Chapter 12 #4
“We didn’t bang here either!” Pippa remembered where they were and pitched her voice lower right at the end, but “We didn’t bang here” echoed through the stairwell.
“Pippin, you can’t hide smudged lipstick from me.
Oh come on, I’ve already seen it,” Jules said as Pippa frantically wiped at her mouth.
“If this wasn’t so juicy, I’d be offended if you didn’t tell me sooner.
I mean I’m a little offended. I told you the second I caught Kenzie staring at my cleavage, and even though that’s not nearly the same—”
The fine hairs on Pippa’s arms stood on end. She tried to focus on her surroundings while ignoring Jules’s continued rambling. There was a bad taste in the air, of burned steel and the sour tang of rust.
It was the exact aura that had been hovering around her apartment and had sat patiently on her terrace, then fled before she could see what had left it.
Her stomach clenched with the realization. The source of the aura was nearby, and it was fresh.
Pippa ran up the stairs past a spluttering Jules and paused at the door to the next floor.
The sensation was stronger here. How had it gotten in?
It must have been that last stupid ward she’d thought was simply good enough.
It hadn’t been, and something had snuck through it and was lurking on the other side of the door.
She jumped when Jules grabbed her upper arm.
“Seriously, I need to know. He’s so . . .” Jules made a two-handed gesture as if she were crumpling a ball of paper. “He’s so Maxim. There’s gotta be something you can share that’ll make me hate him less.”
“Jules, not now.”
“Yes, now. You’re already on a coffee break, and we’re salaried. Have you been mouth-to-mouth? Mouth-to-crotch? Hand-to-crotch? How many did he use?” She held up a fist and began uncurling fingers. “Stop me when I’m right.”
The aura behind Pippa crawled up her skin as if it were a living thing. Magic sparked in her palms and vibrated against her temples.
She had to take care of this, but Jules was no closer to leaving and had been continuing to count on her fingers. She held up all five and gave Pippa an impressed, “Really? Holy shit Pip, good for you!”
“Jules, go back to the office.”
“Wh—” She scoffed, then spluttered. “Why?”
Deep inside Pippa, sitting cold and patient right next to her spine, the dark magic stirred. She could make Jules go away. It would be so easy, the magic whispered. She could turn around, sprint up the stairs in her cute shining heels, keep running until her feet bled.
She could make Jules stop questioning her. She could make Jules—
No.
Pippa clenched her jaw. “I have to shit,” she blurted.
Jules blinked, her cherry-red lips parting in shock. “Uh?”
Goddammit, dammit, fuck. She was going to have to dig harder.
“Like, really bad. Like I need to use a bathroom on another floor bad because there’s no way I’d be able to look anyone in the eye after the utter massacre that’s going to come out of—”
Jules’s expression was slowly twisting into one that blended concern and horror. “Okay,” she interrupted. “Yeah, I get it.” She started for the stairs that led up to their office, but just as Pippa grasped the door handle and was girding herself for what lay behind it, Jules turned back around.
“But in all seriousness,” she said. “Pippin, my darling, you should really see a doctor soon. Your intestines sound jacked.”
“Yep, on it.” Pippa yanked the door open, then slammed it shut behind her.
Nothing attacked her. At least, not right away. Once the threat of either attack or Jules following her through the door had passed, she let herself relax enough to look around.
She was on the level Maxim had opened on their way down—the storage facility with stacks of product in corrugated boxes.
Just like the other levels, it was a copy of the layout of Ivanov, Barry, and Cruz: a corridor with an elevator lobby, doors leading to closets in a long hallway, and a large office space at the end.
Unlike the other levels, instead of a cheerily lit set of double doors at the end of the hallway boasting the vinyl-cut names of those who worked within, a shape crouched in an empty doorway.
Bone-like protrusions spiked down its back.
It was bent so far forward that it was almost on all fours.
It held one arm close to its torso, almost like a dog who had put one paw on a thorn, but this dog had a face like a skull and a jaw that didn’t quite close.
The fluorescent bulbs overhead bathed it in blue-white, highlighting mottled fur-covered skin and puffs of smoke that rose up when it slapped a charred patch on a shoulder with a gnarled hand.
At least the ward had done something.
The demon uncurled with all the grace of a wolf trying to stand on its hind legs. Fully upright, it came to the top of the door frame.
