I couldn’t ignore it. I couldn’t deny it. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t noticed.
Ezra’s cold, crimson magic was identical to the demon’s.
My throat tightened and I pressed my hands to my face. Ezra’s secrets. Ezra’s temper. Ezra’s power. Power that no one else was allowed to see, that no one could ever know he possessed. Power that was all but indistinguishable from a demon’s.
Now I knew why the demon was hunting Ezra. How he’d survived his first fight with the hellish beast. Why Aaron and Kai had been so confident the demon would attack him again. But what did it mean?
What was Ezra? Not a mere aeromage, that I knew. He wasn’t a contractor either. He hadn’t called a demon out of an infernus to fight for him. This was something else. Something … forbidden. I stared blankly at my menu proposal, my gut twisting into knots.
A pink Gucci purse dropped onto the bar beside me. I dragged my eyes off the laptop screen as Sabrina slid onto a stool.
“Hey,” I said, attempting to sound normal and not halfway to a panic attack. “Do chili cheese fries sound appetizing to you?”
“Um … not really.”
Unsurprised by her answer, I reached for the keyboard to make a note in my proposal, then did a double take at the diviner. “Wait. What are you doing here? Non-combat members are under house arrest until the demon alert is lifted.”
“I know.” She smiled wanly. “I snuck out.”
She’d snuck out of her safe home to trek into the demon’s active area? Then she’d entered the guild where, at any moment, an officer could notice her and realize she’d disobeyed orders?
I eyed her disbelievingly, then asked, “Are you okay?”
Sabrina normally looked ready for a photoshoot, with flawless makeup and a salon-styled blond bob, but she wasn’t wearing a fleck of makeup and her hair hung limply around her face.
“I needed to see you.” She twisted her hands together. “I’ve been doing a lot of readings … trying to predict something useful to help with the demon search … but none of my readings will work.”
“They won’t work?” I repeated in confusion.
She rubbed under one eye, the fragile skin marred by tired circles. “The spreads are nonsensical. The cards have nothing to do with one another or outright contradict each other, but … two cards have turned up in every single reading.”
Reaching into her purse, she pulled out two black and gold cards. On one, a carefree traveler was about to step off a cliff, and on the other, a black-cloaked grim reaper held a bloody scythe.
“The Fool and Death,” she whispered.
I scowled to hide my apprehension. Those two cards had shown up before: the Death card had made itself a nuisance shortly before a near-deadly confrontation with an evil sorceress, and the Fool card had popped up right before my new life at the guild had fallen apart. Neither image inspired happy feelings.
“I think,” Sabrina said slowly, “the deck keeps showing me these cards because they’re tied to you. It’s a message.”
“Not another message.”
“That’s the purpose of the cards—to deliver messages. I need to do a reading for you, Tori.”
I opened my mouth to refuse, but her stress and worry were so blatant I couldn’t. Whatever was up with her cards, it was urgent enough that she’d risked her life to come and see me.
Puffing out a breath, I turned on my stool to face her. “All right. Let’s do it.”
She smiled in relief, recovering a fraction of her usual energy, and pulled a fabric bundle from her purse. She unwrapped her deck and spread the silk scarf over the bar like a tablecloth, then set the Death and Fool cards aside.
“I cleansed the deck before I came,” she said, shuffling the cards at warp speed. “A clean slate. And I’m leaving those two out”—she tilted her head toward the rejected pair—“so they don’t dominate your reading.”
Placing the shuffled deck face down on the silk, she spread it into a broad fan. “Choose six cards. Take your time, but don’t overthink it.”
Rolling my shoulders uncomfortably, I stared at the cards—far more than a standard deck of playing cards. How was I supposed to choose?
“Try closing your eyes,” Sabrina advised. “Go by instinct.”
I closed my eyes and stretched my hand out. Hovering it over the deck—or where I thought the deck was—I waited for divine inspiration to guide my touch. Ha, yeah right. I was as open to divine guidance as I was to pyramid schemes.
