Page 35 of Wicked Deeds

I could yell at him later. And let Mitch yell, too.

Maybe even Cassandra.

Imagining it calmed me down a little as we cleared the section of roof behind the door and kept moving slowly forward, Maia sweeping ahead of me. There was nothing near the water tower or any of the other permanent structures.

So either the creature had continued over and down the building and disappeared into the night or it was hiding in the window cleaning gear.

I tipped my head toward the nearest bucket.

Maia grimaced but nodded and crept closer until she was within arm’s length. “Cover me,” she mouthed before she reached out and upended the bucket in one swift move.

Empty.

I almost sighed in relief. Maia tucked the handle of the bucket over her arm and studied the pile of gear. The containers of detergent or whatever they were only had small screw on lids, too small for an afrit to crawl into, even if it had wanted to coat itself in chemicals.

Which left the remaining buckets and the crate. Now we were closer, I could see it was stuffed with rags and old towels. The piece of paper that had caught my attention initially still flapped slowly in the breeze.

It made the faintest rustling noise but was clearly just paper. Afrits didn’t use illusions.

Maia watched it too, then turned her attention back to the buckets. Before she could make her next move, I heard something new.

Something not papery. More like fabric moving against a hard surface. Along with the faintest suggestion of a hiss.

Maia heard it, too, her eyes narrowing and her body language sharpening as she shifted her focus to the towel-filled crate.

Damon stepped up beside me, his gun at the ready. Three for three. I wasn’t imagining things.

I sent my magic out again and got a far stronger sense of wrong, wrong, wrong. Maia looked at me and I nodded. Her mouth went flat as she put a finger to her lips, telling us to stay silent.

I tightened my grip on my gun. Maia pointed to it and lifted the bucket she held, miming tipping the crate over, then slamming the bucket down.

As methods of catching an afrit went, it wasn’t the smartest but I didn’t have a better one. Not if we wanted to catch it alive.

Maia mimed again, nodding toward the crate and scowling at me. I really didn’t want to pick up a crate containing an afrit, but too bad for me.

Going against every instinct I possessed, I motioned for Damon to move back a couple of feet. I inched closer to the crate, gun ready, trying not to think about what would happen if the afrit was in there and it charged me rather than Maia. The idea of it getting under my skirt made me want to puke.

So I had to act before I could psych myself out. I bent forward, grabbed the back of the crate with my free hand and tipped it over, sending the contents spilling out. I scuttled backward instinctively, a move that nearly resulted in me tripping over the stupid gown.

Nothing happened for a long moment then came a hiss that sounded like a furious cat crossed with a big-ass snake. The hairs on my arms stood on end. A large black bug-like creature with weird scaly skin burrowed out of the pile of towels and charged straight at Maia. As it moved, long thin black spines shot up out of its back, turning the afrit into a nightmare hedgehog-cockroach combination that made my brain stutter for a moment, stuck on wrong-bad-run.

Thank God for Maia’s training, because she reacted like lightning to slam the bucket down over it before I could panic.

The hissing increased, more screechy and angrier. The bucket wobbled despite the fact Maia was leaning her whole weight against it.

Which she wouldn’t be able to do for long.

I grabbed one of the tubs of cleaning chemicals and placed it on top of the bucket. The wobbling stopped and all three of us breathed identical sighs of relief.

“Now what?” Damon asked from behind me.

The angry screeching hisses continued, punctuated with tapping sounds like it was using its legs or feet to figure out its next move.

Maia was talking into her headset, alerting someone—I hoped Cassandra—we’d caught the afrit. I kept my gun aimed at the bucket.

The hissing subsided suddenly and I waited for another round of creepy tapping. Instead there was a softsplatand a tiny hole started to melt through the plastic about halfway up, a clearthick liquid spilling over the edges and starting to slowly slide toward the concrete.

“Fuck. It spits acid,” I said.

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