by Jory Strong
Their power surged against her like waves of terror, though they ignored her, giving Arioc their full attention. They spoke in the flowing, elegant language of high lords, and she recognized only two of the words, Gressil and Oeillet, the second a name she’d found in Malik’s library in that last reference work.
Shock reverberated through her, coming with the realization Lucifer’s Blade was being used to trap the lords guarding the portal. And with that knowledge came another—she was meant to be tonight’s sacrifice.
The need to flee slammed into her so it was all she could do to remain standing and not hurl herself against the magical cage containing her. Conversation ceased. The lords turned their attention on her. Pupils dilated in the presence of her terror and horror.
“Arioc?” She hated that her voice was little more than a fear-threaded whisper.
“I will not engage in a battle with them. Where they take you, I cannot immediately follow. I will tell your human lover how he can find you.” His gaze dropped to the heartstone bracelet. “If he is what you claim then he should be able to reach you in time. If you are wrong, if he fails me because he fails you, then he will die this night as well.”
“No—”
But the protest was lost in a black crush of magic.
Chapter Fifteen
Dylan’s call went to voicemail again.
How long did it take to summon a fucking demon?
An incoming kept him from slamming the phone onto the seat in frustration.
“Are you at Seraphine’s place yet?” Trace asked, something in his partner’s voice making Dylan’s heart go into triple-beat.
“Close. What’s going on?”
“Miguel just walked in. Said there was a dispatch to Electra Jordain’s house. Suspected would-be rapist incapacitated by homeowner’s friend and being held on premises.”
It couldn’t be a coincidence. Not on the heels of what happened at the garage.
This was meant to draw Seraphine out. Every cop instinct he possessed screamed it.
He flipped on the sirens to go with the lights. “Does Seraphine know?”
“Hold on.”
He heard Trace talking to someone. Then his partner was back. “She knows. Storm made some calls. Electra talked to Seraphine.”
“Fuck. She’s not answering her phone.”
He hung up on Trace in favor of trying to reach Seraphine.
Again and again and again.
His guts crawled with fear each time he heard her voice saying leave a message. He cursed himself for not believing her instead of having to confront Jacqueline, for not dealing with the summoning shit and staying with her.
“Come on, Seraphine. Come on. Answer, goddamn it.”
Relief slammed into him at turning onto her street and seeing her car. Maybe the charge on her phone had run down. Maybe she was in her ceremony room. Jesus, he never thought he’d be glad at the prospect of her being occupied with magic, or relieved by her claim that wards protected her inside the house.
He braked to a hard, fast stop. Slammed out of the car and pounded toward the front door.
He reached for the knob, only thinking about needing a key when it turned, unlocked.
Fear knocked the relief aside as if it’d never been there.
He entered, yelling her name. Rushed down the hallway, slamming open the door to the ceremony room he’d never been into. Empty. Fuck!
“Seraphine!”
He stormed into the living room, sending the finches into a frenzy of flight and filling the room with the sound of feathers fluttering.
The charm belonging to him went nova, scorching him in the same instant he noticed the scent of expensive tobacco and the blond he’d seen her with the other night sitting in a chair, legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, the calico cat on his lap, kneading his thigh.
Dylan drew his gun. “Where is she?”
The blond stroked the cat with one hand as he carried the cigarette he held in the other to his lips. He took a draw, releasing the smoke slowly.
Dylan moved closer, the gun aimed center mass. Fear and fury rushing, pounding beats in his head.
“Where is she?”
The blond’s gaze flicked to Dylan’s gun hand. His expression held only a subtle menace when his eyes returned to Dylan’s.
“Can’t you guess who I am?”
“I don’t give a flying fuck who you are.”
“You should.”
“Where’s Seraphine?”
“I can tell you she’s in the company of the witch who’s in possession of Lucifer’s Blade. I can tell you how to find her, but not where she is.”
“Do it. Now.”
The blond laughed and Dylan nearly stepped close enough to press the gun’s muzzle to the man’s head.
Amusement glittered in his eyes as if he guessed the nature of Dylan’s thoughts and found them a joke. “I am fond of her,” he said. “I’ve offered her a chance to become my consort on any number of occasions. Once I nearly had her, but then the half-elf interfered, giving her the heartmate stone and apparently providing you with one as well.”
Aislinn? Half-elf?
Dylan’s thoughts diverted to the butterfly earrings she wore at the tips of her ears and it was like being zapped by electricity. A different kind of fear slid in at what he faced.
He quashed it, and the blond smiled, though there was nothing remotely friendly in his eyes. “You came here and Seraphine was lost to me. That alone is reason enough to kill you.”
Let the fucker try. Civility fell to the violent need to act.
Dylan moved in, barely noted the flick of the fingers not holding the cigarette before he shot backward fifteen feet to slam against the wall next to the doorway he’d just entered through.
He dropped to the floor. Scrambled to his feet and took three steps only to be tossed again by the flick of fingers.
“Do you know who I am now?”
“Arioc.” It was the only name she’d mentioned.
“Ah, so she’s spoken of me.”
Dylan stood.
A come-here motion by the blond had the chain with Seraphine’s charm jerking forward with violent speed.
