“Hailey…” Levi said, his voice low, “Hailey, what’s going on?”
When I peered around the corner again, the demon had continued to move to room 315, where he stopped, and knocked. This was it. Ivy was caught. There was no way she’d be able to hide from him in such a cramped environment. I didn’t have a choice. “We have to abort,” I said, and I grabbed the fire alarm and pulled it down.
The hallway began to scream, bells ringing all over the place. The demon looked around, confused, and for a horrifying moment I thought he was going to come down the hall to grab the fire extinguisher right in front of me, but he didn’t. The door to room 315 opened, and Delilah came rushing out. I watched them from where I was, saw them exchange words, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the sound of guests piling out of their rooms and shuffling down the hall. Delilah stepped back into the room, emerging a few moments later with the briefcase she’d brought in with her, and then they were heading down the hall, heading in my direction.
With my options completely limited, I did the only thing I could do—I thought thin and pressed myself against the nook, gritting my teeth and hoping to all the Gods they wouldn’t see me as they moved past. I decided to join the crowd of hotel guests moving down the hall ahead of Delilah, though I didn’t look like I belonged at all, with my hooded leather jacket, jeans, and boots. I couldn’t see Ivy, didn’t know where she was, but I had to assume she would file out of the hotel with the evacuees to better mask her exit. I issued that command over the comms, but whether she heard me over the sound of the bells going off, I didn’t know.
I didn’t catch sight of either Delilah or her infernal friend in the chaos of people flooding out of the hotel, but right now that was a good thing. It was also handy that my ability to detect the demon’s presence didn’t go both ways, otherwise our escape would have been cut brutally short. Outside, Tank was waiting for us.
I rendezvoused with him, pulled his arm, and dragged him to the other side of the street and away from the commotion, leaving the scene as quickly as I could and calling for Ivy to follow. Morpheus and Levi had been talking on the comms, but I hadn’t heard a word they were saying, not until we got clear of the voices and alarms, about a street down. My heart was still pounding, but I recovered quickly enough and watched the hotel from a distance, saw the people huddled outside, trying not to stray too far from the porch.
Already I could hear incoming sirens, it was time to go.
CHAPTER SIX
The Eyes’ secondary Nerve center wasn’t as densely packed with cables and servers as the one I had first been introduced to, but it was impressive nonetheless considering it was packed into Morpheus’ basement. He shared the rent of the house he lived in with Ivy, and between the two of them they paid a small fortune for the privilege, but it was the kind of place with two floors, a basement, and a tightly packed attic.
The house itself was squashed into a row of semi-detached houses, some with different colored doors, but all looking exactly the same—a single bay window and a door on the front, sitting beneath two regular windows on the next floor up. Levi was standing by the door by the time we arrived, nervously watching out for us even if he wouldn’t admit it.
I had wanted to be reasonable, had spent the entire trip over in silence, gathering my thoughts and reining my emotions in. But when I saw her, leaning against a wall in the dim, cool basement, where two racks of servers stood all linked to a central control panel that was like some immobile beast covered in glinting eyes, the anger bubbled up uncontrollably.
“What were you thinking?” I asked before offering Levi any form of greeting.
“I was taking initiative,” she said, arms folded in front of her chest, “I thought you’d like that.”
“Not when we’re in the middle of something as big and this. Do you have any idea what they would have done to you if they had caught you?”
“They wouldn’t be offering me a cup of tea, that’s for sure.”
“That demon would have sucked from you everything that made you a person. It would have consumed every shred of your personality, your wit, your sarcasm, your ability to feel, and then it would have fed you to the Brutes.”
She shrugged. “He didn’t get the chance.”
“Because I saved your ass, which I’m still not hearing any gratitude for, by the way.”
“Forgive me for not throwing you a fucking parade.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Levi said, walking between us with his hands stretched out, “The important thing is we’re all still alive and we have a little more intel than before.”
“No,” I said, “The important thing is that Ivy almost got herself and all of us very nearly killed because she couldn’t follow a simple instruction.”
“You didn’t have any better ideas,” she said.
“The idea was to wait and figure something out as a group. You’re not supposed to be going on your own.”
“Look, I know you think you’re the leader of this little posse, but we were getting along fine before you showed up. We know what we’re doing, and it’s insulting that you’re treating us like kids.”
“I’m not treating you like kids, but I’ve been hunting demons since my junior year of high school. I’m trying to teach you how to handle yourselves against these things, and if that means you have to listen to me for a while, then why is that such a problem?”
“Because you don’t have all the answers, did you maybe consider that?”
I rolled my eyes. “Why don’t you tell me what you mean?”
She pushed off the wall and walked over to me. “What I mean is, I’m a Shade, you’re a Warlock, which means you think like a Warlock, while I think like a Shade. You should have covered me while I took the opportunity to use my powers in the best way possible, instead of making us all try to fit in with your vision of how tonight was supposed to look.”
