Turning from his desk, he moved up to the shelves of flasks just behind his chair. He pulled off a tall bottle of amber liquid. Reaching behind the other bottles, he grabbed hold of two short glasses. He slid the papers over to make room for a glass in front of each of them.
Zoe raised an eyebrow. “You never accept my invitations to Tom’s bar. I thought you quit.”
“It’s just an occasional thing. Perhaps I’m getting old, but I like my head on straight more often than not these days. Every five minutes seems like something life threatening is going on. But it seems we never just have nice social nights anymore.”
Just as he started to pour, all the bottles, vials, and jars on the shelves started to rattle. Alcohol ran off his desk from where his pouring failed to connect with the glass. Zoe felt the ground shaking beneath her shoes. One bottle shook itself off a shelf, shattering against the floor of his office, before Wayne could reach over and place a hand on his tome.
As soon as he did, a semi-translucent barrier appeared over all the walls, keeping the glass trapped in place.
Wayne just sighed. “See. Like this. I try to relax for five minutes and now we’ve got another quake.”
Zoe jumped to her feet, feeling far less nonchalant than Wayne’s exasperated tone. Her first thought was to check her phone. Perhaps in her pacing and nervousness, she had missed messages from Eva, Nel, or Catherine. But there were no recent messages. No missed calls.
“Well,” Wayne said, moving to his feet with a certain sluggishness as the momentary tremor died off, “might as well go see what the damage is.”
“I hope it was just an aftershock from the quake the other day.”
“Yeah, hope hasn’t done much for us lately. If that was just a simple quake, I’ll drink the whole bottle at once,” he said, corking the opening. He set it down only for another slight tremor to send it rolling off his desk. There was plenty of time to catch it even if he wasn’t enhancing his thought processes. However, he just stood and stared, watching as it shattered against the ground. “I suppose that answers that question.”
Zoe just rolled her yes. “Come on. We need to make sure the students are safe. Then just hope that Brakket’s security team handled everything else.”
Left Behind
At least two enigmas had landed in the city. Nothing had come close to Eva’s ritual circle. Brakket security had cleaned them up—disabling them and moving them to a containment ward that Anderson had set up within the zoo. Since they couldn’t be permanently killed, they needed to be kept from regenerating and running rampant. Of course, that was all his job. Eva concerned herself with nothing more than a quick run-through of the city.
She was pleased to have found nothing especially concerning. The faint presence that felt almost like a demon was still around. Eva had spent a good quarter of an hour trying to sniff it out. At this point, she was almost convinced that it had consumed an invisible demon. Or something else that could hide well.
Perhaps more concerning was the fact that nobody had seen it. She had mentioned it to Anderson right after the first earthquake, but since then, nobody called up his hotline to freak out about a monster eating everything. The people of Brakket City were all accounted for. No one had come forth complaining about themselves or their loved ones being eaten.
That other demon hunter was somewhere around. Perhaps she had done something. Eva was hoping that she had gotten herself eaten, though she doubted that she would be quite so lucky.
Spinning the thin whistle in her hand, Eva walked down another street. One towards the center of Brakket City, not far from the main school supply shopping section where all the shops for school uniforms and books were located. Snow on the sidewalk melted before her feet, ensuring she neither slipped nor accidentally stepped in the cold ice. To other people, seeing a demon melt snow before her might be somewhat alarming. However, it was just some simple thaumaturgy. No demonic shenanigans going on in the slightest.
“It’s slightly stronger here.”
“Slightly,” Eva said, glancing at Arachne out of the corner of her eye, “is an understatement.”
With nothing better to do with the
