Chapter 18

18

T hey’re almost back to the hotel with the wolf fountain and the rusted shell of a roller coaster, when he tenses again, his fingers tightening against the fragile skin on her wrist.

“What,” Chloe breathes, her heart jumping. The sun has set around them, the street lights flickering on above them, indecisive.

He says nothing, glancing up at the rickety hotel, then over at the chop shop.

Chloe throws a glance behind her, and just far enough away to be not suspicious, the man with the close-cropped hair idles, investigating a dark storefront like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.

Their eyes meet in the reflection of the glass.

“Wait—” Killian starts, then inhales, yanking Chloe closer, flashing a golden shield up around them.

Chloe’s seen demon shields before, seen what Maison could do to defend Delina, but the wholeness of this one takes her breath away. She has but just a spare moment to marvel at the golden warping bubble, at the individual threads around her, before something solid rocks against the shield.

Killian grunts, clutching Chloe close, the shield constricting around the two of them, and a string of spell weaving snaps at them, clattering against the shield and falling to the ground.

The spellweaver doesn’t give them a chance to recover, snapping out something towards Chloe’s feet, skating around the edge of the shield.

Which, unless he’s stupid, he knows exactly what a demon bubble looks like and knows exactly that that sort of attack would do nothing. They’re educated almost as soon as they get into the college to identify that sort of defense, he would have no excuse.

“Chloe?” the man says, and his voice is just familiar enough that it plays on the edge of her memory. “Chloe, what the hell?”

He drops his hands down, like he’s no longer going to attack her, like she couldn’t see the magic twisted in the needle held loosely between his fingers.

The woman behind him steps up, eyes focused directly onto Chloe.

“You have me mistaken for someone else,” Chloe bluffs, and Killian’s hands tighten around her, and she spares a thought for how odd that must look to the outside. Where here she is, inside a demon bubble, invisible arms clutching at her, creasing her clothing.

The woman remains silent, her eyes glittering with the reflection of the shield.

“And what is…that?” the man says, gesturing wildly at the shield. “They say you escaped Toronto, did you steal demon tech or something?”

Slowly, Killian releases her, straightening himself behind her, and Chloe doesn’t dare look back.

“No,” Chloe says, and her voice is small despite herself. “I’m nobody, you have me mistaken, leave me alone.”

“Some sort of portable shield, something to stop random people, why are you here—”

The woman shifts, almost minute, and there’s a battery gripped in her fingers.

Chloe inhales as the woman spins the battery towards her. It blurs in midair, shifting to—

It crashes against the shield, exploding, shattering the perfect wall of warping threads, sparking up into Chloe’s face.

She has a split second to flinch, a split second to throw her hand up to protect her face, before Killian jerks forward.

In one smooth motion he grips Chloe by the collar, yanking her back, and flexing power out, flooding the space between them all.

The streetlights flash out, glass cracking, and both the magicians in front of them, both the spellweaver and the must-be alchemist jerk.

And all at once, their necks twist, snapping abruptly, before they drop to the dirty pavement.

Chloe flinches, but Killian keeps a grip on her collar, and the very air tastes of demon magic, bitter and bright.

“I should’ve done that at the restaurant,” Killian says, voice low, before he glances up at the hotel, at the lights glittering within, before with another flex of power, all electricity on the block snaps out.

Chloe gasps, an almost small cut off of air, and Killian releases her, dusting off his hands.

She staggers away, and there are now two dead bodies on the pavement. Sure it’s dark out, sure the sidewalks are abandoned, but now she’s around two dead bodies and—

Killian’s eyes are on her.

“We should get you inside,” he murmurs, flickering his gaze up to the darkened hotel. “I took out the security cameras, it’s dark enough they won’t connect you if you move fast enough.”

Her heart still pounds.

“They might send someone to check out the burst,” he says, and his voice tilts upwards in urgency. “If you get inside, you’ll be camouflaged, and—” He gestures towards the bodies, vicious, and they…

Shatter apart, like they’re made of stone. Where once were rapidly cooling bodies, where the blood was stilling, now are just separated chunks of human body parts, crystalline as if frozen.

Chloe jerks back again, and he reaches out, gently gripping her wrist.

“Chloe,” he says, voice dipping down low, like she’s an animal to be soothed. “Chloe, you need to get inside now. I’ll clean this up.”

She swallows, and his hand is tender against her wrist, and she nods.

