“That doesn't explain why you were summoning them,” I pressed.
Cynthia shook her head, causing wisps of her short hair to fall forward onto her face. “We'd been receiving threats, and we needed a way to protect ourselves. Being able to control demons was going to be our way of being just as scary as all of the other supernaturals.”
I wanted to wring her neck and demand to know if they had summoned my dad, but I resisted. Instead I asked, “Who was threatening you?”
“Werewolves,” she replied simply.
I wasn't sure what answer I expected, but werewolves wasn't it. Rogue wolves were strictly policed by the coalition. Since the punishment for harming a human was a swift death, they didn't step out of line often.
“Did you report it to the coalition?” I asked, wondering if Abel knew anything about it.
Cynthia shook her head. “The other wolves would have killed us. The whole reason they were threatening us to begin with was to make us fight on their side.”
I took another sip of my coffee in an attempt to keep my cool. After a moment, I asked, “What do you mean, their side? Who are they fighting against?”
“The coalition,” Cynthia said as if it was obvious.
Suddenly everything clicked into place. Abel had pushed for me to become a pack leader because having a demon on his side made the coalition more imposing. I'd just thought Abel wanted me as a precaution, but maybe there was more to it. These rogue wolves wanted the witches to help them fight against a coalition that employed demons, and the witches wanted demons to help them fight the rogue wolves. Yet none of this explained where my dad was.
“Cynthia,” I began calmly. “What happened to Claire?”
She began crying anew. I reached over and grabbed a box of tissues from the coffee table and handed them to her. She took one and dabbed daintily at her nose, then looked back up at me. “One of the demons got loose and killed her.”
I shook my head. “And you all pretended it was a vampire to cover your own butts.”
Cynthia began to tremble, and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Sasha thought that if we hired Jason to investigate, no one would suspect that we knew what happened.” She glanced apologetically over her shoulder at Jason. “I didn't want to lie. I'd already lost my little girl, but Sasha said it was the only way to protect Rose from our mistake.”
I patted Cynthia's hand in an awkward attempt at comfort, though what I really wanted to do was slap her. Even if she didn't want to, she'd lied to cover up her daughter's death. It just didn't sit right with me.
“Were you there when the demon . . . hurt her?” I asked awkwardly.
Cynthia shook her head a little too quickly. “No, Claire went to Sasha's. She went there a lot after school. When Sasha came home, she found her . . . and the demon was gone. Some of the other coven members brought Claire home. After that we warded all of our homes against evil.”
The wards obviously didn't help Sasha, but I didn't say so out loud. I was too shocked that they'd actually moved Claire's body to cover up the real story of her death. In a way I understood. If they'd called the police then, Sasha would have been investigated, but it still didn't make it right.
“What do you mean, warded against evil?” I asked as an idea came to me. Sasha had claimed that the wards were for demons.
Cynthia scrunched her brow in confusion. “We warded against evil to keep demons out. The only reason you could cross them is because you're half human.”
I shook my head. “And you really believe that full demons are pure evil?”
Cynthia squinted her puffy eyes at me and waited for me to explain what I was talking about.
“Sasha's dead, Cynthia,” I said bluntly.
“B-but how?” Cynthia asked, truly shocked.
“The demon went into her house and killed her,” I explained. “Demons have a choice between good and evil, just like humans, and this demon obviously isn't purely evil.”
Really, until I knew about the wards I hadn't known that pure demon didn't equal pure evil. My dad, Chase, and I all had human blood, and part of me believed that it was just our humanity that saved us from being monsters . . . but maybe I was wrong.
“Someone summoned my father and hurt my friend today,” I admitted while Cynthia was still processing Sasha's death. “I need you to tell me what you know about it.”
Cynthia shook her head frantically. “We haven't summoned any demons since the one escaped, I swear.”
I glanced back at Chase. He gestured that we should speak outside. Seeing the exchange, Jason approached to take my place beside Cynthia. I let the gratitude show in my face as he sat down, and he offered me a small smile in return.
I followed Chase to the door, pausing by the kitchen long enough to see my mom huddled in the corner sipping her cup of coffee. I walked outside feeling even lower than I'd felt all day.
“None of this makes sense,” Chase stated as soon as we were alone on the front porch. “Dorrie was hurt in the underground, so another demon has to be involved. If the witches summoned your dad, there would have been nothing for Dorrie to see, so there wouldn't have been a reason to get her out of the way. This isn't just about a werewolf turf war.”
“There has to be another demon involved,” I agreed, seeing it as the only explanation.
Chase nodded. “I hate to say this, but we should probably speak to my brother again.”
I nodded in return. “We also need to find this loosed demon. If it went back and killed Sasha, it might be after the other coven members next.”
I turned as my mom peeked her head out the front door. “Am I interrupting something?”
“N-no,” I stammered. “What do you need?”
She left the doorway and came to stand beside me. She had put on a tan, shearling coat against the cold, and she picked at the sleeves nervously. “Are you in trouble, Xoe?”