I lowered my hand at random. My fingertips found a card.
“Okay, first one,” Sabrina said, her words accompanied by the slithering sound of her extracting the card. “Choose another.”
I waved my hand around and dropped it down on another card. We repeated the process four more times, then Sabrina instructed me to open my eyes.
Six face-down cards were now arranged in a circle. She gathered up the remaining deck and set it aside, then studied the six rectangles I’d selected.
Breathing deeply, she composed her expression. “Normally, you would pick the cards while focusing on a problem or question for which you want direction, but the cards’ desire to deliver a message is so strong I think they’ll tell you what you need to know.”
How I would love to snort and roll my eyes at the mystical mumbo jumbo, but this magic was as real as Aaron’s fire. I’d seen the evidence already.
“In this spread, we start with the card that represents your current situation.” Sabrina turned the top card, revealing a woman wearing a crown and holding a sword and a scale. “Justice. An ominous beginning …”
Why was I not surprised that we were starting with bad news? “What does it mean?”
“You will need to make a decision soon—something that will irreversibly change your future. A choice you can’t come back from.”
Oh goody. Who didn’t love those kinds of decisions?
She touched the next card. “This one represents the cause of conflict.”
Flipping it, she frowned at the horned creature that dominated the card. A naked man and woman stood on either side of it, loose chains around their necks, the ends held by the beast.
My stomach sank to the floor. Under the illustration was the card’s name: The Devil.
Sabrina tapped her cheek. “Hmm, not what I expected. Are you having issues with addiction, Tori?”
“Uh, no.”
“What about a new obsession? An unusual fixation? Wanton temptation?”
“No, no, and no.”
She studied my face, then the card. “Could The Devil represent someone else in your life? Someone trapped by addiction or a compulsion of their own?”
The heavy weight dragging my innards to the earth’s core grew colder. I said nothing.
“Let’s see what the other cards reveal.” Her fingers nimbly turned the next one. The air rushed out of her lungs. “Oh.”
Even if her dismayed exhalation hadn’t been a dead giveaway, the card’s illustration was hardly inspiring: a heart impaled by three swords. How much did I want to bet the heart represented mine?
“The Three of Swords,” Sabrina whispered. “Heartbreak. Loss.”
I pressed a hand to my hollow gut. “Is someone going to die?”
“Let’s keep going.” She hastily flipped over the next card, revealing a robed man holding a wand in the air. “The Magician! Yes, this is good. This means the loss you’re facing is within your control—you have the power to affect the outcome.”
That was encouraging, but also terrifying. “So, you’re saying … I can maybe prevent someone from dying, then?”
She nodded and flipped over the second last card. “Oh, hmm. The Seven of Swords.”
“I got that card in my first reading. It meant … betrayal? Because someone was deceiving me?”
“The Seven of Swords is the thief.” She pointed to the image of a man sneaking off with an armful of stolen weapons. “In this position in the spread, it speaks of you, not ot
hers. You are the thief.”
“I am not a—” I broke off, distracted by the thought of my Queen of Spades artifact. I had stolen that … and my fall-spell crystal too.
“The thief keeps secrets and moves with stealth.” Sabrina considered the card. “Paired with the Magician, which is the power to enact your goals, this card is telling you how to reach the outcome you desire.”
“By stealing?”
She gave me a long look. “By embodying the virtues of the thief—caution, cunning, discretion, and deception.”
I wasn’t great at the first one, or the second, or … well, any of those things. Lovely. I pointed at the last card. “That one is the outcome, right?”
“Yes.” She glanced at The Fool and Death cards, sitting by themselves like kids in timeout, before touching two fingers to the back of the final card in the spread. Hesitating, she again peeked at the Death card as though making sure it was still there, then turned the last card.
A crumbling tower struck by lightning and lit by flames sparked recognition through me. I recognized it from my first reading.
“The Tower.” She sighed unhappily. “A foreboding omen. Chaos and upheaval are coming—soon. Even if you succeed, your life will irrevocably change.”
