Chapter 35

35

S he drowses, as he finishes the shield, the tremulous contentment growing in her, until she watches as the demon’s shoulders tense, illuminated from the shield.

Killian hisses out a breath.

“What?” Chloe says, startling up. “What is it, who—”

The shield blooms into black, vicious, and Chloe scrambles to standing, grabbing the first thing her hand closes upon—a few spare pebbles.

Killian gestures her back behind him, which is bullshit, so she shifts, keeping an eye on the shield. “They followed me.”

He hadn’t gone anywhere in the last few hours, which means they tracked him from Europe. From before.

“Why would anyone follow you?” she whispers, her heart pounding, but there’s nothing outside, nothing that would betray them other than some slushy trees.

“Power,” he mutters. “Power, influence, elimination of competition. Control. Seanna. So many options, none of them good.”

Chloe agrees with that, turning the pebble over and over in her hand, then carefully crouching and pulling a battery out of her bag. She still hasn’t cleaned the gun since she used it at the base, but she belts the holster on her regardless.

In most cases, she’s much more dangerous with the battery.

A breeze in the trees, the oft familiar creaking of the spruce branches, and Killian’s shoulders tense underneath the guard’s clothing.

Chloe has just one chance to inhale, before a man stands in front of the shield, a flash of a teleportation ward underneath his feet.

His blue eyes immediately snap to hers, past the warping magic blocking him.

“You’re the one leaving demon traces everywhere?” he asks, his voice lilting as he sizes her up.

Completely ignoring Killian.

He’s of average height and average appearance, with light brown hair that might be closer to blond in sunshine, and a face that no one would pick out of a crowd with a gun to their head. His shoulders sloop, ever so slightly, like he works a discouraging desk job.

Killian hisses out a breath, and the man doesn’t look at him.

“Not really,” Chloe says, her knuckles turning white around the battery.

He’s unarmed. Not grasping magic, not actively generating anything Chloe can see, and besides the fast-disappearing ward, no strange power clings to his clothes or movements.

Still keeping his eyes locked on her, he paces the mouth of the alcove, just a few steps in either direction.

“I thought another demon killed Kliss in Minnesota, when I saw the wreckage,” he remarks, his words ever so slightly too fast, like he’s struggling to keep his mouth up with his brain. “There was demon wreckage everywhere, and I’ve followed the trace to you.”

He kicks a chunk of dirty ice into the shield, it bounces off, crunching into shards.

“This is a demon shield. There was a remnant of a demon bubble in Arizona. That house…” His eyes trail off of her, searching the background of the cave, completely skipping off of Killian. “I’ve never seen a more protected demon hiding spot in my life.”

Killian straightens, and that motion doesn’t draw his attention.

So all of his bravado, all of his knowledge, and he can’t see the demon.

Killian obviously comes to the same conclusion. “Keep him talking,” he murmurs, twisting his hands, and a flicker of power begins to grow.

“Who are you?” Chloe asks, then gives the man her sunniest smile, the sort of smile that has dissuaded more people than her powers. “My name’s Chloe!”

He doesn’t flinch at her smile, but it’s a near deal. “Chloe the tombbreaker?”

“Apparently, that’s what they’re calling me,” Chloe says, still smiling. “I don’t really like the name, but everyone keeps on saying it to my face, so I guess it’s sticking.”

Her heart pounds and her palm goes sweaty against the battery.

“Did you escape in Toronto, too?” he asks, voice silky.

Too.

Was he in the stasis chambers, slowly going insane, or was he somewhere else?

Killian shifts to the side, slowly, like he’s worried that too sudden of movement will draw attention, but it doesn’t.

All the attention stays on Chloe.

They might’ve been responsible for unleashing the person

“Years ago,” she answers honestly, and his brow twitches up. “Who are you? Why are you tracking me?”

There’s a moment, a beat, where his shoulders twitch, but his face remains friendly, as he obviously evaluates her and Killian shifts away further.

Before the man’s face splits into a huge smile, imitating hers precisely, and it’s enough that both Chloe and Killian recoil back.

