Amalia jumped to my rescue. “We aren’t about to reveal our family secrets to you plebeians.”

An annoyed grumble ran through the mythics.

“Well …” Tae-min rubbed his smooth jaw. “I’ll talk to the GM.”

As the officer walked off to a private corner to make the call, I looked up at Zylas. Blood darker and thicker than a human’s dripped off his chin.

My fist tightened, pain flaring through my palm, and I hoped no one noticed the slow dribble of blood squeezing between my fingers, its tempo matching Zylas’s almost perfectly. Something told me a contractor slicing her hand open to stop a blade from touching her demon might raise suspicion. Even I could hardly believe I’d done it.

Chapter Nineteen

“I’m sorry,” I muttered for the fourth time.

Arms folded, Amalia glared across the road. We were standing in the alcove outside the Grand Grimoire’s front door, waiting for Tae-min to join us. Pattering rain coated the pavement and heightened the colors of the spray paint that marked the opposite building.

No matter where I looked, the street was ugly, but I should get used to the view. This was my guild now.

Whatever Tae-min had told the GM had done the trick. I was officially a member of the Grand Grimoire, and Tae-min was putting through the preliminary paperwork right now. More forms and waivers awaited us but until the MPD lifted their “escaped demon” alert, no one would be processing anything.

I assessed the heat level of Amalia’s glower. “I really am sorry. When he asked if you were my champion, he seemed to expect a ‘yes.’”

Her scowl deepened.

“You never said you weren’t planning to join the guild with me,” I added.

“Of course I wasn’t!” she blurted furiously. “I was already in a guild! But you had to go and tell him I’m your champion and it would’ve looked suspicious if I’d corrected you.”

My hands tightened and pain flared. I’d balled a few tissues against my cut thumb to stanch the bleeding, but it hurt a lot. “Why didn’t you explain champions to me before?”

“I forgot you didn’t know,” she replied grouchily. “But don’t you think it’s kind of obvious? Controlling a demon in a fight takes concentration. Contractors can’t defend themselves at the same time, so they need a protector.”

And that protector was their “champion,” a mythic partner who guarded the contractor’s back.

“It’s a good thing your crazy demon can fight on its own,” she added, “because I’ll be a useless champion. But remember”—she leaned close and lowered her voice—“if he fights, he can’t use any magic. It’ll be a dead giveaway that he’s not—”

The door behind us opened, causing Amalia and me to jump. We exchanged alarmed looks and I vowed to be more careful about what we discussed in public.

Tae-min stepped outside, accompanied by another man—almost as thick and muscled as Burly, but several inches shorter. “This is George. We’re partnering for the search. Let’s go.”

Since Tae-min was a sorcerer—he’d been waving around sorcery artifacts earlier—that would make George a contractor. The guild was half contractors, half champions.

The officer led us out of the alcove, and I pulled my jacket tighter around me as I followed him into the cold rain. His car was parked in the alley adjacent to the guild and we piled into it. As the vehicle pulled out onto the quiet road, I hunched in my seat, wishing I could wake from this nightmare.

Thanks to Zylas, there was a demon loose in the city, and every combat mythic from every guild was hunting it. The Grand Grimoire, as the city’s primary Demonica guild, was crucial to the hunt—and Amalia and I were now part of the search effort.

The wipers swept across the windshield, chasing the rain. Six months ago, I’d been living with my parents, going to college, and studying mythic history in my spare time. Two weeks ago, I’d been losing sleep over Uncle Jack stealing my mom’s grimoire.

Now I was bound to a demon, newly inducted into a Demonica guild, and about to hunt the most dangerous adversary a mythic could face. And until I dealt with that, I couldn’t do a thing about the missing grimoire.

Glumly, I wiped rain off the lenses of my glasses.

Oblivious to the downpour drenching the abandoned intersection, Tae-min squinted at the MPD app on his phone for the “grid” we were supposed to be searching. The entire neighborhood had been cleared for the combat teams hunting the demon, and the MPD was coordinating every team’s search zone.

