Gwen grumbles, scrubbing her face. “What are you saying?”
Aron throws his arms out. “I don’t fucking know, okay? But from what wedoknow so far, we can assume a few things.” He ticks them off his fingers. “One, we opened ourselves up for possession when we did the séance. Two, our demon needs to torture and kill humans to grow stronger, and we are now what’s on the menu. Three, it wants her.” He points at me. “Don’t ask me why. But it wants her. Four, this town is where it nests, and it has returned here, like frogs return to the same pond every summer to mate. It even went to great lengths to bring Camryn here. We don’t know why or what’s so special about this place, but we know it wants her here.Sheis its fixation. Whatever is going on here is about her.”
Resting my elbows on the table, I rub my temples.
“Maybe it’s bored?” Dominic suggests.
Now it’s Aron’s turn to snort. “It has been stuck here for a long time. Of course, it’s fucking bored.”
“How do we defeat it? How do we stop it from murdering us? We’re sitting ducks,” I say, straightening up. “What if someone opens a window… What then?”
“Well,you’resafe,” Aron grumbles.
I cross my arms and raise an eyebrow, which he ignores as he opens his laptop back up.
Gwen gives me a pleading look. “C’mon, you guys. Let’s not argue.”
“Fine.” I blow a strand of hair away from my eyes.
“It says here,” Dominic says, turning a page in the book, “that a Nebri’hak can only be destroyed with a weapon infused with magic.”
Aron rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because we can easily buy those at Walmart.”
“Magic?” I ask. “But surely… We can’t…”
“What makes a weapon magical?” Gwen asks, ignoring Aron’s sarcasm. “We know it’s not going to be sparks and thunder.”
Dominic picks up the book and drags his finger down the text until he finds what he wants and taps the page. “Nebri’hak can only be destroyed with their own magic. A weapon used on one of these demons infuses it with their magic, like a fingerprint or residual energy. Remember Chernobyl? Ever heard of the Elephant’s foot?”
“The nuclear power plant disaster in Ukraine?”
Dominic shuts the book and puts it back on the table. “The Elephant’s foot is considered one of the most radioactive objects in history.”
“What’s your point?” Aron sounds bored.
“My point,” Dominic bites out, “is that such powerful radioactive energy lasts a long fucking time. Where the Elephant’s foot is concerned, the danger has decreased over time because of the decay of its radioactive components.”
“Are you suggesting the demon is radioactive?”
Dominic scoffs, shaking his head. “No, that’s not what I’m saying, but it feeds on humans like we’re Pop-Tarts to sustain its own energy on our plane. When it bleeds, it leaves a fingerprint, which could be used to kill it if a binding symbol is carved into the weapon ahead of time to lock in the demon’s magic.
“So we can kill it with a weapon if it has the binding symbol carved into it?”
“In theory, yes, but the demon has to be trapped for it to work,” Dominic says, rubbing his eyes. “Then there’s also the problem that we can’t hurt it when it’s outside of a human form. It’s only weak when it’s possessing a human body.”
“I do not volunteer to get shot or stabbed.” Aron holds his hands up.
I roll my eyes. “Let’s just keep looking for clues, like how to trap it. We can’t kill it if we don’t figure out how to trap it first.”
While Dominic plays with my hair, turning page after page in his stack of books, I google the familiar binding symbol and the Kriger family mystery. Every article details the same information, but I keep hunting for something new. There must be something we have missed. Dominic leaves our corner of the library and returns minutes later with snacks and drinks. I’m halfway through a packet of salt and vinegar chips when I straighten in my seat. I smack Dominic’s chest, causing him to frown. “Check this.”
“What?” he asks, leaning in to read the screen.
“Not all of Mr. Kriger’s children disappeared. One of them, eighteen-year-old Magdalene Kriger, was found a week later, wandering aimlessly and muttering to herself in the woods.”
He angles the laptop screen toward him, reading over the article, his eyebrows pulling low in concentration. I scan his side profile and the dark hair peeking out from beneath his backward cap. My chest tightens uncomfortably when I think back on how close I was to losing him. It should scare me how attached I’ve become to him in such a short time, but the truth remains—Dominic makes me feel safe. In fact, he’s probably my only safe place in this world.
His broad shoulders shift as he leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. I’m playing with the dark hair at his nape, when I feel eyes on me, and I meet Aron’s gaze. Looking away, he focuses on his screen.
