Thicker than Water (Redwater Demons #1)

Chapter 1

1

F rom her perch up on JJ’s shoulders, Desi is still chatting happily about dragons. “And JJ, the ice wyverns are so pretty! I love their blue scales! Do you think I could be a pretty blue wyvern, too?”

“You already are a pretty wyvern,” JJ assures her, although he’s actually not sure. His only experiences with Desi’s demonic true form so far consisted of her trying very hard to kill him a few days ago, so he wasn’t exactly paying attention to aesthetics. “But I think you can probably change the color of your scales, if you want. Magic is cool like that. Which of the ice wyverns do you like best?”

Desi immediately launches into a detailed analysis of her favorite characters from the dragon-themed cartoon JJ introduced her to, gesticulating excitedly while she rambles. JJ adjusts his grip on her ankles so she doesn’t topple over, carefully picking his way through the tangled underbrush as he listens. Normally, his demon-hunting missions don’t involve discussing Wyvern Academy with tiny demon toddlers, but??—

But this mission has been anything but normal since the start.

Last week, JJ’s strike team was informed that yet another new demon had been summoned on the far outskirts of Redwater?—so far, in fact, that JJ was surprised their neighboring Sanctum didn’t cover it. But the dense forest to the west of the lake is still within the Redwater Sanctum’s jurisdiction, so Strike Team Kappa was dispatched to address the issue. It was an easy job, or it should have been: hike to the location, take down the summoner, and bring the demon back to the Sanctum for testing.

It should have been an easy job, but when JJ arrived with Roma and Bryant, it was to find that the summoner didn’t just have ultra-powerful neophyte demon December to do his bidding?—no, he also had an entire militia guarding the old barn that served as his lackluster evil lair.

A militia that was unfortunately trained in just enough magic to blast both Roma and Bryant into next week, leaving JJ on his own. Working alone wasn’t necessarily an issue?—as long as he has his weapons and his enhanced abilities, he can usually overcome most threats?—but not having his strike team by his side definitely made it harder to overpower the summoner and retrieve the fearsome demon.

It also made it harder to resist the fearsome demon’s puppy dog eyes when she unilaterally decided that JJ was her new best friend.

Now, it’s been three days since JJ was separated from Roma and Bryant. Three days since he bashed in the summoner’s head, retrieved December, and immediately nicknamed her “Desi.”

Three days since he became disconcertingly invested in the small demon child. Normally, JJ doesn’t get emotionally involved with either demons or their opinions on fictional dragons, but he was almost instantly attached to Desi’s sunny smile and cheerful chattering. More than once, he’s wondered if she used a demonic spell to trick him into letting his guard down, but the enchantments that the Sanctum baked into his bones when he was a child are supposed to prevent those subtle manipulations.

And, practically speaking, demons don’t usually take the form of four-year-old girls. Four-year-old girls who look strikingly like his little sister: same dark brown skin, same head of black curls, same bright smile.

The same smile JJ shared with Lucy right up until she and their parents were gutted by demons when he was ten. Twelve years later, he’s not necessarily surprised that he still has a soft spot for kids.

In any case, he has the newly summoned demon. He’s bringing her back to the Sanctum for testing, which he’s conspicuously aware is a thinly veiled euphemism for “torture.” And he’s steadily growing more concerned about that eventuality, which isn’t quite normal for him, mainly due to the aforementioned demonic slaughter of his family and all.

Desi tugs on one of his locs. “JJ.”

“Yeah?”

“JJ, there were horses in that show, too,” she says in a stage whisper. “Do you like horses?”

“Hm…” JJ considers this. “I don’t know. I’ve actually never seen a horse in real life?—only on TV.”

Desi gasps. “Me, neither! We should go find some horses, JJ!”

He tips his head back to squint up at her. “What, right now?”

Her smile wavers. “Well, no. Maybe not right now.” She fidgets, tugging his hair again. “JJ, where are we going?”

JJ fights down a wince. “Back to my place.”

“Where’s that?”

“Not far. Probably another day of hiking. It’s on the southern edge of Redwater, up on a hill. It’s, um.” He hesitates. “It’s called the Sanctum.”

“And that’s your house?”

“Well, no,” JJ hedges. “But it’s a building. And I have a bedroom there.”

“You have a bedroom?” Desi sounds delighted by this turn of events.

