by Lisa Shearin
Piaras turned his face toward me and away from the squad room. “You think you could see it because of the you-know-what?” His voice was barely audible.
“I suspect so, yes,” I told him. “And you seeing it is probably just another talent you didn’t know you had.” I didn’t believe it for a second, but I didn’t want Piaras thinking otherwise.
And speaking of manifesting new talents, there was the not-so-small matter of Talon needing to come clean with his father.
“Does Tam know you can do what you did?”
Talon winced. “I think he’s starting to suspect there’s more to me than meets the eye. Are you going to tell him what happened?”
“No, I’m not. Unless you don’t do it first.”
“But-”
“Talon, there were witnesses,” I told him point-blank. “Hundreds of them. Tam will find out, if he hasn’t already.”
Talon was a half-breed, and that was reason enough for the old blood of both races to despise who he was, what he was, and the very fact that he existed. The kind of power he’d thrown around today wasn’t about to change anyone’s mind. Talon was probably in more danger than he’d ever been in his young life-and the kid didn’t have a clue. He had to know there’d be rumblings, but not that some of the Conclave would be calling for his blood-and his head. Especially considering who and what his father was.
Talon thunked his head against the back of his chair and hissed a chain of obscenities in Goblin. I had to admit, if you needed to do any quality swearing, Goblin was the language to use.
Then Talon turned on the charm and grinned slyly, fangs peeking into view. “You of all people should know what a burden it is to be gorgeous and a magical prodigy. People just don’t understand.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said blandly. “Are you going to tell Tam?”
The kid’s grin widened. “I’ll tell him if you’ll give me that big, wet, sloppy kiss.”
“No kiss, and you’ll tell him anyway.”
His aqua eyes glittered devilishly. Damn, but he looked like Tam.
“You’re no fun,” he told me.
“Yeah, kid, that’s the burden I carry.”
Phaelan came out of Sedge Rinker’s office then and slouched in a chair next to Piaras. His body language said he was calm and confident. The twitch in his left eyelid said otherwise. My cousin, the scourge of the seas of seven kingdoms, was in the same room with at least fifty sworn officers of the law. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t broken any laws today (at least not that I knew of). When your daily life was steeped in as much criminal activity as Phaelan’s was, there was always someone somewhere who wanted your neck in a noose for something. His eyes flicked to a bulletin board covered with wanted posters. He mouthed an obscenity and quickly looked away.
I looked at the board. Yep, one of them was Phaelan. I’d seen a lot of wanted posters of my cousin. Unlike most of them, this one actually bore a resemblance. Kind of.
I chuckled, as did Piaras.
“Shut up!” Phaelan’s teeth were clenched, his lips didn’t move, and words still came out. Impressive.
My chuckle turned into a snort. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You’re right. I’m not. But you should be.”
“Hey, I’m just a man making a living.”
Talon leaned forward and squinted at the poster, then grinned until his fangs showed. “I don’t think that’s what it says.”
“Quit staring at it!”
“I’m not staring at it. Don’t worry; it’s not that good a likeness.”
I felt someone staring at me then. I didn’t need to look; I knew who it had to be.
Paladin Mychael Eiliesor, the commander of the Conclave Guardians, was standing across the room, his eyes on me, his face a calm, professional mask. I knew better. When Mychael didn’t show emotion, it meant he was experiencing some strong ones. I’d felt them the moment he’d walked through that door. Or more to the point, I’d felt him. Mychael was a master spellsinger and healer, but first and foremost, he was a warrior. The aura of danger and controlled power surrounding him had nothing to do with healing and everything to do with his lethal skill in battlefield magic. The air around him virtually crackled with it, and I knew what stirred the hair on the nape of my neck was just the leftovers. I’d be willing to bet that demons had crossed Mychael’s path on the way here, and they probably weren’t alive anymore to regret it.
