Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex Demonized #1) - Annette Marie Page 0,71

for my kind—to kill a Dīnen.”

I crouched beside him. “Doesn’t that mean that other demons try to kill you all the time?”

“Ch. Of course.”

Hesitantly, I patted his shoulder. “Well, you know you defeated him, and that’s what’s important.”

He squinted at me like I’d said something utterly moronic, then gazed across the park. “Maybe the other witnessed my triumph.”

“The other what?”

“The other demon.”

Confusion fizzled through me. “You mean the two contracted ones?”

“No. There was another.” His nostrils flared. “I can smell his vīsh. Different from Tahēsh.”

Vīsh. Magic. Zylas could detect the magic of another demon? But contracted demons couldn’t use magic.

“I could smell him on Tahēsh,” Zylas added. “This other demon … he is the one who injured Tahēsh. The one Tahēsh was hunting. He is powerful. Second or Third House.”

A chill washed over me. Another powerful demon, one capable of using magic, had injured Tahēsh. Did that mean there had been a third unbound demon in the park?

“I did not see him.” Zylas pointed to the dark street where the red car had disappeared. “But his scent … it disappeared with them.”

I stared at the empty street. Two dark-haired men, one unconscious. A pair of redheads, one male and one female. They’d looked human to me, but Zylas didn’t lie.

Who were they?

Chapter Twenty-Four

I sat on the grass, bored and exhausted. More than a dozen MPD agents and high-ranking mythics—GMs and first officers from multiple guilds—swarmed the park.

Over the past couple of hours, I’d been questioned, questioned some more, then questioned again. The demon corpse had been bagged up and a nondescript van was parked beside it, back doors open to receive the body. Someone was pouring liquid from a large jug over the bloody grass, and silver vapor rose from it in unnatural corkscrews.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it. I had a dozen messages from Amalia and Tae-min—the former asking if I’d killed the demon, because rumors were flying, and the latter demanding, with growing urgency, that I return to the guild immediately to see the GM.

I pushed my glasses up my nose, nervousness skittering through my belly. This was way too much attention. Would the MPD investigate my paperwork and realize it was all a forgery? The Grand Grimoire guild master summoning me didn’t seem like a good thing either. Hopefully he just wanted to congratulate me on a job well done.

Chewing my lower lip, I watched a tall woman in a crisp business suit bark orders at various agents. From what I’d overheard, she was the captain of this MPD precinct. That made her the biggest boss in the city, and I was extra glad I hadn’t had to talk to her. Despite her waves of soft blond hair, she was inexplicably terrifying.

A man broke away from the crowd and strode toward me. I got wearily to my feet, trying to place his thick beard and longish gray hair. He seemed familiar.

“Robin?” He held out his hand. “Girard Canonach, first officer of the Crow and Hammer.”

His guild jogged my memory; he was a teammate of Darius, the Crow and Hammer’s GM. “We met a couple of days ago, didn’t we?”

“Briefly,” he confirmed as he shook my hand. “You did an excellent job on the unbound demon. Are you hurt?”

“Not a scratch. My demon did all the work.”

“Glad to hear it. The entire city owes you a favor—though I believe the bounty for an unbound demon kill should go a long way toward that IOU.”

Right. In return for completing bounty work, the MPD awarded bonuses that increased depending on the difficulty and danger of the job.

“I’m just glad the demon can’t hurt anyone else,” I said quickly.

“As are we all.” He studied me, his gaze bleakly assessing, and I got the feeling he was skirting around something. “You’re a new member of the Grand Grimoire, correct?”

I nodded. He waited to see if I would offer any more information about my recent guild transfer, but I changed the subject. “Did you ever find out what that sorcerer was doing? The one who attacked me?”

“I was going to mention that. Is there any reason someone might be stalking you?”

“N-no,” I replied, startled. “I can’t think of anything.”

He considered me carefully, then shrugged. “We’re still investigating the sorcerer. He wasn’t part of a search team … and he wasn’t alone.”

Gooseflesh prickled my arms.

“Be careful, Robin. The demon is dead, but I’m not sure this is over yet.”

I nodded numbly as he returned to the MPD group. No one