But Kerry couldn’t see anything, and if I was seeing demon magic yet the one demon among us couldn’t see it, what did that mean? “How can there be a Veil tear here?”
“Describe it,” Victor demanded. “Is this like what you saw in the stairwell before you vanished the last time?”
“Yes, and no?” This was a thousand times clearer. Like a giant Gothic door cracked with sizzling lightning edges, yawning into a dark gray void of faintly flickering lights. Voices, distant and muted, trickled through the opening.
“It’s coming.”
“Oh God, please save us.”
A child cried. Someone shushed it.
Metal screeched, making me flinch, but I lunged forward. Angel held me firm, his shifter strength making my thrashing pointless.
“Someone’s in there! They need help.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Victor said, taking a step between us and the tear. I feared he’d walk right through it. “I don’t sense anything.”
My gut flipped over as I realized this was just like the portal I’d accidentally dragged Angel through. The one that led us to that otherworld prison. And there were people on the other side of this. I turned my gaze to Angel. “There are people in there,” I whispered. “Calling for help. You don’t hear it?”
He shook his head and held tight.
“It could be a trap,” Kerry pointed out. “That shadow thing seems to want Jude. Maybe it’s trying to lure him?”
“Are you hearing Ivan again?” Angel asked me.
“No. People. A kid for sure. Maybe a man and a woman? It’s hard to tell. The voices are faint.” The sobbing continued, faint and wrenching, laced with fear, though I had to strain to hear it.
“Bobby, can you hear me?” Angel spoke into his earpiece.
“Roger,” Bobby replied. “We’ve swept halfway up, no sign of life or other occult traces.”
“We need you to run a spectral sweep up here on the roof deck. Jude’s got some sort of portal in view. Hears voices from it.”
“A tear within a tear?” Wade asked back.
“Yes,” I said.
“On our way up,” Bobby’s voice crackled through the earpiece.
Victor stalked the length of the deck, gaze peeled.
The child’s sobs twisted into a scream. The sound drilled straight through my skull, making my heart race, and I fought Angel’s grip to get to the door. “Someone’s in danger!”
The tear pulsed violently, electricity supercharging the edges of the entry as if powering up. I sucked in half a breath as the entire building lurched. The rooftop tilted sideways, sending us all sliding.
“Fuck!” Kerry cursed as she and Victor slammed into the glass barrier. Cracks spiderwebbed through the panes with an ominous crunch.
Angel’s grip on my hand became a vise as we skidded across the concrete, speed increasing as we headed for the wall. If we hit the glass too, I knew it’d break and we’d all plummet to a grisly death. Angel caught the edge of a bolted table, slowing our slide as the building shifted the other way, swaying as if the damn thing were an inflatable tube man rather than a concrete modern monstrosity.
Victor lunged for us, half catching one of the bolted lounge chairs as his fingers grazed my jacket and missed. The world swam in a whirl of motion. Kerry scrabbled for something to hold on to. Victor clung to a chair. Angel’s grasp yanked free from the table, though he refused to let me go as we suddenly careened toward the open black maw of the strange Veil door.
“Angel!” I gasped as we slammed into the darkness. Half a second of fluid, icy cold, Angel clinging to me as we plunged through the portal. We fell, weightless for a moment, seeming to float, as gravity righted itself. Then concrete rushed up to meet us.
Angel took the brunt of the landing with a loud “Oof.”
“Sorry, sorry,” I grumbled, rolling off him and staring up at flickering fluorescents. The portal had vanished. “Is this a parking garage?”
Identical concrete pillars stretched into the distance, numbered stalls with familiar vehicles. Angel rubbed his ribs, scanning our surroundings.
