I motioned to step outside with Levi. "I need to talk to you anyways."
He nodded and walked out of the conference room, and we both walked down the hall in silence. I stopped in front of my office and crossed my arms. "Heard from Ira today. He wanted to make sure that I was still good for our meeting."
"He's trying to stress you out. Don't worry about him contacting you. What else?"
I didn't like the way he dismissed it, but he really didn't like that topic. Ira hadn't made a physical threat against me, so I guess in Levi's mind it wasn't really a concern. "The tablet my father was working on translating for you, where is it? Or do you have his notes?"
"I have it, and yes, I have his notes. Abigail, you need to stay away from that." He met my gaze. "It's an old magic; there's too much that's unknown about it."
"Yet he decided to use it as his basis for a case study that spans at least ten PIB lesson books." I crossed my arms. "So clearly he wasn't concerned about it."
"You are to stay away from their case," he snapped. "All of it."
I held my hands up. "It has to do with Clarissa's case."
His face softened a little bit. "What?"
"The runes found at her shop match those that my father used for the case study, with very subtle differences." I sighed. "That's what I'm helping Liz with, trying to translate them so we can figure out what happened to Clarissa."
"I'll have the notes delivered to Liz." He shook his head. "And then you are to back away from this. You're too close, and now that someone is trying to frame you, appearing as you, it goes far beyond something as simple as Clarissa being sacrificed." He put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sending Mario to you. You will not argue about having him around."
I wanted to though, just because of how he was acting and demanding things. "I'm just going to work for the night, Liz is here."
"And do you think Liz can handle some of the things you've been through the last few months? Exploding buildings, poltergeists? Blood-starved vampires?"
I shrugged. "She handled Drake with me, had my back through a house fire. I trust her."
He regarded me for a moment with some hesitation and then finally sighed. "Then let Mario know when you leave. I could use him for a bit right now anyway." He disappeared, and I was left standing in the hallway by myself. Liz would have the notes she needed probably by the next day, Levi was anything if not efficient.
I slowly walked back to the conference room. Once Liz had the notes, I would have no choice but to step back and just wait for the case to be solved.
I found Liz leaning over all the books. "Levi was my contact for the notes my father made. He said he'll have them delivered to you."
"Do you trust him? Having the notes makes him a suspect."
I nodded. "He's a vampire and has very little knowledge of magic. It's why he and Clarissa were friends. She acted as a consultant for him a few times." But it was my uncle he used for the darker things, of course, he was MIA, but there was a tiny little voice in the back of my head wondering if he was involved in this.
No. Oliver was smarter than that; he would have covered up his tracks, not tried to frame me.
I recalled the person outside my circle at home and the strange shifting of the person I saw outside the coffee house. "So that spell that you used to transport…that's a hard spell to learn?"
She raised a brow at me. "Yeah, it is. Why, you want to learn?"
"It's one that the Cult of Ra members know, at least some of them." It was also one that I thought Nick might have used to fake his death.
She nodded. "Most of their higher members, but don't worry, I don't have connections to them."
That really wasn't my concern. "What about glamour?"
She shook her head. "Glamour is complicated, and it would disappear the moment the person went through any protective circle or wards."
I'd never studied glamour; it wasn't a very useful skill because it wasn't reliable. "Do you know anyone who's managed it without being sensed?"
"Only a fae, and honestly, I'm thinking we're dealing more with a skinwalker than we are a witch with glamour or a fae."
I'd never met a fae before, but I knew they were around. "Skinwalkers are just myths. We all know that."
"That's my point."
Well damn.
"But it's possible? If someone were using glamour to look like me, it would have melted away the moment they entered the shop."
She nodded. "True, and the park doesn't have protection."
So glamour could have been an option for whoever was trying to frame me.
I started closing up the books, running my thumbs over the edges of the pages as I did. Through the waterfall of paper, I caught a handwritten note. I stopped the pages and went back to it.
"Energy." It was written under one of the runes, it hadn't been one we looked at, but it was the same style.
Liz came and looked over my shoulder. "I hadn't seen notes."
"Because you weren't looking for them. We were just looking for the runes that looked similar." I grabbed another book and thumbed through it. There, under one of the first runes we looked at, in faded pencil was the word "fire."
I glanced at Liz, and she nodded. We flipped through all the books, finding every pencil and pen mark in each book.
A few hours later we had a variety of words written down, water, fire, air, energy, earth, blood, death, life, and control. My alarm on the phone went off, letting me know that it was midnight.
Liz looked at me. "An alarm at this time of night?"
"Means it's bedtime."
She laughed. "I guess when you date a vampire, you keep strange hours."
I snorted. "Mario doesn't control my sleep hours. Honestly, I've always done my best thinking at night."
"Thanks for the help. I'll look over the notes tomorrow and compare them to what Levi brings me."
I nodded and gathered up the pizza boxes. "I hope it helps. Know anything about demons?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know. I just helped you with your case. Can't you throw some random information out for me?"
