The attendants opened the back doors and helped Kai get Aaron inside. Makiko slid in after him, and Kai took the next spot. As I stepped toward the open door, I realized Ezra was hanging back.
I turned. “Ezra?”
“There’s something I need to do,” he said quietly.
“What?” My eyes widened. “You can’t go back for them. You—”
“Not that. Something else.” He stepped closer. “I’ll take the SUV and meet you guys back at the house.”
“But—” I broke off, staring at him. Really seeing him.
He was back to his non-demonic self, with no more glowing veins or magma eyes. But something was different. Something had changed.
His softness, that gentle kindness that had warmed me from the moment I’d met him, was still there. That hadn’t changed. But it had been joined by … by …
Fire.
That was the only word to describe the light in his eyes. The burn in his gaze. It was as though the Ezra I’d known for eight months had been half asleep.
Suddenly, I was looking at an Ezra who was wide awake.
As I gawked at him, that Ezra strode up to me, cupped my face in his hands, and kissed me.
Like, really kissed me.
And the fire I saw in him—I felt it in his kiss. An inferno of desire incinerated my innards, and I clamped my arms around his neck. Plastered against him, I kissed him back with every flame of intensity I possessed—my fire meeting his, and it was like I’d never kissed him before.
The burn of passion and fear and need and desperation and determination combined until I was scorched from the inside out, until the shape of me was burning into something new.
Then someone cleared their throat loudly.
I tore my mouth off Ezra’s and looked over. I was standing at the open car door, and everyone in the vehicle was right there, staring at us. Including the two Miura attendants.
Cheeks flushing, I unclamped my arms and stepped back.
Kai leaned out and tossed something to Ezra. The aeromage caught the object—Aaron’s car keys.
“Thanks.” Ever the poker-face champion, Ezra gave me a calm smile. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Y-yeah.”
I blinked repeatedly as he strode to Aaron’s SUV, climbed into the driver’s seat, and shut the door. I was still staring as he reversed into the middle of the parking lot, then peeled out, tires squealing. The taillights flashed, then the SUV disappeared.
And I still stared, because holy shit.
When Ezra had said last night that he was ready to fight, I hadn’t realized that wasn’t a mere change in attitude. It went way deeper than that.
I lifted my fingers to my tingling lips. So far, I had zero complaints.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The moment I walked into Aaron’s house, I might have run straight for Ezra, dirty shoes and grimy gear be damned. And I might have thrown my arms around him all over again, and I might have kissed him with a ridiculous amount of desperation.
I also might have cried a little. The last few days had been really tough, okay?
Three hours had passed since we’d parted ways in the cemetery parking lot. Aaron, Kai, and Makiko were with the Miuras’ healers. I’d waited until they were in better shape, then called a cab to take me home so Ezra wouldn’t have to wait alone all night.
At least, I’d tried to call a cab. Makiko had plucked the phone out of my hand, ended the call while the operator had been in mid-sentence, informed me her driver would take me home, and stared at me stonily until I’d agreed.
Then, even more bizarrely, she’d hesitantly patted my shoulder and murmured something that sounded sort of like, “It’ll be fine,” before walking back into the room where a healer had been examining Kai.
Weird.
But now I was home, and Makiko wasn’t getting another thought tonight.
I desperately needed a shower, but after prying myself off Ezra, I shed my shoes and jacket, then returned to the living room where he waited for me. Rubbing the evidence of tears from my cheeks, I dropped onto the sofa. He sat beside me, and I leaned into him, my astounded gaze flicking across his face. That new intensity in him wasn’t as obvious now that we were safe, but it was definitely there.
“So …” I drawled, smiling wanly. “Guess we have some catching up to do.”
He arched his eyebrows. “The first thing I want to know is whether you knew that was the Court of the Red Queen when you went in there. Because if you did …”
I cringed. “I didn’t know the full name, but we did know it was the home base of the cult …”
“A demon-worshipping cult.” His expression hardened. “And you didn’t think going in there unprepared to battle demons might be a mistake?”