“I’ll be up there soon,” he says. “I’ll reinforce the wards, nobody will find you.”

Gingerly, he releases her, and Chloe clutches her wrist to her chest, before turning on her heels and striding, fast, to the hotel.

And even without looking back, she can tell that he’s watching her.

She lets her hands push the door open to the darkened room, where the dismayed clerk flashes his phone light at the room.

“Our power’s out, the entire block—” he starts, and Chloe blows past him, digging into her pocket for her own battery and flipping it to a penlight without a thought. “All rooms are out!”

“I know, I have a flashlight,” Chloe calls back in return, and her throat is tight around the words, and she doesn’t look back until she’s at the stairs, until she’s at her floor, until she’s at the door to the room.

Even without the penlight, the wards shimmer, casting a warm glow across the quilt, but Chloe rushes to the window, staring down.

The entire block is dark, one of the streetlamps sparking, but the warping black and red of Killian’s power draws her eye down to him, illuminating him against the darkness.

Her breath hitches, and he almost radiates with power.

What the hell had she gotten into, that he could kill so easily.

Sure, she knew that demons had the ability, everyone does, and she’s seen Ambra do it a few times, but not so…instant. Precise.

She shivers, still wearing her alchemied coat.

It’s far beyond what she saw with Maison, completely different from what Terese had demonstrated.

No wonder Ambra didn’t ever want to go into conflict with another demon in her state.

On the street below, he tilts his head towards the window, spotting her, and his gaze lingers.

Chloe’s re-downloaded the college’s old textbook on demon combat onto her phone and already two chapters deep by the time he phases back through the door.

“Bodies are disposed of and no security cameras caught anything,” he says in lieu of a greeting, then eyes her critically. “You weren’t injured.”

There’s almost a question in his voice, almost.

“No,” Chloe says, and he shines bright in the dark room, practically lit from all the power he’s sending out, dwarfing the dim glow from her phone. “Were you?”

His brows flash up. “Do I look injured to you?”

“Well,” Chloe starts, and she sets her phone down on the bed, letting the screen turn off. “I have been told several times that demons don’t show injuries in ways that humans normally understand?”

He regards her, then sighs, flexing his power again, and all lights crackle back on.

Something down the hallway pops, and someone gives a muffled yell, but the streetlights on the sidewalks flicker on, except for the broken sparking one.

Chloe rubs her eyes, then gives him a thumbs up. “Nifty trick.”

“Amatur trick,” he counters, then, in a surprisingly human move, flops over on the bed next to her. “The hard part was not making it so obvious it brings down the entire college on our spot.”

“I believe that,” Chloe says warily, not scooting away from her cross-legged seat on the bed. If he wants to be weird about this, she’s going to let him. “Do we know if they made a report?”

Not moving from his place, he digs into his pocket and tosses two cell phones at her, causing her brain to hiccup. What can he pick up, what is he incorporeal towards, can he control that?

Still she pokes at the phones. They’re dead, as if all of the battery had been zapped in one flash.

“Check those,” he says, voice muffled a bit. “I didn’t see them use them at all since they saw you, but I can’t work them.”

So no obvious check in, no obvious communication, but she wouldn’t put it past the alchemist to have a hidden signal button in it.

“I also got this,” he says, then tosses the folding knife onto the bed. “It won’t trigger alarms. Wear it.”

“Neither will my gun,” Chloe says, but still shoves it into the pocket of her jeans. “Are you okay?”

He tilts his head to look at her, wrinkling his brow.

“Look, you did some high-volume combat magic—”

“—that wasn’t high volume,” he interrupts.

“—then did something to the bodies, knocked out power for an entire city block.”

“—it’s barely a town.”

“—and then collapsed onto the bed,” Chloe finishes, and he makes a face at her. “So yeah, are you okay? That was impressive and all, very spooky, but now it’s weird.”

He sighs, and she doesn’t quite understand the whole breathing in a dead body thing, but it’s a lot better than if he wasn’t. “None of your abominations have the same energy levels, I’m going to venture a guess,” he says. “It’s not the volume of the energy, it’s the amount I have to pay attention to small details.” He rolls over, so he’s staring up at the ceiling, and gestures, vague. “If I was just killing them and breaking their bodies, no problem. But I had to do it at a minimum of power, without teleporting, without drawing attention, without also killing you, without dropping the wards up here, and without causing major infrastructure damage.”

