Or so I was trying to tell myself.
“Hey, stop.” Jackson threw out an arm to grind me to a halt. I did immediately, my eyes searching the forest around us. Pine trees clustered together, swallowing paths, and making the shadows far darker in the night. Butthere, through the trees, I spotted the way the air went hazy with heat. It was summer, but the night air had cooled the town, and it only wavered like this at the height of midday.
“Something’s wrong,” I told Jackson, who nodded. Peeling my thoughts away from Bryce, I finally forced my focusback ontothis, where it should have already been. “Do you think it’s a trap?”
“Not a trap. Just…something. An attack half carried out? Aborted? Or a portal location, maybe?”
“There’s more.”
I nodded at the heat waves fluttering between the trees, haphazardly placed, with no pattern that I could discern. I let my instincts take over, and the strong, revolting smell of sulfur flooded my nostrils.
“Definitely demon activity,” I muttered, shaking my head. “I’m not getting anything else, though. No other presence.”
“It’s still closer than is comfortable.”
“I know.” I kept scanning the trees. Demons weren’t usually silent, but the air felt too still, too silent, as if they were lying in wait. Something was building outside of our attention, and our patrols weren’t going to be enough soon. I could feel it in my gut, a bubbling of worry, a gnawing that I wouldn’t do enough to protect my pack and Honeycreek’s population. How many had already been injured in the fires?
“We have to go back to the pack.” I turned, jerking my head for Jackson to follow me. “We have to warn them to be on extra guard.”
“I want to warn Bryce,” Jackson said, startling me. I frowned, but he only scowled at me. “If there are demons nearby, I won’t have her unsuspecting of it.”
“Do you want to scare her like that?” I countered. “Let her sleep easy.”
“I can’t not tell her.”
“What do you think she’ll do if she knows there are close demons here, when you’ve just taken her from her home to escape them? She’ll go right back there.”
After a moment, Jackson nodded.
I hesitated before speaking again. “We have something more to go off, you can tell her. For now, let the pack start handling things. Let us protect her.”
The way we should have always done.
***
The town’s museum was a two-story building right door to the town hall, and it was the pack’s meeting place. There was a den above the main museum where we could all gather comfortably without crashing someone’s house.
The complex served as our housing, sure, but I needed somewhere private, somewhere the whole pack could get together, and, for its central location, that had been the museum.
“You’re saying that these aren’t just demons, butDjinn?” Theo asked, frowning at the update I’d given them all. Facing the dozen pack members, I nodded.
“Ifrit,” Jackson added.
Theo snorted. “All right, I can get behind it being a demon. I’ve been protesting that the loudest. But Djinn don’t exist. Demons are warped things, borne from excess magic that doesn’t find a host from previous wielders. I can understand where they come from, but djinn are stories of myths—”
“Bryce Calloway told us that’s what they are, and I’m inclined to believe her.”
The room fell silent. I swept my focus over them all, daring them to say something about her. Daring them to oppose me. None did—until Theo burst out laughing, shaking his head. He followed his arms over his chest, muscles straining against the white t-shirt he wore.
“Right. And did she get her information from the magic lamp she rubbed to summon the djinn?” he snorted. “I’m not believing her. I’m sorry, but no. Put research in front of me, and I’ll believe it, but nother.”
“Theo.” My voice was hard, a threat laced in it.
“What?” he asked, laughing. “Did she finally put down the candy long enough to pick up a book and think she’s clever?” Around him, others began to snigger. Next to me, Jackson surged forward, a growl coming from him, but I pulled him back. Irritation flared through me.
“Shut it down,” I snapped. “Be respectful, or excuse yourself, Theo.”
“Why?” he shrugged. “She’s nothing to us. Sheleftthe pack. What, Bryce bounces her way back onto the complex, and we all pamper her? Why? Just because some poor idiot got her knocked up, and she needs to protect her kid?”
