“What did you bargain your soul for?” she asked.
“For the love of the most beautiful woman who ever lived. Now if I collect enough souls for Nyxobas, I can escape the shadow hell.”
She beamed. “For love. That’s awfully romantic. Where is she now?”
“Dead.” Crunch.
“Oh.” She’d learned about mortal demons when she was in the Brotherhood—they could live on for centuries, unless they were killed with the right combination of iron and hawthorn wood. The Brotherhood, of course, had those weapons stockpiled.
Orcus took another bite, his crunching echoing off the high, stone ceiling. “Did you sell the skull?”
“I did.” And now I’d like to find where Caine hid the damn sigil.
Orcus held out his hand, and she pulled the silver coin from her jeans pocket, dropping it into his palm. “The mage told me humans have been going missing from all over Cambridge and Boston.”
Orcus grunted, completely uninterested.
“Did you know your client was from Maremount?” she asked.
“Is that so?” Crunch.
“He said that in my homeland, demons and humans are kept separate. He said something went wrong in the early days of Maremount. The demons got out of control, and the city’s philosophers had to put protections in place.”
Orcus’s looked up from his breakfast. “Seems awfully one-sided.”
She cocked her head. “I’m totally confused. How did Caine end up with my parents as a little boy if the city was protected from demons?”
“Never mind that.” His eyes darted back to his breakfast. “I have some dried bloodroot I need you to make into a paste.”
“Bloodroot. Right.” She dropped her empty coffee cup on the table, crossing her arms. “Do you know anything about my family?”
“I know you shouldn’t be interrogating my clients.” Orcus snatched the bowl of sugar from the center of the wooden table and poured out a mountain of granules. His long, pointed tongue darted out to lick his finger, which he dabbed in the sugar before sucking it clean.
Rosalind grimaced, her stomach turning. Nausea welled in her gut, and Orcus’s eating habits weren’t helping the situation. “What are you afraid I might learn if I speak to your clients?”
“A bunch of horseshit to nourish the soil of your nightmares. You should be sleeping soundly. And you should eat. You’re getting too thin.” He licked his finger again, jabbing it into his sugar pile. “I’m going to make you a soporific potion. You’ve become unhinged.”
She’d been getting sick of Orcus telling her she looked tired, so she’d slapped on extra makeup from Tammi’s stash today—a dewy blush, deep raspberry lipstick, concealer under her eyes. But apparently reapers couldn’t be fooled with makeup. “I haven’t been feeling well.” Her leg bounced up and down. “And I feel out of the loop. It’s strange to me that Caine took Tammi.”
“I’m sure he has his reasons.”
“You’re sure Tammi is in a safe place? I just find the whole thing odd—Caine taking her while we slept, with no explanation.”
“I told you. He put up the wards, and took her to a safe house. It’s in the letter he wrote for me, marked with his seal.”
She shook her head. “I thought this was a safe house.”
Orcus’s large, dark eyes surveyed her, and he leaned forward. “Listen, girl. I’ve been a warrior far longer than you have. But my orders are to keep you here. I don’t like it any better than you do. I should be out there, collecting souls for Nyxobas, slaughtering hellhounds in the night. It delights me to hear their death cries, and I’m denied this simple pleasure by your stifling presence. And yet I do it, because it’s my duty. I serve the god of night in whichever ways he requires.”
Time for another tactic. She didn’t give a flying fuck about Nyxobas, but maybe duty was the best way to appeal to Orcus. “What if I can serve the god of night by helping Caine? What if he needs me?”
Another lick off his finger. “For what?”
“I can help get him out of danger.”
Orcus paused, mid-lick. “He can kill people with his mind. I don’t think he needs the help of a human girl.”
She crossed her arms. “When we were together, he needed my mage powers to transport us from one place to another during emergencies.”
The reaper’s pale face broke into an unnerving, toothy smile, lending him the appearance of a death’s head. “Did he now? And how do you suppose he survived such a long time without you?”
“What do you mean, ‘such a long time’?”
