Touched by Fire (Demons of New Chicago #1) - Kel Carpenter Page 0,7

see me. This second level went around the chapel, branching off into different hallways. I looked down each, periodically peering back over the railing to the congregation below.

When I saw the bright red letters of an exit sign, one corner of my lips tugged up.

I took that hallway, ignoring the doors on either side until I reached the end. It was all metal, painted a soft gray some time ago, but faded and wearing thin in places. I tried the handle, and it gave way.

I slipped out into a stairway that went up and down. Taking my chances that luck would still be with me, I went two more floors where it finally ended. Quickly picking the lock, I popped my head in to see where this had landed me.

Wind caught the ends of my braid, flinging it around. I stepped out onto the roof, not bothering with the spires on either side, and instead moving toward the center where a giant, stained glass ceiling looked straight down to where this summoning would be happening.

“Perfect,” I said, quickly getting back in the stairwell to wait out the next few hours.

I leaned back against the brick wall, sliding down to the ground. My head tilted back as the cold seeped in, but without the wind, it was doable. I counted the bricks on the ceiling, moving to the ones on the walls when the stairwell opened again.

“Anyone in here?” a voice that teetered on the line of masculine called. He sounded young, not like a child, but like a boy that was only just becoming a man.

I stayed quiet, opting not to respond and see what he did. A few seconds later the door slammed shut, and all was silent again.

It was almost time. If the Antares Coven were running their checks now, it wouldn’t be long. I waited another stretch of counting bricks before rolling to my side. My joints popped as I climbed to my feet and stretched my arms and legs. After hours of sitting in the dark stairwell, my muscles protested the movement almost as much as the stillness. I cracked my neck and opened the door leading out onto the roof.

Night had fallen in the windy city.

A gust hit me full in the face, making my chest tight.

Fucking wind. Fucking cold. I hated them both.

Gritting my teeth, I closed the door as softly as I could, and navigated the dark roof to where the stained glass was now the secondary source of light to the full moon overhead.

“Supernaturals and their moons,” I muttered, shaking my head. Any sound I made was lost in the shrieking of the turbulent night skies. I reached back and tucked my braid beneath the collar of my coat to stop it from whipping around everywhere.

The light coming from the glass ceiling brightened, and I moved right to the edge, then peered over it.

It was hard to make out every distinctive detail. There were four bright globs that I assumed to be fire. One stationed north, south, east, and west—equal distance from each other.

This is where, if I were planning to kill the coven, I should have done so.

I had a better plan, though. One that ended with them dead, me with my money, and perhaps, if I was lucky, my answers too.

I kneeled down, squinting through a single red-stained pane. It was easier to make out the members of the coven then. All thirteen of them wore dark robes, making them indistinct from one another. There was something else . . . something I hadn’t seen or planned for.

I squinted, getting so close to the glass that my nose touched.

My eyes widened when I realized what I was looking at.

There in the center of a circle was a person.

I’d bet my right arm, a young girl.

Someone easily manipulated. Someone not quite innocent, but ignorant in how dark the world could be. Someone that was meant to be an offering to the demon they were summoning.

The Antares Coven were bigger idiots than I’d realized.

I jumped to my feet, debating my options.

The first orb of fire went out. Shit.

I’d mis-timed this. If I took the stairwell, it would be too late. Anyone not in the circle when it was cast wouldn’t be able to enter it. Which only left one option.

I stepped back and loosed the tie on my trench coat, quickly reaching for one of my guns. I pointed at the ceiling and hoped like hell that this plan wouldn’t kill me.