Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
“All right,” I say as I set my phone down.
We’re still in the kitchen and Marie called.
She was able to hear back pretty quickly about the sigil drawn on the floor of the Reaper’s clubhouse.
“We don’t have a name, but more a type. We were right.
It’s a chaos demon, and these kinds act kinda like a djinn. ”
“Great,” Antonio sighs.
“What’s that?” Devon asks.
“Think of it like a practical joker, but every joke ends in a rather violent death,” I explain.
“Well, that sounds super fun,” Devon quips.
“Right,” Antonio says, leaning back as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Talk about tempting us with a good time.”
“How do you kill one of these?” Xavier asks, stopping behind me. His hands land on my tense shoulders, and I close my eyes in a long blink. I’m tired, but not tired enough to sleep, and I don’t even know what time it is anymore. My sleep schedule is so messed up.
“With a djinn,” Antonio starts, “there’s a specific way they have to be killed, but I don’t know it off the top of my head. We’ve never come across one before, luckily.”
“Djinns play games, right?” Mabel asks as she pours herself a cup of coffee, pretending to take a sip. “I remember hearing about one when I was in the Order.”
“Yes,” I tell her. “They get inside your head and basically steal your energy while you’re living in some alternate fantasy world or something like that.
I don’t know if anyone we know has ever actually fought one.
It’s more the kind of thing you hear about in hunter legends.
Djinns are dangerous and hard to fight.”
“So if this thing is similar to one but also demonic, that’s going to make it worse,” Theo notes, struggling to keep the sarcasm in his voice. He’s nervous. As he should be.
“Much worse,” Leo says, sliding the iPad closer. “I mean, I don’t think djinns need to kill sixteen people just to break free.”
He tips his head as he swipes through the photos. “Actually, I don’t even know if this demon needed to kill sixteen people to get here. It could’ve just wanted to.”
“And set up a ritual almost identical to one that already happened just to fuck with us,” I say.
“I thought you said the demon wasn’t that smart.” Theo shifts his eyes toward me.
“I did.” I lean back against Xavier, who is now massaging my very sore shoulders.
“And I still think the ritual was significant. Whatever was attempted at Camp Dogwood never got finished. I think this was the plan the whole time. But chaos demons don’t just cause chaos.
They cause confusion too, because when you’re confused and don’t know what to believe, you’re easier to influence. ”
Mabel loudly slurps her coffee only to spit it back into the cup, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “This is a lot to keep track of. I feel like we need one of those giant whiteboards from a movie so we can write everything down.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Antonio tells her, then looks toward Xavier and Theo. “Any chance you have one?”
“No,” Xavier tells him. “I’ll order one. I think we all know this isn’t going to be the last time we come up against something like this.”
“Hang on,” Mabel says. She sets down her coffee cup and zooms out of the room and returns seconds later with a notebook and pen.
“Here’s what we know,” she starts. “The Order wanted to release a powerful demon because they thought they could control him and use him to do their bidding, whatever that was. For some reason, they chose Vaelric, who had been locked away by the Blackwood witches.” She starts writing.
“They figured out they needed fresh Blackwood blood straight from the source to release the demon, which explains the series of events we just lived through. We also know Vaelric is in charge of other demons, and we’re assuming this chaos demon is somehow under his command.
” She underlines the word assuming. “Whatever demon that killed the Reapers is definitely loose, dangerous, and probably isn’t going to sit idly by waiting for the next command. Right?”
She looks around at us.
“I guess that’s another assumption,” I say, impressed by how well she’s separating facts from theories. “But I don’t think it’s going to sit idly by either.”
“Okay.” She makes a few more notes, her hand flying across the page at human speed. “Is there any way to figure out the names of the demons Vaelric commands?”
“Probably not,” Antonio tells her. “If they’re lesser demons, they might not even have names worth recording. Lesser demons are more like spirits anyway,” he explains simply.
“Right. I remember,” Mabel says. Even now, it’s jarring to remember she was once an Order member just like me. She wasn’t allowed to hunt, but she still has the same basic knowledge we all do. We keep trying to come up with some sort of game plan while Mabel excitedly orders food for us again.
I almost remind her there are plenty of leftovers in the fridge, but I don’t want to dull her excitement.
