Levi crossed Brent’s office and darted toward the room the guy had come out of with someone else. No security scanners on the doors, just standard locks. What was Brent hiding?

He tried the handle: Locked. Unlike the other rooms, these walls weren’t made of glass, so Levi had no clue what lay inside. Why was someone in there? The whole time he’d worked at Argos, he’d never seen this door opened.

Surely, a person in this room would have heard him and Cary talking in the hallway. Yet, none came out to investigate. It was a mystery, making Levi anxious to get inside.

He put an ear to the door, listening. He could hear a faint whirring sound inside. Someone else might still be in there. He curled his hands into tight balls. Pulling back, he scanned the doors edges for a sliver of light, coming up empty. Not demons, then. Not magic. If he left now, he’d never find out what Argos was hiding. But breaking in came at the risk of exposing himself to anyone who might be inside.

Cary tugged at his shirt, and whispered, “What are you doing?” The shadows did little to conceal her frown. She had Brent’s book tucked under her arm.

“If one person came in and two left, that’s alarm bells to me. What if someone else is still in the building?” A shiver gripped his spine. No. He’d come this far and refused to run. He had to find out what Brent was doing. “I’m not leaving.”

Shattering glass erupted from behind the locked door.

“What was that?” She stepped closer.

Beneath his skin, nerves jumped. The noise definitely came from the mystery room. “I’m opening the door.”

“Are you crazy? This is our cue to leave. I’ve got the book with names. Let’s go.”

“Something’s going on here,” he said.

“And I don’t want to die. Let’s leave before we get caught.”

“Not before I find out what the hell is going on,” he said. “You can wait for me in the back alley. You’ll be safe there.”

She looked back and forth, several times, between Levi and the dark hallway leading outside, but didn’t move. “I’m not leaving you.”

Levi took a deep breath and kicked his heel into the door near the lock. The wood creaked. Two more kicks, and the door slammed open.

It was too dark to see. An electric charge in the air made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

He swept his flashlight across the room. The long table against the back wall was littered with jars containing liquids and herbs. Three of the jars were on their sides, one close to the edge. Several mortar and pestles littered a corner. The ground was covered in shattered glass and broken jars.

“It stinks of sulfur,” Cary said.

Levi’s legs froze as he scanned every corner of the room. An iron chair, carved with runes, occupied the middle of the room. His light streamed across the back wall to a cage large enough to accommodate a standing man. Its door hung wide open with the keys still in the lock. Two additional cages at the back had fabric draped over them.

He swallowed the lump wedged in his throat and considered leaving with Cary.

The crunch of glass had Levi turning to find Cary peering inside a metal container. Her hand dipped in and came back out with two black stones in her palm. “What the fuck are they doing with these?”

Levi’s pulse raced.

“What is this place?” She nudged his elbow.

“Well, either Brent gets the munchies at work and needs his own personal kitchen, or we’re in a testing lab.”

“Except,” Cary said, “the testing facilities for Argos are in the basement.” She stepped into his light, heading toward the cages. She reached for the fabric on the second prison pen and pulled it off. Her sharp gasp pierced the air.

Inside, was a man sitting on a chair. Head tilted forward, he only wore shorts and his body was covered in ink. Levi bristled at the idea of an innocent human being used for experiments. What the fuck, Brent? He rushed forward.

“Stop.” Cary blocked his path. “Look at his flesh.”

Levi pointed his flashlight. The man’s torso and limbs were inked with runes and words in different languages.

Cary’s voice wavered. “Those are suppression spells on his skin. The kind used on our handcuffs to keep demons locked inside a body.” She moved closer, inches from the bars.

Levi retraced his steps to the door and searched the wall for a switch. He flipped it on and the fluorescent lights flickered to life. Cary stepped closer to the second covered cage.

“The files, the money transfers, the stuff in Brent’s office...” Levi wondered aloud. “Were the payments meant for this?”

He couldn’t ignore the glaringly obvious problem—Argos trapping demons and controlling them, the same kind responsible for killing three hunters in Louisiana. This wasn’t a coincidence. Fuckin’ Argos was responsible. Levi would rip Brent’s heart out with his bare hands.

The blood in his veins raged like a bull. He paced the length of the room and back.

