Chapter 2
2
C ass scowls at the wreckage surrounding the rotting barn. “Well, this blows.”
“Hard,” Ez agrees, her eyes sweeping around as she picks her way past the bodies. Checking for threats, Cass knows, even though he already scoped out the area before letting his best friends approach. “Looks like the summoner’s dead, at least. We’ve already had way too many of those idiot humans mucking around Redwater over the past few months. Obie, are you sensing anything?”
Obie is crouched next to one of the bodies, his eyes unfocused as he tunes in to the woman’s last memories. At Ez’s question, though, he glances up with raised eyebrows. “I’m sensing that I left my bowling team alone on New Year’s Day for nothing. And, even worse, I left them alone with Maggie Khan.”
“What’s wrong with Maggie Khan?” Cass asks defensively. “Maggie is great. We love Maggie.”
“We do love Maggie,” Obie says, pushing himself to his feet. “But she’s also the least sociable demon we know, Cass. And the fact that you two accidentally started World War I together isn’t the best conversation topic.”
Ez casts her eyes to the sky like she’s praying to Nostringvadha for patience. It’s a very familiar look on her. “The neophyte demon, Obie. Are you sensing anything about the neophyte demon?”
“Loads of things,” Obie says. “Nothing that’ll help us find her, though. I’m getting a few flashes of what looks like a Sanctum strike team from a few days ago, but…” His lips thin out. “But it looks like they’re a fairly efficient strike team. They cut through the militia quickly enough that no one got a good look at them.”
Cass bites back a grimace of distaste. Even though demons and demon hunters technically agree on the virtues of taking down summoners, there’s a large part of Cass that would be happiest if the hunters and the summoners just annihilated each other altogether. “And there’s no one else here?—no one breathing, at least. So if our neophyte demon is still alive, she’s not in that barn.”
Ez shoots him an amused smile. “Let’s go test that claim, shall we?” she says, and she strides towards the crumbling structure, leaving Cass and Obie to trail along behind her.
Cass isn’t worried about being wrong. He has a knack for noticing things that other people don’t?—the quickened heartbeat of someone trying to hide, the hushed breathing of a hunter lying in wait. His instincts have never failed him.
There’s a reason why the Redwater Chain?—the local demons’ governing body, second only to Redwater’s actual government?—contacted Cass once they realized this summoner posed a particular danger to demons and humans alike. That little snafu with World War I notwithstanding, he’s ended far more wars than he’s started, and he has a proven track record of winning against impossible odds.
It’s a pity that the hunters got here first. It’s been far too long since Cass went up against an army.
When they reach the barn, Ez lifts a hand and languidly flicks her fingers. The door immediately flies off of its hinges, crashing into the opposite wall with a thud that makes the entire structure tremble ominously, and Cass and Obie trade long-suffering looks. Ez is indisputably their little trio’s best spellcaster?—the best spellcaster on the entire East Coast, Cass thinks?—but, like. That doesn’t mean she has to flaunt her magic at every given opportunity.
The inside of the barn is stale and musty, which is par for the course for old barns in general. The only part that is not stale and musty is the ostentatious marble throne set up directly in the center, which features precious gems inlaid in the armrests and a dead human sprawled across the seat. “Summoner?” Cass guesses.
“Summoner,” Obie confirms, swaying the slightest bit in the doorway. Lots of memories inside these walls, Cass figures. That’s Obie’s claim to fame: he can pick up the shards of memories that people leave behind, impressions that seep into the walls and the ground and the air, last thoughts and sounds and sights from both the living and the dead. “He summoned a demon that took the human fa?ade of his recently deceased four-year-old daughter and the true form of?—of a wyvern, actually.”
Cass nods, unsurprised. Physical forms don’t really exist in Tamaros?—their home dimension was mostly composed of light and sound and energy?—but when summoners drag demons to Earth, they imbue their neophyte demons with two distinct visages: a human form, usually based on someone the summoner lost, and a demonic form, usually pulled from the summoner’s worst nightmares.
As a matter of fact, those terrifying “true forms” are the entire reason why summoners started calling Cass’s brethren “demons” in the first place. Honestly, it just figures that humans would take something they literally created and name it after a creature straight out of their mythical hell.
Right now, though, Ez looks somewhat distracted by Obie’s description. “A wyvern? Like from Wyvern Academy?”
“What the hell is a Wyvern Academy?” Cass demands.
“It’s a kids’ show,” Ez says. “Really good. I’ll text you a link when we get back to Redwater.”
