by Pat Esden
“What’s wrong?” Devlin whispered.
Gar bent toward them. “Did you notice the bartenders?”
Unsure what he meant, Em craned her neck and looked through the crowd. Two tall women stood behind the bar, a white woman with straight blond hair cascading to her hips and a black woman with a massive afro.
She gave them a second look. Despite the obvious differences, the women appeared disturbingly similar. Oddly tall. Boyish hips. Conical Barbie boobs. Heart-shaped lips and oversize eyes. A waitress in a silver mini dress quickstepped to the end of the bar, her long Barbie legs strutting with measured precision. She had the same puckered lips. Same monstrous eyes.
Em shuddered. “That’s really creepy.”
“My guess is they’re lesser demons, or more cambions,” Devlin said.
Gar shoved his baseball cap lower over his eyes. “Whatever they are, this crowd won’t shield our presence for long. We need to put some distance between us and them.”
Em took a fresh grip on the bundle of cloth and drew up her magic. Her skin tingled and her sixth sense pulled at her. She swallowed her fear, motioned for Devlin and Gar to follow her, then let go of reality.
The walls of the room seemed to move in close around her; the voices and music merged into a distant roar. All Em could do was hope Gar and Devlin would warn her if she headed toward any of the Barbies—or other danger.
An arched doorway appeared in front of her. She went through it, coming partially back to her senses as they stepped into a T-shaped hallway. In front of her, a set of stainless steel doors blocked the way. A sign read: Kitchen. Authorized personnel only.
To her right, restroom doors shone under a bright overhead light.
Her sixth sense pulled her to the left, down an alcove unlit and empty except for a bookcase that spanned its farthest end. The books were shelved by color and size: blue across the top, and brown closest to the floor. Logic screamed that the bookshelf probably contained the secret entry to the hidden speakeasy-bookstore.
Her sixth sense urged her to turn toward the sidewall. It was upholstered floor to ceiling in blood-red leather and studded with decorative copper tacks.
“What is it?” Gar asked.
She raised a hand to silence him as she focused all her energy on the wall. Most of its surface was covered with oil paintings depicting demons dancing under various phases of the moon. The rest of the wall was simply leather upholstery and nothing else. Her sixth sense drew her closer and she spotted a hand-size place where the leather was blackened, as if stained from repeated touching.
Yes, her instincts murmured.
She also felt something reverberating up through the floor beneath her feet, a pulse like a tell-tale heartbeat. Pump-pump. Pump-pump.
Cold sweat slid down her spine. She didn’t like the feel of that. But she couldn’t afford to let anything distract her. They needed to find Chloe.
She glanced at Gar, then nodded at the black stain on the wall. “That way. It’s a door.”
“Great.” Gar started to step forward.
Devlin touched his shoulder. “I sense magic on the other side. Witchcraft. And other things. There’s something right below us, too.”
“Something pulsing?” Em asked, shifting her focus back to the rhythm beneath the floor. Suck-thump. Suck-thump. The rhythm was slightly different than a moment ago. She recognized it for certain now: the tug-of-war.
Devlin shook his head. “It’s not really a pulse. It’s more like a pressure, pushing and pulling.”
“We need to hurry,” Gar said. He swept forward and pressed his hand against the stain. A click sounded, and a door silently opened. He stuck his head inside, took a quick look, then motioned for them to follow.
Em dashed after him through the doorway. On the other side, she found herself in a narrow hallway flanked on both sides by towering bookstacks. Piles of magazines cluttered the floor. Maps dangled from the ceiling. An overstuffed chair sat under a lamp, perfect for reading. All in all, the place had a cozy vibe and a gentle buzz of magic, homey like a hobbit burrow—it was a sense of safety Em didn’t trust at all.
As Devlin closed the door behind them, the noise from the barroom faded and the sound of the tug-of-war increased, now thudding below them like a giant clothes dryer filled with sneakers.
Gar moved aside so Em could take the lead. She refocused, drifting back into a daze as her sixth sense guided her down the hallway past a circular staircase. Her body trembled from fear and her pulse thundered in her ears. Still, she crept forward, down the tapering alley of books and into an even narrower funneling passage.
