I tried to think of a comeback and ended up grumbling wordlessly under my breath.
“You’re awfully distrustful of Blake,” he remarked. “Why?”
“He’s a member of the Keys of Solomon—a demon-hunting guild.” I tipped my head back, squinting at the cloud-dotted sky. “Remember back around Halloween, when parts of downtown Vancouver were put in lockdown?”
He nodded.
“That happened because there was a demon on the loose. A Keys of Solomon team showed up to hunt it, and they were so bent on killing it themselves that they deliberately hampered the search efforts and threatened other teams. According to pretty much everyone, that’s standard behavior for the Keys.”
“Does the MPD allow that?”
“It’s complicated.”
He shifted his weight. “Were you involved in the … demon hunt … too?”
“Briefly.”
“Is that normal?” He cleared his throat. “My impression from the law-enforcement side was that venturing into those neighborhoods was extremely dangerous, so it seems … unusual … for civilians to participate.”
I was guessing “unusual” hadn’t been his first word choice, but he was trying to sound neutral.
Pressing my lips together, I considered how to answer. I didn’t want to get into my near-death experience at the unbound demon’s claws, our failed attempt to hunt it, or Ezra’s confrontation with the Keys team. Technically speaking, I shouldn’t have been out there at all. I had only recently been classified as a mythic and hadn’t had any combat training yet.
“Do sleeping potions work on demons?” Justin asked after a moment.
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you have other magic weapons that do work on demons?”
Not really … but though I didn’t say it, my silence answered for me.
“Then …” His brow scrunched. “Then why were you out there hunting a demon?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. I’d gone to support the guys, but … had they actually needed me?
“Tori!”
I whirled around at Aaron’s call. He was striding toward me, Blake limping in his wake.
“We have a problem,” the pyromage snapped. “Blake here is refusing to undig the hole he put my SUV in until I tell him what we found in the underground room.”
“We found cult junk,” I told the terramage flatly. “Chalices, candelabras, scepters, some fabric—probably cloaks or something creepy and over the top like that.”
“Yeah, sure,” he rumbled, leaning on his staff. “But you also found something that has you rushing off instead of digging through the burnt ‘cult junk.’”
Sometimes I hated smart people. Why couldn’t Blake be dumb as a rock like I’d initially hoped?
I glanced at the SUV’s tires, sitting in the two-foot-deep hole. “Screw it.”
Blake’s eyebrows rose expectantly, then lowered again as I stomped past him. Opening the SUV’s hatch, I yanked out a shovel.
“Do you have any idea how much I didn’t want to dig?” I growled, tossing the shovel to Justin. I grabbed the second one. “Digging sucks.”
Justin followed me to the front bumper, and when I set the point of the shovel against the frozen earth, he copied me. As much as there was to complain about when it came to my brother, he’d never been afraid of hard work.
Now I was thinking nice things about him, and that made me angrier.
Snarling like a dog, I stomped on the shovel’s step. The blade dug an inch into the hard earth.
Aaron hurried over. “Tori, I can—”
“I’ll do it! I can dig a damn hole!”
Blake’s staff thunked toward us. He stopped beside the passenger door, glancing over his handiwork. It was a very nice grave with lovely straight sides. The bastard.
I jumped on the shovel’s step with both feet, wobbled, and almost fell. When Aaron tugged the handle away, I let him take it with a bitter sigh. He set the shovel against the earth—and the ground heaved.
Staggering, I flailed my arms for balance. As quickly as it had begun, the mini-quake ended. My glower flashed toward the asshole terramage.
He stood beside the passenger door—which was now open. And in his hand was the eight-year-old envelope I’d left on my seat in plain sight, like a complete dumbass.
“This address,” he growled. “Is it—”
Aaron snapped his fingers.
The envelope burst into flame. Yelping, Blake dropped the flaming paper. The scepter inside fell to the ground and bounced on its stubby handle, shreds of flaming envelope clinging to it.
