I was aware, if not wholly awake. The surface under my bare back was smooth and dreadfully cool, numbing me. But on a magical level, not due to the weather. I rolled onto my side, slowly pulling my knees to my chest. My limbs were heavy, my nerve endings strained, overloaded.
From the cattle prod.
I was naked. A number of spots on my rib cage and chest were tender, raw. Bruised.
So they hadn’t killed me.
How completely idiotic of them. I’d already proven I couldn’t be forced to wield my magic on command. And if Ruwa had been speaking truthfully about San Francisco, she’d already seen that I couldn’t be held.
It didn’t matter. Their arrogance would be a death sentence.
And I, once again, would be forced to subject my tattered soul to further degradation.
I breathed shallowly, allowing my thoughts to settle. I focused on absorbing the pain, making it my own. Healing.
Retribution would come soon enough.
It always did.
Magic whispered through my mind. I started to push it away, then I recognized the tenor.
I opened my eyes, finding myself looking at Opal. She was lying on her side, a field of magic between us. The dream walker was accessing the memory of the botched job in San Francisco to connect with me.
Smart girl. But then, I’d already known she was a survivor.
I smiled. “You’re alive, then?”
“Yep. I mean, I was before I fell asleep. But maybe I could still be here with you even if I was dead?”
I sighed, tired enough to close my eyes, and momentarily feeling the hard steel surface underneath me. A chilly magic was still attempting to hold me, contain me.
“Don’t leave,” Opal whispered.
I opened my eyes. “I’m going to have to wake up at some point. To get up. To fulfill the promise I made to you, if nothing else.”
Opal’s eyes filled with tears. “But … won’t Christopher and Aiden come for us?”
“They will. But why let them have all the fun?”
Opal’s expression shifted. Her confusion became thoughtful, then settled into a steely resolve. She twisted her lips. “They’re going to have to sleep sometime.”
I laughed quietly, though it hurt all the raw points on my chest and ribs. “It was stupid of them to not block you.”
“They don’t know,” Opal said fiercely. “They don’t know I can dream walk.”
“Like I said — morons.”
“Plus …” She hesitated. “They only had three cages. And I think they think I’m the lesser threat.”
Cages.
I was in a cage.
That was what I was feeling under me — the steel bottom of a cage. And the numbing magic? Nullifying power embedded into the cage’s floor and bars.
I started laughing.
“Emma? Emma, I can’t hold you if —”
“Time for me to wake up, little witch,” I said, getting my hand underneath my shoulder for leverage. “I’ll see you in real life very soon.”
“But how are you going to get out of the cage?”
I sat up, tearing myself free from the dream.
“Jesus Christ!” someone snarled from nearby.
I blinked rapidly to quickly adjust my eyes to the low light. I was, as expected, in a cage, about a meter and a half squared. Not tall enough to stand within. Thick steel bars glistened with magic, set about a hand’s width apart.
“Do you always wake up like that?” a woman asked from beside me. “That’s freaky as hell.”
I slowly rotated my head. I wasn’t in pain, but I felt weak, drained. Nullified.
Jenni Raymond was confined in an identical cage to my right. Also naked, knees pulled up to her chest. She shivered, but held my gaze.
The RCMP officer’s appearance wasn’t unexpected, but it was an annoying complication. Now I was rescuing two people — Opal and the shifter. I saw no sign of the young witch, so she was presumably in some other part of whatever building we were held in.
“How long have I been out?” I asked. My voice rasped through my throat, as if it was damaged. Possibly from screaming? I couldn’t remember.
Jenni shook her head once, sharply. Her unbound hair danced around her shoulders. “A couple of hours, maybe as many as four? I can’t track the light in here … or feel …” She grimaced, clenching and unclenching her hands.
The moon, she meant.
“The cages nullify magic,” I said.
“What?” she cried. “Fuck. I was hoping you’d wake up and bust us out.”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
She snorted. “Christopher will come.”
“Yes,” I said, scanning the room and immediately discerning the top edges of an empty third cage tucked in a far dark corner to my left. “Christopher will eventually find us. Just as soon as the spell holding him at bay wears off.”
“What? What spell? Did … is he hurt? Did the person pretending to be me hurt him?”
The light spilling in around the door informed me it was of flimsy construction. The room was otherwise bare of furniture. I squinted at the nearest wall, thinking there might have been figures drawn on it. Possibly runes?
“Star Wars,” Jenni said.
That threw me. “The movie?” Christopher had made me watch the Star Wars films over the previous few months, insisting that it was a necessary area of cultural study. I’d liked the fight sequences.
“The wallpaper. We’re in Tyler Grant’s bedroom.”
I laughed, a sharp noise of contempt torn from me involuntarily. Something stirred to my left within the depths of the third cage.
“Emma? Is Christopher hurt?”
“Just pissed off. At least the last I saw of him.” I squinted in the low light. “I got my ass kicked by a couple of mundanes wielding cattle prods. But I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
“Wow, sarcasm. From you. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Red slitted eyes appeared within the third cage, staring at me. I gathered my legs under me, still moving sluggishly. Crouching, I shuffled back a step, putting more space between me and the demon that appeared to be caged in the bedroom with us.
“What idiot puts a demon in a cage meant to nullify magic?” I whispered, exceedingly aware that I didn’t have a single weapon I could use against the creature that had apparently just awakened. “The magic isn’t compatible.”
“That’s not a demon,” Jenni said. “At least … I didn’t think she was … a demon …”
The demon’s eyes blazed red. It dropped open a massive maw, displaying double rows of sharp teeth that were unmistakable even in the low light.
I started laughing.
The demon in the cage joined me, emitting a low, deadly, chuffing chuckle that raised all the hair on my body.
“Fuck,” Jenni Raymond whispered. “Paisley’s a fucking demon?”
“No,” I said, but I didn’t elaborate. Because if I had caged a group of Adepts of unknown power in a bedroom, I definitely would have had listening devices installed.
“What the fuck? I can see, you know?” Jenni snarled.
I pointed at my ear, giving her a look.
“Fuck,” she muttered, then she nodded her understanding. “She … Paisley was badly hurt. When they dragged her in here. Then they brought you in.”
I nodded, my gaze on Paisley. “That’s a good puppy.”
