Demon Seer (Ember's Flames Book 1)

by Sadie Waters

  Ryan was talking again, something about how the elderly neighbor across the hall, the one Jake was talking to now, seemed to keep tabs on the kids who lived in the building. “She was alarmed that Zach didn’t come home, but Jake assured her he was fine. Anyway, we’ll get his stuff and head back to the apartment. Did Dr. Ford have any conclusions?”

  “Not that he’d share with me in front of Zach. But listen… Zach wants to come home. Since the two of you are still there, why don’t you wait until I bring him over? Maybe he’ll know how to reach his neighbor. We probably ought to make sure the kid’s okay.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Ryan agreed before they both hung up, and Ember pulled the clicker out of her jacket pocket to unlock the door. She noticed Zach’s finger poised over the locking mechanism inside the car so that he could lock it back if anyone, or anything, other than Ember tried to open the door.

  “Thank you for that,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him as she slipped into the driver’s seat and put her seatbelt on. She jammed her key into the ignition, half wishing it was his eye instead.

  “I would really like to get home and put all of this behind me.” He was already buckled in and didn’t look at her as he spoke.

  “Oh, good,” Ember said, shifting into reverse and pulling out of the parking spot. “Because one of the things I forgot to tell you is that demons can’t attack people who don’t believe in them. All you have to do to stay safe is pretend they don’t exist.”

  “Wait, what?” Zach asked, a hopeful tone to his voice she hadn’t heard since they’d met.

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s crazy how it works. You ignore them, and they’ll ignore you. Kind of like wasps or honeybees.”

  Zach was quiet for a second as Ember pulled out onto the busy street, barely catching a pause in traffic long enough for her to squeeze in, but she managed. “You’re shitting me, aren’t you?” he finally asked, the joy gone from his voice. “You’re just making that up so you can poke fun at me, right?”

  “Yes, Zach. I’m making it up. But then, you don’t seem to want to believe that demons exist in the first place, even though you’re terrified that one’s going to hop into the car with us. So, I’m not sure what difference it makes whether they can get you if you don’t believe in them or not since you clearly don’t. Or do you? I can’t tell.”

  He didn’t answer only grumbled and crossed his arms, looking straight ahead. Happy for the silence, Ember drove on. She’d heard Zach give Jake and Ryan directions earlier, but she wasn’t exactly sure how to get to his apartment. Confident she could get them in the ballpark, she didn’t interrupt his thoughts until she had to. Before she could even ask, though, he said, “Turn right at the next corner.” His voice was low and soft, like he was exhausted and couldn’t handle talking to her anymore.

  Ember did as instructed, praying it wouldn’t be too difficult to find a parking space once she did reach his apartment. She had a feeling Zach didn’t own a car. Wondering if he owned a bike that he kept in his living room, she heard him tell her to turn to the left almost too late for her to get over, but she managed, infuriating the cab behind her and making Zach cringe. The urge to ask him if he wanted to drive was overwhelming, but she bit it back.

  “There are a few visitor parking spaces up there,” he said, pointing inside of the lot around the building. Ember pulled in and saw a few empty spots with signs that said “two-hour parking” and pulled in next to Jake’s jeep.

  Relieved to finally have someone else to share her agony with, she hopped out of the car, expecting Zach to do the same, but once again, he was too scared to leave the safety of the vehicle until he’d done a close inspection of all of the passersby. After what seemed like five minutes, he opened the door and shot out toward the front of the building. Ember shook her head and followed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Zach said hello to a few neighbors as he headed to the elevator. Ember followed at such a distance, they looked confused, as if they couldn’t tell if the pair was together, and if so, who she might be. She didn’t mind keeping it that way. One of the women they passed looked at her with alarm, as if she might be a burglar. Ember had to chuckle; she should’ve seen her in her hunting gear.

  Once inside the steel cube, Zach pressed the button for the twenty-first floor, and Ember moved away from him, happy to give him as much space as the limited area would allow. Her mind journeyed back to the impatience she’d felt the night before when she had no idea why Ruby wanted her to hurry home. She wished she could go back in time and tell Ruby to go fuck herself.

