Page 26 of Unbound

“All right,” I say as I set my phone down. We’re still in the kitchen and Marie called. She was able to hear back pretty quickly about the sigil drawn on the floor of the Reaper’s clubhouse. “We don’t have a name, but more a type. We were right. It’s a chaos demon, and these kinds act kinda like a djinn.”

“Great,” Antonio sighs.

“What’s that?” Devon asks.

“Think of it like a practical joker, but every joke ends in a rather violent death,” I explain.

“Well, that sounds super fun,” Devon quips.

“Right,” Antonio says, leaning back as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Talk about tempting us with a good time.”

“How do you kill one of these?” Xavier asks, stopping behind me. His hands land on my tense shoulders, and I close my eyes in a long blink. I’m tired, but not tired enough to sleep, and I don’t even know what time it is anymore. My sleep schedule is so messed up.

“With a djinn,” Antonio starts, “there’s a specific way they have to be killed, but I don’t know it off the top of my head. We’ve never come across one before, luckily.”

“Djinns play games, right?” Mabel asks as she pours herself a cup of coffee, pretending to take a sip. “I remember hearing about one when I was in the Order.”

“Yes,” I tell her. “They get inside your head and basically steal your energy while you’re living in some alternate fantasy world or something like that. I don’t know if anyone we know has ever actually fought one. It’s more the kind of thing you hear about in hunter legends. Djinns are dangerous and hard to fight.”

“So if this thing is similar to one but also demonic, that’s going to make it worse,” Theo notes, struggling to keep the sarcasm in his voice. He’s nervous. As he should be.

“Much worse,” Leo says, sliding the iPad closer. “I mean, I don’t think djinns need to kill sixteen people just to break free.”

He tips his head as he swipes through the photos. “Actually, I don’t even know if this demon needed to kill sixteen people to get here. It could’ve just wanted to.”

“And set up a ritual almost identical to one that already happened just to fuck with us,” I say.

“I thought you said the demon wasn’t that smart.” Theo shifts his eyes toward me.

“I did.” I lean back against Xavier, who is now massaging my very sore shoulders. “And I still think the ritual was significant. Whatever was attempted at Camp Dogwood never got finished. I think this was the plan the whole time. But chaos demons don’t just cause chaos. They cause confusion too, because when you’re confused and don’t know what to believe, you’re easier to influence.”

Mabel loudly slurps her coffee only to spit it back into the cup, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “This is a lot to keep track of. I feel like we need one of those giant whiteboards from a movie so we can write everything down.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Antonio tells her, then looks toward Xavier and Theo. “Any chance you have one?”

“No,” Xavier tells him. “I’ll order one. I think we all know this isn’t going to be the last time we come up against something like this.”

“Hang on,” Mabel says. She sets down her coffee cup and zooms out of the room and returns seconds later with a notebook and pen.

“Here’s what we know,” she starts. “The Order wanted to release a powerful demon because they thought they could control him and use him to do their bidding, whatever that was. For some reason, they chose Vaelric, who had been locked away by the Blackwood witches.” She starts writing. “They figured out they needed fresh Blackwood blood straight from the source to release the demon, which explains the series of events we just lived through. We also know Vaelric is in charge of other demons, and we’re assuming this chaos demon is somehow under his command.” She underlines the word assuming. “Whatever demon that killed the Reapers is definitely loose, dangerous, and probably isn’t going to sit idly by waiting for the next command. Right?”

She looks around at us.

“I guess that’s another assumption,” I say, impressed by how well she’s separating facts from theories. “But I don’t think it’s going to sit idly by either.”

“Okay.” She makes a few more notes, her hand flying across the page at human speed. “Is there any way to figure out the names of the demons Vaelric commands?”

“Probably not,” Antonio tells her. “If they’re lesser demons, they might not even have names worth recording. Lesser demons are more like spirits anyway,” he explains simply.

“Right. I remember,” Mabel says. Even now, it’s jarring to remember she was once an Order member just like me. She wasn’t allowed to hunt, but she still has the same basic knowledge we all do. We keep trying to come up with some sort of game plan while Mabel excitedly orders food for us again.

I almost remind her there are plenty of leftovers in the fridge, but I don’t want to dull her excitement. If something as small as ordering food makes her happy, I’m going to let her have it. I go upstairs to shower and change while we wait for the food to arrive. Afterward, I wrap myself in a towel and just sit on the bed, unmoving, for several moments.

“How are you doing?” Xavier asks, slipping quietly into the room. He closes the door behind him and sits on the bed next to me.

“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “I’m tired physically and mentally, but I know there’s no way I could actually lie down and take a nap. Too bad I can’t cast a sleeping spell on myself.”

“I can rub your back if you want to lie down now,” Xavier says.