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He shrugged. “She’s family.”
7
NEVER
“Three weeks.” I shook my head, letting myself sink into the frustration and despair that had been trying to drag me down since the day my brother disappeared. “How the hell has that thing avoided me for three weeks? In my city?”
Lily gave me a pitying look. In the beginning, she’d been somewhat patient. Now? She was buzzing with anxious energy, too. “You get that this is different, right? Whatever the demon’s shadow is up to, it’s found some way to stay in this realm without being pulled back to the Nassa.” She sat in one of the two remaining kitchen chairs and kicked her bare feet up on the table. “That matters.”
I didn’t disagree, but facts were facts. My brother was still out there. And it wasn’t like that fucking shadow was keeping a low profile while it was dressed up in my brother’s body. The opposite, in fact. That evil bastard was wreaking havoc on Charleston.
On the surface, the killing and destruction appeared to be random, until you dug a little deeper. Occult shops were ransacked. Self-proclaimed witches were slaughtered. There was a pattern, and every attack had something to do with magic or the paranormal.
“What is it looking for?” I asked again, for probably the fifteenth time in as many days. The obvious answer was magic, but it had to be something specific because it was still out there, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
Lily just shook her head again, for the fifteenth time.
“When is Leo supposed to be back?” I jabbed the enter button on my laptop, bringing the screen to life. The browser window was open with the same five tabs I’d had open for weeks; four for local news stations and one for social media so I could check in on my brother’s friends.
The friend thing was a long shot. I was operating under the assumption that the shadow could access my brother’s thoughts and memories. Whether I was right?
Hey, it was a fifty-fifty chance. Better safe than sorry.
“Any time now,” Lily answered.
Which could mean in two minutes or five hours. Or longer. The guy had adapted to moving through the city well enough, but he was shit with time.
I huffed out an irritated breath. I should have been out there investigating the last known sighting of my little brother with him, but try telling that to a six-foot-something Adonis who’d made it his mission in life to keep me safe.
It was sweet. Even I could admit that, but I was the last person who needed to be handled with kid gloves.
I was just about to flip the laptop shut again when a Breaking News banner flashed red across the screen. The video cut to a shaky, half-blurry image of an attack in progress. It was probably being filmed by some coward on their cell phone who was more interested in making a buck or getting a few—
“Fuck.” I shot up out of my chair and glared at the screen. “This is happening right now.”
Lily moved around beside me. Even with the condition of the video, I recognized my brother. On the plus side, I knew exactly where he was. I brushed past Lily, snagged my jacket off the hook by the door, and headed out.
“You’re not going alone,” Lily called after me.
“And I’m not waiting,” I threw back. I charged down the hall at a run, taking the stairs down as fast as I dared, dodging neighbors I didn’t recognize as I worked my way to the ground floor.
By the time I was shoving through the dingy glass doors at the front of the building, Lily was right on my heels.
“That was fast.” I glanced down to see her sporting a new pair of tennis shoes without socks.
“Would’ve been even faster if I wasn’t in this form,” she grumbled.
I wanted to tell her she could shift back into a dog anytime she wanted, but we both knew she couldn’t. She’d tried to shift into her tiger dozens of times. Leo had tried to shift too, but all he’d managed to do was make his eyes glow an eerie yellowish-green and elongate his canines a little. It was enough to put my hackles up, but that was about it.
“Speaking of,” I started, breaking into asteady jog. “Have you tried again recently?”
When I was met with silence, I tossed a glance over my shoulder. She was glaring at me like I was an asshole for even asking.
“Every day, Never. You don’t get how frustrating it is not being able to shift. It’s a basic, fundamental part of what we are. For you, it would be like not being able to, I don’t know, skip. In your head, you know how to do it. You’ve done it a million times. But no matter how hard you try, your muscles just won’t work the way they’re supposed to.”
Skipping? I hadn’t even tried skipping since I was a kid. We’re talking elementary school. Still, I understood the point she was making. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
At least it wasn’t just her. The fact that Leo couldn’t shift either had to offer at least some consolation.
