A Touch of Brimstone by McKenzie Hunter

5

My day off started how the previous night had ended, with me trying to remove the indelible markings on my finger, which was raw and painful from all the scrubbing. Eventually I gave up.

The book had been relegated to the kitchen counter. I refused to get anywhere near it. The page was still bloodstained, but it and the adjacent page were blank of text. My ring was barely recognizable and I now had symbols tattooed on my finger. There were so many things wrong with the situation and my mind was a mess trying to make sense of it.

My first instinct was to contact Emoni, like I would with any problem. But I decided against it. This wasn’t just a quirky incident. It was so much more, and while I was trying to wrap my head around it, I didn’t have it in me to usher someone else into the mess. Actually, it would be less ushering and more like plunging her into icy water.

Reginald believed in the supernatural. It wasn’t just something eccentric that people believed, like thinking if you go on enough camping trips, you’ll eventually run into Bigfoot.

Although I had a hard time keeping an open mind about it, he didn’t. Reginald had suspended all logical belief. This required outside-the-box thinking and an abeyance of everything practical.

After leaving yet another message for Reginald to call me, I went through another series of failed attempts to remove the markings on my finger, watching my phone expectantly.

“What’s wrong, Luna?” Reginald asked after I rushed out a quick hello.

“We need to talk,” I whispered. As if someone could hear me.

“What’s the matter?” Concern was clear in his voice.

“I need to show you rather than tell you.”

“I have a couple of clients, but I can come by your place around one,” he told me. “Is that okay?” He seemed so disquieted that I made an effort to sound calmer, more assured when I responded.

“That’s fine.”

I used the time waiting for him to arrive to scrub at my finger again and look up what Dominic had said to me. Nothing came up. It was another language and I was probably spelling it so incorrectly that even Google gave up.

Minutes before Reginald was to arrive, I shored up the courage to open the book again. I handled the pages gingerly, cautious to prevent another page attack. The book was sentient; no matter how illogical and ridiculous it sounded, the book nicked me—no, it bit me. This wasn’t a simple paper cut.

When I opened the door for Reginald, his face was flushed from what I assumed was a quick run up the three flights of stairs in my garden-style apartment. He looked around my place appreciatively. It was much smaller than the home I’d shared with Jackson and definitely on the other side of quaint. Now that it was decorated, he found it far more appealing than when he came with Emoni to visit me two days after moving in.

With the help of intensive bargain shopping, furniture consignment shops, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace, I’d created a cozy home. Rust-colored sofa and a large print chair that looked better than it felt. A worn ottoman—one of the pieces I took from my home with Jackson. Reginald smiled at the abundance of plants throughout the living room. The greenery did make me feel like it was a new beginning. A new life.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure what to do first, show him my finger or the book. My words rushed out like a broken dam and it felt like I did both at the same time. Waving my hand in front of him, I held the mangled ring, showed him my finger, and told him that the book bit me. At that moment, it seemed like a perfectly fine thing to say. Of course, the book bit me. That’s what they do. Nick people and erase words. Move along, nothing to see.

He examined my hand first, then the ring that was now a sheet of metal, something I’d never consider picking up off the street.

He picked up the book, hissed, and dropped it. His hands and fingers were bright red. It was the words quickly disappearing from the page that made me grab my phone and start to capture it, recording just seconds of video before the entire book was nothing more than weathered blank pages.

“What. The. Fuck,” Reginald hissed from the sink where he was running his hands under cold water. From his vantage point, he was able to see that there had been words in the book and now the pages were blank.

“Yeah,” I breathed out, shaking my head. With apprehension, I lightly touched the edge of the book, without any problems. I was still hesitant about picking it up. After a few more preliminary safety measures, I picked it up.

Checked each page; all blank.

“It’s a spellbook,” Reginald informed me. That came as no surprise.

Reginald didn’t have the same look of excitement and intrigue as he had when he gave me The Discovery of Magic. His face was strained by the emotions playing across it.

He asked more questions, urging me to remember the phrases I spoke while reading the spellbook. It felt like an interrogation. But the words had all jumbled together. If they made sense or there was some rhyme or reason to them, it would have been easier to remember.

“I don’t know how to help you, Luna,” he admitted, rubbing his hands over his face.

Please don’t let this be the time he confesses he’s not a witch. He needed to be a witch.

Frowning, he looked down at his hands.

