I would’ve loved to get rid of the terramage, but as far as he believed, Aaron and I were in the middle of an investigation. From his perspective, we should want his help, and giving him the boot would be the equivalent of pouring suspicion oil on a strange-behavior fire.
“The original leader,” he continued, “is most likely the summoner of the cult—the one who created the demon mages a decade ago. This man is, at the least, a contractor.”
And all summoners were contractors as well, though the reverse wasn’t true.
“We don’t have any answers,” I complained. “We have no way to know if this leader is also the other leader, or whether either leader is a summoner—and oh my god, we’re saying the word ‘leader’ way too much.”
Aaron snorted. “Well, we could call him … what was it? Praetor?”
“Is that a title or a really ugly name?” When he shrugged, I stopped pacing and pulled out my phone. “Let’s find out.”
“Do you really think a cult term will be—”
“Here we go. Praetor. A title from ancient Rome for either an army commander or a magistrate. Huh.”
“Okay then.” Aaron folded his arms. “So, we have one Praetor ‘commander’ in charge of a ‘circle’ of twelve members.”
“Twelve,” Blake muttered.
“Something special about twelve?”
“Some Demonica mythics believe there are twelve demon Houses.”
The term “Houses” rang a bell, but I was drawing a blank on its meaning. “What’s a demon House?”
“Demon breeds, essentially. There are ten documented types of demon, and according to legend, two additional ‘lost’ Houses: the First and the Twelfth.”
What had Ezra said about the number of demon mages in Enright? I was the eleventh. Lexie was supposed to be the twelfth.
Another memory popped: Robin and I arriving at Odin’s Eye to speak to their Demonica expert. When she’d shown the ex-summoner her infernus, he’d nearly spit out his drink in disbelief. Your demon can only be the lost First House. Unless—unless it’s the fabled Twelfth House?
No wonder everyone was so surprised by her demon’s unusual appearance. A lost House. That girl might have more secrets than I did.
I squeezed my temples. “Where was I? Right. The Praetor. The cult …” I turned to Aaron. “We’ve been assuming all along that the cult was centered in Enright. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but … what if it was never just one sect?”
“You think there were multiple sects all along?”
“That could be why a demon mage killed everyone in Enright.” I swallowed a wave of horror at the senseless deaths. “What if they were protecting the rest of the cult?”
Blake swore under his breath. “Like cutting off a diseased limb before the infection can spread.”
“The cultist who was captured,” Aaron muttered. He fixed his stare on the terramage. “He died as well—before he could be questioned about anything more than Enright, I’m assuming? Are the Keys sure he wasn’t deliberately silenced?”
Pulling his phone from his pocket, Blake tapped on the screen. “Yeah, very sure. I’ve seen the security footage. No one entered his cell.”
The Keys of Solomon had cells? Like, their own personal guild dungeon? Gross.
After a minute searching his phone, Blake held the screen up, and Aaron and I moved closer. Justin joined us as Blake hit play on a video. The camera was affixed high on a wall, pointed toward three barred cells, each equipped with a metal cot and toilet. A man was sitting on the middle cell’s cot, his face buried in his hands.
The footage had been sped up, and several Keys members zippily walked to the cell, mouths moving with rapid, soundless words, then left. The cultist didn’t react to any of them until a woman visited him, but he merely stared at her before dropping his face into his hands again.
As the thin, dark-haired lady zoomed off screen, I pursed my lips. I’d honestly thought the Keys of Solomon excluded women. Maybe she was a secretary. The big beefy hunters probably considered paperwork to be beneath them. Sexist losers.
The cultist remained in place for two more hours according to the clock speeding through the minutes in the screen’s corner. Just after midnight, the cultist stood up. He pulled off his t-shirt and began tearing the fabric into strips.
I looked away, not needing to see the rest. As I retreated from the phone, Aaron and Justin watched the last minute of the video.
“The security guard had left his station,” Blake said, pocketing his phone again. “He was only gone fifteen minutes, and saw what had happened as soon as he got back, but it was too late.”