Paisley chuffed indignantly. But after a moment, her red eyes and sharp teeth disappeared, and all I could see was the dark outline of her body. So if Jenni Raymond hadn’t seen Paisley in one of her other forms since she’d been caged, it was possible that the sorcerers who’d kidnapped us hadn’t seen those forms either.
“Explain one thing to me,” Jenni said dourly.
“Just one?”
She snorted. “For now.”
I waved my hand to tell her to continue, even as I ran over the resources available in my mind. The options I had while confined to the cage — as well as once I got out.
“Why the hell are we naked?” she asked quietly.
“It’s easier to strip our clothing off than to search for hidden spells or charms imbued into them,” I said, wrapping my hands around the bars. A chilly flood of magic ran up my arms, instantly numbing me. “And some sorcerers inscribe spells on their bodies, so they’d want to check for those.” I tested my strength on the bars, but found I could barely engage my muscles. I loosened my hold, settling back in the center of the cage, crouched on my toes with my gaze on the bedroom door.
Ready.
“Then why leave us naked?” Jenni asked. “Afterward?”
“It’s demoralizing.” I glanced her way. “But we don’t care, Jenni Raymond. Do we?”
“I’m in this cage because of you, Emma.”
“Actually, you can probably blame Aiden for this one. But I haven’t put it all together yet.” I gave her another look. “Or you can take responsibility for your own actions and choices.”
“Like you do?” She sneered.
I laughed darkly. “Every day. Every day of my life. I can never forget.” I looked back at the door. “I’m never allowed to wholly forget. I carry the magic with me, from the moment of my birth, embedded into my soul. Today will be no different.”
“Jesus,” Jenni muttered.
Silence fell between us, quiet enough that I picked up Paisley’s steady breathing. But I couldn’t hear anything through the door despite the obvious gaps around the frame. Meaning it was magically sealed.
“So …” Jenni whispered. “We don’t care about the clothing situation, because worse has been done to us? And we survived.”
“Yes.”
I caught her nod in my peripheral vision. Then she shifted back, mimicking my crouched position, with only her toes touching the steel bottom of the cage.
“They’re going to torture us,” I said. “It’s built into the design of the cages.”
“How do you know?” Jenni asked, her voice steady.
“I’ve seen it in action. The black witch in the woods used cages like this, for Christopher and Aiden.”
“She tortured Christopher?”
“She didn’t get the chance.”
“But you aren’t worried.”
“No. It uses our own magic against us. So they can’t kill us with it.”
“But they can incapacitate us.”
“Definitely.”
Jenni looked at me long and hard, then she nodded. “So you can’t promise me that I won’t die.”
“No. But I can promise you a good death.”
Magic shifted around the doorframe. I could see but not feel it. Then the door opened, flooding the room with light. I blinked rapidly.
Ruwa, once again swathed in layers of silk, sashayed in.
I flicked a glance Paisley’s way. She’d reverted to her pit bull aspect and was currently pretending to be unconscious. Clever puppy.
Isa Azar then stepped into the open doorway, hands stuffed into the pockets of his suit pants, bunching up the sides of the jacket. He cast his gaze across all three cages, then finally settled on me. “This wasn’t the agreement.”
He wasn’t talking to me.
Ruwa paused, pivoting back to look at Isa. “So you keep saying.” She stood within reach of my cage, but I was biding my time.
Isa stepped into the bedroom. “I had Aiden. Even if not readily agreeing with me, then willing at least to open a discussion.”
“And now we have the amplifier. With or without your brother, your father won’t be able to stand against us now.”
I started laughing. “Kadar Azar has the worst luck in family members.”
Ruwa whirled around, snarling at me. “What do you know about it? You have no idea what he’s done to either of us!”
“I have an idea it’s nothing compared to what he’s done to me.”
Ruwa glanced back at Isa. “What’s she talking about?”
Isa shrugged.
“God, I hated you from the moment I stepped foot in this shithole of a town.” Ruwa slammed her hand down on the corner of the cage. I’d been waiting for her to trigger the rune that I knew was built into the cage’s design, but which I couldn’t see from my vantage point.
Magic surged through the bars, collecting under my feet.
As I’d expected.
These cages had been constructed by Daniel. My blood-bonded brother in arms. I knew that Fish had taken the cages Silver Pine had used with him when he left Lake Cowichan, and the presence of a third cage confirmed that these were duplicates. But it was an easy guess that they functioned exactly the same way.
“This is going to hurt,” Ruwa said, peering down at me. The red haze of her magic clung to her eyes.
“You more than me.”
Power surged through me, searing my every sense, every nerve, from my toes up to my spine — where it encountered the blood tattoo embedded into my T1 vertebra.
Daniel’s tattoo. The anchor for his power. The place where that power became mine to claim, to gather. And eventually to use.
I lunged forward, grabbing the bars of the cage for support, using the nullifying power coating them to numb the pain streaking through my body.
Ruwa flinched, stumbling back. Her hand fell away from the rune.
I started laughing again, racked with agony. Struggling to contain, if not control, all the power that had been pumped into me. My power. Passively collected by the cage, then turned against me.
I’d once asked Daniel if he’d built a back door into the cages Silver Pine bought from him. The cage she tried to use against Christopher. He hadn’t — except he had. Because the black witch hadn’t known that Daniel’s magic didn’t work against any of the Five. Not the same way as it did against anyone else.
So with Daniel’s blood tattooed under my skin, his magic bonded to my T1 vertebra, I was the back door. And Ruwa had just given me a massive boost of the power that had been collected from me the entire time I’d been in the cage. My already formidable power, doubled now.
I could feel foam at the corners of my mouth. As the magic ebbed under my feet, I loosened my hands from the bars. I had to peel my numbed fingers away from the magic-coated steel.
Ruwa and Isa were both staring at me in unabashed horror.
Still fighting residual convulsions, I settled back in my crouched position at the center of the cage. Then I pinned my gaze to the sorcerers.
“Out,” Isa barked.
Ruwa flinched, then her body jerked as she fought the compulsion binding that forced her to obey Isa’s command. She smoothed her gait, striding past the other sorcerer with her head held high.
Isa kept his gaze on me, steady. “I assume you’ll try to kill me if I let you out of that cage? Emma?”
