Ez winces. “Hypothetically, yes. In reality, though, most of the other mixed hunters avoided her. Between Naomi smearing the Gutierrez name when she defected and Roma herself accidentally starting the mega-rift epidemic, she made more enemies than friends. The only two hunters who would even give her and JJ the time of day are Bryant and Chester, and somehow, I don’t see either of them defecting anytime soon.”
Cass shudders. “Definitely not Bryant. She’s a Nehemiah, apurebred,a descendent of the original hunters. She’s not going to give up that prestige.” He tips his head to one side, considering. “They might be able to convince Chester Locke, though. Especially if we get rock-solid evidence that the Sanctum signed off on his family’s murders.”
“Rock-solid evidence that we’re unlikely to get without a spy inthe Sanctum,” Obie finishes. “Thus bringing us back to our original predicament.”
Ez sighs, crossing her arms over her chest. “We’ll figure something out. We have to. Glamouring ourselves whenever we go outside isn’t a permanent solution, and it means Roma and JJ can barely leave the house without us—not until Roma and I refine our human-magic glamour spell and get our human-magic rifts functioning, at least. And Desi can’t keep a secret to save her life, not that a four-year-old should be expected to keep secrets.”
“Yeah,” Cass says quietly. “Homeschooling is fine for now, but—but I want her to have the chance to be a regular kid, you know? I want her to be able to take ice-skating lessons and make friends and experience new things. She can’t do that while we’re being hunted on all sides.”
Obie’s chest hurts. “We could leave Redwater,” he says softly. “Go somewhere safer.”
Cass’s jaw tightens. Ez shakes her head. “Obie, you know as well as we do that Redwater is too deep in our bones to let us go,” she says. “Besides, it’s Roma and JJ’s home. It’s all they’ve ever known. We can’t ask that of them.”
Obie bites back his argument. Truthfully, he doesn’t want to leave Redwater, either—the magic reservoir under the town disguises his godly power signature with little to no effort from him—but thereareother options. Options where the Redwater Food Truck Association won’t be around to see through their glamours with unnerving accuracy and where the local Sanctums and Chains won’t have their photographs on file.
But he’s also learned over the years that humans—and younger demons—get particularly attached to places. Countries, cities, houses. Cass and Ez aren’t even three centuries old yet; their experiences are limited.
They’ll learn to let go eventually. They’ll have to, especially if JJ and Roma don’t survive for as long as they’re all hoping.
Someday, they’ll be just another memory in Nostringvadha’s memory jar.
2
We’re discontinuing our investigation into the Jackson case.”
For a split second, Chester is sure he misheard. Next to him, Bryant looks just as stunned as he feels. “We’rediscontinuingit?” she repeats, incredulous. “Councilwoman?—”
Councilwoman Nasir cuts her off. “Initially, we believed that we might be able to bring Jackson back into the fold,” she says, lacing her fingers together on her desk and fixing Chester and Bryant with her usual steely gaze. “However, recent events have shown that to be highly unlikely—and we’ve now lost another hunter in the pursuit. He’ll be considered an armed and dangerous fugitive, but we won’t be actively searching for him anymore.”
Chester tastes bile. He’s never really been called into Nasir’s office for good news, but this is even worse than he expected. Over the past few months, it’s just been one blow after another, between JJ defecting andRomadefecting and?—
And the revelation that Sawyer Solomon and Naomi Gutierrez, the self-defense instructors who trained the four of them as teenagers,also shacked up with a pair of demons after they vanished six years ago. Chester fights back a shudder at the thought. It was bad enough when he thought their former mentors ran away so they could date without the looming specters of arranged marriages and bloodlines discrimination; knowing that they abandoned Chester and his friends to work alongside demons just adds insult to injury.
Bryant’s indignant voice brings Chester back to the present. “So we’re just giving up? Giving up on J—on Jackson and Gutierrez?”
Chester hears her catch the slip just in time. Nowadays, their oldest friends aren’t JJ and Roma, two-thirds of Strike Team Kappa. Not anymore.
They’re defectors now. Armed and dangerous ones, apparently.
Councilwoman Nasir’s eyes narrow. “In a word? Yes.” Bryant flinches at the reprimand, and Chester resists the urge to put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “The past few weeks have proven them to be beyond redemption. Not only did they allow themselves to be seduced by demons, but they’re overtly conspiring against the Sanctum. That’s not something we can fix, Nehemiah. You’d do well to remember that.”
“But…” Chester’s voice comes out small and hoarse, and Bryant shoots him a sharp look. The two of them usually have purebred Bryant do the talking, letting less-than-mixed-breed Chester fade into the background, but this is too important to be left unsaid. “But that’s not the—the Jackson and Gutierrez we know, Councilwoman. It sounds like Chin and Laguerre and Smith brainwashed them. Like they need to besaved,not condemned.”
He holds his breath as Nasir considers him. He knows that he’s toeing a dangerous line here—the Council’s authority isn’t to be questioned, especially by a neophyte hunter like him—but damn it, JJ and Roma were hisfriends.
He was their friend, too. He knows he was.
To his surprise, Councilwoman Nasir leans forward, resting her chin on tented fingers and meeting his gaze. “According to our sources, Chester, you’re not entirely incorrect.”
Chester’s eyes widen. Bryant stiffens.“What?”she demands. “Councilwoman, if the demons enchanted them?—”
“There’s no evidence of enchantments,” Nasir cuts in, “but thereisevidence of a certain amount of psychological warfare—specifically, psychological warfare against Jackson.” Her eyes shift back to Chester. “Chester, would you say that the Sanctum has helped you over the past twelve years?”
Chester blinks with confusion at the unexpected question. Still, even with his precarious position in the Sanctum’s social hierarchy and all the tension that comes with it, his answer is easy. “Of course. After my family was killed, the Sanctum gave me a home. A purpose. A chance to prevent what happened to me from happening to anyone else.”
That’s all he ever wanted, really—to make sure no one else had to go through what he did. Watching his parents and younger brothers get slaughtered by demons was the defining experience of his childhood, and even twelve years later, there’s a part of him that still hasn’t completely recovered from it.
In another life, JJ probably would’ve agreed with him. After all, Chester’s family was only half of the Jackson–Locke murders.
