Septimus listened with strained patience. “We found Hunter’s sword and nothing else.” He gestured to the thick, wavy blade that rested on a table by itself. “I know it’s his. It radiates so much life magic I don’t want to touch it.”
Leda moved numbly to the table. She hadn’t seen the sword far from Hunter’s side since he’d first dropped onto her island. She touched the black hilt, which was worn from centuries of use.
“He wouldn’t have left this behind if he could have helped it,” she said, her throat tight.
“I never saw him go,” the driver said, sounding desperate. “Never saw anyone in the back with him, never saw a portal.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Septimus said. “I tasted it on him, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t spelled.”
“Could a demon do that?” Leda asked Fulton. “Come in and take Hunter through a portal without anyone seeing or hearing, or sensing death magic being done?”
Fulton nodded. “A very powerful demon, yes.”
Leda brushed her fingertip over the sword, her heart squeezing. “This demon, the one you called Kehksut, must have taken him. I can’t imagine Hunter not being able to get away from anyone else.” She looked at Fulton. “If you examined Septimus’s limo, could you tell where the portal led?”
“Not if the demon was very powerful, and not after an hour or so has already passed. I possibly could if I’d been there when he used the portal, but not now.” Fulton stopped. “That’s why I couldn’t tell where my wife had been taken.” He glanced at Septimus. “My daughter told me your vampires were guarding my wife’s house.”
“For now,” Septimus answered coolly, gazing at Fulton with a vampire’s antipathy for demons. “But if I have to pull guards out of that neighborhood to help search for Hunter, I will.”
“You can’t,” Fulton said. “Another vampire boss or demon gang will take it.”
“Perhaps. But finding the Immortal is a little bit more important right now.”
“Not to me,” Fulton snapped.
“Or me.” Samantha stepped next to her father, for once united with him against a common foe.
Septimus’s face set. “Then you can explain to Adrian why I didn’t put every vampire and human I own to finding Hunter. I haven’t reported Hunter’s disappearance yet; I’d hoped to restore him before Adrian had to know he was gone. But if you want to call him and explain why I should try to find a demonwhore witch instead of his brother, you go right ahead.”
Fulton snarled. “Bloodsuckers. This is my wife you’re talking about.”
Leda lifted her hands, her voice shrill with frustration. “Will you all stop arguing? Just . . . stop.”
As everyone in the room stared at her, Leda whirled and walked blindly out of the office, unable to listen to squabbling between vampire and demon while Hunter was gone. Taken. She knew what Fulton and Samantha felt about Samantha’s mother, because Leda felt the same way about Hunter—someone she cared about had been snatched away to Goddess-knew-where, and no one was able to help.
Leda heard a heavy tread behind her, and then Mukasa shoved his broad head under her hand. The wiry warmth of his mane comforted her as Leda stroked it. Hunter is like him, she thought. A wild animal gentling himself to offer solace.
“You might be able to sense where he went,” she said to Mukasa, then laughed a little. “But I wouldn’t understand what you were trying to tell me.”
Mukasa gave her a look from his great, golden eyes and rumbled an answer. The rumble seemed to expand from his chest to vibrate the floor, then across the club, rattling the chairs on the tables, making the glasses ring over the bar.
Mukasa hadn’t made that noise. Leda’s eyes widened, and she ran for the main entrance, Mukasa right behind her as they dashed out into the rattling, rumbling, cracking street.
Chapter Fifteen
Hunter understood why Tain had gone insane. His body itched as it healed—slowly. Any brush against the wall behind him hurt like hell, and the pain never went away. It dulled, but remained.
The demon had cut him twice now, the second time digging a little deeper with the knife. Tain had endured being flayed thousands of times, he’d said, every three days for seven hundred years. It had become routine to Tain, a routine he claimed to now welcome. His face had been strained when he’d said it, but Hunter understood. Tain’s only choice had been either to turn into a screaming, mewling mush or let the insanity make him believe he enjoyed it. Not too surprisingly, Tain had chosen insanity.