I smiled.
He grimaced, reaching for the door handle as he backed up. “We’ll work this out. A contract will be written up.”
“Sure …” My words were slurred. “Just give me a pen. I can’t remember the last time I killed a sorcerer with a pen.” Then I cackled.
Isa shut the door. Magic flooded through the frame, sealing us within.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jenni Raymond snarled. “You’re insane.”
“Who would you rather be caged up with?” I asked flippantly, laying my head forward on my bent knees. I needed to sleep to shake off the residual of the feedback spell.
“What did he mean by contract?”
“He’ll free us if we sign … in blood … that we won’t kill him.”
“That … that’s good, isn’t it? That means Aiden’s brother wasn’t in on it. Kidnapping us.”
“No. It means he’s a sneaky bastard, trying to bind us to an agreement that he intends to twist beyond its obvious parameters. It’ll be a backward binding, especially if Ruwa is the one drafting the contract. She’s supposed to be a specialist.”
Jenni growled under her breath. “So that scene, the bit they did when they opened the door, was just for our benefit?”
“Possibly. Shut up now. I need to sleep for a bit.”
“You are such an asshole.”
“I know.”
Isa Azar stepped back into the makeshift prison room quickly enough that I was certain he’d already had the contracts he now carried drawn up. I had managed to sleep for maybe ten minutes. Not enough to take full advantage of the game the sorcerer was about to try to play with me. But the surge of magic I’d gained from Ruwa’s attempt to torture me had settled.
Barely glancing at the cages that held Jenni and Paisley, Isa Azar crouched down in front of my cage. I ignored him, keeping my gaze on the open doorway and the hallway beyond. I couldn’t see Ruwa, nor could I feel any magic outside the cage. But keeping count of how many people I needed to take down when I carved a path for our escape was always a solid plan.
“Emma,” Isa said softly, “I must apologize that you’ve gotten caught up in my feud with my brother —”
“And Opal?”
“Sorry?”
“If I’m simply a pawn to be used against Aiden, why involve the witch? She has no connection to Aiden.”
Isa opened his mouth to speak, then thoughtfully shut it.
I leaned forward on my toes, grinning. “Are you actually being played that badly, Isa Azar?”
“I have the situation well in hand,” he said stiffly.
“It’s one or the other, sorcerer. Either you’ve backed every move Ruwa has made — kidnapping Opal, then Jenni, me, and Paisley. Or she’s dragging you along …” I trailed off, recalling Ruwa’s requests to negotiate with me, and her suggestion that she had attempted to hire me through proper channels.
My inbox had been unusually full lately with unread emails from the recruiter, Karolyn Dunn. I grinned.
“The binding,” I said.
“What binding?” Isa snapped.
“Ruwa needs me to break your binding.”
“Nonsense. It is unbreakable, until her death.”
I stretched out one arm, then the other, judging the distance between the bars and Isa. “What is death when you have the likes of me at your side?”
Isa’s eyes gleamed, which wasn’t the reaction I’d expected. I stared at him. I had no idea what motivated the sorcerer. The easy answer would have been jealousy, envy. But of the two brothers, Isa was the one in the superior position. He was older, which meant he had more training and experience than Aiden. And he was the scion of the Azar cabal.
“You know that your father knows,” I whispered. “When did you put it together? That Kadar Azar set brother against brother when he discovered you helped Silver Pine get her hands on him?”
Isa’s expression turned stony.
“Was it Ruwa who persuaded you to mend ties with Aiden? Telling you that the two of you together would be strong enough to usurp your father?”
“Ridiculous,” Isa snapped. Then he fanned the sheaf of paper in his hand. “Sign these and I let you out of the cage. We can all go our separate ways.”
“It’s too late for that, Isa. And I’m genuinely sorry. I never take pleasure in killing. And I worry that when I kill you, I will hurt Aiden. But your transgressions against me and those under my protection won’t be signed away, not even in blood.”
Isa shook his head, sneering. “I took you for a rational being —”
I lunged forward, thrusting my arm through the steel bars. Slamming my shoulder and chest against the cage, I clawed my fingers into Isa’s suit jacket. Magic numbed me wherever I touched the steel. I ignored it.
Isa threw himself back. His suit pocket tore off in my hand. He fell on his ass, staring at me. Dumbfounded. The individual pages of the contract settled onto the carpeted floor between us.
I pulled back, gripping the bars. “You put me in a cage, Isa Azar. Not even your father was ever stupid enough to do that. I’m going to shred you. Bleed you. I’ll tear the skin from your skeleton and suck the magic out of your bones.”
Fear — actual terror — crawled across his face.
I shuffled back, crouching on the balls of my feet in the center of the cage, ready for the magical hit I was about to take. Absorbing one more blast of my own magic would hopefully be enough to help me override the nullifying power of the cage.
Isa ran his hand down his lapel, smoothing his suit. Then he ran the same hand through his hair, regaining his composure. “I believe there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m not —”
“I no longer care. Your words mean nothing to me. I don’t care if caging me wasn’t your primary intention. I don’t care who your father is, or even who your brother is. No one puts me in a cage. No one attempts to keep me against my will and lives.”
“Emma —”
“Either start the torturing part of our misunderstanding or get out of my line of sight.”
Isa got to his feet, crumpling the contract beneath his polished dress shoes. He smiled at me, mockingly. “There are other ways to bend you to my will, amplifier.”
“Then try them, sorcerer. I cannot be bound. I cannot be contained.” I pinned my gaze to his. “Don’t you know? Your own father made sure of that.”
He frowned. He still didn’t truly know who I was. He must have pieced some bits together, presumably through his association with Silver Pine. But he really had no idea of the truth.
I grinned, somewhat manically. Then I wrapped my arms around my knees, tucking my thighs to my chest for warmth. Conserving energy, keeping my gaze pinned to the sorcerer, knowing he wouldn’t be standing on the other side of the cage for much longer. I laughed darkly.
Isa’s expression settled into that cool detachment that was apparently standard for an Azar sorcerer. Aiden pulled it off more convincingly.
“The mundane weapons quelled you easily enough,” Isa said evenly. “So you can be killed.”
I snorted. “No one is immortal, sorcerer. But it will take someone with much more power, much more commitment than you to do the deed.”