“How’re your hands?” I asked.

“Just a little tender. It was a deterrent, not meant to injure,” he said with enough confidence that it reignited my hope in him being able to help.

“I’ve heard of magic like this, but the witches in my coven don’t possess it.”

“Coven?”

He nodded. Screw it, I was all in. Coven, shifters, witches, vampires, magic, books that bite and self-destruct. Yesterday, dammit, I saw a hellhound.

My head pounded and I became increasing lightheaded. I held the counter for support. The lightheadedness wasn’t from the plunge into the unknown, but hypoglycemia. I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before. And it hadn’t been much of a dinner. I needed food.

“I’m going to fix a sandwich. Do you want one?”

He nodded, taking the same care I had as he flipped through the book. There was nothing to gain from it since all the pages were blank, so he laid the book face down and studied the patterns on the front and back covers.

“I don’t know what these sigils mean,” he said. “The spell, was it in English?”

“Everything was,” I told him, quickly making us a turkey and cheese sandwich with a side of a pickle and chips. Giving him a glass of water, I studied him. He looked like he needed something stronger.

“You have a coven of witches like you?”

“I only know of witches like me. We don’t have strong magic.” He waved his hand around the apartment. “Whatever happened here was strong magic. Out of my wheelhouse.”

“Do you think someone in your coven knows witches who might have experience with magic like this? Maybe they can help?”

“I’ll ask but”—he looked contemplative between the bites he took—“we’re supposed to be discreet. If I bring this to them, I risk being tossed out because they’ll know I told you I’m a witch.”

“I don’t want you to risk that.” I didn’t but I needed someone with magic that didn’t seem like an Instagram job.

“No, I’ll do it. There just needs to be some discretion,” he said.

After we finished lunch, he took several pictures of the markings on my finger, the sigils on the book, and had me send him the video.

After he left, I couldn’t stop thinking about Dominic and his role in this. I needed to find him.

Without a last name, finding Dominic was nearly impossible. I searched Facebook first, scrolling through pages and pages of names, viewing profiles for someone who looked remotely like him. But what would happen next? Did I friend him? Send a message? What was I going to do, search hashtags? I couldn’t even imagine the rabbit hole that would have sent me down.

After two hours of searching Facebook and Instagram, I was so desperate, I contemplated roaming the streets and just calling out his name. It would have yielded the same results. He had found me, twice. Could he be looking for me?

It wasn’t long before I found myself at the scene of our first meeting, in Books and Brew, sitting at the counter people watching and sipping coffee under Emoni’s questioning gaze. Secrets. I now had them from her. Did I tell her? The coffee shop was busy, which diminished my guilt about keeping yesterday’s events to myself. I couldn’t burden her with it until I knew what was going on. Come on, Dominic.

Increasingly restless, I went to the bookstore. Nothing says you’re living your best life than hanging out at your place of employment on your day off. After perusing the newly released and books on my to-be-read list, I purchased five books. It took effort to ignore Lilith’s “Really?” look as she rang me up. It was less a look of incredulity than more along the lines of a “you’re a pitiful loser” look.

With a weak smile, I paid. It wouldn’t seem odd to her that my purchases included an epic fantasy, a psychological thriller, and a YA coming of age book, along with books about Wicca and witchcraft. My taste was rather eclectic.

“You changed your ring,” Peter acknowledged, his head tilted to the side as he examined it with a frown.

I nodded, the urge bubbling in me to say, “No, a book bit me, a lot of strangeness happened, and now I have this plain-ass ring covering marks on my finger. And now I have to play amateur sleuth to find the person I think is responsible.”

He closed the thick hardback in his hand to get a closer look. “Same style. This one fits you better.” He gave me that half curl of a smile that had entrapped so many people into unrequested history lessons. His eyes dropped to my bag of books. He took a look at me in my Converse, jeans, Baby Yoda t-shirt, and messy ponytail that displayed the minimal effort I put into styling it.

“If you’re not in a rush, do you want to have coffee?” He flashed me his wayward smile, which I quickly realized wasn’t as unintentional as I’d previously assumed. He was setting out bait. Not today, Mr. History Man. Not today.

“Maybe another time. I have a ton of errands to run. I just needed something to read tonight,” I lied. Although listening to Peter’s lecture would have been a good distraction to keep me from looking at my phone and waiting to hear from Reginald or pursuing my quest to find Dominic.