I folded my arms. “Get lost before Aaron lights you on fire too.”
Blake smirked. Turning, he walked away from our vehicle. Aaron, Justin, and I didn’t move, watching until he’d disappeared down the road that led away from the property. A minute later, the echo of a car door slamming reached us. An engine rumbled to life, and the sound receded into the woods.
“Finally,” I growled, stooping to pick up the scepter. “Now let’s—”
I broke off. The front edge of the hole our SUV was trapped in had, moments ago, been a straight vertical edge. Now it was a smooth ramp.
Snatching the scepter, I puffed out an angry breath. “He’s still an asshole.”
“Yeah,” Aaron agreed, collecting the shovels. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before he decides to come back.”
Chapter Ten
The drive from Enright to Portland was two hours, most of it winding mountain roads. Aaron and I didn’t even try to talk until we were back on paved highway. I never wanted to see another dirt road again in my life.
“Tori …” he began in his “bad news” voice. “You know this address is even more of a longshot than Enright was, right?”
“I know.” I tugged the strap of my seatbelt away from my neck. “We can always go back to Enright to search the ruins again if we have to.”
“I doubt we’ll find anything, even if we turn the whole place upside down.”
Trees flashed past, sunlight sparkling through their branches, and I wished I could enjoy the nice weather. My stomach grumbled, complaining about the insufficient amount of food I’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours.
“You can do what you want, Aaron,” I said, staring out the windshield, “but I don’t care how bad the odds are. I’ll turn over every rock on that property until I find something. I’ll knock on every mythic’s door in Portland until I find someone who knows about the cult. As long as Ezra is alive, I’ll keep searching.”
“I know, Tori. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up that we’ll find something.”
“I want to get my hopes up. You and Kai and Ezra lost hope, and that’s why you stopped trying.”
Aaron’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Kai and I stopped searching because Ezra asked us to. He didn’t want us wasting our lives trying to save his. After three years of searching, we’d run out of ideas …”
“I’m not blaming you,” I said softly.
He was quiet for a long moment, then his gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. “So … do you want to explain what your brother is doing?”
I scowled at the mirror too. An unfamiliar black pickup truck followed a dozen car lengths behind us. Justin, the sneaky jerk, had rented a vehicle so I wouldn’t spot his recognizable Challenger.
“Justin wants to mend bridges,” I muttered. “And according to Justin logic, putting a tracking app on my phone and following me when I leave town in the middle of the night is a good way to accomplish that.”
“Hmm. Well, it’s nice that he’s finally trying to understand what you have going on, right?”
“Sure, yeah,” I replied sarcastically, resting my head against the passenger window. “And he’s getting a fantastic crash course in mythics as a result. Demon cults and mass-murders and a terramage-pyromage battle. Great intro.”
“He’s stayed pretty levelheaded, though,” Aaron pointed out. “He eve
n saved our butts against Blake.”
I pressed my hands into my seat. Justin had been more useful than I had, and that grated in a big way.
“He got lucky,” I growled. “And we only needed him because you didn’t use lethal force on Blake first.”
“Suppose. He would’ve been difficult to beat either way.”
Kicking my boots off, I pulled my socked feet onto the seat and hugged my knees. “I wish Kai was here.”
“Me too.” Aaron’s blue eyes dimmed. “I’ve been texting him updates. He said he almost has Makiko convinced, but he’s probably deluding himself.”
I hesitated. “How about Ezra? Have you talked to him?”
“Yeah, he said this morning that he was going with Darius to spend the day at the guild.”
My heart clenched painfully. I’d texted him four times, but he hadn’t answered any of my messages. “I screwed up big time, didn’t I?”
“It’s …” Aaron took a hand off the wheel to rake his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know, Tori. Maybe, maybe not. You’ve only seen glimpses of what it’s like when Eterran …”
His jaw tightened, gaze fixed on the road. “The first time Ezra’s demon tried to kill me, we were on a job taking down a small band of rogues—us against five mythics. One of them stabbed Kai in the gut. It was bad, and you know how Ezra reacts when one of us gets hurt.”
