Page 118 of Spit

Legion frowned, his attention drawn to the window of his study, and the glass was covered in dog slobber. Kiko.

Legion had allowed the three-headed dog sanctuary on his estate after Legion had busted an illegal animal market. Kiko had been bred for dog fights.

The dog scratched the window again.

With a sigh, Legion stood up and pulled open the sash window. The dog hopped inside with barely any effort at all. Legion expected him to curl up in a ball, but Kiko paced in a circle, wagging his stumpy tail.

The dog's eyes flared a brighter red before going dark. Pulsing light.

Legion watched the unusual behavior for a moment. “You’re being summoned?” He echoed in disbelief. “But no one knows your—”

Mars and Quinn knew the three-headed dog's demonic name.

Camio did as well.

All roads led to one place—Legion hoped.

He sent out a mental beacon to the others and hoped he wasn’t getting his hopes up for no reason.

Arlo, Trey, Sev, and Legion bundled the three-headed dog into the car, allowing the beast to put his head out of the window as Timkin drove them into the city.

They circled the outer rim of the city. The monstrous estates belonged to the demons of high standing that lived in the city and didn’t wish to be around their lessors. Though he didn’t include himself in that category.

The limo drove closer to the wall as Kiko barked and yipped, directing them closer to the walls. The runes cut into the foundations pulsed and reminded Legion that there was a reason that demons didn’t go near the barrier that separated the Red City from the human-controlled world.

Every so often, the dog flared with light. Streaming from its eyes and mouth as the pull of its name grew too strong.

They got closer to the city's center, the Magictek building, and the surrounding skyscrapers. The abandoned Happy Cow Pharmaceuticals tower mocked them, a shadow that cast darkness over the rest of the buildings as if to chide them for not noticing it first.

Legion wasn’t sure he would have made the connection. Even as they pulled to a stop outside of the condemned entrance, boarded up and graffitied, he still wasn’t sure they had the right place.

Magicktek’s wards throbbed behind him, teasing the demons as if to say,‘you are going the wrong way.’

But the demon dog had been summoned, and for a beast that couldn’t track an egg in a hen house, it was doing an excellent job leading them.

Trey looked up at the building with his hands in his pockets and sniffed in disdain. “Let’s get this done.”

The others agreed.

“We can lace into the building.”Arlo’s head tilted back as he looked up.

Sev reached down and picked up the fifty-kilo dog as if it weighed nothing. “I miss having wings.”

“I do as well,” Legion admitted. “I don’t think the ward will allow us to Lace. It is more subtle than Magickteks, and I don’t want to risk lacing outside the building. An injury might slow us down, regardless of how fast we heal.”

The men murmured in agreement.

Trey strutted forward, gripping the edge of the chipboard at the front door with his hands. He ripped the wood from the door in one fell swoop—as if he was pulling a velcro fastening. He gestured for his brothers to walk through.

The reception area of the building screamed corporate, once pristine and filled with reflective chrome that had since grown dull with dust.

At the far end of the room stood a ghost that he had never expected to see again—Camio.

Their beginnings had long since become muddled, but grief had a way of elevating someone to sainthood.

Before he had been Gluttony, twisted by hell to be the very thing he despised, Camio had represented abstinence and restraint. Camio had been the holdout. The one angel of the seven to refuse to join Lucifer’s cause.

He had been the one to betray the seven to God—but he had been punished just as harshly as they had.

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