“I’m having a blast,” Nico muttered. “Aren’t you?”
“Why didn’t we consider it could be a demon then? If they mimic.” Jonah’s gaze flickered to mine in the rearview. The downward pull of his mouth offered enough disappointment and confusion to make my stomach turn.
“Because it was unlikely. With all maybe twenty-five in existence, with no hunting sightings in the past five years?—”
“Yes, but couldn’t we still at least put the option on the board?” It was the first time he’d interrupted me. Jonah’s grip on the steering wheel made the veins in his knuckles protrude.
“There’s no point in putting something with less than a 1 percent chance on the board of possibilities.” I tried to sound sure and convinced when the ground beneath me softened, threatening to swallow me whole.
“And why not? Why not consider every option…is that not…our purpose? We’re supposed to be different from…the Guild.”
I swallowed a groan because, yes, when a job turned out like this one, it made sense to question where we’d gone wrong. But the echoes of my long-worn confidence left me exposed. Questions, even the valid ones, were paper cuts to my ego. And maybe that’d be bearable if I were stable enough to see the forest for the trees.
December dumped a packet of trail mix in front of me. When I didn’t touch them, she raised a brow and asked, “When was the last time you ate?”
I closed my eyes for a second, unable to give her a solid answer. She nudged the packet closer. “I know this is a lot, but we need you to keep taking care of yourself, too.”
I ripped open the snack, pouring a couple of nuts and raisins into my mouth. They tasted of nothing. My jaw ached as I chewed.
“What are the odds that we’re lucky and this is Balar?” Nico craned his neck to look at me.
“Balar?” Jonah asked.
“Our parents encountered one demon in their hunting days. A Chaos demon called Balar.”
My parents or Nico’s retold the story of Balar whenever they got enough alcohol in them and felt like their age was showing a little too much around the younger hunters. They always said it was the biggest curse and the greatest honor for a hunter to come face-to-face with a demon.
“There’d be more devastation than a couple of minor injuries.” December sat opposite me and dragged my laptop to her, gesturing for me to finish my snack.
“I wouldn’t call simulating being buried alive and choked to death minor,” Nico said.
“She’s right.” I stared out the window; Alpine Peak barely glowed, a small town one might only stumble upon by accident. “It would have made half the town sick by now. Flooded Main Street. Possessed someone to enact violence on its behalf.”
“And since this didn’t do that, then…that means it’s not a Chaos demon?” Jonah tried to reason.
“Not necessarily.” Nico rubbed his hand across the top of his head. “These things are calculating—which is why they prefer mimicking spirits. Most of the time, they don’t get caught unless they want to. And they don’t give away who they really are unless they want to.”
“So how do you know Balar was a Chaos demon?”
“Sometimes they get cocky.” I got up to grab a bottle of water, taking a couple of sips. “Prideful. Like a serial killer who wants the public to know it’s them. Balar left calling cards to incite more terror.”
“So, they are stable enough to mirror spirits. Cognizant enough to plan attacks. Patient enough to see them out.” December handed me a phone with my oldest sister, Dawn’s number already dialed and ringing. “If that’s not water above our heads, I don’t know what is.”
I flinched but accepted the phone. There’d been no chance in hell of me leading a successful charge in solving this case. And yet, knowing that left me wanting to shrink into something microscopic. No one I knew would be enough for the job, and yet, I still needed to reach that impossible standard. Know how to fix a problem that hunters decades my senior hadn’t gotten close to mending.
“Hey, how’s it going, Rae?” Dawn’s voice was high, as if she’d just gotten off the tail end of laughing.
I wiped the back of my handacross my mouth. And here I was, back to square one. Not able to implement solutions I swore up and down I could.
“My current job involves a demon.” There was no use in beating around the bush. “It nearly choked my client to death tonight.”
Dawn cursed. The mic knocked against wood before she responded, “You’re on speaker. Eve and Opal are here.”
“I thought you said the whole reason you quit the Guild was because it was too dangerous. And now, you’ve found yourself a demon and need Guild members’ help?” Eve joked flatly. The twisting of the charm bracelet she fidgeted with twenty-four seven chimed in tandem with her voice. There was always rhythm to her words, melodic cold judgment.
“I never said it was too dangerous. I said its blind following of old beliefs would be dangerous—” I stopped short when December waved her hand at me. She held up my laptop where she’d enlarged the font on her warning,
DO NOT ENGAGE. GET THEM TO FOCUS.
