Page 38 of Demon's Mate
The bag of stone dust fell off the dresser, spilling everywhere.
“Fuck.” Harper set the beaker down and fisted his hands in his hair.
Stone dust covered the floor.
The stone had to be pure for the memory potion to work. He couldn’t ingest other elements like regular dust or anything floating around the apartment.
He’d just screwed his hunt.
Why had he left the bag out? It was made of enchanted leather and protected the contents from contamination, but he should have locked it up in his magical box.
All the stone he’d chipped from the library plaza, purified, and ground down using an alchemical spell was useless now that it had touched his apartment floor. He couldn’t risk trying to get into its memory now that it was contaminated and couldn’t repurify it this late in the process.
Harper flopped onto his bed and groaned. He had to give up his hunt or go back to Old Town.
It was too risky to go near the library, but at the same time, he couldn’t risk his coven finding the Hounds before him. They’d get someone else to take over his search now that he’d abandoned them. He couldn’t give up. He had to stop his father from gaining any more power. But he couldn’t do that if he got caught.
Harper went backand forth for two days.
He couldn’t justify returning to the plaza in front of the library. It was too risky. His coven would be silly not to have someone watching the area. However, there could still be an alternative to abandoning his hunt.
He needed old stone, and there was more than one place to get it. He’d originally chosen the library because that plaza had once been the center of Shearwater Landing, so it was extremely likely that any demons who’d once lived here had passed through that area, if not regularly, then at least more frequently than more random parts of the city.
Now that Harper had screwed up, he had to settle for stone from a different source. Picking a random old section of the city outside of Old Town decreased his chances of finding anything, but it was the best he could do.
According to his coven’s research and the anomalies they’d uncovered, the demons seemed to have a connection to the sooty shearwaters. Harper figured the waterfront would be a decent place to try and source new stone chippings. Parts of the seawall were old, and he’d just have to hope the demons had spent more than a few random days at the beach a century ago.
After Ollie went to work, Harper left the apartment with his chisel, knife, and enchanted satchel, all stowed in his shoulder bag. He’d walk along the river. That way, he could stay near the Banks and the Docks as long as possible and avoid getting anywhere near Old Town or the other places he used to frequent on his way to the waterfront.
The feeling of being watched that plagued him in the apartment had died down since the cookie incident, but as Harper stepped onto the street, his skin crawled. He could have sworn someone was watching him, but as always, he found no sign of anyone lurking or any trace of magic in the air.
It was probably all in his head.
He walked through the neighborhood until he reached the concrete riverbank, where a walkway ran along the water. There weren’t too many people out on a weekday morning so at least Harper was spared worrying about crowds hiding someone following him.
Shops and restaurants lined the opposite side of the street. It might have been nice if Harper were here for fun and not fighting to look over his shoulder every ten seconds.
The walkway ended part-way through the Docks, where the old cannery backed onto the river. Harper cut in, away from the water, and followed the street parallel until he came to the river mouth.
The area was industrial rather than scenic, matching the part of the city he’d just wandered through. There was a port at the mouth of the river and much more activity here than near the half-abandoned warehouses he’d just left behind in the Docks.
Getting around the port was a slog. The area behind the docked ships was fenced off for containers and lumber and was much larger than Harper had expected.
He walked along the chain link fence, the road beside him busy with traffic. Harper’s skin prickled and sweat slicked his palms. No one he passed seemed to pay him any attention, but he wasn’t far from the Business District and closer than he wanted to be to parts of the city he’d sworn he’d never return to.
He checked his phone, his heart sinking. He was still a mile from the waterfront.
As he waited at a stoplight, he scanned his surroundings, eyes darting around quickly. This part of the port had a large windowless building backing up onto the sidewalk. It towered over him.
The light turned green and Harper crossed the street. Hecast out his magic as he’d been doing every few minutes, but this time, a prickle of something pushed back.
There was at least one witch or vampire nearby.
Harper swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.
It could be totally innocuous. There were plenty of witches in the city, but Harper had to wonder what one might be doing working at the port, a very human job.
He picked up his pace, walking between the back of the port and a row of warehouses across the street. No other pedestrians were on the block with him, and the vehicles driving by passed swiftly, but the feeling of magic nearby didn’t fade.