  The doors opened and an older couple was standing in the hall, ready to get on. Zach excused himself and stepped around them while Ember danced with the woman for a moment. Eventually, Ember worked her way free and leapt into the hallway. Laughing at what Ember didn't think was a humorous situation at all, the woman hollered at Zach, “Your new girlfriend sure is pretty, Zachary!” The doors closed before he could get out his denial.

  He said it anyway, “She’s definitely not my girlfriend, Mrs. Casanopolis.”

  “Is that supposed to hurt my feelings?” Ember asked, rolling her eyes and folding her arms.

  Zach shrugged. “Just stating a fact.”

  Biting back the idea that he would be so lucky to have her as his girlfriend. He headed down the hall, and she followed, watching him search his pockets for keys he didn’t have because he’d given them to Jake. He was almost at his door when he remembered that and pulled out his phone instead, as if that’s what he’d been looking for the whole time. She didn’t waste her time scoffing at him.

  Zach knocked on his own apartment room door, and Ember narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m sure it’s unlocked.”

  “I’m not about to go bursting in there. What if… they’re not alone?”

  “You mean what if they invited some of your elderly neighbors in to party?” she asked as Ryan opened the door.

  “No, I mean… what if something followed them here?”

  “Hi…?” Ryan said, questioning why neither of them had acknowledged him.

  “You mean like the demons you don’t believe in?” Ember asked with a snarl.

  “I never said I don’t believe in them.” Zach pushed past Ryan now, giving him a small wave, and hesitating a few steps inside the doorway as if he didn’t trust his own space.

  “You’re apartment’s clear,” Ryan assured him, stopping to kiss Ember on the cheek before following Zach in. She kissed him back. Assuming Jake was still talking to the woman across the hall, she didn’t bother to ask where he was.

  The space was small--a living area with an attached kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. The bedroom door was open, so Ember could see inside. Zach was a lot more tidy than she would’ve expected. Either that or Ryan had cleaned up after him. A couple of packed bags sat by the old plaid couch. Zach glanced at them and then went into the bedroom, his timidity obvious in his cautious steps.

  “Jake still talking to neighbors?” Ember asked just to have something to say. She was still watching Zach but considering what might happen if they just left and never looked back.

  “He is.” Ryan’s phone was in his hand, and she assumed he was texting Jake to come back. “Still no sign of the next door neighbor.”

  “I haven’t mentioned it to Zach.” She shoved her hands deep into her jacket pockets. “He’s so wound up.”

  “We’ll let Jake talk to him then. So what exactly did Dr. Ford say?”

  She’d already mentioned the high points on the phone. That wouldn’t be enough for him, though. “Just that he’d talk to me later, but he’s pretty sure he is what you think he is.”

  Ryan raised an eyebrow, as if to say he was having trouble believing he was right. “Does Zach know that?”

  “He does. He hopes he can ignore it all, and it will go away.”

  “Shit.” Ryan leaned against the wall next to a Coldplay poster. Noticing it for the first time, Ember’s face scrunched up, but he either didn
’t see it or figured it wasn’t worth conversing about. “Did you tell him that’s not gonna do him any good?”

  “Sure, but do you think he listens to me?”

  Jake came in the door then, preventing Ryan from answering. She turned and smiled at him, glad to see him, even in the midst of all of the chaos around them. “Hey.” She took her hands out of her pockets and kissed him quickly on the lips, just as Zach came back in.

  “What in the….” he muttered and then looked at Ryan as if he thought Jake was about to get punched in the face.

  Ember glanced from Zach to Ryan and then shook her head. How he still hadn’t figured this out was beyond her.

  “Zach, how are you?” Jake asked, offering his hand so they could do that fist bump, handshake thing dudes do. “You met the prof?”

  “I did.” Zach returned the greeting but his countenance didn’t change. He was still trying to get this to go away. Ember realized he’d changed clothes. Jake’s were slung over his arm. “Thanks for letting me borrow these.”

