“We’re walking into a trap,” I whispered. “Aren’t we?”
“That’s certainly what it feels like.” He thew an arm out in front of me when he stopped a few hundred feet away from the flaming building. After a moment, he lifted his phone to his ear. Time stretched out before us as we waited. Over the roar of the fire, the ringing of the phone sent new waves of unease through my gut.
With a frustrated roar, he hung up on the unanswered call and shoved his phone into his back pocket.
I set my lips into a line. “Trying to get ahold of the others?”
“Yep.” He gripped the hilt of his sword so tight his knuckles went white. “No answer.”
“They’re probably just busy looking for the cult like we are,” I whispered back, even though I scarcely believed the words. The rest of the Legion wasn’t here, like they were supposed to be. And neither was the cult.
If something had happened to them...
I couldn’t bear to even think it. And from the look on Caim’s face, neither could he. I’d seen the way they all were together. I’d heard the emotion in his voice when he’d spoken of losing Morax. Hell, I’d seen with my own two eyes what it did to him. It made him lose himself. It made him want to bottle up that emotion and let go. Just so he could erase the way it made him feel.
I couldn’t begin to imagine what it might to do him if he lost anyone else.
“They’re strong,” Caim said, reading my eyes. “We might be outnumbered, but we have the greater power.”
“What if they have another trick up their sleeves?” I asked, thinking of the witch’s seal Charlie had used against us. It had dulled the demons’ powers. It had lessened their strength. In the end, it had given the cult enough of an edge that their plot had almost worked. The Legion had almost been destroyed.
Almost.
In the end, we’d still managed to win.
But the cult might not make the same mistake twice.
“Anything they use against us, they’d be using against themselves now that they’re demons.” A wicked grin spread his lips. It was the kind of look that reminded me exactly what he was. “If they take away our power, they take away theirs. And they do not want to face us and our swords without supernatural assistance.”
I glanced at the steel and swore I could hear a laugh echoing in my head. A chill swept down my spine. Duly noted.
We took off down the sidewalk once more, approaching the police station. In the distance, sirens whorled through the night. The fire trucks were on their way, but they were far too late. I could already see the inside of the building. Ash and smoke swirled through the air, leaving behind nothing but an empty black husk of the building it had once been. They couldn’t save it now, but hopefully they’d calm the fire enough to save the rest of the block.
Caim jerked his head to the right and led us east, away from the fire. I half-expected the entire cult to leap out of the flames as we passed them by. Clearly, something was off about this attack. They’d lured us all into some kind of trap, but nothing happened.
Unease whispered down my spine. What if Caim and I hadn’t been the target? What if it had been the rest of the Legion?
As if reading my mind, Caim picked up the pace. Our hurried footsteps echoed down the quiet block. We took the next left and rounded another corner. The lights in all the buildings were off. Even the street lamps were dark. My nerves clanged in my belly. A warning toll that made my skin crawl. Everything within me screamed. Even the monster trembled deep within my mind. It was like part of my soul had shattered, like a bowl of water had doused the brightest lights. And every hair on the back of my neck prickled in alarm.
I sucked in a breath, grabbed Caim’s hand, and pulled him into the shadowy corner of a grimy doorframe. “Something’s wrong.”
“I know,” he murmured back. “I can feel it, too.”
“What do we do?” I asked, searching his eyes. “I have a terrible feeling. Like, something is wrong in a way we haven’t even thought of.”
“That’s why we have to keep going,” he said, cupping my cheek with his palm. “You and me. We can do this together, alright? I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“It isn’t me I’m worried about,” I whispered. “I swear it feels like...”
Like someone was dead.
31
Caim
Eva sensed something I didn’t. And the look on her face was enough to shake my soul. Her powers were coming to life, like a newfound gift. Every demon had something, a specialty that others often didn’t. Eva’s could be some kind of foresight. A feeling when something went wrong.
A gift that was a curse.
