Page 88 of Devil Bound
A nice set of chains would help fix his attitude problems when it came to sneaking out of my arms the next time he found himself there.I’d spell them to be soft against his skin but weighty enough that he wouldn’t forget they were there.If I hadn’t been so angry while walking toward the stairs that led to the garage, I’d have texted Trony to buy me some right then and there.
Soul, good hellpoodle that she was shaping up to be, followed at my heels.As I grabbed the keys to the hybrid from the row of hooks in the number-locked locker in the garage, I considered teleporting.It would get me to Nelly faster, even if he wouldn’t much like the experience of me taking him back with magic.
When I’d teleported with him after he’d gotten intoxicated the other day, I’d felt his magic pull against mine with unusual focus for a human.If he was awake and contrite when I showed up, he might be able to throw my teleportation off before I got to address his behavior in the way it deserved, so the car it was.
Keys in hand, I walked to the hybrid and pulled on the tether that bound Nelly to me—the debt he owed for my looking after Soul.I accidentally double clicked on the fob when I got no sense of where he was, none at all.It was as if he had vanished from the face of the earth.
I hissed.Soul growled.
“Fucking angel balls.”
I tried again.Nothing.I tried sensing his necromancy.Again, nothing.That was very much not right.I clicked the fob again, opened the door, and let Soul jump in ahead of me.
The poodle moved to the passenger seat, and I started the car and accelerated as much as the space allowed.Outside, the gravel crunched under the wheels while I ground my teeth.
“You,” I said to the poodle, “show me you really want to be a hellhound.”I rolled her window down.“Find Nelly.”
Obediently, Soul put her head out the window and sniffed the air.I drove down Milton.Nelly couldn’t have gone into the woods, because the magic laid out in the very root channels of the trees would have turned him back around.The street was the only way in or out of my territory.So much better than an ordinary fence.
At the crossroads, Soul barked, and I stopped the car, reached over and opened her door.She ran to the side of the road, sniffed there, grumbled, and looked at me before she jumped back in.
If I understood her right, Nelly had waited there.Waiting to flag down a car wouldn’t have gotten him much farther, as my magic made people avoid the crossroads.
Which meant…he had called someone?With the phone he’d taken.He didn’t have many friends that I was aware of.The only people in his life as far as I could tell were work colleagues, none of them people he seemed to ever see outside of work, other than that man he’d been trying to hook up with in the restaurant.
Now, Nelly was stubborn, but surely he wouldn’t be that naive.That man had not beenright.Nelly was a necromancer.I could see why he wouldn’t mind something so tainted if he was horny, but surely…
I shook my head.It didn’t matter.I already knew he couldn’t be left to his own devices.
“I’ll take responsibility for him.”There was nothing else I could do at this stage.
Soul huffed out a bark as if she approved.Then she looked left, so I went that way.Where did he want to go at this time of the night?He didn’t like spending time in cemeteries, so a nightly outing made no sense at all.
Soul kept sniffing the air, and for a hellhound not raised for this kind of tracking work, she was doing a great job indicating which way I needed to go.
She got me to a traffic light, where I parked to let her out of the car so she could sniff the area.Another motorist dared honk at me, but I looked at him, flooding his heart with terror.He reversed, floored the accelerator, and tore off the other way.Soul eventually walked back to me and whined.
“Lost the trail?Damn it.”
I tried to reach for the magic of the debt bond again, and again there was nothing.I tried finding Nelly’s necromancer magic, that very faint, slightly sour scent of him.Again, there was nothing, which meant…
He’d been taken behind some well-made wards.I knew he’d been looking into the deaths of at least two other magic users earlier in the day, and now I couldn’t find him.I didn’t like any of this, not one little bit.In all my time knowing him, he’d never vanished behind wards like this, and it was unsettling.
My anger evaporated, and concern flooded in.I recalled how he’d once walked into a shopping mall with nothing but a pair of abominable socks instead of shoes.
“He needs me.”
Soul made a gurgling sound before whining again.
Nelly barely had a handle on footwear, let alone whatever he was trying to do right now.We had to find him.
49
Lionel
Ducttapewasawesome.I’d once had this backpack I picked out from the hand-me-down box at the orphanage, and by the time I got to my second year at the Collegium, it was mostly made out of duct tape.It had still been good, but I’d thrown it out because my roommate had complained that it gave him nightmares.I don’t think he had an issue with the duct tape though.
Duct tape was about to become something that would give me nightmares.If I lived long enough to dream again.