  “Sure, sure,” Jake replied. “What did Dr. Ford have to say?”

  Ember appreciated the way Jake was asking Zach instead of her, making him feel included or whatever, but it wasn’t going to change Zach’s mind about what was happening. He shrugged. “I don’t know. Basically the same sort of magic mumbo jumbo I’ve been hearing since I ran into you guys. Look, Jake, I appreciate your hospitality, I really do. All of you.” He looked at Ember and Ryan quickly but then turned back to Jake, likely the only one of them he could ever consider becoming friends with. “But… I think it would be best if I just went back to my normal routine and tried to sort all of this out on my own.”

  “Zach…” Ember began, the exhaustion of having the same conversation over and over weighing on her.

  Jake waved her off, though, and she decided to let him handle it. “You do?” He ran a hand through his hair. It all sprung perfectly back into place, even the crest at the front. “Okay, man. If that’s what you want. I understand. It’s just… we do wanna check on your neighbor before we go. Do you happen to have a key?”

  “My neighbor?” Zach was looking at her again, and Ember tried to appear innocent, as if she didn’t know anything about the situation, but when Jake spoke again, it gave her away.

  “Yeah, Em didn’t tell you? Apparently, he wasn’t playing any music last night, and Mrs. Donaldson across the hall is a little worried. She was hoping Myke might’ve given you a key.” Then, turning to look at Ember and Ryan, Jake noted, “That’s Myke with a Y.”

  Ember nodded. “Oooh.” Not that she cared, but she supposed Jake’s clarification had something to do with the neighbor’s idea that Myke was acting odd--for Myke.

  Zach’s forehead was furrowed as he processed the information. “That’s weird. He should be in class now.”

  “She hasn’t seen him leave,” Jake continued. “She said she saw him go into his apartment as usual around 8:00 PM, but other than a few bangs she assumed was him moving around his drums, nothing.”

  Rubbing his jaw, Zach’s eyes narrowed as he continued to stare at Jake. “Hmmm.” He dropped Jake’s clothes on a chair and took a few steps toward the kitchen but stopped. “I think he gave me a key a while back, when he first moved in. Why wouldn’t he be playing his music? He always plays his music.”

  “Hopefully, he’s just not feeling well,” Jake replied, making a gesture with his arm that got Zach moving again. He went to a drawer next to the sink and started rummaging around. “She called the supe but he’s at a different building today and didn’t think he’d be back for a few more hours. She also got the impression he didn’t care that someone was not making noise.”

  “Did you try knocking?” Zach asked, pulling a key with a Metallica keyring attached to it out of the drawer.

  Once again, Ember did her best to control her snark. A snort escaped her, and Jake caught her eyes. She looked away, raising one hand apologetically. “I did,” Jake assured him. “He didn’t answer.”

  “Huh.” Zach came around the counter out of the kitchen but didn’t hand the key over just yet. “You think…”

  “We won’t know what to think until we can get inside,” Ryan said, quietly.

  “I’m sure he’s fine.” Jake held out his hand, and Zach reluctantly dropped the key in his palm. “Thanks.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?” Zach asked, his voice cracking with the last syllable.

  “That would probably be best. If there’s anything to be worried about, I’m sure it’s long gone.”

  “And what if it isn’t?”

  Jake pulled his jacket open enough for Zach to see he was packing heat, and Zach nodded.

  With Jake leading the way, Ember behind him, Zach trailing slowly, and Ryan guarding him from behind, they approached the apartment next door. Jake knocked loudly and called Myke’s name a few times, but there was nothing from within the apartment. Behind her, Ember heard the squeak of a door and turned to see a white haired woman peeking out. She wondered what story Jake had made up--were they FBI this time? Maybe detectives from the NYPD? She tried to make the smile she flashed at Mrs. Donaldson reassuring but had no idea if it came across that way.

  Glancing back at them, Jake raised his eyebrows and then slipped the key into the lock. He made as much noise as possible opening the door so as to alert anyone who might be inside that they were about to have company. “Myke?”

