Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            “Is there anythin’ you can do?” Cassie whispered from his other side, and guilt rose. There were too many people in here, but everyone wanted to help.

            “I don’t know what this is,” I admitted as I gave David’s hand a squeeze. “Walter’s magic user isn’t an elf simply because he invoked the Goddess. Demons can use elf magic.” Though only Hodin and I did. “Witches, too, though they don’t very often.” Which might be because every time they work with the elves, something really bad happens. “The idea of asking a deity to intervene on their behalf doesn’t sit well with them,” I whispered. A deadly, mischievous, capricious, unreliable deity. Crap on toast, we might be in trouble.

            Trent frowned. “I’m still going to look into it.”

            “Rache, take a squint at his aura,” Jenks said. “It’s the same as Cassie’s people.”

            Cassie’s breath caught, and I shifted nervously, nodding that I would.

            Ring magic, I thought as I unfocused my attention to bring up my second sight. Hodin liked using elven magic. He liked storing magic in rings, too. But Hodin was safely ensconced in a tulpa, unable to escape what was basically solitary confinement. The mischievous demon had tried to get me to become his lackey before I’d gotten smart. That Hodin might have dangled the “student” card before someone else as well wasn’t a big jump.

            Great, I thought as reality went indistinct and the haze of the ever-after layered over it. It was dark in the ever-after—which made this easier—but I could still feel a hint of a breeze and smell the tall, wet grass. It had been raining there, too, and pushing the sensation of a chill, damp night away, I focused on the nebulous reality of everyone’s aura.

            Even using my second sight, I couldn’t see my own aura, but Jenks’s was a swirling, ever-changing rainbow. Cassie’s was her expected green and blue, currently dull about her heart from her fear and worry. Trent’s was a red-streaked gold, oddly similar to mine apart from the added sparkles. Glenn’s was a greenish yellow, again holding slashes of red indicating a troubled childhood. His father’s was a comforting blue, tending to yellow about his hands.

            David’s should have been a warm reddish brown with gold highlights, reminding me of a toad’s eye. But today? Today it was an odd greenish yellow, nothing like Glenn’s healthy tone. It was flatter, too, reminding me of the stolen aura of an undead vampire’s. Not only that, but it wasn’t covering all of him, thin at his extremities. It was exactly the same as Cassie’s people.

            “Jenks is right,” I whispered, and Cassie sniffed back her tears.

            “The auraologist thinks it’s the same, too,” she said, and I dropped my second sight.

            “Hodin escaped?” Glenn guessed, having made the same connection as I had, and I shook my head, sure that if Hodin had, Dali would be screaming at me for breach of contract and demanding I put him back in his tulpa.

            “Hodin could have been teaching someone,” I said. “Someone stupid enough to think they can take his magic and run with it now that Hodin is gone. The good news is that Hodin wasn’t that talented. He wrote everything down, which means if we can find the book the curse is in, it will probably have the countercurse as well.”

            But even as I said it, my shoulders slumped. The book might be in Hodin’s old room, but I had yet to get past the door. Maybe I should pick up a book on breaking magical locks.

            Jenks’s wings hummed as he flew closer, and I swung my snarled hair clear. “You think Dali might let you talk to Hodin?” he said as he landed on my shoulder, and I shook my head again, feeling like a heel when Cassie’s sudden, obvious hope crashed.

            “Not a chance, and even if he did, he isn’t Hodin anymore,” I said. The demon was now hosting the baku, and both wanted me dead. I would learn nothing there. “We need to concentrate on finding the magic user. Glenn, I know it’s a big ask, but can you get me access to the street cams? Maybe we can track where that truck went.”

            “You need somethin’ to make a findin’ charm?” Cassie blurted, cutting Glenn off.

            “Why? What you got?” I said, pulse fast, and Cassie chuckled darkly.

            “A wad of fur I ripped off the F-wit’s face,” she said, and Jenks smirked, hands on his hips as he landed on the bed rail. “It’s Vincent’s. I pulled it out from between my teeth when I shifted, so you might have to clean it. Find Vincent, you’ll probably find that magic user.”