Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex: Demonized #1)(50)

We stood in chilly darkness, Zylas holding me tight against him as though I might bolt straight into danger. “Danger” was the only conclusion I could draw from his sudden desire to hide.

A soft footstep crunched on broken glass, the sound traveling down the alley.

“Where are they?” a male voice asked, the rain muffling his quiet words.

“I’m not sure,” another voice answered. “I lost them.”

“Let’s keep moving.”

The glass crunched again. I strained my ears but only heard the increasing downpour. What the heck had that been about? Were those men part of another search team?

Zylas held his position, only his head moving as he tracked sounds I couldn’t hear. I waited. One minute stretched into two, then three, and my discomfort grew. When no other sounds came from the alley, I tugged on his wrist. He didn’t release my mouth. I tugged harder. He ignored me.

Growling against his palm, I dug my fingernails into the back of his hand as hard as I could.

He looked down, surprise widening his crimson eyes. “What are you doing, payilas?”

Let me go! I thought at him, since I couldn’t speak out loud.

He tilted his head curiously—then a husky laugh rumbled from his throat. “Na, you are trying to hurt me? So I let you go? Too soft, payilas.”

Outwardly, I glowered with extra force. Inwardly, I shriveled. My attempt to hurt him was so ineffective he hadn’t understood my intent? Why was his skin so impenetrable?

“Robin? Where are you?”

Amalia’s voice rang out over the drumming rain. Zylas graced me with his taunting smirk, then red light glowed over him. His hand disappeared from my face as his body dissolved into sweeping red light that swirled into the infernus. It vibrated, hot and electric, then returned to an inanimate metal disc.

I clenched my jaw. Stupid jerk of a demon. A bully. That’s what he was.

Grimly pleased that he could probably hear me insulting him, I hastened to join Amalia and resume our hunt for the escaped demon.





Chapter Twenty





This was stupid.

The thought repeated more and more as the afternoon dragged on. Tae-min had no idea how to manage our search. We wandered around at a quick walk, gazing pointlessly into alleys. Anytime we split from the two men, Amalia chose the driest spot and waited, letting me search on my own. Like we’d ever find the demon this way.

I marched alone up another street, fuming at them. Tae-min for his incompetence. George the Contractor for failing to recognize how futile this was. Amalia for refusing to help. And Zylas for … for everything.

The rain had softened to intermittent spitting—the only bright spot in this crappy day. As I glared across an intersection, the traffic light blinked from red to green, but there were no vehicles. The neighborhood was eerily deserted and the quiet was so intense I could hear myself breathe.

As I turned to go back the way I’d come, a glimpse of movement brought me up short. Had I just seen a human-sized shadow duck out of sight, or were my eyes playing tricks on me? Maybe it was another search team.

“Hello?” I called. “Anyone there?”

I waited a minute, but no one answered. I must’ve imagined it …

The phantom memory of Zylas’s hand on my face shivered through me. Those men in the alley had said, “I lost them.” Them. Not “it” or “the demon.” Who had those men been looking for?

“Hello?” I shouted again.

Half a block away, a shadow moved. A man in dark clothes, his shape blurred by the misty rain, stepped out of a shop doorway and raised his arm.

Green light flashed over his hand—and shot toward me.

I lurched backward and my heel caught on the pavement. As I tumbled to the ground, the green light whizzed over my head. A sorcery spell? Was he attacking me?

Shoving to my feet, I yanked out my infernus. Pivoting, the man whipped around a corner and vanished from sight.

“Heyo!”

The call came from behind me. I spun around.

Three men, also in dark clothes but with reflective patches on their upper arms, were jogging up the street. Weapons were strapped over their torsos and they wore protective vests like the other search team, but these men were older—in their fifties, I was guessing.

“Are you the one who was calling?” the lead man asked as they neared me. “What are you doing out—”

His gaze caught on my infernus and surprise blanked his face. His rain-dampened hair was dark, but dry, I suspected it would be salt-and-pepper gray like his close-cropped beard. Four silver daggers were belted around his waist.

His teammate, a man with wavy, shoulder-length hair, let out an impressed whistle and grinned through his luxuriously thick beard and mustache. “Well I’ll be damned. A contractor?”

I pretended the contractor label didn’t bother me.

“Are you part of the search?” the leader asked, his gray eyes flicking over my decidedly non-combat-ready outfit. “What’s your guild?”

“Grand Grimoire,” I muttered. “Did you see the sorcerer? He shot a spell at me then ran off down that alley.”

“Someone attacked you?” the third man rumbled. His bare arms were tattooed and coated in rain, but he didn’t seem to mind the cold as he rested a long, rune-carved staff on his shoulder.