Touched by Fire (Demons of New Chicago #1) - Kel Carpenter Page 0,13

coin—not that the latter did much good. Most places no longer took physical money because witches and warlocks were prone to scamming people. Still, solicitors took any and everything they could get because in this world, nothing was free.

The L smelled of desperation and depravity, but as the train shot out from a tunnel, and the cloudy sky opened up, I sighed in relief.

I’d come toe-to-toe with a demon, and I’d lived.

This time.

I sagged against the double doors, looking through the foggy plastic at the city below. My relief at getting away slowly faded as worry tinged it, seeping in like ink on paper.

A niggling feeling ate at me. As relieved as I was to be alive, this was far from over.

6

The Demon

My hands clenched into fists.

There was a pounding in my ears and everything aside from the retreating lights of the moving train faded in a cloudy haze.

She ran from me.

I unclenched my fists and took a few hard breaths, trying to settle into this new form. It was different from my previous one. More confined. Contained. It held all that I was beneath a sinewy package of muscle and bone. Once, I would have hated it.

However, thousands of years of searching for her made me ambivalent. I didn’t particularly care which form I took, as long as it led to her.

She ran from me. The words repeated in my mind, but I did not feel pain like one might expect. A hint of anger was there, but more than anything it was a driving desire to hunt her. Find her.

I had to know who this female was, and why she ran.

The distant roar of another train approaching pulled my attention back to my surroundings. I looked over the disgusting train station. It was so unlike the world I’d come from.

To find her, first I needed to understand this plane. While my magic made it possible for me to communicate with all life-forms, it did not grant me instant knowledge. That I had to take.

The two warlocks I’d killed in the cathedral gave me enough to understand some things, but they didn’t know who my mystery female was, or why she wanted their leader alive.

No matter. All I needed to do was retrace my steps and follow the trail.

I’d find the leader that created the door between realms, figure out why she wanted him, and then use him to track her down.

She could run all she wanted. She wouldn’t be able to evade me forever. I’d waited too long for her. I followed her from my world and into this one. If I had to, I’d follow her into the next.

There was no escaping me.

7

I groaned, climbing the last few steps. While she wasn’t very big, the cloaked witch was heavy when it was pouring rain outside and the water weighed us both down. My clothes were mostly dry from my shoulders to the knee where my trench coat ended. From there down had been soaked to the bone in icy cold water.

I shivered and leaned against the doorway as I let the witch’s body slide down my own. My arms were shaking from the exertion of carrying her so far. While I was strong, I wasn’t Superwoman. Especially when the crash hit.

My fingers fumbled with the ties on my jacket as I worked to open it and dug out my key from one of the inner pockets. I touched the end of the bronze fob to the panel on the door. It beeped once, and the tiny light at the top of it changed from red to green.

I wrapped my hand around the handle and the door swung open on its own. Sighing once more, I bent down and hauled the witch up as carefully as I could manage. While I didn’t have much left before the crash, I needed to get her tied up before she woke.

I took one last look up and down the stairs, checking my neighbors’ apartments. All was quiet, and as far as I could tell, not a soul knew I’d brought an unconscious woman back.

“Good,” I muttered under my breath as I stumbled inside. Using the toe of my boot, I nudged the door, and it swung shut behind me, closing with an audible click. There was a whirring sound before the lock went back into place.

My apartment was spacious, at least by most human standards. Two bedrooms, a working bathroom, kitchen, and living room. It was filled with mismatched but comfortable