Helena blinked. Her eyelids weighed a million pounds.
Distantly, she heard the sound of the ocean.
“Juniper,” she muttered, her tongue thick and heavy. She tried to roll over, but her muscles ached in protest. “Juniper, what happened?”
A voice, very far away. “Sounds like she’s finally waking up.”
Not Juniper’s.
“Hello?” She pushed herself up, and slips of fabric slid off her, puddling on the floor. All she could see was a wall, a blinding blaze of white light. “Where am I?”
“Oh, shit!”
The room tilted and Helena slammed forward, up against the wall, which was soft and cushioned.
“Stay on the road!”
The voice shot straight through her.
Aleksi Haakanen.
She scrambled up to sitting, fabric tangling around her legs. It was black silk, sigils stitched in gray thread. And she wasn’t in a room, she was in a van. And she didn’t hear the ocean, but a highway speeding underneath the van’s tires.
She had been kidnapped by Aleksi Haakanen.
“How the hell are you breaking those bindings?” Haakanen was twisted around in the seat, glaring at her. Dominic Regan was driving, his eyes glancing back at her in the rearview window. “What the fuck are you?”
“What?” All of Helena’s thoughts were a smear. She remembered darkness, sudden flashes of light. Blood. Screaming. Pain.
A hand pressing over her nose, her mouth.
Haakanen stared at her, his eyes like coals. Helena pressed up against her seat, drew her knees to her chest. She watched his mouth, his lips moving silently.
“How were you able to break those bindings?” Regen asked into the review mirror.
“I don’t—I don’t know.” Helena gathered up the silk in handfuls, expecting it to sting her skin. “I can’t even do magic.”
“Bullshit.” Haakanen leaned closer, pushing through the gap between the seats. “I can smell the magic all over you.” A lightning movement and he was gripping her wrist. “Look at this sigil. Guard against the Infernal realm.”
Tears welled in Helena’s eyes. From fear, from the Infernal magic rising up off the slips of fabric and off Haakanen himself. She swatted at the fabric, pushing it away.
There was nothing she could do about Haakanen and his iron grip on her wrist.
“You want me to stop?” Regen said. “Recast the spell? Those bindings should have held.”
“No.” Haakanen released Helena’s arm but did not take his eyes off her. “Gavin absolutely left that bar in a fucking state. The authorities are certainly involved now. We keep moving.”
Regen nodded, then glanced back at Helena. She caught a glimpse of fear in his eyes.
Of Haakanen?
Of her?
“Who’s Gavin?” she finally asked.
Haakanen laughed. “You really think that’s going to work on me?”
The van flew down the highway, greenery rising up on either side of them like walls. A road sign flashed by: Iberia Parish.
Parish. They were in Louisiana.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice.
Neither Haakanen nor Regen answered. Helena kicked the sigils down to the floor and pushed over to the side of the van. Her purse was gone, which meant her phone was too, and her wallet, and her car keys, the only thing she carried with her that could reasonably be used as a weapon. She tried to gauge how fast they were going—she’d learned how to fling herself out of a moving car back when she was a teenager. Part of her Lineage training.
“What’s she doing back there?” Regen again, his eyes dark in the rearview mirror. “I don’t like how she’s moving around.”
“She’s not going to do anything,” Haakanen said, his voice reverberating through Helena’s chest. “I’ve got eyes on her if she tries.”
Helena turned back to the window. The trees were a blur. The thought of jumping made her nauseated, and she knew she’d never go through with it. She’d only done it in training because her mother kicked her out of the car.
She could not believe she was back in this life. For eleven years, she had, in her parents’ eyes, been a coward, but at least she kept herself safe. She lived in a world without magic, without monsters. Without the Lineage or her family.
And now, one fifteen-minute conversation later, she had been kidnapped by a demon.
A quiver of excitement broke through her fear. If she survived this, if she brought information about Haakanen back to the Lineage, then maybe her parents wouldn’t see her as a failure.
A flash of movement from the front of the van and suddenly Haakanen was crouched beside her on the bench seat, watching her intently. His black hair hung silken around his strong shoulders. Instantly, her fear was back.
Unbidden and absurd, she suddenly heard the voice of those girls at the show. He’s so hot.
He was.
He was probably also going to murder her.
“How’d you do it?” For a half second his eyes glinted with a fiery, unnatural light before fading into black.
“Do what?” Helena pressed herself against the side of the van, vibrations from the road rolling up through her back. Her training was half kicking in. Deny everything. She remembered that much.
Haakanen rolled his eyes. “You know what.” He gathered up a scrap of fabric and threw it at her. “Break through the bindings.”
She threw it back. “I told you, I don’t know!”
“Look, sweetheart,” Regen said from the front seat, “we’ve got you. I’m sure Gavin tells you what we do to his devotees.”
Panic surged like bile. “I’m not a devotee!” Helena shouted. “I don’t even know who this Gavin is—”
Haakanen swept his arm in an arc and said something in the Infernal language. Immediately, Helena’s eyes watered and she felt a scrape against her throat. “What—” she started, and then she knew. He’d forced her voice into a whisper.