She shook her head. "If only it worked like that Abby. Go home and get some rest. I'll see you in the office later."
"I'll be leaving early tomorrow night. I have a date." Or you know, a night of playing vampire politics with my faux boyfriend's maker, whatever.
"Not like you to take time away from a case for something personal."
"I couldn't leave him hanging. Besides, a couple hours and I'll be back on the search for my demon."
"Um," Liz was looking out the window. "I don't think you're going to have to look too far."
I sprinted over to see what she was staring at. A huge black creature was standing on the hood of my car, the talons digging into the hood and crunching up the metal. It turned glowing red eyes toward us. "Son of a bitch, my car!"
"Bigger problems Abby!" Liz shoved me toward the door as the creature launched itself up into the air and hit the windows of the conference room.
Thank the goddess for gorilla glass. Liz and I darted out of the room, and I went down the stairs with Liz on my heels. I think she might have been the only person I knew who would run toward the danger with me.
We skidded to a stop when we got to the parking lot. At some point, the demon had come down from its jump and was back on my car. The hood was smashed in now, and I shook my head.
Liz rolled her eyes. "Worry about the car later, how are we going to trap this thing?"
"Circle. Then I need to draw one to send it back because I don't know how to do it without a physical circle."
She stared at me. "How do you know how to do that anyway?"
"I've had a strange education."
The demon ran toward us, and I focused on my magic, it hummed through me, and I threw it forward imagining a purple circle around th
e creature to keep it in. The circle manifested, the demon hit the barrier, and I felt the jar in my magic as it did.
I glanced at Liz. "Can you fortify it?"
The demon rammed into my circle again, and I called up more magic. The color of my circle started to change, and the demon hesitated.
Liz hesitated slightly too. "Abby?"
"Don't worry about it, big scary demon, let's focus here?"
She let her magic loose, and it hit mine. The moment it did, the magic turned purple again. "Now what?"
"Now…" I needed to draw a demon trap. Except the demon was stronger than we thought.
"If one of us drops the circle, it'll get out." Liz echoed my thoughts. "Can you do the demon trap without a guide?"
"I've never tried it."
The demon rammed into the circle again, and I felt the magic start to crack. I started to understand how the thing escaped in the first place. Physical cracks started to form in the circle, and Liz looked at me. The creature busted through the barrier, causing magic to shatter around it like glass.
I grabbed Liz and threw another circle up around us, panting as the sudden surge of magic in and out started to take its toll on me. Liz dug her fingers into my arm. "Hold on."
The world around us disappeared as the demon was an inch away from our circle.
Chapter Six
When the world reappeared, we were in an unfamiliar place. The red walls had photographs dotting them, and the white carpet was the only thing that lightened the room. There were no windows, and it took me a moment to find the door as it was painted the same shade of red.
I looked at Liz. "Where are we?"
"Away from the demon."
"No shit." I swallowed and tried to get my heart to calm down. "That thing busted through two circles." I tried to keep the panic out of my voice.
She nodded. "It would have easily gotten through another one. I had to try to get us out of there."
"Three months ago, you said you could only go a couple feet."
She crossed her arms. "I've been practicing."
That much was obvious. "So where did you take us."
"This is my safe place. Where I go to practice my magic."
Like the chamber I had at Levi's, maybe not quite as fortified since she did manage to pop us in there. "The one place you could keep clear in your mind, despite a rampaging car-destroying demon?"
"Yeah, exactly." She blew out a breath. "Holy shit. That was a huge demon."
I nodded. "Much bigger than I was expecting. I'm going to have to get crafty."
"Witch crafty," Liz said without missing a beat, and I started laughing at the cheesy pun.
She sat on the floor. "Give me a second to catch my breath, and I'll take you back to PIB."
"And I can go where?" Ah, shit, I'd have to call Mario and explain to him that a demon crushed my car.
"You could just call your boyfriend. He's a vampire; he can pop you in and out of places."
Again, I'd have to explain to him what happened to the car. "That's a good point. But yeah, back to PIB first because my bag is there, and we left all of our research sitting out on the table."
She nodded and stood. "Okay, let's go." I followed her out of the room and into a simple hallway that had family photos hung up. I caught glimpses of her with other women in the family that I could assume were her siblings or cousins.
She glanced over her shoulder. "My sisters, we're all pretty close."
"Do they live in town?"
"No, we're spread all over the states, but we take some goofy pictures every time we get together."
"That's sweet." And something I had never really had. It hadn't bothered me before, but for some reason, it was suddenly eating at me. Maybe it was seeing all the smiles and the happy faces.
She led me through the kitchen and then finally out the door, and my strange feeling of grief disappeared. I wondered for a moment what kind of spell she had on the house and why. Maybe it was her form of protection, her way of warning people away.
In the driveway sat a tiny car. She motioned to it. "Hop on in."
"How come you aren't just transporting us back?"