It paints a pretty clear picture, one similar to what Terese talks about. That letting go of all the energy is infinitely easier than meticulously targeting things.

And ironically, out of all of them, Terese is the one with the closest power set to full demons.

“So once we get into the base, once we get the readings, we should just have you unleash yourself?” Chloe asks, and he blinks at her, startled. “We get everything we need, then you can destroy it?”

He narrows his eyes at her. “You want me to destroy it?”

“You said they keep people captive, right?” Chloe says, pulling her knees up to her chest, and her heart is still pounding from the fight outside, from the shield. “They kept you captive. They kept my friend captive. Let’s tear it down.”

“You really have an anarchist streak in you, little alchemist,” he says, and underneath all the exhaustion, there’s a hint of amusement, almost something fond, and a thrill goes down her back. “You don’t think that would draw their attention down upon us?”

It’s definitely something to consider, and Chloe opens her mouth to answer, before he tenses, his eyes blazing red.

She freezes.

He stays there, then relaxes again. “It’s just the front desk clerk.”

“What?” Chloe asks, before the moment is interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Hello?” the clerk says, voice muffled by the door.

Chloe unfolds her legs, standing as quietly as she can. “Yes?”

Killian raises an eyebrow at her.

“Doing a status check, can I come in?” he asks, and the door must be very very thin if she’s able to hear so clearly. “The electricity is weird.”

Killian nods at her, but he’s still not getting up.

“One sec,” Chloe says, then crosses to the door. “Everything’s working in here.”

It’s the same store clerk with the fake wolf ears on top of the hat, and he blinks at her, as if he wasn’t expecting her to be the one to come to the door.

“I have to…” He gestures with the instrument in his hand, some sort of electric meter, still not meeting her eyes. “Look, this building’s old, I have to check for shorts in the walls whenever we lose power.”

From the bed, Killian coughs out a laugh.

“Sure,” Chloe says, stepping out of his way. Besides the gun in her bag, there’s nothing weird in there, and the clerk gives another forlorn glance at her cleavage before moving into the bathroom, checking the outlets.

“I didn’t short out this room,” Killian says, almost languid. “Can’t say the same for the kitchen.”

“Right,” Chloe whispers, and it’s awkward. Everything is awkward, the demon lounging on the bed is awkward, she’s awkward, and exhaustion blurs her vision.

“Did you say anything?” the clerk calls from the bathroom, and this time, Killian grins at her, almost cheekily.

“Just talking to myself,” Chloe answers, sitting on the edge of the bed, out of a lack of anything else to do, and standing in the middle of the room is way worse.

And after the battle, after the deaths on Killian’s hands, everything is shaded with enough unreal that her skin prickles with the awareness of it. The clerk in the bathroom flicks the lights on and off, the electric meter beeping merrily, and Chloe's hands begin to shake.

On the bed next to her, Killian sits up, alarmed. “What is it?” he demands.

Chloe turns to him, uncomprehending, and he grabs her by her wrist.

“Something happened, you’re affected, did something hit you?” he asks, peering down at her hand, like he can discern things from that alone. His hand is gentle against hers, like she’s something delicate, and nobody’s treated her like that in years.

She shakes her head, quick, with an obvious jerk of her head to the bathroom, but her fingertips still tremble.

She doesn’t want to have to explain coming down from a shock to a demon. Ambra’s different, Ambra’s in a human body and experiences them herself.

Killian’s brows draw up, both the human face in front of her and the shifting one underneath.

“I’m okay,” she breathes out, as quiet as she can make it, as the electric meter beeps again. “I’m fine.”

He squints at her but releases her hand as the clerk putters into the main room, pressing the meter against the wall and watching the display. Chloe swallows, leaning back just a bit, but Killian still holds her gaze.

“A lot of rooms having issues?” Chloe asks, voice fake and bright, and Killian wrinkles his nose at her, like he can see through her attempts at being put together.

“Not a lot, but enough,” the clerk mutters. “The electrician is coming from Minneapolis tomorrow, but it’s too late for him to come out today; we’re too far apparently.”

“Do you pretend to be cheerful so people don’t notice something’s wrong?” Killian asks, voice low. “Or do you pretend it because you think that’s what people want?”

Chloe scowls at him, then pulls her hands back, folding them in her lap to hide the shaking.

The clerk casts her another forlorn look. “Are you in town for a long time?”

“Lie,” Killian whispers.