“I wanted to see who was breaking down those other bases, of course,” he replies cheerily. “What are you after, how are you duplicating demon tech, who do you know?”

The hair on her arms raise, and she takes a step back away from the shield.

The other bases.

This unassuming man in front of them could be the person who took down Atlanta.

“How did you raise this? How is it still up?” He kicks another clump of ice into it, watching it as it crumbles.

There’s the completely obvious answer, the one that any logical person would jump to, but here he is, blissfully missing the point.

Or intentionally.

If Chloe saw any hint of Killian out in the wild, even without being able to fully see all demon magic, she would immediately think demon first, not human-with-demon capabilities. All college education starts there, starts with the identification and what it entails.

If she was on the other side of the shield, she would assume anyone inside had been kidnapped.

So Chloe remains silent, as the man tests the edge of the shield with his shoe, kicking a few pebbles into it.

“Why are you going after bases?” he asks finally, after a few moments where Killian’s face goes flat and ready, like he’s waiting for permission to spring. “Is it just for the challenge?”

“Don’t answer,” Killian growls, and Chloe doesn’t need to be told that.

“Is it power?” the man asks, as if he’s trying to be coy, his voice dipping down low. “Is it because they left such a sucking hole in the structure that you can’t help but want it?”

Chloe lets her eyes flicker over to Killian and he keeps the contact.

“I can give you power,” the man says, bouncing on the balls of his feet, his blue eyes sparking over every feature in the little alcove like he can’t decide what to watch. “Power’s easy.”

Slowly shifting behind her, Killian rests a hand on the small of her back, drawing a shiver from her.

They wrote a trap, tied it into the shield itself, but he’s carefully not touching it with his actual body.

But if he took down Atlanta, then he could take down a single shield with no issue. Would be able to see the trap as clearly as Chloe can.

“I don’t want anything from you,” Chloe says, her voice small despite her bravado. “Just don’t follow me.”

“Do you have a demon to do your bidding, is that what this is?” the man says, fully ignoring her last sentence. “Are you unleashing a demon on all these bases as revenge? Do you have something on one to do what you want? How are you controlling it?”

Careful, Killian grabs a fistful of her clothing, as if he’s preparing to teleport away, but doesn’t want to crease her clothing in any way that someone watching could see.

“I could work with a demon.” The man breezes right along. “Utterly destructive. You could dump one somewhere and they’d emerge with no other life in a mile radius. Just all gone, all humans, all Wights, demons can take care of everything. Properly leashed, they're great.”

Chloe stiffens and Killian tightens his grip, pulling her back, but she digs in.

“Do you have one on a leash?”

“No,” Chloe says, and the man raises his eyebrows again. “No, the leashes are wrong, don’t do that, don’t—”

“I saw the Terese project, the first one,” the man continues, eyes alight. “She nearly killed me just sixty miles north. It was beautiful.”

“Leave them alone,” Chloe starts, heated, “I don’t know what you’re doing, what you’re trying to do, but leave them alone and—”

“Would love another Terese project,” he purrs, and Chloe has to stop herself from recoiling back.

Another.

Her mind flashes over to the possibilities. Terese is safe, Ambra’s safe, who…

The man twists his fist, sudden, and before Chloe can even breath, Killian’s shield…shatters.

Shatters is the best term.

Shards of magic, razor sharp, fling throughout the alcove, slashing at Chloe’s clothes and skin, and she throws her arm up to protect her face.

Killian hisses out something, grabbing Chloe and spinning her around like he’s about to teleport away but…doesn’t, the momentum of his actions stumbling them both.

A shard cuts at Killian’s face, black blood spraying finely across to the wall, and the man strides in.

“It’s so odd,” he starts, laconic, like he hadn’t just broken through a shield and done…something…to Killian.

Killian twists his fist into the magic shattered in the shield and the very ground underneath them shifts. Stone chips rain from the ceiling of their little cave, a large crack racing across the floor.

The man waves his hand, and the earth ceases to move. Killian twists his hands again, and nothing happens.

“That’s very impressive,” the man says, squinting hard at Chloe, who backs herself deeper into the cave, as if that could help her.

