by Tamar Sloan
Arielle nods. “Anything.” She’d give a limb if she had to. Even her life.
Blaise studies Arielle for long moments. “Your mother did the same for you.”
Before Arielle can ask what that means, Blaise turns to Reign. “Men cannot be present for this spell.”
Reign frowns. “Then let’s not classify according to gender, huh?” He moves closer to Arielle. “We’d rather stay here.”
Blaise crosses her arms. “He reminds me of your father,” she says to Arielle before returning her gaze to Reign. “The spell cannot be done with you here. Sierra’s daughter will be perfectly safe with me.
Arielle stills. Blaise knew her father?
Reign opens his mouth but Blaise raises a hand, long purple fingernails and all. “I will call you in the moment I’m done. You can even climb through the window again if you’d like.”
Mac grabs his arm. “Come on, I’ll keep you company.” She pulls him back toward the door and Colt follows.
Gabby blows him a kiss. “This will be just like being back at boarding school.”
Once they’re gone, Blaise heads to a door at the other end of the room. “I just have a few supplies to collect.”
Now alone with Gabby, Arielle rubs her forehead. “Being in a witch’s house, casting a spell, is just like school?”
Gabby has the grace to look a little flustered. “I went to the Academy of the Arcane. It’s a school for supernaturals.”
Arielle blinks, unsure whether she can process this, too. It’s like her mind is too full of revelations. Of truths that have been kept from her. “I see.”
Gabby reaches out to clasp her hand. “I know you’re hurt because we kept all this from you. I’m truly sorry for that.”
Swallowing the desire to yank her hand away, Arielle can’t hold her cousin’s gaze. “I know you are.”
Gabby frowns, her hand tightening around Arielle’s. “Something’s bothering you.”
“Everything’s bothering me!” Arielle explodes. “Apart from the fact angels and demons and witches, heck, even the Holy Grail, are real, my mom has been kidnapped for a ritualistic sacrifice to resurrect who knows who. Come to think of it, who knows what!”
Gabby remains silent and still throughout Arielle’s rant. Her eyes narrow ever so slightly. “There’s something else.”
This time, Arielle does jerk her hand away. She doesn’t need her cousin to be so perceptive right now. “How can you be so calm about this?” she huffs.
Her mother has been taken, too.
Gabby’s face tightens. “I learned the hard way that emotions need to be controlled.” Her gaze flickers away. “I swear I’d tell you about it if I could, Ari.”
Because Gabby doesn’t think she can handle it. Just like Arielle’s mom and Aunt Shell.
That’s what’s really bothering Arielle. The knowledge that as she desperately tries to save her mother, the people she trusts are expecting her to fall apart at any moment. Probably because she’s only human. There’s nothing special about her. The girl who’s never done anything extraordinary like her mother, who isn’t an angel like her cousin, who blindly accepted every lie she’s ever been told. Heck, she doesn’t even know what she wants to be when she grows up.
Gabby frowns and opens her mouth, no doubt her perceptiveness is ringing alarm bells.
But the door at the other end of the living room opens. Blaise appears, completely transformed. Gone is the violet hair and purple dress. Her hair is now as raven colored as the flowing raven dress she’s wearing.
It seems this witch changes wigs along with her outfits.
As if to match her black hair and black dress, she’s carrying a black candle. She nods solemnly. “It is time to start the spell.”
37
Reign
Reign paces out the front, eyeing the window he just climbed through. Blaise may have done little more than throw a crystal ball at his head the first time, but he suspects the witch will be less understanding the second instance he broke into her home.
“You’re going to have to wait,” Mac points out from where she’s sitting on the steps of the porch. She indicates toward Colt, who strode to the edge of the street the minute they exited the house. “He doesn’t seem too worried.”
“I don’t know about that,” says Reign, studying the tense shoulders and too-still stance. “He looks pretty worried.”
“Are you worried?” Mac asks quietly.
Reign spins to face her. “Aren’t you?”
Mac angles her head as she watches him. “Only if this locator spell doesn’t work.”
He doesn’t point out there are far more than just that point where this could go wrong. Even if they find the location of the sacrifices, they have to stop them somehow. That’s if they’re not too late…
She shrugs. “But then again, I don’t like like any of them—”
Reign stiffens. “We’re not having this conversation.”
“Far more than I’d like to admit,” she finishes.
“Mackenzie…” Reign growls low in his throat.
She puts her hands up in a sign of surrender. “Okay, okay. I won’t poke Grumpy Bear.” She glances around. “So, is the Big J here?”
Reign sighs, not sure he likes the change of topic. “Not yet, but they’d better hurry up with the locator spell. It seems if I sit still too long, he appears.”
“What has he said?”
“Oh, only that one of those women is an Innocent, and I need to find the Grail to save her.”
“And what if he’s right?”
Reign starts pacing again. He knew he shouldn’t have let Mac humor his hallucination. “You heard Arielle’s aunt. This isn’t even about some mythical artifact that doesn’t even exist. This is a ritualistic sacrifice to raise the dead.” As he says the words, a tremor ripples down his spine. He can’t believe those words just came out of his mouth as if they're normal.
