Phoenix Academy - Lucy Auburn Page 0,9

ass teeth. I don't want to fuck with a damned pixie, man."

David rolls his eyes. "Stop worrying about the penis flattener. They need something big enough to put between the plates for that, and we both know you don't qualify.

"You wound me." Placing a palm on his chest, Reggie makes puppy dog eyes. "I'm a grower, not a shower."

"Well then, I'm not wrong, am I? Unless you think the penis flattener will make your dick hard."

"It could. Maybe it's shaped like a mouth or something."

The look David shoots his best friend's twin is incredulous. Meanwhile, Xavier is somehow tuning both of them out, and I'm wondering at my attraction to all of them. Liking boys and men will do that to you—one minute you want to jump their bones, the next you desperately wish they'd stop putting their dicks in boxes or burping the alphabet, because suddenly the bone-jumping desire is wilting.

I still have crushes on them, though.

What a fool that makes me.

"Up ahead." Xavier's voice pulls me out of my thoughts. "Is that a building of some sort? It looks abandoned. Maybe no one's around.

"Or maybe it's full of tentacle demons waiting to rip out arms and legs off," Reggie suggests. "Let's go find out."

David says, "Wait a sec. Ari—what do your witch senses tell you?"

Closing my eyes, I reach my naturalistic senses out, letting them crawl along the ground and surge over the edge of the building. It's abandoned alright; moss and ivy climb its walls, and inside, plants have begun to grow between the linoleum tiles. Maybe that's how it was built though. This is Hell, after all. There are no rules.

But my senses feel into the past as well. There's a hint of pain, agony, torture, grief and anger long past. Souls were kept here. Souls that were made to feel and do awful things. Until whoever ran the torture moved on to something else, and left the building behind, because I suppose in Hell there is no such thing as prime real estate.

"It's empty. The only living things are plants. And... a few rats? I guess there are those even down here. But nothing to worry about. No demons."

Xavier asks, "Anything else? A sense or something?"

I shake my head. "My witch senses aren't pulling me towards it the way they did in the Spirit Realm. So that probably means it's fine. No tricks." Shuddering, I add, "Though it did just occur to me... are we even really sure Ezriel is dead? We saw his body die, after all, but I don't think demons work that way."

David and Xavier exchange a look. The wolf shifter says, "You'd have to ask someone with more knowledge about demons. We mostly learn how to fight Grims, since they're the biggest threats to phoenix. But I'm pretty sure anything that qualified as an upper level demon can come back to life, just not in the same body anymore."

I grimace. "Great. So when we encounter him again, we won't even know it's him."

"I don't know," Reggie says, "I think the foul stench of assholishness will give him away."

"Let's just head inside and bunker down while we plan our escape." Xavier sounds far more confident about the words plan and escape than I feel. "Maybe we can figure out a way to beat the demons back from the door and go through it or something. Or we'll get some sort of message from someone who can help. Like Auerbach—he talked to you, right?"

I nod, frowning as we walk towards the front of the building, which is two-story with a grey brick face and resembles a school, complete with the flagpole out front and little desks visible through the classroom windows. "He was able to speak to me telepathically. But that was near the door. I don't know how far his voice could carry. I was hoping maybe he and Dani could do something about... well, all of this."

"Once she's back, she'll probably kill all those demons in a fit of rage and pull us all out by the tail," Reggie says. "Pretty sure nothing can stop her. I mean, she's a Grim and a phoenix, with a shitload of lives besides. What could go wrong?"

I'm not so sure about that, given Dani wasn't even near campus when the trickster demon attacked. "We should still plan on trying to get ourselves out. It might be harder than getting in, though. I'm not sure that the bond will pull you three back to Earth