Delicate links snapped.
The token sped toward Arioc.
He lifted his hand off the cat and caught it.
Primal fear surged upward in Dylan, the last of his resistance to belief in the supernatural falling as he made the connection between the flaming heat of the charm still against his skin and the demon he confronted.
The demon’s amusement faded into a cool expression of disdain. “She deserves better than a human male, but even my kind must occasionally sacrifice lesser goals for greater ones. I believe the two of us can reach an accord. Would you give your life for her?”
“Yes.” Absolutely.
“You will need to go alone. Involve anyone else and their inevitable slaughter is your burden to bear. I am limited in what aid I can give. If you do indeed succeed in reaching Seraphine, you must immediately incapacitate the summoner or the other lords will be used against you.”
Dylan holstered the gun. “How do I find her?”
“Isn’t it obvious to you by now?” The demon’s lips twisted. “Follow your heart.”
Follow his heart? What the fuck did that mean?
The demon disappeared as if he were nothing more than a waking nightmare, leaving the cat to stare at Dylan as the charm became cool metal, making Dylan aware of the warmth radiating from the heartstone in his ring.
Son of a bitch. In a heartbeat he knew this was how Trace had found Aislinn when she’d been taken by a killer targeting psychics.
He closed his eyes. Concentrated on Seraphine—and it was as easy as picking up the phone and calling.
Hurry!
Was that really her voice? Or just his creation of it to go along with a sense of terror and time running out?
It didn’t matter, because real or not, it was a
ccompanied by the image of a street and a house, taken as if she’d been allowed to stand in front of entranceway gates long enough to look around and get her bearings.
He recognized the area. Didn’t even second-guess the rush to his car, gunning it away from the curb, lights and siren on until he got close to where Seraphine was, had to be.
Let me get to her in time. Please let me get there in time.
It was a measure of just how much he now believed in the supernatural that he didn’t hesitate. He crashed through the gates Seraphine had shown him, uncaring of the crunching, collapsing sound of metal, or the jarring shudder accompanying the trashing of his car.
He slammed to a stop as close to the front door as he could get, grabbed his personal Benelli from the trunk. The lockset gave with a single shotgun blast.
He spared a fleeting thought as to whether any of the neighbors, none of them particularly close, would call the police. Dismissed it. He’d deal with it when the time came.
Ominous silence filled the house. He swapped the Benelli in his gun hand for his personal 9mm.
The cut across his palm pulsed, and for a terrifying instant he thought the moisture he felt between it and the gun was blood, Seraphine’s, as she began bleeding out.
Just sweat. It’s just sweat. I’m not too late. I can’t be too late.
Where are you! he mentally shouted, begged, remembering the Harpers’ hidden chamber and knowing if he had to search for one he might not reach her in time.
A picture of a library came along with imagery demonstrating the place that needed to be stepped on in conjunction with tipping a small statuette forward.
He found both after a mad dash through the house. Triggered the slide of a narrow section of shelves to the right.
Chanting exploded across his senses. He barreled into the unknown, terror spiking at seeing Seraphine bound naked on the altar, gagged, Lucifer’s Blade lying on her stomach, pointing to her mound, her legs tied open.
Camille turned, naked as well, but it was the robed figure reaching toward two medallions who Dylan reacted to.
He shot.
No hesitation.
The summoner went down, the hood falling away from her face so he recognized her instantly. The attorney. They were right!
Camille lunged forward as he caught the ruby-eyed glint of the eyes set in the blade’s hilt. He shot for a second time, winging her so her blood spattered across Seraphine as Camille was driven back.
She made another attempt to grab the knife, but he was already there. Wrestling for control, her strength and frantic struggling worse than a hopped-up junkie’s.
Her head hit the edge of the altar as he took her to the ground, the knife leaving her hand. The blow stunned her long enough for him to wrench her arms behind her and secure her with cuffs pulled from his jacket pocket.
Above him, Seraphine moved frantically. Her muffled words urgent, frantic. Stop her! Stop her! slammed into his mind.
He dove forward, landing on Helene Lindley. The impact forced a cry from lips that had been silently chanting.
Despite the blood-soaked robe, her hand had crept up to clutch the medallions. He forced them away, jerked the chains from her neck and tossed the medallions to the side before grabbing Lucifer’s Blade.
The instant, full-body hum made his stomach heave. But the presence of it in his hand had Lindley freezing in compliance.
He cuffed her first then used the knife to cut her robe. The blade sliced through the material as if it were made of air.
He stuffed a wad of robe into her mouth. Secured it with a strip he’d taken for that purpose.
And even then he didn’t feel completely safe.
He stood, keeping both women in sight as he backed to Seraphine. He hadn’t noticed it before, but a medallion like the other two lay between her breasts. He flung it off her.
There was a channel set in the altar. Nausea swelled at seeing how Seraphine was bound so her wrists were above it.
He set the knife down, not willing to allow it anywhere near her flesh. His fingers shook as he got the gag off her first, and there was no way he could prevent his lips from taking hers in a hard, fast kiss before he freed her from the restraints, noticing the symbols written in the channel and shuddering as he imagined blood slowly covering them.
