He mentally recalled where his clothes had been discarded—the kitchen—so he could make the quickest escape possible. He left the room without looking back, got dressed, and got out of there like the building was on fire and he was a vulnerable human with soft skin and not a motherfucking demon who’d once been the terror of the underworld.
Maybe it was time he stopped pretending and went back to what he was good at.
The ringing of a phone brought Suyin out of the trance of the protection spell she was performing, and she cursed. She’d been so close to completion, and now she’d have to start from the beginning. But after that dream she’d had last week, the sense of impending doom hadn’t left her. There was no way she was going to sleep without putting her guard up.
Climbing to her feet, she stepped carefully around the assortment of candles and chalk lines to reach her cell phone on the coffee table. Maybe she should have ignored it, but her duty as coven leader meant she always tried to be available to the witches she mentored.
She was glad she made that choice when she saw Marie-Thérèse’s name on the screen. Marie had been working at the shop tonight, though she should have finished closing at least an hour ago. While inexperienced, the young witch brought a lot to the coven. She was hungry for knowledge and always helpful, staying behind after meetings to stack chairs and clean up.
“Marie, what’s—”
She’d barely gotten a word out before Marie-Thérèse burst into rapid French.
“Suyin, oh god—There’s a man—if he is even a man—but he—I was so scared, and I didn’t know what to do—”
“Slow down,” Suyin said calmly, though her heart rate had increased. “What happened?”
“He—I was closing up for the n-night, and a man came into the store. He threatened me. He told me he would k-kill me if I didn’t do what he said.”
“Are you okay? Where is he now?”
“I ran. I left him in the store! He made me break the ward and let him into the cellar, and he—he—”
Suyin didn’t need to hear the rest. A sense of knowing had settled inside her.The goddamn dream.“Is he still there?”
“I don’t know. I’m too scared to go back inside.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes, okay? Just hold on and stay where you are.”
Stopping only to blow out the candles and grab her coat, Suyin bolted out of her apartment. She made it to the Le Repaire in four minutes, running nearly as fast as she would have in summer, when the sidewalks weren’t covered in black ice.
She went into the store through the front and immediately checked the wards above the door. One was glowing red and one wasn’t. She exhaled.
Marie-Thérèse appeared in the window behind her, white as a sheet, so Suyin opened the door and beckoned her inside. “He’s gone.”
She hesitated on the threshold. “How do you know?”
“The wards, remember?” Suyin pointed up.
After last week’s coven meeting, they’d added a second ward over both entrances to the shop. The demonic presence ward was the one that was burning red—a sign that a demon was, or had been recently, in the vicinity. But the other ward, a detection ward, was inactive—meaning there were no supernatural presences currently on the premises.
“Of course.” Marie buried her face in her hands. “I feel so stupid.”
“It’s normal to forget your training in a moment of panic. Next time, you’ll remember.”
Marie nodded and entered the shop, and Suyin locked the door behind her.
“I’m so sorry, Suyin. I didn’t know what to do. I was so scared, and I couldn’t think straight—”
“It’s okay.” Suyin pulled her into a stiff hug. The distraught woman needed comfort, but Suyin had never been the nurturing type. She made the effort anyway. “Let’s go sit in the back, and you can tell me what happened.”
“What if he comes back?” Marie-Thérèse looked sick at the thought.
“He won’t.” She had no guarantee, but it was a gut feeling.
They parted the bead curtain to the back room and sat down on either side of the tiny table. Suyin waited for Marie-Thérèse to get her breathing under control before she was able to speak.
“I was closing the store when he came in. He looked like a man, but...”