Mac wraps her arms around her knees, placing her chin on them. “But it doesn’t make sense. Why was Kane so interested in Sinclair Mansion?”
“Because he’s into antiques.”
“And Dumah,” she continues as if Reign hasn’t spoken. “He believes the Gates of Hell are opening.”
“He’s also handcuffed in a bathtub.”
Mac pins him with a determined glare. “And why has Joseph appeared? Why do you think you see him, Reign?”
Reign stops his pacing, his stomach painfully flip flopping. It’s because a part of him wishes he was a Grail Keeper. He wants to be someone who people believe could be a hero. Someone…important. Someone a person like Arielle could respect.
He looks away. “Because I’ve done a damn good job of screwing up my brain chemistry. Because I’ve learned the supernatural is real.” He pulls up a cocky grin as he glances back at Mac. “Because it turns out I’ve got quite an imagination.”
He also sees Hell-faces and apparently they’re not a thing.
“Except, you’re forgetting something,” Mac says quietly. “You saw Joseph before any of this started.”
Reign almost doubles over as the truth he’s been avoiding slams him in the gut. Joseph appeared in the alley before angels and demons became part of his daily vocabulary. As if to add salt to the wound, Joseph himself appears beside Mac.
Reign scowls and turns his back. “Let’s focus on getting Sierra and Shell back, shall we?”
He finds Colt striding toward them. “We need a plan B.”
Grudgingly, Reign turns back to Mac, relieved to find Joseph gone. Maybe he’s getting a better handle on his delusions.
Mac pushes to her feet. “You don’t think the locator spell will work?”
Colt shakes his head. “We’re hoping it will work. We can’t pin these women’s lives on just hope.”
They glance at each other. And if the location spell doesn’t work…
Reign rubs his temples. “Did you want a unicorn, too?” He doesn’t bother to ask if they’re real as well
. He doesn’t want to know.
Colt sighs. “It may be easier. Kane has disappeared, most likely because the time is drawing near.” He glances over his shoulder. The sun is disappearing over the suburban skyline, as if it’s slinking away because it doesn’t want to see what’s coming, either. “It will be soon.”
As if on cue, the door to the rickety house opens. Reign has to check twice that it’s Blaise standing there. She’s changed from purple witch to black witch, and the transformation feels ominous.
She steps onto the porch. “The spell is done.”
Arielle and Gabby appear behind her, their faces somber.
“Did it work?” asks Reign, his muscles heavy with dread.
“Of course, it worked,” Blaise snaps. She holds out a burnt piece of map. “This is where Sierra can be found.”
Reign takes it, shock slicing through him as he registers the location. He looks to Arielle, seeing that she already knows where they have to go.
He nods, holding her gaze.
“Sinclair Mansion, here we come.”
38
Arielle
The curved driveway to Sinclair Mansion is muted and silent in the evening air. Arielle wants to run down it, taking all the rage and fear that are like fire and ice in her veins and using them to make this right.
Her mother is there. So is Aunt Shell. Taken so they could be sacrificed.
Except, as she climbs out of Colt’s car along with the others, Gabby grips her shoulders. “Colt and I are going to take care of this.”
Arielle frowns. “But—”
“There are likely to be demons there,” Colt says gravely. “And we don’t know how many.” He reaches into the car and pulls out three handguns. He passes one to Arielle. “If they come for you, use this. The bullets are coated in lead, which is poisonous to demons.”
Arielle takes the gun, her stomach contracting at the cool weight in her palm. She’s never held a weapon like this. The thought of shooting it has bile burning up her throat.
Reign and Mac take theirs. Mac frowns. “I’ve never liked these things.”
Reign pulls something back as he checks out the weapon, obviously familiar with it as the gun makes an ominous clicking sound. “They’re deadly, dangerous and worse in the hands of the wrong people.” He clicks it again and tucks into the back of his jeans. “But they reach further and do more damage than a punch, which is preferable when dealing with winged evil.”
“Wait here,” Colt orders quietly. “We’ll call when it’s clear.”
“Sure thing,” Reign says as he leans against the car.
Mac nods. “Be safe.”
Arielle frowns internally at their easy acceptance of being left behind. She reminds herself this isn’t their fight, it’s not their mothers trapped in Sinclair Mansion, but she can’t help feeling disappointed. Like Reign just let her down.
Gabby and Colt step away, the early evening cloaking them in muted black. They look at each other, nodding. A moment later, two sets of wings appear, one ebony, the other ivory, and they head for the sky. In a blink, they’re gone.
Arielle lets her breath out, wondering how in the world she’s going to wait. Her nerves are already at snapping point.
Reign pushes off the car. “Let’s go. We’re not waiting here.”
“No freaking way are we waiting here,” agrees Mac.
Reign turns to Arielle, and she tenses. Is this where he tells her it’ll be safer for her to stay here? This may be her mother and aunt, but Arielle doesn’t have the fighting experience they do. Her clothes have always been washed and clean, she’s never gone hungry, and she’s never ever spent a night on the street. She’s never had to fight for anything in her life.
“What do you want to do, Ari?”
He holds her gaze, telling her with all the turbulence in his jungle green eyes that this is dangerous. That they have guns they’ll probably need to use. That she’s risking her life.
