Hunting Fiends for the Ill-Equipped (The Guild Codex Demonized #3) - Annette Marie Page 0,60
to put all this away. We’re leaving soon.”
He glanced at the window, where darkness had just fallen. It was only six. We had two hours yet before our meeting with Ezra.
Deciding not to mention that, I scooped up the books and rushed into my room. What was wrong with me? Why was my heart pounding like this? Maybe I was anxious for Myrrine, who was poised on the brink of humiliation and heartbreak.
My breath hitched as I realized I was thinking of her as though her story hadn’t concluded centuries ago.
I ran my fingers across the grimoire’s worn cover. Whatever Myrrine had decided, it was done. Somewhere among the ancient pages was the next part of her tale, and I was desperate to find it—but aside from curiosity, I had no reason to. I’d been searching out her journal entries for answers about the Vh’alyir Amulet, but Myrrine had yet to mention it.
I considered pulling out the grimoire and searching for the next page with Myrrine’s name, but I wouldn’t have enough time to complete the translation.
Besides, I reminded myself, it wasn’t important—no matter the anxious anticipation gripping my chest. No matter the powerful need to know what she had decided.
Shoving the feeling away, I locked the grimoire and my notes in their metal case, slid the heavy box under my bed, then turned to my dresser. The twisted armband Zylas had ripped off the sorcerer glinted in the overhead light. I picked it up and traced one of the tiny, powerful spells etched into it.
I had better things to worry about than Myrrine’s love life—like my upcoming rendezvous with a demon mage and, if we were lucky, a pair of demon-hunting sorcerers.
Ezra was waiting on the sidewalk beneath the overpass when I arrived. The gap under the bridge seemed darker, the echoing clamor of traffic louder. It hammered into my skull.
I managed a weak smile as I joined him. “I brought it.”
When I held up the armband, he nodded. “We’ll begin as soon as Blair arrives.”
“Blair?”
“One of the Crow and Hammer’s telethesians.” He arched his eyebrows amusedly. “You didn’t think I would track the sorcerers, did you?”
I didn’t admit I’d assumed he would use some sort of fancy demon magic to do it. A telethesian was a much better plan, and I was embarrassed I hadn’t thought of it myself. I’d even met one of the guild’s telethesians, Taye.
“While we wait,” he said, “we should discuss our plan. Let’s go over here.”
He led me past the chain-link fence and into the stacks of tires. I went as far as necessary to lose sight of the street, but when I glimpsed the concrete wall where the overpass joined the hillside, I stopped.
“This is far enough.” I turned my back on the dried gore where Yana had died. “I don’t need to stare at old blood while we talk.”
“Those aren’t bloodstains.”
“What?”
“It’s … paint.”
My brow furrowed. “How can you tell?”
“I got a copy of the Vancouver PD’s preliminary findings and the autopsy report.” He pressed his lips together. “Those sorcerers are sick bastards.”
Crimson light flared through my jacket. Power pooled on the ground, and Zylas took form beside me.
“īnkavis are always broken in their minds, na?” he remarked casually, using the demonic word for a serial killer.
Ezra’s left eye gleamed scarlet. “These ones are even more twisted.”
“How so?” I asked.
“You’re better off not knowing.”
I almost dropped it, but I remembered Yana’s smile from her photo, and the Romeo and Juliet performance she’d never get to be part of. I straightened. “I can handle it.”
His expression suggested he disagreed. “The stains back there are red body paint. Yana was found covered in it.”
“You mean they painted her? Why?”
“To make her look like a payashē.” The gleam in his eye intensified. “A female demon.”
Zylas hissed.
All the hair on my body stood on end, revulsion closing my throat. I struggled to swallow.
“They stripped her, tied her up, and painted her red.” Ezra’s voice was flat, but his eyes—both his and Eterran’s—burned fiercely. “Then they raped her.”
I started to shake. You have the look, the first sorcerer had told me.
Zylas huffed. “I do not know that word.”
“It means …” Red flared brighter in Ezra’s pale eye and his voice deepened into Eterran’s tones. “Dh’keteh hh’ainunith amavren cun payilasith.”
Zylas’s eyes widened. “Dh’keteh?”
Eterran’s upper lip curled with scathing disgust. “Some human males enjoy this act. Human females fear males for that reason.”
“But …” Zylas stepped back as though distancing himself from the conversation. “But forcing …”