Chapter 14

14

S he and Killian skate around each other, not quite talking and not quite communicating, until the anticipation eats underneath Chloe’s skin, but by then the sun has gone down and the weather has kicked up, fully out of the range that she could venture out on her own.

So she makes herself at home in the bed she woke up in, tossing the scratchy blanket off to the side and burrowing deeper underneath the sheets, and doesn’t sleep at all.

Sure, she tries to, but each time she closes her eyes her mind buzzes with awareness, singing with ideas and a certainty that she would never sleep again.

The hours stretch on, interminably long, before her phone beeps, soft.

She rolls over, flopping her arm over to the oak nightstand, flipping it on.

MAISON (4:02 AM): Do you think you’ll find something more?

Chloe curls around her phone, the glow spilling over the blankets, relief at the distraction as warm as the light.

CHLOE (4:03 AM): Absolutely.

MAISON (4:04 AM): Someone freed some experiments from a small base in Jacksonville. They killed everyone on site.

Chloe’s gut clenches.

MAISON (4:04 AM): Eighteen assistants, four guards, two senior officials, and now there’s insane experiments out in the wild if you’re heading in that direction.

They would absolutely consider Ambra one of those experiments, so Chloe can’t bring herself to feel bad.

CHLOE (4:04 AM): What attacked them?

MAISON (4:04 AM): Nobody knows. The base is a crater.

MAISON (4:05 AM): Do you remember Jaycee from the year above you? She worked there.

It’s been a long time, but Chloe can imagine the other woman’s soft face and gentle brow, and she realizes she has no clue what the specialty was. What she learned, what she did, anything.

CHLOE (4:08 AM): What did she do there?

MAISON (4:08 AM): I don’t know, her specialty was in streamlining efficiencies, there’s no reason for her to be there. But she’s listed among the dead.

Chloe breathes out, controlled, before squeezing her eyes shut until her phone beeps again.

MAISON (4:17 AM): Stay safe out there. We’re all worried.

Chloe doesn’t sleep before morning, but by the time she dares to open the door to the little bedroom, the bright purple shoes are gone from the entryway and the single mug and plate are in the drying rack by the sink.

The bedroom down the hall is open, the door slightly crooked on the hinges, but the light is off, just the ambient glow from the rising sun.

And the demon Killian is nowhere to be seen.

Chloe brews some more green tea for herself, as if that will take away the headache of the lack of caffeine, before grabbing a cheese stick and some applesauce from the fridge.

Either the child has an incredibly limited palate, or Killian has no clue how to shop for someone. Chloe has her money on the second one.

The scroll is still spread on the tiny table, and some additional smudges of demon power line the edges, like he had sat there and read, his fingers trailing down the lines of written runes.

The entire house is quiet, not even the sound of traffic from outside, and Chloe munches on the cheese stick as she leans her head against the window.

The glass is blurry from the amount of protections written into the material, but the overall impression is one of snowy desolation. A few houses, each more ramshackle than the next, dot the single gravel road, and the sidewalks are strewn with dirty rocks from a plow. Power lines dangle from poles, almost reaching the snow, far outside the safety they should provide. A single tree, the leaves all blown off, decorates the yard. A pile of tires sits next to a half fallen down shed, brambles grown over them.

And the child’s mother must live in one of the tiny houses.

“In my defense I’ve seen other demons set up safe houses in literal hovels,” Killian speaks up from behind her, and she startles. “Caves, dark spaces in tree roots, and much worse.”

“I wasn’t judging,” Chloe says, blinking over at him. “I definitely lived out of my car for a year.”

“That is absolutely worse,” he says, then raises his chin, some sort of evaluation of her.

Chloe stares right back, as challengingly as she can.

“Though my friend has one that’s a corner apartment in a high rise in…a big city,” Chloe says, stopping herself from divulging too much. “Apparently, it's huge.”

He squints at her.

“And some castle in like Germany or somewhere,” Chloe continues. “Lots of books and a temperature-controlled library.”

Finally, the corner of his mouth tilts upwards, and she realizes it just may be the most honest expression he’s made. “I used to have more. You didn’t sleep.”

“In my defense, I slept for thirteen hours,” Chloe says, then shrugs, not quite embarrassed but skating along the edge of it. “They say it’s a side effect of the necromancy.”