In the card’s illustration, a man and a woman had leaped from the burning tower and were plunging toward the dark abyss below. Gooseflesh erupted across my skin and I sucked in an unsteady breath. “Your cards never have anything good to say.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, I mean … the Tower is also a card of redemption, so there’s that.”
“Oh, okay,” I replied sarcastically. “That makes it all better.”
Her gaze traveled across the spread, and she lightly touched a finger to the Devil card. “Do you know who the Devil represents?”
I studied the cards. The Devil holding a man and a woman in chains. A woman casting judgment. Two victims falling from a broken tower.
A heart pierced by three swords.
The tarot cards or the universe or whatever mystical force powered a diviner’s fortune telling was sending damn strong signals my way, and I could almost grasp it. The meaning hovered within reach—but the harder I focused on the elusive message, the higher my anxiety spiked.
I jumped off my stool. “Thanks, Sabrina.”
Her forehead wrinkled with concern. “Tori—”
“I need to check on the guys.” Squashing my guilt, I rushed to the stairs.
I should’ve known better. Aaron had once said he’d rather the future surprise him than heed the warnings of a tarot reading. Every time Sabrina’s cards got anywhere near me, bad stuff happened. This was the most ominous reading I’d had yet—and that was including the times the Death card had literally stalked me.
On the second level, I crept over to the corner where Aaron and Kai slept. They didn’t so much as stir. I lingered for a few minutes, then hurried away, feeling like a voyeur. Creeping down the stairs, I craned my neck to see if Sabrina was still waiting at the bar.
“Who are you hiding from?”
I jolted in surprise and almost fell down the stairs. Sin stood behind me, a tub of potions in her hands and a tattered leather-bound book tucked under one arm. Her blue hair was tied in a messy ponytail, and a colorfully stained apron covered her plain sweater and jeans.
“Sin!” I gasped, clutching my chest. Though her sudden appearance had startled me, I wasn’t surprised to see her. She’d arrived a couple of hours ago, escorted by two combat mythics, to relieve Venus as the on-duty alchemist. “Don’t sneak up on me.”
She arched an eyebrow. “So? Who are you hiding from?”
“Sabrina,” I grumbled. “Can you check if she’s at the bar?”
Sin descended halfway down the steps. “She’s sitting with Felix at the command table.”
Good enough. I followed Sin into the pub and we sat at the farthest end of the bar. She set her tub of bottles on the counter and rested the old book on her lap.
“Why does Sabrina have you spooked?” Sin frowned. “Is she supposed to be here?”
“No. She came to do a reading for me.”
“What? Why?”
I picked at a chip in the wooden bar top. “Apparently, her cards had an urgent message to deliver.”
“What was the message?”
“I have a life-altering decision to make. Also, someone might die.”
“What?”
I shrugged miserably. “That’s the only concrete thing I got out of it.” Mostly, I’d gotten a big fat dose of anxiety. Thanks, universe.
She tugged her apron straight. “Tarot reading is imprecise at best. Your future changes with every decision you and other people make. Try not to worry about it.”
“Yeah.”
“Speaking of worry …” Her eyes narrowed. “I heard all about how you went demon hunting with Aaron, Kai, and Ezra. I have to ask … what the hell were any of you thinking?”
“Um, well—”
“You aren’t combat trained, and demons are the fiercest, deadliest opponents out there! Why would Darius even approve it? You’re all idiots.”
I managed a bleak smile. “Thanks, Sin. Appreciate the vote of confidence.”
She sniffed angrily. “You know you aren’t ready for that, and I’d really prefer my friend not get herself killed.”
Couldn’t argue with her there. I’d also prefer not to get killed.
Lifting the tattered book off her lap, she smacked it down on the bar. “We need to look at options.”
“Uh … options for what?”
“Defensive alchemy.” She cast me a flinty stare. “Since you’re all for the dangerous jobs now, you need to be armed with more than a couple of artifacts. I heard you used a smoke screen. What else did you take?”
