Otherworld Nights (37 page)

The blip stopped. I recast quickly. Before I could even get the final words out, Adam was in flight, vaulting onto the desk and tackling a guy. His target was not quite out of his teens. Slender with short brown hair, and that’s all I saw before he started to flicker again. Adam clocked him and he stopped flickering.

“Teleporting half-demon,” I said.

Adam’s look said,
You think?

True, it was obvious, except for the part where this kid hadn’t been the only one to disappear. There are three levels to most half-demon subtypes, depending on the power of daddy. Adam, and my mother, came from the top tier of their subtypes, the rarest one, fathered by a lord demon. Teleporting half-demons have three levels, too. None of them can take someone with them. This kid had.

“You okay?” Adam said, hunkering down as the kid shivered on the floor. Sweat plastered his hair to his head.

“Um …” The kid rubbed the spot on his jaw where Adam had hit him.

“Don’t expect an apology,” Adam said, straightening. “We’ve got a Cabal team out there, somewhere, and the only person who can tell us what’s going on was trying to teleport out.”

“Because you jumped me.”

“Because you teleported
in
behind us. Next time, use the door and say hello. I’m guessing you’re the one who called Savannah?”

The kid nodded and pushed his sweat-soaked hair back.

“Care to talk about that?” Adam said. “Cause we’d kinda like an explanation.”

The kid’s mouth opened then shut, and he looked ready to keel over from exhaustion.

“You’re overusing your powers,” Adam said. “You can’t zip in and out like that. Not at your age.”

I nodded. “Like Adam said, doors work just fine. Save the zipping for when you really need it.”

“Adam.” The kid lifted his gaze to the guy standing over him. “Adam Vasic. Your dad—your stepdad—he’s the expert, right? On all this. The demon stuff. He’s the guy I wanted to talk to, but Denver …” He swallowed. “Denver wouldn’t listen. He said it wasn’t safe. So he talked to a demon instead.” The kid choked on something like a bitter laugh, cracked around the edges. “Stupid jerk. Stupid, stupid—”

I clapped a hand over the kid’s mouth, whispering, “Shhh!” as my sensing spells picked up a presence.

A footstep creaked in the hall. I mouthed to the kid, “Which Cabal?” but he only frowned. More footsteps. Meaning more than one operative. I took out my phone, typed
Which Cabal?
and showed the kid, but his expression didn’t change. Meaning he had no idea what I was talking about.

The biggest problem with being a half-demon is that it’s not the usual kind of hereditary power, where whichever parent passed it
along is there to tell you what’s going on. Dad’s long gone, leaving Junior to figure it out. Adam had gotten lucky—when he started showing a disturbing affinity for fire, his mom wasn’t the type to tell herself he’d outgrow it. She went looking for help and found Robert Vasic.

To help with the problem of discovery, half-demons have an intricate network funneling kids and teens to the answers they need. It’s an imperfect system and it seemed as if this kid was only partway through it. As for why a Cabal was after him …? I had a pretty good idea about that. What mattered now, though, was getting him the hell out of their path.

I texted Paige. She replied right away. They were tracking two members of a Cabal team around the outside of the building. I told her I was more worried about the ones
inside
.

On it
, she replied.
Be ready
.

Fight or flight?

Flight
, she answered.
Sorry. You’ve got baggage
.

In other words, we had a civilian to look after.

The guys in the hall had started opening doors. They seemed to be locked, which meant it took a few seconds for each. Once we took cover, I typed another question for the kid.

Can you get us out? Teleport for three? Or two?

When he mouthed, “I can try,” Adam shook his head. The kid was out of juice, and we needed to find another way. Unfortunately, we were locked in a tiny office, with Cabal goons patrolling the only exit.

Our door opened.

“Hiding under a desk?” the guy said despite the fact we were well hidden. “Not quite living up to your reputation, are you, little witch? Surprise, surprise. Proof you don’t have sorcerer blood after all. Just a cowering witch-mouse.”

I started to fly out, but Adam’s fingers wrapped around my wrist. I swallowed the temper flare. Jumping out, spell blazing, was
exactly what the guy expected after that insult. I knew better … and I still fell for it. Immaturity or sensitivity? Probably some of both, with a generous helping of ego mixed in.

