Chapter 1 #2
But then we were banished, and not at the same time or to the same places and without our magic, which meant we couldn’t find one another.
One by one, we seemed to be finding the council, or, in my case, it found me, and although I understood the reason for our assignments, I was beginning to wonder if the ability to resign as an enforcer was an option.
Banner seemed to be at home here, and I knew I not only brought back memories I was certain he wished to forget, but also, he just didn’t seem to enjoy seeing me. Not that I could blame him.
I heard knocking that was more like pounding on my door and, with a bit of magic, discovered it was Augustus. That shouldn’t have surprised me. I stood, and by the time I was at the door, the pounding had started in earnest. I yanked the door open and glared.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what? You left.”
I crossed my arms in front of me and stared down my packmate.
“You walked off because you weren’t happy with my response.
I simply came home because I really didn’t know where else to go while we’re all waiting for Atticus, Damien, and Warwick to get done fucking their mates.
What was I supposed to do? Stand around outside and twiddle my thumbs? ”
Augustus took a step forward and tried to push inside, but I blocked him. He seemed a bit surprised by that because I hadn’t ever blocked him from entering my space before. “What gives?”
I shrugged. I was saved from answering when Atticus suddenly appeared behind Augustus. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I shrugged again. “Are we ready to go?” I asked.
“Damien is coming in just a minute. Warwick was kissing the twins one last time and—” The other two suddenly appeared behind Atticus, and that was answer enough for me. I stepped out of my house, pulling the door behind me shut. “Apparently, we’re all here. Shall we?” Atticus asked.
We used magic to pop from Treasure Ridge to the town just outside of the New Mexico pride.
That was the last place that the demons had been heard, but that by no means meant they were still in the area.
We were going to do our best, but we had no idea that we would ever find them.
It was just something we needed to investigate because where there were demons, there were usually hellhounds.
“What’s the plan again?” Damien asked. “Are we waiting around here to see if they come back?”
“Yes. Since the only people from this area who seem to be willing to talk are Todd and his siblings, Todd was questioned. He said he often heard a rumbling noise in the area growing up. He believed it was one of the reasons his pride was so secretive. If we split up, we can cover a lot of the area and wait and see if they return in the vicinity. Todd said it was often that it was heard, sometimes several times a day. But at a minimum, it was four or five days a week.”
“That might also be why this town seems so paranoid, especially to outsiders. They appear to be somewhat traumatized after years of unknown something lurking nearby,” Damien said. “Briggs compared it to the Twilight Zone,” he added.
“I can understand why,” Atticus said. The place is inhabited, but it’s very much deserted at the same time.” He looked down the road, which was lined with buildings that had businesses that didn’t appear to be open yet but weren’t boarded up, and all had their lights on.
“Let’s get to it,” Atticus said. “We all have our phones. If we hear or sense something, let the rest of us know.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier if we shifted and went invisible? We could communicate through our pack link that way,” Augustus suggested.
Atticus looked as if that thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Atticus said. “We’ve already established that no matter how we go about it, the residents of this town aren’t going to talk to us, so there isn’t any reason to make them even more paranoid by five strangers lurking around.
” Atticus glanced around before pointing. “Let’s go to that alleyway and shift.”
We headed toward the alleyway, and after making sure there were no exterior cameras, we all shifted. A perk from the goddess when she returned our magic to us was that not only could we use it when shifted, but we didn’t need to strip out of our clothes when shifting.
One by one, we shifted and then disappeared to human and shifter eyes.
We could still see each other, but to everyone else, we looked like a heat pocket.
I figured that was because of the fire within us.
It wasn’t as if we had fire like the dragons, but we did have flames in our eyes that were always present when shifted and would sometimes pop up in our human forms if our beasts were close to the surface.
“Pick a direction and head out,” Atticus said.
We filed out of the alleyway, and I decided to turn right. A block down the street, I went left and wondered what I would find a few streets over. I made sure to take notice of the street names as I crossed them.
I didn’t know how long we spent patrolling the town. Every so often, we would check in with one another, and we’d nod to each other when we crossed paths.
It seemed as if we all felt them before the rumble could be heard in the distance.
“Does anyone know which street seems to be the closest?” Damien asked through our link.
“It feels like maybe one street south of Main Street,” Augustus said.
I was farther south than that, but a bit of magic had me popping in right next to my packmate. His beast glanced over at me, his eyes flashing before we both stared off in the distance.
The others joined nearby, and within minutes, the unmistakable rumble of demons running through the Nexus moved down the street in front of us.
“This is it! We need at least one demon, if not two,” Atticus reminded us.
That was all it took for us to open the portal and step through.
When we did, the brightness of New Mexico was suddenly gone, and in its place was the darkness as well as the void that was the Nexus.
My mind was flooded with memories of the last time I’d been here, and I really didn’t wish to relive those at the moment.
It had been a punishment for displeasing our master, but I still to this day did not know what it was that I’d done wrong.
It didn’t matter at this point. I was no longer his.
Seconds later, there was a blur to our right.
“There they are!” Atticus said through our pack link.
Without a thought, we all took off, giving chase to the group of demons that were followed by a pair of hellhounds at a distance.