After a quick check of the bathroom, I sheathed my sword and returned to the living room.
Conor was bent over something in the mess of sofa guts and when he looked up at me, my heart stopped. He looked pained, his forehead crinkled and jaw tight.
“What is it?” I demanded.
He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Dani.”
I rushed over to see what he’d found and gasped. Three inky black feathers were buried in the gash in the cushion.
Penelope.
My heart pounded against my ribs. I dug the feathers out. Only three. She could be fine without three feathers. That was nothing. I tore into the cushion searching for more, terrified I was going to find a dead crow stuffed inside.
She wasn’t there. I tried to let that ease the pressure in my chest.
My fingers brushed across something stiff. A tag or paper. I pulled it out. It was a page crudely torn out of one of my books, blank on one side. The other had been written on in permanent marker.
It said: “We have your familiar. Come and get her.”
Below that was a series of numbers that made no sense to me.
My heart leapt into my throat and I thought I was going to choke. When I finally managed to breathe again, Conor was peeling the note from where it was clenched in my fingers. I let it go and watched his face as he took it in, wanting to know what he thought and felt. Wanting to know if I should panic.
Penelope wasn’t my familiar. She was my friend, one of the few who’d been there for me every time I needed her. And if they had her, she was in serious danger.
If she wasn’t dead already.
Conor didn’t look as horrified as I felt. Maybe that was good.
Then again, I didn’t think he’d ever met Pen in human form. As far as he was concerned, they’d kidnapped a bird who helped me out a lot. Not necessarily a shifter.
“How did those bastards get Penelope?” I asked. But I knew how. She’d probably heard the noise from the demon and his buddy trashing my apartment and come through the window to see what was happening. They’d assumed she was a familiar—she’d fought Ashraith with me in crow form—and nabbed her. Pen was smart enough not to transform until it gave her an advantage over the situation.
Plus, she didn’t really want people knowing she was a shifter. Crow shifters were rare because hundreds of years ago, there had been a rumor that crow shifter feathers could increase one’s magical potency. Thousands were killed or kept in captivity for their feathers until they were all but extinct.
I’d always been careful to keep Pen’s secret the way she kept mine. But her secret wouldn’t do her any good if she was dead.
Conor pulled out his phone.
“You’re calling the Watchers?” My voice reached a fever pitch. I didn’t want them involved in this anymore. Not if Penelope was involved. They would storm in, guns blazing (figuratively speaking… they were more apt to use magic), with no consideration for innocent bystanders or hostages.
“No, I’m putting in the GPS coordinates,” Conor said slowly, as if afraid I’d cut him if he made a wrong move. He bent the paper toward me. I squinted at the numbers below the words and it clicked. Coordinates, of course. That made sense. I’d been too frazzled to connect those dots.
Man, I really did need a vacation, including several days of sitting on the couch binging whatever reality shows I could find.
But first, I needed to get Penelope back.
“It’s obviously a trap,” I said.
“I know,” Conor said, without missing a beat. He put the key in the ignition and started the car anyhow. “But at least if we go where they want us, we’ll know their next move.”
“I’m just saying, we need to be ready for anything.” Given that the last traps we’d run into involved a demonic house that exploded and an army of angry demon bat-birds, I wasn’t looking forward to whatever Ashraith and his little mage friend had in store. But we had no choice. They had Penelope. And until she was safe, I had to play the demon’s twisted little game.
A thought struck me.
I might have to play Ashraith’s game, but I didn’t have to play by his rules.
“Wait,” I said. “Stop the car.”
Conor pulled over to the side of the road without arguing. “What is it?”
“Ashraith is expecting us to fly to that location to try and rescue Penelope.”
Conor nodded, but one eyebrow went up slightly in question. I was stating the obvious.
“So what if we don’t?”
Conor frowned. “If they didn’t have your bird…” He trailed off. He knew how much Penelope meant to me.
“What if I go alone?” Conor opened his mouth to argue and I held up a hand. “Or at least make it look that way. I can march in solo and when they think they have me, you’ll be there as backup.”
“I don’t know, Dani,” Conor said, and the way he said my name—full of anxiety and worry—made me ache. “If they can make you pass out right away, you won’t stand a chance. What if I can’t get to you?”
He had a point. Damn.
I checked the time on the dashboard. It was about ten o’clock. Still early. Who knew how long the note had been there or when they expected me to fall into their trap?
I needed to rescue Penelope, but I had to face reality: either she was dead already or they were going to keep her alive until I got there. That meant I had a little time. Not a ton. But a little.
“You’re a skilled demon hunter. You know protection rituals.” I’d seen Conor do one, in fact. He nodded. “Okay. New plan. We go to Pete’s.”
“Pete’s? As in Pete’s house?”
“He’s a demonologist, right?”
Conor gave me a dubious look. “Right. But as you said, I’m a demon hunter. We can go to my place.”
I shook my head. “Ashraith and Jax might have figured out where you live. Which means it’s not safe until they’re taken care of.”
