Free Inner Demon by Jocelynn Drake

around?
    Gideon cleared his throat, dragging his gaze away from the tortured pair. “No writing this time.” His voice was rough and I pitied my companion. Sometimes I could almost understand the Towers’ edict against warlocks and witches having children. Bridgette had to be on Gideon’s mind, haunting him while he stood in the blood of children so close to her age.
    â€œHe’s not experimenting anymore,” I murmured, trying to find my own voice through the sadness and rage.
    â€œNo,” he said, shaking his head. “He knows what he’s doing now. I think he perfected what he was attempting with the vampires.”
    â€œThen why do this?” I waved a hand at the two children, starting to lose my grip on my temper.
    â€œTo get our attention. To taunt us. To bring us out so that we could finally meet, letting him show us that he’s not afraid of the Towers.”
    I sighed, rubbing my head as I turned away from the kids to trudge back up the stairs. “The Ivory Towers have pissed off every race on this planet. You care to take a guess as to which one has figured out how take on the Towers and win?”
    Gideon followed me up the stairs to the kitchen. The room was nearly spotless. There were a ­couple glasses and a plate with bread crumbs in the sink. A roast was defrosting on the counter. Someone had planned ahead for dinner that night. Our killer hadn’t resided in this house. No, he’d just stopped by to kill the kids so that we could meet at last.
    â€œYou think there’s a reason he chose this house?” I asked, turning around the island in the center of the room to face Gideon. “I mean, he took some risks coming here in the middle of the day. ­People would have noticed someone strange in the neighborhood.”
    â€œPossibly. Of course, he could have been using a cloaking spell just like you.”
    I shrugged. “Maybe, but I don’t sense any of the magic residue from him like I did at the first location.”
    Pulling out his wand, Gideon started for the front of the house. “Let’s finish our search. The owners are around here somewhere.”
    I hope they’re dead. It sounded horrible in my head when I thought it, but I really didn’t think they’d want to know how their children died or why.
    I got my wish, but there was a price for that. We found the parents on the second floor, but one look at them confirmed that our killer now had a partner. The bitch who had been stalking pregnant women had been here and worked her horrific skills on the parents.
    The parents were found in a nursery. The husband was tied to the rails of the baby bed while the wife was across from him, leaned up against the dresser. She had been killed in the usual way; stabbed in the chest and slashed across the stomach. However, judging by the blood crusted to the man’s wrists and the broken rails, he had been forced to watch the death of his wife before our killer took him out with a long cut across the throat. His death had been slower.
    Looking at how the two victims were arranged so that they could clearly see each other, I was sure that this murder had been personal for our female psychopath. In all the other deaths, they had been terrible but relatively quick and completed in secrecy, taking limited risks. She picked the location, not the white-­haired weirdo.
    â€œThey found each other,” Gideon said emotionlessly from behind me.
    What he meant to say was, We’re fucked.
    â€œTell the council,” I said past the lump in my throat. Something big and nasty was bearing down on Low Town and we needed help. “Just try to keep them from destroying the city.”
    â€œI’ll do what I can.”
    Shaking my head, I stepped around Gideon and started back toward the first floor. “I’ve got to call Serah. She might be able to figure something out that we haven’t thought of.”
    â€œYou