Page 69 of My Demon Neighbor
Codie snickered, and I huffed. "Come on—let's get this over with."
"Codie..."
"I'll be fine," he assured me, and I nodded, before taking Xin's elbow and teleporting halfway out of the city.
I sensed the darkness instantly, though it felt a little diluted, like they were no longer there. We shared a glance before deciding to move closer on foot so we didn't stumble into anything unprepared.
As we walked, I told Xin—in not too many details—why I hadn't been paying attention, and they turned to give me a wide-eyed look.
"Consort Artemus really gave you permission?"
I nodded, and they whistled softly.
"I didn't think that would ever happen. And here I was worried I'd be reprimanded for hacking and stealing from humans. Then again, the humans I steal from usually deserve it so."
"I still don't get why you don't just use your magic," I said with a shake of my head, and they shot me an amused look.
"Now where would be the fun in that?"
We went quiet as we neared the place the dark aura seemed to be emanating from, going incorporeal before walking through the wall of a normal-looking bungalow.
I could sense the remnants of a spell on the walls, as if someone had broken through the barrier that'd existed there before.
We found the creators of the spell in the large living room, sitting around a spell circle on the floor.
I didn't know much about witchcraft, but I knew enough to know that the spell drawn on the floor in blood—not theirs, from what I could see—was a bad one. These were dark witches, and someone had killed them before they finished. What the hell?
"Look." Xin pointed, and I followed their gaze to an X-frame, the kind people used to keep an open book on display. It was empty, but there was darkness clinging to the stand,as if whatever had been kept there had been chock full of dark magic.
Xin reached out, brushing their fingers through the darkness, and hissed. "Mammon was here."
"Mammon killed... dark witches?" I asked in confusion. If he was doing something wrong or planning to destroy the world, wouldn't these witches be on his side?
"Looks like it. I'll call Maximus."
I nodded, walking around the room as they made the call.
There were five witches, three women and two men, all in their late thirties. If not for the dark magic still clinging to their bodies, I'd have thought they were just normal upper-middle-class humans.
Maximus and Malik arrived a few moments later, a few teammates I wasn't familiar with. The other soul collectors started moving around the room, scanning for more dark magic and grabbing the souls of the witches that had still stuck around. We must've arrived pretty soon after it happened for the souls to still be here. Most souls only lingered for a few hours before getting pulled toward the closest 'collection point' so the soul collectors could easily take them to Otherworld.
"What happened?" Maximus asked, coming over to me since this city was my responsibility.
I winced. "I'm... not sure. It looks like Mammon wanted a book they had, and he killed them, then took off with it."
"And the dark souls?"
"No trace of them," Xin said, making a face. "We must've sensed the souls of these dead witches."
I nodded because that made sense, and Maximus frowned.
"You didn't sense Mammon?" he asked me, and I shook my head, feeling guilty. Maybe because I knew that even ifI'd known Mammon would be here today, I didn't think I would've acted any differently.
Well, I would've probably texted Xin or Arnick to look into it.
"We need to find out what book this was," he murmured, and I nodded.
"It has a very dark signature. Maybe we could sense it, if it was close enough," I said, and Maximus hummed.