I’d been expecting him. From a law-enforcement standpoint, Mychael had ultimate control over the Isle of Mid and everyone on it. As paladin, protecting the Saghred was his responsibility-and since the Saghred and I were a package deal, all that protecting extended to me.
The noise level in the squad room abruptly decreased, and it wasn’t because Mychael had walked through those doors. As paladin, he’d been here many times. I hadn’t. The watchers shut up because they wanted to hear what happened next.
I didn’t.
I stayed right where I was. Mychael cut through the squad room with long strides to where we sat, a man on a mission. I was that mission.
Talon swore again; Piaras made his own contribution, and Phaelan nonchalantly sat up straighter.
“Think we should make a run for it?” my cousin asked.
“I think that’d be a bad idea.”
He shrugged and sat back. “Had to ask.”
When Mychael was within ten feet of me, I stood up. Call it a primitive dominance response. I was a head shorter than Mychael, but I wasn’t about to keep my butt in a chair while he loomed over me.
Close up gave me a nice view of Mychael, and as always, he was damned good to look at. His eyes were that mix of blue and pale green found only in warm, tropical seas. His hair was short and auburn. His handsome features were strong, and his face scruffy with stubble. Very nice. Sexy nice. I guess having demons on your island didn’t give you time to shave. Mychael was an elf, and the tips of his ears were elegantly pointed. I’d felt the urge to nibble those tips on more than one occasion, but I didn’t think now was the time or place.
“We need to talk,” he told me. It was his paladin’s voice. His words weren’t a direct order, but he wasn’t giving me a choice, either.
“Hello, Mychael. We’re all fine. No demon damage. Thank you for asking.”
He just looked at me. “We need to talk.” He glanced over my left shoulder. “Sedge, may we use your conference room?”
“Of course.” The chief’s basso rumble came from his office doorway. “I’ll see to it that you’re not disturbed.”
Mychael almost smiled. “I appreciate that, but I brought my own lookouts.” He glanced down at Piaras and Talon. “And men to escort the two of you out of here and back home right now.”
I tensed. “Now?”
“Now. They need to leave.”
Sedge Rinker stepped forward, his lips a grim, narrow line. “Anyone in particular I should be looking out for here?”
“You’ll know him when you see him.”
“You mean if I see him?”
“No, when.”
Sedge took a breath and let it out with a quiet “damn.”
Mychael nodded grimly. “Exactly.”
Chapter 4
Mychael and I were inside the conference room; four Guardians were outside the conference room. Piaras was being taken under Guardian protection back to the safety of the Fortune. Talon was being escorted back to Sirens, Tam’s nightclub. The conference room door was closed. So it was just me, Mychael, and enough tension and sizzling magical leftovers to fill the rest of the room. Cozy.
Like an increasing number of his men, Mychael was wearing full battle armor. For Guardians, that didn’t mean clunky, shiny plate mail. Mychael’s armor was steel and then some, and sleek was the best way to describe it. Matte finish, dark gray, and custom fit-Mychael’s armor conformed to his leanly muscled body almost like a second skin. No armorer was that good; there had to have been magic involv
ed when it was forged.
I made myself stop staring at Mychael’s conformities and helped myself to a chair. “The reason you’re rushing those boys out of here wouldn’t happen to be named Carnades Silvanus?”
“It would.”
“Shit,” I spat.
Mychael nodded. “That’s why I made sure I got here before he did.”
“You know for a fact he’s coming?”
“Without a doubt. And Piaras and Talon not being here will cause two less complications.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So that’s what you’re calling me now? A complication.”
Mychael pulled up a chair and sat facing me, mere inches separating us. He almost smiled. “You don’t think it fits?”
“Oh, it fits. I just think you could’ve done better. Carnades has got some downright colorful names for me.”
“Carnades has more time to think than I do.”
“And plot,” I reminded him. “Don’t forget the plotting and scheming.”
