I awoke to an empty room and blinked owlishly as I looked around for Becca, but she was gone and her bag with her. I grabbed Jen’s phone and saw a message waiting. I read it and re-read it, before setting the phone down on the bedside table and bowing my head.

True to her word, she’d released me from my oath. I was no longer bound to obey her and she had left for an early train home, letting me know that I was welcome to do as I pleased, though she would prefer me to stay away.

Seeing her friend’s body walking around with me inside was likely too much for her. I could understand that, though it hurt that she had left so suddenly and without giving me a chance to persuade her to stay.

Which was likely why she left while I was asleep. So I couldn’t.

I was free and I couldn’t quite understand why I wasn’t feeling a great deal happier. Sure, I had no money and only the few clothes I had brought with me, but I had a grimoire with spells to get me started and a decided lack of ethics or morals, that would allow me to accrue money quite easily.

So why could I not shake the idea that I grab the next train back to Hull and find Becca to apologise to her, to convince her that there would be no more deaths. She might even believe me, even though I knew that I would be lying.

With a heavy sigh, I flopped back down onto the mattress and pulled the covers over myself. I shouldn’t be feeling sad at her leaving, I should be happy that I was finally able to do what I wanted, how I wanted.

It wasn’t like I’d even known her long or been anything more than someone she had put up with to help find her answers about the death of her friend. And, I hadn’t even done that. All I had done was set someone up to have a mini-psychotic break at the sight of me and that wouldn’t happen unless I went back.

“Dammit!” I threw aside the covers and climbed off of the bed before heading to the bathroom to pee.

Since I was up already, once I’d finished, I stripped out of last night's underwear and hopped in the shower. The steaming hot water felt amazing on my skin, but it didn’t do much to still the inner turmoil of my thoughts, and by the time I had finished and dried off, I was still no closer to knowing what I should do.

I brushed my teeth and hair and then wandered naked back into the bedroom. It felt good not to have to cover up for once since Becca had been with me pretty much every moment since I had possessed the body of her friend.

Still, I searched the bag and found clean knickers before pulling them on. It bothered me a little how much it didn’t bother me that I was wearing black lacy material with a bow sewn on the front. My mind was becoming too used to the body and I needed out of it as soon as possible.

I pulled on too tight jeans and a shirt that actually seemed to have a reasonable neckline, before putting on socks and scooping up all of the clothes I had strewn about the bed and floor and stuffing them into the bag.

Once I had my trainers and jacket on, I did a cursory inspection of the room to make sure I had left nothing behind and hefted the grimoire in my hand. It would take time and practice to get used to the spells, though it was likely some I have already used in my past life.

But to do that, I needed somewhere safe and after killing Lillian, Manchester was definitely not a safe place for me to be. Delilah would be on her way, if not already in the city, and she would bring a kill squad with her too.

I needed to be gone.

My train ticket was still valid and there was nothing stopping me from getting off early. Leeds was the next largest area the train stopped in before Hull, and that was another city where I could quietly gather the resources I needed before facing Delilah.

With that decision made, I set off.

The elevator chimed and the doors opened. I stepped out into the busy lobby and stopped, heart beating hard in my chest as I caught sight of the two men talking to the desk clerk. The tall, olive-skinned man was unknown to me, but his companion wasn’t.

A few inches shorter than the other, but half again as broad about the shoulders, Marcus was muscle for hire and damned good at what he did. His face was all hard planes and sharp angles, and there wasn’t an ounce of compassion in his dark eyes.

He had once beaten a man to death on the order of my father, and I had been required to stand and watch the objective lesson that was being shown to me that day. The iron-hard fists of Marcus made short work of the other man, breaking bones and caving in his skull as brain matter was spread across the floor.

It was the first time I’d vomited in my father's presence and the last. The next lesson my father set saw to that.

Ferrous demon, with the ability to harden his skin like iron. Every blow from those large hands would be like being hit with a sledgehammer. Not something that I wanted to experience.

I ducked to the side and kept close to the wall as I headed out of the building. They’d found me faster than expected, but then it wouldn’t have been hard, not with the coven’s resources behind them.

Either a location spell, a visit to a seer or something as simple as checking which taxi companies had picked up two girls late at night near Lillian’s house. Then it would simply be a matter of checking the nearest hotels and since it was after ten in the morning, they could have easily checked several already.

Damn.

I was screwed. For them to even be in the city Delilah must have sent them out last night, right after she saw me kill Lillian. It was a stroke of sheer luck that they hadn’t caught me in my room and if they had, I would already be bound and stuffed in a suitcase, on my way to face whatever torment Delilah could devise.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

A shudder ran through me and I sped up my steps, turning the corner and practically running through the city streets to try and create some distance between those paid killers and me.

They had the hotel, which meant they had my details and would soon have access to the cameras that filled the hotel. Every corridor and public area would be theirs to search and they would see not just me, but Becca too.

Once they saw her leave they would try the bus and train stations. Delilah had a building full of people who could search the camera feeds for the sight of us, and they would find Becca and the train she was on.

They would know her destination.

I swore softly and started walking faster. If they had found me so quickly then it wouldn’t take them long to find Becca either. Which put her in a great deal of danger since she had no idea they were coming for her.

The smart thing for me to do would be to run as far and as fast as I could. Find another body that wasn’t being used and try to jump from Jen’s to that before Hell had a chance to drag me back.

Sure, that would be the smart bloody thing to do.

I paused, breathing shallow as sweat beaded my forehead and neck. The train station was just ahead of me and there were trains every thirty minutes going to Hull. I was only a few hours behind her.

