Page 47 of Bad Demon

RELIC

Roman followedme around the side of the old building. It had been a boarding house back in the day, but it was condemned a long time ago. Now, it had boarded windows and heavy-duty padlocks on the doors. The place reeked of darkness, of fear and blood and chemicals I couldn’t name, which singed my fucking nose and prickled at my flesh.

I motioned to the door at the back. The lock was broken. Loth and Fender were going in from the front, so I eased the door open and searched the dark room. Our night vision was excellent; we didn’t need any other light to see inside. Rome screwed up his face. The scent was so much worse now. My boots crunched on broken glass scattered across the checkerboard linoleum, and I tilted my head, listening for sounds of life. Nothing.

If Faron had been here, he was gone now, but whoever had been holed up here had caused a lot of damage.

We walked deeper into the room as Loth strode toward us.

“You need to see this,” he said.

We followed him down a set of stairs and along a hallway. The carpet was damp and smelled of rot. The farther down the hall we went, the stronger the scent of fear became, overtaking everything else, along with the unmistakable stench of death.

Lothar opened the door to what had once been a utility room at the end of the hall, and Fender looked up from the stack of papers he was leafing through, shoved his red hair back, and shook his head with a scowl. Death, rot, terror—they saturated the room. There was blood streaked on the walls and pooled on the floor—dark, almost black. It’d been there for several days, and it wasn’t demon—or not just demon anyway. If it were, we’d be in a room full of ash. No, the owners of the blood in this room had been something else as well.

I walked to the large stainless steel bin against the wall. There was a laundry chute above it. It was covered in a bloodstained sheet. I tugged it off. “Fuck.”

“What the fuck is Faron up to?” Roman growled.

I took in the bodies—all female, all mutilated, and at odd angles. The body on top was unrecognizable; they all were.

“Is that ink?” I said to Rome.

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure …” He dragged the fabric of the female’s shirt up a little, revealing more of her stomach. “It’s one of mine.”

“You know her?” Loth asked.

“She’s a witch.” He tilted his head to the side. “She came to me a while back after seeing some of my work.”

“They’re not just witches though.”

“Nah. The blood in here, I scent demon as well,” Lothar said. “None of them mated either.”

Loth had one of the best noses out of all of us. I was having trouble getting anything past all the chemicals in this fucking room. But when a female was mated, her male’s scent was branded on her—claiming her, warning off other males. If Loth said they weren’t mated, they weren’t mated.

“See if you can find any ID on them. When we know what the fuck is going on here, we can let their families know,” he said.

But not before. We didn’t need a bunch of witches and their covens getting involved in Lucifer’s business, not until we figured this out.

We searched the rest of the place. The scent of chemicals was stronger in several rooms, along with evidence of torture, but nothing else had been left behind. When we finally headed out, I grabbed a steel bar and used it to jam the door shut, and Fender did the same to the front. Then we got on our bikes and headed back to the clubhouse.

By the time we got there, it was the early hours of the morning. I’d forced myself to focus on the job all night, but my mind had repeatedly pulled me back here.

Had Fern been okay without me? She’d been terrified when I left. She’d also gotten turned on when I pinned her to the wall. Fuck. Leaving her had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done.

I crossed the main room, punched in the code by the door, rushed down the stairs, and along the tunnel. Unlocking my door as quietly as I could, I walked into my room. It was dark, apart from the light coming from the TV. She wasn’t on the couch or in my bed. I pushed open the bathroom door. She wasn’t in there either.

Fuck.

I scanned the room. She’d left. She’d fucking left.

I headed for the door. A whimper came from the couch, and I spun back. My jacket, still tossed over it, moved. Rounding the bed, I eased the heavy leather back, and my breath was punched from my lungs. Fern was curled up under it. So fucking small that I hadn’t seen her.

She was asleep. Her blood-red hair was all over her face, and I couldn’t resist brushing it back. Her eyes snapped open, and in a flash, her hand jerked up, the knife in it flashing in the light of the TV—

I grabbed her wrist before she could thrust it into my throat.

Her eyes widened.

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