Carnades Silvanus was second only to the archmagus in terms of position on the Conclave’s Seat of Twelve. The archmagus had the top spot and absolute authority over the Isle of Mid and everyone on it. Last week, Archmagus Justinius Valerian had nearly been assassinated. Until the old man recovered, Carnades had gone from second in command to sitting in the big chair, and he was determined to turn his temporary promotion into his permanent job.
When Mychael didn’t respond, I thought I’d just cut to the chase. I had a knot in my stomach, but I went for casual and leaned back in the chair, tipping the front legs off of the floor. “Since I was there, I know what happened. I won’t even pretend to understand any of it, but-”
“More demons have been spotted across the city,” Mychael said quietly.
I swore. “Blue and naked?”
“The very same.”
“Any more purple ones?”
“No Volghuls-not yet.” His tone indicated that he didn’t expect that good fortune to last for long. His lips curved up in a tired grin. “I hear you made quite an impression in the Quad.”
I snorted. “At what? Finding a wine bottle?”
Mychael’s blue eyes gleamed. “Vegard came right out and called you magnificent; he said you didn’t give one inch of ground to that monster.”
“I didn’t know it was an advance guard to a freaking horde of demons.”
He chuckled. “It wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. If you’d known, you wouldn’t have budged out of sheer stubbornness.” In a blink of an eye, his good humor was gone. “There have been five Dagik sightings in the past two hours.”
“Dagik?”
“A species of demon. The blue ones,” he clarified.
“Oh. There’s probably more than five; they’re cloaking. We had over two dozen in that street with us, and they were cloaked until I hit one of them in the head with a brick.”
I got the treat of seeing Mychael momentarily speechless. “You hit a Dagik in the head with a brick?”
“It wasn’t an entire brick, just a chunk. And it wasn’t like I had a choice. I couldn’t get Vegard or Phaelan to believe I saw anything, so I figured pain would make the thing drop its cloak.” I tried a grin, though I didn’t find anything funny about what had happened in that street. “Turns out I was right. Then Vegard gave the rest of them a dirt bath. Then everyone could see them.”
The corner of Mychael’s mouth quirked in a quick smile. “So I heard. Vegard is a very resourceful man.” The smile vanished. “Do you know why you were the only one who could see them?”
“The way my luck’s been running, it’s probably a Saghred thing.” I paused. “Did Vegard tell you what Piaras and Talon did?”
“He mentioned it.”
I proceeded to do more than mention it. I told Mychael what they’d done, what Ronan Cayle had deemed Piaras qualified to handle, and exactly how I felt about all of it.
“Ronan came and spoke to me before he started those lessons,” Mychael told me. “He told me the results of his testing. He was right to start Piaras where he did.”
“He could have been killed-or worse.”
“Raine, Piaras wants to be a Guardian. There will always be risks, and some of the biggest risks can come during training. Every precaution is taken to protect-”
“But accidents happen,” I snapped.
“Yes.”
“And inexperienced kids can get in over their heads.”
“Unfortunately, also yes. Raine, it was Piaras’s decision.
He’s eighteen; he’s a man now. His decisions and choices are his own.”
Mychael was right and I knew it. But just because I knew, it didn’t mean I had to like it. I didn’t say anything; I let my glare do my talking for me.
“I didn’t come down here just because of what happened in the Quad,” Mychael told me. “Though there’s a good chance that they’re related. I needed to talk to you. The containment spells around the Saghred have been decreasing over the past few days.”
My stomach tried to do a flip. “How?”
“The only explanation we can find is that the stone is absorbing them. The Conclave’s best spellweavers haven’t been able to restore them.” His blue eyes were intent on mine. “Have you experienced anything unusual?”
“Unusual?” I resisted the urge to laugh. “As opposed to my normal, everyday contact with the thing? And seeing naked, blue demons in the middle of a crowded street in broad daylight?” Don’t forget the flying purple one over the Quad, my gloom-and-doom pessimist reminded me. My stomach flip turned into full-fledged queasy.
“Raine, it’s important. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.”