He peers up at her, surprised. “Yeah, of course I have a bedroom. I??—?”

All at once, his throat tightens. Right. Desi was only summoned to Earth from Tamaros, the demons’ home realm, about a month ago. And considering the fact that demons don’t technically need to sleep or eat or even breathe, her summoner probably just made her stay awake to do his dirty work at all hours.

She’s never had a bedroom before. Not even a bed. “I’ll show it to you when we get there,” he promises, stalwartly ignoring the fact that he’s supposed to drop her off with the interrogators in the basement prison. “It’s not very big, but I like it. I think you will, too.”

Desi bounces happily on his shoulders. “Yay! And can we watch more Wyvern Academy?”

“Sure. And have you ever had food before? I think you might like tacos.”

“Tacos!” she cheers. “Can we hang out all the time, JJ? We can play together and watch movies together and??—?”

JJ’s heart twinges. “Not all the time, unfortunately. I have a job at the Sanctum?—we all do. We hunt??—??”

And then he hastily cuts himself off, because the easiest way to sum up the Sanctum’s mission statement is “we hunt demons.” Somehow, he doesn’t think that’s the most tactful thing to say to the demon toddler who’s currently sitting on his shoulders and doing something to his locs.

“What are you doing up there?” he asks, partly to change the subject and partly out of honest curiosity.

“Braiding your hair!” she says brightly.

“Oh, no,” he says, and he reaches up to grab her wrists. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

“But I wanna!” she whines, and she bursts into giggles as JJ wrestles her off his shoulders, holding her aloft in the air in front of him. JJ’s heart melts a little. “Put me down!”

“Okay.” Gently, he places her on the ground. The roots and brambles are finally thinning out enough that JJ thinks she can manage to walk alongside him, even with her shorter legs. As authoritatively as possible, he wiggles his fingers. “Hand, please.”

She obligingly slips her hand into his, skipping along next to him as she launches back into her animated commentary on Wyvern Academy. JJ keeps one eye on her as they head back towards civilization, trying to gauge if she’s too cold. She isn’t dressed anywhere near warm enough for the first day of January?—just a little-girl dress and stockings?—and he keeps wanting to shuck off his jacket and drape it over her like a cape.

Unfortunately, that’s not the safest option right now. After JJ offed the spellcaster who summoned Desi, she quickly went from attacking him to jumping on him like an overenthusiastic puppy. He futilely tried to explain that it was dangerous?—specifically, that one of the Sanctum enchantments thrumming through his veins makes his skin physically corrosive to demons, leaving them with ugly burns even after the most fleeting of touches.

In her determined quest to climb all over him like a shiny new toy, she didn’t really seem to understand what he was saying. Eventually, he resolved to make sure his jacket and gloves stayed firmly in place, leaving as little of his skin exposed as possible.

The underbrush slowly starts transitioning into an actual trail, one of the many surrounding Redwater. Relieved, JJ guides Desi onto it. After nearly three days of hiking, they’re finally getting closer to town, closer to Roma and Bryant??—

Closer to the Sanctum.

JJ bites back a grimace at the thought. He still doesn’t know how he’s going to explain this to his strike team, much less to the Sanctum’s Council. Obviously, telling them the truth?—namely, that he’s already mentally adopted this tiny demon and is planning on protecting her at all costs?—is out of the question. He’ll have to think of another reason why they can’t send her down to the prison for testing, and??—

All at once, JJ feels a prickling on the back of his neck. It’s less a sense of being watched and more a sense of being traced, of being searched for??—

Of being found. The familiar sensation of a soul-tracking spell, the type that he, Roma, and Bryant have used to locate each other dozens of times over long distances, even past the harshest of anti-tracking spells. He’s felt that same prickling several times over the past few days?—probably Roma trying to narrow down his location?—but before now, the sensation was faint. Mild.

Far away.

This time, though, the prickling is a lot stronger. And this time, the usually comforting feeling of knowing that his strike team is nearby is suddenly overwhelmed by fear taking up a stranglehold around his ribcage.

He can’t let them know about Desi. He can’t. “Desi,” he whispers, pitching his voice as low as he can. “Do you know how to make yourself invisible? Have you learned that spell yet?”

Desi cuts herself off mid-sentence, blinking up at him. “Uh-huh. Why?”