He hugged her to him when she sat up, pulling her tight against him as he kept his gun aimed toward Lindley and her pet killer. “Jesus. I’m still shaking. We need to call the police and get the paramedics in here. I don’t how bad the witch’s wound is.”
“She won’t die. Not in this room. Not while Oeillet and Gressil are bound to the medallions.”
Seraphine slipped from the altar, remaining in his arms.
I love you. In his head.
“I love you.” A soft whisper meant just for him.
The words slammed into his heart like an arrow and exploded in the center with the promise of a future filled with happiness.
A laugh escaped. He brushed his lips across hers.
“Jesus, this isn’t exactly a romantic place to make a declaration, but fuck, you have to know I love you too. I can’t imagine life without you now.” I love you.
She gave him a fierce hug then disengaged, breaking the physical contact. He retrieved the Benelli from where he’d ditched it on his way to subduing Camille.
No! he silently shouted as Seraphine picked up Lucifer’s Blade. He didn’t want her touching it.
“Arioc,” she said, and the demon arrived in a shimmer of gold.
What the fuck? But even as Dylan thought it, jealousy and possessiveness were a hot burn in his gut to match the feel of the charm against his skin.
He placed his weapons on the altar so he could rip his jacket off, practically manhandling Seraphine to get her breasts and cunt covered.
The demon laughed, a grate against Dylan’s nerves that had him grinding his teeth and fighting against being royally pissed at Seraphine for summoning Arioc.
“I’m in possession of the blade,” she said as Dylan holstered his off-duty piece and lifted the shotgun off the altar. “I call on you to assist me in unbinding Dylan from it.”
The demon lord prowled forward. “It is no small working, Seraphine. As you correctly guessed, the athame itself is tied to something larger, a portal the high lords once used with regularity to frequent this world. When we stood in front of your house, I saw your recognition of the name Oeillet and your understanding that those who controlled the portal were being enslaved. To free your human is to unbind the blade from the portal.”
He reached, ignoring the baring of Dylan’s teeth, though Seraphine barred the demon from touching her with a hand around his wrist.
Ice filled his eyes. A chill spread from them, so dark and deep it froze the breath in Dylan’s chest and tensed his body in a flight or fight response.
The demon smiled and a thaw came, though Dylan understood it would never be more than illusion.
“As I told your lover, even my kind must occasionally suffer the loss of one prize in order to gain a much larger, and in this case, unexpected one, given that after Gressil and Oeillet, I am the lord summoned when the portal opens. As such, it is my right to unleash it from the blade should I wish to do so.”
“And you do,” Seraphine murmured. “That’s why you were willing to cancel all debt between us.”
“Yes.”
“And the cost to me? To Dylan?”
“To your lover?” He shrugged. “I cannot gauge that, though no harm will come to him physically, or to you for that matter, not with me here to ensure the sigils are drawn correctly and the words needed to evoke the working are spoken in the right order. But in all likelihood it will drain away your gift. If you’re left with the ability to harness magic at all, it might be no more than any human can accomplish with luck and effort.”
Seraphine’s fear of that loss washed into Dylan and with it, he caught a glimpse of a young girl and the driving need to see her p
roperly trained. But he also felt Seraphine’s fierce belief that they were meant to be together, and a darker one matching his own, that one day he’d turn his gun upon himself if the whispers and screams weren’t silenced.
Once he might have been glad to see an end to Seraphine’s involvement in witchcraft. But he ached at the prospect of her losing something so important to her. His arm tightened on her. He could withstand the whispers and screams. She could strengthen the charm again, and besides, wouldn’t they die down if Lucifer’s Blade wasn’t being used?
He hugged her to him, her back to his chest, and grit his teeth at the way the hum in his body ratcheted up as if she served as a conduit for the dagger. “Or we could leave things as they are, Seraphine. We could guard the blade. Who better to do it than a witch married to a homicide cop?”
He could feel the joy those words caused her in the shiver of her body against his.
The demon’s smile was the promise of sunshine and happy ever after. “An excellent suggestion.”
From nowhere, the charm Arioc had taken appeared, dangling from a chain whose links were no longer broken. “My protection would extend to your lover, Seraphine. Accept my offer of it and agree to become the blade’s guardian. Why risk becoming a weak, powerless mortal when it’s unnecessary?”
Refusal stiffened her spine. Accept the offer, Dylan said, jealousy and fury a hot tangle in his chest. It had taken a minute to process, but now he knew the demon had risked Seraphine’s life by allowing her to be taken.
He didn’t want her bound to the arrogant son of bitch. Despised even the thought of it, but he hated the idea of her losing something important to her even worse. “Accept the offer,” he repeated, though he thought she’d heard the unspoken words.
He became sure of it with her No.
“No. It’s not safe. Trust me, Dylan, it’s not safe. Eventually one of us, if not both, would lose our lives because of the blade.”
Resolve filled her. Do what you think is right, he said. This was her world. She was the expert here.
Her hand tightened on the athame. Her attention went to the demon. “I call on you to honor our bargain, Arioc. All debt between us is now paid in full. With my possession of the blade, you will assist me in unbinding Dylan from the portal.”
