In the Demon's Company (Demon's Assistant Book 2) (9 page)

“I’m not going to become a demon,” I say. It shouldn’t bother me that he asked. It was a smart question. One I hadn’t really thought to consider, because the idea of working for demons is so far removed from becoming one that it didn’t occur to me. I shouldn’t resent that he’s thinking big picture, that he’s examining all of the angles. It’s what he does.

“I know,” Cam says. “But I figured I should ask all the questions I could while I had the expert in front of me.”

“Is that what you’ve been worried about?” I keep my tone teasing, light, but he sighs heavily.

“No,” he says. He glances down at my hand, at the silver ring. There’s a pause. I don’t believe him. “I want to go UW for the reasons I gave you, but…” He glances over at me. “It’s also because of you, a little. I love you. And at this point, I don’t know if we could work long distance, with everything.” I open my mouth to agree, but he barrels forward: “Especially now, knowing that there are other demons out there. Because I’d be constantly worried sick. I’m
already
worried sick. But if I was too far away to help…”

“Cam,” I say. I step closer to him and thread my arm through his, pulling him close as we walk. He’s solid and warm and his hair smells like his sister Cathy’s watermelon shampoo. “Az mostly has me delivering invoices for garden sculptures. I’m not exactly in mortal danger.”

He gives me a wry look, an eyebrow quirking over his glasses. “You were stabbed last year.”

“Barely,” I say.

“There’s no such thing as ‘barely stabbed.’”

We reach the bus stop, crowded with people all waiting to get up the hill. “If there is another demon like Az—“ he starts, speaking quietly so we’re not overheard.

“I think there must be. If Az didn’t make a deal with Mrs. Crane, someone did.”

“Okay, so… What does that mean? Are they going to have some kind of turf war or do they sort of ignore each other and go about their business?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Azmos seemed really weird when I mentioned it.”

The bus pulls up and we find a row of seats near the back. Cam sits by the window and I slide in beside him. He puts his arm around my shoulders.

“UW, huh?” I say. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Even my dad is on board. He went to UW, you know.” Cam’s father, a doctor who lives in Colorado with his second wife, will be bank-rolling whatever scholarships, grants, and loans don’t cover. Cam smiles down at me so radiantly that I can almost feel the warmth coming off it. “It’s the right decision.” He leans down and kisses me briefly, and we ignore an annoyed huff from a woman in the seat next to us. I meet her eyes when we pull apart and she hurriedly turns to her phone.

I run my fingers through Cam’s soft hair, fingers massaging his scalp. “Besides,” he says, “I’m not sure what you’d do without me.”

I punch him in the arm. The bus jerks to a stop at the bottom of the hill and more people pile on, crowding the bus until they’re standing in the aisle and squished up against each other.

“Just because there’s another…” Cam trails off, not wanting to say ‘demon’ in a crowded space, no matter how likely it is people would assume we were just stupid teenagers talking about a movie or something. “…I don’t think we should worry about it. Let Az handle it.”

“Maybe,” I say. I don’t bother to tell Cam that for once, he and Az are in total agreement. But I also can’t sit around and do nothing. Cam threads his fingers through mine and squeezes my hand. “I’d just like to figure out what the deal with Mrs. Crane was. Literally.”

“You did what you could for her, you know,” Cam says.

“It wasn’t enough.” Cam squeezes my hand again and bends his head down against mine.

“You can’t save everyone, Nic. The world doesn’t work that way.”

I know he’s right. But what use is working with magical beings if I don’t even try?

If I thought Gabriel looked like he was around my age before, it’s painfully obvious that he’s older when he arrives on campus the next day. He’s only nineteen and he might even pass for a high school student if he didn’t look like he’d recently gotten in a head-on collision with a train. His olive trench coat doesn’t help, nor does the fact that he towers over all but the tallest students.

Still, he walks down the halls like he’s meant to be there. He smiles when he finds me. I wonder how long he’s been running amok on campus and thank the powers that be that he didn’t get in trouble for doing it.