"Too much energy, a spell like that takes a lot. I'd rather just drive us the ten minutes, drive home, and then poof in tomorrow to pick up my other car." She shrugged. "Assuming the demon doesn't destroy it."
And what if the demon was still there? We both just stood in front of the car for a moment, and I wondered if she had the same thought and neither of us was in a hurry to get back.
She finally started forward. "Certainly someone else saw the demon."
"Maybe containment showed up and caught it. They're better equipped to deal with it." Of course, we both knew that chances were the demon was running around town.
"You know what I noticed?"
"That you attract the craziest things?"
I nodded. "There's that." I climbed into the car. "But the demon wasn't in a human disguise."
"Low-level demon?"
"I don't think so; I think there would be more sightings of it if it was a low level and couldn't change between disguises."
We looked at each other. "It wanted us to find it," she said.
"That was my thought too. But why?"
Neither of us had an answer as we sat in the car. The darkness seemed to close around us. She put the key in the ignition and started the engine. I didn't even want to imagine why the demon wanted us to see it, so I didn't brainstorm out loud. Liz didn't seem particularly talkative either.
When we pulled up to PIB the demon was nowhere to be found, the only signs left of it were my crushed car and some nasty holes in the asphalt from its feet. I looked at the car and sighed. "That's my fifth one."
"I think it's time to get a bike."
"Or learn that transportation spell," I responded, only half joking.
She snorted. "Yeah, we'll work on that one." We both got out of the car and went back to the building. We took the stairs up and got to the conference room to find it empty of all the books and papers, everything except for the pizza boxes.
"Distraction?"
"But our cases aren't related, and no one but Levi and Mario knew we were here working late." Panic started to settle in my stomach.
Liz looked in and under the pizza boxes. "The last few slices are gone."
"So not only did they steal our research, but our pizza too?"
"Which tells me it's not vampires unless they are trying to throw us off the trail."
I shook my head. "Levi wouldn't take the research. He wants Clarissa's killer found and brought to justice too."
"And Mario?"
Wouldn't risk pissing Levi off. "Has no interest in my PIB cases."
"Then we're at a standstill."
I shook my head. "No, we're not, search security footage and see if they left something around that you can perform a tracking spell on. Or, how confident are you in your ability to do a trace spell?"
She gave me wide eyes. "I'm not."
"Then never mind." I put my hands on my hips. "I'm going to call Mario to come get me." I started to walk out of the conference room, and she put a hand on my shoulder.
"You can do trace spells?"
"With help, yes, but it's not my favorite thing to do. They drain my energy."
She pressed her lips together, and I could see the wheels turning in her head. "No, I can't do one for Clarissa's murder. First off, trace spells don't hold up well in court, second of all there are way too many emotions at play there."
"It wouldn't have been fair of me to ask you to do that anyways." She sighed. "Where did you learn a trace spell?"
"Same place I learned how to banish demons." I shook my head. "I did it on the poltergeist case because we ran out of options. I had help from someone they brought on as a consultant because we found Cult of Ra runes at the
location."
She laughed. "And here I thought all we got to do as PIB agents were protection spells and tracking spells."
"Yeah, I thought that once too." I snorted. "Now I wield fire, see the past, and run away from crazed vampires. I'll see you later."
I walked out and went back down the stairs and out to the parking lot. I stared at my car before I finally called Mario.
"Yes, Princess?'
I still hated the title, but now anyone who was listening in would think it was just a simple term of endearment from him. He called me it to push my buttons. "I need you to come get me and take me back to the mansion for the night."
"What's happened? Are you hurt?"
Thanks to Liz, I wasn't. "A demon kind of jumped on my car…a couple times."
"A demon…?"
"Yep."
"And you're not harmed?"
"Nope." I wasn't going to give him the details. I looked at the shredded metal and engine parts. "Car's a goner though." But I saw something stuck in a slice of the metal. A piece of skin. "Oooh"
"Ooh?" Mario's voice came from next to me, and I jumped and pulled my gun. He held his hands up. "Just me."
I glared at him. "Don't do that." I put the gun away and pulled an evidence ziplock out of my bag. I grabbed the piece of black leathery skin with my fingernails and dropped it in the bag. "Looks like I can do a tracking spell tonight."
"Tracking a demon? Sounds a bit…"
"Dangerous." I finished for him. "Part of the job. Maybe I can get a lead on who might have summoned him now."
Mario put his hand on my shoulder. "Let's get you to the mansion."
The world swirled around me, throwing my stomach for a loop as the parking lot disappeared.
∞
We reappeared in the foyer of the mansion, and I kicked my shoes off and put my bag by the door. Once I was alone, I'd send Merick a quick text just to let him know that I wouldn't be home until after work tomorrow. Levi was standing in the hallway with his arms crossed.
"What? At least it didn't blow up this time."
"Abigail…" He shook his head. "The keys to the Hummer are hanging up by the garage door. I just had it cleaned, so try not to take it through any zombies."
Everyone has Their Demons Page 8