Page 37 of Demon Unleashed

“News flash: you already are. Now shut up and follow me.”

Zoltan looked at his hands, turned them, then met her gaze. “I don’t think it’s working. I can still see myself. And you, for that matter.”

Enya rolled her eyes. “Trust me, to everybody else, we’re both invisible. So let’s go, before I regret this.” She started walking, and he sidled up to her. “Your eyes turned back to demon-green during the fight. Did you lose your colored lenses?”

“They dissolved. It’s the chemical that causes the green color. It eventually burns through them.”

She and her colleagues had assumed something like that. “How long do they last?”

“The ones I wore, about eight hours. But my subjects don’t have access to them. They use commercial colored lenses. And they disintegrate…” He hesitated. “…faster.”

She shook her head. “You don’t like your subjects very much, do you?”

“They’re expendable. And stupid.”

“Have you always seen them like that?”

He shrugged. “Why not? I’m smarter than them, stronger than them. Why else do you think my opponent sent five assassins?”

She let out a chuckle. “Arrogant much?”

“You think I’m big-headed? Is that how you like your men?”

“We’re not talking about my taste in men.” Luckily, several people came walking toward them, so she had a good reason to shut him up. “People ahead—quiet.”

For the next ten minutes, while Enya navigated them through several busier streets until they reached a more deserted area, they didn’t talk. Ahead of them, close to a freeway onramp, stood a motel. Enya pointed to it. At a traffic light, they waited for it to change, then crossed the street and entered the property. Just outside the office hung a neon sign.

She pointed to it. “We’ll stay far away from it.”

“So you know?” he asked.

“That neon lights burn out when a demon comes close? Yes, the warning has saved many a Stealth Guardian’s life.” She pointed to a room at one end of the T-shaped building. It was their best choice. The office window from which the manager could have had a direct view of the unit was boarded up. It appeared somebody had smashed in the glass.

At the end unit, Enya stopped. “I’ll see if it’s empty. Wait here.”

She walked through the closed door. As she’d hoped, the room was unused. There was no luggage anywhere, the towels were clean, the wastebasket empty, and the bed unused. The blackout curtains were already drawn. Perfect.

She walked back to the door and opened it. “Quickly.”

Zoltan entered and locked the door behind him. “Light?” he asked.

“Only use the bedside lamp.”

He flipped the switch, while Enya took the daggers she’d taken off the dead demons out of her boots and pockets and placed them on a small desk.

Zoltan looked around in the dimly lit space. She noticed his gaze fall on the bed and a grin form on his lips. Figured.

“Don’t even think about it.”

To her surprise, he dropped the grin and turned serious. “Tell me why you think I was once a Stealth Guardian and why I have no recollection of it.”

“You were a six-month-old baby when it happened.”

“When what happened?”

“You were kidnapped, though back then your parents believed you were killed by the demons. There was blood in your crib, sufficient to suggest that they’d slaughtered you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So how would you know that that baby isn’t dead after all?”