It didn’t have eyes. Whisper Hounds never did. Still, it stared Pippa down as if those empty pits could determine the brand of her sweater.
Magic swirled around Pippa’s hands, and although it was excited and ready for her to shoot it out across the hallway, she kept it close. She wanted to make sure of something first.
“So,” she said. “Guess you’re here for me.”
One tufted ear flicked backward. The creature let out a thrumming, twisting growl that moved through the air like a drumbeat.
A grating whisper filtered through Pippa’s head.
it is nice to be expected
She nearly staggered at the feeling of magic being forced into her brain. She’d gone a long time without experiencing a conversation with a Whisper Hound, and her body railed at the sudden sensation of snakes writhing between her ears.
Pippa fought back the dizziness and planted her feet on the carpet. “The last two I killed who were hunting me didn’t give me any information about how much I’m worth. But I’m curious. Maybe I can put it on my resume.”
The demon’s lips—or at least what passed for its lips—curled at the corners.
your kind has hunted my kin for a century
the bounty is worth nothing compared to the joy when I bring your head
WITCH
The last word speared Pippa like a tangible, sharp thing shoved into her temple, and the magic she had carefully drawn around her scattered.
The demon took full advantage.
As it lunged forward, it opened its mouth impossibly wide and a vibrating, pulsing wind blasted out from its jaws.
Pippa dragged power close and hurled it out, but the demon’s attack struck her before she could fully aim.
A heavy, shuddering force collided with her chest and sent her flying backward with a cry.
She saw her own magical energy skew to the side and hit a stack of boxes that exploded into a riot of cardboard, shredded papers, and office supplies, and then she was tumbling across the floor, the air knocked from her lungs.
The low-pile carpet slid across her knees with the soothing caress of a cheese grater.
She rolled to a stop, her skin burning and her breath coming in short, desperate heaves as her lungs frantically tried to work again.
The Hound threw its arms out to its sides in a slow, sinew-crackling stretch.
The tips of its bony fingers glinted beneath the fluorescent lighting.
They’d been dipped in a sickly, greenish lacquer.
Fuckfuckfuck, and that green was the same color as the Boe demon’s dagger. At least she knew that the poison would only take away one part of her magic, but what if the concoction had been updated?
Panic flared up Pippa’s spine. As she watched, she realized the demon’s left arm didn’t extend quite as much as the right, and it gave the barest flinch as damaged skin stretched taut.
That was the side to attack. Pippa just had to pull on enough magic to get to it before it came close enough to—
The door to the stairwell opened.
“Oh-h-kay,” Jules said, one manicured hand resting on her hip. “I figured I’d bring some meds because I am the most wonderful, but what are you doing on the floor?”
Pippa’s thoughts froze in an icy blast of panic.
The demon threw itself at the ground and slammed its clawed hands onto the carpet several times like a sprinter amping themselves up for a race.
Jules, who had stepped toward Pippa, heard the sound and turned toward its source. She opened her mouth to scream.
The demon charged.
Fury shattered Pippa’s panic.
This demon did not get to come into her workplace, in a space she’d considered safe, and put the people she cared about in danger.
Magic roared through her body and shot from her hands.
It blew past Jules like a gale, setting her hair flying and her blazer flapping before it collided with the demon and set it staggering backward.
Pippa wrenched on the power to call it back to her, then spread it wide in a rippling pane across the hallway.
The demon hardly needed any time to recover. It charged again, but hit the magical barrier. Even though Pippa felt the impact as if it had been against her, the shield held.
“The FUCK is that!” Jules shrieked.
“Get behind me,” Pippa ordered. She heaved herself to her feet, not taking her eyes off the creature on the other side of her magic.
For what must have been the first time in her life, Jules jumped to follow directions.
“Ohmygod,” Jules said with a wheeze. “I knew you were a witch, but I didn’t know it was like THIS!”
It took a second for that to settle on Pippa, and when it did, she gaped at Jules.
“You what? How could you possibly know?”
“I notice things, Pippa,” Jules snapped shrilly.
“I’ve noticed things for years. I’ve seen those creepy-ass books on your shelves, and I know you didn’t just find them somewhere.
I’ve overheard you talking to your mom. And you like to do this neat and fun thing to reheat your coffee when you think no one’s looking.
Well I’m looking!” Her eyes were wild and she looked to be mere moments from, as her writing would say, a “fearsome swoon.”