“Eh?” Amalia stumbled after me, her plastic flipflops snapping with each step. “I didn’t know buses ran in this neighborhood.”
Probably because she had a car—or she used to. The demon had just blown it up.
The streetlights blinked on, pushing the shadows away and filling the street with a warm orange glow. Still catching my breath, I speed-walked to the bus stop, where a teenager was glancing between his phone and the wailing sirens. A boom vibrated the ground and his eyes went wider.
If he could have guessed the sound was not caused by construction or an accident but by a raging demon, he would’ve run in the opposite direction. I squeezed my eyes shut, debating internally, then summoned my courage.
“Excuse me,” I said to the boy. “Can I borrow your phone to send a text?”
He scanned me, no doubt debating whether I could outrun him if I tried to steal it. Deciding there was no way—he, like everyone, was taller than me—he tapped on the screen, then held it out.
He’d already opened a messaging app. I entered the MPD’s emergency number and typed a swift text alerting them to an unbound demon at Uncle Jack’s address. I sent the message, deleted it out of the phone’s history, and handed it back.
“Thanks,” I told him.
Amalia grabbed my arm and dragged me a few paces away. “What did you send?”
“An anonymous tip to the MPD,” I whispered.
“Are you insane?” Glancing at the kid, she lowered her voice. “The MPD will investigate our house! They’ll confiscate everything! We’ll lose all our—”
“You’ll lose?” I retorted angrily, surprising myself. “You’ll lose your big house? Your favorite possessions? Your ten cars?” I glared up at her. “What about the first responders who are about to lose their lives? What about your neighbors? What about the innocent people who’ll die because your family was illegally summoning demons in a residential neighborhood?”
She recoiled from my vehemence.
“No one else was going to take responsibility,” I muttered, my furious intensity fading into dread. “I guess I didn’t need to make it anonymous. They’ll probably figure out I was there, won’t they?”
“No,” Amalia sniffed, tossing her head. “My dad’s not stupid. The house isn’t in his real name. Nothing is. It can’t be traced to us.”
“Oh.”
We waited, Amalia and I fidgeting and exchanging terse looks. The sirens had gone quiet, but I didn’t know whether that was a good sign. A red glow smeared the horizon in the house’s direction, illuminating columns of billowing smoke. The boy was staring at it.
A blue-and-gray bus trundled around the corner and rolled to a stop. Amalia and I climbed on after the boy. I dug my wallet out of my suitcase and dropped coins into the slot, but Amalia stood there blankly. I fished out another few coins for her fare.
We took seats at the back and the bus rolled into motion. Amalia and I kept silent as it rumbled down street after street, carrying us steadily away from the burning mansion. When we sped across the long arch of the Lions Gate Bridge, putting a mile of ocean between us and the escaped demon, I breathed easier.
The view outside the bus grew darker and business complexes replaced the residential streets. I had no idea where the bus was taking us. Other passengers got on, then disembarked ten or fifteen minutes later, while Amalia and I stayed in our seats.
Several times, I opened my mouth to speak, then chickened out. The infernus rested against my ribs just below my bra, warm against my skin. I prayed Zylas would stay put.
Eventually, the bus groaned to a stop and the driver opened both doors.
“This is the end of my route,” he called back to us. “You’ll need to catch the next one.”
Amalia jumped up. I followed her out the door and we stepped onto a stained sidewalk. Skyscrapers towered all around us, and I eyed them warily as the bus doors closed. Amalia marched away from the bus stop, the skirt of her dress fluttering. I scrambled after her with my suitcase bumping along behind me.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“I’m going to find a hotel.” After a beat, she added, “You can come too, I guess.”
I tried to match my pace to her longer stride. “Do you know where we are?”
“No idea. You?”
“I’m from Burnaby. I’ve only been downtown a few times.” I half jogged beside her, then prompted cautiously, “What happens now?”
She plucked bobby pins out of her updo. “We hole up somewhere and wait for Dad to contact me. He and Kathy will set up in one of our safe houses and we can join them there.”
