Chapter 8 #2
Creating a complete barrier that would keep out everything from the otherworld was difficult—creating a complex barrier that would still permit demons who’d disguised themselves so they could get jobs and afford housing was even more difficult.
While manipulating power, she had to simultaneously hold the caveats in her mind: block malicious intent, block carnivorous or murderous appetites; but make an exception for the dread of an upcoming performance review or the irritation at seeing a meme-sharing chain email.
During her college stint, she’d taken an intro class on programming and had been struck by how similar coding was to crafting magical barriers.
Rules, exceptions, guidelines, and the occasional tension headache.
She straightened, stretched her back, then moved on to the next point, and the next.
Each one was slightly more difficult to finish.
As she moved around the building, it became harder and harder to lift her arms. Whatever strength she’d regained overnight and from her lazy afternoon and Jules’s porny soup seemed to have gone.
It was her own fault, really. When she’d healed Maxim in the alley, she had done more than was absolutely necessary.
She’d closed his skin and fixed his organs, yet she’d also funneled her own energy into him in order to replace the blood he’d lost. He would have been fine, albeit a bit more pale and lethargic, if she had held back.
But she had been so flustered, so terrified, she’d dumped power into him without thinking she might need it later.
Pippa wiped her forehead. She needed a break. A good, solid string of days where her biggest problem could be deciding what dumb show to watch.
Her last ward was at the front of the building. Magic didn’t rise up out of the ground as it had earlier, instead feeling like she was tugging on an ornery child who refused to leave bed.
Pippa caught sight of the parking space Maxim’s car had been in yesterday. Her thoughts flew backward and suddenly she was wholly consumed by memories. She was staggering across the parking lot, slumped into Maxim, her gut twisting at the absence of magic around her.
The air constricted within Pippa’s lungs. Her hands trembled, and the magical pillar she’d been constructing shook itself apart and fell in a shower to the ground.
Her skin crawled. Though she glanced around frantically for any source of discomfort, nothing appeared.
She became aware of how alone she was, how dark the sky had become.
Long shadows scurried behind trees and along the lit corridor of the main road.
The gravity of Pippa’s situation struck her: she had been attacked twice in just as many days, first by an admitted hire, then by a demon whose type was known for being mercenaries.
Something in the city wanted her dead, and here she was offering herself up to it like she’d crawled onto a platter and shoved an apple into her mouth.
The realization sent a bolt of new, desperate energy through her.
She wrenched on the magic and arranged it in a hasty pillar.
Where the other wards had lengthened and spread out as if they were lush trees, this one was scrawny and scraggly and shivered like it could be blown down by any strong gust. If not for exhaustion, stress, and the edgy feelings digging into her ribs like spurs, she would have tried again.
Not her best, but it would have to be good enough.
Pippa walked quickly to the doors and wiggled the air around the lock, twisting the latch from the outside.
After the click, she slipped inside and into the stairwell, then began to ascend.
Her pace was slow at first, more of a trudge, and with heavy reliance on the railing.
What would be the point of rushing? It wasn’t as if she had to chase her purse, or tackle her fleeing keys.
With every step, the stairwell felt larger.
Her steps echoed against metal and concrete and seemed to multiply in the otherwise silent space.
It was easy to imagine that she was being followed, the rumbling cascade of thuds precluding sharp fangs or long claws sinking into her skin through her jacket.
Despite the fact that no magical auras prickled at her neck, and as far as she could tell, she was the only inhabitant of the entire building, she found her pace quickening.
The faster she rattled up the stairs, the faster the echoes followed, and thankfully she reached her floor before she succumbed to the childish impulse to try and outrun her imagination.
Her purse was in the drawer by her computer.
As she checked around, making sure she didn’t need to grab anything else, she was struck by the eerie state of an office evacuated mid-workday.
Printed pages rested in neat stacks on desks, water bottles sat without their lids, the rest of Geoff’s muffin grew more stale and sad and lonely on its little paper plate.
Pippa zipped her purse and left.
She checked the parking lot through the closed doors before sneaking out of them. A flick of magic, and the lock engaged once more.