“Honestly, we didn’t think there’d be anyone there, but … yeah.” I slumped into the cushions. “It was a mistake for sure. We were in a hurry. We wanted to get in and out before they realized we’d killed their moles in the Keys of Solomon.”
His jaw dropped. Recovering quickly, he leaned back beside me. “Maybe you should start from the beginning.”
Resting my head on his shoulder, I ran through the events of the past few days, from our investigation of Enright, to the “circle” in Portland, to our trip to Salt Lake City, where we’d fallen into the trap at the Keys guild. When I reached the part where Daniel had thrown me down on the table to interrogate me, Ezra brushed my cheek.
I realized tears were trickling down my face.
“What’s wrong?” he murmured.
I shoved my hand into my combat belt, still buckled around my hips. The chain jingled as I pulled out the Vh’alyir Amulet.
Faint crimson lit Ezra’s left eye.
“Russel grabbed it,” I whispered, staring at the metal disc. “His demon took control and started to tear free from Russel. And—and it …” My fingers closed tightly over the medallion, squeezing so hard it hurt. “It killed them both. Russel and his demon.”
Ezra inhaled sharply.
“It didn’t break whatever magic imprisons the demon inside the human. When the demon tried to get out, Russel’s body … it ripped apart. The demon couldn’t break free, and he died when Russel died.”
My fingers spasmed, and I flung the amulet onto the coffee table. It bounced off and clattered across the hardwood floor.
“Useless.” I gasped back a sob. “It works so well on regular demon contracts. I was so sure—I was counting on it so much, but it’ll kill you, not save you, and—”
Ezra captured my hands, pressing them between his warm palms. “But you were searching for something else. You went to find a grimoire.”
I nodded, sniffling. Sliding my hands from his, I pushed off the sofa and crossed to the front door. After taking off my jacket, I’d left the textbook-sized grimoire on the closet shelf. I carried it back to Ezra and set it on his lap.
He stared at the emblem inscribed on the black leather cover.
“What does it mean?” I asked, sinking onto the sofa beside him. “The symbol.”
With one finger, he traced the circle. “The Court.” He touched the crown. “The Red Queen who rules it.”
“Their Queen is this ‘goddess’?”
He nodded. “Have you ever noticed that all demons are male?”
I blinked, then shrugged. “I guess, but I’d never thought about it.”
“They’re all male because only male demons can be summoned. Female demons can’t be called into this world. The cult says that’s because demon males are servants of the one true Goddess who created magic, and she sends her servants to this world to aid and protect her followers.”
His mouth quirked in a humorless smile. “Eterran says females are never summoned because they would obliterate anyone who summoned them, contract or no contract.”
“Huh. Um.” I swallowed. “Speaking of Eterran … your fighting style has changed.”
Real amusement softened his smile. “We came to a tr
uce. It’s been interesting. We should last a bit longer now that we aren’t constantly fighting each other.”
Fear jumped in my chest at the reminder of his dwindling time, and I looked down at the grimoire. He ran his thumb along the cover’s edge, then drew in a deep breath. Holding it in his lungs, he opened the book.
I squinted. “It’s written in … Latin?”
“Most spells are in Latin or another ancient language.” He turned the pages, flipping past precise Latin printing and ink flourishes. “I remember a book just like this during the ritual.”
I leaned closer as he continued to peruse the tome. The walls of text morphed to diagrams of spells and detailed drawings of Arcana circles. Demonic runes marked other pages. He kept going, and illustrations of humans appeared, their bodies marked like a disturbing mockery of a medical text.
He stopped on an ink illustration of a face, the man’s mouth open to reveal long fangs. His eyes had the colors reversed—the sclera pitch black, with a white pupil in the center.
“That’s a vampire,” Ezra muttered. “Why is there a drawing of a vampire in here?”