His eyes bulged and he stood, picking up his bowl. “I’m not here to engage in idle gossip. Get the bloodroot. It needs crushing.”
Rosalind wasn’t letting it go that easily. “I don’t get it,” she pressed. “If he didn’t need me to chant the spell with him, why would he pretend that he did?”
Orcus blinked. “A spell like that requires a great expenditure of energy, I suppose. He’d burn himself out using it all the time on his own. And I suppose he was probably trying to get you using your magic. Impending death has a way of motivating people, I find. And you needed motivating, with all of your neuroses.”
Seriously? As Orcus walked away, Rosalind’s fingers tightened into fists. She was trapped here by Caine, who apparently had a tendency to lie about crucial information.
Definitely time to re-evaluate my lack of magical skills. She’d just have to deal with the fact that she lost her mind a bit whenever she took off the ring.
She crossed to the coffee pot, pouring herself another cup and letting the rich aroma fill her nostrils. As she took a sip, she caught a glimpse of herself in a cracked mirror hanging from the stone wall. Orcus was right—she was starting to look like a skeleton, with cheeks the color of bone and dark circles hanging below her brown eyes.
I need to get away from this prison. She downed the coffee, and its heat burned her throat. First, I need to find the sigil.
She had no idea where to look for it, or even what it might look like, but at least she had her first clue. And perhaps she could investigate the creepy old library for information about sigils.
Dropping her mug onto the counter, she crossed the kitchen to the hall. As she walked, she trailed her fingers over the cool stone walls, and her footsteps echoed off the flagstones as she passed into the cavernous library.
The room was amazing. Below a starry, vaulted ceiling, leather tomes stood crammed into oak bookshelves. Ladders reached up to towering upper stories of books. Across from an enormous, multi-paned window, a fire burned in a stone fireplace, casting dancing light over a well-worn embroidered rug.
Rosalind inhaled deeply, the scent of burning cedar filling her nose. If I can’t find the sigil, maybe I could just hole up here night and day, learning about magic until I can break myself free.
She crossed to the shelves, tracing her finger along a row of book spines, scanning the titles. She half-hoped something obvious would pop out—like “Where to Find Sigils”—but that probably wasn’t how arcane texts worked. Anyway, most of the titles were written in Angelic or Latin, neither of which she could read. The few in English had twee names like Comptesse Amauberge’s Love Remedies or Early Percy’s Encyclopedia of Famine Curses.
She sighed, crossing into an alcove, and her gaze landed on something that sent her pulse racing. On a faded black spine, copper lettering spelled out the word Maremount.
Okay, so it wouldn’t tell her how to find a sigil. But now her curiosity was beyond piqued. She had the strangest feeling that Drew had known more than he was letting on, and Caine was certainly hiding things from her.
Maremount was her homeland, and yet she hardly knew a thing about it.
She pulled it from the shelf, cracking it open. The first heading read 1692. As she read the text, it gave an account of the Salem Witch Trials, which had led to widespread panic among the “philosophers.” In order to escape the Hunter’s purges in Salem, they’d created Maremount usin
g a powerful spell.
She paged ahead, her heart speeding up at the word demon.
In 1693, a bestial demon known as the Ravener slipped through the city gates, his mind twisted by hatred of humankind. With the most evil intentions, he infiltrated the Throcknell Fortress, then slaughtered fair and noble Queen Sapphira, tossing her out a tower window. The Ravener ripped apart the castle, intent on regicide, until he found King Malchior and tore his heart from his chest. His terrible deed committed, the Ravener slipped from the city gates—
A hand yanked the book from her grasp, and she stared up into Orcus’s cold, dark eyes.
Her cheeks burned with irritation. “I was reading that.”
He turned, hurrying to the fireplace, and she gaped as he tossed the book into the flames. “That, little girl, will only feed your nightmares.”
“I can decide what will give me nightmares.” She glared at him. He was awfully preoccupied with her nightmares. “What don’t you want me to read? Drew already told me about the Ravener.”
