She marched up the steps and ripped the tape off the doorway. Inside, a thick layer of ash and black debris coated the floor and crunched under our shoes. Studs were all that remained of some walls, while blackened drywall clung to others, the paint peeling and streaked with burn marks and water lines from the endless December rain. The stench of smoke and wet charcoal clogged my nose.
Amalia picked her way across the foyer and into the hall, passing the formal living room where I’d once eavesdropped on Uncle Jack and his business partner Claude. The furniture had burnt to heaps of sooty fragments.
Uncle Jack’s office hadn’t escaped the fire. His desk was scorched black, his papers no more than crumbling cinders. His monitor, which had fallen onto the floor, had disintegrated. I could see where his computer had sat—a puddle of melted plastic was fused to the floor—but the case was gone. The MPD must have removed it, but considering the state of everything else, I doubted they’d succeeded in recovering any data.
The filing cabinet drawers hung open, their contents seemingly untouched, and I wondered why the MPD investigators had left them alone—until Amalia tried to lift out a folder. It crumbled under her fingers, a flurry of ash dusting the floor.
“Damn it,” she muttered.
My heart sank. “Is it all like that?”
We checked every drawer, but Uncle Jack’s records were burnt beyond salvation. Abandoning the office, we dared to creep up the crumbling staircase to the second level. Huge sections of the floor were missing, preventing us from reaching the master suite.
“What a bust,” Amalia sighed as we returned to the foyer. “I knew it was a long shot, but still.”
“Do you have any other ideas?” I wiped my sooty hands on my jeans. “Uncle Jack hasn’t contacted you in six weeks, so chances are he doesn’t plan to. We need some clue where to look for him.”
On the afternoon the house had burned down, Uncle Jack had fled. Amalia was certain he’d reached a safe house and was in hiding, but for reasons neither of us understood, he hadn’t contacted his daughter.
Personally, I couldn’t care less if I ever saw my uncle again, but my mother’s grimoire was most likely in his possession. The ancient journal had belonged to my ancestors, the Athanas, for countless generations, passed from mother to daughter in an unbroken line—until Uncle Jack had gotten his greedy hands on it.
So far, I’d learned only two things about the grimoire and my family roots: one, the Athanas name was world-famous in the summoning community—so famous my great-grandmother had abandoned it when she’d emigrated from Albania—and two, the grimoire contained at least one demon name worth a heart-stopping ten million dollars.
I didn’t care much about its dollar value. Not only was it my last connection to my mother, but I needed it for other reasons too—reasons that had everything to do with the infernus tucked between my jacket and sweater.
“Is there anywhere else in the house he stored important documents?” I asked.
“Just his office and—oh!” She thumped the heel of her hand against her forehead. “The safe. Duh. It’s in the garage.”
She hurried out the front door, down the steps, and across the driveway to the remains of the garage. It had suffered the worst damage, the structure reduced to shards of wood and the twisted skeletons of the cars. Amalia bravely waded in.
Grateful for my sturdy winter boots as I clambered over a fallen beam, I joined her in the back corner.
She pointed at a collapsed wall—an eight-foot-wide section of drywall and studs. “The safe is under there.”
We grabbed the wall and heaved. It shifted maybe an inch.
“No way we can move this,” she declared, dusting off her hands.
Unfortunately, I had to agree. I tapped the front of my jacket, my finger striking the infernus underneath. Zylas?
Crimson magic blazed. In a whoosh of glowing power, the demon materialized beside me, squinting against the late afternoon light.
He wrinkled his nose. “It stinks.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Amalia muttered, sidestepping away from the demon. Even after six weeks, she was still wary of him. Not that I could blame her.
His glowing eyes tracked her retreat.
“Zylas, we need to search under there.” I pointed at the obstacle. “Can you move that wall?”
“It is heavy?” He gripped the edge with one hand and pulled. The thick muscles in his arm bunched and the sheet of studs and drywall rose easily. “This is not heavy.”
“It is for us,” I said faintly. Yes, I knew he was strong, but the demonstration was still a shock. “Can you drag it over there, please?”
Still holding the wall with one hand, he considered my request—no doubt debating how rebellious he was feeling. Lucky for us, he also wanted to find the grimoire so we could strike his House’s name from its pages, making it impossible for “hh’ainun” to ever summon demons of his line again.
Taking hold of the toppled wall with his other hand, he hauled it out of the corner. As I assessed the burnt mess beneath, my lips turned down. The fallen wall had barely been scorched, but everything under it was blackened.
With the way clear, Amalia and I tossed aside scattered debris, unearthing the two-foot-tall steel safe attached to the concrete floor. She knelt in front of it and grasped the wheel combination lock.
The safe door swung open a few inches.
Amalia’s startled gaze shot up to mine, then she pulled the door all the way open. The shelves inside were empty.
“No way,” she moaned. “Dad must’ve come back to get everything.”
I crouched beside her, cold with disappointment. “Or MagiPol opened it when they searched the house last month.”
Zylas reached over my shoulder and ran his fingertips across the door’s inner edge. Bringing his hand to his face, he inhaled through his nose. “Smells like vīsh.”
Vīsh—his word for magic.
I scrutinized the safe’s locking pins. “Amalia, do these look severed?”
She examined them too. “You’re right.”
Zylas leaned closer, nostrils flaring. “I can’t scent the demon, only his vīsh. Too many other smells.”
Amalia shook her head, muttering something about a bloodhound. I rubbed my forehead before remembering the soot on my hands. I’d probably just smudged up my face.
“Someone broke into the safe using demon magic?” I muttered. “That rules out your dad and the MPD, then.”
Zylas hopped on top of the safe, startling me and Amalia. He leaned over the opening, peering into it upside down. He rapped his claws against the left side, the metal clanging, then drummed against the opposite wall. It rang dully.
“This,” he said. “It is thicker?”
“It is? How can you tell?”
“It looks different.”
The sides looked identical to me, but Zylas had two kinds of vision. The regular kind, plus infrared thermal vision. Could he see the difference in the heat signature of the safe walls?
I looked questioningly at Amalia. “Is that normal for safes?”
“How would I know?” With a wary look at the demon crouched above us, she poked and prodded inside the safe. “Could you shine a light in here?”