Thirteen
Page 26

I moved my foot alongside one of the prints. Mine was nearly twice the size.
As Mom crouched for a better look, I followed the prints into the bedroom and noticed as I did that the bathroom door knob was crooked. Broken.
“Jaime locked herself in there,” I said. “Whoever killed the operative broke in and—”
I stopped. There was a handprint on the outside of the bathroom door. It was two-thirds the size of mine.
“There’s a kid’s handprint here,” I said. “How could a child—?”
“Children,” Mom said. “The prints are from more than one person. And—”
She stopped and turned to the bathroom window as the curtain billowed. She yanked it up. The window was broken out, jagged glass like shark’s teeth in the frame. Blood-tipped shark’s teeth.
“She went out here,” Mom said.
I pointed to a small shoe print on the toilet seat. “And they followed.”
So did we.
*
 

Directly behind the motel was a strip of scrubland that bordered a patch of forest. There was no sign of which way Jaime or her pursuers had gone. Jaime was smart enough to head for the road. Had they let her? Or had they herded her into the forest? I was betting on the latter. I was right. There was a single overgrown path leading in. Fresh footprints in the soft earth. Vines and undergrowth trampled.
We moved quickly and quietly, ears attuned. I picked up the occasional bird cry. That was it.
How long ago had Jaime run? I didn’t want to think about that. Of course, I still did. We’d been gone about two hours. Two hours of running through the forest, fleeing her pursuers.
If she’d escaped, she would have found a phone and called Jeremy. If she hadn’t called …
I jogged faster.
When the path branched, we couldn’t tell which way they’d gone. The denser forest meant less undergrowth to break through and drier ground, which didn’t hold prints. We split up.
I’d gone about a quarter mile when a figure burst from the forest. It was a girl. Really a girl, no more than eleven. I knew we were looking for children, but I hadn’t really believed it, certain there was another explanation.
It was a child, snarling and snapping like a rabid dog, saliva dripping from her mouth, blue eyes flashing, her ponytail spiked with twigs and laced with dirt. Dirt crusted her skin and clothing. Dirt and blood. Some of the blood had to be hers—her face and bare arms were cross-hatched with cuts and scrapes. But there was too much to all be hers.
I thought of that body in the motel room. The operative.
The girl ran at me, and I instinctively started casting. I didn’t consider my choice of spells. I just thought of that body and I cast from my gut. A demon-reveal spell.
 
The girl let out a horrible scream of agony that would have made me stop if it hadn’t confirmed my suspicion. As I finished the incantation, I slammed into her. Her tiny body folded like a rag doll and crashed onto the ground. I winced, but I still dropped, straddling her, pinning her hands over her head as she writhed, eyes squeezed shut.
“Keeping your eyes closed won’t help,” I said. “That scream told me I was right, demon.”
She opened her eyes. The blue had brightened to an orange-tinged red. She spat and howled and writhed.
“Savannah!” Mom’s voice. I heard her feet pounding along the path.
“Over here,” I called. “I got one.”
I kept my gaze on the girl as Mom came to stand beside me.
“It is a child,” she whispered.
“Not exactly. Check out the eyes. Never quite seen that color, but it’s definitely demonic.”
“No, baby, it can’t be. She’s just a child. The Berithian Treaty—” She stared as the girl’s eyes flashed. “That’s a demon.”
“Um, yeah. I—”
The girl reared up, teeth bared and on a collision course with my arm. Mom caught her in a binding spell.
“Thanks,” I said. “I cast a demon reveal, which means my spells won’t work on her for a while.”
“Which is why you really shouldn’t cast it if you suspect a demon.”
“I knew what I was doing, Mom.”
I’d made the right choice—reveal the demon before risking harm to the girl. Just because I couldn’t use spells on it afterward didn’t mean I was defenseless.
Mom crouched beside the girl. “I don’t understand. The Berithian Treaty …” She moved behind the girl and pinned her shoulders. “Okay, I’m going to release the spell so we can talk to her. Oh, and the eye color? That means it’s not really a demon. More of a demonic entity. You won’t have had any experience with these guys. Strictly hell-dimension dwellers. At least until now.”
She snapped the binding spell and the girl started gnashing her teeth and kicking. We had her securely pinned, and when she realized she wasn’t going anywhere, she settled for hissing, eyes pulsating between red and orange.
“Where’s Jaime Vegas?” Mom said.
The girl spat. Mom pinned one shoulder with her knee instead, and lifted the sword over the girl’s head.
“You know what this is?”
The girl chortled. “Yes, but you cannot use it, angel, or you will kill the child.”
“How did you get inside her? The Berithian Treaty forbids demonic possession of children—”
“Treaties are for cowards. The Tengu are not cowards.”
“How did you possess humans at all?” I said. “Only full demons can possess living—”
“Nothing is as it was. Everything is as it should be. Or soon will be.”
“Forget the how,” Mom said. “We want Jaime Vegas. The woman you were chasing.”
“We know who we chase. Tengu are not fools. While the others pursue chances, we wait and we watch for opportunity. Then we strike.”
She lunged, teeth sinking into my arm. Mom hit her with an energy bolt. She let go and fell back, screaming.
“You hurt the child,” the girl whispered. “You hurt the child.”
“Yeah, well, you know what would really hurt the child?” Mom put her other knee on the girl’s shoulder, then wrapped both hands around the sword and leveled it over the girl’s chest.
“You will not,” the girl chortled. “I know you will not. It is forbidden for your kind to kill an innocent.”