Killian steps in front of her, for all the help that would do.

The man licks his lips, like he’s debating something.

“Is your demon here?”

“Yes,” Killian snarls, voice tight with panic. He twists his arm behind his back, his palm up.

Carefully, Chloe places her hand in his, and he grips her hard.

“I could use a demon handler on my team,” the man says, and in between blinks, Chloe can halfway see some sort of strange magic he’s emitting, half between a shimmer and the glimmer of light reflected from water. “How do you have them leashed?”

Killian squeezes her fingertips, like he’s attempting to teleport them away, but nothing happens.

“I can tell you—or the demon, whichever—are trying to run,” the man scolds, like he’s the worst sort of teacher. “It won’t work, not until I have answers.”

“What are you trying to do?” Chloe breathes, and the man’s lips curve up into a smile. “With the bases.”

With her free hand, she clenches the battery tight. She could transform it into some sort of bomb, some sort of knife, some sort of explosive that’ll spark up in his face, some—

“Kill all involved,” he says casually, like it’s a normal thing to say and not something straight out of a comic book villain manual. “The power vacuum’s significant, it’s not enough.”

“Why attack the Frisse base?” Chloe asks, as Killian attempts to wrap himself in the strip of a ley line right outside the cave, but nothing happens. She needs to stall, needs to figure out how to get Killian back to normal, needs to figure out what this stranger’s weakness is. “They’re firmly outside of the power structure.”

His brows raise. “Oh, you do know your stuff,” he says, like a compliment from him means something. “Why were you going after the spirit fox?”

His words settle in the small cave, as Killian’s shoulders tighten further, his breathing rapid.

“Answer for an answer,” the man cajoles. “I could see your pattern, it’s easy to see.”

“Do you have a plan?” Killian asks, his voice low, and the man doesn’t react at all to it. “If I move, can you hurt him?”

Chloe taps against his palm. “Yes,” she says, and the man’s brow raises. “Not for power, don’t worry.”

Killian nods his affirmative.

“Anyone who holds them would be powerful,” the man chides. “Surely you know that.”

“It’s the shield,” Killian says, “when he broke it, he put down some sort of containment.”

“Of course,” Chloe says, and her heart is hammering so hard that the man in front of her must be able to hear it. “Why the Frisse base?”

And the man turns his blue eyes directly to her, and Chloe’s stomach drops. “They have a Terese project leashed up somewhere in that basement and a Necromancer somewhere else.” He smiles, and it’s a dreamy sort of smile. “There’s more than one sort of power in this world.”

“I’ll leave you alone if you leave me,” Chloe blurts out. “There is nothing, nothing that would—”

The man waves a hand, and another silent glimmer of power flicks over her, cooling her blood and chilling her skin. “Tell your demon to stop trying to teleport, it’s getting tiring.”

So he can tire out.

Killian hears the same thing, immediately pulls more to him, a trickle of sweat falling down his neck.

She didn’t know how demons could sweat.

“You’re headed to the Auburn prison?” the man asks, casual, like it’s not exactly what they’re planning. “Where they’re keeping the fox? That is where your clues—whatever they are—are sending you?”

Chloe stills.

The fox could be within less than fifty miles away. Would have been less than fifty miles away from the cabin for who knows how long.

And she never knew.

“How would you know that?” Killian asks, and Chloe immediately parrots his words.

The man grins, and finally, all pretension melts off, and there’s something inhuman underneath. Something so completely foreign.

“The same way I know you broke the traps in Minnesota by changing the rocks in the ground,” he says, voice lilting up. “Same way I know you’re protecting a little girl up in Canada.”

And in those words, something in Killian snaps. Some sort of struggle against the blanket, some sort of leashing of himself, and—

The world cracks around them, the stones shattering underneath their feet, pitching the man forward. Gold blooms around them, vicious and sudden.

Chloe’s ears ring, dust billowing up around them, and Killian grips her tight. There’s a moment of weightlessness, a moment of her hair floating untethered around her face, where she feels like she may never come down, she may be there forever, she may be twisting and spiraling and clawing and—

Killian’s arm around her middle, they slam into the ground.