“Oh, okay.” That didn’t sound so bad. Once we reunited with Uncle Jack, I could get my mom’s grimoire. He would save it from the demon, I was sure. He was too greedy to let it be destroyed. And he, unlike us, wasn’t entirely helpless either. As I’d learned from The Summoner’s Handbook, to be a demon summoner, you had to become a demon contractor first. Uncle Jack had his own enslaved minion to protect him.
She dropped her arms and her blond hair unraveled from its bun, spilling down her back. “What the hell happened back there? Demons don’t just escape summoning circles. They can only pass through the barrier if they’re carried inside an infernus, which requires being contracted, or if the circle is physically damaged.”
Well, I knew which method Zylas had employed then.
“Who stole the demon from the library?” she growled. “Dad’s clients? But how did they get a completely unresponsive demon to take a contract?”
By feeding him cookies and cake for two weeks, I silently answered. Just thinking it caused hysterical laughter to bubble up in my throat. I gulped it down and cleared my throat.
“And where,” Amalia added, “is Travis? That dickwad better turn up soon.”
I made a noncommittal noise. Travis’s disappearance worked in my favor. He and Karlson—assuming they’d survived Zylas’s attack—were the only two people who could guess I was now contracted to the “stolen” demon.
A demon contractor. Me, Robin Page. A demon contractor.
There was so much wrong with that. Firstly, my contract with Zylas was completely ridiculous. He would protect me in return for cookies? I couldn’t believe such a flimsy pact even counted as a binding magical covenant.
Secondly, our contract was illegal as well as ludicrous. If anyone realized the truth, the MPD would put a bounty on my and Zylas’s heads. We wouldn’t last long. Bounty hunters knew how to kill demons.
Lastly, I didn’t practice magic. I avoided magic. Now I was bound to an extremely magical demon. Contractors were universally feared, with reputations as power-hungry bullies. After all, nice people didn’t sell their souls for a demon’s power.
I glanced around the dark street. “Uh, Amalia? Are we going the right way?”
“I told you I don’t know this area. My phone has eleven percent battery and I’m not wasting it on GPS.”
“But …” My gaze skipped from a graffitied wall to boarded-up windows. “I think we’re going the wrong way.”
“We just need to find a hotel. This is downtown. There are hotels everywhere.”
She strode onward, flipflops smacking her heels. I dug my phone out of my bag and ran to catch up with her. The streetlights buzzed in the hush of nightfall. A few cars sped past, their headlights flashing over us. A truck slowed on its way by and the passenger wolf-whistled.
Hunching my shoulders, I pulled up a GPS app and waited for it to load.
“We aren’t in the downtown core.” I squinted at the screen. “This is … the Downtown Eastside?”
Her steps hesitated and our eyes met in shared realization. The Downtown Eastside was the worst neighborhood in the city. And we—two girls, alone and on foot—were lost in the middle of it.
Chapter Sixteen
“We should go west,” I said urgently. “Toward the downtown core.”
“I’m not walking all the way back,” Amalia groused. She pointed at a g
lowing orange sign, the text partially obscured by a scraggy tree. “Look, there’s a Travelodge right there. We’ll get a room for the night and find a better place tomorrow.”
I squinted at the “LODGE” visible through tree branches. We hastened up the sidewalk, ducked under the tree’s lowest boughs, and stopped. My suitcase rolled into the back of my leg.
“Booty … Lodge,” I read, repulsed by the neon outline of a yellow butt under the letters. A lightbulb glowed above the business’s open door, and a dance beat trickled out. Smokers clustered around the entrance in hazy clouds.
Amalia swore under her breath. “A strip club, ugh.”
“Hey there, pretty ladies,” a heavyset man at the door called. “Coming inside?”
“Eat a dick,” Amalia snapped.
Another man whistled. “Got a firecracker here, boys.”
Male gazes burned my skin. The club’s patrons had a sleezy, disreputable air to them, and I didn’t like what they were seeing—not confident, in-control women, but two girls who were clearly lost and frazzled, one in a short dress, the other dragging a suitcase.
