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  “He surely won’t kill you if you manage to rectify your mistake,” she said as if she knew exactly what she was talking about. “But he will make you pay, somehow.”

  “But I’ll be able to return? I don’t have anywhere else to go…”

  What if Volpert expelled me from his clan? What would become of me? I had no one to turn to.

  Maureen didn’t answer my question, instead, she put on a hopeful face and took my hand.

  “If you want to redeem yourself, we need to get out of here before Volpert takes his anger out on you.”

  With those words, she pulled me around and led me back toward the marble door.

  “I can’t hear anything.” She was quiet for a short while, listening attentively. “Can you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay.” She pushed the door open. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We popped into the forest where they had found me.

  “We spend the night here,” Maureen said while she glanced around for spectators, even if it was just deer or rabbits. “This seems safe.”

  I remembered how she had said she could sense me when they’d first arrived, searching the woods for me. I had never asked her about that, taking it as given, but now that I was being brought back to where my journey had begun, I did feel like asking.

  She had settled down on a stone between a cluster of fir trees.

  “So, how did you know where to find me?” I settled down next to her, still in shock from the afternoon, trying to make conversation with my loyal demon friend.

  Maureen looked up, a smile on her face.

  “I’m not sure you really want to know.”

  “I do,” I confirmed. And when she didn’t instantly speak, “it can’t be that bad, can it?”

  “No…..just…” She broke a twig from the nearest tree and played with it, thinking. “I was there, at your funeral, watching those creatures as they threw flowers on your coffin. I know I shouldn’t have. Volpert forbade it.” She chuckled darkly. “I went anyway.”

  “You defied him?”

  She pursed her lips, head slowly bobbing up and down, in an expression telling me she had regretted it dearly later. At least it explained why Volpert treated her the way he did, why she was so shy around him, so different.

  “And I did it more than once.” The look on her face grew fierce. “Every day I went to see your grave, if only from a distance, behind the trees, but I went anyway.”

  “Why did you care?” I wondered aloud, not meaning to interrupt her, but she bit her lip and shrugged, winding her fingers around the twig.

  “Every day, I was expecting to find Claire there at your grave. I wanted to confront her, snap her neck and do the same thing to her that she’d done to you, but she never came.”

  “What exactly is it that she did to me?”

  Maureen didn’t answer, but reached into her pocket, playing with something.

  “We should rest,” she suggested, changing the topic. “You look positively dead.”

  “I am.” I laughed halfheartedly.

  In a sense, I was. Even though I was able to walk, talk, think—my heart was dead.

  “True.” She smiled for a second before she slid to the ground and leaned back against the stone she'd been sitting on a second ago.

  When I followed her lead, I realized how exhausted I was. The once resonating power in my chest was gone, used up when I’d attacked the angel. Was he dead? Had I at least done one thing right? Then again, Volpert had mentioned he wanted the angel alive to take him to the Sacred Halls of the Dark.

  “Maureen?”

  “Yes, Adam.”

  “What are the Sacred Halls of the Dark?”

  “A place you’ll never see, I hope,” she answered, voice indicating she was drifting off into sleep.

  I smiled as her eyes fully closed and her head lolled to the side, watching her rest for a minute or two.

  “Thank you, Maureen,” I murmured, not wanting to wake her.

  She stirred. “Demons never apologize, Adam,” she said without opening her eyes and her lips twitched at the side, almost as if she was suppressing a smile.

  While she was sleeping deeply within minutes, the events of the afternoon kept haunting me. Everything was a blur: the emotions, Claire’s face, the angel’s eerie, golden eyes, Volpert’s scolding glare. What had gotten into me that I had given in to the human’s pleas? Why had I even listened to the angel? How did I know what they both had said was the truth? Hadn’t Volpert warned me that she was dangerous? And I had reassured him I would be able to handle it. How weak I was. He would be right to punish me.

  I got to my feet, unable to sit still and started pacing the small clearing. The longer I kept thinking about it, the less likely it appeared that it had been the truth. They could have said anything to try and save themselves. I had no memory, no way of verifying their words.

  When the moon had finally come out and the night had progressed, I couldn’t wait any longer and shook Maureen’s shoulder. She jumped to her feet, arms up, ready to strike in defense.

  “Shhhh, just me,” I stepped out of her reach.

  “What’s wrong? Is it them? Did Volpert send Blackbird to find us?” Panic displayed in her eyes as she scanned the area.

  “Not at all,” I gave her the all-clear. “I can’t stop thinking about Volpert.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” She let herself drop back to the ground and rested her head against the stone. “It will be a couple of days before they come after you. Volpert will build a decent plan for his revenge. This time you’ll be the target.”

  “And you?”

  “Unfortunately so.”

  “So what should we do to get back into his grace?”

  Maureen pulled a phone from her pocket and held it up. “This.”

  I didn’t understand.

  “The phone?”

  “We lure the girl out. Alone.”

  “We call her?”

  “We’ll send her a message and she’ll respond if she thinks it’s you.”

