Chasing the Daemon - Book 2

Chapter 10 - Jaed

I can feel Alya hesitate a second before returning my embrace. She is the first human, that wasn’t a pet, that I have gotten to know. I don’t know how that makes me feel, but I do know that I want her to know that she will always be safe with me. I relax my arms and give her a peck on her forehead.

“Thank you for caring for me. If you want, when this is all over, I will tell you everything about me.”

She squeezes my arms for a second, but stays silent. I can’t tell if she will take me up on my offer, but I don’t have time to wait. Michael is waiting. I release her and head outside. I risk looking back and see that she is watching from where I left her. I give her a small wave and close the door. I hope that it will not be for the last time.

I steel myself and set my face into an impartial mask, not unlike Michael’s. If he wants it to be this way, fine. I have played this game more times than I can count. I put up my blanket thoughts, as Michael said we are going to be meeting Zean. I don’t want him poking around in my head. I don’t want him seeing my pain.

Jon…

I feel my jaw clench in an effort to hold back my thoughts. Michael waves me through the portal and I give a nod and plunge through so he can’t see my facade break. I just hope that Zean is not waiting on the other side. I need to recompose myself. By the time Michael steps through a few moments later, I have buried the pain.

“This way.”

Micheal turns on his heel and walks away. We seem to be in an abandoned building that looks like it’s going to collapse at any second. 

“I want to meet up with Zean and check on Jane, then we can talk.”

I realize that Michael is talking as he walks away, and I barely catch what he said.

Finally, I might be able to get some answers.

I stay silent as I catch up with him. Shadowing his movements, we approach another building a few blocks away. It’s an old church that has been closed for the night. Michael traces a sigil on the door and it opens immediately. He relocks it after I’m through. Turning without a word again, he heads up to the belfry.

“Zean?”

Michael enters the room at the top and stands in the doorway. I try to see past him but his shoulders are blocking the doorway. Finally he steps inside.

“Something isn’t right,” he says looking back at me, “Don’t touch anything.”

I step through the door and I can see the room completely empty, except for a rickety table and a folding chair that are placed in front of the window. The only things on the table are a few empty bottles and some crumpled up snack wrappers. Michael heads to the window and looks out.

“I don’t like this.”

I stand in the middle of the room, waiting. I don’t think he’s talking to me. I think he’s trying to puzzle out why he thinks something is wrong. He continues to mumble to himself. Some things I catch, others are said too low for me to hear.

“Jane’s place is dark…. Zean’s gone…. be out getting supplies…. followed?”

He looks down at the table again.

“If that’s the case, why does it feel wrong?”

It takes me a second to register that he is asking me a question. I think for a second.

“In my experience, if your instinct tells you something is wrong, it is best to heed it.”

He looks back out the window, then opens a portal. He tilts his head at me and I step through immediately. I’m not taking the chance that he will leave me if I hesitate. I find myself in a hallway, facing a door with 301 on it. Michael grabs my shoulder, moves me to the side, and knocks. I try not to shuffle my feet as we wait. It seems like forever before Michael opens a portal and steps through. It closes before I can even register what he did.

Dammit. I knew he would lea...

Before I can even finish my thought, I hear the locks on the door disengage. The door swings open and Michael steps out. I think I can see the beginning of a smirk, but it’s gone before I can tell. He turns the lights on and walks back into the apartment. I step in and close the door. The apartment looks abandoned. It’s sparsely furnished with just a table and chair. Michael wanders through the empty space and opens one of the two doors across from me. A bedroom and bathroom, I suppose. He flips the light on and goes in. I don’t move, but I can make out the end of a neatly made bed. From the shadows that Michael is throwing on the wall, it looks like it’s a very small room. He comes back out and shakes his head.

“Nothing seems out of place.”

His voice is quiet, but in the empty place it seems very loud. He’s right though, nothing seems out of place. He opens the bathroom next and looks inside. He doesn’t even turn the light on, it’s so small. 

“I don’t get it.”

He walks back towards me, but something has caught my eye. I point at the bathroom.

“What’s that?”

From here I can see a faint shimmer. He rushes back and turns the lights on. A strangled sound escapes him as he sees something written on the shower stall. I finally move and go stand in the bathroom doorway. Michael is standing in the small shower staring at the wall. It looks like a sigil of some kind, but I can’t focus on it. I had caught the shimmer of it in the reflection of the mirror.

“What does it mean?”

He continues to stare at the wall.

“Michael?”

He draws a shaky breath in.

“It says Help.”

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I am trying to be patient, but I’m failing horribly. It started with me tapping my foot or fingers, and has now expanded to me pacing back and forth. Not that it has helped in any way. After Michael analyzed the sigils, I guess there was more than one, he portalled us back to the belfry. After promising me that he ‘will be just a few minutes’, he left. I’m really tired of this. I hate the fact that I am left behind all the time.

Then make yourself useful and he won’t leave you.

The thought crosses my mind and I grab onto it. I thought I was already useful, but in reality, I’m probably the backup plan. If I can BE actively useful then maybe he won’t leave me, at least hopefully he won’t leave me without explanation all the time. 

But how do I do that?

Before I can start puzzling my way further into that line of thought, a portal appears and Michael steps through.

“I had to research some of the sigils she left, but I think I know what happened. At least in part.”

He sits heavily down at the table and rubs his face in his hands.

“I think she was found and she managed to write a message that only higher daemons, more specifically only a daemon from my caste could see. That’s why you could only see the shimmer of one of the sigils.”

“So what now?”

“One of the sigils is the partner to another one. A tracker sigil. As long as she ‘carries’ the sister of it, I can find her, kind of like a dowsing rod”

“Then what are we waiting for? I would have thought that after all this time you would want to barge in and make sure she was okay.”

He gives me a look like I’m a toddler having a tantrum.

“That was before. I’ve purged all personnel feelings from this mission. This is about saving people and putting things back into balance, not about me or Jane. Rushing in without a plan is how I got into this mess in the first place. I have people looking into things and trying to find intel for me.”

He waves his hand and gestures to the small room.

“I’m needed here to find out what happened to Zean. Why isn’t he answering my messages? Did he get caught too? Did he follow them at a distance? Is he dead?”

He lists off the questions like he was reading off a grocery list. Even the part about Zean being dead. I look around in exaggeration.

“And how do you suppose we do that?”

“I have a guy. We just need to wait.”

He looks behind me, and I follow his gaze. There’s a wooden crate in the corner.

“And since we have to wait, why don’t you grab that, sit down and I will fill you in on everything that has happened so far.”

I can feel the shocked look on my face. A small smile twitches at the corner of his mouth at my reaction. I quickly do as he says and grab the crate and situate myself on the other side of the table. By the time I’m settled the smile is gone. He leans back and stares into the ceiling. His voice is monotonous as he starts to recount the events that lead up to me waking up in his care.

“So when Zarelmun finally portalled you out of The Box….”