Here is the next part of my “micro series.” Read Part One Here!
Dakota
It was my great, damned luck that I would be in the only room in the whole freakin’ town that had locks run on electricity. In fact, the locks were a combination of an old-fashioned key and electricity. Because it was a prison, and it was built for all sorts of non-human inhabitants.
Being the kind-natured woman that I am (stop laughing), I was helping the cops out and escorting my most recent capture into the cell for them. He was a pretty weak-ass sorcerer, cryokinetic (water and ice), but he was also a slippery crackpot and that’s why the cops asked me to find him and bring his sorry butt in. He had an uncanny talent for hiding, and that had nothing to do with his supernatural abilities.
The reason I knew my luck was so lousy was because when the power went out, the cell went into lockdown and there was no opening it. I was stuck in the damn room with the guy I’d just hauled in. Not that I was worried. There were anti-magic wards and his crimes weren’t violent, just white collar stuff, but big money enough that he still came on my radar.
No, I wasn’t worried. I was annoyed as hell.
Backup generators whirred from the basement and faint emergency lighting came on, but I doubted I’d be able to get the door open until things went back to normal or someone specifically came and got me. I looked at the guy standing on the other side of the room. My preternatural abilities could see through the dark, but I doubted his could. He looked afraid.
Good. It would make him behave.
“Don’t think about trying anything cute, got it?” I didn’t need to say it, but I just felt like it. Needed to take my annoyance out on someone, after all, right?
He swallowed audibly and sat on the floor.
I sat down too, and…my phone rang.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered. The power was out, I was trapped, but my phone still bloody worked so people could still call and bother me? That just ain’t right. “What?” I demanded upon answering.
“Always a pleasure to talk to you too, Dakota.” It was Sadie. My kinda-sorta boss, and my kinda-sorta friend. Though I’d be drawn and quartered before admitting that out loud to her.
“I’m kind of busy. What do you want?”
“Feel like taking out some of that not-so-repressed anger?”
“Always.”
“Want to find a demon in the dark?”
I snorted. It was almost a laugh. Well, it was a laugh from me, but not everyone who heard it would recognize it as such. “I would love to, but you know what? I’m kind of trapped in this fancy cell your boyfriend helped cook up here at the station.”
There was a long pause. “Arrested?”
Pulling the phone from my ear, I glared at it. “No,” I snapped when I put it back. “I was bringing in a capture. No one to worry about.” I looked at him. “Just here until they get me out, but I’m curious how y’all managed to screw that one up. What did wonder boy do?”
I heard her voice a little away from the receiver, like she was talking to someone else in the room. “She’d like to know what you did wrong.”
“When the power went out, Bill stumbled and scuffed one of my runes of power,” I could hear his reply, though it was quieter from the distance. “I couldn’t see it in time to remake it and the damn thing got out. I need to know where it is so I can go there and reharness it. It can’t go to any other realm, or even back home, without me.”
“I guess you’d better find it then,” I drawled. “How dangerous is it?” Sadie relayed the question.
“It’s not as violent as some, but there could be trouble. Best get it home soon. This breed is attracted to magical power. It’s gonna love Adelheid, sitting over the leylines like it is.”
Something triggered in my brain and I found myself reluctantly pressed to help. “Will it be attracted to creatures of power?”
Again, the question was relayed and then came the answer. “Yes.” I snorted, again darkly amused. “Then you better get your ass to the Coven House, son, ’cause they got the mother of all demon bug zappers in their basement.”