Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Demons were the most elusive of paranormal entities. And the Guild did everything in its power—which was dishearteningly limited—to record every instance of them.
What little I understood of them was from a couple of paragraphs of explanation in the Guild’s database. Protections such as salt circles didn’t limit them, and our version of EMFs couldn’t detect them.
Like spirits, demons siphoned their energy from fear and anxiety. They could convert said energy in a far more efficient manner than spirits. Producing shows of excessive power.
The demon stayed in the salt circle for a couple of seconds before blinking away. Its purpose hadn’t been physical harm—no, it seemed to have had its fill of that tonight. This demon had finally revealed itself to us to incite more fear.
“Back to the house,” I ordered in a near whisper while staring at the spot where the demon had stood.
The wind stopped swirling; night now cloaked in a deafening silence.
Since the truck’s lights had blown, visibility remained low.
Everyone became shadowy outlines. For a breath, we all stood frozen, wordless as reality sank its thick claws into our veins.
Our attempts to solve this case had been ineffective from day one.
We’d been as clueless as children playing a game made for adults.
“Now!” I moved first. Nico, Jonah, and December snapped out of their collective shock. The guys scrambled to the truck while December became my shadow.
Frog and Kat were nearby, spooked but stable enough to have only wandered a couple of paces away.
Octavia stood, gaze locked on the unearthed grave.
“Octavia!” I called, but she didn’t move a muscle until I jogged over.
She flinched when I placed a hand on her elbow. I pulled back, holding my hands up. Octavia wore thousand-yard stare, eyes as dark as an infinite void.
“You’re here on solid ground,” I said, lightheaded and weak in the knees. “I’m here with you, and I’m going to walk with you through it all. You hear me?”
“I hear you.” But instead of waiting for me to walk with her, Octavia started for Frog on her own, determination returned.
She led us through the dark trail without delay. Cold air cut our cheeks as we made our way back to the house. December kept glancing at me and the truck, making sure we were still behind them.
Once we got to the house, December nearly fell off the horse, springing into action as she started to the RV. “Grab a couple of things for you and Wilson. We all have to stay in town tonight.”
Octavia didn’t offer a protest. She tied up the horses and disappeared into the house. I followed her trail, cold sweat dotting my lower back.
“Could you grab a few blankets from the living room?” Octavia asked. “I’m going to get some clothes.”
The scent of warm dinner lingered in the air. Normalcy smelled of soup and garlic bread. The side of potatoes was most likely cold to the touch. The teapot filled to the brim with lukewarm water.
“No,” I said sternly. “You’re not leaving my sight.”
“This would go faster if you helped,” she murmured, but didn’t put any force behind the comment.
Octavia yanked open the first drawer she got her hands on and pointed to the closet. “Grab the small duffel out of there?”
I opened the door, rummaging through a few boxes.
One of them knocked over a photo album, spitting out Polaroids.
They weren’t the glossy, commercialized K-pop ones I’d seen before.
But snapshots of a man with sad eyes and brown skin holding a little Octavia on his shoulder.
She wore pigtails in her then-loose natural hair.
What looked to be Octavia’s parents stood on either side of them.
Another photo showed her sitting at the base of a fence; she was older in this one and looked as if someone had scolded her just before the photographer snapped the shot.
Behind her was a peach tree almost as large and healthy as the one we’d seen on the edge of the road.
“Did you find it?” Octavia asked.
“Almost.” I stuffed the photos back in their place before refocusing on the task at hand. The image of a young Octavia, just as dejected as the one in front of me, pricked needles into my chest.
When I resurfaced with the duffel, Octavia immediately tossed clothes inside before moving to the bathroom. I followed her there too, keeping an eye on the mirror as cautiously as she did.
“Hey,” I murmured when our gazes met in the reflection.
She shook her head and grabbed toiletries from the sink. “Don’t ask me because I’m not.”
I frowned. “I wasn’t going to ask.”
An are you okay was useless at a time like this.
“Good.” Octavia sighed. “Nice to know you’re tolerable in a crisis.”
“And nice to see you’re still intolerant of nonsense.”
The corners of her lips twitched. She went quiet for a moment, considering before she said, “I’m glad you’re here. Glad I didn’t take some other hunter’s card at that convention.”