I took a breath and slowly let it out. “Okay, I was in the street, lobbing fireballs at the purple one, the Volghul. Suddenly it was like the Saghred got a whiff of that thing and decided to say hello.”
“It wanted you to use it against the Volghul?”
“I wish. I couldn’t make another fireball if my life depended on it, and it did. I figured the Saghred was gathering up its energy for the usual-the white-hot, raging command to kill. That’s not what I got. The rock was burning, all right; it was downright warm and welcoming-for the demon. That’s when the Volghul bowed to me and said he was ‘honored by my presence. ’ ” My voice felt the need to get louder, and I let it. “Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?” I shot a glance at the still-closed conference room door and lowered my voice to an outraged whisper. “I thought the Saghred was a goblin rock.”
“The goblins were simply the most recent to possess it.”
Wonderful. “So what you’re saying is that the demons could have had their collective claws on it at some point.”
Mychael nodded. “The recorded history of the Saghred only dates back about a thousand years.”
Crap. “And those were goblin records.” I was all too familiar with them; I’d read them myself in my ongoing effort to rid myself of the rock. “Let me guess: demons aren’t big on keeping journals.”
“It’s highly unlikely.” Mychael leaned forward, resting his elbows on his armored knees. His hands hung loosely. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and the backs of his hands were scored with deep scratches. Demon claws.
I grimaced. “Mychael, shouldn’t you get those taken care of instead of talking to me?”
“Talking to you is more important.” He glanced down at his hands and smiled a little. “They look better than they did. I’m a healer, remember?”
“Aren’t demon claws poisonous or something?”
“Not a Dagik’s. I’ll be fine.”
He said that as if I were the one in bad shape.
“Has anyone inside the Saghred been talking to you?” he asked.
I knew who he meant. Sarad Nukpana. A goblin, the blackest of dark mages, and a proverbial mad genius. He wanted the Saghred and me to wield it for him. Thanks to me, he was trapped inside the rock. Thanks to him, I was now at the top of the goblin king’s most-wanted list. But
Nukpana hadn’t been the one speaking to me.
“I’ve been dreaming about my dad,” I murmured.
My father, Eamaliel Anguis, was an elven Guardian whose soul was trapped along with thousands of others inside the Saghred. He’d been the stone’s protector until about a year ago when the Saghred decided to turn its protector into its next meal.
Mychael’s voice was low and controlled. “What kind of dreams?”
“Just talking kind of dreams.” I held up a hand, stopping his next question. “No, I don’t remember any of them. And no, I haven’t felt manipulated by ‘evil forces.’ ”
“I didn’t imply that you were.”
“Then you’re the only one on this island who wouldn’t think so.” I sat up, the front legs of my chair slamming into the floor. “That demon had himself an audience when he said he was
‘honored by my presence.’ I think Carnades won himself a dozen or so more converts to his Lock-Up-Raine Club.” I ran my hand over my face; it came away with dust from the dirt storm Vegard had kicked up. Great. “And the Volghul said that if I came to him, he’d let Piaras and Talon live.”
Mychael went dangerously still. “He wanted you?”
I waited a few heartbeats before answering, a little taken aback by his intensity. “He didn’t tell me what he had in mind, and I didn’t ask. From the look on his face, he was going to enjoy it and I knew I wouldn’t.”
The air around Mychael flared with power. It was magic, definitely lethal, and its target was that purple demon. Then in a blink of an eye, the aura was gone, clamped down tight by the sheer force of Mychael’s will, only to be replaced by something more primitive, more male.
“Are you all right?” he demanded.
“Shaken up, but he didn’t lay a claw on me.”
The power still flowing from him swept over my skin, and I forced back a shiver of pure sensation.
Mychael realized what he was doing and resisted touching me, even though not touching me seemed to take as much effort as not going after that demon. “Raine, I want you to come back to the citadel with me. You’re not safe on Phaelan’s ship.”