Page 12 of Demon's Heart

Dante flew over empty nests, typical for this time of day, but unease slithered down his spine. He doubled back, cutting lower to get a better look.

Magic buzzed around the nests and on the rocks surrounding them. Dante frowned.

The power was unfamiliar. No way it belonged to Ash, Onyx, or even Lucifer. How was that possible?

The outcropping—halfway down the cliff face—was inaccessible unless you were an expert rock climber. Or had wings. A rock-climbing witch didn’t seem likely, and the longer he looked, the clearer it became that the magic was too strong to belong to a witch.

Dante landed on a large rock beside the nests and pulled out his phone. Ash picked up on the second ring. “We have a problem.”

“Where are you?” Ash asked without hesitation.

Dante relayed his location and hung up. As he waited, hetapped into his flock’s collective mind, scanning quickly through their eyes. Everyone was hunting, flying, sleeping, or playing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Most of the time, he left the birds to their own devices. Since Luc fled the Human Realm, he hadn’t asked them to monitor the city as closely, so most of the birds had kept to the sea.

Dante delved into their memory, looking for the birds that nested here.

Images of dozens and dozens of other nests flashed through his mind. His heart sank. Where were these birds? Had they been killed?

There! Dante caught a flash of the outcropping from a bird’s point of view. He watched the memory of the bird landing. Others followed suit, and Dante jumped into their minds, seeing their perspectives.

The birds that nested here were all still alive.

He let out a breath, his tail twitching as he relaxed.

Carefully sorting through their memories, he paid close attention to any time the birds were perched at the outcropping. They should have seen whoever left their magic behind. His birds were trained to detect magical power, especially anything this strong.

Nothing jumped out.

The woosh of large wings beating signaled Ash’s arrival. Dante pulled himself from the flock’s memory and his vision cleared.

Ash landed beside him, folding his wings tight against his back, hiding most of the white feathers from view. His eyes narrowed as he inspected the area with his demon sense. “It feels like demon magic,” he said at last.

“But whose could it be?” Dante let his own power sweep overthe residual magic. “It’s not Luc, and I can’t sense any cloaking like he used before. Now that we know how he was hiding, we’d be able to break through it if he tried that trick again.”

“I agree. But if it isn’t him…” Ash frowned. “The birds didn’t see anything?”

“No.”

“Whoever it was had to have been here when the nests were empty.”

Dante had considered that. “Possibly. But the birds should have noticed the magic when they returned and told me.”

“Hm. Check the last time they were here.”

Dante slid back into the flock’s mind. He found the right birds and called up memories from this morning, scanning all their senses. “Nothing. The magic wasn’t here when they took off earlier today.” Had another demon really been here a few hours ago, so close to his home?

Refocusing his vision, Dante found Ash scratching his right horn. His curved back along his head while Dante’s curved up, flaring out slightly at the tips.

“I can’t figure out what the spell is meant to do,” Ash muttered, sounding like half his mind was focused on inspecting. “It’s almost like it was wiped away, but not well enough.”

So whoever it was wasn’t good at covering their tracks. “But how can another demon be in this realm?”

“I don’t know.” Ash cut a serious look at Dante. “I’d sense if anyone broke through the spell Luc has trapping everyone in the Realm of the Damned.”

Luc had used magic he’d stolen from Ash, Dante, and Onyx to trap demonkind, linking them to the prison and giving Ash in particular this advantage.

“If you haven’t felt anything, does that mean someone else came through with Luc last month?”