Yes, I was very aware.
“Right then, a telekinetic hit Ezra in the head with a piece of metal. The blow stunned him, and Eterran took over. He obliterated those rogues with one spell—killing them in a flash.
“Then he turned on me. He could’ve killed me just as fast, but instead, he pinned me to a wall and grabbed me by the throat. He started choking me and I couldn’t do a thing to stop him, not without lighting Ezra on fire.”
I hugged my legs harder, muscles vibrating.
“It only lasted a few seconds before Ezra regained control, but …” Aaron glanced my way. “You know why Eterran choked me instead of blowing me up in two seconds with magic? So Ezra would have to watch me die, unable to stop it.”
I put my chin on my knees, feeling dizzy. I knew Eterran was lethal, but imagining the demon choking the life out of Aaron just to torment Ezra was something else entirely.
“Do you … do you think Eterran could have changed since then?” I asked hesitantly. “Him being inside Ezra has changed Ezra, hasn’t it? Maybe Eterran’s been changed too.”
“I don’t know. The demon’s power has changed Ezra’s body, but I don’t know if it’s changed his mind. We’ll never know what he was like before becoming a demon mage. I’ve always wondered, though …”
I raised my head. “Wondered what?”
Aaron frowned at the road. “I’ve wondered what he’d be like if he didn’t always have to worry about Eterran and his emotions.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “I’ve wondered that, too … and I’ve wondered what he would be like if he knew he had a future? Last night, he said …” My throat closed, and I had to swallow before I could continue. “He usually follows along with whatever the rest of us are doing, but what if …”
“What if he wanted something?” The set of Aaron’s jaw changed, and his eyes blazed with sudden determination. “If we can do this … if we can save Ezra from his demon, then we’ll finally get to find out.”
My arms slid from around my legs and I dropped my feet to the floor. Straightening my spine, I faced the road ahead.
If we can do this …
We could. We would. Finally, Aaron was beginning to hope—and I wouldn’t let him, or Ezra, down.
“It should be around here somewhere,” I muttered, checking my GPS app against the photo I’d snapped of the scepter envelope mere moments after escaping the underground room with it. The whole “booby-trap fire” experience had inspired me to save the address in a way that wouldn’t get burned up.
And good thing too, since Aaron had turned the envelope to ash.
The address was located on the outskirts of a northern suburb of Portland. We’d already driven through the city center—stopping to grab a fast-food lunch on our way through—then crossed the Columbia River. A few more miles and we’d be out in farmland.
The area we were in was nice, featuring one- and two-acre properties with lots of mature trees lining a quiet, rural road. The houses were set well back from the street, with large lawns of neatly mowed grass. It wasn’t my jam—way too quiet and boring—but I got how some people would call it idyllic.
“Oh,” I exclaimed, pointing at a mint-green cottage-style home. “That’s house 496. Two more properties and we’ll be at number 500.”
Aaron slowed, and behind us, Justin’s black truck closed the gap. We rolled along the narrow road, passing a large brown house half hidden behind huge trees.
“Number 500,” I muttered.
I could see only a gravel driveway sweeping up a gentle slope before disappearing into a dense clump of trees. As we drove past, I glimpsed a structure that was either a very small house or a very large garage, then the road curved around a bend, cutting off my view.
Aaron flicked on his signal and pulled onto the grassy shoulder behind a mud-splattered, camo-painted jeep. Justin parked behind us, and I reached for my door handle.
The driver’s door of the jeep in front of us flew open. I froze as a large man jumped out of the vehicle, faced our SUV, and folded his arms expectantly.
Blake Cogan, the terramage.
“No freaking way,” I growled.
Swearing, Aaron shoved his door open, and I scrambled out of the vehicle too. Blake limped to meet Aaron.
“What the hell are you doing here?” the pyromage demanded.
