We had to figure out how to stop her. Not just banish her, not drive her off. Stop her. She’d appear again, and next time, I wanted to be ready. Like Cormac said, the plan hadn’t changed.
I continued to the back of the building and swung around to the front again, where I spotted two men standing just outside the caution tape. They didn’t look like the rest of the gawkers, and they didn’t seem to be acting like investigators, even though they wore dark suits and sunglasses and seemed very official and government-like. They were the same height; one was a white guy with brown hair, the other had olive skin, black hair, short and curly. Their frowning made them seem old. I tried to get a scent off them, but the burning smell was too overpowering
.
Because of the sunglasses I couldn’t tell if they noticed me staring at them. I stopped, surprised and somehow drawn to their incongruous presence. Were they cops? Insurance adjusters? One of them leaned in to murmur at the other, and they seemed to give the building one last look-over before turning to walk away. I frowned. I’d been about to go up and talk to them. I was maybe a little sensitive about strange Men in Black poking around.
Eventually, I made my way to the front of what used to be New Moon. The fire captain shook hands with Ben, gave me a sympathetic smile, and walked away. Cormac was standing back, arms crossed, frowning.
Ben put an arm around me, and I slipped easily into his embrace. “He thinks the building’s a complete loss. Insurance should cover us, financially at least.” We only leased the building. Technically, that wasn’t our problem. But it was going to be a mess to sort out.
“I can’t think of what to do about that right now,” I said. “If I think about it I’ll start crying.” Rubbed my face again, took another deep breath. Moving on. “This happened in the middle of the night. Angelo must know something. If Roman or one of his people is in town causing trouble, Angelo should know—”
“He’ll be asleep,” Ben said. “We can’t ask him until nightfall.”
I wasn’t going to sit around on my ass for the next few hours until dark. “Then in the meantime we need to figure out what’s up with Shaun and the others.”
Something had very decisively destroyed New Moon, the pack’s human center. Had it also gone after the pack? My shock and grief were falling away, and fury rose up to replace them.
* * *
SHAUN AND the others still hadn’t called back.
We hadn’t picked up the pack’s fresh scent at the remains of New Moon—none of them had been here since closing time. We had to find their scent somewhere else. And follow it. Before heading out, we took Cormac’s Jeep back to his place to finish out the round of musical cars. After dropping off Tina, Hardin had returned here to trade Ben’s sedan for her own.
“There’s got to be some way to track that demon,” Cormac said. “Amelia wants to do some poking around, now that we have a name to go with it.”
“Assuming Tina was right,” Ben said.
“Tina’s got a good track record,” Cormac answered.
“You two seemed to get along pretty well,” I said, obviously leading and not even caring.
Cormac glanced at the rearview mirror. “I’m pretty sure she gets along with everybody,” he said, deliberately dodging.
“Well, yeah, but. You know,” I said, because it was vague.
“She’s too smart for that,” he answered.
I was about to ask if that meant he liked her or not, when Ben leaned in, interrupting. “We have to find the pack.” He’d gone stiff, sullen. Tapping a hand on his knee, shoulders bunched up. We had to do something, get out and bleed off this anxiety. Find Shaun and the others.
“You can do that better than I can,” Cormac said. “I’ll go after the demon.”
“You can’t take her down by yourself,” Ben said. “You’ve tried it, what, twice now?”
“Yeah, but she won’t surprise me next time.” His lips curled in his wicked hunter’s grin. “Third time’s the charm.”
What did that mean, when you were playing host to the soul of a wizard?
Chapter 9
DENVER SEEMED suddenly dark. A layer of clouds hung low, bringing a chill and threatening a spring snowstorm. No storm was coming; the world just felt heavy. Even the traffic on the freeway seemed muted.
We went home. The house was fine, and part of the weight that had settled on me lifted. Our enemy hadn’t touched every part of our lives, only the most visible. With the new shape of our world a little more firmly established, we could move on.
Tina was comfortably asleep in the guest room. The temptation to crawl into my own bed was huge, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep until we figured out what happened with the pack. We stopped long enough to change clothes and get some food—heated up leftovers, devoured standing in the kitchen. A second wind, fueled by calories and anxiety, kicked in.
Our house was at the southwestern edge of town, backed up on open space—quick, if limited, access to the wilderness of the foothills. Late afternoon, the sun ought to be lowering toward the mountains, backlighting the pine forest. But clouds obscured the tops of the hills. The sky would just keep getting darker until night fell.