Because things between Noah and me would never go back to the way they were before, and it was about time I stopped hoping they would.
35
Raven
Back at the hotel, we changed and geared up to hunt the demon. Right before leaving, Sage and I both swished our mouths with vodka. We didn’t swallow a drop, but smelling like vodka would help convince the demon that we’d been drinking.
It was a ten-minute walk from the hotel to the bar. The building was a three-floor monstrosity in the middle of the busiest street in the city. Each floor featured a different band, all of them playing country music. It was so packed that it was nearly impossible to walk without crashing into someone. The music was loud, the drinks were flowing, and the floor was sticky with spilled alcohol. I spotted at least three crowds of women out to celebrate bachelorette parties. In general, people were hooting and hollering and looked to be having the time of their lives. If my life were still normal, it might have even been the type of place I’d enjoy.
“I don’t see our friend on the first floor,” Noah said once we found ourselves a place to stand off to the side. “I’ll do a complete sweep and then move up to the other two levels. Sage, you stay here with Raven and make sure our friend doesn’t come down the stairs. If they do—”
“If they do, I’m sure they’ll zero in on Raven, like the others have,” Sage finished. “We’ll keep them talking for long enough to allow you to come back down and find us. Now, go check the other floors. Send us a message once our friend is located, and we’ll join you there and get into position.”
He gave her a nod, glanced at me with an unreadable expression, and set off to locate the demon.
“He worries about you, you know,” Sage said once he was gone.
“No, he doesn’t.” I scoffed and crossed my arms. “He hates me.”
“He hates that he worries about you,” she said. “But I promise he doesn’t hate you. Far, far from it.”
“What do you mean by that?” I turned to her, suddenly feeling like two normal girls out at a bar instead of a shifter and a—well, a whatever I was that the demons wanted so badly—out on a demon hunt. “Did he say something about me?”
Sadness crossed over her eyes—like she was sad for me. “It’s not my place to get involved,” she said, looking away from me before I could read any further into her expression. “I just thought it was obvious that he worries about you. He wasn’t on edge like this before you joined us. Now, he feels an insane amount of pressure to make sure you don’t get hurt. It’s hard on him.”
“Well, he has a funny way of showing it,” I said, although Sage’s words gave me hope that maybe all wasn’t lost between Noah and me.
Then I remembered the way he’d been treating me recently, and I shoved that hope far down into a place where I couldn’t reach it. I shoved it into the same place where I was hiding my fear for my mom, and my worry about what had happened to me when I thought I’d been in Europe.
But that wasn’t good enough, so I shoved it down even deeper. Because I’d be able to think about my mom and Europe sometime in the future.
There was no point in pining for someone who was constantly annoyed by my mere existence.
Luckily, I didn’t have much time to pine before Sage’s phone lit up with a message. It was from Noah.
“I found our friend on level two,” his recording played back after Sage pressed play. “He’s in the center of the bar—you’ll see him when you get up here. I’ve assumed position on the stairs. We’ll play it out just like Charleston. It’ll be easy.”
He hadn’t needed to add that last part—we’d already decided to do the same thing we’d done in Charleston. There was no need to fix something that wasn’t broken.
So why had he said it? It almost sounded like he was trying to reassure us that it was all going to go okay.
People only reassured other people when they cared about the other person.
Just like that, the hope that he might care about me started to slowly climb its way back into my heart.
But I had to push it down. We had a task to focus on.
So I nodded to Sage that I was ready, and together, the two of us headed upstairs to bait the demon.
36
Raven
Noah waited at the top of the steps, but Sage and I walked past him, like we didn’t know him. He ignored us as well.
Together, Sage and I walked arm in arm toward the bar. I let her lead me, since she was the one who could see through the demon’s glamour. Once I knew who the demon was, I’d be able to see flashes of his red eyes, but I wouldn’t be able to see through his glamour until then.
The bar was so packed that it was impossible for Sage and I to get past the rows of people to get a drink. Well, Sage probably could have used her supernatural strength to plow past them. But we were trying to blend in here and not clue the demon into the fact that she was dangerous. So she had to pretend she was as weak as everyone else.
Not like it mattered. Because as long as I was in the demon’s line of sight, all we had to do was wait.
“Three, two, one…” Sage counted down.
“Excuse me,” a man said from behind me, gently touching my elbow.
I turned around to face a guy in his twenties wearing a plaid button down shirt and jeans. With his all-American looks, he blended in perfectly with the country style of this city.
“Hi.” I forced a smile at the same time that I saw the familiar flash of red in his eyes.
“You look like you could use some help getting the bartender’s attention,” he said, already raising his arm to flag a bartender down. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Oh.” I paused to glance at the bar and giggled. “I don’t know. I’ve had a few already…” I made a show of counting on my fingers, as if trying to remember how many drinks I’d had so far that night.
The drunker the demon thought I was, the easier he’d think his job would be.
“You’ve had five,” Sage said throwing in a giggle of her own. “Or six. I don’t know. I’ve lost count.”