“Took you long enough,” Blake rumbled. “Did you stop for sightseeing?”
I halted beside Aaron, hands balled into fists. “How did you—”
“I saw the address before you burned it,” he cut in. “And I’m here because the Enright cult is responsible for the deaths of my friends, guildmates, and my career, and if anyone got away, it’s my business far more than it’s yours. And”—he spoke over my protest—“it doesn’t seem to have occurred to you that whoever lives here could be a demon mage.”
I hesitated. No, that hadn’t occurred to us—because we knew there’d only ever been eleven demon mages. But someone had killed all the cultists, and it hadn’t been Ezra. So maybe Blake had a point.
Aaron and I exchanged angrily resigned glances. Blake wasn’t likely to let me shoot him with a sleeping potion again, and even if I could manage it, that might draw attention from the nearby homes. Looked like we were stuck with the Keys terramage as unwelcome backup.
Damn it.
We spent a few minutes discussing a plan of attack—or more accurately, Aaron and Blake strategized while Justin and I listened silently. We donned our gear—my belt, tucked out of sight under the hem of my jacket; Aaron’s sword, hidden in its case; Justin’s taser, concealed in a pocket; and Blake’s innocuous “walking stick”—then ventured into the trees on the neighboring property.
Midafternoon wasn’t the best time for a stealth operation, and I hoped no one was peeking through their blinds as we walked up the neighbor’s driveway, then cut through the trees and approached house number 500 from the side. It was a large, Tudor-style abode with an attached two-car garage. A detached RV garage took up the spot on the other side of the wide driveway.
We made a circle around the property, then crept up to the ground-level windows and spied on the interior like peeping Toms. When we’d seen all we could from the outside, we reconvened behind the massive raised deck in the back, a cute little stream trickling behind us.
“Well?” I whispered.
Aaron rubbed at the faint stubble on his jaw. “They have a very nice home.”
“I didn’t see any cult paraphernalia—not out in the open, at least.”
“They didn’t have anything else personal on display either,” Justin murmured. “N
o photos or knickknacks.”
His observation surprised me. I hadn’t noticed.
“They aren’t likely to leave evidence lying around,” Blake said impatiently. “The only way to know if the people who live here are involved in the cult is to question them.”
I grimaced in reluctant agreement.
“Hold on,” Justin cut in. “You don’t know that the current homeowners had anything to do with the cult. It’s been eight years. Whoever mailed that package probably went into hiding after the rest of their group was killed. You can’t assault an innocent family without any evidence.”
He had a point—not that I wanted to admit it.
“Let’s check the garages and see if there’re any cars,” I suggested. “If they aren’t home, we can break in and snoop around.”
Justin shot me a disparaging look, as though B&E were hardly better than assaulting innocent civilians.
Aaron had to climb through a bush to peer into the window of the attached garage. He returned with leaves stuck to his pants and reported that the garage was empty. We approached the tall RV garage, and I took one for the team this time, climbing into the bushes to get at the window.
Cupping my hands to the sides of my face, I pressed my nose to the glass. Even blocking the light, all I could see was my reflection. The interior was completely black.
I climbed out of the bushes with a grumble. Now I had bits of dead leaves in my socks to go with the grit in other places. I wanted a shower so badly.
“I can’t see anything,” I told the three men, joining them in the shadows beneath the trees. “It’s blacked out.”
“Blacked out as in there are drapes?” Aaron asked. “Or blacked out as in completely covered?”
“I think the latter.”
He cracked his knuckles. “Then let’s take a look.”
We returned to the garage’s side door, and he produced a lock pick. Though it took him three minutes to Kai’s thirty seconds, the lock clacked and he pushed the door open. Sunlight flooded the interior as we walked in.
I stared around, then cleared my throat. “So … either the new homeowners are highly opposed to redecoration, or the cult member still lives here.”
Lost Talismans and a Tequila (The Guild Codex: Spellbound Book 7) Page 9