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“Yeah…” I trailed off and pulled out the paper with the ward drawn on it amongst other runes. “I wanted time to think this out and to hear what you learned about Leif before he returned. He’s going to want immediate revenge.”
“Obviously,” Willa said.
“Believe me, I want it, too.” I folded up the paper and put it away. “But I can’t help but feel things are closing in around us. I need to know what the biggest threats are, which means hearing what you found out about Leif. What if Cassius is working with Leif for some reason? Vampires aren’t demons, and both seem to want Mrak gone.”
Willa nodded wordlessly again and went into her living room to grab her laptop. “I understand. I hope Mrak does.”
“He’ll deal.” This was my body, after all. My call.
Willa glanced up at me from her computer. “I did find some information, but do you want to clean up first?”
She’d tried to ask it gently, but there was no denying the stench of blood and vomit wafting from me.
I grimaced at my clothes again before grabbing my bag. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
Willa leveled me with a look. “After all we’ve been through, a shower is no big deal. Go. I’ll pull up what I’ve learned in the meantime and make you some tea.”
“Thank you.” My stomach growled loudly, as if on cue. I hadn’t eaten since early last night, and I’d vomited up the full contents of my stomach. I didn’t much feel like eating, but it seemed like I should.
Willa chuckled. Gods, she’d heard my stomach from there. “I’ll make you some toast, too. Go.”
I nodded and retreated into her bathroom, where I carefully showered, changed, and threw out the damaged clothes. I’d have to buy more outfits when this was over. If it was ever over. I was starting to think that there really was no escape from feeder communities after you’d already been locked in one for so long.
When I was done in the bathroom, Willa helped me bandage up my upper chest and then I ate slowly, sipping on mint tea, while she went over everything she’d learned.
“Mrak was right about Leif,” Willa started as she brought up screenshots from CCTV footage around the city. She flew through maps in another tab before zooming in on a building downtown. “He regularly visits here, which I only discovered because he frequently does so while on shift.”
“His police car is tracked,” I guessed.
Willa nodded and pointed at the building in the center of the screen. “Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t explored far outside of Dark Iron in the past year. “It’s unmarked.”
Willa held up her finger and grinned. “To the eye from the street, yes, but I did some digging from other photos.” She brought one such image up on the screen. “You can’t see it, but there’s a witch rune on the side of the building. For protection and concealment.”
“So Leif’s a witch and a demon hunter?” That seemed a little extra. But if runes and wards were witch magic, then him being both at least explained his knowledge of them—and that shadow-swallowing sword.
“No, I don’t think so,” Willa said. “That’s the headquarters for the Lunar League, according to a friend of mine.” The name didn’t ring a bell. Willa must have understood the blank expression on my face because she continued. “They’re a proper demon hunting organization. People go rogue all the time, but they’ve got guilds and ranks and everything. They go after big-name demons from our plane of existence, as well as vampires and werewolves who get a little too aggressive and bold.”
I bit the inside of my cheek as I mulled this over. “That explains the ancient book with a runic sword design that’s able to kill Mrak.”
Willa flipped through screens again. “And why he didn’t want you to make the sword. It also just seems powerful. So he was also right that it might kill you to make if you do it wrong.”
“Great,” I said as I sat back.
Willa paused her scrolling on a police academy photo. “Leif graduated a few years ago. I don’t think he’s still an official demon hunter. But he was attached to the case about Lazarus’s feeding community.”
“And all the deaths that came with me burning it down.” No wonder he was so invested. I wasn’t some random victim, but a key person of interest in his investigation. “It’s mind-boggling to me that they can arrest me on some of these murders.”
Willa pulled up a news article with photos of my attackers from the night we’d been at the bar together. “These two? They were also hunters from the Lunar League. And vampires.” She shuddered and brought up a photo of Leif and them together that had to be at least five years old, if not older. “Something must be going on at the Lunar League. Mrak’s presence—maybe his magic when you burnt down Lazarus’s community—is upsetting a lot of people.”
“Yeah,” I said flatly, “because he wants to open a portal home.”
“To another plane of existence, no?”
I nodded. “I get why that might be upsetting. But Mrak said he’d make sure his people don’t do anything crazy if they cross over to here.”
“Didn’t he also say he was exiled?” Willa asked. I now sort of wished I hadn’t told her everything because she was absolutely right about that, and I had no idea what to reply with.
