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“Animal sacrifice,” I said.
“It sounded like it,” Ace agreed. “Everyone got paranoid about a satanist cult or some shit like that.”
And, sure, in the course of human history, there were some cults that popped up here and there. And they did do shit like animal sacrifice. For what purpose, I never fully understood. Lucifer himself didn’t give a shit about that kind of thing. All he cared about was the punishment going on down in hell. He damn sure never wanted anyone to sacrifice animals—or people, for that matter—to him.
But you know who did?
“Someone called up a demon,” I said, watching as Ace turned toward me and nodded.
“Seems like it. Or at least tried to,” he said, shaking his head. “The humans have never been good at that sort of thing. Witches can, but I haven’t heard of one doing it in ages.”
“Except when Lenore did it,” I said, thinking of Bael and Daemon.
“That was a mistake, though. Not many witches these days would even want to call up a demon.”
“Was it all over the news?” I asked, wondering if Dale already figured this all out. “When the sacrifices were found.”
“No. Actually, that event happened during a two-year period where there was no local newspaper. The building burned down, and it took a long time to get the funds to rebuild.
“The man who usually did the reporting had to get another job. So news was mostly just word-of-mouth for that time period.
“There was a triple homicide back then too that there is no proof of after all this time. And a suspicious death of a family of four in a fire too. Two suicides,” he recalled. From the far away look on his eyes, I could tell he was putting himself back in that time, recalling the events as he had back then.
“Dark time,” I said, shaking my head.
“Yeah. But then, nothing. It became a relatively safe area. I mean, there are always murders and fires and suicides. But they fell into a more normal pattern.”
“Interesting,” I said, already picturing what Dale might think of that. If she would try to find a way to link the unfortunate events together, and somehow tie it back to the demon, to the possible cult.
Before I could really think that over, though, I was suddenly feeling her.
The half-built wall fell to pieces, and I became acutely aware of a surge of adrenaline that didn’t come from me.
Then a sense of urgency.
It wasn’t long, though, until what I felt was pain.
“What?” Ace asked, and I was distantly aware of him studying my face with pinched brows.
But I was too busy trying to sort of… push myself further into her consciousness.
I wanted to know if she was just doing some sort of training exercise with her team, or if there was something actually wrong.
But then I felt it.
Pure, undiluted panic.
Followed shortly after by pain.
So, so much fucking pain.
I didn’t stop to think.
I turned and ran.
It didn’t take much zeroing in to sense her.
She was at the park.
Which likely meant she was facing up that demon she’d been on the tail of for a while.
Clearly, he was the likes of which Dale had never encountered before. Because I’d seen her fight more than a few times. She did it with a sort of calm efficiency. Or even, at times, a certain kind of dark enjoyment.
Sure, she’d gotten hit, she’d taken blows, she’d been knocked on her ass.
But she never panicked.
And she never took a beating so bad that I could sense almost a sort of defeat inside her, like she didn’t want to feel it anymore, like she just wanted it all to end.
“Hold on,” I hissed, trying to project it out to her, but I knew she was hurting too much to sense anything coming through from our connection. Pain like that overwhelmed everything. You couldn’t move or think. And the only thing you could feel was the unending pulse of agony.
“I’m almost there,” I added on the off-chance I got through in a quiet moment.
Then, just as I was flying down the street that ultimately led to the park, I felt something just as overwhelming as pain.
Grief.
Grief?
For her life? Was she close to the end? Was that motherfucker about to deal a death blow?
I couldn’t even let myself consider that for another second as I pulled up to the park to see a plain blue van sitting there with three kids who looked like brothers sitting inside of it.
Judging by the way they didn’t lose their absolute shit when I finally let go of control and allowed the Change to take me over, I figured they had to be from The Academy.
So maybe Dale’s grief was for another person hurt or killed, not for her own end.
On that, I tore down the empty park, leaning into the feel of her and her pain, then charging into the woods until I finally found a clearing.
