Page 24 of Demon's Prey
“And where would I go? I’m not exactly a millionaire. Will you be providing us with protection and services?”
She had said ‘us’ without thinking. She felt Kurse giggle in delight behind her.
Keppler turned to Kurse and pointed an index finger.
“You’ve got full protection right there. But we can provide you with a safe house if that’s what you mean.”
Faith thought about the brief interaction she had had with this man over the phone. Was he still implying that she needed to keep an eye on Kurse, or had his attention switched over to John Savage?
Despite acting on behalf of PEACE, Faith believed that peace was far from Agent Keppler’s mind.
She shook her head at him, adding with assertiveness, “I’m not going to be needing that. We will be fine.”
“You’ve been warned then,” Agent Keppler said, standing up from his seat. Faith stayed sitting, watching him closely. “We are going to place a few men outside your apartment and will be in contact with you shortly. Nice meeting you, both.” Keppler nodded at Kurse, who did nothing in reply.
Agent Keppler left the room in a flurry of shadows.
“Well,” Kurse tried to stand up, then forgot that his horns were going to pierce the ceiling. He bent his head severely to the side, saying, “That was one heaping pound of bullshit.”
Faith stood up and nodded.
“There’s nothing PEACE-like about that guy at all.”
They left the station and decided that they would return to her apartment, and Kurse agreed to help her fix the sliding door of her balcony, as well as the freezer door.
As they walked, Kurse towered over her, acting like a natural shade, “He said he had spoken to you before on the phone. When was that?”
Faith felt her face go red. She couldn’t tell him that he asked her to watch over him. How would he ever trust her? She decided that a small white lie wasn’t going to hurt anyone at the time.
“It was before we met. They are looking over John Savage and are looking for input.”
Kurse nodded, continuing to walk beside her at her pace. He had the face of a human, with demon features, but even at that, she could tell that he didn’t completely believe her.
Faith thought that lying may come naturally to demons, but apparently, so did getting hurt.
13
KURSE
When they finally returned to Faith’s apartment, Kurse did his best to cover up the shattered sliding door with cardboard he’d found by the dumpster outside. He used duck tape to place a firm outline and stepped back, feeling quite satisfied with himself.
It looked like a painting that could be showcased at the demonic gallery.
He then approached the freezer door, still hanging off its hinges. Unfortunately, duck tape wasn’t strong enough to mend that error, and he wound up ripping it off entirely on advice from Faith. She assured him that she would get a repairman to fix it. Kurse still felt guilty and unsatisfied.
Kurse decided to make himself useful while Faith continued to work on the John Savage case in her bedroom. He rummaged through her drawers in the kitchen and found a bag full of popsicle sticks—or what just looked like ordinary sticks to him. He laid them out on the floor after finding a glue stick nearby.
For hours, Kurse constructed demonic runes in order to protect Faith and him from any form of incursion—whether human or non-human. Kurse never thought about himself as an artist, but anyone observing him at that moment would have thought otherwise.
“Holy shit,” Faith had just entered the room. Kurse looked up at her and smiled, unable to contain his emotions.
“How is the investigation going?” He inquired.
“It’s going, it’s going,” Faith muttered, her gaze locked upon the various shapes before her. From a distance, it looked like a kid was doing arts and crafts, but up close, the complexity of the shapes was astonishing,
To Kurse, of course, these weren’t anything new—he had learned the art of constructing runes since he was just a demon baby.
“What are these Kurse?” Faith asked, clearly intrigued.
