Page 40 of The Tracker's Dawn: Sunderverse

CHAPTER 15

Damien arrived onlya few minutes after Eric and I finished training. He had a few large leather-bound books with him, which he set on the study’s coffee table.

He removed his cloak and top hat and glanced around with a frown.

“Rosalina took a nap,” I said. “She’s showering right now and then she’ll get online to file a claim with the insurance company, but she’ll join us after that.”

He huffed as if he was indifferent to the information, but I knew better. Whenever he was here, he cut glances in her direction every chance he got, especially when he thought she wasn’t looking. Funny enough, she did the same.

I approached the coffee table and examined the books he’d brought. “What are these?”

“Somelightreading material about blood demons. That one,” he pointed to a tome with gold scroll on the cover, “is a Demonology Register and it lists the names of several demons we might be able to conjure.”

“Demon names?” I frowned up at him.

Eric abandoned his desk and came closer, a deep line between his eyebrows.

“Yes,” Damien said, “you need a name in order to call upon a demon, that among other things.”

“What other things?” I asked.

Eric sat in an armchair and threw the front cover open. The book was as long as my arm and as thick as my hand. He leafed through it, giving me a glimpse of yellowed pages, tiny print, and a few black-and-white illustrations.

“Well,” Damien began, “we’ll need chalk, a sigil, trammel heads...”

Trammel heads? What were those?

“I tried to contact a friend for help. She works at the League of Demon Hunters in New York City, but she can’t come, so I’ll have to do it myself. I’m not an expert by any means. I’ve never dabbled in the arts too deeply, but I can manage. Now, where is your beau?”

“He’ll be here in another thirty minutes,” I said. “He has some pack business to tend to.”

Damien’s face suddenly lit up. “Oh, you won’t believe the surprise delivery I received this morning.”

Eric looked up from the book, his curious expression matching mine. “Well, don’t leave us in suspense.”

“It came from the Dark Donna herself.”

Eric and I made similar faces of disgust.

The mage paced toward the sofa and sat, luxuriously crossing his legs and making himself comfortable. “She receivedmyspecial delivery and sent a lovely thank you note with an invitation to go to dinner.”

So Bernadetta had gotten what she wanted. The day I gave the Prince the cure to hide it, I would’ve never imagined she would end up being the recipient.

“You would think that after hundreds of years walking this earth, she would be sick of it,” Eric said.

“I hate that she was the one to get the last bit of cure,” I said.

“Not me,” Damien put in. “Bernadetta finally called back her bloodthirsty minions. They’d been breathing down my neck for a while. I was starting to get nervous.”