Blind determination, wariness, and obstinate curiosity led to me trawling the area where I’d seen Dominic. I even went back to the bar where he’d threatened Jackson. Desperation wouldn’t allow me to rule out any possibilities. I wished there were dark, dangerous, and broody Bat Signals I could deploy. Maybe if I left a trail of ristretto…

Standing on the middle of the sidewalk, I was planning where to search next when a hand girded my waist, pulling me against a firm body. Coolness wove around me, engulfing me.

“Close your eyes,” the stranger ordered.

I didn’t. Dropping the bag of books, I clawed at the stranger’s offending arm and stomped indiscriminately, aiming for his foot, until the building that surrounded me and the distant view of people several blocks away disappeared. I was plunged into darkness.

When the arm released me, I doubled over until my head stopped spinning. When it eased to tolerable, I straightened up to find four people seated at a semicircular conference table, watching me.

“I told you to close your eyes,” someone said from behind me. “You never really get used to it unless you’re the one zoning.”

I spun around to get a look at my abductor, who honestly should have been cast in stone and placed in front of a museum. Tousled umber-brown hair, parchment-colored skin, aquiline nose, broad pronounced cheeks, and generous rose-tinted lips. My eyes fixed on the unnatural contrast of his opal-colored eyes.

He was too close. When a person abducts me off the street, they aren’t doing it out of politeness. I shoved him back. “Personal space.”

His taunting smile widened, exposing sharp canines. Vampire. One hard blink. I convinced myself that when I opened my eyes, he’d be gone.

He wasn’t. Standing just a few inches from me was a vampire.

A vampire.

“I like her. Perhaps a taste before we proceed.”

A perverted vampire who wanted to taste me. There wasn’t time to process it. My only goal was to protect myself. Come out of this alive. More optimistically—unscathed.

“Try it and you’ll never taste anything again,” I shot back, demonstrating a bravado I didn’t feel and touting abilities I didn’t have. How would I stop a vampire? If he tried to get a “taste,” I’d do what I could to make good on my threat. The only weapons I had were my knees, which were going straight into his groin, and my fingers into his eyes. Damage be damned, I was going to smack him across his head with the phone in my back pocket.

He dismissed me with an exaggerated flourish of a bow.

I looked around. The creepy vampire wasn’t the only person I had to worry about.

“I see the appeal. But as you know, the fiery ones tend to cause the most trouble. And this one has caused a great deal,” said the woman seated at the middle of the semicircular table.

The vampire was still too close for my liking.

“Kane, step away from her,” the woman instructed.

After he moved back several feet, her calculating hazel eyes homed in on me. Her narrow face took on a more severe appearance and her lips thinned into a tight line. I was willing to bet the lines that crinkled as she drew her brows together weren’t from excessive smiling. Warm ivory skin was a stark contrast to her cool and aloof countenance. Her dark hair with hues of purple was coiled into a crown braid and the back in a low bun. Dressed in a blue suit complemented by a pearl silk shirt, she seemed to be in charge—or perhaps the role was self-appointed. The cool discernment in her eyes led me to believe she was older than she looked.

It felt like I’d been dropped into the middle of a conversation and couldn’t figure out the right questions to ask. Whatever they were convinced I was guilty of had made me their enemy. I divided my attention between the people, the room, and the view of the city, compliments of the floor-to-ceiling window that took up the entire back wall of the room. I wasn’t on the main floor. Maybe the third or fourth.

When I pulled my attention back to the people, I found the woman who’d called me trouble looking down her pert nose at me. Hazel eyes that bored into me with revulsion came from the younger woman to her right. Maybe enemy was being optimistic. The man seated to her left had the same luminous violet eyes as the woman with Dominic that day at the coffee shop. A colorful sleeve of tattoos covered each of his arms. Through his teal V-neck t-shirt, I could see the outline of more ink. He observed me with a gentler look as his fingers twined around strands of his ear-length reddish-brown hair.

“What do you wa—”

My question was cut off by the light padding of feet. Slowly approaching me was a lion. A lion. A huge lion. When he licked his lips, I began calculating how long it would take to make it to the door. The occupants of the room appeared totally unconcerned that an unbidden apex predator was just traipsing into the room as if it happened every day. Maybe it did. Sitting down for lunch, bam, a lion walks up and takes the steak off your plate.