“Right. The necromancy,” he replies, something tugging at his mouth, like it’s still a taste he’s getting used to. “How did you die in the first place?”

The question prickles over Chloe’s skin, and she shakes her head, almost out of instinct, and he lifts his hand in an almost reconciliatory way.

“Mere curiosity,” he says, before he throws a nod towards the research. “What do you need to lay siege to an abandoned base?”

This, this is something she can grab onto. Something to distract herself with. “I’ll bring my bag. All of it.”

“Including the handful of rocks at the bottom?” he asks, almost warm. “You carry rocks around?”

The answer to that is yes, but she just rolls her eyes. “How do you think we broke into Toronto?”

There’s a stillness around him, at those words, the ever-present fear almost palatable, before he visibly shakes himself out of it, turning on his heel and beginning to roll up her scrolls.

Once more, something prickles at Chloe’s neck. He’s always afraid, and right then, she felt that it was at her.

“My nearest teleport point to the base is in Minneapolis,” he says, not facing her, voice neutral. “I am not one who can teleport sight unseen to a new place just because I know where it is.”

Ambra is, and Chloe just knows that it’ll amuse her to know she has a skill up on this demon.

“It’ll be a two-hour trip from there by train,” he continues, “and the college owns the railway in and out of that town.”

“Oooh, fun,” Chloe replies, and he shoots her an odd look. “I can drive, you realize, if train hitchhiking isn’t your jam.”

The human face doesn’t change, not substantially, but the shadowy face underneath it does, almost out of an odd shock. Like he’s able to control the body he’s in but not his true expression.

“Because I, unlike demons, can actually manipulate machinery,” she says smugly.

“They’ll watch the roadways,” he says, but the shock is replaced by something else, something closer to hunger.

Eagerness, she realizes. He’s eager. Just as eager as she is.

All without it showing on the dead body’s face.

All at once, a thrill snaps down Chloe’s back. They’re doing this, they’re going to get somewhere, they’ll succeed, they’ll…

“Then we go about it carefully,” Chloe says, then bounces on the balls of her feet. “Get as close as we can, then figure it out.”

It’s a different sort of breaking and entering, one she can’t help but relish in, and she grins up at him.

“You’re insane,” he murmurs, before nodding, as if fitting himself better into the skin. “Let’s do this.”

He teleports them into an alleyway, the snow and ice grimy against the pavement, and Chloe barely stumbles that time.

Instead, Killian breathes in, like the air is refreshing, tilting his head up to stare at the high rises.

Almost immediately, Chloe’s phone beeps, loud, and she fumbles to pull it out of her pocket.

DELINA (9:32 AM): We got it! The alarms worked!

MAISON (9:33 AM): It says you’re in the outskirts of Minneapolis? Is that right? Near a Denny’s?

Chloe wouldn’t mind some Denny’s coffee.

AMbrA (9:34 AM): If you encounter the demon who rules the city, offer them artwork.

MAISON (9:34 AM): What?

AMbrA (9:35 AM): I’m serious. They collect artwork.

And Chloe’s in the same town as Ambra’s apartment, where her and Gurlien stayed on their adventures, so she would know.

Chloe points at her phone to Killian. “Alarms worked.”

CHLOE (9:39 AM): Yup, Minneapolis. Starting point.

“Your friends are certainly talkative,” he says, then straightens, as if bringing up the body to its full height makes him feel better. The body still wears the faded blue henley, the sleeves rolled up, but the chill doesn’t even seem to register to him.

Meanwhile, Chloe digs around in her bag for her rain poncho, before shaking it out and twisting it into a woolen coat.

“The demon around here likes art, apparently,” Chloe says, shrugging it on. “If we need a bribe.”

“I’m not planning on staying long enough to need a bribe,” he says, almost severe. “And their territory barely extends beyond the river.”

“Do you have territory?” Chloe asks, and he blanches before getting his expression under control. “My friend says some demons do, some don’t.”

“I have pockets of land,” he says firmly, before starting to stride away, the snow swirling around him, not seeming to land on his skin. “I used to have more.”

The last bit is said almost in a murmur, like it’s not for her to hear.

And Chloe’s gonna figure that out if it’s the last thing she does, but even she knows when to stop from prying.

So she follows after him, merging in among the throng of people on the sidewalk, turning up her new collar to the wind.