And yet, he’s asking her. He’s giving her the choice. Something softens and hardens within Arielle all at once.
She squares her shoulders. “I want to fight.”
For her mom.
For Aunt Shell.
For the hope that she’s stronger than she feels.
Reign draws in a deep breath. “Okay. Fight it is.” He indicates toward the driveway with his chin. “We’d better get going. Those two have a head start.” He flaps his hands as if they were wings.
Arielle feels a smile tripping up her lips, despite everything they’re facing. “Unfair advantage if you ask me,” she says as she falls into step beside him.
Mac appears on her other side. “It would be kinda cool to have wings,” she muses. “What do you think is their maximum speed? Do you reckon they ever get itchy? And how in the world do they clean them? It’s not like they’d fit in the shower.”
Reign rolls his eyes. “Only you’d think of all that stuff, Mac.” His handsome face sobers. “Now, we need to be quiet.”
Silence descends in the same way night is—steadily and absolutely, multiplying with each passing second. The driveway snakes ahead of them, the road that will take her to her mother. As Arielle walks beside Reign, her heart starts up a steady thud.
Who is she to think she can storm a mansion full of demons and rescue eight women?
They come around the final bend and Sinclair Mansion looms dark and ominous ahead. Mac points to a tree nearby. “You two wait here. I’ll scout the place out.”
“Mac—” says Reign, but she’s already gone, her body swallowed by the night. He takes Arielle’s hand and draws her behind the trunk. “Dammit.”
Arielle jerks her hand away but it’s too late. Reign turns to her. “You’re scared.
He noticed how slick her palms are. Heck, he may have noticed that her pulse has been taken over by a freight train. “I’m terrified,” she admits. She holds her breath. Now is the moment he recognizes bringing her was a bad idea.
“Good,” he whispers. “You should be. This is dangerous as shit.”
“I know what I’m getting into, Reign.” Arielle sighs. “Are you going to tell me we’ll find them both, too?”
That it’s not too late.
Reign shakes his head, his eyes unfathomable in the dark. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
Although the blunt words should shock Arielle, they don’t. In fact, they’re strangely comforting. It means she can trust Reign to tell her the truth.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I do know you have people around you who will do everything they can to save your mother and her sister.”
Including Reign…
“Why are you here, Reign? Why do you even care?”
“Why does it matter?” he shoots back.
“I don’t know. It just does.”
Arielle stills, her breath held as she waits for one of Reign’s flippant responses. She tells herself she’ll be okay with that.
He sighs. “Because this”—he waves his arm wildly in a vague arc—“matters.”
Arielle slowly releases the pent-up air in her lungs. Was he talking about the mansion and her mom and the women? Or was he talking about the sweet tug she can feel in her chest, wanting her to step closer?
He huffs out another breath. “I’m only here until I screw it up, okay?”
Arielle takes his hand. “That could be quite a while,” she says softly.
Reign freezes. “Ari…”
Mac materializes beside him. “There’s eight of them guarding the place.” She shrugs. “Only seven of them are conscious.”
Reign turns abruptly. “So, there’s an opening.”
Mac glances around the tree trunk. “We’d have to go now.”
And then they’re running, feet crunching over gravel, heading for the shrubbery around the house. Arielle’s lungs feel too tight as they crouch down. She clamps her hand over her mouth when she discovers there’s an inert body next to them.
Mac and Reign’s heads move in short sharp movements, each seeming to look in one direction as the other scans the opposite. A shadowy outline appears to their left and they all duck down. A breathless moment later he’s gone.
Reign grabs Arielle’s hand as they run toward the door, still crouched. They’ve just made it up the final step when another figure steps in front of them, gun raised.
Arielle jolts back in fright just as Reign leaps and slams his fist into the man’s face. The man grunts, shaking his head as he tries to right himself. Reign grabs the gun and jerks him forward. Mac’s leg shoots out, her foot powering into his torso. He folds over with another grunt and crumples to the ground.
“Quick,” Reign hisses as he opens the door. “The others could've heard.”
“Hey!” shouts a voice from somewhere to their left.
Arielle darts through and Reign and Mac follow, shutting the door behind them. A body slams into it a second later. By unspoken agreement, they break into a run, making their way to the library.
The crash of the door being smashed open echoes behind them, followed by heavy boots thundering over the timber floor. Arielle runs desperately through the dark hallways and rooms, hoping she’s remembered the way. Her heart feels like it’s stampeded out of her chest.
She reaches the door and pushes it open, relieved to find the circular library on the other side.
There’s a crack and the doorframe beside her head splinters. They’re being shot at!
Reign pushes her inside, his own gun held at arm's length. He lets off a couple of shots before he and Mac join Arielle in the room. Reign slams the door shut as Mac leaps around, scanning the room.
The library is empty, the trap door to the crypt standing open.
“Dammit, there’s no lock,” says Reign.
The door smashes, wood splintering everywhere as a man barrels through. He shakes off the impact, looking around the room.
Arielle gasps as she sees his eyes are a glowing, hellish red.
“Locks won’t help you, boy,” growls the demon.
