Dev had started to drive after Julianne's tears waned. He crossed into the flat plains of Kansas. The horizon stretched out forever, an empty promise of escape. The road they were on didn't lead to anywhere but Colorado eventually. He stopped at a fill up station and topped off the tank, then went inside and bought a couple sodas and something to snack on. As he left the counter he looked through the big plate glass window and saw Julianne walking around by the big road sign. He imagined going out and offering her the drink and snack. She'd smile and take a sip and then give him a cola flavored kiss.

He shook his head. Daydreaming was for younger, less endangered men. The chime on the door hinge dinged as Dev walked out and approached her. She was crouched down looking at some rocks. Tossing a few away she hefted a couple good throwing stones and tossed one at the nearest speed limit sign. It plonked satisfyingly and she reared back to throw another. Dev cleared his throat.

"You know if you miss and hit a passing motorist, I may have to arrest you." He joked.

"Aren't you a little outside your jurisdiction, Detective?" Julianne turned and accepted the offered. She didn't smile. He took a drink to hide his disappointment.

"Yeah, I suppose so." He looked down at the bottle and sighed. "I, um. Sorry, for, you know... Kissing you."

"I did return it, if you didn't notice." She appreciated his boyish charm. So naive.

"So."

"So."

She sighed and took another drink. Dev gathered up his courage to confess but Julianne spoke first "Look. Its probably for the best if we just let it be. Emotions were high. I mean, you seem nice enough, Dev, but we are kind of in the middle of something here." She almost lost her fortitude as she watched Dev deflate. "But." He perked up. "If we survive this you can take me out to dinner. And I promise not to tease you the whole night. We can get burgers and do a drive in, whatever the kids are doing these days."

Dev finished his soda in one gulp. "Well that sounds alright." He tried and failed to hide his smile. They walked slowly back to his car, nudging each other playfully. "Now that that's settled, we need to figure out how to 'survive this.'"

"And I need clothes that fit. Your clothes aren't very flattering." Julianne turned out her pockets and showed off how baggy they were on her.

"Oh, I don't know, Jules..."

"No." She stopped him. "I need to use the ladies room." Dev bit his tongue. Of course she wouldn't want to be called the nickname of her former lover and fiance. He got in the car and thumped his steering wheel, cursing himself.

"Dev, you dummy! Why would you call her that? 'Oh, I don't know Jules'. Damn!" Julianne returned and saw him berating himself in the car. She watched as he held a conversation with his hands and smacked the dash in frustration. She let out a throaty laugh. Dev quickly stopped and coughed to cover as she got in the car.

"Don't beat yourself up. Yes, Jules is what Danny called me. But that's not why I stopped you." Dev face was a picture of confusion and hope. Julianne laughed again. "I hated it. I have always preferred Julianne, so, don't be so hard on yourself." Dev smiled his innocent smile and started the car. "Thank you for the laugh. I really needed it." The drove smiling like idiots back to Kansas City and possibly their deaths.

-

They sat in the car staring up at the Muehlebach Hotel for an hour.

"Do you really think she recognized you? We can go buy you some new clothes."

"I know, but I really liked the clothes I had. You know, I stole one dress from Katherine Hepburn?" Julianne said with a lecherous grin waggling her eyebrows.

"I am a police officer, you know."

"Oh, you won't arrest me. You have a crush on me. Now be quiet, I'm thinking." Dev blushed while she looked out the window. She moved her hands in front of her face and looked through them at the building. "I don't see any crazy, evil witch magic. I think we should be okay to get my stuff and get out." They got out of the car and started walking toward the lobby. As they were walking toward the elevator bank, one of the hotel staff approached Julianne.

"Pardon, Miss Wright?" Apparently she was using her alias here as well. Dev shrugged. Hiding your identity seemed like a lot of extra work. The clerk handed her an envelope and left them. Julianne tore open the note while they waited for the elevator.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Who is it from? Do you have a secret admirer I need to worry about?" Dev joked. He turned to gauge her reaction and stiffened.

Julianne was gone.

Dev walked quickly to the counter. "Excuse me, did you see where the woman I was with went?"

"No sir, I'm sorry. Maybe she went to the bar?" Dev hurried off to the bar. On the way he called out to Pandemonium Harmony.

"P.H. did you see where she went?"

"I'm sorry Devlin Brígh, Ms. Nestor vanished. Whatever magic whisked her away was powerful." Thinking quickly, Dev reached into his jacket pocket for the scrap of paper from her. He held it and thought of her, asking the scrap where she was. He hoped that since she had imparted a part of her magic onto it he could use it to communicate with her. The note burst into flames and disintegrated like flash paper. The faintest hint of her perfume followed by the char of sulfur met his nose. "Perhaps you can track her with something from her room?" P.H. offered. Dev all but ran back to the elevator. He tapped the button hurriedly.