I was suddenly at a loss for words. With how she'd been acting, I really hadn't expected her to ask what was going on. “Not directly,” I admitted, “but dad is missing, and some of Cynthia's friends might be in danger.” There. Nice and simple.
Her eyes widened in surprise. “And it's up to you to help them?” she asked, sounding like a little kid.
I nodded. “It's up to me to try.”
She turned to Chase and gave him a scrutinizing look. “But you'll be there with her, keeping her safe?” she asked.
Chase looked a little surprised by the question. “O-of course,” he stammered. “I always do my best to keep Xoe safe.”
Part of me wanted to interject that I could keep myself safe, but if my mom felt better with the idea of Chase protecting me, then I'd just have to let it go.
My mom nodded and mumbled, “Good, good.”
I took that moment to finally actually look at my mom, without the distraction of Cynthia and everything else going on. She looked thinner than I'd ever seen her, and had heavy bags under her eyes. It dawned on me then that I had probably ruined my mom's life. She had done her best to create a safe home for us, and had wanted nothing more than for me to succeed and be happy. I'd destroyed that safe environment, and was pretty sure that I'd let her down on the other two counts as well. As a high-school drop out without a job, I wasn't exactly successful . . . and happy? I'd need to evaluate my life a little more before I could even begin to answer that.
With another nod, my mom excused herself with her arms wrapped tightly around her torso, walking as if in a daze. Chase gave me a worried look as she went back inside the house. As the door shut behind my mom, I found myself once again without words, and tears stung at the back of my eyes. As the first one fell, Chase wrapped me up in his arms. The comforting gesture made my tears fall harder, and soon my body was wracked with silent sobs. I tried to take deep breaths, but the tears just kept coming as the feelings about my mom that I'd been ignoring came to the surface.
I heard the door open behind us, then I heard footsteps on the porch as the door shut, but
whoever stood there didn't speak. Fearing the worst, I pulled away from Chase to see Jason standing a few feet away. At first his face held anger, but as he took in my disheveled appearance his features softened. Likely guessing why I was crying, he didn't press the subject.
“Cynthia claims she doesn't know anything else,” he explained. He took a few steps forward to stand close to us. “But I think we should follow her. She may lead us to the other witches.”
“Why come to us at all if she's just going to lie?” I whispered back.
“Later,” he mouthed, before turning to go back inside.
I tried to see if Chase was just as confused as I was, but he wouldn't quite meet my eyes. Instead, he led the way back inside. Cynthia had gathered herself and stood as we entered. If it weren't for the puffy eyes, you'd have never even guessed that she was a nervous wreck just a few moments before.
“You're going?” I questioned.
“I have to find Rose,” she explained curtly. Her facade of steadiness almost cracked at the mention of her living daughter's name, but she managed to hold it together.
“We'll do our best to help,” I assured. “Please call us if you find anything.”
Cynthia's expression faltered. “You really aren't mad that we summoned demons?” she asked weakly.
I squinted at her in confusion. “I think you're a bunch of idiots, but you're already paying for your mistakes.”
Cynthia nodded and started walking toward the front door, but I grabbed her arm to stop her as she walked by.
Her eyes went wide as she looked at my hand on her arm. “Please,” she pleaded, “I just want to find my daughter.”
I smiled, but knew it held little warmth. “I want you to find your daughter too, but I have a message for your coven, should you encounter any of them.”
Cynthia stayed silent and continued to look up at me nervously.
“I think one of them summoned my dad. Normally I wouldn't be terribly worried, but if it's true that you can summon demons fully, well, that worries me. I want you to tell anyone you see that if anything happens to him, they will have to answer to me personally. I may not seem as scary as a demon that rips people's throats to shreds, but I assure you, I am quite capable of burning your lives to the ground.”
Cynthia nodded a little too quickly and tried to pull away, but I held on. “You'll spread the word?” I asked.
She took in a shaky breath. “If I see any of them, they'll know what you said.”
I nodded and let go of her arm. She escaped through the front door, slamming it behind her.
“Let's go,” Jason said quickly as he watched Cynthia through the windowed part of the door. “We don't want to lose her.”
I searched frantically for my mom, wanting to at least say goodbye, and found her huddled back in her original position in the adjoining kitchen. She regarded me with a stunned expression.
“You threatened that woman,” she accused.
I stared at her, wanting to offer some sort of explanation that would make her stop looking at me like I was a monster, but what came out was, “And I meant it.”
10
As we trailed Cynthia in Jason's car, doing our best to evade her sight, I called Devin to fill him in on what had happened. I told him about the demon on the loose, and about the rogue wolves hoping to overthrow the coalition.
After a few moments of stunned silence he said, “I need to call Abel. He's already on his way here, but now I'm thinking it might be a trap.”
“What do you mean?” I asked before he could hang up.
“I mean that what if the witches didn't all disappear because of the demon, what if they disappeared because of the wolves? If they got wind that I was already here investigating, then kidnapping the witches would be the perfect way to lure Abel here too. They might be trying to escalate the situation.”