It’s a bit odd, following a demon who does not interact with the world quite like she does, where she gets bustled around by the crowd and he flows seamlessly through it, but it’s just a few blocks until the crowd thins and he falls back, walking shoulder to shoulder with her.

And before she can think to stop herself, she reaches out to tug on the sleeve of his shirt, nodding in the direction of a coffee shop.

He startles at the touch, like it’s just as unfamiliar to him.

“I’m gonna get some food,” Chloe says, as authoritatively as she can, after they had been walking in complete silence for almost half an hour. “Then we’ll find a car to steal and get there faster.”

His mouth quirks up, unguarded, before the expression disappears. “You definitely don’t follow human mores, do you?”

“Rude,” Chloe says cheerfully, then ducks into the coffee shop, a bell tinkling deep in the back.

It’s a welcoming sort of shop, with clean brown counters and a display case of homemade pastries, and Chloe sheds her coat the moment she steps through.

Killian follows her in, almost as an afterthought.

“Hi!” someone calls from the back, before a middle-aged woman emerges, dusting some sort of flour off her hands. “Our espresso machine is broken, but we have a mean French press.”

Her eyes don’t even flicker to Killian, even though he stands right next to her.

They’re the only customers, though the chairs are astrew, like the morning rush already came and went.

“Just a big coffee with some cream, maybe some vanilla if you have it,” Chloe says, and Killian’s scanning the room, flexing out power like it’s nothing, despite there being no threats. “And…a croissant and an egg muffin.”

If she’s going to be outputting a bunch of energy like she thinks, then more food’s not gonna be a bad thing.

“No problem,” the woman says, and her eyes crease nicely, “it’s been a bit since we started the new muffin recipe, I’m glad to see people like it.”

Chloe nods, giving her the sunniest smile she can muster. “My friend told me about it!” she lies, and immediately, Killian whirls around to stare at her, even if it's the sort of lie that all store clerks want to hear. “She swears by this place.”

The woman beams back, then busies herself with pouring the coffee, heating up the muffin, doing all of the normal coffee shop things, a soothing sound, as Chloe taps one of the strips of paper in her pocket, transforming it into a bit of money.

Killian squints down at her, and she shrugs at him.

“You want this to go, dear?” the woman asks, and Chloe nods, even as Killian shakes his head.

“I think it’ll be great to walk around and have a coffee,” Chloe says, mostly to him, but keeping her eyes on the woman. “I love a hot drink on a cold morning walk.”

It’s nonsense, and he tilts his head at her, but the woman puts an extra slice of fancy dessert bread in the bag before handing it to her, still smiling.

“It should be objectively miserable out there,” Killian says, and he’s not keeping his voice down, but the woman doesn’t react at all.

It’s going to take some getting used to, not reacting to someone who isn’t there, but Chloe pays, accepting the bag and the hot drink, before giving the woman as generous of tip as she thinks she can get away with without being suspicious and hunkering back out into the cold.

“It is miserable,” she says out of the side of her mouth, the moment they’re far enough away from the door to evade suspicion. “But I can walk and eat.”

“And you lied,” he puzzles out, staring up at the cloudy sky that threatens them with more snow. “For absolutely no reason.”

“No, for some reason,” Chloe argues. “It made her happy and I got an extra snack.”

He shakes his head, like she’s the one being odd, before his eyes briefly gleam, reflecting the light, and he points to a car parked on the mostly abandoned street.

“That one,” he says, confidently. “Nobody’s driven it in three months, there’s an engine part missing.”

“That’s not a problem,” Chloe replies cheerfully, taking a large gulp of the truly amazing coffee. “Can you create a distraction? Make it so nobody’s looking over here?”

He raises an eyebrow at her, but the shadow face underneath almost, almost smiles. “Do you need something subtle?”

“Eh,” Chloe equivocates. “I’m fine with not terribly subtle if you are.”

The lines around his eyes wrinkle up into a smile, one that hits her a bit like a punch, before he straightens. “How much time do you need?”

Chloe throws a glance at the car. It’s easily twenty years old, there’s rust along the axel, and she’d be surprised if it has gas.

But creating an engine that runs on other things isn’t the most difficult thing she’s done in a while, and Axel had explained to her some of the alternative structures he used to put into his car.

