Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Devon swings the iron fire poker through the air as he moves back to me, picking up the bag. Xavier holds the sage in front of him and I throw out my hand.
“Ignis.”
The sage stick lights on fire and immediately starts to sizzle from the Vesta powder. Xavier slips his arm around me and effortlessly picks me up, speeding me out of the cabin. Devon is right behind us, still waving the fire poker through the air. We stop in the pathway going from the cabins back to the main building.
“Holy shit.” Devon whirls around, fangs drawn. “That’s what demon hunting is like?”
“Sometimes.” I let out a breath and Xavier takes my chin in his hand, tipping my face up to his.
“You were bleeding.”
“I’m okay.”
He licks his finger and then gently wipes a smudge of blood from my face. Devon stops dead in his tracks, eyes wide as he stares at us.
And he retracts his fangs.
“She’s in the woods,” I tell them and reach inside my shirt, pulling out the crumbled up map. “Those spirits can communicate with the demon. We need to move.” I open up the map and give it to Xavier, which he exchanges for my dagger. I slip it back into the sheath hanging on my waist.
“There’s a path along the lake,” he says. “It’ll be the fastest and easiest way to get there.”
Devon steps up next to Xavier. “Not to be a party pooper, but you marked a pretty big area on the map.”
“I know,” I say. “Once we’re close, I have one more spell to cast and it’ll help us go right to her.” I wipe my nose again when I swallow and taste blood. “I thought we’d be finding a body, but judging by the way those spirits tried to stop me from locating her, wherever she is…there’s something bigger.”
Devon zips up the backpack and puts it back on. “Lead the way,” he tells Xavier, who folds the map and sticks it in his back pocket. We jog around the main building, not stopping until we get to the lake.
“Do you smell that?” Xavier asks Devon.
Devon inhales, tipping his head up. “It smells like roadkill.”
“It’s human.” Xavier pauses, eyes narrowing as he looks at the boathouse on the dock. “There’s something else.”
“A person?” I ask, hopefully. Maybe we can get some of the workers out alive after all.’
“No. Some sort of monster.”
I pull the dagger from the sheath, fingers sparking with magic that travels down the blade, electrifying it like a taser. We creep forward on the dock, and the old wood creaks under our weight. Xavier holds out his hand, stopping me so he can take the brunt of an attack.
The wind blows, carrying with it the scent of death. It does smell like roadkill, and how Xavier can tell the difference between what’s a dead human and a dead deer, I’ll never know. We take a few more steps and I look down into the dark water on either side of us.
One of the canoes that’s tied up bumps into the dock, and pulls my attention to it. My heart is in my throat, adrenaline surging through my body. Keeping a tight hold of my dagger, I look into the next boat, eyes trying to adjust to whatever’s inside.
“The fuck is that?” Devon exclaims right as something jumps out of the boat and growls at us. It’s clutching what’s left of a rotting and festering human arm.
“Scrapper demon,” I say. “They’re fast and have a nasty bite, but they’re easy to kill.”
With a snarl, Xavier speeds forward, grabbing the scrapper demon and ripping its head clean off its body. He drops both parts onto the dock. Two more scramble out of the boat, snarling and hissing at Xavier. He goes for the one closest and Devon zooms forward, taking hold of one. He snaps its neck and then quickly drops the body, looking a little unsettled.
Other than losing control and biting me, Devon hasn’t done anything overtly violent. I suppose you could call demon hunting a gray area when you’re killing monsters like scrapper demons, but decimating any sort of creature can change you.
“I think that’s it,” I say, whirling around. The dock’s movement throws off my balance, and it’s hard to focus on anything in the dark. I blink rapidly, trying to steady myself. The wind blows again, gently rustling beach towels that are hanging on the dock’s railing along the shore.
I lost my flashlight inside the cabin, so I have to get closer to the canoe to see what’s left of the body. From the smell alone, I know this person has been dead for several days, probably killed whenever everyone went missing a few days ago.
“How’d the cops miss this one?” Devon asks.
“The body was dragged,” Xavier tells him, pointing to something I can’t see along the shore. “That’s the trail.”