“I’m fine.” Loren tried not to make it obvious that she was blinking away fog that shouldn’t be there. Her tattoo was flaring brighter now, a constant warmth spreading up her arm.
“As long as you’re sure,” Sab told her. Loren was too distracted by the feeling of her heart in her throat to answer her. Too distracted by the misty gloom lurking in every alley.
Loren squinted to make out the letters on the sign above the closest intersection.
It readCanopus Street.Which meant they were nearing the Avenue of the Scarlet Star, where Loren worked on weekends at a sentient-plant apothecary called Mordred and Penelope’s Mortar and Pestle. She wondered if it might be a good idea to unlock the shop and stay there until sunrise. They would have to sleep on the floor, but…it was better than being outside any longer. And her dog was there—Singer. He would love the company.
Not to mention her collection of essential oils wasalsothere—the peppermint and lavender blends that helped calm her heartrate when her panic attacks closed in on her.
Dallas fell into step beside her, jolting her back to the here and now. “Relax, Lor!” As if reading her mind, she threw an arm around her stiff shoulders and said, “If it’ll make you feel any better, we could go to Mordred and Penny’s and call for another cab there. You think they’d mind?”
Loren nibbled on her bottom lip. “I could call them and ask.”
“It’s going to take us hours to get to the penthouse if we don’t,” Sabrine chimed in. She was right: they’d underestimated how long it would take to walk to the apartment at Santa Aria Flats. To be fair, they didn’t do this walk often. Andoftenmeant never.
Regardless, Dallas’s suggestion didn’t totally ease her concerns, for several blocks still stood between them and the apothecary. And it wasn’t just the demons she was worried about.
In the world of Terra, society was dominated by an array of beings, all more powerful than humans: werewolves, vampires, witches, warlocks, and hellsehers. Loren didn’t know which would be worse: running into a vampire who didn’t bother with blood donor clinics, or one of the bounty hunting hellsehers calledDarkslayerswho sometimes killed simply for the sake of killing.
She supposed she had her answer: running into a Darkslayer would be far worse than running into a vampire. Especially one of the Seven Devils, the most feared Darkslaying circle in the city, who’d risen in rank to the top of Angelthene’s Darkslaying pyramid in recent years.
The thought made her shiver, despite that the night was warm and dry. “I think we should go to the apothecary. I’ll worry about Mordred and Penny’s wrath another day.” She only hoped the conjoined witch twins wouldn’t kill her for entering their precious shop after hours.
They started walking again. This time, no one bothered to sing. Loren might’ve blamed it on the alcohol, or perhaps exhaustion. But she had the sense that Dallas and Sabrine were becoming more alert the longer they walked. Wind blew hollowly through the streets, sending palm tree fronds scraping across asphalt. For a city of eight million people, it was eerily quiet.
They made it another two blocks before a pair of headlights swept across the road behind them, reflecting in a stop sign up ahead. The harsh, ascending squalls of a flock of birds huddled in the date palms cut through the quiet, followed by the crunch and pop of gravel under tires as the vehicle rolled toward them.
Loren slowed.“Pleasetell me that’s a cab.” But she couldn’t say, for the vehicle’s headlights rendered her mortal eyes useless.
The driver lurched to a stop, and Loren found herself stepping off the sidewalk as Dallas and Sabrine continued walking.
It wasn’t a taxicab, Loren realized. Her dragging feet stilled, and her heart skipped two beats. It was a dark sedan.
Everything happened very quickly.
Two men got out of the sedan—a copper-haired warlock and a blond hellseher. The latter’s eyes—whites and all—were solid black. The color indicated that he was a Darkslayer out on a job—and was calling upon his limitless magic known as theSightto aid him in tracking the aura that belonged to his target. If it weren’t for their eyes, hellsehers would look like mortals, for they, unlike vampires and wolves, had no other characteristics that set them apart. The Sight was an ability exclusive to hellsehers; it allowed them to not only track people by the color of their auras, but also see through the magical wards on buildings and vehicles that were put in place specifically tohideauras.
Dallas sprinted to Loren’s side, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her behind her. The sudden jerk of her arm sent pain rippling right up to Loren’s shoulder. Her heel caught on the curb, causing her to stumble, her shoes slipping through her fingers and clunking to the sidewalk.
Dallas’s Focus sparked a glaring white.“Exarmaueris!”she bellowed.
Her spell sent the warlock soaring into the sedan, the windshield shattering as her magic launched him nearly right through it.
But the hellseher barely budged, absorbing the impact of Dallas’s spell as though it were a breeze—as though heenjoyedit. He smiled wickedly as he cast his own spell—with hellseher magic that didn’t need a Focus, nor any fancy incantations to set their powers into motion.
The force of his magic slammed into them, and Loren and Dallas went soaring backward. They hit the asphalt, rolling over top of each other in a tangle of limbs. Loren cried out as her bare arms and legs shredded open, gravel ripping into her.
Sabrine was shouting hysterically into her cellphone as she ran after Loren and Dallas, begging City Rescue to send officers to Canopus Street immediately.
The hellseher was striding their way, rallying his magic with arms held aloft at his sides, palms facing forward. Gravel hovered above the road, the tendrils of his shoulder-length blond hair drifting above his head as though he were underwater.
There was a symbol tattooed below his right ear. All Darkslaying hellsehers were marked with one, but Loren didn’t recognize his. She sorted through the options in her mind, but she came up empty; the Seven Devils, the Angels of Death, the Huntsmen, the Wargs, the Reapers, the Vipers… It wasnoneof them.
It was the head of a phoenix.
Wincing in pain, Dallas pushed herself to her feet and thrust out her stave. From her shadow sprang her Familiar Spirit, a winged tiger called Ghost. Black and stark as a silhouette, Ghost sank into a protective stance before them, a guttural snarl ripping through his bared teeth.
“Run, Lor.” Dallas stepped in front of where Loren was still sprawled on the sidewalk. The witch’s whole body was trembling, and blood was streaming down her golden legs.