Conor clenched his jaw, clearly not liking that idea. Given the state of my apartment, I didn’t blame him. It was going to cost a lot of time and money to fix it up and it was a fraction of the size of Conor’s house. If they’d done the same to his place, he was in for a lot of work and out a lot of money.
“There’s no time to fall into an extra trap. We have to prepare the best we can and then run at them head-on.”
Conor sighed, his shoulders slumping. “You’re right. But I’m not sure how to prepare. A protection ritual might help our luck but it won’t block direct attacks.”
“But we can show up better armed. Make some quick shield charms—“ He leveled a gaze at me that said that was madness, which was fair, given that good shield charms took hours, “—and whatever else we can cobble together. Let me grab supplies from my office. Get Pete’s address. I’ll be quick.”
I got out of the car and jogged back to my office. It was in the same building as my apartment, on the ground floor. The window was intact, which surprised me. I expected to find it shattered and the office destroyed.
I took a deep breath to steady myself. I was still buzzing with adrenaline and blood still thrummed in my ears. I unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The office hadn’t been touched. At least one small part of my life was intact.
My relief was cut short when something behind my desk glowed a faint green, like a small light on an electronic device.
I frowned. None of my power outlets had ever glowed and I didn’t remember plugging in anything that might do so.
I conjured a handful of demon fire and inched forward into the dimness, waiting for Jax to pop up from my behind my desk. Nothing happened. The office was quiet. The only sound was my own breathing and the blood thrumming in my ears.
I stepped around the desk. There was a small, glowing marble on the floor. I blinked at it. It had been placed near the wall behind my desk chair and it looked like an ordinary marble that one would find in the toy section of a big box store. Except for the glo
wing. The glowing was too luminous and powerful, not a toy level of glow-in-the-dark.
I knew better than to touch it. No doubt it was loaded with some kind of spell that would explode or something when moved. I pulled out my phone to take a photo.
And then the blackness descended like a sudden storm. One minute I was holding my phone out and the next, everything was dark and silent. I reached out into nothing. Took a step forward, or tried to. My sneakers shuffled across the floor.
A wave of nausea crashed into me. And then everything stopped.
Chapter 19
I came to with a massive headache, every nerve screaming in pain. It felt like I’d been electrocuted and my whole body burned. I opened my eyes slowly, blinking in the darkness.
The darkness didn’t abate. The room—if I was in a room—was eerily silent.
I sat up. The floor felt smooth and cold. I could see myself—my hands, my pants—but nothing else. It was like the world had been erased around me, leaving only me in an empty void. I was wearing blue stripped pajama pants and a matching blue tank top, a set of pajamas I wore frequently.
I frowned at my socks. They were white and pristine, new out of the package.
Hadn’t I been wearing jeans and a t-shirt, with my leather jacket and sneakers? When had I changed into pajamas?
I strained to remember but my head felt fuzzy and strange. I struggled to my feet, squinting into the blackness, hoping to find some modicum of light.
Ashraith appeared in front of me.
I scrambled backward, away from the demonic form that hung in the air. He was an amorphous presence that glowed blue and purple, which was the only thing that kept him from bleeding into the darkness all around us. That and his glowing red eyes.
My pulse raced. I reached for my sword but I wasn’t wearing it. I tried to conjure demon fire, pulling energy from my veins and holding out my palm. No flame appeared.
I tried again, forcing the magic to flow through me and manifest blue demonic fire.
It didn’t work.
A scream rose in my throat but wouldn’t come out. It was stuck there blocking my airway and making me dizzy. It took me a long moment to swallow it down and form words.
“What have you done to me?” I demanded of the demon. His red eyes bored into me like hot lasers. It made my skin crawl in disgust.
“I did nothing, witch.” His voice rang inside my head. He wasn’t speaking audibly. His voice projected right into my brain like a sound system from hell.
I stepped backward again to increase the distance between us.
Ashraith laughed.
I winced. His laughter sounded like a metal spoon being ripped up in a garbage disposal. My hands flew to my ears as if I could block out the noise but it was coming from inside my head. My fingers dug into my scalp.
“What are you doing here? Where am I?”
Ashraith laughed again.
I dropped my hands and again tried to conjure demon fire so I could burn him to ash but it wouldn’t come.
“You are in your office, where you blacked out,” Ashraith said, his words booming inside my skull.
“So what, this is all some messed up dream?” If that was the case, I needed to wake the hell up. I didn’t have time for nightmares. I had to cut down the real demon, now.
“Not a dream. You see, I left a demon mark on your soul.” Ashraith practically purred the words and I wanted to vomit.
“Yeah, figured that out. Neat trick, making me pass out. What, you too scared to face me when I’m awake?” I met his red eyes with mine and glared with all my might. It wasn’t the same as blasting him with demon fire, but it was the best I could do.
“No. But now that I know I can control you, it will be easier to use you for my purposes.”
I kept glaring, hoping he didn’t see the anxious swallow. I clenched my fists. “You’re not using me for anything. I’m going to hunt you down and wipe you out of this world like the stain you are.”