If something as small as ordering food makes her happy, I’m going to let her have it.
I go upstairs to shower and change while we wait for the food to arrive.
Afterward, I wrap myself in a towel and just sit on the bed, unmoving, for several moments.
“How are you doing?” Xavier asks, slipping quietly into the room. He closes the door behind him and sits on the bed next to me.
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “I’m tired physically and mentally, but I know there’s no way I could actually lie down and take a nap. Too bad I can’t cast a sleeping spell on myself.”
“I can rub your back if you want to lie down now,” Xavier says.
“That would be nice.” I unwrap the towel from my body and use it to dry my hair a little more before lying down beside him. He runs his fingers up and down my back, and somehow I end up dozing off for about twenty minutes. The power nap is exactly what I need.
When I wake up, I check my phone and see several texts from Delphi. Instead of replying, I just call her. She answers on the second ring.
“Thank God. You’re alive.”
“Sorry.” I rub my eyes.
Xavier is still in bed beside me, so I put the phone on speaker and roll over, letting him cradle me against his chest.
“Whenever I go a long time without hearing from you, I assume you’re either mad at me or dead,” she says.
I laugh. “If I’m mad at you, I’ll tell you. So I guess just assume I’m dead.”
“I heard about the Reapers,” she starts.
I look up at Xavier. “How has the pack taken the news?” he asks.
“Oh. He’s here. You’re on speakerphone,” I say, obviously.
“I’m at work, and I’ve been slammed up until just now,” Delphi goes on. “There’s some outbreak of hand, foot, and mouth at several schools, so I’ve had patients nonstop today. I just heard from Larkin, and she’s calling a pack meeting tonight.”
“Okay, so not the best news,” I say, “but also not the worst.”
“I guess that’s one way to put it,” Delphi says. “I don’t really know anything else, but it’s pretty clear this was supernatural. Right? I can hear the confusion in her voice.
“The exact cause is still to be determined,” I tell her, “but I’m pretty sure it has to do with that other thing we were dealing with.” I’m not sure whether I need to speak in code since she’s at work and who knows who might be around.
“It’ll be fine, right? As long as you’re okay,” she says.
“I mean, right now I am. But I know that isn’t very reassuring.”
“You’re going to give me a heart attack.” She laughs. “I don’t know how you haven’t had one yourself at this point.”
“I honestly don’t either.”
“What time is your pack meeting?” Xavier asks.
“Seven tonight,” she replies. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing from her soon.”
Xavier has been with me for the last half hour or so, so there’s a good chance Larkin has already called.
“We’re going to go downstairs and probably get another earful from Theo,” I say.
“I had to cancel my date,” Delphi says. “Which I think is a good thing. The guy was giving major creep vibes.”
“And why would you even entertain the idea of going out with him?” I ask.
“Because I’m old and my eggs are drying up, and I don’t know. It’s pretty desperate and sad, isn’t it?”
“Definitely not desperate and sad.”
I fully know Xavier is looking at me with one eyebrow raised. He doesn’t understand how we can switch subjects so easily. But hey, dating and love lives are important too.
“I have to get back to my patient,” Delphi says, “but please keep me posted, and I’ll keep you posted.”
“Of course.”
“Are we in danger?” Delphi asks before hanging up.
“Not any more danger than you were before, but also possibly yes, though maybe also no.”
My non-answer probably makes her feel worse. “I have no idea what you just implied, but I’m going to take that as everything’s fine and it’s all sunshine and rainbows.”
“That’s exactly what I meant. Talk to you later, girl.” I end the call and let out a breath. “I know we don’t want to agree with Theo that this is my fault,” I begin, “but it seems too targeted, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Xavier says. He knows better than anyone that Vaelric is inside Vivian’s body.
The demon can sense her hatred toward me.
Hearing the words out loud feels like a punch to the gut all over again.
I just don’t understand how someone can pretend to be my mother, pretend to care about me, and not develop feelings in any way.
How could she stand there and let the Order use me without having some sort of maternal instinct to intervene?
Not even as my fake mother. Just as a human being.
I want to understand it because I think if I understand, it’ll hurt less.
But there are some things I’ll never understand, and I know I’ll only drive myself crazy trying.
The bottom line is that the Russos are terrible people, and the Order is an institution that needs to collapse.