One curious thing Hunter noted—the demon had avoided touching Hunter’s tattoo, even with the knife. That fact gave him an idea. The world pretty much thought Hunter was crazy, a viewpoint that came in handy sometimes. It would come in handy now.
When the demon returned, this time clad in a gold satin sarong, Hunter gave her a wide smile. Tain, behind her, regarded Hunter uncertainly.
“Come here, baby,” Hunter said.
He kept the feral smile on his face while the demon strolled toward him, triumph and distrust warring in her dark eyes. Despite Hunter’s body screaming in agony, he reached out with his foot when she stepped close to him and hooked his leg around hers.
“Have you come to do it again?” Hunter asked, trying to sound sultry.
The demon eyed him in suspicion. It must have taken her years to break down Tain; she’d never believe she could do it to Hunter in two hours.
“Come on,” he said. “And this time stay with me after. Don’t go off with my brother like the last time. I was jealous.”
The demon smiled. “Perhaps it could be all of us together.”
“Mmm, maybe.” Hunter caressed her thigh with his foot, hoping he was ruining her satin with his blood.
“How about if I look like your witch again?” The demon morphed as she spoke, changing into the lithe form of Leda, gazing at him from her eyes.
Hunter held his fury in check. He would play along now and later make the demon pay—big time. “Sure, sweetheart. How did you know I was into pain? The real kind, not the pretend, dress-up-in-leather kind.”
She laughed Leda’s lovely, silver laugh. “I suspected.”
Hunter leaned his head back. “Do it,” he said. “Do it now.”
He knew he’d be more convincing if he could get his cock to rise, but no way could he be aroused by this slimy, evil bitch. He considered using a glam spell but discarded the idea; both Tain and the demon would see through that.
Hunter closed his eyes as the demon put the knife against Hunter’s throat, and cut. It hurt, it hurt like holy hell, but Hunter held himself still as she drew the knife down his torso to his belly. At the last minute, Hunter jerked his body sideways so the knife tip slid inside the pentacle shape of his tattoo.
A jolt of white magic surged up through the knife like an arc of electricity. It caught the demon in a blast of lightning and threw her ten feet backward.
Hunter laughed. “Thought so. Come on, honey, let’s do that again.”
Tain helped the demon on her feet, strode to Hunter, and punched him full in the face. Hunter’s head rocked back and cracked on the stone wall.
He caught Tain in his glare. “The goddesses knew what they were doing when they made us, bro,” Hunter said rapidly. “It wasn’t to be pleasure slaves to a demon.”
“You know nothing,” Tain said.
“Go on, make her touch your cheek. You don’t belong to her, and you never will. You belong to Cerridwen, and her mark is on you. I remember when you got that tattoo at your coming-of-age party. Cerridwen infused it with goddess magic, like Kali did mine. And then we all got drunk on mead that would corrode bronze. Remember?”
The uncertainty in Tain’s eyes warred with fury. He swung away from Hunter, grabbed the demon by the wrist, and slapped her palm to his cheek, right over the pentacle.
The demon screamed, her eyes widening into pools of white and black. The Leda disguise fell away and the demon’s beautiful black-haired beauty blurred into so
mething foul and ugly.
Tain shoved her away from him. “Get him out of here,” he roared at her. “Get him out before he kills you.”
“Kill her, Tain, and leave with me,” Hunter said. “We’ll track down Cerridwen, and she’ll heal you. She’ll find you in there under all that mess.”
“Cerridwen abandoned me. You all abandoned me. My greatest joy when I die is that my brothers will die with me.”
“Resist her, Tain. She can’t have all of you.”
Tain whirled on Hunter, palm out, white fire shooting from his hand. “Get out!”
Tain’s magic whipped around Hunter like a sandstorm, searing his already raw body. The chains broke, but Tain’s greater power held Hunter fast. Hunter felt the demon’s death magic slide through Tain’s to twine with it, blackness against intense white.
The dungeon shattered and fell away, and Hunter found himself floating high above the street outside Septimus’s club. He saw Leda in the doorway, Mukasa behind her. The ground was shaking, Leda staring upward in surprise and horror.
