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With all the lights on and no one in the house, the frightening qualities of the place should have vanished. Except now it was all the more terrifying because of the absence.
I shut the bedroom door and stared down the hall to the room where I’d sealed Gamigan in.
I wanted to check, but I also didn’t want to check.
If it was still trapped in the room, we were okay. Santiago could perform his ritual, the demon would be sealed into something forever, and Cain could keep it on his bookshelf, or whatever he wanted to do with it.
Only even with the door closed I didn’t believe Gamigan was still in the bedroom.
“Are you warded?” I asked.
He lifted the sleeve of his shirt, flashing tattooed words I’d seen the previous night at his house.
That was the thing about magic. The words and language didn’t matter. You got out of it what you put in, meaning belief and intention were what gave the words and symbols power. Santiago could have been showing me a Hello Kitty tattoo, and it would protect him as long as he believed it would.
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine.” Physical objects were pointless for me as protective measures. Because of my monthly shift, I’d have to leave behind whatever it was I’d chosen to ward me. Instead, Memere had taught me to craft a psychic charm. I imagined it now, a small jade stone—it had to be simple but specific, something that was the same every time but easy to recall at a moment’s notice—and kept it at the forefront of my mind as we approached the door.
My fingers were trembling.
I walked with purposeful slowness, each step getting me a little closer to an answer I didn’t want. When we were within inches of Laura and Heidi’s room, I didn’t need to get any farther to know what was on the other side. The protection spell I’d cast on the door was gone.
So was the demon.
I pushed the bedroom door wide, since there were no locks engaged on the outside to stop me, and stepped across the threshold, lifting my gaze to the ceiling to be sure nothing was up there to surprise me.
The room hadn’t been touched since yesterday. One bed was made, the other messy, the stamp of both girls’ presence lingering, as if they’d just stepped out and would be back any minute.
Santiago came in behind me, flicking the overhead light on.
I flinched, half-expecting the spider-faced demon to fall on me, fangs out and legs ready to embrace me.
Nothing happened.
“It’s gone.” Santiago paced the length of the room, picking up random objects and setting them back down exactly where he’d found them. “But there’s still magic here, can you feel it?”
I’d only been trying to sense my own spell, not anyone else’s, so I hadn’t tried to get a read on any extra magic. At his words, though, I opened my mind, prepared to sense anything that might have been lingering. It was not unlike being in my wolf form and sniffing the air for a trail left behind by a deer or rabbit.
The moment I let myself open, I could feel the lingering forces in the room. There was a powerful and dark magic in place here.
“Please, please, please.”
Santiago went still, the only thing moving his eyes, which drifted to meet mine.
“Yeah, I hear it. That’s Heidi.”
“You gave the intangible begging entity a name?”
A small laugh escaped my mouth.
Downstairs, the front door opened, and before either of us had a chance to panic, Wilder was already at the end of the hall. He joined us in the room, saying nothing about Santiago’s presence. They shared mutual, silent nods.
“Are you okay?” He came to my side, touching my shoulders, my chin, my waist, his hands moving constantly, as if he was worried by letting me go I might vanish. Who could blame him when an entire party had disappeared in the blink of an eye?
“Yeah. Santiago found an altar in the basement, so I think it’s safe to say Gamigan didn’t come here on his own. But that’s where things stop making sense. Were you still inside when the party, you know…?”
“Ceased to be?”