Isa spun on his heel, then marched stiff-backed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Magic sealed its edges.
“Well …” Jenni Raymond drawled from the confines of the cage to my right. “That was intense.”
I frowned. “I was trying to goad him into giving me another blast of the magic stored in the cages.”
“You know that’s insane, right?”
“Do you want out of the cage or not, shifter?”
“I really, really do. Because I really, really need to pee.”
I didn’t answer her. If Isa wasn’t going to trigger the cage, I was going to have to come up with another plan.
I settled my gaze on Paisley, trying to judge the distance between us.
The door slammed open, embedding its knob into the drywall behind it. I involuntarily flinched. I hated not being able to sense magic.
Ruwa strolled into the room, grinning at me. “My turn.”
I tensed. But the sorcerer abruptly turned toward the cage that held Jenni, slamming her hand over the rune embedded in the top right corner. Triggering the feedback torture spell built into the nullifying cage.
It hit the shifter so hard that it appeared to freeze her in time and space for a moment. Then she started screaming.
Ruwa left her hand on the rune and her gaze on me, gauging my reaction.
I simply looked at her, silently promising her a long, lingering death.
Jenni collapsed.
Ruwa frowned, lifting and pressing her hand a few times on the rune. Nothing else happened.
The feedback spell had run out of juice — most likely because Jenni Raymond didn’t have much juice to begin with.
I promised myself that after I got out of the cage, I was going to have a short, nasty conversation with Fish. Building two of these cages for a witch he was sleeping with was bad enough. But apparently building and selling them in volume?
Of course, Fish’s loyalty was to the Five, first and foremost. And since none of us could be held in such a cage for very long, he undoubtedly saw no ethical reason not to make a profit with his magic. Unfortunately, I was about to run out of the time I needed to develop enough of an immunity for my magically fortified strength to return.
Ruwa growled with dissatisfaction. The noise sounded foreign coming out of a human throat — which reminded me that she was still an unknown player, both magically and motivationally. She pressed a series of points on the cage. Deactivating it, I assumed. Then it clicked open.
Jenni Raymond lay motionless behind the steel bars, breathing but unconscious.
Ruwa reached in, dragging the shifter roughly out by her arm. She was too strong. Granted, she could have been accessing magical artifacts hidden under the layers of her silk dresses, or even using amplification runes. But given her shapeshifting abilities, I didn’t think that was the case.
She dropped Jenni on the carpeted floor. “Drained. Useless.”
“What did you think was going to happen?” I asked.
She looked at me, inexplicably grinning. “You’re trying to turn Isa against me.”
I snorted. “You’ve made your own choices.”
Ruwa grimaced. “Indeed I have.” She toed Jenni, sighing. “Now I’ll have to milk the mundanes a little longer.” She eyed me. “Unless you’d like to power up your friend, amplifier? I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”
“She wouldn’t.”
Ruwa eyed me a little longer. Then she gathered the individual papers of Isa’s contract together, placing the pile just within reach of my fingertips. Carefully staying out of that reach as she did so. She pulled a black pen from the pocket of her dress and placed it on the contract. “Sign on the dotted line, amplifier, and you’ll be home in time for tea.” She lifted her gaze to meet mine. “You like tea, don’t you?”
“You think you can own me, sorcerer?” I asked casually.
She smiled. “I already do. You just don’t know it yet.”
“It’s not dotted.”
“What?”
“The line. On the contract. It’s simply a line, not a series of dots.”
“Are you … is that supposed to be a metaphor?”
“No. Just an observation. Also, I’ll need something sharper than a nib.” I nodded toward the pen. “To sign in blood, I’ll need to pierce my skin. A sharp kitchen knife will do.”
I met her gaze steadily — and picked up that red haze over her pupils again. If it was some sort of active magic, I was confused about why I could see it while confined to the nullifying cage. Though I could see the magic when the seal on the door was triggered, so maybe the cage wasn’t nullifying all my senses. Still, I had no idea what type of power Ruwa was accessing.
“You want me to give you a knife?” she asked mockingly.
“You want me to sign the contract in blood, yes? This is all just some big power play, isn’t it?”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You really didn’t think it through, did you?” I said quietly. “Didn’t do your homework. How could you have witnessed any part of the incident in San Francisco and still think you could succeed at this?”
“I’ve succeeded already,” she said archly. “I neutralized the clairvoyant, so he couldn’t come to your rescue. Then I put you and the dog in nullifying cages, not blood-fueled pentagrams.”
I had to cede her those points.
Fortunately, though, I wasn’t going to be in the cage for much longer.
Ruwa grabbed Jenni’s arm and dragged her out of the room, sealing the door shut behind her. So now I had to find the shifter in addition to the witch on my way out of the Grants’ house.
I turned to look at Paisley. “Ready?”
She slowly blinked her eyes at me. They began to glow red.
I lay down on my side, still trying to minimize my contact with the cage, but needing to stretch my arm as far as I could toward Paisley. My skin instantly numbed wherever it came into contact with the steel floor.
Paisley reached through the bars of her cage with two tentacles, wrapping them around my fingers. I concentrated, trying to feel my magic under my skin. Even though the cages didn’t dampen the magic that came with her demon genetics, Paisley had been hurt and drugged. I needed to amplify her, so she could heal and transform fully.
But I hadn’t yet developed enough of an immunity to the nullifying cage to manifest my amplification power. Paisley flexed her tentacles around my fingers comfortingly.
I met her gaze. “You’re going to have to take it.”
She narrowed her eyes, withdrawing from me slightly.
“Paisley,” I whispered. “You know the magic is in my blood. You’re going to have to take it.”
She snarled.
“I’m your commanding officer. You will obey a direct order from me.”
She flashed her teeth at me.
“Paisley.”
The demon dog wrapped her tentacles around my fingers and palm again, grumbling under her breath. Magic seared into my skin.
I gasped.
Paisley’s hold loosened.
“No. You know how much you need to take, so take it. Then wait.”
Paisley’s grip tightened. Her magic slashed through my skin. Then she started draining my blood.
I kept my gaze on her steadily, even after I grew lightheaded enough that I had to lay my head down on my arm.
Then I slept.