Orcus furrowed his brow, pulling up his black hood over his head. “You don’t know much, and that’s the way it should be.”
Anger simmered. Don’t trust anyone, Rosalind. “Why is everyone so intent on hiding things from me?”
Orcus shook his head. “You’re paranoid, Rosalind. You’re not thinking right. You look like a crazy woman. Get some sleep before the nightmares fill your waking life.”
Dark, acrid smoke swirled from the flames, and the room slowly filled with the scent of burning paper.
“I’m not paranoid.” She cocked a hip. “You just burned a book to stop me from reading. I think my suspicions are justified.”
“Let me make you a tonic to help—”
“I don’t want a sleep tonic.” Her pulse raced, and sweat beaded on her brow. “I want to search the streets for my sister. I swear I’ve felt her aura, and I can feel all kinds of powerful magic around us. And I want to hunt down Randolph Loring, beat him until he screams for mercy, and chain him to the walls of one of his prisons. I want to find out what Drew meant when he said the air was thick with menace.” She could feel it, too—and it was starting to make her sick. She leaned over and retched.
“What’s the matter with you? Never mind. I’ll tell you what’s the matter—all that coffee rotted your gut.”
She retched again, clutching her stomach. This wasn’t just nausea. There was something familiar about this sensation. The last time she’d felt this sick was when she’d first visited Lilinor. That feeling had been the magic at the boundaries—shadow magic and light magic magnetically attracted to each other.
“Hang on a sec, Orcus.” She blinked, letting her eyes focus in the dim light as a shudder wracked her body. Thick tendrils of magic stained the air—pale shimmering copper, deep sea-green, dark silver. A whole rainbow of light and dark colors. Why didn’t I notice it before? It was almost as if shadow magic and light magic were warring with each other, trying to cancel each other out, and she couldn’t see them unless she concentrated.
Orcus tutted. “Are you going to stand there all night making those gagging noises?”
“Orcus. There’s magic all around us—light and dark forces together. It’s astoundingly powerful.”
He sniffed. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“There’s silver night magic, like Caine’s, moving over my skin like a warm wind. Miranda’s sea magic—salty and wet on my skin. But it’s not just light magic. There’s gold, copper, and pale gray.”
“Light demons.” A wicked glee tinged his voice.
She shook her head, trying to understand. “Why would light magic merge with shadow magic? I thought there was some kind of ancient war going on between those two.”
“There is. And perhaps they’re waging a battle now. I have no idea.” He scowled, pacing across the floor. “If the reapers are fighting a battle with hellhounds, I should be there. They will need me to fight with them.”
“We should both go.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed.
“You can’t leave me here unguarded. The Brotherhood could come in and kidnap me, and then Caine will be furious.”
His nostrils flared. “Why would you want to go? You’re no match for true demons.”
“I can sense Miranda’s aura. I don’t know if she’s in trouble, or if she’s working with the Brotherhood—but either way, I need to find her.”
Orcus straightened. “Fine. But you must stay near me. Caine will murder me if you get hurt.”
Relief washed over Rosalind. “I’ll stay near you. I promise.”
Orcus cast a critical eye over her clothing. “You’re going to wear that?”
She glanced down at herself, at her faded black T-shirt and coffee-stained jeans. She hadn’t exactly been thinking about things like fashion lately, nor did she care to start now. “You’re wearing a hooded cloak. I don’t think you’re in a position to judge.”
“I suppose we’ll be invisible anyway.” He narrowed his dark eyes. “Another reason for you to stay close to me. The invisibility spell wears off after a while.” His long teeth glinted in the firelight. “And if we come across any light demons, let me do the killing.”
“I won’t get in your way.” She frowned. “But you don’t have any idea what we’re getting into?”
“No.” He stepped closer, thrusting a bony finger in her face. “But I’ll tell you this. You don’t need to read the books about the Ravener and his murders four centuries ago. There are plenty of monsters around us now to fill your nightmares for a hundred years. And you’ll see some of them tonight. That’s why little girls like you get locked up for safety. Are you sure you want to go out there?”
