan Lie plucked at the silver loop in his eyebrow. "We'll have to tell Jiang Lang."
Lin Fan shook his head.
"It won't matter to him. You've seen the way he is with her."
"Yes." Yan Lie remained disgusted by it.
He questioned what kind of warrior would turn on his friends for a woman who would ultimately betray him.
Luo Chen laid down his cue and tossed a ball into the air, catching and tossing it again. He stated they would be watching and would let the Hunters come up the hill this time, as he didn't want innocents killed during the battle.
Bai Long landed a mean right fist on the punching bag.
He declared he didn't want Hunters here, not in their home.
He suggested parading Jiang Lang's human around town, using their "Bait" as their own.
He believed they would follow, intending to save her and attack.
He proposed drawing them into a trap, away from the townspeople, and obliterating them.
Everyone regarded him sharply. "If we're seen," Yan Lie said, "the city will turn on us. It will be bloody all over again."
"They won't see," Bai Long insisted.
"Lin Fan can monitor the area with his cameras and radio us to let us know the moment someone approaches."
Yan Lie considered it, then nodded in approval.
He reasoned that the Hunters would be distracted while trying to save Xu Ling, leaving the warriors to pick them off one by one.
More important, Yan Lie wouldn't have to clean their blood from the walls.
He glanced at Luo Chen, who looked resigned.
"Very well. We will use the girl."
Feng Yue rubbed the back of his neck, and Yan Lie thought he meant to protest. Surprisingly, he didn't.
He commented that he guessed all they had to do now was figure out how to keep Jiang Lang from giving them trouble when he found out.
Danika peered at her mother, her sister, and her grandmother.
Their familiar faces regarded her with hope and curiosity, dread and fear.
She was the youngest, but she'd somehow become their leader.
"What happened?" Her mother wrung her hands together. "What did they do to you?"
Danika wondered what she should tell them. She doubted they'd believe the truth: that she'd performed CPR, helped save a woman from dying, and then found herself being flown and flown and flown! into the city by a winged man, where she gathered her purse, listened to Yan Lie as he commanded another warrior to go home (a warrior who had had a forty-something woman pinned against a wall, having sex with her), and then came back here. All in about thirty minutes.
And to top it all off, there was the voice that had mysteriously popped into her head earlier this morning, but she didn't even want to think about that.
She'd lived through all of it, and yet it was unbelievable even to her.
Besides, the truth would scare them, and they were scared enough. "I think they'll let us go soon," she lied.