Isa Azar was crouched over my extended arm when I woke, eyeing the still-weeping burns on my fingers, wrists, and hand. He turned his gaze to Paisley, not realizing that I’d woken and was watching him. My entire body felt numb, weakened. As expected after feeding blood to a demon-hybrid dog, as well as being in continual contact with the nullifying cage.
I wiggled my fingers, then flexed, drawing Isa’s attention.
“This is … interesting …” he mused, raising an eyebrow.
I pulled my arm back through the bars, cradling it on my chest. Every nerve ending in my body alternately tingled, then felt as though it was bursting into flame. “I’m glad you’re here, Isa,” I whispered.
Surprise flashed across his features — he looked so much like Aiden, yet nothing like him at all. “Why is that, Emma?”
“I’m going to need your magic.”
He frowned.
I laughed.
Isa carefully blanked his expression. “I can’t keep you here much longer, amplifier.”
“Oh yes? So if I don’t sign your contract, I’ll have to be put down?”
“Regrettably.”
I laughed quietly, stretching out my legs one at a time. Flexing my toes, then slowly bending my knees. I was feeling lighter, more like myself. My immunity — stolen from many Adepts over many, many years — was finally kicking in. “You’ve made four mistakes so far.”
The sorcerer snorted, settling back on his heels just out of my reach. “I see. Are you going to enlighten me before you die?”
I gurgled out a laugh. “Before you die. Yes. It seems to be a running motif for me these days. I never used to be so chatty. But then, when you have a team like the Five with you, there’s no need to do any stalling.”
Isa’s shoulders stiffened, and he glanced toward the sealed door. “I’m all ears.”
“True. Aiden is much more visually appealing.”
He sneered.
I laughed again, slowly feeling more and more like myself. I bent my arms at the elbow, clenching and unclenching my fists, warming up my muscles. “Mistake number one. Using cages built by my blood brother, my warrior kin.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“You’re about to find out.”
Isa snorted.
I rolled over onto my side, then settled back into a crouched position. Muscles stretching, loosening. “Mistake number two. Assuming Paisley is magic.”
“The dog? Clearly she’s magical.”
“Mistake number three. Assuming the cages would nullify my magic … once that magic was fed to Paisley.”
The first hint of concern flittered across Isa’s face. He dropped his gaze to my arm. There was no way to conceal the fact that I was healing. Rapidly. Being naked did have some disadvantages when one was stalling for time.
“And mistake number four?” Isa asked archly.
Gathering all my strength, I moved, slamming my hands against the cage bars. Isa flinched. But I didn’t reach for him this time.
This time, I grabbed the bars. The nullifying magic seared into my skin.
“You assumed I was just an amplifier.”
Paisley’s tentacles snaked out, winding around Isa and around the bars I was already holding. The sorcerer flung himself to the side. Then, fueled by my blood and with my help, Paisley tore the door from my cage, slamming it sideways into the sorcerer.
I lunged forward, stumbling and falling to my knees as I cleared the numbing influence of the cage. Magic boiled out from Isa, then the cage door reversed course, slamming into me and pinning me against the far wall.
Isa staggered to his feet, hand held toward me, muttering under his breath.
“Come a little closer, sorcerer.” I smiled.
The steel against my chest pressed harder, constricting my breathing. I wrapped my hands around two of the bars and began pushing back, fighting the onslaught of magic that Isa was throwing at me.
Surprise flickered across his face. He pulled his right hand back, still muttering. A second well of dark-blue magic formed in his open palm.
Having created some room to move, I slid sideways along the wall, toward Paisley’s cage. Isa mimicked my movement, going for the door.
His hold on the cage door, and therefore on me, was weakening. But I really didn’t want to take the hit of whatever spell he was building in his right hand.
I reached toward Paisley’s cage, straining against the magic still trying to pin me in place. I brushed my fingers across the top edge — Ruwa had thoughtfully already shown me how to unlock the cages.
Isa dropped the magic holding me in place. I fell forward, still holding the cage door, but managed to finish the unlocking sequence.
Isa threw the orb of energy he’d called forth directly at me.
Paisley lunged out of her cage, swallowing the magic whole. She went down, crashing into the other two cages.
Isa darted for the door, tearing through the sealing spell and fleeing.
I let him go, crawling over to Paisley instead. She made it to her feet, dropped open her mouth, and let out a terrible roar, releasing the spell she’d swallowed. The magic slammed through the doorway, shredding through the walls on both sides of the hall.
“Wow,” I said, laying my hand on Paisley’s back. “That might have seriously hurt. Thank you.”
She snuffled and snorted, but let me scratch her behind the ears.
“We need to find Opal.”
She headed toward the door without further encouragement. I paused to scoop up the pen where it had been knocked against the baseboard by the door.
I had a promise to keep, after all.
Then I stepped into the hallway.
I’d been in the Grants’ house once before, having snuck in to steal some of Tyler’s hair for the perimeter spell Christopher had set up for me at Hannah Stewart’s apartment and store. The hallway looked as I remembered it. Except for the large hole Paisley’s swallowed spell had torn through the wall into the main bathroom. Another doorway sat open at the far end of the corridor to my left, leading to the master bedroom. To my right, stairs led down to the main floor. Threadbare beige carpet spread underfoot. Empty picture hangers marked the graying walls.
It was the sorcerer stepping up to the top of the stairs who gave me pause.
Aiden.
Paisley snarfled happily, sliding past me through the doorway. I stopped her with a hand on her back. She looked up at me questioningly.
“Emma?” Aiden asked, raising both of his hands. “You’re okay, then. That’s a relief. When Isa contacted me … Emma? Everything okay?”
Aiden. My heart had done that odd, painful, twisty thing upon seeing the sorcerer. But I was certain that my heart could be fooled just as easily as my eyes. Aiden Myers in all his glory — breathtaking, blindingly blue eyes, a hint of stubble further defining his jaw, pristinely pressed suit, white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone.
Aiden took off his suit jacket, taking another step toward me. He offered the jacket to me, to cover my naked body. He was wearing rune-scribed platinum and gold rings on seven of his fingers. They appeared to be the ones that Isa had returned to him.
I smiled.
An answering smile spread across his face.
