Fatima found him rather than the other way around. She popped into existence right in front of him, forcing Spencer to draw up short. She lashed her tail from side to side, whiskers quivering as she eyed Takoma.
I remember this one, she said.
“Yeah, surprises are happening all over the place tonight,” Spencer muttered, scanning the crowd. “Where are they?”
With the sorceress and her partner.
“Oh, that’s just fucking great.”
If the demons were after Caitlin or other coven members, that was a detail the field team had failed to pick up on. Considering what the Ouroboros Mirror was used for, they should’ve anticipated such an angle.
Takoma pressed up against his back, breath blowing cool across his ear as he pushed air through his lungs to speak. An involuntary shiver jerked up Spencer’s spine. “What did she say?”
“They’re around.”
Spencer didn’t use names, not here out in the open. Too many people from the supernatural and preternatural communities were milling about, and all of them had curious ears. He didn’t particularly want to shout out government business where they could hear.
He pushed forward, sliding around a knot of people who sparked as magic users to his sight and who very obviously recoiled away from Takoma. Spencer ignored them in favor of eyeing those assembled, the world a mix of varying points of brightness. It burned like the sun, but his eyes didn’t water. They never had.
He could read a crowd like this and know the threats held within. It didn’t take long for Spencer to find the first demon riding a human soul amidst the glitz and glamor. Half a circuit around the crowd gave him enough awareness of the problem at hand.
Spencer stared at the older, broad-shouldered man with a neatly trimmed beard three tables away, dressed in a dark suit with tails and a crisp white button-down shirt, laughing at whatever someone standing near him had said. Spencer sucked air through his teeth, wishing it was all the champagne left in the glasses he was still carrying around. “That’s a fucking migraine waiting to happen.”
I told you, Fatima sniffed.A problem.
A woman in a black beaded evening gown who’d been staring at them from her spot by one of the tables glided over. She appeared older in that graceful way women of a certain wealth status hoped to achieve through a lot of money. But money wasn’t the only thing that gave her steel in her spine; she had magic in her soul, spiking through her aura.
“Do you have any manners at all?” the witch asked, directing her question not to Spencer but to Takoma with a fearlessness that was all arrogance. “Always showing up where you’re uninvited.”
“The museum is public space. There is no threshold to keep me out,” Takoma replied, not even bothering to look at her.
“You needn’t harass the help.”
Spencer bit the inside of his cheek, a little amused that someone like her was trying to come to his aid. He doubted it was out of the goodness of her heart and more likely looking for an excuse to kick Takoma out. Thresholds never stuck on public properties, but temporary restraining orders might. Although, considering Takoma’s statement, Spencer was pretty certain he probably had cops on his payroll.
“Thanks, but I’m fine,” Spencer said, giving the woman his most charming smile. “He can bite me if he wants, but only after I finish work. Care for another drink?”
The judgmental look she gave him promised no further help from her corner, which was what he wanted. “No, thank you. If you’ll excuse me.”
She walked away from them, and Spencer tracked her movement, watching as she made a beeline for Caitlin. One of the women standing near the socialite and her date was the second person who had a demon riding their soul. Spencer clocked the shadows in the young woman’s soul in an instant. He watched as the witch neatly inserted herself in that knot of people, gaining everyone’s attention. Spencer swiftly turned his back on them, catching Takoma’s eye. He flexed his free hand, wishing there weren’t several hundred people around so he could exorcise some demons in peace.
But peace wasn’t on the agenda, judging by the sound of shattering glass and screams coming from the front of the museum, followed by the snarling howl of werecreatures.
Spencer tossed the tray of drinks aside and headed toward the fight, barely catching sight of the blur that was Takoma racing on ahead.
CHAPTERFOUR
Fatima disappearedbetween one step and the next with a thought directed his way.I will keep an eye on the demons here.
Spencer shoved his way through the crowd, losing sight of the two people near Caitlin with demons in their souls but no longer worried about having demons at his back. Fatima would warn him if they came for him.
The guests around him weren’t dressed for a fight, and quite a few women tripped over the skirts of their gowns or lost their balance on their high-heeled shoes in their haste to escape. A middle-aged woman went down with a cry a few feet from him, but Spencer couldn’t stop and help her.
When he managed to shove his way into the ticketing and information area, the space was sparsely populated. That made it easier to see the blood on the ground from a man’s ripped-open throat and another woman’s gouged-out torso. The two werecreatures responsible for the murders were currently facing off against Takoma. The master vampire stood between the threat and the three people huddling within the information desk. Those three looked about one breath away from passing out.
Spencer slid his sight sideways for a second, long enough for him to know the werecreatures—whoever they were—had demons riding their souls. He grimaced, thinking about London and Paris and the whole damn mess with hunters and demons a couple of years ago.
Oh, please don’t start that shit here.