I grabbed Amalia’s arm and hissed, “Let’s get out of here. Quickly.”
She nodded and we hurried back the way we’d come.
“Where ya goin’?” the whistler called. “You girls lost?”
We kept walking. I fumbled with my phone, looking for the nearest hotel. There was nothing nearby. Not even a gas station where we could take shelter and get our bearings.
“Hey girlies. What’s the rush?”
My head whipped around. Four men from the Booty Lodge trailed after us, still smoking. Amalia muttered a vile curse and hitched her backpack up her shoulder. She kept her pace steady and I matched it, my heart racing.
For two blocks, the men followed us, laughing and bantering in drunken slurs. Breathing hard, I checked my phone again. There was a twenty-four-hour convenience store a block and a half away. We could hide in there.
“Come on, pretty ladies,” one of our stalkers called. “Let us buy you some drinks.”
Amalia’s jaw tightened and she glanced back. Her head snapped straight again, her face paling, and she extended her stride.
“Yeah, baby. Work that ass. Whatchya wearing under the dress?”
I rushed after her, my suitcase clattering after me, and glanced back too.
The men were gaining on us.
Fear cut through me. I didn’t want to find out what they’d do if they caught up. The street was dark, abandoned except for our urgent procession. The convenience store wasn’t in sight yet and I stretched my legs, taking the biggest, fastest steps I could without running.
“I call dibs on the little pixie girl.”
My nerve broke and I bolted.
Amalia was a step behind me, and raucous laughter rang out as the men gave chase. My suitcase bounced on its wheels, dragging at my arm, but I couldn’t bear to release it. Amalia drew ahead, her longer legs pumping—then her flimsy sandal twisted.
She fell in a sprawl. I skidded around to help her, and then the men were on us.
Amalia shoved to her feet as the group formed a half circle around us. My heart hammered in my throat and my voice had vanished again. Even Amalia had run out of insults.
The men advanced. As Amalia and I backed away, shadows closed in—we were retreating into an alley. No, the men were herding us into an alley. My throat closed. Stupidly, I was still clutching the handle of my suitcase. I couldn’t let it go. It was all I had left.
The two closest men lunged and I stumbled backward, smacking hard into a brick wall. Amalia screamed as the other two men went for her.
Leering drunkenly, a greasy, bearded man grabbed the front of my sweater and pushed me into the wall, his hot, cigarette-stale breath bathing my face.
“No!” I cried.
Heat scorched my stomach and crimson light burst through my shirt. The glow coalesced between me and the man, shoving him backward. The light flared then faded, and suddenly, a warm body was pressed against mine.
Zylas. He stood with his back against me, facing my assailant.
“What the—” the man spluttered.
Zylas seized him by the throat and threw him. The man soared ten feet, crashed into the opposite wall, and slumped to the ground, stunned. My second attacker backed away, his face a mask of horror.
The other two creeps looked around at us. “Who the hell is that guy? Where’d he come from?”
Zylas turned his glowing red eyes on them and his husky laugh rolled through the dark alley. Silence shivered between the men, then they bolted. The one Zylas had thrown scrambled after them, groaning with each pained breath.
Eyes gleaming, Zylas bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, as though warming up for a sprint, then stepped after them.
Panic gripped me and I flung myself at him. I smacked into his back, and when he didn’t stop, I grabbed him around the middle, my hands clamped over his stomach.
That he noticed. He twisted to peer at me over his shoulder.
“Stop!” I gasped. “No one can see you, remember?”
“Then I will make sure I am not seen.” His mouth curved up. “A challenge, na? Will be fun.”
“No! Just stay here. You can’t protect me if you’re chasing them.” I unwrapped my arms from his bare stomach. He needed clothes with better coverage.
His tail flicked. “She has seen me. I can kill her.”
I jerked around.
Amalia was pressed against the wall, her face white and mouth gaping in a horrified O. When we looked at her, she sidled away from us.
“Uh,” I squeaked. “I—I can explain—”
“You’re a contractor?” she whispered in disbelief. “You said you didn’t know anything about Demonica …”
Zylas canted his head. “I should kill her, yes?”