“Please,” she said, lifting her hands up by her head. “Please, I promise you, I have no ties to Gavin—”
“Then explain that sigil on your hand.” Haakanen’s eyes flashed.
Helena sucked in a deep breath, not taking her gaze off Haakanen. She wasn’t who he and Regen thought she was. But if they found out she was from a Lineage family of demon hunters, then it wouldn’t matter.
“It was just a joke,” she said. “I mean, like an aesthetic thing. For the show.”
Haakanen sighed. “Right. And you just happened to be waiting by the back gate when I came through, right?”
“Yes!” Helena’s voice strangled. She had to remember not to yell. “I really, really was. I had no idea you’d be out there. I always get fresh air between sets.”
“We’re getting nowhere with this,” Dominic said.
“I agree.” Haakanen tilted his gaze back toward Helena, and she felt herself shrink beneath it. He took another deep breath, and this time Helena did feel something—a surge on the air, as if all the van’s windows had rolled down simultaneously, letting the warm dampness in from outside. Her skin prickled. Haakanen’s eyes glowed. “Her story about the gate tastes like the truth. But everything else rots like lies.”
“I’m not lying,” Helena whispered.
“I don’t enjoy hurting those Gavin has brainwashed. But I will do it to protect myself.”
Tears streamed down Helena’s face, and she hated herself for showing fear. Something hardened in Haakanen’s face, and he lifted his hand, twisting his fingers in a terrible Infernal pattern.
A heat rose inside Helena’s veins, like her blood was on the verge of boiling.
“It was my sister!” she choked out.
Haakanen stopped.
“I got the sigil from my sister.” Her body was cooling back to normal, but the tears fell thick and heavy. She had failed once again. Infernal magic clouded around her like gnats. “My last name is Muir.”
Regen hissed through his teeth, but Haakanen didn’t react.
“My family has been part of the Lineage for centuries,” Helena rasped in a rush. She really was a coward. “We were investigating you. We were not there to attack, or at least, I wasn’t. My sister, Juniper, she’s the demon hunter, and I can’t control what she does, I really can’t. I just wanted a normal life and she made me come because I know music, and you were weaving magic with your music, and—” Her throat burned. Helena sank back against the seat, dropped her voice back to a whisper. “I have a YouTube review channel called Helena of Trondheim,” she finished numbly.
The only answer was the pounding, circular rhythm of the van’s tires against the asphalt.
Then: “You’re a Muir?”
Helena looked up. It was Regen who asked, his fingers gripping the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles had turned white.
“Technically,” Helena whispered. She glanced over at Haakanen. The anger in his features was gone completely. He leaned close to her and his hair swept into her face, the ends soft and feathery. He reached out and Helena flinched away, but he only pressed his fingers gently on her throat.
Immediately, the pain cleared.
“That was the truth,” he said softly. “I could taste it.” He lifted his gaze to her. “Why did you want to keep it from us?”
“Because she’s a fucking Muir,” Regen snapped. “You know how many legionnaires they’ve killed?”
Haakanen smiled slightly. “I’m not a legionnaire.” His eyes bored into her. “You couldn’t kill me if you tried.”
A chill reverberated down Helena’s spine and she dug her fingers into the worn, spongy fabric of the van seat. If she stayed alive, she could take this to the Lineage.
Maybe she hadn’t failed after all.
“She could kill me,” Regen said. “You know what the Lineage does to blood mages?”
“Are you going to kill Dominic?” Haakanen asked, that soft smile still on his lips.
Tell the truth. “My sister might.”
“I didn’t ask about your sister.”
Helena took a deep breath. “I told you, I’m not a demon hunter.” Make them underestimate you. “I gave—I gave it up.”
Haakanen broke into a big smile. “She gave it up,” he said, sitting back properly in his seat. “You hear that, Dom? She gave it up.” He leaned into the front of the van and slapped Regen on the shoulder. “It seems we kidnapped the wrong woman.”
“Lucky us.” Regen kept his eyes on the road. “What are we going to do about her?”
“We’ll just have to figure it out, won’t we?” Haakanen smiled again at Helena. “I really am sorry about all this. I hope it doesn’t give you the wrong idea about my people.”
Regen sniffed. “She already had that, if she’s part of the Lineages.”
Haakanen laughed, swung his hair over his shoulder, clambered back into the front seat.
His people. Demons. Haakanen had said he wasn’t a legionnaire, but she didn’t know exactly what that meant. Was it a way of saying he wasn’t part of the Lower Court?
But that would mean he was a member of the Upper Court. And the Upper Court, by definition, could not be summoned by humans.
If she brought back information on an Upper Court demon—her mother would welcome her home with open arms.
“Now that we’ve got our identities settled,” Haakanen said, “let’s decide what we’re going to do with our guest.” He twisted around in his seat and struck Helena with glittering black eyes. “Ms. Muir,” he said. “Surely you have a first name?”