“Ten minutes?” she suggests, then shrugs. “To be safe. Most cars won’t be that long, but I can’t tell until I touch it.”

He nods, absorbing that, then gestures her forwards like a gentleman.

Even though curiosity burns in her, Chloe huddles deeper into the jacket, clutching the coffee like it’s a lifeline, and sidles up to the car, letting her fingertips graze the splotchy paint on the door.

And she can immediately tell a few things.

The spark plugs are gone, the wires loose where they should be, and someone had long ago drained the transmission fluid away.

There’s a crack in the axel, one of the tires leans funny to the left, and the trunk will never open again, the mechanism crushed into place.

All in all, a beater of a car.

Killian watches her like he can sense what she’s doing, and it’s thoroughly unnerving, his shoulders stiff and unmoving. “You ready?”

She throws a nod at him, as subtly as she can in the street. There are a few people in the shops, visible from where she stands, a few dead trees along the sidewalk, and a post office down the street has a mail truck idling outside, the postman busily loading in Christmas packages.

Killian stands tall, and suddenly it’s like everything in him…unwinds. All the tension, all the holding himself together, everything, just unspools into relaxation.

And he grips his hand out, grabbing onto something that Chloe can’t quite see, and the tree…

Detonates.

It cracks, as loud as a gunshot, splitting down the middle as if it’s made of stone, then shattering into pieces, shredding a power line and plunging the lights off in all the stores.

Shards of bark fly everywhere, and the post man yells, chunks of wood crashing down onto the hood of the mail truck, smashing through the metal and the rubber.

People spill out of the shops, rushing towards the post office, like they could help, their backs all to Chloe.

And with that wielding of power, that sudden unleashing, Killian inhales, like it’s a relief. Like he’s breathing in his own self, breathing in all that makes him…him.

She’s known him for such little time and yet it’s like a lightning strike. Where all the disparate pieces she’s observed suddenly coalesce into one crystal clear picture of him standing here. His stance wide, his shoulders back and strong, his face alight.

Chloe’s mouth runs dry, her heart beating with the same sudden want for that wholeness of self. Of the beautiful power and completeness that he just achieved, where his demon face and his human face are as one.

It’s breathtaking in the way human men rarely impact Chloe.

Chloe stares, open mouthed, before Killian turns back to her, expectant.

Right.

She quickly pops the lock out of the car, turning it to rubber in her hands, then swoops in to sit into the driver's seat. The spark plugs gone, the transmission siphoned away, there’s not much she can do to improve the health of the car, but—

But they only need it to run for 2 hours. She can do that, sustain something like that.

Pushing power through the steering wheel, she twists the engine, separating it from the spark plugs, from everything else it needs, until it turns over, chugging to life.

She wrestles with it, as if she can make it better by sheer force of will, before she twists the need to run just off of air, change the very nature of how it processes materials, burn a little colder…

It won’t be a smooth ride, it won’t be an easy one, but she can make it work.

A drop of sweat trickles down her back, and she sheds her coat, plopping her backpack in the back seat right as Killian appears in the passenger's seat, not even bothering with the door.

Out the cracked windshield, people congregate around the tree, pulling off pieces from the truck. Someone throws their arm around the mailman, obviously shaken, and the truck smolders. A power line crackles against the concrete, a live wire, and in the distance, Chloe can hear sirens.

“That took you just about six minutes,” Killian says smoothly, and she scowls at him. “I don’t think this car will run if anyone but you is in it.”

“I wasn’t exactly working with good materials,” she says, then shifts the car into drive, pulling out of the parking space.

The bad tire pulls, but she jolts a bit of power into it, transforming it into something approaching functional, and to her surprise, Killian barks out a laugh.

“What?” she asks, and now drinking the hot coffee is a hell of a lot less interesting after she’s worked up a sweat, but she sets the egg muffin on her lap, ready to eat it, then turns the ratty car down the first available street, away from any possible spectators.

“Most of the alchemists I’ve met are way more preoccupied with aesthetics than functionality,” he says, leaning back in the seat, and there’s the same relaxation in his shoulders. “You just turned a tire into a slightly less flat tire and didn’t change how it looked. It’s amusing.”

“Thanks,” Chloe responds, but takes a sip of the coffee anyways.