  I let her present the plan, having my doubts. If the girl was that dangerous, how could we know she wouldn’t just trap us with her angels?

  “She will do anything to see you alone, hoping she could turn you over to her side.”

  I could see her point. After today, I was convinced the girl didn’t fear me the way she was supposed to, and that could work to our advantage.

  “Sleep now,” Maureen ordered and pulled me into a sitting position beside her, as if she was trying to get a toddler to go to bed. “We’ll text her tomorrow.”

  With the prospect of a plan, I was able to close my eyes. It took my mind a while to shut down, though, with the girl’s eyes staring at me from my memory. And the longer I stared back, the stronger my aversion for her became. No one, no matter how pretty their eyes, how tempting their lips, how delicious their soul, would manipulate me, Adam the demon, into sparing them. Not even her, intriguing as she may be.

  Holding on to my anger, I fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake until Maureen shook my shoulder and I opened my eyes to bright daylight.

  “Did I miss anything?” I jerked upright and looked around, worried to see the others’ faces somewhere between the trees.

  “Nope.” She fumbled with the phone in her pocket. “But if we want to lure the girl out, we should do it soon.”

  I nodded. “On your schedule…”

  As I was still speaking, something called for my attention. A sensation inside my chest. I blinked and there she was before my inner eye. Claire was staring at me, almost as shocked as I was. Had she called me? I could have sworn I’d heard my name.

  “Adam,” and again, that silken voice of hers spoke.

  I blinked again, trying to ban her from my head. If I wanted to destroy her for good, I couldn’t let her interfere any longer. With a split mind and a thorough shake of my head, I focused on Maureen.

  “We should try to get her back to the
graveyard,” I suggested.

  It would be the perfect location. Like before, nobody would disturb us there, and once she was dead, we could simply slip into the tunnels through the marble door and return to Volpert with results. And hopefully, he would forgive my weakness.

  “I think that’s a great idea.” Maureen pulled the phone from her pocket.

  The battery was down to six percent.

  “Not much left to do before the phone dies,” she commented as she saw the look on my face.

  “Why do you even have a phone?” I asked. She was a demon, able to teleport. She lived with the clan. Who else did she communicate with?

  “It’s a relic from a time you can’t remember,” she said, eyes gazing into the past, almost nostalgic for a moment, then fully alert. “Do you want to write the text, or should I?”

  “You can do it,” I gave her the lead. She had saved me from Volpert’s wrath, she knew what she was doing.

  “Okay.” She shrugged and started typing.

  I need to see you. Adam

  “Are you sure it will work?” I wondered aloud as I watched over her shoulder

  “If anything will work on this person, it is your name.”

  Or not. She might have had enough of me, taking into consideration I had tortured her in the graveyard. If she had any sense of self-preservation, she would ignore the message, maybe even run from it, destroy her phone…

  While I was still worrying at demon speed for the human to make up her mind whether or not to reply, Maureen’s phone buzzed.

  When? Where?

  The words were as unexpected as they were impactful. She wanted to see me. The thought was thrilling and scary at the same time. Her wanting to meet meant I had to be prepared for any eventualities, including she would bring her angel-army to destroy me.

  “See?” Maureen held up the phone, victorious smile on her face. “I knew it. If the human has a weak spot, it’s you.”

  While she was already celebrating, I wasn’t one-hundred percent certain it was a good thing I would face the girl again. What if I failed again? What if weakness was in my nature?

  I watched Maureen smile at me for a moment, wondering if she saw any risk that would happen, too, but she just continued to beam.

  “Promise me one thing,” I asked, earning a nod. “If things go wrong, make sure you teleport out of there and leave me to my fate. I don’t want anything to happen to you because of me.”

  “Nothing will happen, Adam”

  How could she be so sure?

  “If anything happens, promise me you’ll return to Volpert, blame me for everything, and spare yourself the punishment that he has intended for me.”

  Maureen’s smile faded just a bit, noticeable to my demon perception, but her face stayed positive. Her emotions, on the other hand, weren’t as smooth as her features. She was worried too, now that I had brought it up.

  “I’m really drained,” she changed the topic. “Maybe we should hunt before we head out.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell the girl where to meet us first?”

  “We can let her wait a little bit, I guess,” she laughed. “Let’s make sure we are strong enough before we settle everything.”

  She had a point. It wouldn’t do any of us any good if we faced the girl without powering up first.

  “There is a small town near the forest in the east.” Maureen started walking. “I’m sure we’ll find a human or two there.”

  As I followed her through the branches, I admired how prepared she seemed. It was almost as if she had gone through a scenario like this plenty of times inside her head.

  When we reached a small town a couple of minutes later, a red barn was the first thing we saw.

  “Is it time yet?” I asked as we stepped into a narrow street near the town square.

  She shook her head. “Let’s blend in.”

  We had been moving in the shadows so far, always skipping from one hiding place to the next. It was thrilling to mix into the slow stream of people on the sidewalk. For once not needing to be worried that anyone would recognize me and expose me as a supernatural creature, someone from their nightmares.

