Page 66 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

T he Sanctum is expecting a jailbreak.

That much is clear from the moment Obie and his friends rift to the bottom of the hill?—the very edge of the Sanctum’s new and improved anti-rifting spell work?—and see that the path leading up to the building is swarming with hunters on guard duty.

They quickly split up to opposite ends of the property, Cass and JJ following Ez and Roma to the far side as they search for a new loophole and the Conspiracy Fam hovering with Obie near the trail while he impatiently presses against the spell work with his god powers, trying to find a weak spot.

Nothing. Actually, it feels like the same magic from the prison’s purebred-only wing, the type that Obie’s already spent hours investigating.

They’ll have to find another way to get inside.

It’s not impossible, of course. Since they’re all invisible, they can always sneak past the hunters, wait to follow one of them through the main entrance, do the same thing at the prison door?? —

It’ll just take longer, that’s all. Hours, potentially.

Hours that they don’t have. “New plan,” Obie says, glaring up at the hunters milling around like evil little ants. “I’m going to go in hot and slaughter everyone in my path.”

Gregorio’s curt voice arises from just next to him. “That’s how wars start, Smith.”

“Not if I start it and finish it in the same day.” And, personally, Obie is going to enjoy cutting down all the hunters who treated Chester like garbage. He’s actually been keeping a casual list of all the worst offenders.

He just didn’t think he’d have to use it nearly this soon.

“I have to agree with Gregorio, Obie,” Micah says.

“You would.”

“Because he’s right, Smith,” Sawyer says, an edge creeping into her voice. “A full-scale assault on the Sanctum will give them exactly the pretext they need to launch a genocide. Are you really willing to subject all of Redwater’s demons to that?”

“And the human collateral damage would be enormous,” Naomi adds quietly. “No one wants that. Least of all Chester.”

Pain lances through Obie’s chest. “Don’t pretend you know him anymore,” he bites out, and his voice comes out lower and more vicious than he intended.

“You two left him there. You knew what he was going through, knew exactly what the Council was going to force him to do for his final exam, and you left him there.”

“Obie,” Micah says, a little harder this time. “Don’t go there.”

“He’s not wrong,” Sawyer cuts in, “but we can argue about it later. Preferably when Chester is here to argue with us.”

Obie’s hands are shaking. He clenches them into fists to hide it.

It’s already been too damn long. It’s been over two hours since Chester answered Maggie’s phone, over two hours since the last time Obie had any contact with him?? —

Over two hours since Chester signed his death warrant to tell Obie that his worst nightmares had come true.

But two hours is far too long. When Cass was kidnapped by the Sanctum back in March, they didn’t even need half that time to rip his soul to pieces. Even though they likely wouldn’t do that to a human dissident like Chester, two hours is still more than enough time for them to cut him open.

Maybe even kill him. Obie has to think that the binding spell would react if Chester died, would give Obie some indication that his spellbound partner was gone, but he isn’t sure.

And, right now, their connection is so eerily silent that Obie is afraid Chester might be dead already.

He forces the thought from his mind. “All right,” he says, snapping open an invisible rift.

“Come on. I’m not finding any workarounds, and I doubt Ez and Roma have anything, either.

We need to regroup and figure out our next moves. ”

Silently, the four co-conspirators slip through the rift. Obie brings up the rear, waving it closed behind them once they’re on solid ground, and almost immediately, there’s a shimmer of renewed magic around him.

Within seconds, all nine of them come back into view. “Modified the invisibility spell,” Ez says without preamble, scowling down at the Sanctum’s twelve-foot boundary wall. “So we can see each other, but they can’t see us.”

“I’ve just learned to stop asking when it comes to you and spellcasting,” Sawyer says, stepping up next to her. Her glower is almost a perfect match for Ez’s. “Any brilliant ideas on this side of the property?”

“Nope,” Cass says flatly.

“Figured.”

“I still think we should try reaching out to Bryant,” JJ says, drumming his fingers anxiously against his leg. “There’s not a great chance that she’ll help us, but?—but with Chester in danger? It’s a better chance than usual.”

Roma shakes her head, fidgeting with her backpack’s straps.

“She thinks we’re being manipulated, remember?

If anything, she’s probably furious with us for ‘brainwashing’ Chester on her watch.

She could easily tell the Council that we’re at the gates, and then?—?” Her voice catches.

“And then we’ll lose any chance we might have had. ”

Everyone lapses into tense silence. Obie swallows hard past the panic threatening to rise up his throat.