Bemusedly, I watched her flip the book open. “Just flash-bang potions. What is that thing?”
“My grimoire. All Arcana mythics have one—where we record all the spells or transmutations we’ve learned or invented.” She turned several spotted, liquid-stained pages covered in handwriting and diagrams. “I can make smoke bombs and flash-bangs easily enough, but you need something to stop an opponent. Personally, I don’t like sleep potions. It’s easy to get it on your own skin and then you’re asleep instead of them.”
“Yeah, that’d be bad.”
She skimmed a few more pages. “Enhanced strength is useful, but it doesn’t last long, and unless you’re in excessively good shape, you’ll crash hard afterward. Let’s see … amnesia, no. Fasting potion, no. Enhanced speed, no.”
“What’s wrong with speed? I’d like to be faster.”
“It’s hopelessly impractical. Your body gets faster, but your reflexes don’t, so it’s difficult to control without training and practice. You’ll spend the potion’s duration tripping over your own feet and running into things.”
“Oh.” Too bad. “What’s a fasting potion?”
“Drink it and you won’t need food, water, or a bathroom for about forty-eight hours. Good for certain situations, but you pay for it afterward.” She perused more recipes. “Enhanced perception, air buffer, true sight, anti-emotionalizer, allure-fume—none of these are useful.”
“Allure-fume?” I repeated. “What’s that?”
She winced. “Uh, it’s a … um … perfume.”
I stared at her pointedly, waiting for an explanation, and her cheeks turned pink.
“A few drops on the skin will make the wearer especially alluring to the opposite sex. Like pheromones.”
“Why do you know a potion like that?”
“I tried it out when I was younger, okay?” she muttered defensively. “Lesson learned. You don’t have to lecture me.”
“What happened?”
“I wore it on a first date with this guy I really liked.”
“Did it work?”
“It worked on him, plus every male who got within twenty feet of me. I spent our entire dinner date pushing random men out o
f our booth. I’ve never been hit on so many times in one evening. Most of the men were twice my age and married.”
Fighting back a snicker, I asked, “Did you go on a second date with your crush?”
“No.” She hung her head over the grimoire. “An early sign that my love life was doomed.”
I snorted. “You just need to stop acting shy around cute guys you like.”
“I can’t help it. My brain freezes.” She fidgeted with the edge of a page. “Your brother is nice. I should’ve given him my number.”
Another snort escaped me. A couple of months ago, Sin and Justin had met during an eventful night on the town. I’d told Justin to ask for her number but he hadn’t, probably because an on-duty cop asking for a girl’s number was taboo.
“Do you want me to give it to him?” I asked. It was like junior high all over again.
“N-no. I’m good.” She coughed uncomfortably and turned another page. “Immunity booster … freezer potion—it causes any surface it’s poured on to freeze,” she added at my questioning look. “Oh! How about this one? A babbler potion. It numbs the tongue and vocal cords, inhibiting speech. Great against sorcerers. It only takes a drop or two, but you need to get it in their mouth. That part might be tricky.”
“I don’t think an enemy sorcerer would drink a potion just because I asked nicely. What if it looked like candy? Think they’d eat candy?”
“I doubt it.” She flipped to the next page. “Intelligence elixir. Also no.”
“Would it make me smarter? I’ll take it.”
“It will make you smarter, but it’s addictive with terrible withdrawal symptoms. You don’t want to go there.”
“Damn.”
“Maybe some healing spells? I have ones to stop bleeding, replenish lost blood, boost endurance to survive an injury, counter shock, induce a recovery coma, halt burn damage—oh, hey.” She stopped on a new page. “A dizziness draft. That could be useful.”
“Dizziness?”
“Yeah. I learned it to prank a high school bully, but it would mess up a mythic with a hands-on combat style like a mage. It requires skin contact—a lot, in fact, so you wouldn’t need to worry about splashing yourself.”
Demon Magic and a Martini: The Guild Codex: Spellbound / Four Page 10