He finds me just after Spanish. Cam and Brian have run off to their next class, but Melissa is actually attempting to be friendly so of course, that’s when the random stranger appears. She stops mid-sentence when she sees Gabriel, frowning so hard I think her lips might twist into an upside down “u.”

“Hey,” he says, “you need to come with me.”

Melissa looks from me to him several times and then her expectant gaze lands on me. “Who is this guy?” she asks, a little too loudly. The last thing I need is to draw attention to him.

“He’s a friend,” I say quietly.

Melissa shakes her head and raises her gloved hands in front of her, palms out. “Forget it,” she says, resentfully. “I can’t do this. Not when mysterious weirdos keep showing you up and dragging you off on covert missions.” She gives Gabriel another once-over, makes a frustrated noise. “Call me when you’re done playing Super Spy.”

She spins on her heel and walks away before I can point out she doesn’t seem to have a problem when that ‘weirdo’ is Xanan.

“Sorry. Emergency.” Gabriel tugs at my arm and I follow him. We reach the parking lot before the bell. Campus security walks loops around the school but none of them appear to be doing a round now. All the same, I rush off across the street as fast as I can so we’re not stopped and questioned, and I don’t relax until we’re a few blocks away.

“What’s going on? Where are we going?”

“I had another vision. And this time, the blue-haired demon was in it.”

“Oh,” I say, considering the implications of that. “Does she die?”

He shakes his head. “No. But she’s there when someone else is supposed to. The vision is hazy. They’re never like that. Usually they’re so crystal clear, I can’t get the images out of my head. I’d assume she was there to make a deal with this person but that makes no sense, because I never see Azmos in the visions. Whatever’s going on, we should check it out.”

“The visions give you an exact time?” I ask.

He rolls his eyes. “No. But the vision tends to happen the day before. This one is happening today, if it’s happening at all.” A little thrill runs through me, along with a sense of relief at having something useful to do. Of course, relief is tangled with nerves. But if this demon is like Azmos, there isn’t much to be afraid of and she might be able to give me some answers about my teacher’s death.

We walk down the Hill toward downtown, but instead of heading to Pioneer Square, we stop at major bus stop on Third Avenue. Even in the middle of the day, the street is chaotic, with people coming and going from all directions, some leaving on buses, others just trying to push through and get to the next block. People crowd around waiting for their buses, some on phones, some reading books. A guy lurking in a corner next to the minimart is openly dealing drugs despite the police van parked on the corner to deter that kind of thing. Another group of middle-aged men loiter, music blaring from the speakers of some hidden stereo in one of their coats.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“A house,” Gabriel says, which does not really answer my question. We climb aboard a bus that goes toward Ballard. We find a sideways seat in back. Gabriel taps his foot anxiously on the floor. A man across from us looks pointedly at his leg and then glares at me.

“Myron seems nice,” I say, just to make conversation.

“Nice is not the word I would use,” Gabriel says, but he stops tapping his foot.

“He was helpful,” I say. It’s nice to know there are other sources of information. Azmos only seems to tell me what he thinks I need to know. And he sorely underestimates that. Gabriel gives me an unreadable look. It’s full of something but I’m not sure what. For some reason, I keep talking. “I get the impression he regrets breaking up with you.”

Gabriel’s look hardens. He folds his arms over his chest. “Why do you assume he broke up with me? As it happens, I broke up with him.”

Heat creeps into my cheeks because I
had
assumed that. “I don’t know, I just thought—”

“I get it. I’m damaged goods, so of course he’d want to be rid of me. Anyone would.”

“No, that’s not it at all,” I say, wishing I hadn’t opened my big fat mouth.

