Rogan drops his mouth to my ear, as his large hands rub slowly up and down my arms. “I’m here. I’ve got you now. You’re safe.”
I lean into him, wanting to drop down into his warm words, but I can’t. We’re not safe. We might never be. I hear Elon start to explain what happened, but I tune him out. My eyes roam over Alvarez’s body as though somehow it holds the key to everything. The key to answers, to safety. I’m missing something here, I know I am, I just can’t figure out what.
Think, Lennox, think! What’s missing here, what was the point of all of this?
I stare at the body, willing it to tell me what the hell is going on. What was the endgame here? One Vox Witch up against a whole house of much stronger magic users. Why? Everything Tad was telling me about demons had me thinking they’re all about aligning with power and making plays for more power. That checks out so far with what I witnessed in the church, but as I look down at the corpse at my feet, I don’t see a power grab here. I see a calculated sacrifice.
What’s even more frustrating is I had these same questions about Jamie when the same demon was using her. She was covered in so many demon marks she barely looked like a person anymore. I was horrified to think about how every single demonic brand was a contract, some kind of deal between her and the demon. But it still doesn’t track that a demon would have chosen someone like Jamie to team up with in the first place. She didn’t have an ounce of magic, not a thing other than her cankered soul to trade with. I get that she had a pretty ambitious plan, but there was no guarantee she was ever going to be successful.
What was in it for the demon?
Why take all that risk for someone like Jamie and now Alvarez? Was he a Jamie in the making? Was he part of the team, like Nikki Smelser was before Jamie killed her?
I rub at my temples, a headache forming between my eyes.
Fuck, I’m tired. It’s been such a long damn day.
I rest my head against Rogan’s chest and sigh in an effort to purge myself from the failure I feel. The house is all lit up, and I can spot Tad and Prek watching us through the living room window. I wonder for a moment if I was wrong. Maybe it’s not safe here for Tad. I know he’d hate it, but it might be best for him to go back to the safe house. I could never forgive myself if anything—I pause mid thought as it hits me.
Aunt Hillen’s dream.
The message she said was for me from my Grammy Ruby. What did she say? I think back to lunch, sifting through the exhausted haze crashing over me.
Look at the marks.
Hurriedly I bend down and start taking Alvarez’s boot off. He’s still in his Order uniform, and I find myself doubting that was an accident. It would make sense if we were being set up. I’m not sure why they’d try to smear Rogan and Elon’s name; they did that already when they renounced them. I suppose I could be the target, but that feels wrong too. They’d be dumb to draw attention to any of us while they’re still trying to steal our secrets.
“Lennox, Love...what are you doing?” Marx asks, a little bewildered.
“I’m looking for his demon mark,” I grunt as the laces of Alvarez’s boot loosen and I pull it off.
His foot turns to mush in my hands, the bones in his feet destroyed, and it takes me a second to get his sock off. I scan the top of his foot and then the bottom. I know it has to be here somewhere. My eyes land on a brand right above his heel bone, and triumph flares through me. I study the demon mark to be certain, but it looks exactly like Jamie’s marks.
Elon bends down next to me and studies it as well. “Anything standing out to you?” he asks, and I shake my head no as I run my gaze over the circle.
It’s made up of black shadowy swirls that twine with lines of orange and red flames. It’s a symbol I know that will haunt my nightmares for years to come. A shiver of warning threads up my spine, but I refuse to give into the gloom it wants to invite out in me.
“I haven’t seen a ton of demon marks in my time,” I tell Elon. “But these look like Jamie’s did. No idea if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
“I mean, it looks like we’re dealing with one demon instead of more. I’ll take that as a good thing,” he states evenly, but I hear a slight shudder in the casual declaration.
“I’ll have Prek come look at everything. He was part of a team that had to hunt a demon when he first joined the Order. He knows more about this stuff than a lot of mancers do,” Marx offers, and then he starts jogging toward the house.
Surprise flutters through me at Marx’s words, and I tuck them away to talk to Prek about later. I stare at the demon mark for a moment more and then put Alvarez’s grotesque foot down. I stand up, huffing out an irritated sigh as I scan the trees surrounding us again. I have no doubt in my mind that setting up Alvarez also meant tying up loose ends. I just wish I knew if those ends belong to the High Council or a rogue demon whose motives are still a frightening mystery.
I know in my bones that we got lucky tonight. We killed a possible threat, but it’s clear we’re not ready for what could be coming our way. If the High Council had shown up in force tonight, I don’t know if any of us would be standing here right now. If the demon had wanted more than to taunt us, I worry we’d be just as fucked. Reality backhanded me brutally tonight, and it’s clear we need to step shit up and prepare. Ready or not, they’re coming, and no matter what happens...we can’t let them win.
12
Ilean back against Rogan, resting my cheek against his bicep as we watch Elon work. He shifts me in front of him and wraps his arms around me in a strangely comfortable chokehold-ish cuddle. I settle against him, my back to his front, and he drops a soft kiss to the top of my head as I do. The small but sweetly intimate gesture makes me smile, and I reach up and lace my fingers with his.
Elon types away at the kitchen island, his laptop the most high tech thing I’ve ever seen. It looks like something out of an end-of-the-world movie that a high up military member hands to the president because it is the case that holds the nuke launch codes. The rest of us are scattered around the kitchen, watching him work with bated breath, but the audience doesn’t seem to faze Elon at all.
“We’re sure about this?” I whisper to Rogan, and I feel him shake his head and sigh against me.
Okay, maybe this is like the hundredth time I’ve asked this question since they told me their plan, but it all feels counterintuitive, and I can’t help but be a little squirrely about it. Rogan nuzzles me, dragging his nose and scruffy face across the top of my shoulder before moving up my neck, and I can’t help but feel a little squirrely about that too.
Moon shits, he feels good.