The doors opened and he raced inside. He pounded the button. Dev paced around the small box, waiting to get to the top. P.H. stood arms crossed in the center, watching.

"How? There was no feel of magic. No indication that she had even gone. She was just gone." Dev was losing it "I'm alone."

"You are not alone, Devlin Brígh. I am always with you." It was actually incredibly reassuring to have a cosmic entity in your corner. The elevator doors opened and Dev sprinted down the hall to her door. Trying the handle, he kicked the door when he realized it was locked.

"Damnit!"

"Perhaps a reminder that you have access to my power will ease your troubled mind?" Dev rolled his eyes at his foolishness. He held his hand out and thought about being in the room and found himself, very suddenly, in the room.

"I only wanted to open the door, how did we get in here?"

"The power interprets your will exactly. You think it, I make it happen." Dev looked around the room for something more substantial to track Julianne with. He rummaged around with P.H. just watching.

"How do I know what will work?" If magical beings of the cosmos could look exasperated, Dev imagined they would look like P.H.

"Use the power. Will the item to your side. Use it to find Ms. Nestor." Dev closed his eyes and thought of Julianne. Her hair, her smile. Her smell. Dev reached out his hand and wrapped his fingers around the bottle of perfume. He squeezed the bulb to spray a mist into the air. His mind exploded with images of Julianne. She was unconscious, bound hand and foot. She had a dark cloth hood covering her head but Dev knew it was her. She was being held somewhere underground. Kushiel circled around her, a picture of rage and wrath. At itself and her captors, for without Julianne's will, it was unable to do anything to help.

Dev shifted his focus to her surroundings. Moving around the darkness he noticed other forms similarly bound. He saw no entrance or exit. It seemed the only way in was to use magic. Dev thought of Julianne again.

"Wake up." He heard little noises of fear and pain from her and suddenly he was full of rage. He focused his mind to be in that cave, next to her.

"Ah, ah. You weren't invited." Yellow eyes filled his vision and he was flung through the locked door of her room. Dev was shocked back into himself and winced as he pulled himself upright. He groaned as he noticed a jagged piece of the door jutting from between his ribs. As he went to pull it out and heal the wound, the expelling voice tut-tutted him again. "No. Leave it in." Dev's hands were forced away. He looked around the hallway for a sign of his assailant.

"I still can't believe you beat Amadeus. Although, it makes a certain kind of sense. He was like a very big bug, and you are like an even bigger mallet. All force, no restraint. There could be a place at my Lady's side for a blunt instrument like yourself. There is a very recent position available." The disembodied voice giggled to itself. Dev saw beady yellow eyes staring at him from a deep shadow in the corner of the hall. He focused and shot the debris out of his ribs, aiming between those eyes. The giant splinter changed direction and embedded itself in the ceiling. Dev winced and started pouring magic into the gaping hole in his chest.

"Oh, not bad. Using your environment as a weapon is quite crafty. Maybe you aren't as thick as Amadeus looked."

"What do you want?" Dev asked.

"Me? Power. Always. Forever. I feed off the scraps left by my Lady, waiting in the shadows, lapping up the bits of soul like a good dog. But, I might get a full meal since you so rudely intruded into one of my Lady's storerooms. And I am hungry." The lights flickered and started dimming as two incredibly long arms reached out of the darkest shadow, grabbing the ceiling and door frame. Two more arms mirrored the movement along the floor and Dev could hear some incredibly heavy mass being dragged. The 'eyes', as they were, poked out of the shadow at the tip of a massive canine skull, seated in a blackened humanoid face where a dog's nose would be. The skull just kept coming. As it moved it gouged deep ruts in the walls and ceiling. Strips of rotten flesh were ripped away as the skull was dragged along.

Dev found himself enthralled by the creature. It was horrifying and fascinating. He wondered what determined how each Malformed manifested. So far, the three he had encountered had been drastically different. As it neared, he stood up. The four hands pried the enormous mouth open and the face at the tip was salivating.

"So Hungry." Dev reached down and picked up a shard of the shattered door. He held it if front of him, brandishing it like a knife. The jaws lurched forward and snapped around him. The yellow eyed Malformed screeched from the humanoid mouth and the skull shook in pain. Dev had turned the little piece of wood into a giant spike. The force of the bite from the abomination send the spike through the top and bottom of the skull. He walked a couple paces away and inspected his wound. He had stemmed the bleeding and the hole was nearly closed.

The arms scrambled trying to pry the mouth open again. They pulled the spike out and the little face bawled. With the mouth open again, Dev turned his attention back to the monster. Turquoise mist seeped out of his left eye and he fired an eye beam down the skull's never ending gullet. With a roar of pain and an explosion of viscera, the creature retracted back to the shadows.

"You'll regret this, just you..."

Before the yellow eyed Malformed could finish, Dev blasted another eye beam at it. "Bad dog."