“Sounds like you girls are already off to a good night,” the demon said, holding his hand out to shake mine. “I’m John.”
Apparently, he was being just as creative with his fake name as Joe.
“Rochelle.” I gave him a fake name of my own and shook his hand, despite the fact that touching him made me want to cringe. “And this is my friend Sloan.”
“Nice to meet you.” He glanced at the bar, barely looking at Sage. “So, how about that drink?”
“I don’t know.” I stumbled slightly into Sage and grabbed her arm, pretending to be so drunk that I needed help standing. “It’s getting so crowded here. We were thinking of checking out a bar closer to our hotel instead.” I paused and looked “John” up and down, as if debating my next move. Then I smiled, tilted my head, and asked, “Wanna come?”
He smirked, as if he couldn’t believe his luck. “Only if you let me buy you a drink once we get to the next bar,” he said.
“Deal.” I laughed—this time for real, since the joke would be on John once we never reached another bar.
The three of us headed toward the steps, Sage and I both stumbling a bit to keep up the ruse of being drunk. Noah moved away before we got there. He was now a few feet behind us, pretending to watch a sports game on one of the TVs. He didn’t look at us once. No one would have had any clue that he knew us.
“So, what’s the name of this bar you’re taking me to?” the demon asked as we made our way down the stairs. Lots of people were trying to get up and down, so I had to keep my hand on Sage’s shoulder the entire time.
The demon kept his hand on me. Yuck.
“It’s this little speakeasy our friends told us about,” I improvised. “I don’t know the name, but I know how to get there. It’s really fun. I promise.”
“Which way is it?” he asked. “Maybe I’ve heard of it.”
“We turn right out of here and keep walk
ing,” I said. “Then it’s down this little side street. I’ll know it when I see it.”
Sage, Noah, and I had chosen the side street ahead of time because it was a dead end, making it the perfect spot to slay a demon.
“Hm.” He glanced around, looking hesitant. “I also know a cool place, but it’s in the other direction. Are you girls up for some adventure first?”
No way. Any adventure that ended in coming face to face with Azazel got a definite pass from me.
“I don’t know.” I pouted in a way that I hoped looked drunkenly endearing. “My sister’s at the bar we’re going to, and I promised her we’d meet up with her soon…”
“Your sister?” The demon perked up the moment I mentioned my made-up sister. “A sorority sister or a blood sister?”
“Twin sister,” I said, and his eyes lit up like he’d struck a jackpot.
His reaction was what I’d expected. Apparently, whatever the demons saw in me was genetic, since they’d hunted my mom too. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist two for the price of one.
“Two of you.” He stared at me with hunger in his eyes. “Well, isn’t it my lucky night?”
“It sure is.” I beamed. “So, you’ll come with us?”
“By all means.” He motioned out of the bar. “Lead the way.”
37
Raven
We walked until reaching a sky blue fire hydrant with flower art on it—the marker for the alley to turn down.
“It’s just this way.” I pointed, leading the way down the alley.
“Are you sure?” the demon asked. “It doesn’t look like there’s anything down there…”
“It’s a speakeasy,” I said playfully, sticking my tongue out to tease him. “Don’t you know what a speakeasy is?”
“Honestly, no,” he admitted.
At first I was surprised. But I supposed that since the demons had been locked in Hell for so many centuries, they would have missed out on a lot of human history.
“In the 1920s, during prohibition—when alcohol was illegal—people still wanted to go out to bars and party,” I started my brief history lesson as the three of us continued down the alley. “But they couldn’t risk getting caught by the cops. So they created speakeasies—bars you couldn’t find without knowing where they were ahead of time, because they were hidden in places like basements and alleys.” I wasn’t sure if it was true about alleys, but I threw it in for good measure since it fit with my story. “People needed special code words and knocks to get in. You’ll see.”
“You’re pretty smart, aren’t you?” he asked.
“I guess.” I shrugged and looked away, then pointed down the next turn—the deserted alley that led to a dead end. “This way.”
“You sure?” he asked, and then he turned to Sage, clearly doubting me. “Is she sure?” he asked her.
“We’ve been here before,” Sage said. “This is definitely the right place.”
I walked up to a rusty old door that looked like it hadn’t been used in years and made a show out of knocking on it in a special way.
I only got in two knocks before Noah burst into the alley, slicer in hand.
The demon pulled out a dagger of his own, meeting Noah’s blade in the air.
As they fought, I pressed myself against the wall, knowing better to get stuck in the middle of it. Noah could handle this.
Then we’d be one tooth away from our final demon kill—and our entrance to Avalon.
But then someone else tore through the alley. A wolf. And not just any wolf—a shifter. I could tell because it was twice as big as an average, non-supernatural wolf. It was the same size as Noah and Sage when they turned.
Was it here to help us fight the demon?
Its eyes met mine for a second, and when they did, I saw them flash red. Like a demon.
