Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex: Demonized #1)(37)

The demon’s glaring magma eyes swept over me and it raised its hands again. A semitransparent circle, filled with flickering runes, flashed around its wrist as it began a new spell.

Paralyzed with terror, I realized I was about to die.

The demon veered around, focusing on something behind the garage. It hurled its spell into the backyard. A crimson-striped blast boiled into the sky.

Panting and lightheaded, I rushed to Amalia and grabbed her arm. “Get up. Get up!”

She woozily pushed to her feet, her elbows bleeding from road rash. The demon on the roof summoned another explosive spell and chucked it at whatever target lay behind the garage.

“Quickly!” I dragged her down the drive. We broke into a jog, fleeing the destruction.

A pair of wrought-iron gates blocked the driveway’s entrance. Amalia punched a code into the pad and they slowly opened. The instant the gap was large enough, we squeezed through and pelted down the sidewalk.

The neighborhood, filled with walled properties and sprawling mansions, wasn’t intended for foot traffic. We had to jog the equivalent of three blocks before reaching an intersection. We stopped on the corner, wheezing. My legs shook from exertion.

In the distance, sirens wailed. Fire trucks? Police? If they approached Uncle Jack’s home, the demon would kill them. It would kill everyone in and around the house, then extend the battlefield to Uncle Jack’s hapless neighbors.

Zylas had done this. It must’ve been him. For some hideously stupid reason, he’d freed the other demon. That meant every atrocity the winged demon committed was ultimately my fault.

“Come on,” I panted. “The bus stop is just up this street.”

“Eh?” Amalia stumbled after me, her plastic flipflops snapping with each step. “I didn’t know buses ran in this neighborhood.”

Probably because she had a car—or she used to. The demon had just blown it up.

The streetlights blinked on, pushing the shadows away and filling the street with a warm orange glow. Still catching my breath, I speed-walked to the bus stop, where a teenager was glancing between his phone and the wailing sirens. A boom vibrated the ground and his eyes went wider.

If he could have guessed the sound was not caused by construction or an accident but by a raging demon, he would’ve run in the opposite direction. I squeezed my eyes shut, debating internally, then summoned my courage.

“Excuse me,” I said to the boy. “Can I borrow your phone to send a text?”

He scanned me, no doubt debating whether I could outrun him if I tried to steal it. Deciding there was no way—he, like everyone, was taller than me—he tapped on the screen, then held it out.

He’d already opened a messaging app. I entered the MPD’s emergency number and typed a swift text alerting them to an unbound demon at Uncle Jack’s address. I sent the message, deleted it out of the phone’s history, and handed it back.

“Thanks,” I told him.

Amalia grabbed my arm and dragged me a few paces away. “What did you send?”

“An anonymous tip to the MPD,” I whispered.

“Are you insane?” Glancing at the kid, she lowered her voice. “The MPD will investigate our house! They’ll confiscate everything! We’ll lose all our—”

“You’ll lose?” I retorted angrily, surprising myself. “You’ll lose your big house? Your favorite possessions? Your ten cars?” I glared up at her. “What about the first responders who are about to lose their lives? What about your neighbors? What about the innocent people who’ll die because your family was illegally summoning demons in a residential neighborhood?”

She recoiled from my vehemence.

“No one else was going to take responsibility,” I muttered, my furious intensity fading into dread. “I guess I didn’t need to make it anonymous. They’ll probably figure out I was there, won’t they?”

“No,” Amalia sniffed, tossing her head. “My dad’s not stupid. The house isn’t in his real name. Nothing is. It can’t be traced to us.”

“Oh.”

We waited, Amalia and I fidgeting and exchanging terse looks. The sirens had gone quiet, but I didn’t know whether that was a good sign. A red glow smeared the horizon in the house’s direction, illuminating columns of billowing smoke. The boy was staring at it.

A blue-and-gray bus trundled around the corner and rolled to a stop. Amalia and I climbed on after the boy. I dug my wallet out of my suitcase and dropped coins into the slot, but Amalia stood there blankly. I fished out another few coins for her fare.

We took seats at the back and the bus rolled into motion. Amalia and I kept silent as it rumbled down street after street, carrying us steadily away from the burning mansion. When we sped across the long arch of the Lions Gate Bridge, putting a mile of ocean between us and the escaped demon, I breathed easier.

The view outside the bus grew darker and business complexes replaced the residential streets. I had no idea where the bus was taking us. Other passengers got on, then disembarked ten or fifteen minutes later, while Amalia and I stayed in our seats.

Several times, I opened my mouth to speak, then chickened out. The infernus rested against my ribs just below my bra, warm against my skin. I prayed Zylas would stay put.

Eventually, the bus groaned to a stop and the driver opened both doors.