“Shit timing on his part,” Aaron commented darkly. He swept past me, taking over pacing duty. “So we have one surviving sect of the cult, and the possibility that there may be more. The Praetor is a contractor and could also be a summoner.”
“And he could be creating demon mages.” Blake curled his upper lip. “Merging a ‘Servus’ and a mythic would fit right into their twisted ideology. What kind of a moronic fool would believe demons are the loyal servants of a Goddess?”
I shrugged. “Well, it isn’t like demons can explain themselves.”
He shot me an incredulous look.
“What? I’m just saying. They can’t talk, can they? They just get steered into battle and torn to shreds. Did you know demons, even the contracted ones, feel pain?”
“If you’re such a sympathizer, why don’t you join the cult? Have a drink of demon blood and—”
“Enough!” Aaron barked. “This isn’t helping. We need to plan our next move.”
I shot Blake a disparaging glower. I extra wanted to plant my boot in his ass and kick him out the door, but I knew what a demon mage could do. Aaron alone didn’t stand a chance, and I was no real use. Blake was a defensive powerhouse. We might need him.
“Mr. Praetor must have a day job, right?” I said. “We’ll wait for him to go to work tomorrow. Once he leaves, we’ll break into his house and search for information on the cult. And depending on what we find, we can set up an ambush to capture him.”
“Solid plan.” Blake pushed off the wall. “I’ll be back at six a.m. and we can head over together.”
“Are you going home?” I asked.
“No, too far. But I ain’t bunking on your sofa, that’s for sure.”
He limped to the balcony doors, which opened onto a tiny patio separated from the sidewalk by a four-foot strip of grass. When I’d said the apartment provided privacy, I’d meant from … like … hotel staff. The location still left a lot to be desired.
The glass door thumped shut behind him, and I counted to thirty in my head before flopping backward onto the sofa.
“I’m exhausted,” I moaned. “My whole body hurts.”
“Holding still for hours is worse than hours of exertion.” Aaron dropped down beside me and leaned back. “So, what do you think?”
“About all this?” I rolled my eyes toward him. “On the plus side, our chances of finding a cult grimoire have increased. On the downside …”
“On the downside, the cult still exists and we had no idea.” Shadows fell over his eyes—misery mixed with deep, burning fury. “How many lives have they ruined in the past eight years? How many kids have they twisted and condemned to an early death?”
“That isn’t the only concern.” Justin crossed the room and knelt beside the small pile of our luggage. He unzipped his duffle bag. “There are few different ‘business models’ when it comes to cults. Some of them are vehicles for extreme narcissists to control other people. Some are vehicles for extorting money from members. And some …”
“And some what?” I prompted.
He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a bundled shirt. He unwound the fabric, revealing a shiny handgun.
I was pretty sure that was no paintball toy like mine.
“And some cults are a tool for turning the twisted desires of a single individual into reality.” He pulled back t
he slide, checked the chamber, then reset it and wrapped it loosely in the shirt. “Those are the ones where the police usually get involved.”
“What’s with the gun?” I asked, eyes narrowing. “Are you even allowed to carry that when you’re off duty?”
“I think I’ll keep it close tonight. We might not know exactly what we’re up against yet, but a bullet to the heart is still a bullet to the heart, even for a demon mage.”
“That’d kill a demon mage, yeah.” Probably. Pretty sure? “But I don’t think it’d kill a demon. They’re tough.”
Justin paled slightly, but his jaw clenched with resolve.
I let my head fall back against the sofa cushions. “Someone feed me. Please.”
“Want me to order pizza?” Justin suggested.
“Only if it has pineapple.”
As he got out his phone, I slid mine out too. Opening my messaging app, I bit the inside of my cheek at the sight of my conversation with Ezra—a string of my texts glowing on the screen, unanswered. My chest ached like I’d been punched under the ribs, and I had to close my eyes.