I squared up to her. “Bullshit. You’re just pissed that I’ve come in and I’ve started giving orders. Let me tell you something, if you think I want to be a leader, you’re wrong. I don’t even want to be involved in this. I just lost my home, and my job because of this. All I wanted to do tonight was try and get my hands on that book again so we could put an end to this whole, shitty mess and maybe, just maybe, go back to something like a normal life. You didn’t exercise enough patience, and now we’re here, arguing about it, when we should be trying to figure out what our next move is going to be.”
“Incidentally,” Morpheus pointed out, “Delilah went back in with the rest of the guests and hasn’t been seen coming out again, so… assuming she’s decided to change hotels, we have a little time, at least.”
“Do you think she’d really change hotels?” Tank asked.
Levi shook his head. “No, she’s too lazy for that. She’ll just take it for what it was and go back to doing what she was doing.”
Listening to Levi talk about her like that reminded me they’d had a history of some kind, and that felt like someone had dropped a block of ice into the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t quite enough to quell the fire burning in my chest, but it was enough to cause a momentary distraction; one into which Ivy could wriggle past, get through my defenses, and catch me off guard.
“If it weren’t for me,” she said, “We wouldn’t know what room she’s staying in, we wouldn’t even know what floor she’s on. That we can hatch a plan now is thanks to me, but I don’t see you throwing any praise my way. We’ve gotta thank you first, right? That’s how it is with you, isn’t it?”
I scowled. “Watch it,” I warned, pointing a finger at her, “You don’t know who you’re talking to, or what you’re talking about.”
“Jesus, and I thought men had pissing contests,” Levi said.
“Shut up, Levi!” Ivy and I blurted out in unison.
He put his hands up. “Hey, I’m just trying to help. We’re burning hours here, and this isn’t helping.”
Ivy focused her attent
ion on me again. “Why don’t you just admit it?” she asked.
“Admit what?” I asked.
“Why don’t you just admit that you want to be known as our leader?”
“Because I don’t. I couldn’t have been clearer about that. As soon as this whole thing is done, I’m leaving, probably somewhere remote where I can read and watch grass grow.”
“Sounds boring as fuck,” Tank put in.
“Also sounds like bullshit,” Ivy said.
“Alright, fine,” I said, “I’m going to make this really simple. You are all young, you’re all inexperienced, none of you had ever even seen a demon before, let alone gone up against one. So yeah, I have more experience than you do, and yeah, that means if we want to get through this all in one piece, you’re going to have to listen to me. If you don’t like that arrangement, I’m happy to take my shit and go elsewhere.”
“Hailey…” Levi said, his voice trailing off.
“I mean it. Decide. You either listen to me, and we prevent this from happening in the future, or I leave early and let you all to figure out what to do with yourselves next.”
Tank and Levi exchanged glances. Morpheus joined in too. The three of them turned to Ivy. “She’s right, you know,” Tank said, “We’ve gotta stick together if we’re gonna make it through, let’s just listen to her, yeah?”
Ivy scowled. I could tell there were a few colorful words she wanted to throw at me but was doing everything she could to keep her emotions under control. “Fine,” she huffed, “Whatever.”
A warm feeling moved through me then, something like pride, possibly validation. Whichever it was, I didn’t care. It felt good to feel vindicated, like I was doing something right. I didn’t want to assume the mantle of command, but none of these kids had the first clue about dealing with demons and power-hungry mages. Their nightly activities made them more mundane vigilantes, looking after the wellbeing of humans they could see, than mages who got involved in the affairs of other mages.
Also known as meddlers.
I took a deep breath and exhaled the tension away, then I walked up to Ivy and extended my hand. “Let’s squash it,” I said, staring her in the eyes.
Ivy wouldn’t look at me, not directly, not at first, but she came around and offered me her hand. “I’ll do what you say,” she said, “But be open to suggestions—there are five of us, not just you.”
I nodded. “Alright, I’ll keep that in mind.” I turned to Morpheus. “Do you have anything?”
“If I’d seen her move, I would have said something. As far as I can tell, she’s still inside. But I can’t access any of the camera feeds inside the building, not from here, so I can’t tell you anything beyond the front door.”
“That’s okay, we’ll just have to do this the hard way.”
“And what is this exactly?” Levi asked, “I assume you have a plan…”
“She had a briefcase,” I said, “I watched her carry it into the hotel with her, and then when I pulled the fire alarm, she ran back into the room to get it. Do you think the book is in there?”
“I didn’t get a look inside…”
“It has to be in there. Why else would she have run back to collect only the briefcase?”
“Wait a second,” Levi said, “You only just made it out of there in one piece, and I doubt the fire alarm thing is going to work a second time. You really want us to go back?”
“She has the book, Levi—it’s in that room. What choice do we have? And before you say it, no, I don’t want you going in on your own, Ivy. The demon is there, and as long as he’s there… it just makes things more complicated.”
“Fine, so what do you suggest we do?” Ivy asked.
It was a good question, and one I didn’t immediately have the answer to, but I knew I needed to come up with one fast. If Levi was right, then Delilah was going to remain in the hotel for the rest of the night at least. If he was wrong, though, and she’d decided to change her ways, then at any point Morpheus was likely to pop up and tell us she was on the move, and then what? None of us had cars, and even if we did, there’s no way we could get to Pimlico fast enough to intercept.