“Yeah?” Amid the weighty dark, there was a glimpse of feathery light.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to repay you…but I suppose your hefty commission price will do.”
That pulled a low laugh out of me. Octavia smiled at me in the mirror. The amusement didn’t reach her eyes, but I could appreciate the attempt. I ached to step closer and pull her into my chest, becoming the fortified wall she needed for protection.
“Next steps?” December scrubbed her hands at the sink with rosemary soap, ridding herself of dirt and any lingering evidence of coming within spitting distance of the demon.
We were in the RV, driving behind Octavia’s truck on the road into town. Frog and Kat were secured inside the horse trailer that Octavia’s truck towed.
“Call in the adults,” Nico said, not a sarcastic bone in sight. He sat in the passenger’s seat, gaze as empty as the quiet Jonah who gripped the steering wheel.
I scrolled on my laptop, logged into the Guild’s database using my oldest sister, Dawn’s, credentials. She had the highest clearance and the shortest memory. Years ago, she’d asked me to log in to her user for a quick search and hadn’t changed the simple birthdate passcode since.
“Just give me a second. Let me see if I can find something first,” I murmured as I scanned for folders littered with a lot of maybes, what-ifs, and cold cases.
“Why were we off?” Jonah asked, his voice hard around the edges. “We got everything on the checklist.”
“Demons don’t follow checklists.” I picked at my lower lip. “The theory is they mimic the signs of spirits for fun.”
“Fun?” Jonah coughed out, confused.
“I’m having a blast,” Nico muttered. “Aren’t you?”
“Why didn’t we consider it could be a demon then? If they mimic.” Jonah’s gaze flickered to mine in the rearview. The downward pull of his mouth offered enough disappointment and confusion to make my stomach turn.
“Because it was unlikely. With all maybe twenty-five in existence, with no hunting sightings in the past five years—”
“Yes, but couldn’t we still at least put the option on the board?” It was the first time he’d interrupted me. Jonah’s grip on the steering wheel made the veins in his knuckles protrude.
“There’s no point in putting something with less than a 1 percent chance on the board of possibilities.” I tried to sound sure and convinced when the ground beneath me softened, threatening to swallow me whole.
“And why not? Why not consider every option…is that not…our purpose? We’re supposed to be different from…the Guild.”
I swallowed a groan because, yes, when a job turned out like this one, it made sense to question where we’d gone wrong.
But the echoes of my long-worn confidence left me exposed.
Questions, even the valid ones, were paper cuts to my ego.
And maybe that’d be bearable if I were stable enough to see the forest for the trees.
December dumped a packet of trail mix in front of me. When I didn’t touch them, she raised a brow and asked, “When was the last time you ate?”
I closed my eyes for a second, unable to give her a solid answer. She nudged the packet closer. “I know this is a lot, but we need you to keep taking care of yourself, too.”
I ripped open the snack, pouring a couple of nuts and raisins into my mouth. They tasted of nothing. My jaw ached as I chewed.
“What are the odds that we’re lucky and this is Balar?” Nico craned his neck to look at me.
“Balar?” Jonah asked.
“Our parents encountered one demon in their hunting days. A Chaos demon called Balar.”
My parents or Nico’s retold the story of Balar whenever they got enough alcohol in them and felt like their age was showing a little too much around the younger hunters. They always said it was the biggest curse and the greatest honor for a hunter to come face-to-face with a demon.
“There’d be more devastation than a couple of minor injuries.” December sat opposite me and dragged my laptop to her, gesturing for me to finish my snack.
“I wouldn’t call simulating being buried alive and choked to death minor,” Nico said.
“She’s right.” I stared out the window; Alpine Peak barely glowed, a small town one might only stumble upon by accident. “It would have made half the town sick by now. Flooded Main Street. Possessed someone to enact violence on its behalf.”
“And since this didn’t do that, then…that means it’s not a Chaos demon?” Jonah tried to reason.
“Not necessarily.” Nico rubbed his hand across the top of his head. “These things are calculating—which is why they prefer mimicking spirits. Most of the time, they don’t get caught unless they want to. And they don’t give away who they really are unless they want to.”
“So how do you know Balar was a Chaos demon?”
“Sometimes they get cocky.” I got up to grab a bottle of water, taking a couple of sips. “Prideful. Like a serial killer who wants the public to know it’s them. Balar left calling cards to incite more terror.”