Part of the plan, however, involved me distracting the demon sleeping only a few doors down from Delilah, and in order to do that, well, my options were limited. This was the kind of situation where living in the US, where the practice of demon hunting had been turned into a business to the point where you could usually get exactly what you needed.
Back home, I knew a guy who could make one. It was the demonic equivalent of a bucket of chum; not only was it impossible for them to resist being drawn to it, but they could then feed on its energy, and would unless there was an immediate threat nearby that needed dealing with. Getting one made at this time of night in New York wasn’t a problem. But I wasn’t in New York; in fact, I was in a place almost completely devoid of demons and, by extension, demon hunters.
I was going to have to improvise.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The area was entirely dead by the time we arrived. We’d caught the last tube, to make sure we would be rolling up to the hotel as late as possible, ensuring most of the guests would be asleep, and that the hotel itself would be understaffed. If Delilah was going to make things difficult for us, we wanted as few people as possible awake to hear the ruckus.
Ivy masked our approach with magic, rendering our group—which consisted of Tank, Ivy, Levi, and me—invisible against the quiet backdrop of the night. We weren’t even shadows shifting beneath street-lights, we were ghosts in the dark, visible only to those with the sight.
The plan was clear, and simple. Once we got to the hotel I was going to separate myself from the group, walk up to the desk clerk, and talk to him while the others entered the stairwell and headed up to the third floor. Tank and Levi were going to wait a floor down while Ivy, using the door for cover, was going to watch the hallway and report to me on comms when our friend left his room.
Why was he going to leave his room? Because I was going to make the desk clerk call him and summon him to the front desk on the pretense that the room he was staying in now had actually been reserved for another guest, and he may have to swap rooms. The desk clerk nodded, glassy-eyed as my psychic magic wrapped itself around his mind and made him more open to what I was suggesting he do.
“When he gets down here,” I said, “I need you to stall him, pretend like you’re looking something up, take as much time as you can. When you see he’s starting to lose his patience, stall a little more, and then tell him there’s actually been no mix-up and offer to comp his breakfast.”
The desk clerk stared at me, eyes lazy and dull, mouth hanging slightly. He nodded, wiped the drool from his lips, and shut his mouth. “I will do that,” he said, his voice flat.
I released my hold of his mind and nodded toward the phone.
“Oh, right,” the desk clerk said, snapping to attention like he’d just been caught sleeping on the job. I watched him pick the receiver up, dial the extension for room 309, and wait. Five, maybe six seconds passed, and for a moment I thought he was going to be met with no answer, but finally, he started talking, and relief washed through me.
I took that as my cue and made a hurried break for the stairs, hanging back and watching until the desk clerk hung up. I cocked him a thumbs up, and he looked at me like I was crazy, which I guess meant my magic had worked. I then waited on the first-floor landing, heart already racing from the excitement. Levi and Tank were on the floor above me—I could see them through the gap between the stairs—and Ivy was on the next floor up.
The comms crackled to life. “Contact,” she said, “He’s moving out of his room and walking down the hall.”
“Make sure he doesn’t see you,” I whispered.
“He won’t… he’s headed right for the elevator… okay, he’s moved past me, he’s pressed the button.”
Phew. That meant he wasn’t going to take the stairs. “As soon as the doors have shut, we make our move.”
There was a pause. “Okay, go,” she said, and the stairwell came to life.
Tank and Levi were quiet enough, but their echoes carried enough for me to hear them moving. I followed, quickly making my way up to the third floor to find Levi waiting for me with the door open. When I was through, he made his way down the hall behind me; he, Tank, and I following Ivy as she moved briskly toward Delilah’s door.
Without saying a word, without needing to discuss the plan again, Levi stepped up to the door, pressed his hand against the electronic lock, and shut his eyes. I waited, holding my breath even though I didn’t mean to. The light directly above us began to flicker, and an instant later, a kind of pulsing vibration pushed through me. I heard an electronic snap, and then Levi tugged on the handle, pushed the door open, and let himself inside.
But the lights were on, the TV was active but muted, and Delilah… she wasn’t asleep. She was sitting at a desk, with her laptop open to her left and a stack of papers and dossiers to her right. When she saw us, her expression quickly shifted to one of shocked horror, a grimace of terror as if Freddy-fucking-Krueger had just burst through her hotel door, knife-hands tearing lines of death across the walls.
“What are you—” she started to say, but Ivy was on her before she could grab her cell phone from the desk, appearing in front of her like a phantom, then grabbing the phone and tossing it aside. Delilah went to stand, to use her hands to bring magic into the world, but Levi was ready with a blast of air that knocked her against the far wall. Tank then rushed into the room like a storm, pinning her up against the wall with his forearm with a low, guttural growl. Before Delilah could even consider using magic to get out of the bind, Ivy was on her, messily spreading a thick, moss-green paste on her cheeks and neck with her fingers.
I walked into the room then, and Levi followed, shutting the door once inside. “Hello,” I said, smiling at her from across the other side of her bed.
“How did you get in here?” Delilah spat. “And what the fuck is this shit on me?”