I tensed as it moved around me, its nose brushing along my leg and then along my balled hand. Before I could gather a plan, it shuddered, and a man—a naked man—was on all fours at my feet. He stood, his lips quirked at my effort to hide my shock, which was something he definitely expected and wanted.

I needed to get away from this den of freaks.

“Lance, must you make a spectacle of yourself at all times?” the regal woman chastised. With a wave of her hand, a gust of wind pushed in my direction, followed by a swirling of golden lights that ensorcelled the human lion, and when it disappeared, he stood before me fully clothed in a fitted t-shirt, relaxed jeans, and flipflops. Unruly chin-length sandy-colored hair, his skin coloring just a few shades lighter. Predaceous, emotive golden-brown eyes and a long oval face. He was his animal incarnate.

He cast a look over his shoulder at the woman who’d clothed him. “Madeline, this isn’t a witch,” he announced.

Thank you. Listen to the shameless man who—oh dear fates—was a lion a minute ago. It hit me like a brick. He was a lion just moments before.

All eyes went to the man with the violet eyes. “She is the one I saw,” he confirmed. He leaned forward in his chair; his elbows rested on the table as he steepled his hands. Wary interest entered his kind eyes. “She tasks me. This is the one I envisioned before seeing the empty Perils. How can this be if she has no magic?”

Madeline’s frown deepened. “I thought she was shrouded in a cloaking spell, which was why I couldn’t sense it.” She directed her attention to Lance. “But a cloak doesn’t work on shifters. You’re sure she’s human?”

It wouldn’t be hard to determine that I wasn’t a witch, if everyone with magic gave off such foreboding dynamic energy. It prickled at my skin, plucked at my nerves, and made it very apparent that I was in the presence of something other. With all of Reginald’s declarations of being a witch, nothing about him felt like this. Surely, nothing about me hinted at it, either.

“Yes, I am human,” I offered before anyone else could. “So there’s no need for me to be at… whatever this is. I don’t know, the Meeting of the Weird and Scary?”

No one seemed to find me amusing.

I started backing away, but the shifter’s sharp predatory scope stopped me in my tracks. A warning. “She’s human,” Lance confirmed.

Madeline looked unconvinced. “But does it make her innocent?”

“As far as her role in the Perils being compromised, she is,” confirmed a deep, rich, commanding voice.

“Dominic.” Madeline’s eyes snapped in the direction of the voice, as did mine and everyone else’s. The vampire’s lips furled, displaying fangs.

“You can put those away because you’re definitely not going to use them on me,” Dominic told him, as he and the two people who were with him at the coffee shop moved toward the table. Speckles of blood stained the sleeves and front of Dominic’s white shirt that clung to the muscles of his chest and arms.

The man whose face I hadn’t been able to see at the coffee shop was in full view. Fawn-color complexion; I guessed Middle Eastern descent. His light-hazel eyes appeared to have undertones of green. The angles of his face were diamond sharp and he had a strong, well-defined jaw and cheeks. The roil of danger that came off him made holding his gaze hard. Initially distracted by the sword secured against his back, I eventually let my eyes trail to the scar that ran across his cheek.

As they moved farther into the room, two things became overwhelmingly apparent. The cadre behind the table didn’t like Dominic, and he was wholly unconcerned by that.

“You have no reason to be here,” Madeline asserted through clenched teeth.

A smirk flitted along Dominic’s lips as he cocked a brow. “Yet here I am.” Once standing next to me, he fixed Madeline with a hard look. There was a fine line between admirable confidence and unrepentant jackass, and from the cocksure look on his face, he precariously straddled that line.

“Were the sentries to entertain me or stop me?” he asked with a darkly amused smirk.

Anger swept over Madeline’s face. “Are they alive?”

“If that was a concern of yours, you shouldn’t have ordered them to stop me,” he countered, returning her glare.

I took that as confirmation that I needed to get away from him and this hot mess as soon as possible, but curiosity had me too intrigued to run at that moment. Desperately needing to find out what was going on and how I had mistakenly been pulled into it, I remained for an explanation.

Madeline stood, leaning into the table. The magic roiling off her changed the pressure in the room, stifling the air with minacious energy.

“You tell us that the Perils has been compromised, the prisoners escaped, and the worst of our kind are at large, and you expect us to do what? Sit around and wait for them to exact their revenge on us—the people who allowed them to be incarcerated there?” she barked. “Our seer confirmed that she is involved.”