I’d never seen a vampire in person, and judging by that illustration, I didn’t want to.
Ezra flipped to a detailed drawing of the vampire’s creepy inverted eye, paused to scrutinize it, then continued. More diagrams. Another drawing of a human, marked up with illegible Latin text. He turned to the next page and stopped again.
A drawing of a wolf. But if the book had a vampire in it, then I was willing to bet that wasn’t a regular ol’ Canis lupus.
“Werewolf,” Ezra whispered.
My hand was already diving into my pocket. I pulled out my phone, and in seconds, I was speeding through my gallery of photos, racing back in time to December.
A photo filled my screen. I’d snapped it the day after Ezra and I—and Eterran, if I were being fair—had stopped apprentice alchemist Brian from kidnapping Sin, who’d been bitten by a mutant werewolf. We’d gone back the next day to clean up, gather evidence, and write our report for the MPD.
The picture I’d taken showed a square piece of paper lying beside a steel box with a foam insert, the cutouts in it suggesting it had held vials or test tubes. We’d turned all that evidence over to the MPD, but I’d stolen a few photos beforehand.
The crisp handwriting stood out sharply against the white paper.
Brian,
Please find enclosed your final stock. I hope to receive a completed sample by the end of the month.
Yours most sincerely,
- X.
“It’s signed ‘X.’” I croaked the words. “And that metal case … what if it contained …”
Ezra had gone rigid beside me. “Demon blood. It contained demon blood—a conduit of demonic power, according to the cult.”
My gaze flicked between the photo and the grimoire.
“And vampires,” he muttered. “There was something about a surge in vampire activity last November. Drew was talking about super-powered vamps.”
I swallowed hard and gestured at the book. “Keep going.”
He flipped through the pages. More diagrams. Drawings of strange creatures began to appear—not demons, but other things … beasts that vaguely resembled animals. He kept turning. Now we were into a section on infernus spells, and then …
I pointed at the page he’d halted on. “That looks like a golem.”
My voice was remarkably calm, but internally, I was shrieking, “Golem!” over and over like a madwoman.
“A golem,” he agreed, staring down at the man-shaped behemoth of steel drawn in careful detail.
“The liquid that came out of Varvara’s golems,” I said, again sounding far calmer than I felt. “Aaron said it smelled like burnt blood.”
My gaze met Ezra’s, and we said in unison, “Demon blood.”
I swallowed against the panicky ringing in my ears. “Ezra, just who is Xever?”
“He’s the cult leader, and the summoner who created all the demon mages in Enright. His demon, Nazhivēr, is very powerful and only loosely contracted. When I was a teenager, Xever used Nazhivēr as an example of a loyal Servus, and claimed all demons could serve us like that if our faith was strong.”
His jaw clenched. “Nazhivēr killed Lexie when she lost control.”
I rubbed his shoulder, sympathy softening the tension in my jaw as I waited for him to push through the flare of old grief.
“Xever didn’t live in Enright. He visited every couple of months, but even though he was rarely there, everyone was blindly loyal to him. He was so … composed and perceptive, and he seemed all-knowing to me.” A faint frown turned his lips down. “I’m more familiar with Xanthe. Seeing her tonight was a bigger shock than seeing Xever.”
“Wait. You know the assassin?”
“Assassin?” He blinked. “Xanthe is the mentalist assassin you described?”
My mouth had gone dry. “How do you know her?”
“She’s the Magna Ducissa—the cultist ranked just below the Magnus Dux. She spent more time in Enright than Xever. A few days every month, at least, helping settle in new members and working with the demon mages.”
I studied the cold bitterness in his gaze. “You tried to kill her first.”
“Xever made me a demon mage, but she’s the one who convinced my parents I should become a protector.”
Cold settled deep in my limbs. A mentalist with the ability to make her victims do whatever she wanted … Had she used that power against the cultists without their knowledge? Her control didn’t seem to have had any lasting effects on us, but were there other ways she could use her ability?
