Page 12 of Cold Curses

“I know. I checked with my parents.”

“How’s the reset going?” I asked, and knew that was dangerous territory. The two broken wards hadn’t proved to be an easy fix.

“Frustrating. It’s Victorian magic, and there’s no how-to manual. They’re still trying to decipher the spell etched into the machine.”

The machine was an antique demon detector that also sprayed them with lightning. The magic only worked once, and there was no physical reset switch, so we had to reverse engineer the magic to get it running again.

Well, the sorcerers did. I mostly ran around with a sword.

“Demonslayer,” I murmured, imagining the intro song to my own drama series.

“What?” Connor asked, tilting his head at me. “Did you just say ‘demonslayer’?”

I blinked, cleared my throat. “Just wishing there was, you know, a button we could push.”

If monster had been capable of a sardonic cough, that would have been its cue.

“Do they have an estimate for when they might be done?” Connor asked, graciously changing the subject.

“ ‘Sometime between half-pissed and never,’ my dad says. Whatever that means.”

Her dad was “colorful,” as my dad liked to say.

“It means not soon,” Connor said, linking his hands over his head and stretching from side to side.

“Still sore?” Lulu asked.

“I’ve been worse,” he said. “But thanks for asking.”

Lulu nodded, rose. “I’m going to bed. I’ve got a long night of not demonslaying ahead of me.” She smiled at me with obvious amusement.

“Ha ha,” I said.

Alexei rose, too, gave us a silent nod, and followed her up.

“Let’s join them,” Connor said, then shook his head, held up his forearms to form an “X.” “Strike that. I just heard it, and it’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” I said. “Let’s fall face-first into bed and go unconscious before we start to worry about what’s next.”

“Good plan,” he decided.

But I still wished I’d had some of that fairy cake.

FOUR

It was the most glorious scent in the world. Not bacon (sorry, Mom); not exotic roses; not expensive, influencer-approved French perfume.

Coffee.

My first stop of the day, via the self-driving Auto I’d ordered for the trip to the Ombuds’ South Side office, was Leo’s, my favorite Windy City coffee chain. I filled up my honorary “Frequent Roaster” travel mug and, as the boxy vehicle merged back into traffic, scanned the news on my screen. No demon activity during the day—or at least none that was being reported via human media.

Connor was heading to the Pack’s Ukrainian Village headquarters. While there wasn’t an Apex challenger on the schedule, that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t pay a surprise visit, hoping to catch him unawares. When he wasn’t fighting, he was familiarizing himself with the Pack’s business and admin duties. Not things a shifter usually wanted to care about, but crucial for the continuance of the Pack. I was proud of him.

I was shaken from that thought—literally—when the Auto squealed to a sudden hard stop.

I cursed, swept coffee droplets off my black pants. Then glanced up and found an unexpected wall of traffic that hadn’t been there seconds before.

“Auto: reason for stop?” I asked it. Autos had access to all the traffic and weather information available, and no human distractions. It shouldn’t have needed to stop short.