Page 9 of Demon Sworn
When there’s no answer after five seconds, Akor orders, “Bust it down.”
Normally, I’d urge more restraint. But my nerves are singing like a dozen birds at dawn. We’re about to light shit up.
Kastros sends a hand smashing through the door in a single punch. Despite the fact that the splinters snare him and blood drips down his wrists, he maneuvers around and unlocks the door from the inside. He retracts his hand and turns the knob, shoving the door open.
We stride inside, and I crack my knuckles, ready to do whatever it takes to walk out of here with Adam. No stupid set of humans can possibly—
I stop short when I see the apartment.
It’s empty.
There’s not a stick of furniture in sight.
The polished wood floors gleam like burnt honey. The white walls don’t look like a nail has ever touched them, nothing’s hung from their virgin surfaces. There are no curtains on the windows. The black sky stares in at us through the glass, the stars laughing at and mocking us.
“What the fuck?” Akor’s angry exclamation echoes the fury surging through my chest.
“Did that fucker lie to you?” I turn an accusatory glare onto Akor. “Did you go too damn far?”
“No!” He’s immediately defensive.
But this is big. It’s huge. If he fucked this up, our chances of finding Adam just got worse. I take a step closer and get in his face. “You sure, Akor? You have a history of going too far.”
He gnashes his teeth, and his eyes narrow. There’s a flash of pain followed by a flash of uncertainty.
I step back before the pain demon feels the need to punish me for making him second-guess himself. As it is, his eyes flash, and he hurls his machete across the room like it’s a frisbee. It whirls until it smacks the wall, and the blade sticks for half a second before the weight of the weapon sends it falling down, clattering to the floor. Like our hopes.
“We need to go back.”
Kastros shakes his head. He lifts his hands, and for the first time tonight, signs,We can’t. The guy’s dead.
Fuck! I want to smash in Akor’s jaw. He screwed up! We had a perfectly good lead. That asshole should have squealed.
And now, we have nothing. An empty apartment. No trail. Not even crumb to follow. We’re like the idiot version of Hansel and Gretel or some shit. Fucking fuck!
Are Katrina’s parents that smart? I’d thought them more cruel than clever, but now I have to re-evaluate. Was I wrong?
Did they plant a false trail at work?
I snatch my phone out of my pocket and dial, ignoring the bloodstains as I hold it up to my cheek.
Zolroth picks up on the first ring, the dude’s posh British accent too smooth for this jagged, broken glass shit show of a night. “Yes?” he asks.
“Get away from Trina. I don’t want her upset.”
“Uh…hold on.” I hear the noise of feet shuffling, and Zolroth mutters, “Get off, Jason! Go cuddle Katrina.”
A stupid, “Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay!” starts off loud but grows distant.
A door clicks shut. “I’m alone in the laundry room,” Zolroth tells me. “What’s up?”
“Get on your computer. Track their phones. Her parents aren’t at this apartment. They lied at work about where they were staying.”
A shocked silence meets my ears.
“Do it!” I roar into the phone, hitting the end button. Then I stride over to one of the floor length windows. I let my hand morph into a claw and relish the squeal of glass as I cut through it. I carve out a giant rectangle and then shove the glass outwards so that it flies into the dark sky, the moon licking across its mirrored surface for just a moment before it plunges to the ground.
I let my wings burst from my back, because fuck secrecy. Fuck humans. Fuck everything. I jump out of the hole I’ve made and let my wings catch the air before pumping them wildly. I don’t bother to look behind me to see if Akor and Kastros follow. I simply fly home.