Ashraith laughed again. This time, the sound was muted and less awful. “You cannot kill me, witch.”
“Sure I can. I kill demons all the time.” I made my fingers into a gun and aimed it right between his eyes. “You’re next.”
“Please. If you kill me, you lose your precious demon magic. After all, that’s my magic you’ve borrowed.”
My stomach churned like a cement mixer. Maybe this was a twisted blackout dream and it was just parroting my worst fears back to me.
But what if it was him and he was right? I didn’t want to lose my magic.
He realized he pulled me up short and his smile widened to reveal sharp, shark-like teeth. “Perhaps if you cooperate, I might be convinced to show you mercy.”
“Fuck off.”
I closed my eyes. It might have been a stupid move but it was also a power play to show him that I wasn’t scared, even though my heart was going so fast I thought it might explode. I willed myself to wake up.
Ashraith snarled something but his words faded as light and sound rushed back in. I blinked and I was back in my office, wearing jeans like before.
Conor was beside me, checking my pulse.
“Hey,” I said. I licked my dry lips and then tried to sit up.
Conor put a hand on my chest to stop me and then seemed to realize what he’d done. His eyes went wide and he removed his hand, clearing his throat and looking away.
“You were out cold,” he said.
“The Dynamic Duo left another trap.”
Conor frowned. “You blacked out.”
“Not on my own. I had help and then I got a visit from the demon,” I told him.
Conor’s frown deepened and he looked genuinely concerned for my sanity. I didn’t blame him.
“Might have been a dream,” I said. I remembered Ashraith’s threat that his death would put an end to my demon magic and swallowed back bile. That was my biggest fear. I survived doing my job because I was smart and quick with a sword, and because I had magic at my disposal. Without it, I’d be naked and exposed the minute I was unarmed. Witch spells couldn’t pack the same punch or be used without preparation. Demon magic meant I always had a way to fight back. Even when I was totally drained, I could usually conjure a tiny ball of flame.
I sat up. My ribs were still sore but they didn’t hurt any more than they had previously, so I was going to call that a win.
“Either way, we need to stop him,” I said, finishing my thoughts out loud.
He grunted in agreement, assuming I was talking about whether or not I’d dreamt up the demon during my blackout, not whether or not doing so would lose me my magic. I couldn’t let him know just how much that possibility terrified me. Because when it came time to slay the demon, I was going to have to make that gamble. And part of me wasn’t sure I was strong enough to do it.
Conor’s warm hand grabbed mine and helped me to my feet. I dusted myself off and then went behind my desk to find the green glowing thing.
“What are you doing?” Conor asked, as I searched the floor.
I spotted a round rock—not a marble—pale and rough with black specks, like a large chunk of gravel, and picked it up. It was warm in my hand. “Looking for this.”
“A rock?” He raised an eyebrow and his expression said he thought I’d hit my head one too many times.
“This was a trap. It had a spell in it that activated when I walked in somehow. Maybe tied to my demon mark. It caused me to black out.”
Conor took the rock from me and examined it. But whatever spell it had held was now used up and gone.
“All I know is that I want the demon dead so he can’t torment me anymore.” I said it with conviction and meant every word. I did want him dead.
I just wanted to keep my magic after he was gone.
I went over to my shelf and grabbed my cast-iron cauldron and my spell kit that held herbs, ash, and salt. I nodded at Conor and we headed back to the car, pausing only to lock my office, for all the good that ever did.
Chapter 20
Pete was as surprised to find us on his doorstep as I was to be there. Like most witches, he kept a nocturnal schedule and was up and dressed, but when he opened the door, he stared at us for a long moment, confused.
“Hi,” I said.
Pete furrowed his brow.
“We would have called, but we’re trying to stay a few steps ahead of a rogue mage,” Conor said. “Can we come in?”
“Rogue mage?” Pete asked, with obvious concern. That wasn’t his area of expertise, and from the look on his face, neither was having folks show up at his place unannounced.
“He’s working with a demon,” I said. I glanced back out toward the street, anxious that Jax was having us followed. Or worse, that Ashraith was following in spirit form. “We need your help.”
Pete shifted from foot to foot, still not letting us in the door. “A mage working with a demon? That’s quite illegal.”
“No shit.”
Pete’s already confused expression melted into annoyance, his jaw tightening. Something flashed in his eyes. Apparently he didn’t like swearing.
Conor stepped in front of me, pushing me back a step. “We’re sorry to surprise you like this, but this mage and his demon are using strange magic against us and we wanted your help concocting whatever protection spells we might be able to come up with to stand a chance against them.”
Pete’s expression seemed to twist around before settling on sorrowful. His shoulders slumped. “Conor, I beg of you, leave me out of this.”
Conor straightened, rearing back slightly in surprise. He stared at Pete and then turned to me, as if I might have an answer to why Pete was so reluctant to let us in.
“You really won’t help? I don’t understand. This is what you do.”
Pete opened his mouth to explain but then clamped it shut again and merely looked at us with a resigned sadness before his face turned neutral again.
Demon Fate Page 12
