Slaying Monsters for the Feeble: The Guild Codex: Demonized / Two
Page 19
A dozen paces from the main street, he stopped.
“Now you are safe.” He leaned over my shoulder, his face beside mine. “Do not find the hunter, drādah. Escape the hunter.”
I released a slow breath, strangely aware of his hands on my shoulders. “Someday, I want to fight the hunter like you do.”
“You must learn to be hunted before you can learn to hunt.”
Craning my neck to see him, our noses almost touching, I asked, “Did you learn to be hunted?”
“Var. When I was smaller than you.”
I imagined a child-sized Zylas, small horns poking out of tousled black hair and big crimson eyes glowing in a boyish face.
“No horns, drādah. We do not have horns until much older.”
I removed them from my mental picture. “How’s that? Also, get out of my head.”
“Do not throw your thoughts at me, then.” He nudged me toward the sidewalk as he checked his tail was once again hidden under his oversized sweater. “The scent ends at nothing. They did not go this way.”
We rejoined Amalia, and Zylas resumed tracking. After another block, his steps slowed again, but not because the trail had split. He cast back and forth on the sidewalk, annoying several passersby, then backtracked.
He relocated the trail and continued another fifty feet, only to lose it again. Three times we backtracked and each time he lost the scent. We made it another block, but even crouching to sniff at the ground—that earned us some strange looks—he couldn’t get a hold on the trail.
“Too many hh’ainun,” he complained, sitting on his haunches in the middle of the sidewalk. Confused pedestrians split to pass us on either side. “I cannot—”
“Out of the way,” a man in a heavy winter parka snapped, hip-checking Zylas in the shoulder—or trying to.
Instead, he bounced off the sturdy demon, stumbled, and stepped off the curb. An oncoming car swerved away from him. A horn blared, then a loud bang as two vehicles collided. Screeching tires, then a third car rear-ended the first one. Traffic slammed to a halt, both lanes blocked. A chorus of honking filled the street.
“Na, drādah,” Zylas remarked, rising to his full height while I gaped at the accident, “maybe hh’ainun are too slow for this too.”
I grabbed his wrist, Amalia grabbed his other arm, and we dragged him away from the collision as the drivers got out of their cars, shouting at each other. Zylas cackled under his breath.
“Don’t you dare cause any more accidents,” I warned him. “We need to focus.”
“The scent is gone.” He shrugged. “I can only smell hh’ainun and the stink of vehicles.”
My shoulders drooped in defeat. “We can’t just give up.”
“Trying to do this at lunch hour was dumb,” Amalia declared. “We should give the rush a chance to die down. Carlo’s is near here, isn’t it? I haven’t eaten there in forever.”
“Carlo’s?” I echoed.
“Amazing calzones. Come on.”
I followed her around the corner. Two blocks up the street, a red sign with white lettering announced Carlo’s Calzones. As we neared, the mouthwatering scent of warm pizza permeated the chilly breeze. The restaurant’s door swung open and closed with a steady stream of customers.
Gripping Zylas’s sleeve, I slowed, searching for an alley or out-of-the-way corner where he could return to the infernus. A solid wall of skyscrapers lined the street, with ground-level businesses facing the sidewalk. People everywhere.
“Amalia,” I called, “we need to go back and find an alley.”
She turned, frowning impatiently. “But we’re already here.”
“We can’t bring him inside.”
Her frown deepened as she looked up and down the street. “But there’s nowhere he can …”
Nowhere he could dissolve into crimson power and possess a small pendant—a phenomenon we couldn’t allow anyone to witness. My brow scrunched as I peered up at Zylas.
And that’s how we ended up taking a demon out to lunch.
Five minutes later, I was sitting beside Zylas in a cramped booth in the back corner of the packed restaurant. Conversations buzzed all around us, but all I could think was that my demon was sitting beside me, in full view of about a hundred people.