“No!”
“The demon is talking,” Amalia added, her voice faint. Her legs gave out and she sat heavily on the dirty pavement. “Contracted demons can’t speak. They give up their voices when they give up their autonomy.”
Zylas’s fingers curled, his claws extending past his fingertips. I grabbed his arm and clutched it to my chest. He probably wouldn’t hurt me but Amalia was in danger.
“Zylas,” I said shrilly, “you can’t kill her!”
“It will be easy.”
“I mean you shouldn’t kill her! She’s—she’s my cousin. My family.” I tightened my hold on his arm, knowing it wouldn’t stop him. “I need her help to survive this.”
Tail lashing in annoyance, he relaxed his hands. His claws retracted.
Amalia stared at us without blinking. “You said you weren’t a summoner and I believed you. I believed you!” Anger burned through her shock and she pushed to her feet, speaking right over my weak protest. “You did come to steal Dad’s demon names, didn’t you? You wanted the glory of a new lineage for—”
She broke off, her eyes widening in sudden realization.
“No way!” she burst out furiously, pointing at Zylas. “That’s Dad’s demon, isn’t it? That’s the hidden one from the library!”
“Wait, Amalia,” I pleaded. “You don’t understand—”
“How did you even—no, I don’t want to know.” She shoved away from the wall. “Your ‘sweet, naïve girl’ act is good, Robin, but you should’ve put more effort into your summoning apprenticeship instead. That demon is going to kill you.”
“Amalia—”
“Forget it, Robin.” Venom coated her voice. “I’m done. I never should’ve believed you.”
Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she took a step toward the street, realized she’d have to pass Zylas, then spun and marched deeper into the alley. I watched her go, my heart racing faster and faster.
Zylas pulled his arm from my weak hold. “Now should I kill her?”
“No,” I gasped. “Don’t—don’t touch her. She—she’s—she’s my—”
I broke off, panting desper
ately, and wrapped my arms around myself. Panic built in my head. I couldn’t take a proper breath.
I was alone in a reeking alley in the middle of the night. I didn’t know where I was. I had nowhere to go. Amalia had left and I was all alone. What was I supposed to do? All I had was my suitcase, cellphone, and a demon who wanted to kill everyone nearby.
Tears streamed down my face and I sank into a crouch, holding myself and fighting to breathe. I couldn’t do this alone. I needed help—but there was no one. Amalia had left. My parents had died. Any other mythic I turned to would report me to the MPD—assuming Zylas didn’t kill them first. I couldn’t go near anyone, not with Zylas. Anyone I exposed him to would be in danger.
A shadow blocked the streetlight. Zylas crouched beside me. “What are you doing?”
I shook my head, gasping and crying and losing my mind with panic.
He prodded my shoulder. I tried to pull myself together, but I was caught in a spiral that was dragging me deeper and deeper. Every time I fought its pull, the realization that I was alone and had nowhere to go or anyone to help hit me all over again.
“Payilas,” Zylas growled. “Stop it.”
I hunched inward and pressed my face against my knees, hiding from him.
He pulled on my shirt to make me sit up. I lost my balance and fell on my butt, then curled into an even tighter ball. I couldn’t breathe right. The ground was rolling and tilting.
“What are you doing?” he snarled. “Stop it!”
“I—I can’t! Leave me alone!”
He sprang to his feet and whirled, the barbed end of his tail just missing my face. He paced away from me, glanced back with his teeth bared and eyes blazing, then disappeared into the alley’s dark depths.
Now I was completely alone. The maelstrom of panic spiraled deeper, my pulse racing and heart heaving in my chest. If only getting rid of the demon were as easy as sending him away, but he was bound to the infernus. Just like me. I was an illegal contractor bound to a demon I couldn’t control.
Mom, what should I do?
My heart broke all over again, and I wept into my knees. Minutes crawled by, and my sobs weakened until I was sniffling pathetically, my cheek resting on my knee. I stared blearily into the darkness where Zylas had vanished.
Taming Demons for Beginners: The Guild Codex: Demonized / One Page 12