That wasn’t any better than seven. Seven for the Devil.
With shaking hands, she dug her phone out of her pocket. The numbers were near-illegible in the glaring sun, but after a moment of fierce blinking, she saw that it was quarter to nine. If she didn’t start walking again, she wouldn’t have time to buy food before starting her shift, which simply wasn’t an option for someone like her. Judging from how light her head felt on her shoulders, and the tattoo that was now pulsing in warning, her blood sugar had dipped dangerously low. Not even her medication would make much of a difference at this point; sheneededto eat something.
Gritting her teeth as she scanned the now-empty road ahead, she damned it all to Ignis’s fiery realm and set off again to the Avenue of the Scarlet Star.
6
Around the corner from the Avenue of the Scarlet Star, Darien Cassel kept the engine idling as he leaned on the steering wheel, watching the girl cross the cobblestone street up ahead. The blonde waves that fell to her narrow waist bobbed from side to side, glinting like gold in the sun, the frozen coffee in her hand dripping condensation with each hurried step.
Boasting some of the city’s most prized restaurants and shops, the Avenue of the Scarlet Star was a tourist attraction, so only foot traffic was allowed beyond this point. Which was why he’d had no choice but to park this far away; to wait and see if the girl would return from whichever shop or restaurant she’d disappeared into. Another line of salts snorted into his system had revealed the auras queueing in the Terra Caffe, where he’d found the girl tapping her foot at the back of the line while waiting for her turn to order.
Now, as he watched her weave her way through the crowded street, he realized how conveniently this had worked out, for he’d unknowingly chosen a parking stall with full view of the girl’s last destination.
The cauldron-shaped sign hanging above the chipped door, where the girl was now fumbling through the contents of her bag, readMordred and Penelope’s Mortar and Pestle.After a long moment in which she struggled to first locate her keys and then the keyhole—a moment that was extremely painful to watch, as her incompetent hands were visibly shaking—she disappeared inside.
Darien slumped in his seat. This whole thing had somehow turned into a huge pain in his ass, for not only was a university student his target, but she’d just disappeared into her workplace for what he assumed would be the next six to eight hours. As he considered his options, he remembered the magpies that had squawked so loudly he could hear them through his bulletproof windows. Those Star-damned, fucking magpies.
Because of them, his target had managed to get not one, buttwovery good, very long looks at his vehicle. Not only that, but she’d also managed to take apictureof it. Never in all his years as a Darkslayer had he encountered something so ludicrous. When the girl had dug her phone out of her pocket—out of jeans so tight they were practically painted on—and snapped a photo of his car, she hadn’t the slightest idea that he was there because ofher.
Because of the Stygian salts that had led him from the Temple of the Scarlet Star, where he’d pinned down her aura with the aid of her ancestor’s bone powder mixed into the salts, to Angelthene Academy, the limitless power he’d tunneled into exposing what was hidden beneath layer upon layer of expensive spellwork. He and the other six Devils were the only people in this city who were skilled enough to see a person’s aura consistently through almost any spell; it allowed them to rake in bounties at an unprecedented speed that had earned them not just the right to call themselves theSeven Devils, but their individual reputations as well.
Those reputations were the reason why everyone was so afraid of them; why they were able to demand such whopping amounts. When a Devil was hunting you, there was nowhere you could hide.
It was an interesting thing, this girl’s aura. When he’d first identified it as belonging to his target, it was white.Solidwhite, a sign of innocence, healing, and purity—a color mostly seen in children. Which made sense, considering she was an orphan who was abandoned at the temple as a baby, so the aura he’d located within the walls of the temple would’ve been in its purest form. But when he’d traced it through the city, to Angelthene Academy, he’d discovered that her current aura was almostexactlythe same as the trace herself as an infant had left behind at the temple.
In the time he’d spent following her since nailing down her location at Angelthene Academy, the only other glow her aura had displayed was rainbow. Another rare emanation found only in people who were attuned with the fifth dimension and were highly optimistic and full of energy.
The targets he’d tracked down over the years…not a single one had emitted a white or rainbow aura. Most were gray or jet-black, or a mess of muddy, diluted colors that signified a troubled individual. But white and rainbow?
He’d never tracked anybody with a white or rainbow aura before.
He wasn’t sure what this meant. Which he supposed was why he hadn’t acted—why he was still sitting in his vehicle, pissing time away as he watched her go about her morning routine as though nothing were amiss.
Darien watched as the lights flickered to life in the apothecary. Another fifteen minutes passed before the girl flipped the sign in the window, the letters now reading OPEN FOR BUSINESS.
As he settled into his seat, he wondered how in the hell he’d managed to get tangled up in something so ridiculous. Auras didn’t reveal a person’s breed, but she moved as though she were human. He knew it was impossible; no human life could be worth anyone forking over three million gold mynet to possess.
Half-breed—she had to be a half-breed. Though he wasn’t sure that her being a half-breed would make this situation any better. If he gave enough of a shit to find out, he would have to get close enough to catch her scent.
Any other place, and he would’ve done it already—would’ve separated her scent from those of the other pedestrians. But with the restaurants, stores, and food trucks pumping fragrances and fumes into the air—not to mention the fresh smell of the misting systems cooling the avenue, the reek of the overflowing trash bins in back alleys, and the heady scent of the grape-flavoured blunts the teenaged warlocks were smoking on a nearby corner—his senses were a little overwhelmed.
In all honesty, he shouldn’t care what the girl’s scent might tell him. Shouldn’t give a flying fuck.
He shook his head, as much to dislodge his curiosity as his frustration. “What a load of horseshit,” he muttered.
He leaned back against the headrest, closed his eyes, and waited.
—
Three hours later, and the avenue was crowded. Most of the red-brick shops lining either side of it were tailored to pure-blooded witches and warlocks, though vampires, werewolves, and even humans could be seen making their way down the bustling street.
It was half past twelve when the door to Mordred and Penelope’s swung open. Since the moment the girl had displayed the OPEN sign in the window, countless customers had entered and then left with paper bags stuffed with magical paraphernalia, the odd person carrying out armfuls of potted plants. Considering the apothecary’s steady foot traffic, Darien was beginning to wonder if the girl would even bother stopping for lunch, when a familiar head of golden-blonde hair finally poked out the door.
Her eyes scanned the avenue, never once landing on his car that was concealed behind groups of tourists, high school students, and businesspersons.
Once she decided it was safe to venture beyond the threshold, she locked the door behind her and tacked a handwritten sign to its worn surface. The distance did nothing to mar Darien’s hellseher eyesight—sharp as an eagle’s—as he read the girl’s loopy scrawl.
CLOSED FOR LUNCH. WILL RETURN AT HALF PAST.