“That shit is going to keep you from doing something stupid,” I said, “And anyway, that’s not important. What is important is that you don’t struggle, don’t resist, or my friend over here will rip your arms off and beat you with them.”
“You’re all stupid, fucking assholes, you know that? Do you really think you can come in here and do this to me? I have friends that’ll notice if I go missing.”
“You talking about the demon in 309? He’s been dealt with.”
“Dealt… what are you talking about?”
“I’m saying he won’t be bothering us tonight. Right now, it’s just you and us, so I suggest you choose your words and your stance very carefully, Delilah, because this time, we’ve got you on the ropes.”
Delilah seemed to scan her surroundings, possibly trying to figure out a game-plan she could pull which would result in her getting away with her life and her things. Her options, though, were pretty grim, and I could see that too, could see the realization dawn on her face. She had no demon, and without the demon, she had no Brutes. Despite having been warned against doing something stupid, Delilah struggled to bring her hand up and drew magic into herself, filling the room with a static current and the smell of burned ozone.
Her hand began to glow bright blue, her eyes, too, but then it was as if her hand had shorted out like the electronic lock had. Arcs of lightning crawled along her arm, into her chest and neck. She convulsed, gritting her teeth, then hung her head after, her eyes lolling lazily. When she recovered, she took a deep breath, exhaled through her nose, and looked over at me.
“Fine,” she said, breathing harshly, “What do you want?”
“Now isn’t the time to play stupid,” Ivy said. She’d already started looking through the stack of papers on the desk, and Delilah’s briefcase. “Where is the book?”
“It’s called the Devil’s Notebook, and I don’t have it.”
“Bullshit. Tell us where it is, right now.”
“I can’t tell you where it is because I don’t know where it is, but I can tell you that I don’t have it, so if that’s what yo
u came looking for… you’re shit out of luck.”
“You’re lying.”
“Fuck you, no I’m not.”
“Uh, did you forget I’m a Warlock?” I said.
“You don’t scare me, fucking bitch.”
I walked over to her, drawing my knife from its sheath and pressing the blade against the palm of my hand. I let the tip bite into the skin, wincing as blood began to pool. “You’re going to tell us.”
“Or what? Did you forget that I know blood magic, too?”
I sensed the beginnings of magic curl around me, power coalescing and encircling me, arriving from wherever it originated and ready to bend to my will. It was as easy as breathing. I screamed inside of my mind and sent the scream through the psychic path now bridging us and into her head. She shut her eyes, grimacing from the sudden onslaught of pain shooting through her, like the worst migraine she’d ever experienced magnified tenfold, pain powerful enough to cause her to pass out after only a few seconds.
As easily as I sent the psychic assault hurtling along the path between us, I ended it, allowing her to catch her breath. Blood trickled out of her nose, and some of the capillaries in one of her eyes had burst, leaving it looking red and unnatural. Delilah glowered, then spat at the floor at my feet, staring at me with defiance in her eyes.
“F-fuck you, Warlock,” she said, her breaths coming harsh and quick, “You’re going to have to do better than that if you want me to tell you anything.”
“I can do better,” I said, “But if I kill you, then I won’t know what I need to know. I could make your mind bend to mine if I wanted to, I could reach into your brain, tear the gates open, and find what I want the hard way, but I thought I would offer you the dignity of telling me what I want to know without subjecting you to such a violation.”
“You’re a class act, aren’t you?”
“I aim to please. Now, how about you just… tell us… where is the book?” I did use magic, then, sent a small amount of it directly into her brain, inflicting only a fraction of the pain I had a moment ago, but promising with my eyes, if not my words, to turn the dial up slowly as the seconds ticked by.
Delilah grimaced, swallowing her pain for as long as she could, desperately holding on. To her credit, she had a lot of internal fortitude, but she couldn’t hold it forever. Her grimace turned to a cry for mercy. I released the magic, and she let loose a relieved breath along with a trickle of blood from her nose.
“Stop!” she said, “Stop, no more. I sold the fucking book, okay?”
“Sold it?” Levi asked, “What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t want to go through the trouble of opening the Hell Hole myself, so I figured I would sell it to someone who would and just pocket the cash.”
“That’s a bitchy thing to do,” I said, “Who’d you sell it to?”
“I sold it to someone who’s going to auction it off to the highest bidder.”
“So, you had no intention of using the ritual yourself?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t like getting my hands dirty.”
“Is that why you have a demon hanging around you? So he can do your dirty work for you?”
“I haven’t forced my associate to work with me—he does so of his own volition, and he can come and go as he pleases.”
“I doubt that,” Levi said, “You see people as pets and as toys.”
“Which probably speaks volumes about you, huh?” she quipped, instantly silencing Levi.
“You’re gonna tell us when and where that auction is gonna take place,” I said, “And then we’re going to figure out how to deal with you.”
“And then what? You’re gonna kill me? I doubt it.”
She had me; she knew I wouldn’t, though I wasn’t sure what had given it away. It wasn’t that my eyes lacked conviction, or that I was incapable of killing her. I was. I’d killed mages before, at least one of them on purpose—Shannon’s killer. I’d had to watch Shannon go down after a bolt of pale blue light shot through her like a laser beam, and I didn’t even think twice; I had hit her killer with every ounce of psychic energy I had in me, so much so I passed out after it was over. When I came to, he and Shannon were both dead, and I wished I was.
