“No, the other witches are girls, with one exception. So they have their own floor. I woke up and left before anyone else was moving, so I don’t know if anyone sensed anything. I drove around till I felt the area, then parked on the street. That’s when I knew it was the dentist office and knew was demonic.”

“How exactly? What made you think of demons? Why not something else, like say… a werewolf?”

“There’s a feel to a place where demons have been. Dark, extremely malevolent, extremely sinister. Werewolves feel more like something of nature. Demons… not so much. So I sat in my car while I processed the feeling, and then I got out of there. Called Darci, called Chris Gordon.”

Despite himself, Schulz pulled back at that last bit. “You just picked up the phone and called him?”

“Detective, Arcane was created by Oracle and Chris Gordon and Tanya Demidova basically for Declan. He’s a part of their team,” Darci said.

“I’ve heard that, but you’ll forgive me if I take some time to reconcile it. I’ve seen the footage and it all seems so… fantastic to me.”

“Declan was in much of that footage, but you might never have seen him. And he keeps a really low profile most of the time,” Darci said. “The media usually calls him The Warlock, but they have the devil’s own time getting footage of him.” She smirked a little at that last bit.

Realizing the interview had gotten away from him again, Schulz refocused himself. “A resident on the street saw your car there. Did you get out? Approach the building… at all?”

“No. Nope. Just looked the place over, from inside my car, and then got out of there. Whatever did that is pretty high level. Very dangerous.”

“What do you mean high level?”

“Demons have ranks. The higher the rank, the more powerful the demon. This one is powerful,” the kid said.

“Like how powerful?”

“Did you see that one in Washington? Like that. You’re going to want Chris to handle it. Actually, he’s likely the only one who can.”

“You don’t handle demons?”

“Me? No. I help in more of a backup way when we face demons. Mostly detection, tracking, team security. Sometimes Chris will have me talk to them, but usually I stay outside.”

“Talk to them? Why?”

“Demons will tell me things they won’t tell him. We do it for intelligence, like you do with informants and suspects.”

“Why do they talk to you and not him?”

The kid finally looked a little uncomfortable. “He’s God’s Warrior. They don’t much like him and are afraid of him.”

“I get that they’re afraid of him, but why speak to you?”

Declan glanced at his step-aunt. “There have been historical connections between demons and some witches over the eons.”

“Connections?” Schulz asked, looking directly at the kid.