How would Ezra feel if he knew the cult that had ensnared his parents and thrown his life into a dark, tragic spiral had survived?
Sighing, I swiped sideways to my conversation with Kai, expecting more of the same. Instead, an unread message waited below my last update, in which I’d informed him that shit was hitting the fan and we needed to talk ASAP.
Instead of a text full of urgent questions, as I’d expected, he’d replied with four short words that made me launch upright.
I’m on the way.
My dreams that night featured magma-eyed demons, chalices of dark blood, and fire that glowed scarlet. I woke up aching, exhausted, and murderously grumpy.
Weren’t Aaron and Justin lucky to have me around?
The two guys lurked in the kitchen while a pot of coffee percolated with noisy gurgles, and I slumped on the sofa, imagining a cloud of black miasma swirling around me. My phone hung crookedly in my hand, glowing with Kai’s travel update from thirty minutes ago.
Though he’d tried to leave last night, Makiko had delayed him at the last moment. It’d taken him several more hours to get on the road. He’d texted before leaving Olympia, and a quick visit to Google Maps informed me he was still an hour and a half away. Unless he was ignoring the speed limit.
Since this was Kai we were talking about, I had to assume he was.
The low mutter of male voices trickled out of the kitchen, and I turned my murder-stare toward the doorway. How dare they speak while I was so tired and cranky? Justin, at least, should know better. He knew the signs of Morning-Terror Tori.
A blip of warmth interrupted my tired snit. Justin had now witnessed a terramage-pyromage battle, a blood-drinking mythic cult, and a demon in the flesh—and he was still here. When he’d shown up at my apartment claiming to want to fix things between us, I hadn’t given his declaration much credit. I’d expected a half-hearted effort that would fizzle out when I refused to follow his big-brotherly advice and ditch my mythic friends.
The warmth in my chest inflated at the murmuring of voices. Aaron was ridiculously charming—when he wasn’t being deliberately aggravating—and if anyone could win his way past Justin’s prejudices, it was the boisterous pyromage.
A tired smile stretched my grumpy face, and I pushed off the sofa. Breath held, I tiptoed to the kitchen doorway.
“… system is based on internal regulation,” Aaron was saying. “Individuals are regulated by their guilds, and the guilds are regulated by the MPD.”
“What about individual rights?” Justin asked. “Who protects those?”
“Generally speaking, our guilds are both our protectors and our custodians. There are other systems in place for when that fails—advocates inside the MPD and independent of it. But the protection of a guild is a big part of the reason why we fudged paperwork to make Tori a mythic.”
My mouth quirked down.
“Normally, the MPD would step in to protect a human civilian implicated in a mythic-related crime. That’s part of the so-called injustices the police are always seeing when the MPD bails out a criminal—cut-and-dried cases aren’t always what they seem when magic is involved.”
Justin made a thoughtful noise. “That didn’t appear to be happening for Tori, though. The MPD wasn’t helping her.”
“No. There were internal politics at play … I bet you get that shit in the VPD too. That’s why we had to change Tori’s status to mythic. It was the only way the guild could protect her from the MPD’s overreach.”
I blinked. I’d known my switch from human to mythic had saved me from murder charges, but I’d missed the nuances. To be fair, I’d been so exhausted from my deadly link to a fae lord that I’d been halfway comatose at the time.
“You’re the one who first drew her into the mythic world, aren’t you?” Justin inquired. “How does she fit in? It sounds like she’s involved in bounty work with you and your friends.”
“We’re training her,” Aaron replied. A cupboard door thumped closed, and a glass clattered against the counter. “Some magic is inherent to each mythic, but there’s a lot that anyone can use, and she armed herself right from the start. She’s got a real knack for it, in fact, though she still has a lot to learn.”
“How intensive is this training? Is she ready for your level of … combat?”
“Not yet.” Aaron puffed a breath—a sound usually accompanied by him running his hand through his hair. “Honestly, we try to keep her out of trouble, but half the time, she dives in without a second thought.”