“Do it now,” he says, and he lets go of her hand. “Just?—just stay close to me, okay? And don’t make a sound. It’s really important.”

Desi looks bewildered, but she nods anyway. “Okay,” she says, and in the blink of an eye, she’s gone. Part of JJ?—the part that the Sanctum drilled into him?—can still faintly sense her presence next to him, but he’s desperately hoping that Roma and Bryant won’t be nearly so observant.

Not until he figures out what to tell them, at least.

And, true to form, it’s only a few minutes before he hears a sound in the distance?—human footsteps padding along the trail. “JJ?” a familiar voice calls.

Relief and anxiety wash over him in equal measures. “Roma, over here!”

Within seconds, Roma appears around a bend in the trail, jogging towards him. JJ reluctantly speeds up to meet her halfway, praying that Desi can keep up. “I’ve been looking for you for days,” Roma says, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Stupid spellcaster blasted me halfway across the state. We really need a better defense against banishing spells, because they are seriously irritating.”

“Easy,” JJ says. “Learn to duck.”

Roma punches his arm. “I meant a magical defense, smartass. Maybe a shield spell? They don’t usually work against banishing spells, but if I combined it with a standard counterspell, then maybe it could??—?”

“Okay, nerd,” JJ teases, and he dodges Roma’s second punch. “How about Bryant? Has she made contact yet?”

“She got banished all the way into Mexico, apparently,” Roma says. “And the spellcaster actually blasted her a few days forward in the calendar, so she only just woke up in a dumpster in Tijuana. The local Sanctum down there is setting her up with a plane ticket back to Redwater now.” She raises her eyebrows expectantly. “So what happened back here?”

“Killed the summoner,” he says, and he forces down a twinge of guilt at his next words. “Lost the demon.”

“You lost it?” Roma repeats, appalled. “JJ!”

A sharp jolt of defensiveness rises up in him. Valiantly, he tries to beat it down. “Roma, there was a militia. They had guns. I was lucky to make it out of there alive, much less take down the summoner.” And at least I didn’t get banished across the state, he thinks spitefully.

A split second later, guilt snaps through him. JJ’s status as a former civilian might make him a third-class citizen in the Sanctum, but Roma isn’t exactly sitting pretty, either. The mixed-breed Gutierrez family used to have a solid standing in the bloodlines hierarchy?—nowhere near as powerful as a purebred lineage like Bryant’s, but still known and respected?—but Roma’s older sister defecting six years ago changed all that. JJ knows that Roma has been especially sensitive to criticism?—and failure?—ever since.

His suspicions are confirmed when Roma looks away. “No, you’re right. I just?—I just don’t like losing. And Nasir is definitely going to ream us out.”

JJ grimaces. He hasn’t had many good experiences in Councilwoman Nasir’s foreboding office, but facing her after a mission gone sideways is especially harrowing. “Yeah. I’m really not looking forward to it.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” Roma continues, and she turns around to walk back down the trail, motioning for JJ to fall into step beside her. “After all, you were sizably outnumbered, and Bryant and I weren’t there to back you up. Hopefully, Nasir will take that into consideration.” Her lips twitch. “Plus, the demon was a dragon. I don’t think any of us were prepared for the demon to be a dragon.”

“Wyvern,” JJ corrects automatically.

Roma blinks slowly at him. “What’s the difference?”

“Wyverns have two legs instead of four,” JJ says, and he squints back at her. “Didn’t you ever watch Wyvern Academy?”

She looks flummoxed. “Did I ever watch what?”

JJ fights back a wince. Right. Hunters who were born in the Sanctum?—hunters like Roma and Bryant?—didn’t have much exposure to regular childhood activities. No sports teams, no instruments, no after-school TV. Just self-defense, weapons training, and spellcasting.

While JJ was busy watching cartoons, Roma was probably busy honing her survival skills. “Never mind,” he says, looking away. “Just, um. A stupid civilian TV show. You probably wouldn’t even like it.”

After a moment, Roma shrugs. It’s not necessarily a dismissive gesture, but JJ feels the sting of it anyway. “All right. In any case, we can figure out a way to put a positive spin on this debacle. Want to walk me through what happened?”

“Sure,” JJ says, and as he launches into his carefully edited account of killing the summoner and “losing” the demon, he tries his best not to look down when a small, invisible hand wraps firmly around two of his fingers.