I shook my head. It wasn't that I thought he was wrong, but there was so much more going on that we didn't understand. “Call Abel, and have Lela come back to Allison's. You're safer together. I'll let you know if Cynthia leads us to anything. If not, Chase and I are going back underground to search for more information.”
“Deal,” Devin said, then the line clicked off.
I set my phone in my lap and watched as Cynthia took another turn, then pulled up into the driveway of a normal-looking house.
Jason drove past the driveway, then parked a few houses down. I looked to him for guidance as he switched off the ignition. If I had to make a choice, we would storm in after Cynthia and demand to know what was going on, but there were probably better ways to get information.
Affirming my thoughts, Jason stopped me before I could undo my seat belt. “I'll sneak around the house and see what I can hear,” he explained.
I nodded, and in the blink of an eye Jason was out of the car making a beeline for the house that Cynthia had gone into. I looked over my shoulder at Chase, feeling anxious.
“I've been thinking about something,” he began after he had my attention.
I nodded for him to go on.
“If these witches are powerful enough to keep your dad from returning to the underground, they were either highly misleading, or the demon is actively helping them.”
I nodded again, thinking of Dorrie. “And actively hurting my friends to keep us from finding out about it.”
Chase gave me a sympathetic look, then continued, “The question is, what demon would have anything to gain by releasing a lesser demon to kill witches, then making the witches summon your dad?”
“Why do you say lesser demon?” I asked, never having heard the term.
“If a demon like Bart had been released, the chaos would have been either much more noticeable, or we wouldn't have seen anything at all,” he explained. “This demon is wasting its time picking off the witches that summoned it, one by one. It either doesn't have the power to take them all out at once, or has no other goal than petty revenge. I'm guessing it's someone not very powerful, and probably not very smart.”
“So back to the demon or demons that hurt Dorrie . . . ” I trailed off, wondering where Chase was going with the conversation.
Chase nodded. “The only thing that a demon would have to gain from orchestrating all of this is chaos, and all this chaos is centered around you. Releasing a violent lesser demon into your hometown would draw your attention and bring you above-ground. Then, detaining your dad and harming Dorrie would keep you from finding out what they're planning.”
I shook my head, seeing another option. “I agree that I'm somehow involved, but so are the wolves. This all started because the rogue wolves wanted something to counter the demonic presence that I bring to the coalition.”
“But the wolves had no way of knowing that the coven would try to summon demons themselves,” Chase countered.
“Unless Cynthia lied about threat of the wolves,” I countered right back. “What if the witches were working willingly with the rogue wolves, but when things got out of hand they wanted an excuse for their actions, so Cynthia lied and said the wolves threatened them?”
“That still doesn't explain what happened to Dorrie,” Chase argued. “There is a demon orchestrating this, and that points to this all centering around you.”
“Maybe another demon noticed what was happening and decided to take advantage, then when they realized that my father and I were already involved with the situation, they tried to cover their tracks,” I offered. “Or maybe the witches did summon another demon in addition to the one who got loose, and maybe this demon was more than they bargained for as well. The witches could have initially been working for or against the wolves when they bit off more than they could chew. A demon might have just swooped in to take over the show.”
Chase nodded in agreement as she shrugged out of his faded green jacket to reveal a loose, heather gray tee shirt. “We need to talk to Sam again, and this time we'll ask the right questions.”
“Has your brother always been such a pain?
” I asked, thinking about what it might cost us to squeeze any more answers out of him.
“Yes,” Chase answered simply.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened between the two of you?” I prodded.
Chase sighed and offered me a crooked smile. “Maybe once all of this is over and we finally have a quiet moment to breathe.”
“So in other words, never?” I asked bitterly.
Chase laughed just as Jason reappeared beside the car. He got in without a word and started the engine.
“What did you find out?” I asked as we began to drive away.
“She was meeting with her husband,” Jason explained, “and she told the truth about not being able to find her daughter.”
I felt instantly deflated. “So we still have nothing to go on?”
Jason focused on the road as we quickly escaped the neighborhood. “Not quite. She told the truth about not being able to find Rose. She doesn't know where she is, but she does know who took her.”
“And?” I pressed when he didn't answer.
“She was kidnapped by the other members of her coven,” Jason explained. “They're using her as collateral to keep Ben and Cynthia from ratting them out.”
I looked out at the road in thought. They really were trying to protect their daughter. We were just wrong about who they were protecting her from. Too bad they hadn't done the same for Claire.
“So our next step is to find the coven,” I stated, “and hopefully that will not only lead us to my dad and Rose, but to the demon that we're going to have to kill for causing us all of this trouble.”
“And we're sure that it's a demon?” Jason asked.
“Yes,” Chase and I said in unison.
Without asking, Jason drove back in the direction of Allison's. I didn't mind, as we needed to regroup, and if Abel would be arriving soon, he could lend his resources to our search. I wasn't particularly looking forward to seeing Abel, I was sure there would be lectures aplenty, but he was also my dad's friend, so I knew he would help me find him if he could.
Jason glanced at me like he wanted to say something, then bit his lip instead.
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