Page 10 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

In a flash, Smith crosses the distance between them, grabbing Chester’s wrist and yanking him forward?—rough, but not enough to trigger the binding spell.

Chester throws an automatic haymaker with his other arm, swearing when the punch does grind to a near-halt mere inches from Smith’s jaw, and Smith catches it with his other hand without blinking, holding Chester immobile.

Chester squeezes his eyes shut, bracing himself for the inevitable pain of Smith hacking his way into Chester’s head??—

There’s nothing. Not even a tingling. Warily, Chester opens his eyes to find Smith standing unusually close, close enough that Chester can almost feel his breath, his piercing eyes fathomless and his face curiously blank .

Hastily, Smith snatches his hands away and steps back. “Well, that’s new.”

Chester squints at him. “What do you mean?”

“I…” Smith rakes a hand through his hair. He looks genuinely unnerved. “I can’t see your memories. I guess that?—?” He curses under his breath. “I guess that forcing my way into your head involves physical injuries, so the binding spell won’t let me do it.”

Vividly, Chester remembers the bloody nose that stained his interrogator uniform and the burst capillaries in his eyes that took days to heal. “Good,” he says curtly. “One less thing for me to worry about.”

Smith scowls back, but he looks more annoyed than actually angry. “Please give me permission? Pretty please? It’ll make both of our lives so much easier.”

“No.”

Smith lets out an aggravated sigh. “Fine. I was hoping not to mess around with the Deep again so soon after the mega-rift fiasco, but I guess it’s unavoidable.”

The words jolt through Chester. “The Deep? What does the Deep have to do with anything?”

Smith’s eyebrows furrow. “To request a copy of the spell, obviously. The Deep keeps a record of all casted spells, remember? I can get a copy of that record to see the incantation you actually used, and that’ll show us whether the spell or the pre-casting process went wrong.”

Chester’s jaw threatens to drop. “You can do that? You can ask for a copy of a spell, and the Deep will just… give it to you?”

Smith’s expression shifts. “Nope.”

Chester stares at him. “What?”

“Nope,” Smith repeats, waving a hand airily. “Forget I said anything. You can take ‘messing around with the Deep’ off the agenda. ”

Impatience shoots through Chester. “But can you do it or not?”

“Can I? Yes.” Smith leans forward, his eyes narrowed. “Am I going to? No. Considering how perversely interested the Sanctum seems to be in the Deep lately, I’m keeping their most loyal attack dog away from that intel.”

Chester stiffens. “How do you know about the Sanctum researching the Deep? You shouldn’t??—?”

And then, all at once, he remembers.

Have either of you ever heard of Operation Thirteen? Nasir mentioned it had something to do with the Deep.

Chester feels like he just got punched in the gut.

That conversation with Roma and Bryant out on the training grounds was less than a month ago, but it already feels like a different lifetime.

He knew Roma was struggling back then?—she’d failed her mission to trap Smith’s crew just the week before?—but he never would’ve dreamed she was about to defect a few short days later.

And leaving Chester and Bryant behind is one thing, but telling Smith and his ilk about sensitive Sanctum secrets is another. None of them are supposed to know about Operation Thirteen, not even Bryant?—hell, Chester and Roma only heard the name via eavesdropping.

The fact that Roma told her new demon friends about it so quickly sends bitterness snaking through him. “Oh. Roma.”

Smith’s jaw works, but he doesn’t deny it.

“In any case, that option is out. And if you’re going to be difficult and not give me access to your memories, then we’re officially at an impasse.

We can try making a point-by-point counterspell from the original incantation, but without knowing how the pre-casting process changed the spell, I doubt it’ll work.

It?—it might take me a few days to come up with another plan. ”

“Seriously?” Chester says, exasperated. “Just request the stupid spell from the Deep. My spellcasting is clearly mediocre at best, so it’s not like I’d be able to replicate the process.”

Smith’s eyes flash. “Not happening, hunter. I’d rather deal with your bullshit for a few more days than risk giving the Sanctum anything they could use against us.”

Chester laughs. The sound comes out hollower than he expected. “What, not in a rush to break the binding spell and kill me anymore?”

For the first time, Smith looks honestly confused. “What?”

“Oh, come on.” The knot of tension in Chester’s stomach twists even tighter.

“We’re on the same page, all right? I hate you, and you hate me.

And you tried to murder me in cold blood right after I activated that spell last night.

Snapping my neck is probably the first thing on your to-do list once we’re not attached at the hip anymore. ”

For a long moment, Smith considers Chester.

And then he smiles.

It’s not a nice smile, though. In fact, “smile” might be the wrong word altogether.

The expression shows his teeth and curves his lips up in the corners, but instead of being kind or playful or even mocking, it’s just sharp edges and hard lines and a feral vindictiveness that sends Chester’s fight-or-flight response into overdrive.

It’s the smile of something that’s not even pretending to be human anymore.

“No,” Smith says. “I’m not going to kill you.

When we break this binding spell, the very first thing I’m going to do is reach out to your old friends JJ and Roma, explain to them exactly what you tried to do to me, and tell them that you’re.

Not. Worth. Saving.” He leans forward. “I hope you rot here, Locke. I hope you suffer in this prison that you’re so desperate to protect for the rest of your miserable life. ”

The words roil through Chester. He swallows hard, pinned to the spot by Smith’s dark, ageless eyes. The rest of the world seems to shudder and close in around him, nothing real except for the fear clamping around his lungs and that unsettlingly inhuman smile, and then??—

Without another word, Smith vanishes from sight again. “Let’s move. You have a job to do, and I need to figure out how to fix your mess. Go on.”

And, feeling depressingly like a dog with its tail between its legs, Chester pulls open the door and stumbles back into the prison.