But still…
“We’re not murderers,” I said, “We’re doing this to try and save lives, but if you don’t cooperate, you’re not going to give us much of a choice.”
Delilah swallowed. “He was here three days ago,” she said, though her eyes screamed her reluctance to speak.
“Who?” Ivy asked.
“I wasn’t given his name, only an alias; Giovanni.”
“Giovanni… doesn’t ring any bells,” I said, “Who is he?”
“He’s the auctioneer; he collects items of value, arranges auctions, and carries them out safely. He told me he was interested in the book, offered me a price, and I took it. The book is worth way more than I was paid for it, but I wanted it out of my life.”
“Out of your life?” Levi asked, frowning, “That’s a bit of a change of tune, isn’t it? A moment ago, you were just looking for a bit of profit.”
“That’s because this woman doesn’t know how to stop lying,” I said. “She’s still lying now. Do I need to remind you what happens when you lie?”
“No, Jesus.” She sighed. “The book is cursed, alright? At first, I wasn’t sure what was going on, I heard whispers in the night, would wake up with sleep paralysis, thinking the room was full of people standing around, watching me, and then… he started acting strangely.”
I looked over at Levi, then back at Delilah. “Who’s he?”
“I won’t say his name. If I say it, he’ll hear.”
“The demon…”
She nodded. “He wouldn’t leave my side. I had to kick him out of my room several times, but then he’d just stand at the door and stare at it for hours. If I tried to leave, he’d ask me where I was going, who I was meeting, why. He wanted to know everything.”
“If you’re looking for sympathy…”
“That’s not what I’m doing. The book makes them crazy. Demons. I don’t know what it is about the fucking thing, but I just wanted it the fuck out of my life.”
“Sounds like you bit off more than you could chew,” Ivy said.
“Whatever, the point is it’s gone, now. The guy, Giovanni, he’s holding a black-tie event at a private manor house. That’s where he’s going to sell the book off for ten, maybe even twenty times what he paid me.”
“Where is the house?” Levi asked.
Delilah scowled. “What are you going to do with me when this is over?”
“Tell us where the house is,” I said, “And we’ll think about it.”
Her jaw tightened. “Wentworth Manor. Tomorrow night. But you won’t get in without an invitation.”
“You let us figure that out.”
“No, you don’t get it. That place is gonna be crawling with the shadiest fucking characters you ever dealt with, and not just mages, either. Demons too. There are many people who want to get their hands on this thing. Even if you got in, you wouldn’t get out alive. They’d figure you out, and when they do, you’re all royally buggered.”
“Again, you let us figure all of that out. Morpheus, you get all that?”
“Roger,” Morpheus said through the comms, “I’m checking the place out right now, trying to get a little intel.”
“Good, keep working on it. We’re almost done h—”
A knock at the door cut me off mid-sentence. I snapped my head around so hard I thought I’d give myself whiplash. Everyone was staring at it; Levi, Tank, Ivy.
“Fuck, it’s him,” Ivy said, keeping her voice low. “Now what?”
“Everybody keep cool,” Levi said, turning to face Delilah. “You expecting company? Or is this just a booty call?”
Delilah went to open her mouth, but Tank cupped her face with his hand, stopping her from getting even a peep out. “She’ll scream, you know that,
” he said.
“Christ…” I muttered. “Alright, everybody get back.”
Levi and Ivy moved around the room, taking defensive positions while I walked up to the door, slowly, carefully. There was another knock, more forceful this time. The sound made my heart start jumping behind my chest. When I reached the door, I decided to peer out of the peep-hole instead of yanking it open, but whoever was on the other side was covering the hole with a finger.
I took a deep breath, two of them, readied my knife behind my back, and opened the door as fast as I could, my body as taut as a bow-string. But it wasn’t the demon standing there.
“You,” I said, the word escaping my mouth like a breath more than actual speech. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same fucking question,” Mason said, looking mortified to find me here instead of, I guessed, Delilah.
I grabbed him by the collar, swung him into the room, and pinned him against the wall pressing knife against his neck and glaring at him. “Start talking, right now.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Woah, take it easy, will you?” Mason said, “A guy’s gonna get the wrong idea, here.”
“Mason, what the fuck are you doing here?” I asked again, gritting my teeth.
“I’m here to make a drop… how about you?”
“A… drop?” I noticed, then, the backpack strapped to his back—my backpack—and it clicked. “Wait, she’s the person you’re here to make a drop for?”
“Whoever this hotel room belongs to, sure.”
“You know this guy?” Levi asked, eyebrows furrowed inquisitively.
I didn’t relent my grip on the knife, or on Mason. “Just so we’re clear, are you here to sell demon blood to her?”
“Like I said, whoever this room belongs to. If that’s her, then yes, I’m here to sell demon blood to her. I was only expecting one person, not a whole party, but I’m down to hang.” That smug grin of his spread across his face like a sunrise.
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