Dee looked inside. Nearly dropped the backpack. She stared down into a space filled to the brim with small jam jars. Their metal lids were pierced through, cloth wicks dangling limply, ready to be set alight. “These… aren’t stink bombs, are they?”
Gremma held out a lighter and Dee took it. “Riley had a recipe for Molotov cocktails and we decided to hold our own version of craft night.”
Dee smiled.
She would not be helpless. A fierce joy seized her. She laughed, and some of her fear dropped away. She had something to fight for. She had something to fight with. And people to fight alongside.
This was how normal people survived their own fairy tales.
They became their own kind of monster.
Gremma grinned. “Anything comes at you,” she said, “burn the motherfucker down.”
That evening, fog hung heavy through Portland.
The city lights were muted, headlights struggling to pierce the thick mist, and Dee watched as buildings and other cars slid by. She had decided to take the bus, to walk the last few blocks herself. Gremma would have driven her and James offered to pick her up, but she declined them both. This was what she wanted—the rattling engine of the bus, the smell of sweat and bodies, the squeak and hiss of the brakes, the gentle sway when it took a sharp turn.
It was strangely meditative, but that was not the true reason Dee got on the bus.
Dee got on the bus to see the other people taking it. She did not put in her earbuds, nor pretend to text on her phone. She simply watched the family of three, a mother and two young sons. Twins, perhaps. The single teenage boy with spiked hair and pierced eyebrows who gave Dee a polite nod when he passed her. The homeless man who spent most of the ride doing a crossword puzzle out of theOregonian.
People. All people. All in danger, if the demons were to be believed.
Dee was no hero. She was afraid.
But looking at these people, she knew there was no running away. She watched them, wondered if their lives were as tentative as her own. And when her stop came, she rose to her feet, thanked the driver, and stepped off. The driver smiled at her—at the teenage girl with Molotov cocktails in her backpack.
The doors to the bank were not chained. They hung open and Dee took a moment, dragging a breath between her clenched teeth, and stepped inside.
James sat on the floor, fiddling with his phone. When he saw her, he scrambled to his feet and hastened to her side. “Hi,” he said, and his smile was almost shy.
She thought she loved him. This boy with freckled feet and paint-smudged hands. This boy who played the world off as a joke, but took others’ suffering seriously. This boy who looked at her and never saw a broken girl—just a girl.
She would say the words. Not tonight, not with the weight of everything hanging over them. But she would tell him.
And for the first time, she thought about what might happen after tonight.
She thought about this summer, and what it might bring. About hot days spent in the loft apartment, of rooms cordoned off with curtains, of a half-constructed kitchen and couches that always smelled of paint. She thought of the freedom of being able to come and go as she pleased, of making her own life. She thought of days spent with James, of going to more art galleries, of watching his ascension into history. He would do it, she knew. He would climb his way into the ranks of the great artists, and she would be proud of him.
Her own future was less defined. Perhaps she would travel, use a fraction of the Daemon’s money to go somewhere she’d never visited. Perhaps James would go with her—she thought of the two of them on some road trip, driving to who knew where with no schedule to bind them.
The thought was a happy one. “Hey,” she said, smiling, and took his hand. Their fingers laced and he gave her hand a squeeze.
She half expected him to make some sort of joke about tonight, but he did not. He simply pressed a kiss against the crown of her head, and then turned to his left.
Riley was sitting by the vault. She was dressed in worn boots, black jeans, and a loose sweatshirt. Her thick eyeliner looked as if it belonged on a football player. She looked ready for war. “Save the lovey-dovey stuff for after we’ve blown up a void, okay?”
James smiled, but it was brittle.
“We’ll be all right,” said Dee, and bumped his shoulder with her own. He felt solid, comforting, and she took strength from that. “We’ve done this before. We’ll have creepy-as-hell backup from the other demons, and thanks to you and Gremma, we have a few weapons.”
Riley shrugged. “Hey, demolitions experts have to know how things burn. I may have… tested a few recipes.”
“You and Gremma are well-matched,” said Dee drily.
Riley gave her a carefree grin.
Then Dee heard the approach of the Agathodaemon. He strode around the corner in his usual suit, an umbrella tucked beneath his left arm. He surveyed the three of them, heaved a little sigh. His step was slow, and he eyed the teenagers the way a buyer might look over a prospective car.
