Chapter 4
4
T wo days later, JJ is hovering anxiously on the sidewalk outside of an ice cream parlor, shooting furtive glances around. Every few minutes, he compulsively rereads the threatening message that led him here before crumpling it into his pocket again, trying his hardest not to panic.
It’s a losing battle, though. Especially since the demon who delivered said message somehow got into JJ’s bedroom again. There’s clearly a hole in the Sanctum’s anti-rifting spell work that needs to be patched, but JJ can’t exactly tell the Council about it without admitting the full story?—and treason like that would probably get him stripped of his powers and burned alive as a dissident.
And, in any case, the demon himself luckily wasn’t waiting for JJ when he got back from training yesterday. Instead, there was just a note resting mockingly on his pillow, written in a bloodred marker that sent chills down JJ’s spine.
Do you want to see the kid again?
Underneath the ominous message was a date, time, and address. The address, infuriatingly enough, was to DJ Ice Cream, a little family-owned storefront wedged into a strip mall. The demon wants to discuss ransom demands over ice cream? JJ has to admit that it’s a smart tactical move?—it’s public enough that neither of them can afford to cause a scene, but removed enough to give them privacy?—but the setup still rubs him the wrong way.
Namely because it leaves him feeling annoyingly like a high schooler waiting for his first date. It’s not a scenario he personally experienced?—he was homeschooled by the Sanctum, and the idea of dating anyone inside or outside its walls was laughable?—but he’s rapidly growing to appreciate the struggle.
JJ’s unease steadily increases as the minutes tick closer to noon. He didn’t notice anyone suspicious around the perimeter of the strip mall, and a few quick spells didn’t reveal any demonic interference, but??—
But what is he even doing here? If this is all a trick devised by the Sanctum to test his loyalty, then he’s currently failing with flying colors and will probably be thrown in the prison by nightfall. And if this really is a demonic ransom demand, then what is he supposed to trade? He doesn’t have much money; the Sanctum handles all of his living expenses and only gives him a limited amount of discretionary cash. And as far as Sanctum secrets, he’s not giving those up, not even for Desi. The thought makes his heart twist, but the Sanctum has had his back for twelve years.
Desi has only had his heart for about a week.
Finally, at exactly one minute to noon, there’s a faint ripple in the air?—not the usual purple-gold of a rift, but the subtle spacetime warping of an invisible rift. JJ snaps to attention when the demon steps into the daylight, sporting the same fathomless eyes and humorless smile from two days ago.
His smirk widens when he sees JJ’s glare. “Jackson,” he says casually, and to JJ’s indignation, he breezes straight past JJ like he’s not even there. “Get us a table, would you?”
JJ gapes as the demon saunters into the ice cream parlor and makes a beeline for the counter, the bell over the door jingling cheerfully in his wake. “Good afternoon,” he says politely, sounding unaccountably normal for being the same demon who kidnapped JJ’s sort-of kid and is now ordering ice cream at a ransom negotiation. “Can I get two scoops of coffee flavor with hot fudge and whipped cream? Thanks.”
Gritting his teeth, JJ slips into the shop after him, his eyes sweeping around. Besides him and the demon, there are only three other people inside?—the owner and two patrons?—and JJ quickly maps out all of their positions, deducing the best spot to keep the civilians safely out of range. Eventually, he approaches a table in the corner nearest the door and sits with his back to the wall, giving him an unobstructed view of the room.
And a direct line of sight to the demon, who’s making small talk with the owner while she retrieves his ice cream. Within minutes, she’s handing his bowl over the counter, and he hums out his thanks, shoves what looks like a ten-dollar bill into the tip jar, and strolls over to JJ’s table. Pulling out the seat opposite JJ, he slides his lithe body into the chair, digs his spoon into the ice cream??—
And pauses, the scoop already halfway to his mouth. “Oh, where are my manners? Did you want anything?”
JJ’s hackles rise. “Where’s Desi?”
The demon carefully piles extra hot fudge onto his spoon before answering. “Back at my place.”
“Fine. What do you want in exchange?”
He stops mid-bite. “What?”
JJ glares at him.
The demon raises his eyebrows back. “Use your words, Jackson. I can’t read minds.”
“Do you want to see the kid again?” JJ quotes in a hiss. His escrima sticks are in the same invisible fold in spacetime where he always stores them, ready to be summoned at a moment’s notice, but right now, he really wishes they were already in his hands. “The answer is yes, okay? Yes. So what do you want in exchange?”
