“So they’re people who might not have had many close friends or family,” Hunt said.

“Maybe.” Bryce again studied the photograph. Made herself look at the wounds. Silence fell, interrupted only by the distant sounds of Lehabah’s show downstairs.

She said quietly, “That’s not the creature that killed Danika.”

Hunt ran a hand through his hair. “There might have been multiple kristallos—”

“No,” she insisted, setting down the papers. “The kristallos isn’t what killed Danika.”

Hunt’s brow furrowed. “You were on the scene, though. You saw it.”

“I saw it in the hall, not in the apartment. Danika, the pack, and the other three recent victims were in piles.” She could barely stand to say it, to think about it again.

These past five days had been … not easy. Putting one foot in front of the other had been the only thing to get her through it after the disaster with Sabine. After the bomb she’d dropped about Danika. And if they’d been looking for the wrong fucking thing all this time …

Bryce held up the photo. “These wounds aren’t the same. The kristallos wanted to get at your heart, your organs. Not turn you into a—a heap. Danika, the Pack of Devils, Tertian, the acolyte and temple guard—none of them had wounds like this. And none had this venom in their system.” Hunt just blinked at her. Bryce’s voice cracked. “What if something else came through? What if the kristallos was summoned to look for the Horn, but something worse was also there that night? If you had the power to summon the kristallos, why not summon multiple types of demons?”

Hunt considered. “I can’t think of a demon that demolishes its victims like that, though. Unless it’s another ancient horror straight from the Pit.” He rubbed his neck. “If the kristallos killed this dryad—killed these people whose bodies washed into the river through the sewers—then why summon two kinds of demons? The kristallos is already lethal as Hel.” Literally.

Bryce threw up her hands. “I have no idea. But if everything we know about Danika’s death is wrong, then we need to figure out how she died. We need someone who can weigh in.”

He rubbed his jaw. “Any ideas?”

She nodded slowly, dread curling in her gut. “Promise me you won’t go ballistic.”

Chapter Fifty-One

51

“Summoning a demon is a bad fucking idea,” Hunt breathed as night fell beyond the apartment’s shut curtains. “Especially considering that’s what started this mess in the first place.”

They stood in her great room, lights dimmed and candles flickering around them, Syrinx bundled in blankets and locked in his crate in Bryce’s bedroom, surrounded by a protective circle of white salt.

What lay around and before them on the pale floors, reeking of mold and rotten earth, was the opposite of that.