“Know what I wish?” A snarl twisted his lips, and demon harmonics trembled in his voice.
In the rearview mirror, Archer watched Zane’s face pale.
Sera’s eyes were half lidded—hiding what, Archer didn’t know. Maybe a glint of demon violet? He wondered whether he’d have to stop the car.
“What do you wish, Ecco?” she asked.
The gray light of day was pearl soft on her skin when she lifted her face to meet the other man’s gaze squarely. Her hazel eyes reflected only bright compassion.
Ecco recoiled. “I wish it were quiet in here.”
He got his wish. Archer drove on in silence.
CHAPTER 10
On the stairs to her apartment, flanked by three large, dangerous men—well, two large, dangerous men and one nice guy—Sera realized she hadn’t had this much social life since . . . ever. And all it took was giving up everything and succumbing to demonic possession.
She might have laughed, except she opened the door, flicked on the lights, and saw the devastation.
She had only a second to gape at the smashed dishes and shredded pillows spewed down the hall before Archer yanked her back.
“Ecco, Zane, check it out.”
“But—” She stumbled aside as the two talyan shouldered past her.
When she would have followed, Archer gripped her elbow. “You locked the door when you left yesterday?”
“Of course.”
“You sure? The demon’s coils were tightening around you—”
She hissed out an impatient breath. “I set the latch to lock when it closes.”
He examined the lock. “It wasn’t forced. Who else has a key? Family? Ex-boyfriend?”
And she’d just been thinking about her nonexistent social life. “No one.”
“It wasn’t anything Niall ordered. He leaves a place neater than he found it.”
Zane returned. “No one here. Judging from the crust on the spilled yogurt, it’s been a few hours.”
Archer urged her inside. “Pack what you need. We’re going back to my place.”
Ah, the downside of said social life with an immortal man suffering from supernatural possession. Always thinking he knew best. “This is my home.”
Zane backed away. “Uh . . . I’ll go see what Ecco’s doing.”
They ignored him.
Archer scowled. “You think you’re a badass part of the gang now. But this isn’t a malice or even a thug feralis. Breaking and entering is a human trick, and you’re no match for a djinn-man. No teshuva is.”
“Any crook could have done this,” she argued. “At the hospital, they’ve been swamped with addicts on some new drug, which always means a surge in burglaries. Why would one of these djinn-men toss my apartment?”
“I don’t know.” His jaw flexed, as if the admission pained him. “They’ve never bothered with us before. We don’t matter enough.”
“Then why now?” She reached up to tangle her fingers in the pendant cord. “This? But it hasn’t shot out a single laser beam or anything.”
He didn’t crack a smile. “You’d rather believe this is a random act? I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“Well, I don’t believe in running away from a challenge.” She pushed past him.
The carnage hit her as if the sharp instrument that had ripped through the curtains—why the curtains, for God’s sake?—had ended its downward stroke in her belly. Where were the demon’s healing powers to protect her?
She pulled the garbage can out from under the sink. “No point in calling the cops, I suppose. Can’t exactly tell them a demon tossed my place.”
The pickle jar she snatched off the floor shattered in her hand. She gasped. Archer grabbed her and led her back to the sink to thrust her palm beneath the streaming water.
She stiffened against the urge to lean into the hard strength of him. “It’s just a little cut. My demon will take care of it, right?”
“This will numb the sting at least.” Even as he spoke, the crimson flow vanished.
She turned off the water and stared at the raw diagonal bisecting her palm. Then she glanced at Archer, her apartment in shambles behind him. “It still hurts.”
He followed her gaze to the gutted couch. “Yeah.”
Ecco appeared from the hallway. “They went through the whole place. Feels a little personal to me.” He flashed his teeth at Sera. “Only been one of us a few hours and already you have enemies. Way to go.”
Way to cheer her up. She headed to the bedroom, where dresser drawers had been upended on the floor and gutted pillows sprouted white tufts of stuffing like mold. In the bathroom, the mingled fragrances of smashed toiletries made her stomach heave. Broken mirror crunched under her shoes, and the pretty patterned scarf she’d used to dim the lights was draped in tatters over the toilet.
She rejoined the men in the living room. “It wasn’t a drug burglary. My prescriptions are scattered, but they’re still here.”
Zane looked up from where he was tossing wreckage into the trash. “Couldn’t be that easy.”
“If they didn’t get what they wanted,” Archer said flatly, “they’ll be back.”
Sera pushed down the prickle of fear his words conjured. “All the more reason to lie in wait for them. Whoever ‘they’ are.”
Ecco shrugged. “Niall said to keep an eye out for horde-tenebrae sniffing around. Makes no never-mind to me where I do that. And if it is a djinn-man . . . ,” he said, trailing off with another threatening smile. “Maybe it’s time to get real personal.”
Sera didn’t look at Archer. “I’m staying.” She marched back to the bathroom. The place where it all had started.
A fragment of mirror clung to the medicine cabinet, just enough to reflect her incredulity at the wanton destruction. Not that she could have hidden anything—say, a pendant—inside the mirror. It was as if the invader had wanted to break all the connections to her old life. Like there’d been so damn many.
She knocked out the last piece of glass with her fist.
For a while, she heard the men talking in the outer rooms. She moved on to the bedroom. Knowing someone had pawed through her things, she tossed all her clothes into the closet and slammed the door, then stared at the fist-sized hole in the cheap pressboard. Somebody had wanted to put a hole in her.
Well, the feeling was mutual. Frustration welled up, prickling in the backs of her eyes. She headed for the living room to continue her work, glad the men had left her alone.
She stopped abruptly when she saw Archer wielding a broom in the kitchen. “You’re still here. I didn’t hear anyone.”
He straightened from the dust pan. “You wouldn’t have heard a dozen rampaging ferales over the commotion you were making.”
She grimaced and cast her eye over the bare, gleaming counters and the four bulging bags of trash. “Thanks for the help.”
Archer nodded once. “Zane said the smell of the food got to him and went to find something to eat. Ecco said he doesn’t do windows and headed down to the Coil. The club owner is a sometime associate of the league and keeps an ear out for us.”
Sera sunk down on the slashed couch, trying not to feel the missing stuffing under her. Archer emptied his last load of trash and came to lean in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, arms crossed over his chest.
She stared at him.
Finally, he sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything except make it better. All of it.”
“You have a generous spirit, Sera Littlejohn.”
“If you want to believe that, don’t put me in a room alone with the creep who did this.” She thought for another moment. “Alone with a carving knife about the size of what did my curtains.”