The air was chilly and invigorating as she sucked it into her lungs.
She imagined it flowing deep into her chest, washing away the exhaustion and the stress.
She forced her imagination harder and tried to picture the crisp air strengthening her, as if she could build armor out of it and surround herself with power and steel, but as she made her way across the parking lot, all she felt was the cold.
A few minutes after Pippa stepped onto the bus from the office, her exhaustion returned with force.
Although the wound in her leg had closed, the healed muscles throbbed with every step.
Wandering around abandoned buildings and fighting demons seemed about as alluring as stubbing her toe on an anvil.
But because of the dual blow of her mother’s pressure and that damned hypothetical Ash Coven paycheck dangling above her head, she couldn’t just go home.
Since she had to do something, she decided to visit the university and the succubi who currently preyed there.
The Post-It note in her pocket had a short address given to her by a patron at the local bar: Stillbrook Apartments, 90B.
The man had been young and already a few drinks deep, and when Pippa bought him a third, he’d told her sadly about a woman with ethereal beauty and a voice that sounded like sex.
He’d blushed a little then. The woman had ignored his advances, hence the drinks.
But he was hopeful. Maybe, he’d said with a dreamy, trance-like smile, their paths would cross soon.
Pippa had made a noncommittal “Hm” and bought him a fourth drink.
She stomped up a short flight of concrete stairs then scraped her shoes on a frayed doormat.
The lighting was dim around these apartments, and she’d accidentally sunk into a patch of well-disguised mud on her way to the complex.
She tightened her jacket around her shoulders, gave her shoes one more scrape, then pushed the doorbell.
An angel opened the door. At least, that’s what someone else would have thought.
The woman was tall, lithe, and had hair down to her elbows that was so blonde it appeared almost white.
Her skin, where it wasn’t covered by a short silk robe, was flawless and smooth; her smile was as warm and gentle as if it precluded a heavenly announcement.
But Pippa knew better.
“Huh,” she said to the woman in the doorway. “Didn’t realize you came back.”
The woman leaned against the jamb with the sort of grace typically reserved for ballet.
She pursed her wide mouth and raised one perfect eyebrow.
“I simply couldn’t stay away.” Her words held a trace of a French accent, mostly in the consonants that lived in the back of her throat.
She shifted. The robe slipped along her bare, smooth thigh. “Am I to be chastised once again?”
Pippa rubbed at her temple with the heel of her hand. “Yep, definitely. Thalia, you can’t keep taking advantage of college students. They’re dumb. You’re a demon.”
Thalia gave a grave nod. “Of course.”
“So you have to stop it.”
“At once.” A pause. “Have a drink?”
“Yes, please.” Pippa followed the demon inside and tossed her jacket and purse on a hook.
At a sharp look from Thalia, she removed her mud-smeared shoes, though it seemed excessive for the state of the apartment.
The carpet was stained in the entryway from decades of people ignoring the purpose of a doormat.
Where the carpet ended, old linoleum curled up as it met the walls, which were painted a gaudy green that would have caused injury if there had been more light in the room.
A young woman lay sprawled on the couch in her underwear, her eyes heavy-lidded and her fingers idly twirling a lock of her hair. She gave Pippa a raised brow.
“Who’s this?” she said.
Thalia stood in front of the girl and crossed her arms. “You must go,” she said. When she had been speaking to Pippa, her voice was even and lyrical—now Pippa felt threads of power weaving through the air with her words, soft as silk but just as strong.
The girl blinked quickly, glanced around as if in a trance, then dressed and walked out of the apartment.
Thalia sent a pretty frown at the door that had been left open.
Pippa sighed and swung it closed.
“You better not have charmed her to get her here,” she said.
Thalia laughed in a clear, ringing melody. “Of course not. This is her apartment.”
“You know what I—”
The succubus laughed again, her eyes sparkling. “I am allowed to joke, no? You don’t need to worry. I only ever charm them to leave. They become infatuated, you see. I am the . . . the perfection to them. Wise, beautiful, forever beyond their reach.”
Pippa slid onto a wobbling bar stool. “The perfection who lives in bad university housing?”