“Oh yeah,” Chloe immediately responds, she doesn’t need a demon to know to do that. “Meeting some friends in a few days, gonna drive around and see all the sights, find a bunch of snow and throw it at each other, find a lake to skate in.” She throws him a smile, and he startles. “I got here early.”

“We’re in Minnesota,” he blurts out. “Why would you intentionally come here in winter?”

“Halfway point from my friends and I,” Chloe lies, as the clerk checks the lamp next to the bed, then the other. “We didn’t want the big city this time, we do this every other year.”

“Do you need to reserve more rooms for your friends?” the clerk asks, hopeful, casting a glance to the single bed that’s in the room. “I can reserve them.”

Chloe can’t quite pick up on that subtext, whatever it may be, but she’s acutely aware that she’s missing it. “They’ll do it when they drive in?”

As if sensing her disquiet, Killian shifts, until his knee presses against hers, a strange parallel to her sitting in the booth with the burger.

Right before he killed two people.

The clerk gives her a rather pathetic smile, then pockets the sensor, standing awkwardly. “If you need anything, I stay in room 104 during the weekends,” he says, and his voice breaks. “Knock on the door if I’m not at the desk, I’ll be able to help.”

Chloe gives him a thumbs up, and he waits for an agonizing moment, before shuffling out the door, letting it close behind him with a click.

The moment he’s out, Killian gently grabs her wrist again. “What happened?”

Chloe strongly considers shaking him off. “Can’t I be a bit weary after seeing some people die?” She snips back. “I’m not really a battle mage or anything like that.”

“They were attacking you,” Killian replies gently. “They were attacking you and some of those were kill shots.”

“Yeah, well…” Chloe trails off, as he turns her hand in his, still inspecting her, like he can tell something from that touch. “Still weird to see someone die.”

He’s still silent for a long moment, before he swipes his fingers across the thin skin at her wrist.

“Nothing hit me, I would have said something,” Chloe says, mullish.

“I can tell that now,” Killian replies, almost disgruntled. “What do you usually do when you’ve seen someone die?”

Like she has a routine. Like it’s so common that she would have a go-to thing to do.

“Run,” Chloe says, and it’s almost a bit too honest. “I’m good at getting out of things.”

He quirks a brow at her, then settles back against the bed, like she’s given him something to think about.

And Chloe really wishes Gurlien and Ambra were there. Someone more knowledgeable, someone able to decipher all of the body language and odd intentions of the demon in front of her.

Someone able to decipher all of the awkwardness inside of her.

Not speaking, he just regards her, his eyes flickering over her face like he can read her like a book and is finding something compelling.

She’s not used to that attention from a demon.

But instead of saying something further, she just picks up the phones still on the bed, running a quick scan on them.

One of them, the one that tingles with spell weaving, is almost completely normal, the only enhancements to elongate battery life and prevent damage from dropping. Chloe’s able to pop open the back with a snap of alchemy and crush the SIM card without any real issue.

The other one…

“This’ll be a problem,” Chloe mutters, poking it through a bedsheet as Killian watches her with lidded eyes. “It’s going to notify someone—I can’t tell who—if it doesn’t have a passcode entered at a certain time.”

“I need to get one of those for…the child,” Killian murmurs, raising a brow in interest.

“Yeah, well, it’ll also explode if I try to brute force it open,” Chloe says, still using the bedsheet to touch against the slick glass surface. “It’ll send a location ping—like the one I put on mine for teleporting—to whoever’s on the other line and let them know something happened.”

His eyes flicker up to hers, then back down to the phone. “I’ll walk it to the other side of town and destroy it,” he offers. “The explosion won’t hurt me, it’ll send them in the wrong direction from us.”

“They’ll still know something happened,” Chloe says, then rubs her eyes. “Sure. Go ahead. Or hide it under a rock or something. Put it in a store like he dropped it. Let them do a search somewhere else.”

She’s tired. It pulls at her skin and at her eyes, seeping underneath her bones to something deeper. Something worse.

He palms it again, frowning at it, then gives her a wry smile. “All I could tell is it had been altered.”

Makes sense that the demon wouldn’t have the same fluency in it.

Still, he stands, and the bed shifts without him there. “I’ll take it as far away as logical. Stay here, in case they send someone else.”

Chloe swallows down the sudden fear that they might.

“Please,” he protests, seeing her face. “My wards are better than that.”

“Stay safe,” Chloe says, and her own voice is small once more.