“I once saw an alchemist turn a cart into solid gold before he made it functional,” Killian continues, and Chloe rolls her eyes. “I’m not sure I ever saw any of them just fix something.”

“Yeah yeah, iron into gold, we’ve all heard the stereotype,” Chloe says, and the steering wheel isn’t exactly the most responsive, so she cranks it over to turn out of the city, onto a freeway heading east. “Of course I can do that, it’s just boring.”

She’s not watching him, but she still catches a smile in his profile.

“And you fucking blew up a tree,” Chloe says, and it’s been a bit since she drove a car this horrible. “I think that’s a bit weirder.”

“It distracted people,” he points out. “And took out the power to the security camera pointed out to the street. Win win.”

“So weird,” Chloe says.

He tips his head back in the chair as the car thrums along the freeway, baring his neck. It’s strangely vulnerable, like the detonation of the tree had exhausted all of his protections.

And she gets to see that vulnerability. That she is so lucky.

It’s a calm drive, once she turns off the main freeway and onto a more rural street, following along the railroad.

By all appearances it’s a normal railroad, with the normal ties and the normal trains, but the cars along the tracks gleam with a hint of magic, a little bit too much beauty, not consuming fuel or electricity.

Obviously college run.

Her skin prickles as the train rumbles past them, and a quick glance over to Killian shows a similar expression.

“So this is very much active,” Chloe says, coasting the car. There’s nobody behind them on the road, though a few trucks passed them a few minutes ago. “Not an abandoned base at all.”

Killian’s face pinches, back into the almost fearful expression of before.

“What do you think the chances are she’s still here?”

“Next to none,” he replies, clipped. “The trail from the cage is at least eleven months old.”

“Useful knowledge to have,” Chloe says, and there’s a meager gas station along the highway, so she idles into the lot, throwing the car into parking.

It shudders.

“Why are you stopping?” he asks, voice still cautious. “This car won’t start again if you turn it off.”

“Rude,” Chloe says, before she rubs at her face, the remnants of the coffee buzzing through her veins. “Okay. Still active base. Probably way more traps and alarms and guards than I was anticipating.” The compass still points true down the road, following the railway. “Different tactic.”

“Toronto was active up to a month ago,” Killian says, leaning back and stretching, an odd motion for a demon, from what she knows.

“And we purposefully hit it in between guards, on a floor that was mostly a cubicle farm, on a Sunday,” Chloe says, and heart beats uncomfortably. “We need some more planning.”

“I know the floor plan,” he says, once again neutral. She’s only spent like a day and a half with him, but she already hates that tone with a passion. “It’s always been a skeleton crew of a base, not a prison, more of a temporary assessment facility.”

“What happened to never being past Minneapolis?” Chloe mutters, and if responding from her mood, the car sputters. “Okay, you know more than me, why’d you even need my help?”

“There are dozens of these bases in this country alone, never mind other continents,” Killian responds, perfectly smoothly. “I would have no way of knowing which one.”

He absolutely avoided answering that question, which does very little to help, and Chloe swallows that down. “I don’t like having information kept from me,” she warns, and her voice only wobbles a little bit.

He tilts his head, as if giving her that one.

“Do you know the patterns of the guard change overs?” Chloe challenges, and he visibly hesitates, the shadow face much more shocked than the human. “Or where the pinpoints are for the traps? Anything like that?”

He’s silent, for a long moment, and the car rumbles in its spot.

“I mean, I’ll do it,” Chloe says, her pitch rising. “I’ll do a lot worse than storm a base, but this requires prep. This requires prep and intel that I don’t have, and if you’re willing to share—”

“Break down the demon trap around it and I can take everything else,” Killian says, and his jaw works.

“Great, base sized demon trap, definitely easy to take down unnoticed,” Chloe snips back, and the car rumbles accordingly. “Stay here, I’m getting an energy drink.”

There’s nothing she can do to stop a demon from exiting the still-chugging car, but she swings the door open, stomping into the gas station.

Of course, she doesn’t actually need anything, but breathing hard in the beef jerky aisle does her good, and she putters just long enough she knows she’ll have to buy a few things, but she pulls out her phone before deciding on anything.

And hesitates, thumbing over to her contacts.