“The facial hair is a nice touch,” I said. “But you forgot the copper rings. And that Aiden doesn’t wear the suit if he doesn’t have to.”
Aiden paused, eyeing me warily. “The suit is layered with protection spells, Emma. I wouldn’t face Isa without it. And copper doesn’t hold magic as thoroughly as gold and platinum.”
I frowned. That was utterly reasonable. And I hadn’t gotten a good look at the rings Isa had returned to Aiden in the diner, so I couldn’t tell if the ones worn by the Aiden standing before me were legitimate.
The tenor of his magic was all Aiden.
I wanted it to be Aiden standing at the end of the hall.
Except I didn’t need to be rescued.
Magic shifted — sorcerer magic by its tenor — under my feet. Someone was casting a massive spell on the ground floor.
“We need to go, Emma.”
“Where’s the bat?”
Aiden hesitated for a breath, then said, “Emma, be realistic. I couldn’t bring a weapon into the house. I made a deal with Isa. Let’s go.”
I threw the pen. It was hefty, well weighted for throwing. I tossed it like it was a small sharp knife.
Aiden’s reaction was slightly delayed. As expected. I did move faster than him. He dropped his suit jacket, twisting away.
I closed the space between us, even before the pen embedded into the drywall behind his right shoulder. I pressed my hands to his face, already taking his magic for my own. Pulling it from him harshly. He gasped, grabbing for my arms — which only gave me more skin contact to work with.
Panic, then anger, roared through the instant connection my empathy triggered between us.
“The problem with your little shapeshifting routine, Ruwa,” I said, “is that apparently you can’t countercast quickly when wearing someone else’s face.”
The false Aiden fell to his knees, gasping in pain. His face rippled under my hands, skin darkening and smoothing. I pulled more and more magic from the sorcerer, taking it for my own, shaking off the last of the residual weakness from being in the nullifying cage.
Paisley snarled as she prowled past me, checking the other rooms along the hall.
“Emma …” Ruwa’s face settled, her silky hair lengthening over my fingers to spill down her back. She gasped, dark brown eyes rolling up in her head. “I needed your help.”
“You mixed me up with someone who cared, sorcerer,” I said.
Then the tenor of her magic shifted under my hands — bringing with it a feeling of wrongness. A revulsion.
I instinctively pulled away, breaking her weak hold on my arms in the same motion. She collapsed at my feet, hitting her head on the carpet without trying to break her fall.
The discordant magic I’d inadvertently collected from her writhed across my hands and forearms, unabsorbed. I flicked my hands, trying to shake it off. It clung to me, so I ignored it instead. Eventually, it would dissipate. I had absolutely no idea what the hell Ruwa had done to be carrying such power, but it was obviously tied to her shapeshifting abilities.
Well, her former shapeshifting abilities. Ruwa was dead. Not breathing, drained of magic, lifeless eyes staring sightlessly upward. There was no hint of red in them anymore.
Dying was one way to dissolve the bond between her and Isa. Though it seemed unlikely that either sorcerer would thank me for it.
Paisley prowled back into the hall, pausing at the top of the stairs and fixing her red-orbed eyes on me.
“Empty?” I asked, confirming what I could already feel. No one with magic in their blood was currently on the top floor of the house.
Paisley turned to skulk down the stairs, which was answer enough. I scooped up the suit jacket Ruwa had dropped, pulling it on and securing both buttons. It brushed against my upper thighs, and the lapels opened all the way down to my lower rib cage, so it didn’t cover much skin. But if it was coated in protection spells, as Aiden’s real suit jacket should have been, it might mitigate some of the hits I was about to take from the sorcerer lurking downstairs.
Isa Azar. Casting some spell that roiled under my bare feet, even through the carpet in the hall. Oily magic that stank of burnt, wet wood. A more intense version of the magic that had clung to the house after it had been invaded by Silver Pine’s greater demon.
I couldn’t feel any other magic, meaning that Opal and Jenni might not be in the house at all. Or they might both be dead.
I yanked the pen out of the drywall, tucking it into the pocket of the suit jacket. Then I rolled the sleeves up my forearms as I slowly descended into a darkness that had apparently swallowed the ground floor of the house. I kept one shoulder against the wall as I turned the corner of the stairs, so as to not be such an obvious target. Paisley was already somewhere ahead of me.
The stink of the magic Isa was calling forth — or perhaps simply reinforcing — became almost suffocating as I stepped off carpet and onto hardwood, moving into the lower hall completely blind.
Thankfully, I already knew the basic layout of the house. The entrance should have been about ten or twelve paces directly in front of me, with the living room off to the right and the dining room to the left. I stepped back, keeping my shoulder against the wall, heading for the kitchen instead.
That would be the most likely place to find weapons, other than the barn or garage. Despite letting Ruwa lead him around, Isa Azar was no idiot. And he was powerful. It was going to be a fight to lay hands on him, to finish him.
But oddly, I realized that Opal and Jenni were my first priorities. There was no way Isa could escape now, nowhere he could go, without my being able to find him. I had no need to rush to extract revenge, even if doing so brought Kader Azar back into my life.
Perhaps the sorcerer Azar needed to face what he’d created.
I quashed my thoughts of vengeance, focusing on the present. Revenge was a game for Fish or Zans, anyway. I preferred to operate in the present.
I found two large knives in the kitchen. They weren’t equally weighted, and their balance for throwing was completely off, but they would do. Paisley found me as I was blindly going through kitchen drawers, twining one of her tentacles around my ankle as if reassuring herself of my presence. As if she’d lost me in the suffocating darkness that had seemingly swamped the entire main floor. I moved blindly into what I knew to be the eating area off the kitchen, keeping my hip against the L-shaped counter until my fingertips brushed against glass.
I pressed my nose against the sliding doors, blinking but still unable to see outside. No snow, no stars. Nothing.
A feeling of dread firmly settled into my stomach that I wasn’t able to fully ignore. I had no idea what sort of spell the sorcerers had managed to encase the house in. But this level of magic took a lot of power to fuel.
The kind of power accessed through blood sacrifices.
I entered the dining room from the kitchen entrance, a soft orange glow greeting me as I cleared the doorway. Candles. Set at the five corners of a pentagram scorched into the hardwood floor. The dining room table and chairs were missing.