Tain disappeared, his white magic with him. Wrapped in tendrils of the demon’s death magic, Hunter hung over the street, the pain in his body absolute. He saw Leda trace runes in the air, heard her chanting something witchy. He wanted to scream at her to stop, to run, to get away, but nothing would come from his throat.
The earthquake intensified. A fissure opened the length of the street, asphalt crumbling and spewing upward. Darkness waited below, no subways, no walls, nothing but dense earth.
He heard the demon’s laughter as she threw him straight down into the crack. Hunter fell a long way, ten feet, twenty, thirty, forty before he landed with a crunch of bone and flesh on solid rock and lay still.
Above him, the crack began to close, the earth and rock pressing together. Dirt and pebbles rained on him in an increasing shower, driving the breath from his lungs. It pounded him and choked him, the weight crushing him.
Then the crack sealed with a snap, and all light vanished. Hunter lay broken and alone, the darkness around him absolute.
Leda screamed as the crack in the street sealed itself. She ran onto the asphalt and fell to her knees, Mukasa roaring behind her.
A female demon stood with spike-heeled shoes planted on either side of the closed crack. She was laughing, her gold satin dress bloodstained.
Septimus hovered inside the shadows of the club doorway, shouting at his human thugs, who fanned out to point weapons at the demon woman. The demon drew back a dainty hand and threw thick death magic at Septimus’s men. They choked and dropped instantly to the pavement, unconscious or dead, Leda couldn’t tell.
The demon floated to where Leda knelt and stood in front of her, black leather stilt-heeled shoes nearly touching Leda’s knees.
“He was good, little witch,” the demon said. “Very, very good. I can see why you liked him.”
“Bitch,” Leda said, tears clogging her voice. “Bring him back.”
The demon woman kicked her, catching Leda in the face with a razor-sharp heel. Mukasa sprang at the woman with a snarl, but the demon woman lifted him with a tendril of magic and threw him aside. Mukasa landed heavily on the pavement, groaned once, and went still.
Leda scrambled to her feet, blood dripping to her shirt, and ran to Mukasa. The lion was unmoving, not breathing that Leda could see, and Leda’s heart wrenched with more grief.
From the club’s doorway, Septimus raised a rifle and shot the demon in her side. A dart embedded itself halfway into the demon’s flesh before she grabbed it and pulled it out.
Leda sensed her death magic dim slightly, not enough to weaken her, but enough to make her take a step back. The demon glared at the dart, threw it away from her, spat a foul word, and vanished with a bang. The breeze stirred the litter on the street and Mukasa’s mane, but other than that all was silent.
“Interesting weapon,” Leda heard Fulton say nervously to Septimus. “What is it?”
“Air gun,” Septimus said, sounding calm. “After the last time the Old One insinuated herself into my club I had a witch give me darts spelled against demons, even though they can only slow something that powerful a little. Very helpful against lesser demons who occasionally gain entrance to the club and cause trouble.”
Samantha impatiently pushed past the two men and hurried to Leda. Leda was stroking Mukasa’s mane, tears falling freely to his tawny coat.
“Oh, no,” Samantha said, dropping to her knees beside Leda. “Leda, is he . . .”
Under Leda’s hand, Mukasa gave a sudden heave, and rolled to his belly, opening his eyes and blinking in the afternoon light. Then he yawned, gums drawing back from his huge red mouth.
Samantha put her hand over her nose. “Lion breath. Great.”
Leda laughed and threw her arms around Mukasa, hugging him before she remembered he was still a wild animal. Mukasa gave a little grunt but didn’t seem to mind Leda’s clinging.
“I think he was playing dead,” Samantha said. “I didn’t know lions could do that.”
Leda released Mukasa, pressing her hands to her face in joy. Mukasa grunted again then climbed to his feet and shook himself. He lumbered to where the fissure had closed over Hunter and began to dig at it with one huge paw.
Leda went to him and studied the inch-wide crack in the pavement, the only thing left of the huge crevice into which the demon had thrown Hunter.
