“Turn into the parking garage and I’ll let you in. Austin had us move his car so you could park there,” she said.
Jono nodded and followed after her to the driveway entrance that led to the apartment building’s car park halfway down the block. Jono parked where she directed and got out. “Emma’s on her way.”
The woman tilted her head to the side, brow furrowed. “I’ll move my car, then. You head upstairs.”
Jono and Wade walked at a swift pace to the front door of the building, getting let in by another one of Austin’s pack. The stench of sulfur hit his nose the second he stepped inside, and his lips curled at the smell. He hoped it was only Keira they needed to deal with. Handling more than one demon-infested werecreature without Patrick would take some work.
Jono had been to Austin’s territory before and knew the way to the flat. He wasn’t surprised to see other pack members in the hallway standing guard, but he couldn’t hear anything coming through the cracked open door of Austin’s flat. The scent of magic was stark in the air—clean and floral, like expensive perfume. He assumed it was Roxie who had cast a silence ward, but it turned out it wasn’t her.
“What are you doing here?” Jono demanded as he entered the ransacked apartment.
Casale looked their way but didn’t move from his wife’s side. “Angelina got a call for help from within her coven. I wasn’t about to let her go alone. Where’s Collins?”
“In DC.”
“Fuck.”
Angelina Casale looked the same as she had last summer when Jono had first met her in Hera’s home, the heart of the Crescent Coven. That particular group of magic users had been formed to pray for Hera, and even with their goddess now in Greece, they still worshipped her from a different shore.
Angelina barely glanced at Jono, all her attention on the young woman dressed in a tight minidress, her broken high heels cast aside within the pentagram Roxie must have cast. The witch in question stood at one point of the star, her athame held perpendicular to the floor. Magic ran like water through the athame into the containment spell she had cast, lighting up the lines of the pentagram.
Sulfur settled in the back of Jono’s throat like rot. He swallowed against the taste and stepped up to the circle encasing the pentagram, knowing better than to cross it. The demon that had taken over Keira’s soul stared out of her eyes, veins black in her face like pulsating worms. She smiled, and her pretty features twisted into something horrific.
“I do like wolves,” the demon grated out. “They’ve a particular feel one doesn’t get with mundane humans.”
“Get out of her,” Jono snarled.
“Make me.” A cackling, raspy laugh fell from Keira’s mouth, making Austin flinch from the other side of the pentagram. “Oh, that’s right. None of you have the power to force me out, and you won’t hurt this meatsuit.”
Jono stayed silent in the face of that truth, studying the demon wearing Keira’s face. It was a shame Spencer Bailey didn’t work out of New York. Jono could’ve done with the soulbreaker’s power right about then.
“The Catholic Church is sending an exorcism team,” Angelina said in a calm voice that drew the demon’s attention.
Casale stepped closer to his wife as the demon snapped Keira’s teeth at her.
“Those fools can do nothing,” the demon hissed.
“Anything’s worth a shot,” Austin growled.
Jono thought it odd that a witch had called for the Church, but he supposed demons made strange bedfellows. “How long until they arrive?”
“Hopefully soon. I was the one who put in the call to the archbishop,” Casale said.
The demon snarled loudly, the sound not even close to human, but nowhere near the otherworldliness of an angel singing. It lunged at Casale but was thrown back by the containment spell, Keira’s skin sizzling on her bare arm where it had touched Roxie’s magic. Even as Jono watched, the skin started to immediately heal, the werevirus taking care of the wound.
Demons riding werecreatures’ souls was a horror Jono had never wanted to face down in his own city. London had been bad enough. Youssef being dead was one good thing in this whole mess, because if he weren’t already burning in hell, Jono would murder the arsehole the same way he was going to murder Estelle for doing this to their people.
The demon leaned forward, grinning against the heat of the magic, the skin there cracking as it spoke with Keira’s voice. “You think this meatsuit is the only one we stole?”
Jono’s heart missed a beat, a chill running through his body. He stared the demon in the eye and bared his teeth. “If you think I won’t fight to get back anyone you’ve taken, remind Andras what we did to the bastard in London.”
The demon narrowed Keira’s eyes. “We’ll do the same to Ethan’s son.”
Jono snarled, the sound drowned out by the howling in the streets outside the apartment building. Austin did a full-body twitch before he raced for the door, a blur of preternatural speed. The demon in Keira’s body threw back her head and laughed.
“Fuck you,” Jono snarled.
The demon smiled, nothing human in the expression. “You can’t win this war.”