“I expected you to take the necessary precautions for you and yours to stay safe. To lie low and not impede me while I remedy the situation. And I damn sure didn’t expect you to try to stop me from attending meetings. Tell me, what are your plans for this human?”

Not loving the wording of that comment, but I’d ignore it if it got me out of there.

Madeline’s jaw set as they held each other’s gaze. I was wrong; they didn’t dislike him. They hated him with a fiery passion that was amply displayed on all their faces but more profoundly on Madeline’s.

“The seer informed us that she’s the one involved. We plan to handle the matter.”

Before Dominic could respond with something that I guessed would further agitate Madeline, Dominic’s violet-eyed companion directed a question to the man whose eyes resembled hers.

“What did you see, Callum?”

His gaze slid to me. “Her, empty cells and…” He picked up the phone, unlocked it, then turned the screen to her. I moved with her to get a glimpse.

Damn. It was so similar to the markings on my finger. I was thankful that they were hidden by the ring. Not similar. Exactly the same. My breath hitched.

“You plan to kill her?” Dominic concluded.

“That’s the spell that freed them. Obviously, you weren’t able to break it or you wouldn’t have been placed in the position of telling us our lives are in danger. We’re being proactive. Defending ourselves. Kill the caster, break the spell. She is the caster.”

Murder is proactive?

“Ah,” Dominic mused, a little too casually for a discussion of murder, in my opinion. “She’s not a witch. We can all see she doesn’t possess any magic. I can assure you not one time were you at the forefront of this matter. I’ve met Luna twice before.” He waved a dismissive hand in my direction while I made an attempt to hide my finger without looking suspicious. “Nailah”—I assumed he was referring to the woman with the odd violet eyes—“was presented with the same. I performed an ostendo spell on Luna to disarm any cloaking spells and she is not a witch and does not have the ability to cast such a spell.”

My heart raced. Technically he was right but… I was involved. However, in a room full of people whose game plan was to kill me, I wasn’t going to disclose that. Taking slow easy breaths, I waited for things to unfold.

“Madeline,” Dominic drawled. “Do you still plan to kill her?”

Stop suggesting that. It’s not an option. What about: Hey, she’s innocent, let her go? Has that not crossed your mind?

“Situation like this, it is best to err on the side of caution.”

It was irritating how casually they were discussing my murder, like they were deciding whether to sprinkle a little salt on their avocado toast.

“Murder of an innocent human? Isn’t that the very thing that you all sentenced others to the Perils for?” Dominic offered.

Kane growled. “You said the Perils is nonfunctional, that it had a global spell cast on it that won’t allow even you to use the same spell on another confinement. The most ruthless and cruel of our kind who can’t be subdued or imprisoned with basic magic are free, and you’re asking us to let you handle it. Three days. Your handling isn’t efficient enough. Don’t you dare lecture us. We will do what is necessary to protect ourselves and right this.”

Dominic’s lip lifted into a cruel smile. “And I’ll do what I need to punish you for that. Perhaps we’ll return to our old ways, the ones you all perceived as too barbaric. Torture then murder—a seemingly appropriate penalty for killing an innocent.” His eyes darkened in warning.

Is this some type of murder cult? Why is murder Plan A for these people?

Screw this, I was out. Inching back slowly, I hoped I’d be undetected while they discussed murder in the casual manner of sociopaths.

“If she’s so innocent, then why is her heart beating a mile a minute? It wasn’t before,” said another man who could only be described as silver. Grayish-silver hair despite appearing to be in his early thirties, fierce platinum eyes, and a sinewy lean body that put me in mind of a greyhound. His eyes possessed Lance’s predatory keenness.

“Do you think it has anything to do with you all casually discussing murdering me?” I huffed.

He looked unconvinced. Eyes narrowed as he leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. The black t-shirt stretched over lean, taut muscles. “Are you a witch?”

“No.”

He licked his lips but not in a seductive way. Rather, in the manner I’d seen predators do before pouncing on some poor unsuspecting prey. I swallowed and squared my shoulders, refusing to be intimidated, especially by a lip lick. How weak was that?

“Were you responsible for the destruction of the Perils?”