Gabriel sighs. “I thought it was lucky when we first met. When you’re mired in the arcane world, it’s impossible to have a relationship with someone who isn’t, which severely limits your options.” My heart hammers in my chest as images of Cam’s face—disgruntled and frustrated by all of the demon interruptions—flash across my mind. “But even then, sometimes things don’t work out. He and I…” He trails off and then his shoulders droop. “We both think we know what’s best, you know? Which tends to be the opposite of what the other one thinks.”

I do know, because that sounds uncomfortably familiar.

He pulls the cord at Dravus and we hike up a hill and turn down a street until we find a white house with brown trim. The lawn is a little overgrown, the paint in need of a new coat, but otherwise it’s a nice house. Two stories, big picture window opening into the living room.

I knock on the front door. I hear footsteps approach and hold my breath, not sure what I’m hoping for. A finger hooks through the blinds and eyes peer out at us. The blinds pop back into place.

Through the door, I can hear muffled voices but can’t make out what they’re saying.

When the door finally opens, the woman who stands in front of me is young, mid-twenties, her black hair in a messy bun. She looks us up and down and then glances back inside. I see a few drops of blood on her sweatshirt.

“Let them in,” a voice says. It’s lilting and beautiful and it sends chills up my spine.

The young woman opens the door wide. Her jaw is bruised. She looks like she ran into someone’s fist. Unease sloshes around in my stomach. Gabriel and I exchange a glance. He reaches into his coat for the hilt of his sword, unclipping a leather clasp that holds it in place, I guess so he can pull it out quickly if the need arises.

“You have a sword?” I hiss, surprised. It’s not really subtle, but then, there is nothing subtle about this sword.

“Of course,” he says, like it’s a totally normal thing to have. I have never seen Azmos or Xanan with a weapon. Maybe their magic suffices.

The house is small, furniture jammed into every corner of the living room. The blue-haired demon sits on the gray sofa like it’s a throne, her legs crossed. She wears black leather pants and a silver brocade corset. She smiles.

“Well, hello,” she says, clearly pleased we’re here. Something tells me that’s not a good sign. “Anna, do make us some tea.”

The woman in the blood-stained sweatshirt nods and goes into the next room.

“I know you,” she says to Gabriel. Her skin is tan like Azmos’ and her straight, electric blue hair falls around her face and down past her shoulders. Her eyes are blue-and-silver snake eyes. “The psychic. Is that why you came? Did you foresee that young woman’s near-death?”

Gabriel is still beside me. She doesn’t wait for him to answer. Her eyes land on me and her smile widens. My stomach turns. “And who might you be?”

She’s like Azmos, I tell myself, snake eyes and all. And Azmos is not a monster. I take a few breaths and then say, “I work for a demon like you. I wanted to talk.”

“A demon like me?” she says, tilting her head slightly. The movement is robotic and it makes my skin crawl.

“Yes,” I say, trying to sound cool and collected.

“There are so few demons like me,” she says, almost wistfully.

Gabriel reaches for his sword. I frown. The demon hasn’t moved so I don’t understand why he does it. And then a steel blade is at my throat, cutting into my skin. Anna is behind me, her hand white-knuckling a sharp kitchen knife. The demon woman’s smile brightens. Tea must have been code for “knife.”

“Drop the sword, or the girl dies,” the demon woman says in a tone far too cheerful for a death threat. “Don’t worry, dear,” she says to me. “I have a few questions for you. If you cooperate, I won’t let you die today.”

Anna’s hand shakes and the knife slices into my neck, a tiny cut like one a guy would make while shaving, but it stings. My heart pounds, making the tiny cut throb. Gabriel drops his sword to the carpet. Anna’s death grip on the knife loosens slightly.

“Sorry,” Anna whispers so quietly that it’s the ghost of a word at my ear.

“This demon you work for. What are they called?” the demon woman asks.

“Azmos,” I say, the word flying from my lips before I can think better of it.

“As I suspected,” she says, clearly pleased by my answer. My pulse races and fear is trying to make me shake, which is a very bad thing with a sharp blade at my neck. I try to hold still and swallow the fear. “And you, psychic. Is he the one you work for as well?”