Dweller on the Threshold by Rinda Elliott

something strange from behind me. She ran past. Sloshed a cup of liquid into the demon’s face.
    “You idiot!” I reached for her. “Get away from it! You aren’t strong enough to—”
    I broke off as she screeched out something foreign. At least I thought it was a language. It didn’t seem to have any vowels. I grabbed her but she was all slippery. I smelled oily, stale water. Castor oil. Blythe had thrown castor oil at the demon . I tried to hold onto the woman. The demon lurched to its knees, and the strangest expression crossed its face as it looked at the witch. Blythe yelled something again. It blinked.
    Behind it, Nikolos used both hands to slam a knife in his demon’s eye. He rose, tall and furious. His boots thudded loud in the sudden quiet of the hospital’s hallway as he ran toward us. He had to leap over the wounded.
    And the dead.
    I felt the sudden slam of newly dead souls surround me, grief blackening the edges of my vision. Not now . I couldn’t let them zap my strength now!
    I let go of Blythe and rushed the demon. I reached it as Nikolos did. My dagger slammed into its eye. His scraped noisily against bony skull as he pierced the ear. I snarled, aimed a glare at Nikolos, and prepared to tell him I wanted the damned kill. But when our eyes met, power smashed into me. Apparently it hit him, too. We both let go and staggered back. I winced when my sore spine hit the wall, but I couldn’t look away from him. Couldn’t help but feel that he could suddenly see deep into my soul. See into a place where I wanted no one to look.
    My hands had remained steady in the fight. Now they shook. I ripped my gaze away as the demon shuddered. The light went off in the eyes as its body bubbled, squished and made this slurping, wet slapping noise as it melted to mush.
    “Oh, what the…jeez.” Nauseated, I turned away, moved to the wall and pressed my forehead to the cool surface. Noise in the hallway increased as the wounded realized the fight was over. People scurried in from every available doorway—some yelling in horror, some crying. My belly cramped and I swallowed several times. I was not going to throw up in front of Nikolos. My chest heaved as I struggled to get a handle on my breathing. And my control.
    I felt his heat as he came to stand close—was hyper-sensitive to the brush of his hot breath over my cheek. I closed my eyes. He had blood and other things I didn’t want to guess at splattered all over him. I knew I looked the same. “There will be more of those, right?”
    “Yes.” He touched my shoulder. “They’ll be stronger the next time.”
    I gagged over the metallic taste of blood and the fetid scent of death riding the air. Opening my eyes, I turned to meet his gaze. “The one you fought…was it wearing…was that a person?”
    He nodded.
    “One of the coma people?”
    I could see the answer in his eyes. My knees turned to jelly. He reached out to hold me up. Fear, infinitely more painful than the deep cuts in my arm and leg, stole my ability to stand, and I didn’t care that this man saw the sudden weakness. All I could think about was Elsa. My sister lay helpless on that fucking bed waiting for one of those things to take her body.
    “No. Oh hell no.” I straightened my legs and pushed away from him. “I will not let anything near her. I won’t. Tell me how to stop this. Now.” I narrowed my eyes. “You do know what’s going on, don’t you?”
    “Yes.” He stared at me. I could see my reflection in his eyes. The look on my face was one of fury. Of determination. I didn’t flinch when he pulled sweaty strands of hair off my cheek or when he smoothed them behind my ear. “Your sister is vulnerable no matter where we put her. They don’t come from this realm and it takes some time for them to work through. We need to get these wounds taken care of and feed you. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Then we’ll work on finding a way to stop them.”
    I knew I was coming down from