We needed a plan, we needed it now, and we needed to act on it tonight.
“Okay,” I said, taking a moment to think, “We go back in when it’s quiet, maybe two in the morning. We sneak into her room, find the book, and take it from her.”
“That… sounds like a really, really shitty idea,” Levi said, “What if she wakes up?”
“She’s going to have to. I have questions.”
“And we’re going to tie her up and interrogate her, right there, in the hotel room she’s sleeping in?”
“What is it you guys used on me to prevent me from using magic? You can do the same to her, can’t you?”
Levi paused. “Well, yeah, we could, but we’d have to apply it to her and…”
“What?”
“This all sounds great,” Morpheus said, “But what do we do after we’ve interrogated her? Do we leave her there? Take her as our prisoner? Turn her in to the police?”
“We obviously can’t turn her into the police,” Ivy said, “For what, scheming to take over the world with a ritual spell written into a many hundreds-of-years-old book?”
“She’s right, and even if we could get her arrested somehow, I feel like she’d just find a way to get herself free again. No, we can’t do that.”
“We’ve gotta do something,” Tank put in, “We have nowhere to keep her, and if we did keep her one of us would have to be watching her, which means we’d have less manpower, innit?”
“That’s also true,” I said, “We can’t keep her either… fuck, this would be a lot easier in America.”
“Why?” Levi asked.
“Ever heard of the DPA?”
The Eyes all stared at each other, then at me. None of them know? I had expected they wouldn’t know the ins and outs of the department, but not that they wouldn’t even know of its existence. “None of you have ever heard of the Department of Paranormal Affairs?”
“That’s a thing?” Levi asked.
I nodded. “Uh, yeah, it’s a government sanctioned branch in the US. If we were there, we could probably bring her up on charges and drop her in a holding cell, but that’s not how things work over here.”
“No, here is a tangled web of individual cabals, each claiming to be older and more powerful than the other, each constantly fighting with one another over dominance or control of districts, towns, counties… it’s a mess.”
“Now it’s our mess too, because that means our choices after we interrogate her are release her, or kill her.”
“Do you have a problem with the latter?” Ivy asked, “Because I don’t.”
“You don’t?” Levi asked.
Ivy shrugged. “That bitch wants to try and open Hell Holes and let demons pour into the world. She’s gotta be put down.”
“I agree,” I said, “But I’m not about to start killing mages while they’re in their pajamas.”
“So, we have her get changed. Whatever. Look, we’re wasting time talking about this. The plan seems simple enough—we go in, grab the book, get her to tell us what she knows, and we improvise the last bit. That’s the gist of it, right?”
I scanned their faces and saw, at least in principle, they agreed with the idea. “Yeah,” I said, “That’s it. Only, there’s something I have to do that I need to do alone.”
“And what’s that?”
“The demon… he isn’t like the one I took down yesterday. This one’s cleverer, and more resourceful; more powerful. I need to take him out of the picture before we can move in on Delilah, otherwise he’s going to make things difficult for all of us.”
“Let me guess,” Levi said, “You’re gonna go all cow-girl on us and take him on your own?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly right.”
“You’re off your fucking rocker, mate,” Ivy said, “But if you think you can take him, go ah
ead.”
“I didn’t say I was going to kill him. Taking him on in the hotel isn’t optimal, and there would be innocent people around that could get hurt. But maybe I could distract him long enough for you guys to move in on Delilah’s room. Levi, I’ve watched you unlock doors before; could you do it with an electronic lock?”
“Believe it or not, electronic locks are easier to mess with,” he said, “Just short them out and they tend to unlock.”
“So, I distract the demon while you and Tank move in on Delilah’s room, pin her down, stop her from using magic, and then I’ll join you.”
“And what am I supposed to do?” Ivy asked.
“I need you to be our lookout. We don’t know if Delilah has any silent alarms, whether mundane or magical. If anyone comes rushing into the building, you need to follow them and disable them long enough for us to get out.”
“Won’t Morpheus be watching the front of the building?”
“Yes,” he said, “But that’s all I can do—watch. Beyond that I’m useless, here.”
“Hang on,” Tank said, “Disable? That’s what you want Ivy to do to the backup that shows up?”
“Disable, distract… whatever works.”
“I can do it,” Ivy said, confidence clear in her voice. “Let’s just get this show on the road, yeah?”
I nodded, “Alright, we’ll move in at midnight. Morpheus, you aren’t taking your eyes off those cameras, right?”
Levi went to stand beside Morpheus, clasping him on the shoulder. “I’ll help out.”
“Cheers,” Morpheus said, standing, “I’ve been dying for a piss.”
I headed upstairs, leaving Levi and Morpheus to work on the screens while I settled into the living room with Ivy and Tank, who were already getting some rest ahead of our mission tonight. I fully expected Morpheus to jump up and tell us Delilah was on the move again, but as the minutes turned to hours, the idea that maybe, just maybe, she was going to stay exactly where she was became more and more real, and that was something at least, some small victory. The plan would go ahead.
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