Or maybe I should just call her. I looked at the phone in my hand and tapped on the display with my thumb. When I opened the contacts, Becca’s number was right there. I swore softly and tapped the call icon.

Voice mail.

I tried again, only to get the same response, so I sent a message and got a notification that I was blocked.

Bloody wonderful.

I crossed the road and went into the train station. It took only a few minutes to find the correct platform and head over to it. There, I waited in the midst of a small crowd for the train to come. Which, judging by the display board, would be in fifteen minutes.

A lifetime when you have killers hunting for you.

The minutes seemed to drag and I flinched at every loud noise that came to me over the general din. I couldn’t help scanning the crowd of faces, looking for one that I might recognise. I’d met enough of the demons we employed through the years that I should be able to recognise most.

At least I hoped so.

When the train finally arrived, I pushed through the crowd to get on and found an empty seat before slipping in and dropping my bag on the seat next to mine. I wasn’t in the mood to have to deal with any stranger sitting next to me, but fortunately, there was ample space and no one asked me to move the bag.

The doors closed with a whoosh of hydraulics and I felt the tension leave my shoulders. Yes, they would find me when they checked the cameras, but I was ahead of them and I would have time to get to Becca before they could.

I owed her that much.

To pass the time and to prepare myself for when they did find me, I read through the grimoire I’d taken from Lillian’s office. I’d been right in thinking that I’d know a good number of the spells it contained and I practised several silently, mouthing the words as I worked through the gestures with my hands.

I was so busy practising that when the man came up beside me and politely asked me to move my bag, I did so without thinking. Only looking up, startled as he sat down beside me.

Dressed in a dark grey suit with a white shirt and salmon tie, he looked every bit the businessman. Young, though, barely twenty and good-looking in a way. He had a well-defined jawline, and was clean-shaven, with black hair trimmed short.

When he looked at me, the light grey of his eyes sparkled with amusement and he offered a roguish smile that transformed his face from decent-looking to genuinely handsome and created a definite noticeable effect in Jen’s body.

I could feel the heat in my cheeks as he winked.

“Now then, lass.” His voice was soft, each word enunciated clearly. The voice of an educated man, I thought. “You’ve gone and got yourself in some trouble, haven’t you?”

“I have?”

“Indeed you have.” He picked an imaginary piece of lint off the sleeve of his suit. “Ms Winters is mightily upset with you.”

“Fuck,” I breathed, a cold pit forming in my stomach. He cocked one eyebrow as if the curse word was unexpected and unladylike.

Well, fuck him too.

“She’s had all of us out since the early hours, travelling to that city and scouring it for a sign of you.”

“She must be pissed.” I guess she truly had feelings for Lillian after all.

“You could say that.”

“So…”

We were on a crowded train full of humans. There was no way he would do anything supernatural. I took another look at him. Slim waist and broad shoulders, with no sign of a paunch. I was pretty certain there would be abs and a low body fat index if he took off his shirt.

He wouldn’t need to use any powers to restrain me, and unless I used magic, I was pretty much done for.

“She wants to see you.”

“I bet she does.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry to do this.”

I didn’t quite believe that. The Winter Coven didn’t hire demons that were squeamish.

For a moment I sat, running through a mental checklist of the spells I knew I could cast and the ones that I suspected would work if I tried them without more practice.

It was a depressingly small list.

Besides, if I created a scene and broke the cardinal rule of the supernatural world, not to reveal what we were to the humans, then I would have more than just the Winter Coven on my ass. Which left me with few real options.

“Are we going to have a problem?” He asked, tilting his head as he watched me with those distractingly attractive eyes of his.

“Depends if you are going to stop me using the bathroom.”

His eyebrows rose and he chuckled. “I can let you go, but not alone.”

I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “Fine by me. If you wanna watch, you can watch.”

He took the bag off of me as I stood and stepped out into the aisle, waving me ahead of him with a half-amused smile on his face. I could feel his eyes on me as I walked along the space between the seats and a plan began to form.

The toilet opened into the space between carriages where the doors were located. Through the windows set into the doors, the world was whizzing past at breakneck speed. I pressed the button to open the door and turned to look back over my shoulder at him.

“You really need to come in with me?”

He peered into the small, enclosed space and grinned. “Doubt the two of us would fit, lass.” He gave another wink. “You go on in and do your business. I’ll be waiting out here.”

I smiled warmly at him as the door closed and only then did I start to panic. There weren’t a great many options available to me and the only one I could think of that would likely work was risky as hell.

Not that I had many options.

With a sigh, I curled my fingers and began to chant. Delilah couldn’t have thought I had any powers or she would have instructed her goons to bind me. That he hadn’t, gave me one chance and one chance only.

I swayed with the train as it rocked and closed my eyes, focusing all of my magical strength into the energy sphere that was forming in my hand.

There was a knock on the door and I stumbled, legs trembling. I wasn’t ready for using magic still and I turned and emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet bowl. It was disheartening to see how much blood was mixed in with the bile.

I flushed the toilet and pressed the button to open the door. The demon was waiting, leaning against the wall opposite with his ankles crossed. My bag was in his hands and the book I had been reading was resting on top.

“You all done, lass?”

“Yes.” I took a step closer, listening to the sound of the wheels on the track. We were moving through open countryside and all I could see through the door was bushes flashing past. “Do you really need to take me to her?”

“I do, lass. Sorry.”

“A pity,” I muttered as I grabbed the book with my free hand and slammed the energy sphere against the doors.

There was a flash of light and the screech of twisted metal! I laughed aloud at the demon’s startled expression as I leapt out of the opening and into the open air.