Adam motioned for the kid to move behind the next desk. When he hesitated, Adam gave him a push.

“Do you think I can’t see you moving?” the Cabal agent said. “Casting from behind another desk isn’t going to help, little witch. I know where you are.”

A heat sensor. That’s what the guy was using, not spells. The sensing one is witch magic. Sorcerers can learn it—Lucas had—but most don’t bother.

Adam motioned for me to go the other way, behind the next desk. As I did, the guy grunted. Then he said, “Mr. Vasic, I presume. Too bad your powers require physical contact. Not much use against a sorcerer, but from what I hear, you aren’t quite bright enough to figure that one out. A charging bull, just like your demon daddy.”

The guy didn’t know shit about demons. Asmondai preferred to think things through.
My
granddaddy was the charging-bull type. Which I suppose explains why I’d fallen for the taunting and Adam only rolled his eyes.

The guy kept talking. Mocking us. I waited until he got to “yo momma” jokes about mine, signaling he was coming near the end of a very limited repertoire. Then I threw a fireball at the guy behind him.

Yes, there was a guy behind him. If there are two Cabal grunts in a hallway and one finds his target, the other’s not going to keep looking. My sensing spell had confirmed that, so I hurled a fireball, which confused the hell out of the sorcerer. A
fireball
coming from the location he thought held Adam? Clearly Asmondai’s son had learned a new trick. The sorcerer quickly cast a spell. I dispelled it and slammed him with a knockback as Adam flew from behind his desk and launched himself at the guy.

Cabal dude number two had recovered from the fireball and was leaping at Adam when he got double-whammied. I cast at the same time as someone in the hall—Lucas or Paige. The guy went down. I ran out and pinned him there as Adam dealt with his target, which took all of thirty seconds, because if a sorcerer won’t learn witch magic, all you have to do is grab his hands and he can’t make the appropriate gestures for sorcerer spells. I had my guy flipped onto his stomach and was checking his pockets when Paige jogged down the hall.

“Did I miss a letter in ‘flight’?” Paige asked. “Or did you willfully misread it?”

“Pure defense,” I grunted as my target struggled. “We tried hiding. It didn’t work. Plus, he made fun of us for it.”

She shook her head and handed me a plastic tie from her pocket. I secured my target while she tossed another to Adam.

“Leave them to us,” she said. “There are more on the way. Lucas is holding them off.”

“Are you sure? We can—”

She pointed into the office, where the kid was peeking from behind a desk.

“Right. Half-demon civilian to worry about. Come on, kid. Let’s get you out of here.”

We tried to get the kid talking on the drive back, but he was too busy watching for trouble, likely ready to zap out at any provocation—including being forced to talk when he didn’t want to.

As we led him into our office, he looked disappointed. The outside is underwhelming. Oh, hell, even inside it’s not exactly Cabal executive suites. The first time I came there, when Lucas and Paige bought it, I’m sure I made some less than enthusiastic comments about the dull industrial facade. Truthfully, though, I couldn’t have been happier. This was their dream. I’d rolled my eyes at that,
too—opening a private investigation firm to help other supernaturals … supernaturals who might not always pay their bill … who might not even
be
billed. Deluded do-gooders, both of them. But it was what they wanted and, more than that, it had meant that we were staying in Portland. Indefinitely. At that moment, we became a family.

But yes, the building itself wasn’t much to look at. You don’t run a supernatural detective agency out of a Pearl District office tower.

Lucas and Paige own the whole building. We rent out the lower offices to tenants who are not supernaturals. That might seem dangerous, but, given who Lucas is, any supernatural who applied would almost certainly be a Cabal spy, possibly even a
Cortez
Cabal spy, sent by Benicio to protect his son. We can handle the protecting part just fine. When the kid saw the sheer amount of security needed to get up to our offices, he visibly relaxed.

“That guy said you’re a witch,” he said as I cast a protective spell.

“Yep.”

“He seemed to be casting spells, too.”

“Yep.”

I led the kid into the meeting room while Adam checked the security system. I could tell the kid wanted to ask more about my powers. The problem with rescuing a civilian from Cabal goons and whisking him to a secret, spell-guarded location? He’s going to lose that civilian innocence fast. Under normal circumstances, we don’t go around revealing ourselves, but you can’t protect a supernatural from other supernaturals without employing means that are, well, supernatural.