She passed an arrow-shaped sign that pointed to an opening between two pillars. The word “Geography” was scribbled across the arrow’s shaft. Another sign wavered into sight: “Romance. Ask for cost. Trades considered.” It pointed up a ladder that ended at a hole in the ceiling.
“I sense Chloe,” Devlin whispered as Em was pulled toward what looked like an open closet door. “We’re getting closer.”
Holding tight to the cloth bundle, Em came out of her daze and reached into her pocket with her free hand. The cylinder of pick-a-roos was there, and her medallion. But something was missing—
The air crushed from Em’s lungs. Her knife. She’d given it to Chloe, so she could cut a piece of lining from the casket. But she’d hadn’t gotten it back.
An ache tightened Em’s chest. She hadn’t gone anywhere without the knife, not since Alice had given it to her in Atlanta. She doubted Chloe still had it, either.
Gar nudged her forward. “Go on. I’m right behind you.”
She straightened her spine and stepped into the closet. A single bare lightbulb hung high above her, illuminating the space in quivering light. On either side, shelves held volumes of children’s books: The Red Fairy Book, The Blue Fairy Book, The Green, The Yellow, The Brown…. The magic chiming off the books grated against her skin like hundreds of crickets scraping their legs. But there were other things on the shelves as well.
Dolls.
Naked Raggedy Anne dolls.
Her eyes zeroed in on the largest of them, the size of a small child. The red heart stitched to her yellowed linen breast framed two words: Mine forever.
Dead, cold fear sliced her to the core. She glanced down at her feet. Family is forever.
Her knees weakened. Her body quaked, like a child who didn’t know which way to turn for help.
Get out. Hide. A voice inside her screamed for her to turn around, to push past Gar and Devlin, run back to the bar and keep running. Run and hide, forever.
Em clenched her fingers harder around the cloth bundle, squeezing fiercely. She gritted her teeth. No. No running. Not now. Not ever again. Why did she have to keep telling herself this?
She renewed her focus and stormed forward, out through an opening at the rear of the closet and around a corner, down another alleyway of books. She didn’t know if the three witches’ tug was still drawing her, but the direction felt right. She had to keep going. Devlin had sensed that Chloe was close.
Sprinting, she went down three stairs and out onto a crescent-shaped balcony that overlooked a cavernous circular room, rising two stories and down one to a sparkling black marble floor. The entire place gleamed with light, spilling from chandeliers strung with diamond-like crystals. After the confinement of the hallways, the grandness of the room made her head swim, as if she’d woken from a nightmare to find herself teetering on the edge of an amphitheater’s upper galley.
“Wow,” she said softly.
Gar clamped a hand over her mouth, dragging her back from the balcony’s banister. The brim of his cap skimmed the top of her head as he leaned close to her ear. “He’s down there.”
Magus Dux. The energy tingling in the air was like what she’d felt just before and during Rhianna’s murder. Cambion magic.
; Devlin ducked down and crept to the banister. He took a look, then came back to join them. “Chloe’s there,” he whispered. “There’s a pillar partly blocking the view, but it’s her. The bastard cambion is with her, and two wraiths…”
He continued to whisper, drawing an invisible map on the marble floor with his finger while he explained the circular room’s layout with an architect’s precision. On each side of the balcony there were staircases that went down to a black marble floor. The room was enormous, with a raised platform surrounded by pillars at its center. Dux stood, and Chloe knelt on the closest edge of the platform. Behind them, the wraiths waited behind a table-like altar.
Gar nodded, and a smile flicked across his lips, as if he were feeling good about the odds. His confidence eased Em’s tension, but it returned with vengeance as he swiveled his cap backward and waved for them to follow him. Three against three were good odds in theory—but not when she was on one side of the equation and bloodthirsty wraiths and a cambion were on the other.