  The little lights wandering around town were almost pale against Claire’s tempting light and yet I had passed on devouring it.

  “Shall we just grab someone on the street?” I suggested.

  “Where would be the fun in that?”

  As I looked at her, I realized what she had in mind. She pulled her hair to one side across her shoulder and opened her jacket.

  “In here.” She pointed at a coffee shop which was moderately filled for this time of the day.

  As we stepped in, a young barista greeted us. He had reddish hair and thick glasses.

  “Two cappuccinos,” Maureen ordered and looked at the guy through her lashes.

  I almost laughed out loud as his heart stuttered. Of course he would react like that. They all did. Maureen was a human man’s hot dream.

  It took him a moment to tear away from her gaze and focus enough to prepare our beverages.

  “He’s cute,” Maureen said with a grin.

  Was she serious?

  “I’ll make sure he’ll be our lunch.”

  While we were waiting, she pulled out the phone.

  “Is it time now?”

  “It is.”

  She started texting and soon hit send.

  Tonight. Where it all began.

  “She’ll know what that means, will she?” I hoped so. I didn’t know what it meant.

  “Of course our little siren will know.”

  “You look really familiar,” the barista said as he handed me my coffee, not remotely as fascinated as he had been with Maureen, “Have we met before?”

  13

  Chase

  I shrank away from his observant eyes. Naturally, I didn’t know his face.

  “I doubt it,” Maureen rescued me. “He’s not from the area.”

  The moment he turned his eyes on her, he forgot I was even there.

  “When do you have a break?” she asked him, leaning forward against the counter, flirting.

  His heart stuttered again. As I looked around, the barista wasn’t the only guy who had difficulties focusing.

  “In thirty minutes.”

  “Very good,” Maureen turned and winked at him. “I’ll be waiting at the back door.”

  She grabbed my sleeve and pulled me toward the exit, both of us carrying the tasteless human brew in our hands.

  “The poor boy,” I commented as I glanced over my shoulder and saw him stare after her.

  “He’s not going to suffer long.”

  Of course not. He was going to lose his soul in thirty minutes.

  When we arrived behind the coffee shop, Maureen pulled out the phone again. The screen didn’t turn on anymore.

  “Do you think she responded?”

  “Probably not.” She eyed me from the side, checking if there was any disappointment in my face as she spoke. “Anyway, do you remember who the guy is?” she referred to the barista.

  I tried hard to conjure a memory of the redhead, but there was nothing. My history was still short and wouldn’t fill more than a couple of pages.

  No one stopped as we waited behind the coffee shop. I dumped the hot liquid into the gutter, watching it disappear with pleasure.

  “How can they drink that?” I wrinkled my nose as I smelled the empty cup.

  “You get used to anything if you must.” She sipped and spat before she followed my lead and dumped the coffee. “But this one is particularly gross.”

  We both laughed.

  When the yellow back door eventually opened and the guy came out, looking positively nervous, I let my demon-self focus on his dull light.

  “Back to the forest,” Maureen whispered before she turned to him, grabbed his arm, and teleported the two of them out with a glance around to make sure no one was paying attention.

  I followed them, focusing on an image of the c
learing, and was there in an instant. Maureen hadn’t waited to start feeding, but simply knocked the guy out, and was kneeling beside him, sucking his energy.

  “There is enough for both of us,” she invited, waving for me to join.

  With a quick movement, I was beside her and fed on the young man’s light, too. We finished him fast, not relishing the experience. We still had plans to go through and then we should be in the graveyard early enough to make sure we didn’t miss the girl when she came—if she came.

  The rest of the afternoon was a mental walkthrough of possible ways the encounter with the girl could go and it was just when the light was changing that I realized it was time to go.

  “We teleport?” I asked, wondering if that was the safest way to get to the graveyard.

  Maureen nodded. “To the marble door. We can’t teleport inside, but we can teleport right there into the gap between the door and the trees. Nobody ever goes there.”

  Her words were building up my confidence. I had to admit I didn’t trust myself. Despite everything I had been telling myself, how the girl deserved to die, how I needed to get rid of her, how her death would put me back in Volpert’s favor… There was no way I would even be out of his favor had I been strong enough to kill her the first time.

  As we popped into the graveyard, we heard voices. We ducked into the trees, eager to stay out of view. No one could realize we were there.

  “If they stay, we can’t attack the girl.”

  “True,” Maureen confirmed. “Or we make sure they never leave the graveyard ever again.”

  A cruel smile played on her lips, but before she could even think of following through with her suggestion, the voices grew more distant, accompanied by footsteps on gravel.

  “They are leaving,” I commented. Why was I relieved? I had killed so many times—I was going to kill tonight. What difference did it make if I took down one or two more humans in between?

  Before I could answer my own question, there was the sound of an engine stopping near the gate, light footsteps followed by the opening and closing sound of a car door and then the squeak of the gate.