Page 26 of Monster Inside (Shadow Pact 1)

Chapter 8

Iwaited long enough for a lawyer after Mrak had finished with me that my stomach began growling loudly. It’d been hours since Leif had first walked me in here and, for a while now, I’d been beginning to wonder if they’d ever move me to a cell. Or the hallway. Or another room. Literallyanywhere.

When I’d finally had enough, I moved to stand and try prying away the anchor point from the table, or at least move the entire table toward the door. But the table was too heavy and all of it was awkward. Thankfully, the door to this interview room finally opened to spare me from further embarrassment.

Leif charged through, his hair disheveled. He no longer wore a long jacket and instead sported dark jeans and a button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Irritation curled his brows and clenched his jaw. Before speaking at all, he grabbed the free chair from the table and pulled it over to the wall with the camera hanging off it.

Leif climbed onto the chair, grabbed the camera’s side panel, and tore it off. After hitting a button hidden under the panel, he dismounted the chair and turned to me. “We need to talk.”

I was more than confused by this man. Not only was I wondering why he’d presumably just shut off an official camera recording of the two of us. But I also still didn’t know why he’d wanted the sword and what it had to do with Mrak. “Apparently. Are you even allowed to turn that off?”

Leif stalked toward the table and leaned over it, pressing his palms flat against the cool surface. “You’re in some serious shit.”

“If you only knew the half of it,” I said dryly.

Leif didn’t seem amused. “I’m serious, Aisling. I don’t know how it interfered with evidence. Or why. But it doesn’t look good for you.”

My eyes narrowed, confusion still swimming in my head. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

He made a show of splaying his hands, but I’d already seen Leif’s newly tattooed ward against Mrak.

Leif raised an eyebrow at my lack of reaction to the ward. “The tapes from outside the bar are gone. The Evidence Department had them until about thirty minutes ago. I only found out because the attorney I went to great lengths to get for you is now calling for your release, saying we falsely detained you. You know, since there’s no more evidence.”

Had Mrak done that? He’d been with me for a while. But I had felt his presence start to drift at some point. Now, it was gone entirely.

“Strange,” I admitted. Mrak and I had made a pact. Apparently, destruction of evidence fell under it.

Leif smacked the table with his open palms. His nostrils flared, and his brown eyes went wide. “I’m trying tohelpyou, Aisling.”

“Which is bizarre since we just met yesterday. Who said I needed help?”

Leif held up his hand with the tattooed ward against Mrak. “I can sense the entity inside you. I sensed it yesterday, too. Do you even know what you’re carrying?”

“Doyou?” No one before Leif had ever acknowledged something might be within or around me. Even Willa, a witch, hadn’t known about Mrak. Where the hell did Leif get off jumping into the middle of things? “Who areyou?” Because that really was the question, wasn’t it? A cop, sure. A demon hunter, according to Mrak. But there had to be more. I could sense it from the careful ways he tried—and failed—to hold in his anger.

Leif inhaled as if it were the toughest task he’d ever had to complete. “I’m someone well-versed in the entity within you, Aisling. It’s dangerous. And manipulative. Whatever it’s using you for, you can be assured it’s for nothing good. And itisusing you, regardless of whether or not you believe that.”

“We could start with whether or not I believe anything you’re saying,” I replied. “You sound mad.”

Leif’s hands balled into fists on the table. “I’m trying to save an innocent. I’ve seen your missing persons file. I know what you’ve spent ten of the last eleven years doing and being subjected to.”

I lifted up my bound hands before me. “Then you’ll know being here and bound is my biggest nightmare. Let me go.”

“No,” Leif said as he finally sat. He still held his fists over the table, as if he were stopping just short of pleading with me.

“No?” I echoed. “Pretty sure if you keep me here, that’s unlawful detainment.”

“Aisling, please,” Leif argued.

I held up my hands again. “You and I don’t know each other well enough for you to be tossing my name around. I don’t know who you are. But I’mfine.”

“No,” Leif argued. “You’re not. No one in New York is. That’s why I need that sword commissioned.”

“With the same symbol you’re using to ward off this ‘entity’?” I supposed there was no point in denying Mrak’s presence at this point. But nothing said I had to admit to anything else. Definitely not until I knew the extent of what my file stated. What information could Leif and the New York City Police Department possibly have on me besides the fact I’d gone missing eleven years ago, and now here I was, no longer missing?

Leif looked as if he were going to argue again, but instead, he stood up straight. “The entity following you is evil. Pure malevolence and darkness. And if it is left to its own agenda, it will sink this world in fire and darkness.”

This was the first I’d heard of that. It was true that I didn’t know much about Mrak. But someone capable of what Leif spoke of didn’t also seem like one capable of caring for me the way Mrak did—pact or not. And why would an entity that powerful, according to Leif, make a pact with a human in the first place?

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