I cringed. Just as I was about to inch away from the kitchen, Justin spoke again.
“Aaron … have you noticed whether Tori is … reckless with her safety?”
A pulse of quiet.
“Uh,” Aaron hedged. “Well …”
“She’s been like that for a long time. I’ve seen it before, when we were kids and later too …” Justin cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I’m not sure if her behavior is subconscious self-sabotage, or the drive to rebel against rules and authority, or just impulsive decision-making, but she’s gotten into serious trouble because of it … and that was without magic or mythics involved.”
Aaron made an indistinct noise. “I’d describe Tori as passionate and instinctive in her decision-making. She’s stubborn, not self-sabotaging.”
“I’m just worried. Her hitting a customer in a fit of rage has relatively minor consequences in the human world. Something like that in the mythic world …”
“So far, Tori’s handled herself just fine, and we’re usually around to keep an eye on her anyway.”
“But what about when you’re not?” Justin sighed. “I’m not trying to be an asshole, but Tori doesn’t have real magic. She has attitude and a few trinkets. That paintball gun is nothing compared to what you and Blake can do.”
“Blake and I are in a different league than most mythics.”
“That’s my point. Should she be playing in your league?”
Pressed against the wall, I waited for Aaron to defend me. To say I could totally handle dangerous situations and powerful magic. To say I belonged on his team, bringing down the big bads.
But he said nothing, silence stretching through the kitchen.
My fingernails cut into my palms. I pushed off the wall and swept across the room, grabbing my purse and jacket off the coffee table on my way by. As my hand slapped against the patio door, Justin’s words echoed in my head … reckless with her safety … impulsive decision-making …
Reckless and impulsive—like storming out in a snit of hurt feelings without telling anyone where I was going?
Gritting my teeth, I called over my shoulder, “I’m going to the coffee shop on the corner to get some donuts. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Huh?” Aaron appeared in the kitchen doorway, Justin right behind him. “Tori—”
“Be back in a few!” I added loudly, sho
ving the door open. “I have my phone.”
I shut the door, Aaron and Justin visible through the glass, standing in the kitchen threshold with confused expressions. Cold air nipped at my arms as I crossed the damp grass, wrestling my jacket on without dropping my purse. I stepped onto the sidewalk.
A car door slammed nearby. Blake had just exited his jeep, parked behind Aaron’s SUV.
He glanced my way. “Oh, hey Tori.”
I waved wordlessly and hurried my pace, leaving him behind. Turning my jacket collar up against the breeze, I marched down the sidewalk with long, furious strides, but it was too late for anger.
Tears stung my eyes, and I blinked them back.
She’s been like that for a long time.
Tori doesn’t have real magic.
Should she be playing in your league?
The words circled, stabbing me with each pass, and I couldn’t convince myself they weren’t true.
They were. Every goddamn word.
I’d always had a problem with my temper. Reckless behavior. Fits of anger. Lashing out. An attitude problem.
And I’d always pretended to be tougher than I really was. Entering the mythic world hadn’t changed that. Who else would charge into a full-fledged mythic battle with nothing but an umbrella as a weapon?
Yeah, I’d gotten a lot tougher. I could handle the average mythic just fine—but those weren’t the fights I was picking anymore. Look at me right now, investigating a mythic cult that may or may not include demon mages with nothing but my “attitude and a few trinkets.”
I jammed my hands in my pockets and kept going. My surroundings were a complete blur, and surprise flickered when I found myself standing at an intersection, traffic zooming past. The crosswalk button clacked when I jabbed it with my elbow, and I dried my face as I waited for the light to change.
The traffic halted. Sniffling pathetically, I crossed to the opposite sidewalk, cut through a line of cars in the drive-through, and entered the coffee shop. Sleepy-eyed customers craving their pre-work caffeine fix formed a line in front of the counter.
Lost Talismans and a Tequila (The Guild Codex: Spellbound Book 7) Page 12