Warily, the demon lowers his spoon. “Oh. Oh. Right. I can, ah, see how that message might have been misinterpreted. Perhaps I could’ve made it somewhat less threatening, but??—?”
“Stop playing games and get to the point, demon,” JJ snaps.
His jaw tightens. “My name is Cassius, lackey. Not ‘demon.’”
Abruptly, JJ’s stomach lurches. “Cassius? Like, Cassius Chin? Battle of Saratoga Cassius Chin?”
He smiles thinly. “Aw, you’ve heard of me? That’s cute.”
“Yeah,” JJ says slowly, his mind racing. Cassius Chin? The Cassius Chin? One of the most famous demon warriors in North America, instrumental in winning the American Revolution, present at every major national and international conflict for the past two hundred fifty years??—
That’s who has Desi? This is worse than JJ thought. “Yeah,” he repeats, and he leans forward. “You follow warfare like a shark follows the taste of blood. Just out of curiosity, did you and your two cronies actually start the War of 1812? Or is that just a myth?”
Cassius’s smirk suddenly looks more like a snarl. “Hate is learned, hunter,” he says, leaning forward to match JJ’s pose. “And I see you were a very good student.”
JJ smiles back with all his teeth. “Thanks. I try.”
For a long moment, they stare each other down. Cassius’s dark eyes are deep and foreboding, ageless as a black hole and inevitable as the grave, and JJ does his best not to flinch away, to maintain eye contact, to clench his fists tighter to keep them from shaking??—
And then, with a dramatic sigh, Cassius lounges back in his chair again. “Look, are you pissy because I have ice cream and you don’t? I asked if you wanted anything, but??—?”
“No, I’m pissy because you took my kid,” JJ bites out. “You break into the Sanctum??—?”
“What, like it’s hard?”
“?—?sneak into my room??—?”
“You call that a room? Looked more like a jail cell.”
“?—?and kidnap Desi? ? —?”
“Who, shockingly enough, wasn’t being tortured,” Cassius says. “So thanks for that.”
“I?—?” The gears in JJ’s head screech to a halt. “What?”
Cassius rests his forearms on the table, eyes narrowed. “Look, JJ?—may I call you ‘JJ’?”
“No.”
“All right, pissant, so I’m a simple demon, okay? I find neophyte demons, I bring them back to the Chain. I find Sanctum hunters, I presume they’re bad guys. This ‘shades of gray’ bit is fairly new to me.”
JJ squints at him. “What are you??—??”
“She won’t stop talking about Wyvern Academy,” Cassius interrupts. His jaw twitches. “And you. She wouldn’t stop crying until I promised I’d reach out to you.”
“You?—?” The gears in JJ’s head are grinding against each other now. Is this still a ransom negotiation? “What?”
“And I didn’t tell the Chain about her,” Cassius adds, looking like he recently tasted something much more bitter than coffee-flavored ice cream. “If I did, they would register her and find alternate placement for her, which obviously wouldn’t be conducive to a Sanctum lackey?—?” He wrinkles his nose distastefully. “Visiting. Or whatever.”
Suddenly, JJ starts to see where Cassius is going with this. And suddenly, the choice of an ice cream parlor for this conversation makes a lot more sense. “What are you suggesting?” he asks slowly.
“I was?—?” Abruptly, Cassius looks embarrassed. “I was thinking joint custody? Weekend visitation? Something like that?”
Cass is in way over his head here.
Through their hissed argument over Cass’s steadily melting ice cream, he and the hunter agreed that the safest place for Desi would be Cass’s house. Cass felt an immense sense of satisfaction at this decision, and even more satisfaction at the sour expression on said hunter’s face afterward.
But that, of course, means Cass needs to let said hunter into his house now?—or, at the very least, one of his safe houses?—which he’s not quite as satisfied with. “Desi!” he calls down the hall, checking the time on his new burner phone. “You almost ready?”
“Yes!” Desi shouts back, and she barrels down the hall, barely managing to skid to a stop before slamming directly into him. Proudly, she lifts her arms up high. “How does this one look?”
“You look great,” Cass assures her. And she does look nice?—she’s wearing one of the many outfits he bought her at the mall a few days ago, plus a tiny denim jacket?—but the last five outfits she tried on also looked equally nice. Frankly, Cass is starting to run out of compliments. “I think that one’s the winner.”
Her eyes go huge. “Are you sure? I want it to be the best one for my field trip with JJ!”