Despite the fire, a shiver ran over her skin. “Miranda’s out there. She’s not exactly sane anymore, and she’s in over her head.”
“I thought she tried to kill you. What do you care?”
“It’s the Brotherhood’s fault she’s crazy. Like you said, there are monsters all around us. Even the human ones.”
Wordlessly, Orcus pulled a scroll from his cloak and unrolled it. Rosalind caught a glimpse of a circle, with a six pointed figure in the center. The sigil?
She frowned, trying to see it better, but Orcus blew on it, and it disappeared in a puff of black ash. “What was that symbol?” she asked.
“The symbol of Azazeyl. Why Caine used that, I have no idea.”
“Who is Azazeyl?”
“A false god. He does not exist.”
And yet, the magic worked. A sharp tendril of dread wound through her. There was something very strange going on.
What she didn’t say to Orcus was that she had another reason for wanting to leave the cemetery: she wanted to know what the hell had happened to Tammi, too, because she wasn’t buying this safe house story.
And right now, Rosalind didn’t trust anyone.
Chapter 3
T he night air was thick with the sweet scent of blooming linden trees and the overgrown honeysuckle that climbed the sides of Brattle Street’s Victorian homes.
In front of the moon, shadow magic and light magic swirled in large curls. The magic was all around, rippling over Rosalind’s skin, disorienting her—silver, green, gold, copper, blue… too many colors and senses for her to keep track of. Dizzy, she rubbed her forehead.
Orcus trudged along a few paces in front of her. With the invisibility spell in effect, she couldn’t see his body—only the curls of midnight blue magic emanating from his cloak. If she concentrated, she could follow his anise-scented magical aura. And if that wasn’t enough, the sound of his wooden-soled shoes on the bricks was easy enough to follow.
Someone should tell that guy to purchase a pair of Keds if he really wants to go incognito.
She studied each pedestrian they passed, looking for signs of panic, but she could read nothing amiss on their faces. If there was a demonic war raging nearby, none of them seemed to know about it. A car rolled slowly
by, blaring bass-heavy music, with the sharp scent of marijuana wafting from the windows. Business as usual here, no signs of impending doom. But none of these people could see the magic that whipped the air around them.
As Rosalind drew closer to Harvard Square, her entire body buzzed with apprehension. A wave of sickness climbed up her throat, and she turned to retch. The closer they got to the Brotherhood’s home base, the worse she felt.
“Is that you making that noise again?” Orcus grumbled.
“I’m fine,” she managed, her gaze landing on a tendril of blue magic. It undulated in the air like a sea-anemone, washing over her skin. “I think Miranda is near, but there are so many auras around. I can’t figure out what’s going on.” She wiped a hand against the back of her mouth.
Her body buzzed, and she looked down. There was a reason she was feeling so sick—the magical auras were no longer just curling around her—some of them were rushing into her body in waves. She clamped her eyes shut, trying to force them out of her. As the magic thrummed over her skin, dipping into her bones, she felt an overwhelming desire to turn back.
I need to get control of this. She wouldn’t be very effective at pulling Miranda away from the Brotherhood if she was too busy puking in the bushes.
Slowing her breathing, she concentrated on forcing the magic into smaller whorls, compressing it down as best she could.
“Are you coming, or do you want to run home?” Orcus snapped, tapping his foot on the ground. “If you’re going back to the cemetery, you should know that you won’t be able to get into the mansion. You’ll have to wait outside in the bushes.”
If she hadn’t felt so sick, she would have had a witty retort at the tip of her tongue—but instead all she managed was, “Stop haranguing me. I’m not running back to the cemet—”
She was interrupted by the sound of metal slamming against metal, followed by shattering glass. From Harvard Square, screams pierced the air—distinctly human.
It’s starting.
At the sound of human terror, Rosalind pushed all her reservations aside. “Let’s go.” She broke into a run, Orcus’s footsteps keeping pace beside her.
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