Chapter 41

41

I t makes no sense.

It makes no sense, and the sheer illogical nature of it stabs through Chloe’s fog, shaking her out of the panic.

Behind the man with the sinister blue eyes and the cruel grip on her friend, a crude leash around his neck, is the demon they didn’t kill in Minnesota.

He meets Chloe’s eyes, a world of pain behind his gaze.

Chloe’s seen that before, and by the inhale from Killian, so has he.

“Were you just waiting here?” Killian grits out, and the man doesn’t answer, but the demon inclines his head into a nod.

“Conner, is the other demon speaking?” the man asks, only tilting his head towards the demon. “I named him Connor, he doesn’t remember his name.”

“Yes,” the demon says, toneless.

“Good,” the man says, and the spirit fox jerks in his hands again, its tail sparking up. He ignores it, ignores the obvious motions of distress.

“You’re hurting her,” Chloe blurts out, and the spirit fox jerks towards her, at the sound of her voice.

Oh god, her friend recognizes the sound of her voice.

“What, this?” The man raises the spirit fox by the scruffy, and her legs scrabble at the air wildly. “I don’t care about this.”

Behind him, the demon meets Chloe’s eyes once more, some sort of silent plea. Some sort of attempt to communicate, attempt to send some information to her, before he stares hard at Killian.

Killian shifts, as if he gets the message.

“Is that your name?” Killian asks the demon, and he shrugs, pain bleeding into indifference.

It’s strange to see the demon in the body like that, after only seeing it so terrified and drenched in blood before. Now he wears a shirt as if it’s a straight jacket and pants that fit poorly, and he shifts in them, like the clothing cuts into him as cleanly as the scalpels did.

And they had let him go, instead of offering more help, and here he was, now in captivity, now controlled once more, now just as unable to move as Ambra once was.

No wonder Killian had seen it as a mercy to try to kill him.

“This isn’t what I’m here for,” the man continues, loving the sound of his own voice, and Chloe could use that. Use the inclination to monologue, use it to distract, to set something in action. “This is just bait.”

Slowly, Chloe forces herself to exhale, forces herself to relax, to grasp at the battery in her pocket.

Then she smiles at him, as sunny as she can force it. “I don’t understand.”

The man pauses, his lips quirking downward. “What?”

“I don’t understand,” Chloe says, stepping out from behind Killian, even though his hand twitches out towards her. “Why the bait?”

“What—”

“Why set up fire in the hallway?” Chloe pushes, still sunny, coating her voice in as much sugar as she can, in as much innocence possible. “Why take my friend and what, sit here for an hour?”

Behind him, the demon raises up two fingers.

“Two hours?” Chloe amends, before smiling again. “That’s a bit odd, don’t you think?”

In his grasp, the spirit fox relaxes somewhat, like Chloe’s smile is enough to help.

Killian paces behind her, pouring more energy into the room, until the man in front of them is the only person unaffected.

“Why the fire traps?” Chloe repeats, and the man actually makes a show of petting the spirit fox, who turns around and snaps at him. “Why tearing down everything else?”

“Wanted to see if you’d make it through,” the man says idly, as if that’s a logical thing to do at all. “And if the college came sniffing back for any survivors, then that’s just a plus.”

Any survivors.

“It’s not going to take very many more,” the man says, voice low, “not that many more bases, not that many more schools, where once they’re cleared the college will fall and fall hard. Hurt those who hurt you.”

He smiles, and the smile doesn’t meet his blue eyes.

“I know you want that just as much as I do.”

Chloe opens her mouth again, but the spirit fox snaps again, drawing all her attention down.

“I think…” Chloe starts, “I think you and I have different ideas of who needs to be hurt.”

He rolls his eyes, so casual and dismissive, before avidly watching her follow the movements of the spirit fox.

“What, you think something like this is worth pursuing like you two have?” the man says, like they’re the ones acting strange. “When you have…him?”

This time, he gestures right up at Killian, locking eyes with him.

“The good thing about having a pet Terese project is you get to compel them to tell you how to make more.”

As his plan settles in place in her mind, as everything clicks into place, it’s almost disappointing. As all the torture of the animals, of the pathway of fire, this was his plan? To get them in here and monologue about the Terese project?

As if Chloe didn’t know—and the demon most likely, as well—how long of a process it was?

“I was gonna kidnap the girl,” the man says, and Killian jerks back. “But you got her someplace safe before I could, good job.”

“You would die if you ever got your hands on her,” Killian remarks, the same icy calm settling over him as before, the fear giving way to dread giving way to conviction. “And now she’s even safer.”

This doesn’t even phase the man. “So instead, you bring your bonded to me,” he says, crooking his fingers at Chloe. “You follow her into someplace so misguided, just because she wants a creature that would be of little use to you.”

Killian eyes Chloe, who eyes him right back.

“Can he hear me?” Killian asks, turning instead to the demon behind him, who shakes his head.

So just see Killian, whatever magic he did obviously waning.

“Translate, Conner,” the man says, twisting his hand in the leash.

“He just wanted to know if you could understand his words,” the demon says, and there’s a thin veneer of disgust in his words.

“Good thing I’m not here to bargain with him,” he says, then holds the spirit fox aloft again, her legs scrambling in the air. “You want this?” he asks Chloe.

Chloe doesn’t move, obviously, but the spirit fox stares at her, the tail sparking up viciously.

“Conner, subdue our demon friend. You, Chloe Tombbreaker, if you want your friend, step away.”

Killian stiffens, and Chloe reaches out wildly, grabbing his hand.