Cass bites back a grimace. “I’m sure he’ll think you look very nice, too,” he says, and he waggles his fingers. “You ready to go?”
She hesitates briefly before slipping her hand into his. “Well, if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” he says firmly, and he snaps open a rift. Obviously, there was no way he was inviting JJ to his real house?—he doesn’t want to be forced to move if this little co-parenting scheme goes south?—but he did grudgingly give him the address for his second-favorite safe house. There was also no way he was giving JJ his real phone number?—he wouldn’t put it past the hunter to try and trace it?—but he just as grudgingly accompanied him to the corner store to buy matching burner phones.
There’s a lot of grudgingness involved in their interactions, really. His only comfort is that JJ seems just as annoyed by the proceedings as Cass is.
Hopefully, though, Desi won’t see him and JJ together for long enough to notice. “Let’s go,” he says, and he guides her through the rift to his safe house’s foyer. It’s not as nice as his regular home?—it features much less natural light in a decidedly smaller space?—but it’ll suit his purposes for the Desi Handoff.
“Ooh!” Desi spins in a circle, fascinated. “This is so pretty! Can I go see all the rooms, Cass?”
“Sure. Go nuts.”
“Yay!” Desi bounds down the hallway at once, exclaiming in delight as she explores every nook and cranny, and Cass collapses into the nearest kitchen chair, letting out a slow breath.
He’s glad that Desi is starting to warm up to him. She’s still suspicious of him sometimes?—apparently, taking her away from her precious JJ wasn’t the best first impression?—but she finally let him do her hair this morning, which he’s cautiously taking as a good sign.
Honestly, it stings a little. He’s been trying his hardest to do right by this little girl ever since he accidentally acquired her, cooking different meals for her to try and reading countless picture books to her and buying her an entire wardrobe at the mall, but she clearly still judges him for the mortal sin of not being Julian Jackson.
And no one who knows Cass would ever describe him as paternal, but he’s trying, damn it. Most demons don’t get the chance to be young children and grow up the “human” way, their summoners usually forcing them to magically age themselves up within a few months, and he’s planning to let her be a little kid for as long as possible.
He just wants her to have everything he never got.
Eventually, he bribes Desi into sitting down and calming down with a piece of chocolate cake, which is a depressingly common scenario lately. Now, she’s happily munching on frosting at the kitchen table, and Cass is much less happily glaring at the door.
And his not-happiness plummets to new lows when a soft knock sounds on the antique wood.
“JJ!” Desi squeals, jumping to her feet and racing for the door.
Cass grabs her as she flies past, hauling her into his arms. “Not so fast, kiddo. Let me make sure it’s not a bad guy first.”
“JJ’s not a bad guy!” Desi protests, wriggling in his grip. “Lemme down!”
“Nope.” Wrestling her over one shoulder, Cass struggles his way to the door, wrenches it open, and glares at the man on his front porch. “Hey,” he says curtly.
“Hey,” Julian Jackson says unenthusiastically back.
“JJ!” Desi yells, and she promptly knees Cass in the head in her eagerness to jump ship and pounce on the hunter. JJ catches her before she faceplants on the doormat, pulling her up into a hug. “Hi!”
“Hi!” JJ suddenly sounds a lot more animated, and Cass narrows his eyes, rubbing the spot on his jaw where Desi kicked him. To his surprise, the scowly hunter actually looks??—
He actually looks happy. His shoulders are relaxed and his eyes are bright and his smile is huge, like he’s just as excited to see Desi as Desi is to see him.
Suddenly, Desi’s enthusiastic chattering about “her JJ” makes a lot more sense.
“How are you?” JJ asks now, holding Desi out at arm’s length. She giggles, flailing her legs, and Cass fights down an irrational pang of loss at how much she clearly adores him. “Pretty jacket.”
“Thanks!” she says brightly. “Cass got it for me!”
The twinge of jealousy spirals up into satisfaction when JJ reluctantly meets Cass’s eyes. “Thanks,” he mumbles.
Cass doesn’t miss a beat. “Sorry, JJ, but I don’t think the jacket will fit you. It’s made for a small child, you see.”
Scowling, JJ turns his gaze back to Desi. He’s dressed rather warmly for the early January weather, Cass thinks. Jeans, combat boots, jacket, hat, gloves, scarf? ? —
And then JJ pulls Desi back onto his hip, hugging her casually to his side, and realization jolts through Cass.