As they began working their way along the balcony, Em shoved the bundle of cloth into her sweater pocket for safe keeping. After a moment, they reached one of the staircases that led down to the room. The stairs were marble and wide. Halfway down them, life-size lion statues crouched on ornate bases. Like Devlin had said, Dux stood in the center of the room on a platform with his back to the staircase. Chloe knelt a few yards away with her head bowed.
Magus was the perfect title for him. He was tall and had the bearing of a Russian ballet dancer, a young version of a stereotypical wizard, right down to his wild bronzed hair and flowing beard. His black pants clung to him like a snake’s skin. His unbuttoned, sleeveless shirt revealed claw marks and scars shaped like ancient runes.
Sparks snapped from his fingertips as he paced to Chloe and flicked her chin up. Looking directly in her eyes, he spoke loudly, his voice rebounding off the towering walls. “I feel foolish about my mistake…”
Em caught a glimpse of something gleaming around one of Chloe’s ankles, and what Dux was saying faded under a flare of cold fury. A shackle, the other end of its chain secured to the floor beside the altar.
She clenched her jaw. He would regret taking Chloe. He’d regret he’d even thought about messing with Saille or Athena. He’d even regret murdering Rhianna.
Unwavering determination beat inside Em as she crept down the staircase behind Gar and Devlin. When they reached the landing and lion statues, Gar signaled for them to duck down. Em did as he commanded, waiting tightly coiled but motionless as a brunette Barbie marched into the room with a copper basin and placed it on the altar.
“Mistake or not”— Dux gestured extravagantly at the copper basin— “there is no sense in wasting something this succulent.” His voice lowered and Em had to concentrate to hear as he continued. “Mote it be, as you witches like to say.”
He dipped his fingers into the basin, took out what looked like a gelatinous strip of bacon, and flung it wetly toward the wraiths.
“Mine!” One wraith shoved the other aside, snatched the strip, and shoveled it into its gaping mouth.
The other snarled, clawed fingers slicing at the first one’s face.
“Now, now. There’s plenty for everyone.” Dux tossed a piece to the second wraith.
Em shuddered as her sixth sense picked up on the last traces of energy trickling from the meat. It was human. Worse than that, the energy was familiar: Rhianna.
Nausea surged up her throat. No doubt about it, the bacon-like flesh was Rhianna, or at least from some tattered part of her remains that had vanished from the office at headquarters. An arm or leg, perhaps.
Dux flipped a second strip to each of the wraiths, then whipped a handkerchief from his pocket. Wiping his fingers demurely, he stalked up to Chloe and squatted down, staring at her eye to eye. “My father will no doubt shame me for that simple mistake we were just discussing. A foolish lapse in judgment, as he will call it. He’s much like your father. Demanding. Critical.”
“Don’t you dare say that,” Chloe snapped. “My father is nothing like yours.”
“Of course he is.” Dux tossed the handkerchief to the floor. He leaned within an inch of her face and snarled. “My father is a demon scholar. He is…demanding, especially after his own failure with my half brother, Merlin. Fortunately, I have found the key to changing his opinion of me.” He emphasized the word key, like he’d intended it to have more than one meaning.
Chloe glared at him. “I’m sorry you didn’t get along with your father. Poor you.”
He straightened and chuckled. “As I recall, there is a boy lying unconscious in a hospital room because of you. Your desire to learn a spell that could cure him was the reason you wanted to awaken Merlin. Am I correct?”
A chill raised the hair on Em’s arms and she hugged herself against it. Dux was right about that. Terrifyingly so.
“Medicine and magic. A spell that can cure,” Dux mused. He gestured beyond the platform to an open doorway and a dimly lit room. File cabinets. A desk. More bookcases. The room appeared to be an office.
A glimmer of gold in the distant room caught Em’s eyes. Something a foot wide floated in midair.
She widened her eyes, straining to see it better. A triangle? Something sparkled in two of the corners. Diamonds. Yellow diamonds. She wouldn’t have been sure about it at that distance, except she’d seen them, and the triangle, in her visions. Her sixth sense was confirming she was right.
Em reached forward to tap Gar’s shoulder so she could point out the triangle. But she shrank back and froze as Dux abruptly wheeled away from Chloe and toward them.
