rooms. Her target would vanish from the roof long before she arrived if she stopped to check every office on the way up. She continued to scan for signatures with her gift.
She reached the stairs and started up, ignoring the paranoia that swamped her at leaving her back exposed to the blackness below. She was too old to be afraid of the dark, or at least too old to admit to it. At every landing, she paused to listen for any sound. Nothing but her own breathing reached her ears. When she reached the access door for the roof, she ran her fingers over the lock, willed it to let her pass.
She opened the door trying to make as little noise as possible and quickly realized she needn’t have bothered.
An insect-like fae with skin the color of moss sat cross-legged in the middle of the roof watching the door. Small in stature, almost the size of a child, the fae possessed a set of four emerald green wings. It lacked any sort of signature.
The door shut behind Juliana and she took a deep breath. Cinder and ashes. Fear settled in her belly like a lead weight.
“Hello, Hound,” the fae said in a tinny, high-pitched voice. Their prey often called them hounds, stripping the respect the title Walker commanded. The creature smiled, flashing sharp teeth. Definitely dark fae.
“Demon,” she returned the greeting, wishing her nerves were as calm as her voice. She kept the gun pointed at the fae’s head. “Don’t suppose you want to come out of there? Go back to where you came from?”
The demon laughed, deep and rich, a sound at complete odds with the voice. “You’re funny. I like you.”
“Oh, goody.” She shifted her aim from the head to the torso. They always tried to save the host, but usually couldn’t keep from injuring them in some manner. Acceptable collateral damage according to the Agency. If she inflicted enough pain maybe she could get the demon to leave the host. She fired three shots without warning. Only the first hit the target. The rest sliced through empty air as the demon jumped to the roof of the next building.
She bit back a curse as she followed, dropping to her knees with a grunt when she hit. Scrambling to her feet, she regained her aim on the demon.
It moved to the ledge on the far side of the roof. Green blood dripped from the bullet wound in its chest. It grinned, flashing pointed teeth. “Very good, Juliana Norris. You may prove a worthy opponent after all. But you really should learn to pay more attention.”
A blur of motion shot toward her from the right and she swung her weapon in that direction. Flames of pain burned through her arm as massive claws struck it, ripping into flesh and the muscle beneath. With a yell, she fell to her knees. She dropped her gun into her left hand, twisted, and fired off the rest of her clip in the direction of the blur.
Dull thuds told her several of the bullets hit their target. A howl cut through the air and made her hair stand on end. A werewolf bounded over to stand beside the fae. A werewolf that looked familiar aside from his complete lack of signature. Nathaniel. Her chest tightened and her stomach dropped. Two demons working together and one of them rode her friend. Her night just kept getting better.
The fae moved toward her, but froze when a door opened on the roof of the building behind her. Footsteps pounded against asphalt.
“Halt,” Jeremiah said. He didn’t agree with Juliana’s shoot first policy.
The fae’s lips twitched in the semblance of a smile. “Be seein’ you, Hound.” Both hosts leaped off the side of the building to the street five stories below, probably breaking several bones in the process. The demons could heal anything short of death, however, and the hosts would be up and gone in a matter of moments.
Jeremiah started barking orders into his radio, telling the units below where the suspects had gone.
“No!” Juliana took a breath and reined in the panic in her voice. “Tell them to follow, but not to engage.”
“What? Why?”
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “They’re both demon-ridden and that wasn’t just any wolf. That was Nathaniel.”
Jeremiah’s eyes widened as he radioed her instructions.
Nathaniel in the control of a demon. She never thought she’d know a host. Never thought she’d feel this weight of responsibility to save him if she could. And if she couldn’t...well, that didn’t bear thinking about. She had no choice. There was no alternative.
On her side, Nathaniel was cursed hard to kill. She counted on that fact to keep him alive until she figured out how to get the demon out of him.
Juliana and Jeremiah met back up at street-level in front of the buildings. He gestured to her arm. “You okay?”
She clenched her teeth, ignoring the blazing pain and her blood dripping onto the pavement. “Wonderful.”
Another agent ran up to them. “We lost them, sir.”
She hadn’t really expected them to be able to keep up with the demons, but she’d hoped they might at least get a good idea where they headed. “What about the harpies?”
The Agency used harpies for air surveillance. Jeremiah laid a hand against his earpiece. Juliana didn’t wear one. She couldn’t tune out the constant barrage of chatter from everyone working a case. If anyone needed to get hold of her, she had her phone and Jeremiah was usually within shouting distance.
Jeremiah shook his head. “They trailed them to a building several blocks from here. Ground search turned up nothing.”
“Um...ma’am?”
She cracked open one eye to glance at the agent who looked like he was about twelve years old. She flashed her gift on long enough to read his signature, ignoring the stab of pain it brought with it. Selkie. That explained the youthful appearance. “Yes?”
“You’re bleeding.”
She arched a brow. “That’s very astute of you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Astute. Means observant.”
“Just because you’re upset about our wolf doesn’t mean you get to pick on the rookies,” Jeremiah chastised.
He was right, not that she was willing to admit it. “Whatever.” She blew out her breath in frustration. Stretching her head to the sides, she attempted to loosen up the muscles in her neck.
The medic approached and she held out her arm. She didn’t have time for this, but it was a necessity. It wouldn’t do any good for her to walk around leaking blood wherever she went.
They needed to find Nathaniel before something else happened to him. Something more permanent than being demon-ridden. And they needed to find the demons before they got further into their rampage. And they would, they always did.
Ignoring the medic while he worked made it easier for her to pretend it didn’t hurt. That’s precisely what she did until he lifted a large needle from his bag. She jerked her arm away, grimacing when pain ran straight up to the base of her skull. “What, by all the dark gods, is that for?” she asked, pointing at the syringe.
The medic frowned. “This? It’ll numb your arm so it won’t hurt while you heal.”
She shook her head. “Absolutely not. I need it to be able to function.”
“Why?” Jeremiah asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
She blinked. “We’re going to Nathaniel’s apartment.”
He studied her for a moment before nodding to the medic. “Put it away. But give her something for the pain.
