Something that won’t affect her mobility.”
Irritation slithered up her spine. “Seriously? You don’t get to make the decisions for
Jeremiah grinned. “Actually, I do. Ben gave orders.”
It sounded like something their boss would do. She looked at the selkie and medic standing side by side. They both nodded. First Thomas, now Ben. Cursed overprotective men always trying to take control of her life. “Just give me a couple of low-grade pain meds,” she instructed. “I need to keep my wits about me.”
Jeremiah nodded again and she growled. The rookie turned his laugh into a cough and stopped completely the instant she turned her glare on him. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Um...yes, ma’am,” he stammered and hurried off.
The medic finished wrapping her arm and handed her two pills. “You’ll be okay for a bit, but that really needs to be examined at the Agency. The pills should take the edge off the pain, but shouldn’t make you tired.”
Yeah, she’d see about that. Nothing ever affected her the way it was supposed to. She popped the tablets in her mouth and swallowed them dry.
Jeremiah cringed. “I hate when you do that. They’ve got water, you know.”
She shrugged. “Get us a portal.”
He called for one with his earpiece and moments later the blue glow appeared. They stepped through, emerging in front of Nathaniel’s apartment building. Fourteen stories of cold glass and concrete. Juliana had always hated the complete lack of character.
A dozen agents stood in front of the doors. “We’ll be doing a door-to-door sweep. Two per floor, two floors per pair. It’s early, so hopefully we’ll catch people at home,” Juliana told them. “We need to know about anything odd or out of place in the past twelve hours. Ask if they know Walker West and how well. Also find out the most recent time they saw him and where.”
The front door required no code or key, so she walked in leaving the others to trail behind. Her head spun and she honestly wasn’t sure if it was the pills they’d given her or if anxiety was taking its toll. They were so close to Nathaniel’s home. To some possible answers. If luck were with them they’d find something that would tell them why the demons were summoned and how they could get rid of them. Otherwise, they weren’t any better off than when she first saw the demon on the roof.
A lone guard sat at a small desk in a lobby just as plain as the exterior of the building. His thick glasses and pudgy frame didn’t give Juliana much confidence in his abilities. She showed him her ID. He at least examined it thoroughly before handing it back.
“We need access to Nathaniel West’s apartment.” She gestured behind her. “These agents will be doing a sweep of the building.”
The guard peered over his glasses. “I suppose that’s okay provided they don’t harass any of the tenants, but I’ll need a warrant for the apartment.”
Jeremiah pulled out his phone. She put a hand on his arm to stop him and motioned the other agents to start their search. “I’m listed to have full access to his apartment in case of emergencies, if you’d check. Trust me, this is an emergency.”
The guard frowned for a moment, then turned and typed something in his computer. His moustache twitched as he studied the screen. “Juliana Norris, yeah, got it right here. I’ll get the key from the super.”
She nodded and leaned on the edge of the desk while they waited for him to return.
“Why didn’t he just give you a key?” Jeremiah asked.
She wiggled her fingers. “Don’t need one, remember? Figured we better keep this all above board as possible.”
The scuff of a shoe sounded behind her and she looked over her shoulder. The guard was back, key in hand. They followed him around the corner to the elevator. Juliana would have preferred to take the stairs, but wasn’t sure their escort could make it without needing to stop every flight. When the doors opened, they stepped inside. The scent of old urine enveloped them, causing her to eye a stain in the corner suspiciously. Classy place Nathaniel lived in. She didn’t remember it being this bad last time she was there.
She stood in the corner opposite the stain as they rode up the six floors in silence. When the elevator arrived at their destination, they went down the hall to their left. The guard stopped at Nathaniel’s apartment and unlocked it. Juliana stopped him before he opened the door. “Thank you. We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”
He looked between the two of them for a moment then shrugged and pocketed the key. She watched him amble back down the hall.
Jeremiah drew his gun and she followed suit. Pain twitched in her palm, complaining at the grip on the weapon. The gun jerked. She shifted it to her left hand and cradled her throbbing right arm against her chest.
Jeremiah frowned but turned the knob and pushed the door open when she nodded. Warm light spilled into the hall. At least they didn’t have to worry about anything jumping out of the dark at them. They stepped into the apartment and she froze. There was no sign of any altercation, nothing out of place. The giddy sense of anticipation that had been with her since she stepped through the portal vanished faster than an imp in a rainstorm.
Despite her certainty they wouldn’t find anything, they still had to search the apartment. She fired up her gift and pain lanced from ear to ear. She shoved the discomfort aside and got to work. The kitchen was right inside the door to the left and the living room opened before them. A short hallway with three doors ran off to the left.
The first door they came to led into the bathroom. A quick inspection behind the shower curtain and in the linen closet revealed the room to be empty. She exited and nodded at Jeremiah. He opened the door directly across the hall. Nathaniel’s office. Jeremiah stepped inside and she headed to the bedroom at the end of the hall. She checked under the bed and in the closet. She put her gun away and turned off her gift. Nathaniel wasn’t here, and neither was anything else.
“Have you seen this?” Jeremiah’s voice drifted down the hall.
Juliana wandered out and found him still in the office. His weapon holstered, he stood with his hands on his hips gaping at one of several floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Nathaniel was a book freak. His entire office, including the closet, overflowed with them. Every available area was crammed full of volumes of various sizes, formats and subjects. About the only thing they had in common was they all bore heavily creased spines. He not only read them, he read them and reread them, over and over again. He said the magic was all in the way the words flowed across the page, the dance they made to tell the story. Knowing the ending didn’t ruin that. Seeing his treasures, her heart ached. She had to get him back.
She inhaled deeply. A blend of sandalwood and cedar invaded her nostrils. Nathaniel’s favorite scent. No acrid aroma of cinder and ashes tainted it. The demon hadn’t been here.
She clenched her jaw and swallowed the tears she felt building. Nathaniel would be pissed if she cried for him. Instead, she leaned against the doorframe. “Totally blows the image you had of Nathaniel out of your mind, doesn’t it?”
Jeremiah nodded but kept his eyes on the collection before him. “Shakespeare, Austen, the original Grimm’s, Verne... the boy’s got some of the greatest works of literature here and they’ve all been read. Every one of them.”
Nathaniel had an inane theory that women didn’t like well-read men. Juliana thought only stupid women didn’t like well-read men, but he’d never asked her opinion so she hadn’t given it. Nathaniel would think what he wanted so very few people saw this side of him. In fact, he kept no books in the living room or in the main part of his bedroom. It was silly, but she understood the level of trust he had in her that he’d shared his secret. She’d revealed it to no one until now.
“You can’t tell anyone,” she said. “He’d be heartbroken if his image was ruined.”
Jeremiah shook his head and faced her.
“What about the stuff on his desk? Was he working on anything?” she asked, stepping over to the desk. Other than the laptop, it was bare. She pressed a couple of buttons but the monitor stayed dark. She shoved down her disappointment, uncertain of what she’d been expecting. It wasn’t like she was going to find a document titled
