Page 30 of Bad Demon

I cursed. She wouldn’t like it, would she, if I let myself in? Tensing every muscle in my body, I battled for control, resisting the urge to force my way inside.

I gripped the door handle again. “Fuck.”

* * *

FERN

I paced my apartment. He was still down there. I walked to the window and looked out. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him. Hunger gnawed at my belly, and I couldn’t stop shaking.

Because of him, I was down two thousand dollars, and I still hadn’t fucking fed.

The door handle rattled downstairs again.

Fuck.

Relic was growling and cursing. Every now and then, the handle rattled; he’d be hit by a blast of power from my ward, and he’d curse again. He should be unconscious, flat on his back on the other side of the street by now. The male wasn’t only insane; he wasstrong. Stronger than anyone I’d ever met. I guessed it shouldn’t be surprising; he was a motherfucking hellhound.

He growled again, and I startled, then cursed under my breath. I needed to do something. He wasn’t going to leave me alone—that much had become obvious.

My phone rang, and I yanked it out of my pocket but didn’t recognize the number. Shit, it was probably Relic. Ignoring it, I paced away from the window and back. My phone started ringing again.

How had he gotten my freaking number?

Fucking hell.

I was about to turn away when something moved on the roof of the building across the street. I moved closer as a dark figure stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight. A male. I couldn’t see his face. He wore a hooded sweatshirt and lifted an arm, holding up a phone. Not Relic. The male tapped at the screen and put it to his ear. Mine started ringing again a moment later.

He was one of the demons who’d been watching me—he had to be. Why was some lowlife breeder scout calling me?

Was I some kind of psycho magnet? First, this asshole standing on a roof across the street and his buddies, and now the hound. Though I hadn’t actually seen anyone hanging around my place this last week.

My phone stopped ringing, and the male on the roof took the phone from his ear, tapped the screen, and lifted it again. Mine instantly started up.

Shit.

Stepping back from the window, I stared down at my phone. He wasn’t going to stop, not until I talked to him. Gritting my teeth and my hand shaking, I answered. “Who are you? What the fuck do you want?”

“Come back to the window, and I’ll show you,” a distorted voice said down the line.

Fear dug its hooks deep into my flesh. That voice—the clipped tone, the pauses at odd places was horrifyingly familiar.

I didn’t want to go back to the window.No. He was dead.I’d killed him. He burned to ashes. No one came out of that building. No one. He’d fucking burned.

I didn’t want to see the truth, but my feet obeyed his order as if I were still under his power. I stood there and looked across the distance between us, watching in horror as he lifted his other hand and shoved back the hood, revealing a face I’d prayed to Lucifer that I’d never see again.

Grady.

And if Grady knew where I was, that meant … The Chemist had sent him.

No. No, no, no.

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move.

They were dead. They were supposed to be dead.

“Hello, Estelle. It’s been a long time.”

I shook my head. This had been my deepest fear for the last five years. I’d told myself it couldn’t happen, that I was safe. I’d convinced myself that the demons watching me had been sent by someone else, but of course, it was The Chemist. Of course it was.

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