  Nothing. The apartment was trashed. Clothes, wrappers, empty food containers, all sorts of junk was strewn all over the living room, trailing past the bathroom door, into the bedroom. The odor coming from the kitchen was awful. A pile of dirty dishes overflowed from the sink. The drum set Mrs. Donaldson had mentioned sat in the corner where a table should be, but there were even clothes tossed on top of it.

  Ember could see into the bedroom once she took a few steps inside. Nothing seemed amiss, even though it was just as disgusting in there as it was out here. “What’s that door in the bedroom?” Jake asked, walking that direction, slowly picking his way over the junk on the floor.

  “Walk in closet. Like in my apartment.” Zach hung back by the door, but for every step Ryan took, he took one, too, so that the other man was always behind him.

  Jake called Myke’s name again and then took his gun out of its holster as he entered the bedroom. Ember walked across the living room but didn’t enter, keeping one eye on Zach as she watched Jake approach the closet door.

  He opened it a crack and then stopped. His head hung for a second, and then his eyes met Embers.

  She knew then what he’d discovered--not the details, but enough to understand. She looked at Ryan and lip read the curse word he muttered.

  “What? What is it?” Zach was asking. Ryan pulled him back by the shoulder as he took a few steps across the trash piles toward the bedroom. Ember met him in front of the couch, and Ryan let him go.

  “It’s Myke,” she said, her voice as calm as she could keep it considering he was about to lose it, and she wanted to scream at him and ask if this was enough for him to believe them. “He’s dead, Zach.”

  “What? No, that’s not possible. How do you know? Jake didn’t even say anything.”

  Jake was back in the living room now. “It’s bad, Zach. You don’t want to see it.”

  Zach was already moving that direction, though. Jake didn’t step aside. “Let me see.”

  “You don’t want to,” Jake repeated.

  Tears were streaming down his face as Zach took a step back, swiping at his cheeks with one hand. “How… how did he…?”

  “It’s pretty gruesome, Zach. Seriously, you’d be better off not knowing.”

  “Come on, man, I need to know,” he argued.

  Jake caught her eyes, and Ember nodded, even though she didn’t know how whatever demon had done this would choose to stage it. She had an idea though, so when Jake finally answered, his response wasn’t a surprise. “Scissors, Zach. Whoever--whatever--did this to your neighbor
used a pair of scissors.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Myke’s apartment was a buzz for the next several hours. After Ember’s team had finished their investigation, Jake had called the police. Now, there were detectives everywhere, exploring the crime scene, taking notes and photographs, interviewing potential witnesses. While there hadn’t been a load of clues left behind, Ember had gathered enough information to know this was a Scale, and from the claw marks in Myke’s neck, it was likely the one Zach had seen the night before. Her best guess was that he’d come here looking for the Seer, and having no luck, found someone else instead.

  Zach was on his sofa, beside himself, a female detective from NYPD sitting on the edge of a chair from the kitchen nook in front of him, doing her best to console him while she tried to take his statement. Ember had already given hers. Lying to the police wasn’t her strong suit, so she’d kept it simple, following Jake’s lead. Zach was a friend of a friend. He’d come over with their mutual friend Ruby the night before, and it had gotten late, so he’d stayed over. She’d given him ride home after she’d taken him to meet a professor friend of hers who had a mutual interest in some video game she didn’t play and therefore didn’t understand. They’d worked their story out to the last detail before the cops arrived and even called Dr. Ford to let him know what to say if the police came asking. So far, they didn’t seem to think there was anything to question when it came to Zach’s story, but he was so upset, he hadn’t given them much detail himself, and Ember was afraid he would find a way to fuck it up.

  “He’ll be all right,” Jake assured her, not for the first time in the last twenty or thirty minutes.

  “I hope so,” she muttered. The three of them carried legitimate badges, granted by the state of New York decades ago and renewed whenever necessary, so they were legally allowed to do the things they’d done. But local police always questioned any sort of authority that wasn’t obvious and clear to them, so the Sorcha had kept their badges in their pockets and only told the detectives they were private detectives. They’d all had to show their permits to carry, though.