Chapter 16

16

I t’s a few hours later, when Killian almost seems to doze in the chair, and Chloe flips through the TV and settles on a generic action movie, before her phone beeps again.

GURLIEN (3:02 PM): Where are you?

Chloe inhales at the text.

CHLOE (3:02 PM): Code.

GURLIEN (3:02 PM): Ida grove.

CHLOE (3:03 PM): Charter Oak. I’m in Minnesota, why?

GURLIEN (3:04 PM): Attacks on the Atlanta base, the Fairbanks base, and a small one in North Dakota.

Chloe worries her lip, stealing a glance over at Killian, whose head rests unmoving against the back of the chair.

CHLOE (3:05 PM): All at once?

GURLIEN (3:06 PM): Coordinated.

Chloe stares down at the clinical tone, her heart pounding.

GURLIEN (3:07 PM): T stopped one at the compound.

Chloe can’t help herself, some sort of choked off noise comes from her throat, and Killian startles awake, eyes blazing.

GURLIEN (3:07 PM): No injuries, they got away, they have a teleporter.

CHLOE (3:11 PM): Are you okay? Like, beyond the no injuries, are you okay?

Three dots appear, then disappear, and that query goes unanswered.

“What is it?” Killian demands, and his power floods the room again, filling it until the very air thrums with it.

She holds up her hands, dropping her phone onto the bed with a thump, and he abruptly cuts off the flow of power.

He stares at her, wild-eyed, and she gingerly lowers her hands.

“Sorry, bad news,” Chloe says, and her voice is small, even to her own ears. “About friends.”

If anything, his eyes sharpen, and he leans forward, a sudden intensity of self that sends Chloe scrambling back on the bed. “What news?”

Her phone beeps again, but she doesn’t dare look at it.

“Someone tried to attack my friends,” she responds, and her heart pounds all the same. “I got scared, we’re not in danger here, I just…”

He doesn’t sit back, but some of the sudden fierceness of focus wanes, leaving the room a bit more breathable.

“And someone attacked a bunch of bases,” she continues, when he doesn’t say anything. “So my friend was checking in on me.”

This settles him more, but his eyes still reflect all the light in the room, the shadow face shifting behind the human one.

Carefully, Chloe reaches for her phone, making no sudden motions, as if that could pacify the suddenly terrifying demon in front of her.

AMbrA (3:09 PM): Wherever you are, we can’t teleport to you.

Chloe nods to herself, ever aware of Killian’s gaze.

CHLOE (3:14 PM): I know. Are you okay?

AMbrA (3:14 PM): They were expecting just Alette. They got more than that.

It’s a deflection if Chloe’s ever heard one, and she very much so doubts that she’d get an honest answer from Ambra on how she’s feeling.

Probably terrified.

CHLOE (3:15 PM): I’m sorry I wasn’t there.

AMbrA (3:15 PM): I’m taking Gurlien somewhere safe.

It’s expected, and Chloe swallows, glancing back up at Killian.

“Their security is going to be worse,” he says, his voice something awful, devoid of any warmth that had snuck in over the last day. “It’s going to be worse and it’s going to be harder.”

Logical conclusion, and Chloe nods, before he stands, abrupt, pacing to the window and tracing along the wards, dipping more power into them.

“Did they harm your friends?” he asks, strangely formal.

“No,” Chloe responds, and he ties more power into the ward, so much that the very building creaks around them, stealing the air from her throat.

“I don’t like this,” he says, understated.

“Me neither,” Chloe responds, letting her phone drop back onto the bed, her mind scrambling.

Of course, her first instinct is to run. Flee. Find someplace safe and huddle there until nobody else can find her. It’s an instinct that has served her well, an instinct that’s gotten her out of so many bad situations, an instinct that’s saved her life more than once.

She could call Ambra, drive back out of the teleportation hole, get picked up within an hour or so. She could transform a bunch of cash and buy a plane ticket to anywhere, disappear and craft a new life once again.

Abandoning the spirit fox once more.

Chloe flops over on the bed, ignoring Killian’s alarmed jerk.

“So what are the options?” she asks, and her own voice is remote to her ears.

He makes a sound, deep in the back of his throat, and she squeezes her eyes shut.

“I mean, the base is going to be worse, right?” she asks the still air of the room. “Is it even within our capabilities—”

“Have you ever seen the damage a full demon can do?” he asks, his voice low.

The answer to that is no, surprisingly few people have. Ambra’s bemoaned the fact that she isn’t at full power several times, and Maison’s grasp on the demon side of him is tenuous at best.

“There’s a reason they ward their bases against us.”

Finally, she opens her eyes, tilting her head on the quilt to watch him.

There’s still the panic, ever lurking behind his eyes, some ingrained instinct that nothing can chase away. But beneath it there’s something hard, a determination coated with fear but not conquered by it.

“Is every demon a drama queen?” she asks, and he ruins the expression by rolling his eyes. “I’m just saying, everyone I’ve talked to has been pretty dramatic with very little provocation.”

“Says the little alchemist flopped on the bed out of despair,” he shoots back. “If the attacks were human based, then they’re warding off humans. Not me.”

Chloe’s hand closes over the phone again.

CHLOE (3:23 PM): Were the coordinated attacks human?

She texted Gurlien, but Ambra’s communication lights up instead.

AMbrA (3:23 PM): Mostly.

“Mostly’s not useful,” she mutters, showing him the text.

“That’s plenty useful,” he challenges. “That means if they had any demons, they were so tightly controlled they would be close to useless against me.”

Chloe blinks at him. Ambra had destroyed the bar pretty easily, back when they first met her, and the only reason why she hadn’t won is Delina doing an insane Necromancy thing that made no sense that killed her handler.

Though if Ambra had wanted to, after that, she absolutely could have destroyed them all, even without Korhonen’s compulsion. They were just lucky enough that she didn’t want to.

“Do you think any controlled demon would want to fight us?”

He tilts his head at her, and it’s an achingly familiar motion, now that she’s been around more demons. “Depends on how they’re controlled, what they have over them.”

Also not a good thought.

“And how they were captured,” he continues. “What they put in place around them. Where they were kept.”

“So demons are just complicated,” she says, and it almost helps distract from the uncertainty brewing inside of her. “How were you captured?”

He stills once more, his power flooding through the room, and her breath hitches.

“I can tell when you do that,” she murmurs, and it abruptly cuts off.

He leans forward, temporarily burrowing his head in his hands, clenching at the ever so slightly curling hair.

It’s silent, the only sound the ever-present buzzing of the lights and the whisper quiet thrum of the far away street.

“Humans aren’t supposed to feel that,” he says, voice muffled in his hands.

“Neat,” she says, though the words are dry in her mouth.

He straightens and his face is completely neutral, stiff like a mask.

“I only ask because it could be applicable,” she says, and it doesn’t soften him. “If it can affect how they ward against demons, it could affect the traps I will have to break.”

Still, no answer, before he abruptly stands, turning on his heel and walking through the door itself.

Chloe breathes out, raising an eyebrow.

“I am right,” she mutters, before she flops back onto the bed.