“Our grid is three blocks,” Tae-min declared, pocketing his phone. “We’ll search it from west to east, then they’ll assign us a new grid.”

“I can’t believe we don’t have central communication yet,” George complained in a chain-smoker’s gravelly voice. “We should have headsets.”

“That’s not in our budget,” Tae-min muttered. “Anyway, let’s split up. Check everything, then come back here. Remember, unbound demons are fast and in full command of their magic. Shout if you see any sign of it.”

With that, he and George strode away.

I stood blankly in the middle of the street. Um … were we supposed to just … walk around, then? Uncertainly, I started in the opposite direction. Amalia followed me onto a narrow street lined with businesses, then ducked under the awning of a health food store.

I stopped, cold water pattering on my head. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting here.” She pulled out her phone. “I’m not wandering around in the rain, searching for an unbound demon. It’s suicide.”

“But,” I spluttered, “your dad is the one who summoned it. If anyone should be—”

“Yeah, but I didn’t summon it. Look, Robin.” She put a hand on her hip. “We’re no match for an unbound demon and you know it. It isn’t killing people, so let’s just chill and let the pros handle things.”

“It isn’t killing people? Then what’s it doing?”

“No idea. Demons on the loose usually go on killing sprees, but this one is just lurking around the Eastside.” She waved her phone. “Either way, I checked the latest MPD update. The demon has injured a few mythics but no one’s died. We don’t need to get involved.”

“We’re already involved, and we have a responsibility to—”

“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes. “Knock yourself out, then. I’m staying here.”

Huffing, I marched down the sidewalk. I would search for the demon, especially since I was partly responsible for its escape.

The constant drumming of the rain deadened all other sound and shadows encroached on the streetlights’ glow. My stubborn determination to do the right thing withered beneath a wave of apprehension, but I continued to the next intersection. Where did our grid end? This seemed awfully slapdash for a highly organized, multi-guild search.

As I stood there, unsure of what to do, movement caught my eye.

Four people were jogging down the adjacent street, two on each side. As they reached an intersecting alley, the pairs swept into the shadowy passageways with the determined proficiency of a SWAT team. A minute later, they reappeared, giving each other hand signals that I assumed meant, “All clear.”

I hurried behind a bus stop shelter and peered out as they reconvened in the street, pausing while one checked his phone. They all wore black clothes, lots of leather, and what appeared to be bullet-proof vests. The three men stood beside a short blond woman with something sticking up over her shoulder.

The man on his phone pressed a finger to his ear. “Copy that, Felix. We’re almost finished this grid.”

“I’m beat.” Stretching her arms over her head, the woman turned to her teammate, revealing the sword strapped to her back. “How much longer on this shift?”

“Two more hours.”

“Damn.” She stifled a yawn. “I haven’t gone on this little sleep since the Lynn Creek shifter stakeout.”

A guy chuckled. “That was a fun one!”

“Let’s get back to it, guys,” the leader said.

Reforming their pairs, they set out in a swift but cautious jog. I watched the woman’s retreating back with hungry awe. She was petite—almost as short as me—but she oozed toughness with each step. Could I ever be like that?

I watched the team methodically sweep the street until they disappeared in the rain. Wow. So that’s what we were supposed to be doing. Did Tae-min know how this search should be performed? I retreated half a block and peered down a dark alley. Going in there alone struck me as a dumb plan.

Heat flared against my chest, radiating from the infernus, and Zylas materialized beside me in a burst of red light. Ignoring my shocked gasp, he peered upward. Rain peppered his face and he frowned as though the weather’s daring offended him.

“What are you doing?” I hissed in alarm. “You can’t just pop out whenever you feel like it!”

Crimson eyes glowing in the dim light, he cast me a dismissive glance. The cut on his cheek was a dark line, no longer bleeding. “Why not?”

“Someone might see you!”

“I knew you were alone.”

“How?”

He stretched lazily, arching his back. “You thought about it.”