“Coffee? Coke?” I said.

“Coke, please. And do you have ice? For my arm. I think Adam burned it when he grabbed me.”

“First-degree,” I said. “It’ll clear up in a day or so. I’ll get you some ointment. I buy it by the bucket.”

Adam was walking in as I said that. It was for his benefit, and I shot a grin his way. He didn’t seem to notice, just walked to the fridge and took out a can of Coke.

“Two more please, garçon,” I said.

He shut the fridge door and popped open his can.

“Was it something I said?” I asked as I walked to the fridge.

“Hmm?” He glanced at me, his eyes unfocused, mind elsewhere. When he realized I was taking out two more cans, he mumbled something like an apology and settled into a chair. I tried to catch his eye, but I’d lost him. It’d been a long day—flying halfway across the country and helping me in two fights. Plus the sex, which had been kinda strenuous. I didn’t blame him for zoning out now that all was quiet.

I gave the kid his Coke and the ointment. “You have questions; I have questions. Considering we just saved your ass from a team of Cabal goons, how about I go first?”

He hesitated, then slowly nodded. “Sure.”

“First, a name. It makes communication much less awkward.”

“Keefer.”

I waited for more. When it didn’t come, I said, “Outside the military and paramilitary worlds, we prefer first names.”

“That is my first name.”

“Oh. Got it.” I paused. “Wasn’t there an actor …? In the nineties or something …?”

“Sutherland. Yeah. Mine’s spelled different.”

“And your last name?”

“Rather not. Sorry.”

I glanced at Adam, but he was still zoned out. I popped the top on my can and took a gulp. “Okay, Keefer. I get that you want to play this close to the vest, and I don’t blame you, because ninety-nine percent of the time that is the correct move in our world. Probably in any world. But if you expect us to help you, we’re going to need to feel like you’re on the level. A surname will help.”

He fidgeted in his chair. Then he said, “Brown.”

“Brown. Okay. So—”

“I’m going to check on Paige and Lucas,” Adam said, cutting me short. He pushed to his feet and was gone before I could say a word. I stared after him. Then I looked at the spot he’d vacated, his Coke can abandoned.

Something’s wrong
.

No, he was tired. Understandably so. I pushed my brain back on track. What had we been talking about? Names. Right. Keefer Brown.
Brown
 … Oh, shit.

“Denver was your …” I almost said “cousin.” Hell, distant cousin.
Please let it be a very distant cousin you barely knew at all
. But I looked at Keefer and I flashed to that split-second glimpse of Denver before his death, and instead I said, “He was your brother.”

“Yeah.” Keefer rubbed his hands briskly against his legs, the
skritch-skritch
of the friction filling the silence. “Which is why I didn’t want to give my name. Let’s skip that, okay? Just move on.” Skip that. Move on. Words that sounded so callous if you hadn’t lost someone close. If you did, you understood.
Nope, don’t want to talk about my mom. Nope, nothing to see here. Move on
.

The young man who’d died in that apartment didn’t just have a name now. He had a family. A younger brother who was sitting right in front of me. A younger brother who’d learned of his death by me saying “one fewer demon summoner in the world isn’t necessarily a bad thing.” A younger brother who’d almost walked into that room filled with blood and viscera, his brother’s remains, spattered over the walls and floor and ceiling and—

I yanked open the door and looked for Adam. No sign of him. I closed the door and took a seat.

“It was quick,” I said finally. “His death, I mean. Really quick. He wouldn’t have known what was happening. He wouldn’t have felt anything.”

“Okay.”

“And you don’t seem to know a lot about our world, but I can promise you he went someplace good. My parents … Well, they’re gone, but I know where they are and they’re happy, and they ended up in a decent place even if they didn’t quite deserve it.” I forced a smile. “So your brother will be someplace good. Which I know doesn’t really help a lot, because he’s not here and …” I cleared my throat. “Sorry. Babbling.”

“It’s okay. Thanks.”

“Move on?”

“Please.”

I chugged the rest of my Coke and tossed the can. It clanged as it circled the rim of the trash, then fell in.

“Two points,” Keefer said, passing me a weak smile.
Moving right along …