Itsuko’s whole body hurt, especially where that black lightning had struck her. Cristo’s dimensional door had carried them to a parking lot a mile from the museum where they’d left their car for a quick getaway. It was supposed to have been a quick getaway with the prison, not them fleeing with their tails tucked between their legs.
She sat on the hood and cursed the universe.
“Do you require healing?” Cristo asked in his deep, sonorous voice. If the whole black magic warlock thing didn’t work out he’d have a bright future as a singer.
She thought for a moment then shook her head. Everything hurt, but nothing felt damaged. “What the hell happened? You were supposed to deal with magic.”
“Daisuke Kugo is a powerful necromancer. I believe I could take him one-on-one, maybe, but I couldn’t do so while maintaining your enhancements. Could you have defeated the girl without my magic?”
“Doubtful.” It pained Itsuko to admit that, but the brat was good enough she had no real hope of beating her with just her natural ability. “What are we going to do now?”
“Return to the apartment and make plans for our next attempt. As long as we have the seal, I can find the prison. The only thing that’s changed is the location we need to attack. Nothing less than the demon’s power will save us from the Blood of Solomon’s wrath.”
The sound of approaching sirens prompted Itsuko to slide off the hood and climb in the passenger side of their nondescript tan sedan. Cristo got behind the wheel and they set out for the inn outside the city that they’d chosen for their temporary base.
“Did we make the right decision?” she asked.
“That’s a rather broad question.”
“Ditching the Blood of Solomon and going off on our own. We both knew what their reaction would be. We could’ve just turned the seal over and had a nice payday.”
“I’m weary of serving others. With the demon’s power, we can start our own group or take over one of the smaller cults. We’ll be real players in the magical world, not mercenaries and thieves.”
“Assuming we can find it before one of their agents finds us.”
Cristo flashed his perfectly white teeth. “That was always the gamble. Our first roll of the dice came up snake eyes. Perhaps our next roll will be more successful.”
She barked a humorless laugh. “How many rolls do you think we’ll get?”
“I wish I knew.” He pulled onto the highway and sped up.
The traffic wasn’t bad and twenty minutes of driving brought them to their off-ramp. The worst of Itsuko’s pain was gone, but she still felt weaker than usual.
“What kind of spell did he hit me with?”
“Black lightning. It’s a negative energy spell that burns away your life force with each hit. A couple more seconds and it would’ve reduced you to a lifeless husk.”
“Nasty. I guess he didn’t plan to capture us.”
“No, that isn’t Daisuke’s reputation. Nor the Circle’s for that matter. People that oppose them tend to disappear, permanently.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Indeed, though I’m sure if you pointed out the similarities between them, both the Blood of Solomon and the Circle of Sorcery would hasten to deny such a thing existed. Both sides of this war are remarkable hypocrites.”
Cristo touched the brakes and pulled into a gas station. She glanced at the dashboard. They still had over half a tank. “What’s up?”
He parked by the station. “Someone just set off the alarm spell I placed on our room at the inn.”
“A maid?”
“No, I specifically asked for no maid service today. I fear our former employer has tracked us down.”
“That’s not good. But if it is a Blood agent, would they have noticed your alarm spell?”
“I used a variation that’s very difficult to detect specifically for this reason.”
Itsuko nodded. When it came to magic, she’d never gone wrong trusting Cristo. “So what do we do?”
“I had hoped to wait a day to let you fully recover, but it seems we’ll need to accelerate our schedule. If you’re up to driving, I’ll locate the prison and we’ll grab it tonight.”
“I’ll be ready.”
Haakon Lybeck scowled around at the empty room. He’d tracked the traitors to this place, an inn situated in the middle of nowhere, but it seemed he’d arrived too late once more. It had been his task to oversee the mercenaries hired by the Blood of Solomon to retrieve the seal and prison. It would’ve been bad enough if they simply failed to complete the mission. The betrayal had been far worse. Especially since he’d seen no indication of it beforehand.
Itsuko and Cristo had lowered his standing in the eyes of Lord Solomon and the only way to get that back was to kill the pair and complete their mission himself. And he would do this. There was no question in Haakon’s mind. Their betrayal had been a temporary setback, not a failure.
Whether his master saw it that way or not was another matter.
A final search through the room yielded nothing to either his magical or mundane sight. He also had to assume that his targets would know that he’d entered and would therefore not be returning.
It seemed he was back to square one.
Haakon stalked out and turned toward the parking lot where his too-small rental car waited. At six foot six and two hundred and twenty pounds, most cars were too small for him, but it seemed every car in this country was designed to make him uncomfortable. That did nothing to improve his already poor mood.
He encountered no one on his way back to the parking lot, lucky for them. As he reached for the handle his phone rang.
It had to be something important since only Lord Solomon and some of the other higher-ranking members of the society—Haakon disliked the name “cult”—had access to his number.
“Yes?”
“The prison has been located,” an unfamiliar voice said.
Haakon frowned. That was fast. If one of their agents had found it, that meant the traitors either failed to claim it or hadn’t made their move yet.
“Tell me everything.”
The stranger did so. Apparently the thieves failed in their attempt to seize the prison though they did manage to kill a number of security guards. A member of the Kugo clan and another unknown wizard had defeated them but the pair escaped.
Though partly disappointed, he was also pleased to still have a chance at killing them himself.
“The prison is being held for safekeeping at the Kugo estate. Itsuko and Cristo will know this as well. If the luck of our ancestor is with you, they may show up and you can claim both the seal and the prison at the same time.”
The ancestor’s luck hadn’t been with Haakon since the day he first laid eyes on the two thieves. Perhaps it was time for that to change.
Out of curiosity he asked, “How did you learn this?”
“Yoshikazu Kugo called the museum director to let him know that the prison was safe. We’ve had the director’s phone tapped since it became clear they had one of the bronze prisons.”
Haakon accepted this without question. Given the wealth and power at the society’s disposal, such a thing would be no challenge at all.
“I will make my move tonight.”