Had she influenced Ezra and his parents into accepting the cult’s dogma?
“All along,” I muttered, “was Enright just an experiment on how to create a perfect demon mage? Experiments on living people … just like Brian was experimenting on living werewolves?”
“Xever, Xanthe, and the cult helped create those enhanced golems, too. They may have done something with vampires as well, if Drew was right about an unexplained surge in their strength.”
My hands clenched around my knees, squeezing. “Ezra, just how big is the Court of the Red Queen?”
“I don’t know.” He gazed at the golem illustration, and for a second time, crimson glimmered across his left eye. “But whatever Xever and Xanthe are doing … whatever they want golems and werewolves and vampires and demon mages for … we need to know.”
Reaching across him, I flipped the grimoire closed and said fiercely, “But before anything with them or the Court, we need to save you.” Noting the lingering red gleam in his pale eye, I added, “And Eterran, I guess.”
A faint, un-Ezra-like smirk twitched his lips before his expression smoothed again.
I rubbed my sweaty palms on my leather pants—which just smeared the moisture. Ew. “You said you had some leads of your own.”
“I do.” He set the grimoire on my lap and rose to his feet. “Xever and Xanthe have destroyed a lot of lives and made a lot of enemies. We aren’t the only ones working against them.”
Circling the coffee table, he picked up the Vh’alyir Amulet, letting it dangle by its chain without touching the medallion.
“We have potential allies right under our noses—surprisingly powerful ones.” Returning to the sofa, he lowered the amulet onto the grimoire’s cover. “And I know how to convince them to help us.”
I stared up at his sudden grin, mesmerized by the fire in his eyes—that spine-tingling intensity born of his newfound desire to survive. To live.
Shaking off my trance, I squinted at him. “Who are you talking about?”
His grin widened. “Just wait and see.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I don’t understand why this needs to be a surprise.”
“Don’t you enjoy a little mystery in your life?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
Standing between Aaron and Ezra as they bantered, I rol
led my eyes and rubbed my cold hands together. The last night of January was as unpleasantly cold as the rest of the month had been, and I hoped February would pick up the slack. We desperately needed a sign of spring.
It didn’t help that we were huddled in a grove of trees in the middle of a park. The same grove, in fact, where the Crow and Hammer’s witches had repaired my bond with Hoshi just over a week ago—which was in the same park where we’d fought Burke and his demon hunter cronies in one of our first Keys of Solomon encounters.
Seeing as it was the nearest park to our guild, I supposed it made sense that multiple members would use it, but it was still kind of weird how we kept coming back.
“How much longer?” I asked, stuffing my hands in my pockets.
“They’ll be here any moment,” Ezra replied.
I didn’t bother asking who we were waiting for. Whether Ezra was being mysterious for kicks or he had a reason for keeping Aaron and me in the dark, I didn’t know. Maybe Kai could’ve gotten an answer out of him, but the electramage was stuck with Makiko again, catching up on whatever criminal business they’d missed while we were jaunting around the western United States.
An icy breeze slid through the trees, rustling their bare branches. The orange glow of streetlamps scarcely penetrated our hidden clearing, and my eyes strained to pick out shapes among the dark shrubbery as I scanned for our unknown guests.
Another minute ticked past. Then another.
The back of my neck prickled. I rolled my shoulders uncomfortably, peering side to side. Ezra glanced behind us, then faced the dirt path that wound into our hidden nook. The breeze gusted, bending the boughs overhead and blowing a swirl of dead leaves past my legs. I glanced up at the creaking branches.
When I looked down again, we were no longer alone.
Two women stood on the trail, wrapped in leather jackets. One was tall and willowy, with blond hair in loose, messy waves. The other was slim and petite, with shoulder-length hair that appeared black in the darkness and glasses perched on her small nose.
Lost Talismans and a Tequila (The Guild Codex: Spellbound Book 7) Page 24