Hood up and sunglasses on, he took in the brick walls, cheesy red-checkered tablecloths, and open view of the kitchen. What if the server asked him to take his hood off? What if someone noticed the inhuman tinge to his skin or the dark claws that tipped his fingers? My only slight comfort was that Zylas seemed too curious to cause any trouble.
“Calm down, Robin,” Amalia said, picking up a menu. “He looks like a weirdo, not a demon, and if anyone takes too much notice, we’ll leave.”
Right. Yes. No one could make him take his glasses or hood off. We would just leave. No big deal. Gulping back my panic, I opened my menu and held it up.
Zylas leaned into me to study the photos inside. “What is this?”
“The menu,” I whispered. “It lists all the food they make. We’ll tell the server what we want and she’ll bring it to us in a few minutes.”
“The spicy pesto calzone is excellent.” Amalia lowered her menu enough to glare over the top. “Do not order him anything. He eats like a freak.”
“It smells good,” he growled. “I want to try it.”
“Too bad.”
“You can share mine,” I said quickly. Zylas’s good behavior wouldn’t last if Amalia ticked him off. “I’ll order the vegetarian one.”
Despite his remorseless ability to kill, my demon was a hardcore, if temporary, vegetarian—though it seemed the olfactory appeal of hot pizza was winning out over his distaste for meat. Maybe I should see if he liked pepperoni.
I breathed easier once the waitress had hurried off with our orders. Fidgeting nervously, I scanned the nearest tables, ensuring no one was staring at us in shock or horror.
Amalia propped her chin on her palm. “We’re getting nowhere searching for the vamps. We can give it another try after lunch, but what’s our Plan B?”
“We don’t have a Plan B,” I muttered. “I don’t even know what’s most important anymore. The vampires and whatever is going on with them? Claude and his demon? Uncle Jack? There’s too much we don’t understand.”
“The vampires are searching for my dad. I’m assuming they targeted Claude because he’s searching for Dad and the grimoire too. Do the vampires also want the grimoire?”
“I think so. They’re involved with Demonica somehow. They’ve been feeding on demon blood, and their leader promised them a steady supply. But how do any of them know that demon blood makes them stronger? I don’t think they just stumbled across that knowledge.”
Amalia shook her head, as stumped as I was. Zylas ignored our discussion, his attention on a nearby table where a woman was pulling apart her calzone, the golden crust flaking and steam rising from the melted cheese spilling onto her plate. I elbowed his side as he leaned into me, drawn toward the hot food like it was exerting a gravitational pull.
“Maybe they want the grimoire so they can … summon demons themselves?” I suggested.
“That seems like the hardest possible way to summon a demon.” Amalia tapped thoughtfully on the tabletop. “Zora said vampires aren’t good at long-term planning, though, so maybe they don’t realize the grimoire won’t be any use without a summoner to do the work.”
I rubbed my face, momentarily confused by the absence of my glasses. “We’re missing something for sure. What—”
“Robin!”
I froze as the hailing voice cut across the loud conversations filling the restaurant. Horror seized my lungs like a steel clamp at the sight of two people moving purposefully through the bustle.
Zora was weaving through the tables. Zora and Taye, her teammate from earlier. They were heading straight toward us.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
Amalia’s expression was locked into a horrified stare, and I couldn’t breat
he as the two mythics reached our table. Zylas was unmoving beside me. His disguise could fool humans who had no clue demons were real, but not only was Zora perfectly aware of the existence of demons, but she’d also seen Zylas before.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted, my voice high and squeaky.
“Carlo’s is the perfect dose of cheesy calories after a long, cold day on the job,” Zora said cheerfully, missing my panic. “We come here all the time. Mind if we join you? Have you ordered yet?”
Not waiting for an answer, she swung a long black case that could only be her sword off her shoulder and dropped into the booth beside Amalia. Taye grabbed a free chair from another table and pulled it over. My panic ratcheted up a notch.
Zora’s smile faltered at our tense silence—and she glanced at Zylas, probably wondering why we weren’t introducing our “friend.”
“Are we interrupting something?” she asked.