“What?” Sage gasped, staring at the wolf like it was an alien. “It’s not possible…”
The wolf jumped onto Sage before she could finish her thought, pinning her onto the ground while she was still in her human form. It raised its head and opened its jaw, looking ready to take a bite right out of Sage’s neck. But Sage shifted into wolf form in the nick of time, using her own weight to roll over her opponent and gain an advantage.
They were moving around each other too quickly for me to help. If I tried anything, I’d likely get injured. But Sage and Noah were trained for this. I had to trust them.
I refocused on Noah to see how he was doing against the demon. The two of them were fighting faster than my eyes could follow. Noah was quick, but so was the demon. Each time I thought Noah was about to strike, the demon warded him off.
Whoever this demon was, he was a much better fighter than the ones we’d encountered in New Orleans and Charleston. He was quick and deadly—like he’d trained for this.
Noah finally got a strike in that pushed the knife out of the demon’s hand and sent it colliding with the ground. He raised his slicer, about to straight through the demon’s heart. But the demon moved away at the last second. With the element of surprise now on his side, the demon grabbed Noah’s arm and threw him to the ground, prying the slicer from his hand and throwing it over his shoulder.
The slicer slammed into the wall beside me and fell to the ground.
If I’d been standing a few feet to the side, I’d be dead.
Noah’s hands shifted into claws, his bones reshaping. He was shifting into wolf form. He wouldn’t be able to kill the demon in wolf form—he’d need the slicer for that. But since he was stronger in wolf form, he’d at least be able to overpower the demon so he could reach the slicer and take another stab at him.
Before Noah completed his shift, the demon reached for his belt, brought out a potion pod, and threw it at him. It erupted into a sludge of brown.
I’d learned about a lot of the different potions during our long drives across the country. But I’d never heard of a potion that was brown.
When the haze from the potion pod dissipated, Noah was back in human form. The demon had gotten ahold of his knife again, and he had Noah pinned to the ground. His knife was inches above Noah’s throat and getting lower by the second.
The brown potion must have stopped Noah from shifting.
I glanced at Sage. In situations like this, she was supposed to jump to the rescue. But she was covered in blood as she wrestled with the red-eyed wolf, looking no closer to beating it than before.
Suddenly, I heard an echo of Noah’s voice inside my head. Leave, he said. He wasn’t speaking, but I could hear him—no, it was more like I could feel him. He wanted me to hightail it out of there and go back to the hotel. He wanted me to know that he had this, and that it was too dangerous for me to stay.
I wasn’t sure how I knew that. I just did.
I could also feel something else—something that I knew was coming from him and not from me.
Doubt.
He wasn’t sure he could beat this demon. He was trying, but this demon was stronger than he was. It was almost like the demon had been prepared for an ambush.
There was a chance Noah wouldn’t win this fight.
Terror rushed through my body. Noah might have wanted me to save myself, but I pushed back. I wasn’t going to leave him and Sage here. They’d done so much for me. I’d be dead if it weren’t for them, or kidnapped by demons. Sage was my friend. And Noah—well, I wasn’t sure what was between us—but there was something. He might have denied it, but that kiss changed everything between us. As impossible as it sounded, it was almost like when we’d kissed, our souls had bound themselves to one another.
I couldn’t stand there helplessly and watch them fight for their lives against these creatures. I had to do something.
But what? The wolf had teeth and claws that could shred me apart in seconds. And if I tried to use my boot knife against the demon, it wouldn’t do anything since an angel hadn’t blessed it with heavenly water. Yes, that stunt had worked with the coyotes. But this wasn’t a co
yote we were dealing with. It was a demon.
I glanced back over at the slicer laying a few feet away from me. My boot knife wouldn’t hurt the demon—but the slicer would. And with the demon pinning Noah to the ground, I had the perfect chance to come at him from behind and ram the slicer through the demon’s heart without him realizing what hit him.
The plan would be perfect—if the slicer didn’t burn me when I touched it. Slicers were meant to be used by supernaturals—not by humans. They were too powerful for humans to handle. At least, that was Noah’s guess about why the slicer had burned me. To warn me—a human—to stay away.
But I refused to stay away. Not when their lives were on the line like this. I didn’t care that humans weren’t supposed to use slicers. If anything happened to Noah or Sage—if either of them didn’t make it tonight—I’d never be able to forgive myself for not trying to do the one thing that might have saved them.
So I reached down to grab the slicer, bracing myself for the inevitable burn the moment it touched my skin.
38
Raven
Fire.
A blaze of heat consumed me when I gripped the handle of the slicer. I was blinded by fire—by the pain. I saw red everywhere. My nerves burned—starting from my hands, and traveling through my entire body. It was like holding onto a hot coal, except the heat was somehow inside me.
I don’t know how I managed not to scream.
I think it was because the element of surprise was all I had. If I screamed, the demon would know I was up to something. This would all be for nothing.
I had to fight through it. So I took one step forward, and then another. The heat was overwhelming—suffocating. Like hot tar covering my body. Boiling me alive. Beads of sweat gathered on my forehead and dripped to the ground next to my feet. The skin on my hands and arms started to bubble and blister.
The Angel Trials- The Complete Series Page 28