If they have to wait to follow a hunter into the building and then wait for another one to open the prison door, it could take hours.

Chester will be as good as dead. There’s a slightly larger chance that Maggie might still be alive, but if they tear apart her soul like they did to Cass, even that’s not guaranteed.

And Obie would gladly start a war to save them?—gladly and enthusiastically . But he knows even better than the rest of them just how long and vicious this cycle of revenge has already been.

“Okay, look,” JJ says suddenly, and to Obie’s surprise, he turns to Gregorio.

“Ez said that you have more combat experience than her and Cass combined, and Cass in particular is one of the most brilliant tacticians I’ve ever met.

If anyone is going to figure out a solution, it’s probably going to be you.

So?—so how do you get into a place that’s impossible to get into? ”

For a long moment, Gregorio is quiet. His eyes flit over the members of their group, analyzing them each in turn, before sliding back to the Sanctum’s impenetrable boundary wall.

And then, abruptly, he says, “Open a rift. You need to open a rift.”

“What the hell do you think we’ve been trying to do, Ricci?” Ez demands.

“I’m not talking to you,” Gregorio says, and he turns to Roma. “I’m talking to you, Gutierrez the Younger. ”

Roma stops dead. “What?”

Obie’s heart stutters. “Wait, that’s?—that’s right,” he says, his eyes widening.

“Roma, you’ve been working on human-magic rifts, right?

By definition, the Sanctum can’t counter human-magic rifts because anti-rifting spell work is specific to demon magic.

That means one of your rifts can get us inside. ”

“No, they can’t,” Roma says, her voice strained. “Because, by definition, the Sanctum can’t counter human-magic rifts because they don’t exist yet. I still can’t get them to work.”

“Look, I know very little about spellcasting beyond the basics,” Gregorio says, “but Naomi seems to think you’re the best there is. Figure it out.”

Roma’s eyes flicker to Naomi. She doesn’t answer.

Gregorio leans forward. “Figure it out,” he repeats, slowly and clearly, “or your friend is going to die.”

“Gregorio!” Micah hisses.

For a split second, Roma’s face crumples.

And then, just as quickly, something hard creeps into her expression. “Ez,” she says, setting her feet shoulder-width apart and positioning her hands precisely in front of her, “the interdimensional approach wasn’t working, right?”

“Not with human magic, no,” Ez says, glaring at Gregorio like she’s personally planning to make him pay for upsetting her girlfriend.

“But demon magic relies on it for rifts, even rifts within the same dimension?—it’s demons’ inherent interdimensionality that allows us to manipulate the spacetime continuum to such an exact degree in the first place. ”

“But summoners can open rifts to Tamaros because??—?”

“?—?because they’re basically punching a hole through spacetime,” Ez finishes. “But it’s an arbitrary hole. Nothing like the precision you’d need to open a rift to a specific location. ”

“So maybe we need to forget about interdimensionality,” Roma says, moving her hands through the air like she’s trying to feel the wrinkles in the fabric of reality, “and focus on punching better.”

“Aim beforehand and follow through afterward,” Obie says, nodding. “Like bowling or archery or??—?”

“?—?or throwing an ax,” JJ says, his eyes gleaming. “Don’t punch the target?—punch through the target.”

Roma takes a deep breath. Lets it out slowly.

Whispers an incantation under her breath, making magic light up around her palms.

But, instead of using one of the standard spellcasting gestures Obie knows, Roma reaches forward, closes her fingers like she’s fisting her hands in a curtain, and deliberately starts to drag them apart.

A gleam of purple-gold light swirls to life between her hands, growing larger inch by painful inch.

“Holy shit,” Cass says, his jaw hanging slightly agape.

“Whoa,” Naomi breathes.

“See?” Gregorio says to Micah. “Being bad cop really does work sometimes.”

“I do so hate it when you’re right about things like that,” Micah says.

Ez rests her hand on Roma’s lower back, leans in, and whispers something that Obie doesn’t catch. In response, Roma shifts her stance, changes her hand positioning, and yanks the rift the rest of the way open.

“Oh. Well,” Ez says, sounding both very taken aback and very turned on. “Guess we didn’t need interdimensionality, after all.”

Roma looks somewhat disbelieving herself, but she dutifully turns to the rest of the group. “So, uh,” she says, gesturing vaguely at the rift. “Who wants to go first? ”

JJ immediately strides forward, grinning. “I knew you could do it,” he says, walking through the rift without the slightest hesitation.