“Uh, no—but, uh, actually—bathroom!” I gasped incoherently. Before Taye could sit in his chair and block us in, I snatched Zylas’s arm and dove away from the table. Dragging the demon behind me, I rushed to the front of the restaurant and ducked into the short hallway that led to the bathroom. Flinging the ladies’ room door open, I checked it was empty.
“Come on,” I hissed, pulling on Zylas’s arm. “Get in here!”
He didn’t move.
“Zylas, get in the bathroom! Once we’re inside, you can return to the infer—”
His lips pulled back from his teeth in a viciously triumphant smile. “I can smell him.”
“Smell who? The vampires?”
“No.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. “The hh’ainun. The summoner.” His head turned to me, my pale face reflected in his sunglasses. “I can smell Claude.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Zylas was out of the restaurant in an instant, leaving me to rush after him. I cast a helpless look over my shoulder, meeting Amalia’s surprised stare, then I pushed through the door.
“I have his scent,” Zylas hissed as I joined him. “Not very old. Earlier this day he walked here.”
“And you smelled him near the bathrooms?” I supposed it made sense. Fewer people walked down that hall than crossed the restaurant’s dining room. But why had Claude been there in the first place? Unless he also enjoyed cheesy calzones after a hard day of plotting against his former business partner.
Zylas rounded a corner, his purposeful gait causing other pedestrians to hurriedly clear the way, and I was right behind him when a shout pulled me up short. Amalia ran to my side, puffing from her sprint. “What the hell?”
“Zylas caught Claude’s scent.”
“Claude?” She fell into step beside me. “No shit! I told Zora and that other guy they could have our food.”
“Good. We don’t want any company for this.” I swallowed anxiously. “If we find Claude, we’ll probably have to fight his demon.”
“Unless his demon isn’t with him. Seems like he sends it off on its own, doesn’t it? You said there was no sign of Claude last night.”
“That’s true, but Claude could have been nearby.”
Zylas turned into a gap between towers. Set back from the street, a nondescript entryway led into a vestibule with a security door and a panel of suite numbers and intercom codes. Zylas tried the door. When it didn’t budge, crimson magic cascaded up his arm.
Three seconds later, he pushed the door open, the locking mechanism severed by his new burglary technique. He angled across the barren foyer and headed down the first hall. I tugged my infernus from under my sweater and settled it on my chest.
Zylas halted in front of a door. Nostrils flaring, he tilted his ear toward the wood.
“I hear nothing,” he whispered, “but the hh’ainun’s scent is strong. So is the scent of fresh blood.”
“Vampires?” I mouthed silently.
With a quick spiral of glowing runes, he destroyed the bolt and pushed the door open on soundless hinges.
The interior was dim and unlit, heavy drapes covering the windows. Zylas glided inside and I inched in after him, scanning the unit. On one side, a bathroom. On the other, a dining nook converted to an office, a kitchen with a long island and modern finishes, and at the far end, a living room with a small sectional, a coffee table, and a wall-mounted TV.
Zylas ventured through a door into what I assumed was the bedroom, then reappeared. He pulled his sunglasses off. “There is no one here, but the scent of blood is everywhere.”
“What is this place?” I asked Amalia. “Does it belong to Claude? I thought he lived in that townhouse.”
“Crooks like him and my dad usually have a few homes,” Amalia replied. “But based on this, it’s safe to say this apartment definitely belongs to Claude.”
She was standing at the kitchen island, where papers were laid out in a neat row. They were documents, all of them about or belonging to Uncle Jack. Tax records, electricity bills, a copy of his driver’s license, lists of his relatives and business associates, and—my heart jumped—the page of emergency contacts I’d seen in the vampire’s tower hideout last night. The one his demon had stolen from me.
Amalia tapped a lone page at the end of the row. Neat, masculine handwriting listed names and addresses, each one boldly crossed out.
“All places Claude has checked,” she said. “Look, this one, that’s a safe house we used three years ago. And that’s my cousin’s house. This one is my language tutor. Claude’s looked everywhere.”
