the server comes back with a bottle of wine and pours it for me.
“Starters?” he asks.
I glance at the menu and pick the first thing on the list. “The calamari, thank you.”
“Perfect choice,” he comments, taking my menu from me and swapping it with the main menu.
I sit quietly, sipping on the tasty wine, but then Caspian drops down at the table opposite me, his features pulled into a scowl. I feign ignorance to his anger and continue scanning the menu.
“Can’t sense him anywhere,” he snaps after a moment. When I don’t acknowledge him, he mutters, “I hope you choke on that wine.”
“It’s very tasty,” I reply with a grin, my gaze still on the menu as I take another sip. Teasing Caspian is becoming a favourite pastime of mine. “You should try some. After all, it’s been charged to your card.”
In my peripheral vision, Caspian huffs and pulls out a strange triangle that looks like a metal hair clip. I remember seeing it in the box of DHT things that were dropped off on the first day. The box Caspian took into his room and never let me see again.
“It’s a demon radar, for your information, and it glows when full demons are nearby.”
I frown up at him. “Then why did you take it off me? It’s not dangerous!”
“You could have broken it, and these are worth a fortune,” he replies, but I get the sense he was just being his usual petty self.
“I still want it back. It was pretty,” I tell him.
He chuckles. “No, I’m not giving you it. Ever. For the record.”
I’m about to reply when I see a man walk in from the corner of my eye. He enters on his own, ignoring the server, and goes straight to the bar. I stare at him for ages and I realise I’m seeing something around him almost like glittering black. I can’t describe it, but I’ve never seen any humans do that. I kick Caspian’s foot underneath the table and nod once behind him.
“What?” he asks when he looks back. “It’s just a man, and the radar isn’t glowing.”
“You can’t see the black things around him?” I ask, and he shakes his head.
“No, but if you think something is wrong, then we can check him out.” He picks up the radar. “I’m bored anyways.”
I finish the rest of my wine, then follow Caspian to the bar. When we’re within the man’s proximity, the radar in Caspian’s hand starts glowing red. Caspian nods to me with a big smile, reaching above his head for his sword when the wendigo man turns our way. The man is handsome, in a pretty expensive suit, and he seems so human for a second. But the longer I stare at him, the more I see the difference. He feels…wrong. He looks wrong. He smells evil.
“You can make this really easy and just come with us,” Caspian warns quietly. “Or we can chase you around this entire hotel. One way or another, you’re going back down to Hell with us where you belong”
A load of words come out of the man’s mouth. Not human words. Demonic words that I don’t understand, but I feel like he’s saying “piss off.” Caspian jerks his sword out and slams it down at the man, but he catches it midair. The sword burns away into red dust in his hand, and the demon kicks Caspian hard in the chest, sending him flying across the room.
Humans scream and run out of the way as piercing, glowing demonic eyes turn onto me. The wendigo doesn’t move to hurt me but I pull out a dagger from my thigh from underneath my coat.
“Unhallowed born,” he spits out in English after a series of hisses.
“What’s that, wendigo?” I slip out my other dagger. “Didn’t quite hear you.”
In the corner of my eye, Caspian pushes a table off himself and climbs to his feet. The demon makes a break for it as two humans run in front of me, blocking my view for just a second. Damn it! I slip past them and chase the demon through the doors of the restaurant, pushing past two servers who try to talk to me.
“Sorry!” I shout back to them.
The wendigo goes straight into the stairs through the door, leaving it broken on the floor in his wake. I chase after him up the endless amount of stairs. He moves so quickly that I can just about see him when he suddenly lets out