I paused, letting my eyes adjust to the change in light level. My stomach churned at the condition of the body contained within the pentagram, fueling whatever spell was tied to it. I’d seen a lot of gruesome things in my life. I’d had a lot of defensive magic thrown at me when I went after targets for the Collective. But, even after taking a few more steps into the room, I couldn’t fully assess what sort of dark magic I was looking at.
A body that had once belonged to Peter Grant had been flayed from the neck down, intestines and entrails wrenched forth and deliberately laid out in some sort of webbed design. Those bloody organs and tissues were connected to the five points of the pentagram. Deep shadows of magic stretched out from each point, shooting across the floor and up the walls as if they connected to something beyond the room, beyond the house. But what that might have been, I didn’t know.
A noise drew my attention to the far right. Opal was pinned in the corner, apparently trapped by the exterior lines of the spell. I could distinguish the witch in the low light only by the blue magic highlighting her eyes, and the dimmer pools in each of her palms.
She didn’t react to my presence. Didn’t look my way even as I stepped forward, then hesitated at the edge of one of the shadowed lines bisecting the floor between me and the young witch.
Paisley sidled up beside me, leaning in to sniff the dark magic that cut through the room, keeping us from crossing to Opal. The demon dog coughed, then huffed, seemingly agreeing with my assessment. Peter Grant was very dead, but the magic felt active. I glanced over at the corpse. I could try disrupting the spell. Except I had no idea what it was doing, other than cloaking the entire ground floor of the house in some sort of seething darkness.
A cold shiver ran through me. I’d seen magic like this before, though on a much smaller scale. Magic that felt oily and slick. Magic that had also made Paisley cough. Power she’d feared instinctively as a puppy.
Silver Pine had once blocked a stairwell in an already heavily fortified underground compound with what had appeared to be a pocket of the demon dimension. I hadn’t stopped to examine the spell then, nor attempted to walk through it. But this felt awfully similar — in a completely overwhelming way.
I shook my head, quashing the terror that threatened to distract me from my task. I quietly backtracked to the hall that bisected the house. I would grab Opal through the other doorway. That way, if doing so disrupted the spell, we’d be closer to the exit.
Once again tracing the wall with my shoulder so I could keep a knife in both hands, I crossed through the house, expecting Isa to appear out of the darkness at any moment. He didn’t. Which wasn’t completely unexpected. He was likely just as smothered by the black magic choking all the air out of the house as I was.
If I were Isa Azar, I would have already fled the house. Fled the property. That wouldn’t explain Ruwa’s final attempt to quell me by wearing Aiden’s form. But the two sorcerers might have been working at cross purposes, with Isa only unwittingly coming along on Ruwa’s attempt to … do what? Have me break the binding spell that Isa held on her?
Ironically, she had managed to force my hand into doing just that. She just hadn’t expected that I could kill as well as amplify by touch.
Another pocket of hazy orange light drew me toward the living room, which sat opposite the dining room. Though I wanted to rush in and rip Opal from the horror she was trapped within, it would have been stupid to not clear the final front room of the house.
I slipped around the edge of the doorway, crouching to make myself a smaller target as I blinked to adjust my eyes. Paisley snarled, shouldering past me and knocking me to the side. I tripped over something, almost losing my footing.
Paisley lunged to the left.
“Stop!” a man shouted. A wall of magic slammed into place, also to my far left.
Paisley snarled and spat. She had someone cornered behind a barrier. I looked down.
I had tripped over Jenni Raymond. She’d been thrown just inside the door, still naked and unconscious. As I bent over her, though, I could feel the muted hum of her magic. So she was healing.
“Call the damn dog off,” Isa said with a snarl, magic heavy in his command.
Holding both knives in one hand, I placed the other hand on Jenni’s upper chest, feeling the steady beat of her heart. Then I glanced over to my left. Paisley was double her regular size and completely blocking my sight of the corner of the room. A tight column of dark-blue magic rose in front of her.
“Check on Opal please,” I said.
She grumbled, but then stepped back into the front hall.
Isa Azar was crouched in the corner of the room. A trickle of blood ran down his forehead from his hairline. A wound that could have easily been self-inflicted. He grimaced, meeting my gaze. “This has gone spectacularly badly.”
“Yes,” I said, forcing myself to take in the rest of the room. The typical, well-worn living room furniture had all been pushed to the walls. Tyler Grant was disemboweled in the center of a pentagram, his remains arranged similarly to those of his father. The same dark magic streamed from the five candlelit points of the pentagram.
Jenni Raymond’s shoulder was only inches from one of the lines bisecting the room. I tugged her farther away.
“Ruwa’s dead?” Isa asked.
“Yes.”
He nodded. “I felt the bond break.”
“Which is why you’re currently cowering in a corner.”
He sneered at me, but didn’t deny my assessment. Losing the tie to Ruwa would have ripped a ton of magic from the sorcerer — as was holding the barrier spell he was using to stop Paisley from tearing out his throat.
I looked around the room. “You’re unbelievable, sorcerer.”
He laughed darkly. “That’s rich coming from you.” He pinned his gaze on me. “Yeah, I finally figured out what the fuck you are. Some genetic experiment let loose on the world. Honestly, I thought the rumors were crazy.”
“Didn’t Silver Pine whisper all her secrets to you? Or does every woman play you?”
He snorted. “You think Silver wasn’t oath bound? Oh, she laid hints. And talked shit about my father, but …” He shook his head.
“What’s the spell set up around the house, Isa?” I asked, not really wanting to know.
“It takes two of us to cast it,” he murmured. “Two of us to hold it. I could replace the mundanes with the witch and the shifter. That might give us a couple of hours.” He eyed me. “But you aren’t going to allow that.”
“No. What’s to stop me from killing you?”
“I doubt even you could get through my shield.”
“You misjudge my abilities. Again.”
“Perhaps. But kill me, and the house will only be swallowed faster.”
Swallowed …
Icy shards of fear fissured through my chest.
That sounded a lot like what Christopher had seen when he cast cards after the sorcerers had arrived on our doorstep.
“What’s to stop me from walking away and bringing the full force of the witches Convocation down on your head?”
“Is that a call you’d make, amplifier?”
“You kidnapped a witch from the Academy.”