Cary picked up the clipboards hanging from first cage, flipping through the pages. “All their experiments are about keeping the cadaver from rotting.” Her head jerked up. “They’re putting demons into dead bodies, but the human body isn’t lasting. What happens to the demon under these spells when the body decomposes and fades away? These people are dead.”

“Why are they trying to control demons inside bodies?”

Cary scanned the dozen or so folders in a side cupboard. “No idea.”

The puzzlement on her face twisted his gut.

In the cage in front of him, the man’s head snapped up, yellow pupils fixed on Levi.

A sudden quake shook the room, the jars on the table rattled, and the covered cage quivered.

An animal growl echoed around them and the door of the third cage creaked opened, the fabric still concealing what lay inside.

Levi recoiled, shoving Cary behind him.

A shrieking alarm pierced through the building.

“Let’s get this done quickly,” Levi said.

A pair of legs in heels stepped out of the cage beneath the fabric.

Levi’s skin crawled as if a thousand spiders swarmed his body.

Cary tucked the notebook into the back of her jeans and gripped her lasso.

He exchanged a quick glance with her and nodded. She reached for the fabric and ripped it free.

Without another thought, Levi tossed his lasso over the woman’s head. Rune tattoos littered her arms, up her neck, stopping at her hairline. She scratched at the leash, her blue eyes bulging and pinned on Levi. Drooling, she kicked and clawed toward Levi, but she lacked the usual demonic strength. She lacked yellow eyes as well. Must be the spells.

“Cary, get the other one. We’re finishing this now.”

She slipped toward the third cage.

The ringing siren deafened him. Dread flooded his veins. Argos security and cops would arrive in no time.

The first sign of a black tendril floated out from the corner of the woman’s mouth and eyes.

Cary kept checking over her shoulder, her cheeks pale as sheets of paper. She lassoed her possessed victim.

Noose vibrated uncontrollably in his hands, then the woman’s head dipped backward and black smoke burst from every pore in her body. It exploded into moths. Done. Levi lifted the woman over his shoulder. He half staggered with the dead weight against him out of the room and into the corridor and left her there. Then he went in and retrieved the second innocent.

Son of a bitch, Brent.

“I’ve got an idea!” Dashing back into the office, he snatched the unopened bottle of Brent’s expensive scotch and returned to the hallway.

“Go outside.” Levi turned to Cary, his voice direct and loud. “I’ll take the bodies downstairs as proof of what’s going on here. The dead bodies in full view will put the place under inspection, hopefully ending this shit.”

Cary hurried down the corridor without a protest. She must be just as freaked out as him.

Levi ripped the lid off the bottle, took a gulp, and entered the lab. He drenched the area with the booze. He retrieved his lighter and threw it into a puddle. Gold flames sprung up instantly and spread.

Out in the hallway, he spotted Cary dragging a body by a leg toward the staircase.

From outside, sirens wailed.

“Leave the bodies by the stairs,” he yelled. “The police will find them.”

After tonight, he’d never be able to show his face near Argos if he didn’t land in prison first. So, he’d use this last chance to retrieve what Brent stolen from him months ago. He’d hadn’t checked Brent’s desk drawer and couldn’t leave until he searched there.

“Cary, I’ll meet you outside.”

Cary was halfway down the steps when she spun back around. “Levi.” Her voice was strangled. “You’ll get caught.”

“Get out, now.” He sprinted for the office. An orange glow and heat belched from the lab.

Zipping around the desk, he ripped open a drawer. His hand rummaged through the pens, letter openers, and other stationary crap. He yanked on the second one. Locked. No other place for the dog tags to be but in the locked drawer.

A loud thud downstairs could only mean security or cops were in the building. Fuck. Snatching the letter opener from the desk, he ran it along the top of the locked drawer. It refused to open. Enough of this bullshit.

With one foot pressed up against the edge of the table, he gripped the handle with two hands and pulled. Something gave. He flew backward, slamming into the wall. The handle was in his hand, but the drawer remained shut.

“Give me a fuckin’ break.”

He shoved the table forward, turning it on its side, and kicked the heel of his boot into the drawer’s underside. It dented it. Another two kicks and he’d created a massive crater. Ripping the wood away with his bare hands, he saw exactly what he was after: A black metal box with a lock. He grabbed it, leapt over the table, and dashed into the corridor where flames now poured out of the lab and licked along the wall toward the computer room.

The bodies were gone. Where were they? He bolted forward as cop car lights pulsed outside the windows. Motherfucker.