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Jacob pulled out a map and spread it out on the table. His shadows seemed to constantly billow around him, and I kept a wide circle around him.
"Do you just carry a map with you?" I asked.
"A thank you would be great," he replied as he plucked the reddish hairs from between my fingers.
"He came prepared," Tristan said as he stepped next to me. "You didn't say what you needed help with."
"You didn't have time to prepare," I said, glancing at my brother. I crossed my arms and leaned against the countertop as I watched Jacob work.
"Well, then I guess you got lucky," Jacob answered for Tristan. "He is in the forest, heading north." He tapped the paper near where the portal was.
"Thanks, I can take it from here. It was nice seeing you, Tris, don't be a stranger," I said as I pushed away from the surface. He put his hand out to stop me.
"One, it is you that is the stranger, and two, there is no way we are leaving my baby brother to find someone that he cares about on his own." He counted the list off on his fingers. The broad-shouldered guy pushed off of the wall next to the elevator, up to his full height, he looked like it would make him happy to tear me apart if I dared do something that Tristan didn't want me to do.
"You have a bodyguard now?" I sized him up, I could probably take him.
"Guardian, I'm a guardian, not a bodyguard," he grumbled.
"I don't have time to argue either way. If you're coming, keep up and keep silent." As Tristan and his group of misfits piled into the elevator, I sighed and followed them inside. Once we were outside, I stalked down the sidewalk. They all kept pace with me, each one of them as quiet as they could be like they had past experience with this type of thing. "You should know that this could be dangerous. Demons from Tartus have found a way to come to the mortal world without restriction; they have a portal in the woods."
The big guy groaned and muttered something about imps, Juliana's soft voice soothed whatever complaint he had, and they all fell silent again. Tristan stepped next to me, Alexander, his twin, on the other side. "How did something like that happen?" Alex asked.
"I didn't do it if you were planning on blaming me," I replied.
"Stop it," Tristan said. "We are just trying to understand."
"I'm not sure. I think it has something to do with the demon hunter that lives near here. They seem to target her."
"Or they could go after her because they realized she was in the area. They aren't mutually exclusive," Alex said. He pushed his glasses up his nose as he glanced over at me.
I met his stare, so like the brother I knew, only the other side of the coin. "It's possible," I admitted. "But I've been there whenthey have attacked, they come in a pack, like rabid dogs. Demons are solo fighters, they don't team up like that. We're known to be selfish."
"Yet you are going after someone you care about, directly into danger," Alex stated. It hit me at his words that I was doing exactly that. It struck me mute.
"If it is demons, why don't you just order them home?" Tristan asked.
A dry chuckle traveled up my throat and out of my mouth. "I might be a Prince, dear brother, but I am the spare. They don't respect me enough to listen. But now that you've said it,youcould tell them to go home, they may listen."
"You know why I can't do that," he said. He kicked at a rock on the ground as his tail thrashed behind him.
I knew why he believed he couldn't, but I thought the reason was bullshit, a shield so that he could feel better about abandoning us a second time. But that wasn't why he was here, keeping pace with me, and I pulled my focus back to the situation at hand. Lex and Samantha's emotions had leveled out; there was still something simmering there, but I couldn't put a finger on what it was. The small creatures of the forest scurried away as soon as they sensed us, I picked up on their movement as they hid. It was wet and muddy; the rain falling from the sky only partially stopped by the tree cover.
Alex picked up a stick that could double as a baseball bat, and I lifted an eyebrow at him. "It's just in case," he muttered.
"The shadows will cloak us," Jacob said from behind, seconds before his shadows billowed over the wet dirt and dead leaves, obscuring them just enough that we would be in danger of tripping on a branch.
"I'm not sure the shadows are a good idea," I said.
"Oh, look, did we find a place that your powers don't work?" the guardian said.
"Ollie, you're just jealous I have the cool powers," Jacob replied with a grin, completely unfazed by the teasing from his friend.
"It is up here," I said, breaking up their conversation. I felt them close by. We could hear the rain softly hitting the leaves and the sound of our breath as I strained my ears to hear something more. Footsteps carried through the trees to us, they were headed straight for us. Tension filled my shoulders as they came into view. It was three of them, looking like they had been in a battle and soaked to the bone.
They froze as they caught sight of our group, and Cerberus let out a low warning growl as he crouched down ready to burst into a run and tear us to pieces, if Alastor commanded it. But it wasn't the animal that barreled toward us, it was a shadow lion and an enormous snake. Jacob snapped his shadows in place around us. Would that stop the creations?
A low growl and a hiss of a snake sounded from just outside the barrier. Guess that was a yes. "What do we do now?" I asked. It wasn't like we could stand around in the forest cloaked in the shadows.
