“Unfortunately for them, the demon almost always starts demanding more and more as he offers them more to improve their lives. And they are addicted to the money or the women or whatever it was they wanted. So they give it to them.”
“But how?”
“How young were these missing babies?” Arick asked.
“Newborns.”
“First month, you’d think?”
“Yeah…” Dale said, brows furrowing.
“Humans, they have this quirk of making themselves easy victims,” Arick said.
Then, before either of us could ask what he was talking about, he waved a hand around in the air, and for a brief second, an image hung there.
It’s a girl!
One of those signs you found on someone’s front lawn when they brought a new baby home.
“Makes the cult’s jobs easier. Whenever they needed to bribe the demon for something, they just drove around, found a yard with a new baby sign, then either took the baby themselves, or told the demon where to find it.”
“It’s that simple,” Dale said, shaking her head.
“Pretty much.”
“How do we find the cult?” I asked.
“That’s the hard part. These kinds of cults, they don’t ever make themselves known. Usually, it is a group of buddies who got an idea, then get addicted to the power.”
“But this has been going on for a long time,” I insisted, thinking of what Ace had said about the animal sacrifices.
“A secret society, perhaps? They’re not as rare as most people think. Even colleges have secret societies with strange rituals.”
“What?” I asked, seeing the gears turning in Dale’s eyes.
“There’s a college not that far away,” she said. “And The Academy has even kept notes about a supposed society there. But it is so secret that we never really got much of anything about them.”
“Well, now you have a direction to point them in,” I said, then watched as her face darkened. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m going to have to face them again.”
“Face them?” I asked. “Yeah, since you work there.”
“Marsh saw a demon swoop in, kill another demon, then grab me, call me yours, and run off with me.”
Yeah, I could see how that might get sticky for her, now that I thought about it.
“Marsh,” I repeated. “I’m assuming he’s not a friend.”
“He’s the one who made my life hell growing up at The Academy. The one the Council wants to replace me with.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much, darling,” Arick said, shrugging. “I believe your Council has bigger things to worry about.”
Dale’s gaze slid to his, probing.
“The old gods?” she asked.
“Precisely that,” he said, nodding.
“So, it’s true,” Dale said.
“It is.”
“Shit.”
“Indeed,” Arick said. Whatever lighter mood he’d had when we’d emerged had disappeared. The dark cloud I’d seen hanging over him when I first arrived was back.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, once again disappearing out the back door, then making his way toward his studio.
“You know it is something to worry about when a warlock gets in a dark mood about it,” Dale said, wincing.
I was going to have to break the news to Ace.
I had no idea if he knew anything about these “old gods.” But either way, he needed to know. We all did.
Who the hell knew what was in store for not only us, but all the supernatural beings, and even the humans if these old gods, heroes, monsters, demigods, daimons, and spirits started taking over.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But that’s a problem for another day,” I told her, sitting down at the table with her.
“Right. For now, we have the cult thing to deal with. I’m going to have to get back to The Academy.”
“Tomorrow. Or the day after,” I said.
It was both a statement and a plea.
Dale’s gaze slid from her food and up to me.
“Yeah,” she agreed, smile soft. “The day after tomorrow sounds soon enough.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dale
Did I have any business shacking up with a demon and our often-missing warlock host?
No.
Absolutely not.
The Academy, if not actively searching for me because they thought I was abducted by a demon, was likely packing up all my shit to put me out onto the street.
Or worse.
I had no idea what kind of penalty might be in store for me.
No one had ever gone and fallen for a demon before. They probably didn’t even think to put it in that lengthy rulebook I never got around to reading.
But I wasn’t stupid. I knew there had to be repercussions. Life-altering ones.
Somehow, though, I wasn’t panicking.
Okay, fine.
Maybe a part of that was because any time I started to panic, one of Minos’s wings would reach out toward me. And it was so damned endearing that I forgot about the anxiety for a moment.
I’d never needed to give my life much thought before. It had always been spread out for me. Schooling, on-the-job training, and then work. Slaying the demons. Reporting back to Gideon and the Council.
I got a salary for that.
I also got a room and meals at The Academy.