“They’re all scratched out.” A flutter of satisfaction lightened my middle. “Wherever Uncle Jack has gone to ground, he’s outsmarted Claude.”
Amalia grinned ruefully. “Too bad he’s outsmarting us as well. Where the hell could he be?” She ran her finger down the list. “Look here—Katrine Fredericks. Calgary, Alberta. Look what he wrote!”
Beside the Calgary address were five scrawled words: Confirmed decoy. Kathy is alone.
“My stepmom is in Alberta?” Amalia exclaimed. “And Dad isn’t with her? Aunty Katrine is her sister, so I guess that makes sense. Well, at least I know where to find one of them now.” She shuffled through a few more documents, then picked up a stack of photos. “Ha, look at this. I must be, like, four years old.”
I leaned closer to see the photo of a blond girl staring aggressively into the camera. “Is that your mom with you?”
“Yep.” Amalia smiled at the equally blond woman with a similarly intense stare. “She died when I was eight, and Dad married Kathy a year later. I hated him for that for a long time.”
She flipped to the next photo. “That’s my great uncle. Oh, and this one is a fishing buddy of dad’s, but he died two years ago.”
She turned the picture over. “Deceased – illness” was scrawled across the back in red ink.
“Has Claude checked all of these?” she mused as she shuffled through the stack. “He’s been one busy …”
Trailing off, she stared at a snapshot of her dad beside an older man in camouflage and an orange vest, a rifle in one hand. A large, dead moose with a broad rack of antlers crowning its oblong head lay at their feet. Was it legal to hunt moose?
She checked the reverse side, which featured a single question mark in red ink, and whispered, “No way.”
“Drādah!” Zylas barked.
My head snapped up. Red light lit his body, and he dissolved into crimson power that flashed toward me. The human clothes he’d been wearing dropped to the floor in a lumpy puddle of fabric.
The infernus was still vibrating against my chest when the apartment door swung open. I jerked back, expecting Claude to walk through—but it wasn’t the summoner standing in the threshold.
Zora scowled at me, her sword case hanging over her shoulder and her leather jacket zipped up to her throat. Taye stood behind her, dark eyebrows arched high on his dusky face.
“Zora,” I gasped. “How—how did you … find … us?”
“Taye is a telethesian.”
“So,” Zora drawled, hitching her sword case higher on her shoulder, “what’s going on?”
My mind had gone completely, uselessly blank, and I was painfully aware of Zylas’s abandoned clothes behind me. If Zora noticed them—and recognized them as my “friend’s” outfit …
“Uh …” I mumbled.
“You haven’t been part of this guild for long,” she said coolly, “so maybe you don’t know, but when we team up for jobs, we don’t leave our teammates in the dark.”
I blinked.
“Unless this isn’t related to your summoner investigation?”
“Uh, it is,” I stammered, “but it … it isn’t vampire related, so I didn’t think you—”
“It isn’t?” Taye interrupted in his deep, accented voice. “There are vampire traces everywhere. Plus, Zora, you’re glowing.”
“I’m glowing?” she repeated blankly. “Oh!”
She stuck her hand in her jeans pocket, where a faint red glow shone through the fabric, and withdrew a blood-tracker artifact. I gasped fearfully. Vampires were nearby?
“Hmm.” Zora turned in a slow circle. The faint light brightened as she aimed it toward the kitchen nook with Claude’s desk. She strode closer and the glow increased. Taye, Amalia, and I followed cautiously.
Zora raised it higher, then lowered it toward the floor. The glow intensified as it drew level with the desk’s bottom drawer.
“I don’t think there’s a vampire in there,” she said dryly.
She tugged on the drawer and it slid open. Inside was a metal case similar to a safety deposit box. Kneeling beside her, I lifted it out. The latch flipped easily, no lock or spell sealing it shut. Inside, two heavy-duty steel syringes were nestled in a foam insert. A third slot in the foam was empty. Above them were three vials of clear liquid marred by tiny bubbles.