The demon doesn’t move.

The man sighs, then tugs the leash dangling loosely from his fingertips. “Conner, make him helpless.”

And the other demon explodes into action.

Killian all but shoves Chloe away back into the wall, warping the shield to fit around her, before snapping out a strand of power to meet the other mid stride.

The demon barely stumbles, instead snaking out magic and lashing out at Killian’s knees, like he hopes to knock his legs out.

The power collides in a shower of sparks.

And the man, still sitting on the lab chair and holding the spirit fox, meets Chloe’s eyes and smiles.

“Do you want to be the one to control him, is that it?” he asks, gesturing at the spirit fox. “This little thing won’t help with that, you know.”

The other demon makes a strike at Killian’s shoulder, staggering him, but Killian clenches his fist and sends the other demon reeling as if he was punched.

Black blood wells from the wound on Killian’s shoulder and from a cut on the other demon’s cheek. It hurts to watch, in some esoteric way, her mind not fully comprehending the motions, the magic being spun around.

Like this sort of thing isn’t meant for human eyes to witness.

Chloe presses her back against the wall, gasping for breath as the power floods through the room.

“You can’t actually love him, not in the depth of a bonded demon, you know that, right?” the man asks, almost quietly, as if he’s one hundred percent unfazed by the battle in front of them. “We can’t give them what they need, not really.”

His fingers play in the leash, and corresponding with the motion, the other demon changes trajectories midair, slamming his elbow into Killian’s gut.

“You’re just going to give him heartbreak if that’s what you’re after,” the man says, and there’s almost an urgency in his tone. “If you take control of him, it’ll just be worse for both of you.”

He twitches the leash, and the other demon scrabbles against it for a split second, before slashing at Killian with more power.

That power tastes like Terese’s. Like the one time she saw Terese actually expend herself, actually use any of the nebulous power she somehow has at her disposal.

She had leveled a small structure on the property, one they were gonna destroy to build anew, and it had taken her all of three seconds.

And that sort of power is in the hand of this man.

“You wouldn’t need to do much, I’ll hand over this,” he shakes the spirit fox again, who makes a small noise of protest, “and give over your bond. Easy.”

Easy.

As if it wasn’t some nebulous thing that Chloe’s only half aware of. As if it’s something possible. As if she didn’t know Ambra, at what losing her bond had cost her, at what lengths the college went through to use it and harm her with it.

Instead, Chloe locks eyes with the spirit fox, who’s still squirming in his grasp towards Chloe, like she knows Chloe will be safe. Like she knows that the moment she can get to Chloe, she’ll be out of these cages, out of these bonds, and be free.

The other demon lands a strike on Killian, and he reels back, the edges of him blurring for one long second, before his eyes flash over to Chloe for one brief second, one brief crystalline moment.

One moment where there’s blood in the air, where the other demon coils to strike again, the leash a vicious red and black along his neck and terror in his jaw.

One moment where panic bleeds through from Killian, panic at the fight, panic at the shield around Chloe failing, at being so close and having something so obvious in their way.

He’s hurt. She can feel it in her bones, he’s hurt and he doesn’t know if he can win this fight. He doesn’t know if they’ll make it out, he doesn’t know what he can do, and there’s so much desperation.

And the other demon’s chest heaves, but another twitch of the leash pushes him forwards again.

“I think,” Chloe says, the words mealy in her mouth, metallic with the bite of all the magic in the air, “that maybe I know more than you.”

The man’s brow furrows, and he opens his mouth to shoot something back, but Chloe grabs the battery in her fist and transforms it into the simplest thing she can think of, a blade.

Just a blade, with barely enough room for Chloe to grasp, and she flings it.

Not at the man, not that close to the spirit fox. Not to the demon with black blood lining his mouth and terror in his eyes.

But at the leash.

It snaps, taught, and the demon reels back, scrambling away from Killian, flashing a hand up to his neck before jerking his head up to stare at Chloe.

The man makes a noise, something disgruntled, something dismayed, and the other demon stiffens, his back straightening.

Killian stumbles back into Chloe and she catches him, his back slick with blood.

Her knees buckle underneath him, falling both of them to the ground, but his hand clutches her arm, just as real as before.

He’s okay, he’s okay, his chest is rising and his eyes are focusing and his jaw is slack and—

“You can’t—” the man starts, before the other demon clenches his fist.

The man’s neck cracks, head slamming backwards and twisting.

Chloe flinches, but the man’s body just slumps against the chair, his hand going lax against the spirit fox’s fur.

And the fox streams out from underneath his hand, pouring away from him in one smooth motion, before flinging herself at Chloe’s chest, hitting her with all the force in her five pound body.

And.

And all at once, the spirit fox attempts to burrow into Chloe’s jacket, hiding her nose underneath the fabric, and tears spring up in Chloe’s eyes.

Killian reaches up to her face as she sits on the floor, half-laying across her lap, while the fox presses as close as she can, her fur trembling.

The other demon straightens, staring at the body of the man in front of them, before turning and casting that same stare onto Killian.

Who tenses, as if he has to prepare himself for another fight.

“I don’t ever,” the demon says, just as tonelessly, “want to see either of you again.”

With another heaving breath, the other demon disappears, leaving them with the dead body.

The fox flinches at the obvious expense of magic, her tail sparkling from where she’s tucked into Chloe’s jacket, and hand shaking, Chloe reaches down and strokes her soft fur.

“I got you,” Chloe whispers, and Killian blinks up at her, still injured, still visibly shaking, but she leans down and presses a kiss against his forehead as well. “I got you.”