Helena took a deep breath. She tried to draw on her training again, that period when her father kept shoving her and Juniper in the trunk of his car in the middle of the night with no warning. But not even her ultra-devout parents would ever have thought it possible that she would be kidnapped by an Upper Court demon.
“Helena,” she said softly.
“Helena.” He laughed. “I get the name of your channel now.”
Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Why the hell had she let that come out?
“You can call me Aleksi.” He tilted his head. “And he’s Dominic. I imagine you already knew this, of course, but it doesn’t hurt to be formal.”
Helena curled up against the seat, her chest tight. “Can I take that to mean you won’t kill me?”
Aleksi laughed. Dominic’s eyes flashed in the rearview mirror.
“We need to be careful,” Dominic said. “She’s got connections to the Lineage.”
“Agreed, but that’s no reason to kill her.”
Helena breathed deeply, a shudder rising up through her chest. Don’t cry. She looked out the window again. The highway was surrounded by a wall of green: trees, vines, underbrush. Pink early morning sunlight stained the dark sky. They hadn’t passed another car yet.
“Would you like us to let you out here?” Aleksi said. “Drop you on the side of the road? Let you go back to your ordinary life?”
Helena turned her head back toward him. He was still twisted in his seat, watching her. In the thin, gray dawn light, his pale skin seemed to glow.
“I think that’s what Dominic thinks we should do,” he said. “Isn’t that right?”
Dominic made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat. “We’re fifty miles from anywhere.”
“Right. And you have no phone or ID. I’m afraid we saw to that.” Aleksi stared at Helena. “Sorry.”
“What’d you do with them?” Helena said softly.
“Threw them both out the window as we crossed the state border,” he said. “We didn’t want the authorities tracking you. We still don’t, of course.”
Helena sighed. “Why didn’t you throw a veil over the police?” she said. “That was what my family always—” She stopped herself, although it was too late.
“Only blood magic can affect the memory,” Dominic said.
Helena scowled. How could she have let that slip, about the Lineage sometimes using blood magic?
“Fucking hypocrites,” Dominic muttered.
“It’s not hypocritical,” Helena snapped. “Sometimes blood mages don’t leave us a choice.”
“It’s hypocritical when you hunt down blood mages like animals,” Dominic shot back.
“You’re using demonic mag—”
“Enough!” Aleksi’s voice rang out through the van. “The Lineage is not the primary threat right now. As to your question, Helena—” Aleksi turned toward her. “We were casting a veil. A very strong one, in fact. You said you sensed the magic in our music?”
Helena blinked. “It was a veil?”
“And a binding,” Aleksi said. “Which your sister’s magic fucked up. That was how Gavin found us.”
That name again.
“Who is Gavin?” Helena demanded. “Another demon?”
Aleksi glowered. “Not even close.”
“So a blood mage,” Helena said. “He was the one I saw floating above the crowd.” It was one of the few images she remembered from the attack. “Wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he has a flare for dramatics,” Aleksi said. “But don’t let that fool you into thinking he’s not dangerous. He is, extremely.” A pause. “Especially for someone like you.”
Helena frowned.
“An ordinary human,” Aleksi said.
“She’s not that ordinary,” Dominic muttered.
“Stop it,” Aleksi said. “I promise you she’s not a threat.” He leaned forward between the seats and took a deep breath, then ran his red tongue over his lips. “I can taste the truth coming off her.”
A heat rose up through Helena’s body. “Stop it,” she muttered.
Aleksi smiled coyly. “I’m not doing anything.”
She glared at him, but he only shook his head. She felt the blush in her cheeks. Wondered if he was telling the truth, if it wasn’t magic making her feel this way.
Stop it stop it stop it stop it.
You’re too susceptible, her mother’s voice whispered coldly.
“So what are we going to do?” Dominic said, his voice slicing through the traitorous crackle of energy Helena felt bouncing around in the van. “She’s not coming with us. That’ll get the Lineage on our tail.”
Aleksi turned toward him, his expression unreadable.
“I don’t want to come with you,” Helena said. “So that would make this a kidnapping. If you don’t want to turn around and take me back to Texas, then let me call my sister at the next gas station.” She clearly wasn’t cut out for spying.
“No fucking way,” Dominic said. “Even if we leave her there to wait, any demon hunter with the slightest bit of training could pick up on our trail. The last thing we need is the Lineage and the Children of Adrasteia after us.”
The Children of Adrasteia. Helena thought back to her studies as a kid, memorizing all the different orders and cults that her family was constantly hunting. The demon-worshippers. The heretics. The traitors, her mother used to always say, the ones who willingly turned their backs on God. But she didn’t recognize the Children of Adrasteia. Something about the name struck her as vaguely pedestrian.
“Agreed,” Aleksi said. “She can come with us to New Orleans.” He turned back to Helena, his eyes glittering. “Where we’ll put you on a bus back home to Houston. And then you can forget all of this ever happened.”