Pandora's Box by Gracen Miller Page B

at his uncle, canted his head to the side, and waggled his eyebrows as if to say she had him there.
    “That’s the part that makes no sense.” James flipped his phone open once more, hit a button and clipped it back to his belt, again, obviously dismissing the caller.
    Phoenix threaded his fingers through his spiky hair. “None of this makes sense. And a King? Seriously? We don’t know how to defeat one of them.”
    Madison’s attention shifted between the men.
    James nodded and grunted. “Yeah, a King, and I know it’s going to be ambitious to kill one. We need to identify the King before we can decide anything else.”
    That didn’t sound promising at all. “I thought you conducted all your demon tests on Amos already?”
    The Birmingham men shared some more glances, their silent communication starting to irritate her.
    “You did the holy water stuff, the gadget with the lights, some type of exorcism, and none of it worked. You said a demon wasn’t involved.”
    “We performed all the tests to prove he’s not possessed by a demon.” Nix shifted his weight and held her direct gaze. “He’s not possessed, but that doesn’t rule out demonic interference.”
    “There are a lot of missing pieces to this puzzle,” James admitted, and he appeared none too happy with the admission.
    No kidding—it was one big puzzle piece for her, too.
    “But we’re not giving up,” Phoenix said, his stare impassioned.
    Madison noted James remained silent. “Maybe you should, Phoenix.”
    Gage and his girlfriend entered the room. Keys dangled from his fingers. They were headed elsewhere. Good option.
    “You just said you didn’t know how to defeat a demon King. There’s no point in you four going down with us.”
    The expression on Phoenix’s face—furrowed brow, heavy lines between his eyes, and a grimace worthy of scaring demons—oh, yeah, he could pummel something into a bloody mess right about now. “I’m not giving up,” he bit out between clenched teeth.
    “Fine.” She sent the rest of the group a hesitant glance. None of them said a word, just curiously watched. “Your blood is on your hands.”
    Phoenix shoved his fingers through his hair, giving his spiky, disheveled locks a more natural flow. “Just the way I like it.” He sent her a snarky grin and went back to business. “Now, I need Micah’s case files.”

Chapter Ten

    Nix braced the hotel curtain back with his forearm and stared up at the late afternoon sky. Clouds bloomed like overlapping black cotton on the horizon, an ominous sight as it approached the southern city liquid fast. His gut twisted as lightening zipped across the horizon and arced to the Earth.
    “I think something’s coming.”
    He could hear the swish of the pages Zo turned in one of their handy-dandy Sherlock supernatural guidebooks, and Gage rifled through the mounds of paperwork from Micah’s legal case files that Madison had given them.
    “Yeah, I noticed the approaching thunderstorm about thirty minutes ago,” Zo said.
    Nix paused and waited while a bright spark zigzagged through the heavens. “There’s no thunder.”
    Gage ripped his attention from Micah Wescott’s legal files long enough to say, “It’s a cold front, Nix. Alabama’s known for its nasty weather in the spring.”
    “This is more.” He couldn’t explain it, but the atmosphere felt more malevolent. “Looks like a demonic omen.”
    Felt like a demonic omen, too, but he didn’t add that part because he couldn’t explain how the storm felt different from other squalls. Maybe the static electricity in the air blipped his radar as more wicked than a generic thunderstorm. He turned to look at them, gnawing on the inside of his cheek. Worry for their charges tied a thick knot of dread in his abdomen. “We shouldn’t have left her. We—”
    Gage glanced up. “Her?”
    Nix continued “—should have taken her offer to sleep in one of her extra rooms.”
    “We have a he and a she to protect.