That I couldn’t answer with complete certainty. None of this was coincidence. Me finding the book, the pages biting me, the spell I must’ve unintentionally evoked, or the indelible markings on my finger. I took his question to mean did I actively and knowingly do it. And I absolutely did not have anything to do with that. I was a passive participant and therefore not responsible.

“No.”

I wondered if the next question would be about the sigil Callum showed us. It was shock that kept me rooted in place when I was faced with a man one second and a massive wolf with bared teeth lunging at me the next, allowing me just enough time to shriek and try to ward off the attack with my arms. Out of reflex my eyes closed. When I managed to pry them open, there was a flash of movement from my left and then a thud. Dominic’s scarred companion was straddling the wolf, one hand around the wolf’s throat, the other holding a knife at the jugular.

“Anand, let him live.” The “for now” was laden in Dominic’s voice as he scanned the room. “Leave me with Luna. If she is to be questioned, it will be by me.”

I wanted no part of his or any of their questioning. Based on every spy thriller movie and book, I was very aware of the “questioning process.” Images of brutal interrogations rushed to my mind. I definitely wasn’t going to be interrogated by a man who had just implied he murdered guards for attempting to stop him from coming to this hostile freak show and casually suggested returning to the old ways of torture and murder.

To hell with this. I darted for the door at full speed, pushing myself as fast as I could go. Anyone in my way would be plowed over. Finding a safe place was my only goal.

Within inches of the door, an arm encircled my waist and jerked me into a hard chest that felt like slamming into a brick wall. Kane’s deep throaty laugh taunted me. Thrashing my head back, my only goal was to hit something: nose, cheek, chin. I didn’t care. The impact was bound to stun. Once his grip loosened, I pounded the heel of my foot into his toes. Grabbing my phone out of my back pocket as I spun to face him, I smashed it into his face.

I bolted.

I hadn’t made it a foot before I was yanked back and slammed into the wall. His face inches from mine, coolness from his body enveloped me as he held me immobilized with an iron grip. Making it painfully obvious that the success of my initial escape attempt was because I had the element of surprise and he’d underestimated the human woman. Fangs were displayed as he inched toward me. I twisted and jerked my head, refusing to give him an easy target.

In a swift, practiced sweeping movement, Kane had me pressed against his chest, my arms bound to the side by his body and my head turned, exposing my neck.

A shallow ragged breath escaped when I felt sharp fangs press into my neck. They grazed against my skin. His enjoyment from my fear was apparent. He taunted me with it. Fangs pressing hard enough for pain but not enough to puncture the skin. Then they did. Pain made tears well in my eye as they sank deeper.

The hold on me eased and I tore away from him, pressing my fingers to the pierced skin. I pulled back blood but the puncture wasn’t deep. He was just playing with me. Finding a thrill in the terror he invoked. Sick bastard.

Dominic held a sword to the back of Kane’s neck.

What are you doing? That’s not how you sword—or whatever.I knew nothing about swordsmanship but I figured wielding one was similar to swinging a bat. There had to be distance between the sword and the target to allow for momentum to drive in the blade. But maybe he didn’t need that. Malicious intent dwelled in Dominic’s eyes. Unfettered violence showed in his refined movement as he held the sword steady, gliding around to face the vampire. If looks could kill, Kane would have been eviscerated.

“Make no mistake, Kane. They”—Dominic’s gaze flicked toward the others—“may not have believed you deserve to be in the Perils, but I do. This will be just as satisfying.”

Kane’s eyes slid to me. His expression contained the disgust of looking at something that needed to be wiped off his shoe. He was a fickle one: one minute he wanted to keep me like a trophy, the next I was crud on the bottom of his shoe.

“She was seen by both our seers. Whatever her involvement, she is a threat. One that must be remedied.”

“You only confirm how much you should be in the Perils. You’ve convinced them you’re not a monster, but I believe no such thing.”

“Then this must be as if you are looking in a mirror. Monster to monster.” The hostility between them intensified, thick violence lingering in the air. They pinned each other with merciless glares.

“Shall we see which monster survives?”

There was no fucking way I was staying to see what violence could be perpetrated by these self-identified monsters. Nor did I want to continue watching their casual banter about wanting to end each other.

I shoved my phone back into my pocket and headed for the end of the hall. There wasn’t an elevator, not that I would have chanced it.

Taking the stairs two at a time, I crashed through the door leading to the main floor.

Safe.

I released a deep sigh of relief too soon.

Anand stood in front of the exit, wielding two knives.