Of course. The corrosion spell. Cass has learned the hard way that corrosion burns from touching a Sanctum hunter’s skin are enormously painful and can take weeks to heal?—not to mention that even the best demonic healing spells don’t work on them, much to Ez’s irritation.
That means JJ specifically took pains to make sure Desi could hug him and climb all over him without getting hurt. And, as Cass watches her relentlessly try to haul herself onto JJ’s shoulders while he just as relentlessly tries to wrestle her back down, it’s clearly something he put a lot of thought into.
It’s actually really sweet. Cass hates it. Annoyed, he cuts through Desi’s excited rambling, directing his words at JJ. “So what’s your plan?”
JJ gives him a blank look. “What?” he asks, apparently admitting defeat as Desi successfully climbs onto his shoulders.
Cass raises his eyebrows meaningfully. “Well, I hope you weren’t just planning to invite yourself into my house all day. You did think up a plan for you and Desi, right?”
“I…” JJ looks like a deer caught in headlights. Did he seriously not think this far ahead? So much for Sanctum hunters being masters of planning. “Well, I guess we can??—?”
“Tacos!” Desi cheers, throwing her arms in the air. JJ hastily grabs her ankles to keep her from toppling off of her hard-won perch. “Tacos, tacos, tacos! Can we, JJ? Can we please?”
JJ hesitates. “Desi, sweetie,” he says softly, “I don’t think that’s the best idea for today. My friends at the Sanctum don’t know about you, so if they see us together??—?”
“That’s fine!” she says brightly, and to Cass’s utter horror, she points directly at him. “Cass can glamour us so we look totally different! Right, Cass?”
Damn this clever little demon toddler and her pointed questions about glamours during their mall trip. “Yes and no,” Cass says reluctantly. “Yes, I’m capable of creating glamours, but I can’t maintain them at a distance. My max is around fifty feet.”
If anything, Desi looks even more excited. “That’s okay! You can come with us! We’ll stay real close. Right, JJ?”
“I?—?” JJ looks faintly horrified by the idea. “I, um??—?”
Cass cuts in before the hunter can say something insensitive that’ll make Desi cry. “Desi,” he says gently, reaching up to grab one of her little hands, “I’ve gotten to hang out with you all week, remember? And Jac?—JJ hasn’t gotten to hang out with you at all. I think he might want to spend some time with just you, right?”
JJ looks honestly surprised that Cass is capable of basic courtesy. Cass’s dislike of the man ticks up a few notches. “Yeah,” JJ says eventually, nodding at Cass. “Thanks.”
Desi’s eyes widen. “You don’t want Cass to hang out with us?” she asks tremulously, nearly overbalancing in her attempt to turn her betrayed puppy dog eyes on JJ. “But why?”
JJ’s expression instantly shifts. “I mean, it’d be okay if he wants to hang out with us,” he hedges, shooting Cass a furtive look. “But he’s?—he’s probably busy, right?”
“Nuh-uh!” she protests, jabbing a triumphant finger at Cass. “He said he was gonna do nothing all day! Right, Cass?”
Cass valiantly resists the urge to facepalm. “No. No, I’m not busy.”
JJ looks equally unenthusiastic. “So, uh. Do you want to come with us?”
Not even a little bit. “Sure,” Cass says flatly, and he raises a hand to cast the spell. “So how do you want to look? I’m sure you don’t want your friends to see you cozying up to strangers, right?”
JJ hesitates. “Doesn’t matter. Whatever’s, um. Whatever’s easiest for you.”
The easiest thing for Cass would be to send them off undisguised and wash his hands of JJ altogether, but with Desi giving him that eager smile, there’s no way he can refuse. Sighing, he conjures up three basic glamours in his mind’s eye, makes sure they complement each other just enough to avoid suspicion, and settles them carefully into place.
Instantly, Desi’s and JJ’s appearances change, their facial features and hair textures subtly shifting into alignment. When Cass glances in the mirror next to the door, it’s to see that his own skin tone adjusted to match Desi’s dark brown and his physique is nearly identical to JJ’s.
There. Now, they can easily pass for siblings or cousins. That’ll give them a plausible excuse for carting a little girl around Redwater without being accused of kidnapping.
Even though, technically speaking, both he and JJ have kidnapped her at various points over the past few weeks.
JJ turns to check his appearance in the mirror, looking faintly impressed. “Whoa.”
“Yeah, it’s a big improvement,” Cass agrees, and he busily turns away from JJ’s scowl. “Tacos, right? That’s the plan? Let’s get moving.”