Hunter was Immortal. He wouldn’t die buried by tons of earth, rock, and concrete, but he could be trapped for a very long time, and he could suffer every minute of it.
“Septimus!” she called. “We need to dig. Do you have equipment for that?”
“You need to drag my men in here, first,” Septimus answered, voice tight. “My vamps and I can’t come out in the light to help them.”
“I’ll do it,” Samantha said, turning back. She grabbed one of the fallen men under the arms in a professional grip, her slight body strong, and began dragging him back to the club. Fulton came out to help her.
Two of the men were dead, Leda heard Samantha tell Septimus, but the others looked as though they would recover. Septimus commanded the dead ones to be taken inside first, quickly. Leda had the feeling there would be two more vampires working for Septimus tonight.
Leda knelt and drew runes along either side of the crack in the asphalt. She tried to still her mind, to reach for the air that poured over the ocean not far from the center of the city, but calming and centering herself right now was out of the question.
She had to reach Hunter, and she needed help, powerful help. She thought of the whirl of sand that had touched her body on her island after Hunter had spoken to Kali. She’d felt the immense power of the goddess, but also her caring, and she remembered Kali’s admonition for Leda to be good to her son.
Leda didn’t remember the symbols for Kali, and she didn’t have salt or chalk with which to draw them in any case. She would have to put her heart into her plea and hope the goddess would respond.
Leda drew a pentacle on the asphalt with her finger—five points, one each for air, earth, fire, water, and Akasha—and surrounded it with a circle. The pentacle was the mark of the goddesses, of magic, of the gods, the same symbol that had imprinted on each of the Immortals.
The symbol began to glow with magic, blue on the black pavement. “Kali,” Leda whispered. “Help him.”
Faint wind stirred her face, the air of the huge city holding so much pollution that even an entire ocean’s wind couldn’t wash it clean. Here among the huge buildings and the clogged streets, the vast sea and sand beaches might belong to another world.
The ground began to rumble again, and then to rock. The pentacle Leda had drawn cracked in half, and Leda sprang to her feet. The asphalt splintered, the gap widening, pebbles and rocks spewing skyward.
Leda ran from the heaving pavement for the open door of the club, Mukasa bounding behind her. Samantha and Fulton, having gotten the men inside, both grabbed Leda and dragged her into the
vestibule. Mukasa squeezed between them, making for the space behind the counter.
“You know it’s bad when a lion is afraid,” Fulton said.
“I think he’s just taking cover,” Septimus said.
“Does that mean we all should?” Fulton asked.
His words were drowned out by an explosion of sound. Wind roared down the street, gathering up random trash and flinging it against the walls, paper striking with the force of boulders. The wind’s vortex covered the entire street, the air turning black as night.
The whirlwind whipped past those crouching in the vestibule and through the club behind them, tearing the black velvet curtains and toppling chairs and tables. Over that noise, the earth continued to shake and tremble.
A finger of fire stabbed downward from the boiling clouds, and the pavement exploded. Leda covered her face as tiny pebbles showered through the open door, cutting skin and drawing blood. Septimus and his vampires tried to shut the doors, but the wind held them open with a powerful force.
The rumble grew, the walls of the club shaking, chunks of plaster falling from the ceiling. The street buckled and heaved apart, then a single shaft of white light burst from the widening gap and shot skyward to meet the fire.
Leda heard a warrior’s cry that swelled and roared over the wind, then Hunter’s body shot from the opened chasm in a blaze of light. He hovered in midair, Hunter the teasing, sensual, good-humored man gone. In his place was an Immortal, his body wreathed in white fire, his eyes blazing green. He cried a single word and held out his hand.
A clattering came from inside the club, then men shouting and Kelly’s scream. Septimus turned to go to Kelly, then swore and flattened himself against the wall. Fulton slammed Samantha and Leda out of the way as Hunter’s sword whirled past them, flying on a streak of magic to Hunter’s outstretched hand.
Hunter floated to the ground and landed on his feet. He seemed taller, bigger, his clothes gone, his body shrouded with light.
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