The Price of Possession by Dakota Brown (universal ebook reader txt) 📗

us, counting the hellhound, rushed out ofthe station and into the furnace that was my car after sitting in the sun.

I rolled the windows down, and Sabian gave me somegeneral directions. While I drove, Mal questioned him further on where we weregoing, and by the time I needed more specific information, we thought we knewwhere we were headed.

Strangely enough, we weren't headed to some out of theway warehouse, or abandoned building. We were heading to a suburb outside ofSanta Fe. It was a nicer area that you wouldn't expect someone from a crimesyndicate to live. Of course, my main experiences with those sorts of peoplewere more from movies than anything. Despite my minor lawbreaking as a youth,the most contact I'd had with real criminals was low key drug dealers workingthe streets where I'd roamed. Of all the things I'd never tried, hard drugswere high on the list. Your mind had to be clear to safely perform an exorcism,and about the only drug I'd ever allowed myself was alcohol and a little weedand it had been years since I'd done anything but drink.

Maybe the occultist lived in the suburb?

I supposed we'd find out soon enough.

 Driving as fast as I could without overly riskinggetting pulled over, I wound through Santa Fe, grateful it wasn't rush hour orhigh tourist season. Traffic wasn't as bad as some places, but it could getpretty intense sometimes. We finally entered the subdivision and Sabian pointedout a couple of turns.

"You okay?"

I glanced at the incubus before turning my attentionback to the road. Sweat glistened on his forehead despite the AC being on high.He'd already told us that the desert heat in the summer didn't bother him, sosomething was clearly going on.

"I can feel the summoning. It's actually pullingon me, as well. Perhaps because it is our prince that is being called."

"How'd they get that specific? Do they have hisname?"

Sabian shook his head. "Probably the political maneuveringshe mentioned when you actually spoke with him. I wasn't able to reach himdirectly when I tried at the jail. The ensnared demon gave me all of thedirections."

"Great," I muttered. The tires squealed as Itook the last turn and screeched to a halt in front of a perfectly ordinarysuburban house.

"I feel like this should be happening someplacereally creepy," I grumbled as I killed the engine and threw my door open.

Mal beat us to the front door and had it open by thetime Sabian, the hellhound, and I caught up.

I could feel the pressure of wards around the frontdoor as I went inside, but they didn't stop Mal from entering. He did somethingand a moment later Sabian and the hellhound–really needed to name that thing–werecharging down the hallway after me.

I didn't need directions now. Even I could feel theenergies of the summoning.

"Damn it, they didn't even have the decency to dothis in a proper basement," I complained as I burst into what essentiallylooked like a large office, or a library, by the bookshelves lining the walls.

I took a brief moment to survey the scene. A black manwas bound to a chair, shirtless, and I caught sight of some strange whitetattoos on his biceps and pecs that I didn't take time to study. Blood ran downhis chest, but he was currently still alive, eyes wide and staring at me. Atall, light skinned woman, with blond hair, high cheekbones, and a verystartled expression on her face paused in the middle of an incantation to stareat us.

That could be a real mistake depending on the timing.She wore normal everyday clothing, jeans and a T-shirt, but she had on a white stoleembroidered with very familiar symbols draped over her shoulders and a tome ofa book cradled in one hand. The other held a crystal of some sort.

One other person was in the room. Now he lookedlike a thug. A well-dressed thug, in a pressed shirt and khakis, but theexpression on his pale face was further darkened by the shock of red hair thatframed it. Crazy Irish thug? I liked crazy Irish folks, at least until theywere trying to kill me or summon demons.

The thug was currently reaching for a gun. Mal blurredand I trusted the vampire to intercept. I hoped we were in time to disrupt theritual, and charged forward, tackling the occultist before she could doanything, and hoped that if we were too late, the summoned prince would takeinto account I was at least loosely allied with him. We crashed into the tableshe'd set for the ritual, breaking the line of sigils that had created thecontainment circle and scattering implements everywhere.

Candles went flying and I hoped they went out insteadof catching everything on fire.

I heard Sabian yelp and I spared a glance, but he wasonly shaking his hand and acted okay. It looked like he had tried to releasethe bound man and come up against some sort of barrier that caused him pain.

The woman I'd landed on screeched in anger and punchedme in the face.

"Hey!" I elbowed her in the gut.

Yeah, that was going to leave a mark. Ouch.

Someone went flying across the room and crashed into oneof the bookshelves.

The woman pushed me off of her and I rolled, then wentstill, all my attention focused on the gun now pointed at my face.

Turns out the crazy red head's eyes were rimed in redand I was willing to bet he had surprised the vampire. If we survived this, Iwas so giving Mal a whole bunch of crap about that later.

Sirens blared in the distance and the bad guys tradeda glance before the woman grabbed her book and headed out the door. The redhead backed up, gun still pointed at me, until they were clear of the door. Theyslammed it shut behind them, then I felt something pop as if we were being cutoff from the outside.

I struggled to my feet and hit the door hard, but thehandle wouldn't budge.

Fuck.

The other thing I should have noticed sooner was theflames licking up the curtains and spreading across the floor from the downedcandles.

"Chris, come untie him," Mal shouted.

I turned. Both Sabian