Something was strange, but I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly.
“What took you so long?” Kent’s voice was snappy, anxious. That was unusual for him indeed.
“Just doing my duty.” I shrugged, cracking out the usual tension that resulted in my neck from going in and out of physical form. “Didn’t want to leave the campus unprotected. Figured you could wait.”
“Slaves don’t tell their masters to wait,” Jeremiah sneered. “Watch your mouth.”
“Or what?” I growled, turning from facing his father to focus on him instead. He immediately straightened up, his jaw working nervously as I stepped closer. “What are you going to do, hm? You want to try me?” He shifted in his seat, his eyes darting back to his father. Typical. “That’s better. At least you know when to shut your mouth. You should be scared, boy —”
“Kent, control him,” Meredith hissed, and Kent cleared his throat.
“Leon, enough!”
I straightened slowly from leaning over a cringing Jeremiah. No pain. No punishment. Kent loved looking for any opportunity to torture me, and he’d just passed up an opportune moment. I looked him over, once more taking in the rumpled suit, the bags around his eyes, the way his hands —
His hands. Empty hands. No grimoire.
No grimoire?
No…no, that couldn’t be. Kent never let that thing out of his sight.
“I have a job for you, demon. A soul meant for the Deep One has returned to Abelaum. The time has come for the next sacrifice.”
I was distracted, trying to determine why the hell Kent wouldn’t have his grimoire with him. The special thing about a demon’s second name, about their mark, was that it couldn’t be recalled simply from memory, and it could only be permanently recorded in a few specific mediums: if scarred into flesh, or if written by a powerful witch. Without my mark, without the grimoire, Kent couldn’t summon me and he couldn’t contain me.
It seemed too good to be true.
“Do you want me to kidnap someone,” I muttered, “Or do you just want me to babysit Jeremiah while he mangles another sacrifice?”
“Fuck you!” Jeremiah raised his voice, getting a worried glare from his mother. Kent’s nostrils flared with the force of his exhale. He reached into his jacket and withdrew two photographs, holding them out for me to see. I got closer to have a look — and cold, clenching fury washed over me.
“Her name is Raelynn Lawson, but Victoria tells me you already know that, don’t you?” Kent smirked. He was holding an enlarged student ID photo of her, as well as one of her sitting at a bench between Jeremiah and Victoria. “Bring her to us, and ensure no one sees you. Make sure you leave no signs of a struggle. You are to make it appear as if she left her house of her own accord, drove to the coast, and was in a wreck. Bring her to St. Thaddeus tonight, at midnight: alive, unharmed, and blindfolded.”
I didn’t take the photos. I simply stared at him. “No.”
Kent laughed. “Have you lost your mind? Your summoner has commanded you —”
“Make me. Go on, Kenny-boy. Make. Me.”
In other circumstances, I knew what would happen. He’d whip open the grimoire, trace over my mark to lend him power over me, and utter some spell from within its pages to cause me pain. Break my bones, crush my lungs, give me the sensation of being burned alive — the punishment spells within that book were wicked, and even I could only endure so much pain. But instead his jaw just tightened, his empty hands clenching.
He’d lost the grimoire. He was powerless.
“She is a Lawson,” he said, as if he could persuade me to do what he wanted. “A descendent of the Blessed First Three, one of the God’s chosen.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Everly shifting in her seat. She was the only person in this room with any innate magical abilities, but would she dare turn those against me? “She must go to the Deep One, and you will bring her.”
This was why the Hadleigh brats had latched onto Rae so quickly, like goddamn leeches eager to feast on the God’s favor. It made sense now: Rae was born here, her family had likely been here since the town was first built. Some unfortunate ancestor of hers had gone down into the mines, and came out with the God’s mark on him forever.
“If you hop to it quickly, you’ll still have hours with her before midnight,” Jeremiah said. “I see you staring at her on campus. Her cunt can be your reward for —”
He didn’t even see me move.