Maison is probably the person out of her closest group of friends who’s been the most active with the college, who might have the most knowledge, but he’s been effectively sidelined for the last five years, barely kept in compliance because of his mother. Gurlien had the most encyclopedic knowledge of bases, but mostly of personnel, of where people flowed in and out of, not of experiments, and the last thing she wants to do is plunge him back into considering it. Ambra has more, but not usually advantageous info, usually from a hazy point of view of being the subject of the experiments.

CHLOE (12:02 PM): What do you know of the base two hours outside of Minneapolis?

Immediately—

ALETTE (12:02 PM): Why?

CHLOE (12:03 PM): Next target.

ALETTE (12:03 PM): You can’t.

Chloe picks up a packet of pop tarts, before setting them back down again, under the eyes of the watchful clerk.

CHLOE (12:05 PM): Any reason why?

ALETTE (12:05 PM): It’s dangerous. They process dangerous beings there, put them through all sorts of diagnostics and stasis spells, and they’re ruthless.

That just describes most of the bases Chloe’s seen, outside of the actual educational locations. The locations where they teach people, where they give them rosy glasses of magic and the things they could do.

CHLOE (12:07 PM): Wasn’t planning on any destruction, just getting a scan and back out. How’s the security?

ALETTE (12:08 PM): You can’t brute force this base.

CHLOE (12:09 PM): They said that about Toronto, and I did it with a Half Demon and a Necromancer on a Sunday afternoon.

She picks out her favorite energy drink, some beef jerky, and some disgusting power bars, paying with the change from the coffee shop, and the clerk throws a nod over at the car.

“That’s a piece of shit,” he says, serious. “The chop shop down main and turn left on Orange will give you four hundred dollars for it, if you need to offload it.”

“Good to know!” Chloe replies brightly, beaming a smile at him, and he startles back a bit, like he’s never had someone respond enthusiastically to him. “Just need it for a few more days, I might check back.”

ALETTE (12:12 PM): We can get you schematics, Zoel just needs a day and a half. All the traps, all the security checkpoints, everything.

Chloe scuffs her boots in the parking lot, popping open the drink and staring at the text.

On one hand, it’s unlikely her friend is there, unlikely that that time will matter.

On the other, the acid burn in her stomach tells her it’s too long, that her forced inactivity of so long just prolongs the suffering.

Her eyes flicker up across the ice-crusted parking lot, to the car still chugging and Killian leaning back in the seat, twisted around and watching her.

So she takes a big, deep breath, plasters on a smile and strides back over to the car.

“I can get us some schematics,” Chloe says, swinging her way into the driver's seat and plopping her drink in the rickety cup holder. “Accurate ones, updated ones, but it’ll take us 36 hours.”

“How accurate?” Killian immediately challenges, his gaze reflecting the light back at her as she arranges the snacks in the back seat.

“Accurate enough to not cause fatalities,” Chloe snips back, before smiling as sunnily as she can. “Updated traps, updated security checkpoints, all that fun stuff.”

He hesitates, narrowing his eyes at her, as if he can read through her defenses. “Do you just smile like that to get humans to do what you want?”

“Usually works,” Chloe answers, as peppy as possible. “Fuck off, though!”

“Do you trust the schematics?” He forces onwards, completely ignoring her comment. “Are they from a source that could betray us?”

And therein lies the issue. The answer to that is almost always yes, Chloe can count on one hand the number of people she would trust unconditionally.

“About as much as I trust you,” she answers, and he wrinkles his nose at her, like he knows what she means. “Trusting people is overrated. Getting info isn’t.”

She taps the car, and it sputters in response.

He rubs his face, a surprisingly human motion, shutting his eyes.

“So we can go in now, without the information we might need, but with just the two of us knowing,” she summarizes. “Or we find a hotel room nearby and wait. Or we go back to your house and teleport back in thirty six hours. Your choice.”

It burns in her to give that over.

“There’s an anti-teleportation alarm we passed about eighteen miles back,” he says, because of course there is. “Or else I’d just have teleported next door.”

“Right, because the whole ‘never been there before' is a lie, isn’t it?” Chloe asks, then throws the car into reverse. “Guy said there was a chop shop eight miles down the road, chop shops mean cheap motels. This is bullshit.”

He scowls at her, looking strikingly like the other demon, Melekai, that Chloe almost laughs in his face.

CHLOE (12:32 PM): We’ll wait for the info one town over.