She raised her hands, and in seconds, the scene was before us thanks to her gift from the Earth Element. She can manipulate time to recreate past events. Cool, right?
Once the scene was before us though, my pride about Haven completely vanished as I sighed in total exasperation. “Oh, just f**king wonderful.”
A Demon, yeah I recognized one, was doing some kind of ritual. He drew a rune on the ground with black ash, and to my horror, used human blood as well. The rune was a simple pentagram, but on each point of the star was a tribal symbol, looked almost like music symbols, but just different and evil.
The man who lay dead in the center had a deep cut in his stomach, and the demon kept dipping his hand into it, then slowly walked around the circle to let the blood drip into the ash.
The worst part was that the human’s face was frozen in a state of deadly shock. Mouth wide open, eyes terrified—complete yuckiness! Like, never get the image out of your head, icky.
After a final drop of blood landed on the ash, the Demon shimmied into a black ghostly nothing and they vanished into a black puff of smoke. All that remained was the pentagram.
The vision froze and we all just stared at each other. I’d never seen anything like this, nor heard of it for that matter.
“This is peculiar,” Kyden finally said.
I laughed. “Peculiar? You’re kidding right?”
“Right alarming, does that suit you better?”
“Yes, much better,” I said aloud, which earned me an odd glance from Foley.
“A demon.” Foley bent down and examined the pentagram on the ground, which still sat before us. “We were contacted by an anonymous source who told us of this incident. Nothing about demonic forces was mentioned. Leads me to wonder who would’ve known about this?”
Yeah, I wondered that myself. I glanced down at the pentagram and noticed an image in the center that appeared to be just a fancy pitchfork, and looked tribal. My gaze snapped back to Foley. “Dark ones, that’s who.”
“What do we do?” Haven asked. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. What the heck was that demon doing?” She pulled back her magic and the rune vanished before our eyes. Apparently, whoever had called it in, had taken the time to clear the ground of the ritual that had been started.
“What do you think?” I asked Kyden. I was at a complete loss. My familiarity with demons was only what I’d seen so far. Runes and such were very much not in my knowledge base.
Kyden sighed. “I’ve never seen anything like this. We need to discuss this with Misa. Of anyone, she should know what this is all about.”
“Just what I want to do,” I sighed. “Take another trip down under.”
* * * *
The moment I stepped foot in the spectacular glass home, a horrible feeling in my gut formed. Misa’s home once belonged to Magnus. Being back here was a big fat reminder of him and quivers shot straight down my spine.
“It’s all right, Álainn.” Kyden leaned down and kissed my lips softly.
It settled the tremors, but I still didn’t like being in the house. It only solidified my need to get on with this.
Three times, I had repeated the story of what we saw, and Misa was having a hard time processing it. She stood, mouth wide open. With an action that looked forced, she clamped it shut, but the bemused expression never left her face.
We all stayed that way for a total of fifty breaths—I counted.
“Soooo…” I finally said. “Are you going to say something?”
Misa’s mouth slowly parted, then to my annoyance, she repeated, “You saw what?”
“Please do not make me repeat it.” I rubbed my temples. For Christ sakes, did I really need to go over this again? The story had run dry and to me it didn’t seem all that bad anymore probably because I’d told it for the umpteenth time.
Kyden chuckled.
Misa gave her head a little shake, I suspected to clear her surprise. “Let me get this straight. A human was in the center of a pentagram. There was a tribal-looking design in the center with other symbols at each point. The demon used the human’s blood along the pentagram, then poof, the human and demon disappeared. Is that right?”
I gave a tired nod. “To put it simply, yes.”
She stood from the couch we sat on and began to pace. Her expression tight, her jaw even clenched a few times.
Oh, this was so not good. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what all this was about. If a demon was worried, shit was about to go down. I mean really, what could a demon be worried about?
“What does it mean?” Kyden demanded.
Misa stopped pacing and glanced back to us. “I have no idea. I’ve never in my time heard of a human and demon who just poofed into nothing.”
“You haven’t?” I gasped.
She shook her head, very slow. “It’s not a normal occurrence. We drain life forces, not kill the human entirely. It’s not a normal thing for a demon to do a ritual. Warlocks, yes. Witches, yes. But demons don’t need to.” She spun on her heels and headed for the front door. “Let’s go to Quinney. She is older and may know what this is about.”
Kyden and I quickly jumped up to follow her. I just wanted the hell out of this house. Returning here, with no good memories, was still too new. The moment we stepped out into the night, I inhaled deeply and sent all those memories back to the place I never go to. Hidden deep within.
Kyden took my hand, smiled down to me and a blast of love coursed through me. Ah yes, happy memories, those were the ones to focus on.
As we walked past the houses, it was still hard to accept that it resembled a gated community, but in a large pentagram. Demons glanced out their windows at us and bowed as we walked by. My body shivered. It still gave me the hebejebes at just how normal this all appeared.
The homes however were fantastic. The American dream.
Quinney’s home was no exception, with its white limestone walls, cast-iron gates, limestone arches, massive courtyard and sculptured fountains.
Before we could even reach the door to knock, the door opened. “My Lady. My Lord.” Quinney bowed.
“Hello, Quinney. It’s nice to see you again and you don’t need to do that.” Someday I’d get to stop the repeated instruction, but for now I let it go.
She gave a kind smile and waved us through. “Please do come in.”
Tonight her angled bob hair looked even redder and glossier. She’d either dyed it or opted for a brighter look. Whatever it was—it looked damn good. Not like I’d tell her, it was neither the time, nor appropriate, I thought.
As we entered, Tyde stepped through a doorway just off to the right and gestured for us to enter.
I followed Quinney into the sitting room. The room was elegantly designed with simple black microfiber fabric couches, red walls, and flowers in tall vases everywhere. The scents in the air were inviting and soothing, to say the least. Not really the décor to expect from a demon, but these weren’t just any demons. These were good demons. Insane, but true nonetheless.
Quinney motioned us to the couches, and we sat. She and Tyde, however, stood in front of us. It was awkward. “You can take a seat you know.”
“As you wish, Nexi.” Quinney and Tyde sat opposite us in the loveseat.
Immediately, I took notice of the way they sat close together and angled their legs together. There was a closeness between them that couldn’t be missed. “Are you two a couple?” I asked them.
Quinney smiled. “Yes, Nexi.”
Okay that was just annoying. Now that I told her not to call me My Lady she was just replacing it with Nexi. It still felt ridiculous. “Well that’s nice. How long have you been together?” I wanted to get to know them a little. If we were going to be around them a lot, it only felt right to do so.
“We have been together for well over…” Tyde hesitated. “Ummm…”
Quinney laughed softly and smacked his leg. “Two thousand years.”
“You’re f**king kidding?” I gasped.
Kyden laughed.
“We are quite old.” Tyde responded.
We sat quiet for a moment. I think they allowed me time to process that. Truthfully, I couldn’t. That’s damn old. Too old. Resigned that the thought was going to continue to shock me, I move on. “So, the reason we are here is because a demon killed a human.”
Quinney did a double take. “What was that you said?”
I sighed deep and threw my hands up in frustration. “It’s like I’m a friggin’ broken record.”
“It is an unusual situation.” Kyden rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand. “This is to be expected.”
He was right and all, but criminy, this was entirely frustrating. I took in a deep breath, an attempt not to smack my head against the wall and gave them the information they needed to help us here. “Yes, you heard me right. A demon was doing some bizarre ritual. You know with black ash and blood thing, then poof, they both disappeared.”
Quinney and Tyde exchanged a curious look. I didn’t miss the implication. “You’ve never heard of this either?”