“Is this like the time you told me that Water Wars movie was really good? Because those were two hours of my life I can never get back.”
“I never said Water Wars was good. I just said it was a prerequisite to understanding eighty percent of today’s meme culture.”
“Anyway,” Obie cuts in, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes are flitting around faster now, like he’s trying to piece together the full story of the massacre. “So the summoner named her ‘December,’ because he summoned her on the first day of December??—?”
Cass scoffs. Of course her summoner didn’t consider her worthy of an actual name. To him, she was just a tool, not a living being that he forced into a scary new world and compelled to do his bidding.
There’s a reason why Cass treats humans with guarded politeness at best and outright hostility at worst, and they just keep proving him right.
“?—?but then he… nicknamed her ‘Desi’?” Abruptly, Obie’s face goes blank. “Oh. Oh. He’s not the one who nicknamed her. We?—we might have a problem.”
“A problem,” Cass repeats, following obediently in Obie’s wake as he makes a beeline for the dead man on the throne. “What kind of problem, Obadiah?”
“Like…” Obie coils his fingers around the throne’s backrest, letting out a slow breath. “All right. So. Our lackey’s name is JJ.”
Ez arches an eyebrow. “Can you give us a little more than that?”
“Dark brown skin,” Obie says, eyebrows furrowing like he’s analyzing a picture in midair. “Definitely darker than mine?—probably the same shade as Ez’s. Tall, broad shoulders, wears his hair in shoulder-length locs. Uses a pair of escrima sticks?—beige rattan wood, roughly arm-length.”
The description sparks a memory in Cass’s mind. “Well,” he drawls, “all hunters look the same to me, but I do know weaponry. There have only been three Redwater lackeys in recent history who use escrima, and since Chester Locke is an interrogator and Sawyer Solomon defected six years ago, that leaves us with Julian Jackson of Strike Team Kappa.”
Ez blanches. “Julian Jackson? From the Jackson–Locke murders?”
“The very same. Chester Locke was the only other survivor. Since Locke spends all his time torturing demons and dissidents in the Sanctum’s prison, I never bothered to read his file, but Jackson…” Cass grimaces. “He’s skilled. Not as outwardly sadistic as the rest of them, but he never leaves a job unfinished. Obie, were the other two hunters women? One with an ax, one with a bow and arrow?”
“Yep. Light brown skin and black hair for both of them.”
“That’s Kappa,” Cass confirms. “So they have our neophyte demon?”
Obie presses his lips together. “Jackson does, at least?—the other two got banished before they reached the barn. And he’s the one who nicknamed her ‘Desi.’”
Ez looks bewildered. “Are you saying that the spree killer who did?—??” She gestures vaguely at the carnage around them. “Who did all this also took it upon himself to nickname a demon?”
Obie shrugs hopelessly. “I don’t get it, either.”
“But he didn’t kill her.” Cass’s stomach churns. “Which means he’s taking her back to the Sanctum for ‘testing,’ quote-unquote.”
Ez winces. “And we all know that demons who end up in the Sanctum’s prison don’t usually make it out alive.”
“If Jackson is taking December back there,” Obie says quietly, “then we don’t have much time before the interrogators get their hands on her. Maybe just a few days in a cell before they start torturing her?—or worse.”
“You know what that means, don’t you?” Cass asks, and he grins. “That means I get to break into the Sanctum and raise a little hell.”
“Absolutely not,” Ez protests. “Did you learn nothing from the last time you broke in? It took you almost two weeks to escape!”
“I learned plenty of things,” Cass says defensively. “Mistakes were made. Learning opportunities abounded. And it’ll be easier this time?—just get in, get the girl, and get out. Easy-peasy.”
“We’re coming with you,” Ez says. “For backup.”
“Thanks for volunteering me,” Obie says.
“Oh, hush. We’ve been following each other into danger for two hundred years. You’re not fooling anyone.”
Cass ignores them. “It’s settled, then. I’m breaking into the Sanctum alone. Great talk.”
“We haven’t settled shit, Cassius,” Ez fires back.
“Ah, but you’re forgetting one very important piece of information,” Cass says, smirking.
Her eyes narrow. “Which is?”
“It’s that you can’t stop him,” Obie says tiredly. “Ez, he’s been using the same line for a century now. The important piece of information is always that you can’t stop him.”
“Nobody can,” Cass confirms. “So let’s plan. What, exactly, is the best way to break a small demon toddler out of a high-security compound?”