She let out her breath as he immediately swung back to Chloe and continued his lecture. “Medicine and magic!” he repeated. “The desire for a cure is how Rhianna seduced you into doing her bidding. It is ironic that the search for that same cure brought the boy’s mother to me—and allowed me to entice her into setting Rhianna up.”
Chloe gaped at Dux. “You mean the Vice-Chancellor’s wife? You’re saying you have a spell that can help her son?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Dux sighed dramatically. “I miss Rhianna already. She was such an eager little…devotee. Yes, that has a nicer ring than ‘slut and liar.’ Regrettably, I let her charms and that ridiculous signet ring convince me she had truly become the Northern Circle’s high priestess, a key to my plan. In truth, her lies were many and her fidelity lay only with Merlin’s dark half.”
A tingle of magic feathered Em’s cheek, then withdrew. Her heart leapt. Chloe’s magic. She backtracked the sensation to be sure. Chloe’s gaze met hers for an instant before flicking back to Dux’s face.
Adrenaline rushed into Em’s veins. Chloe had sensed their presence. She knew they were here—which was fantastic as long as she could keep the discovery to herself.
Dux looked away from Chloe and strolled back to the altar. He fished around in the copper basin as if selecting the perfect meaty ribbon. The wraiths squirmed low, snaking closer to him, snapping their bony fingers, itching to get hold of it. Dux dangled the meat in the air enticingly. Then he tilted his head back and sucked the ribbon into his mouth.
“That was delish,” he said. He sashayed back to Chloe, belched, and wiped his fingers clean on her shoulder. He leered at her. “Luckily, an ambitious little friend at Council headquarters heard about you, sweet high priestess of the Northern Circle. Now you shall fulfill my dreams. That is, as soon as Rhianna’s less delectable parts are done meeting a less satisfactory fate than the one I’d planned for.”
Dux reached around to the back of his waistline. A glint flashed as he drew a large dagger. Its blade glimmered like liquid silver. It was shaped like an icicle.
“No!” Devlin screamed.
Devlin shot to his feet and ran past Gar, an energy ball forming in his hands as he raced down the staircase. Gar was a second behind him, gu
n in his hand. Em drew up her magic, readying to add her energy to Devlin’s. But before she could, Devlin hurled the crackling energy at Dux.
Dux grinned, the flash of his blade already speeding toward Devlin’s energy ball.
Boom! Crack! Dux’s dagger sank into the sphere. Bright flashes of light blasted outward as the ball exploded, sparking white, sparking black. Snakes of magic hissed into the air, just like at headquarters when the dagger had sunk into Rhianna.
The wraiths hurtled into the air, green haze coiling around them. Their screams ricocheted off the walls as they circled the room, no doubt waiting for the command to attack.
Amusement flickered in Dux’s eyes. He held his hands out at his sides, palms visible as if to offer peace. “Bravo! I wasn’t expecting the three of you for another few minutes.” A jackal-like grin crossed his lips. “My little Raggedy Ann friends warned me of your arrival.”
Devlin planted his feet, shoulders rigid. “Let Chloe go.”
“You don’t really think I’m going to do that?” Dux stroked his necklace, a long series of chains with plastic doll legs and arms dangling from them. “The current question is, what to do with the three of you? Hmmmm…witch-skin covered Books of Shadows fetch a nice price these days.” Em felt the weight of Dux’s gaze settle on her. “You might be worth studying first. Your influence over the dead is fascinating. Perhaps a wee experiment involving electrodes and braincells.”
Anger burned inside Em. She glanced at the shackle on Chloe’s ankle to further fuel her hatred. She wasn’t going to let Dux intimidate her. She had to help Chloe.
Em drew up her magic and called out for help. Spirits bound to the earth, I command you. Come to my aid. Come!
Only silence answered. No voices. No sensations, other than the wraiths’ energy needling her skin. No Saille or Athena. No Rhianna. Not a single spirit.
She trembled. This wasn’t good. Something was interfering with her ability to reach out, something nearby. A powerful spell, perhaps.
“Ready?” Gar said, under his breath.