“Ruwa. Ruwa kidnapped a witch. And you took care of her, didn’t you?”
“Then what the hell are you waiting for?”
He laughed. “Aiden. I’m waiting for Aiden to come for you.”
“Still? You’re going to die and all you want to do is take your baby brother with you?”
“Don’t be an idiot. I just said it takes two of us to cast.” He gestured toward the pentagram.
My heartbeat ratcheted up, then eased. “So it takes two of you to dispel?”
“Indeed.”
“How do I get Opal out from the strands of the pentagram in the dining room?”
“Opal?”
“The witch you kidnapped, asshole.”
Isa shook his head. “She’s not tied to the spell. Yet. Though you’re only going to speed up all our deaths if you don’t let me switch out the mundanes.”
Carefully holding the knives away from her, I gathered Jenni in my arms, straightening up — and noting a flicker of confusion from Isa, who obviously hadn’t realized how strong I was. Which made him a falsely arrogant idiot. What else would he expect from a so-called genetic experiment?
I left the room, stepping into the smothering darkness once again, then feeling my way to the entrance. I set the still-unconscious Jenni to one side of the front door, then hesitated to leave her. If she woke up, the last thing she would remember was being tortured in the cage. Being completely blind on top of that would be utterly disconcerting.
“Paisley?” I whispered. Then, realizing I had no reason to be circumspect, I called out louder. “Paisley? I’m by the front door.”
I waited for a moment, readying to call again just as the demon dog brushed against me. I wrapped my hands around her neck, then scratched lightly behind her ears. She snuffled at my shoulder. “Will you watch Jenni while I get Opal?” I asked her. Then I raised my voice. “You have my permission to eat the sorcerer if he sets one foot out of the living room.” I didn’t know if Isa could hear me, or if the black magic dampened sound as well as light.
Paisley chortled, darkly delighted.
“Really?” Jenni groaned from a few inches to my right. “Eating a person seems like an extreme reaction.”
I shook my head at her, though she couldn’t see me. “The so-called person in question has sacrificed Peter and Tyler Grant, shifter. In a way you really don’t want to see.”
Jenni hissed, muttering something under her breath that got swallowed by the darkness between us.
“Stay here with Paisley, please,” I said. “I just need to get Opal, then we’ll get out.”
“And leave the Grants?”
“I’m not having a discussion about dead mundanes with you right now, shifter.”
Jenni muttered under her breath again. Then she said, “Take Paisley. I’m fine here.”
I took her at her word, tracing the wall back to the open door to the dining room. Paisley occasionally brushed a tentacle against my wrist or leg.
I stepped through into the dining room, avoiding looking at Peter Grant disemboweled in the pentagram. There was nothing I could do for him. And if I believed Isa, the spell was about to fail, so I needed Opal and Jenni far away from the house before it collapsed.
That the house was going to collapse was a given — Christopher had apparently seen as much.
Opal was crouched by the black shadow emanating from the nearest point of the pentagram. The young witch was holding her hands inches from the dark magic, presumably trying to assess it before stepping over it.
She looked up as I entered. She’d shaken off whatever had been holding her, the magic making her fixate on the dead body in the pentagram when I’d first entered the dining room. Presumably a spell of some sort.
Paisley skulked toward the witch, tentacles snapping and writhing. The dark magic smothering the house was disconcerting for the demon dog as well.
“Hey,” Opal whispered. Her eyes were wide, glistening with witch magic and unshed tears.
“Found you,” I said.
Her face crumpled so quickly that I thought I’d said something wrong. But then she nodded and smiled. The expression was full of pain.
“Isa said you aren’t tied to the spell. Yet.”
“So I can step over it?”
I hesitated.
Paisley snapped her head back toward the open doorway, growling.
“Yes,” Isa Azar said as he settled his shoulder against the doorjamb.
“I promised Paisley she could eat you, sorcerer, if you left the living room.”
He sighed. “I didn’t get the memo. And since you killed Ruwa, I have to check her … work.” He indicated the pentagram with a tilt of his head.
“Ruwa is dead?” Opal asked quietly. “That’s … she’s the one who pretended to be my mother, right?”
“Apparently.” Isa stepped into the room, keeping to the left and out of my way. He crossed through the black lines of magic slashed across the hardwood floor without triggering any repercussions. Though possibly only because he’d been the one to cast it.
“Emma?” Opal asked. “You killed her?”
“I did. Step back, please.”
She did so. I steeled myself, then deliberately took a step across the line. Nothing happened. Leaving a foot on either side, both knives in one hand again, I scooped Opal up in my arms and stepped back over the line.
Nothing reached out to try to swallow us. Whatever the spell was that had cost Peter and Tyler Grant their lives, it wasn’t a boundary or a ward of any kind.
Without a further word to the sorcerer pacing the edges of the pentagram, I stepped back through to the hall. Isa had been keeping a wary eye on Paisley. The demon dog followed me, grumbling darkly.
Still carrying Opal, who was clinging to my neck so tightly that she likely would have choked any other Adept, I made it back to the front door.
I shifted the knives again to the arm I had underneath Opal, then reached forward with my right hand. “Jenni.”
“Here.” The shifter stepped forward, running her hand up my arm as she found me in the dark, feeling me carrying Opal. “Is she okay?”
“Yes,” Opal said. “But it’s hard to breathe, isn’t it?”
“Jenni, can you take her?”
“I can walk,” the witch insisted.
I set Opal down on her feet, making certain that Jenni found and held her hand. Then I reached back for Paisley, making certain that she had a tentacle around Opal’s other arm.
“I’m okay, Emma,” Opal said. “You found me. I’m okay.”
I shoved away the fissure of irrational terror that Opal’s words opened up in my chest. It wasn’t like she was tempting fate, because I didn’t wholly believe in such things.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jenni growled. Apparently, she’d changed her mind about leaving the mundanes behind. I surmised that even five minutes of suffocating in the magic that permeated the ground floor was enough to drive away her altruistic tendencies. Or she’d stepped back into the living room and laid eyes on what was left of Tyler Grant.
I found the door handle, opening the door and stepping out onto the front patio.
Except instead of the defunct, snow-covered pig farm I’d expected, I found myself staring into a pocket of hell on earth.