Seven leaned back against the wall, probably happy to be standing after so long riding.
“It seemed like every time we got wind of a sighting of Marceaus and his crew, we were just a couple of days too late getting there,” Seven said, shrugging.
“What about sightings of Red? Was she with them?” Ace pressed.
Ace, while a bit of a dick at times, was our leader. He was the oldest of us. But more so than that, when we’d first found ourselves on the human plane, he’d been the one to set out to learn as much as possible about the humans, about their world, so we could blend in since it seemed like we’d be stuck for a long time.
He was the one who coached us through the changes as the humans continued to evolve. Slowly at first, then a lot fucking faster as their technology advanced. Without him and his dedication to figuring it all out, we’d probably been locked up in a demonslayer prison a long time ago.
He’d had a particular soft spot for Red all along. Maybe simply because she was younger, because she was rarer. Female demons had never been common.
That affection of his had only grown when she’d come back from hell so damaged, so fucking broken. Especially since he’d been the one to have Lenore open the hell mouth that she’d jumped into in the first place.
That was when he’d decided to kidnap someone to help her wounds since none of us had any practice at dealing with them. We healed too quickly.
Sure, he’d managed to kidnap the one human woman his inner beast wanted to Claim in the process. But none of that changed his feelings toward Red.
It was eating him up that she was still gone.
And that none of us had any idea as to where, or if she was alright.
“Not that we heard of,” Seven said, breaking the news matter-of-factly.
“Shit,” Ace hissed, shaking his head. “Why the fuck hasn’t she called?” he added, mostly talking to himself.
“My thoughts exactly,” Seven agreed.
“Do you think something happened to her?” Ace asked.
“What? Like she jumped back into a hellmouth again? No. Since you’re usually the one opening those things up.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Ace said, shaking his head as he moved closer to the fire.
Always cold, that was Ace.
“Demonslayers have been active as fuck lately,” Drex piped in. “Every time you blink, there’s more of them.”
I could feel the girls’ eyes slide my way as Drex said it. Whenever the topic of them came up, the girls always had pity in their gazes.
And while I appreciated that they cared, the last thing I needed was their sympathy. I already felt like shit all the time.
“Almost like the fucker upstairs senses something is coming,” Ace said, shaking his head.
“Has there been a lot of demon activity lately?” Lycus asked, pulling Lenore onto his lap.
“Demons like us, not so much. Not that I’ve heard of. But the bloodsuckers are always Turning humans.”
“But you don’t think that’s it,” Bael, usually the least likely to speak, said in that rumbling, grumbling voice of his.
“The baby bloodsuckers are child’s play for the demonslayers,” Ace said, shrugging. “They could take them all out in a night if they set their minds to doing it. I can’t see them Calling more young demonslayers just for new vampires.”
“Maybe you should ask that brother of yours,” Seven suggested, looking at Bael.
It was no secret that Daemon, Bael’s little brother, had more of a finger to the pulse of the supernatural world than anyone else in the club.
Daemon was younger than any of us. By a significant margin. He was also the one who’d been an actual demon in hell for the shortest amount of time. Which meant he had a lot less of an attachment to it. And that he’d adjusted a lot more easily to the human realm than any of us had. Especially his grumpy as fuck brother.
Sure, Daemon had a fondness for human women. In fact, I wasn’t sure he’d gone a single day since he’d come up without a woman.
But he also spent a lot of time at demon and underworld-specific clubs and events.
“If I see him this week, I’ll ask,” Bael said, shrugging.
“It’s something we should all be looking into,” Ace suggested, a lot tenser than he’d been a few minutes ago.
“No,” Aram hissed, making everyone turn. “We should all be looking into what happened to Red.”
There was a fierceness in his voice I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard there.
Before Daemon showed up with his own spin on being a demon, Aram had been the more human-like of us. Again, he was a bit younger. And he’d spent a significant part of his eternal life on the human plane. So he’d taken on more human traits much sooner than any of us.