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That I’d done it out of necessity—to save Uncle Rhoan—wouldn’t have mattered to Hunter, especially given the fact I’d done it to save Rhoan from her. And I had no doubt she would go after him because of it.
I raised my eyebrows, somehow managing nonchalance as I said, “And you don’t believe him?”
“Oh, I believe he was gone. I’m just not entirely sure Markel had nothing to do with it.”
Because he more than likely did. If the third Cazador following me had discovered the body, she would have reported it. I shrugged. “Well, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to help you given I have as little to do with them as possible. But hey, if you think it’s too dangerous for them to be following me around, feel free to remove them from the task.”
She smiled. It was not a nice smile. “Oh, they’re staying, whatever the danger. I want those keys, and you will give them to me, won’t you?”
Keys, not key. She had no idea the second gate was already open. Relief swept through me, its force strong enough to leave me shaking. Coke splashed over my hand, and I put the can down, hoping like hell she hadn’t noticed.
I had about as much chance of that happening as I did the full moon failing to rise tonight.
“Why, Risa, anyone would think you were nervous.” Her expression was that of a cat who’d just eaten the cream. “You weren’t planning on double-crossing me, were you? Because you know the consequences of such an action, don’t you?”
I had to clench my fing
ers against the sudden urge to grab the vid-phone from the desk and heave it across the room. As much as seeing her smug face smashing against the wall might give me a moment of pleasure, it wouldn’t really achieve anything more than a smashed phone.
“Yes,” I bit back, voice tight.
“Good,” she all but purred. “So tell me, how goes the hunt for the sorceress?”
“It doesn’t.”
She arched one dark eyebrow. “And why not?”
Because the bitch had been dragged into the pits of hell, and hopefully, that was exactly where she’d remain. Not that I could tell Hunter that, because I wanted to keep the truth about the second key from her for as long as possible.
“Because we’re having trouble finding Lauren Macintyre, the sorceress behind the theft. It appears she’s not only a face shifter, but a hermaphrodite capable of full-body transformation.”
Hunter raised her eyebrows. “That is an ability I’ve only ever seen once in the thousands of years I’ve been alive. Are you sure she’s not just using magic to transform herself?”
“We’re sure.” After all, Lauren had even used my face at one point . . . The thought stalled, and I swore. If she had somehow managed to break free from hell, what was stopping her from taking on my appearance and questioning—or even killing—someone I loved? If she could do it once, she could do it again. I scrubbed a hand across my eyes. This whole fucking thing was getting more and more complicated. The sooner we found Lauren, the better—for both the quest and everyone I’d dragged into it. “I don’t suppose you know of any way to track someone like that down?”
“As a face shifter yourself, surely you should sense when you are in the vicinity of another?”
I grimaced. “If she were a werewolf and vampire or another kind of shifter, I’d sense that. But face shifting requires a different type of internal magic, and it’s not one that can be picked up by normal sensory means.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re trying to track down a couple of aliases we think she might be using, but it’s taking time.”
“Time you haven’t got,” she drawled. “I really do need the remaining keys in my possession by the end of the week.”
The fear churning my gut rose in my throat, and it was all I could do not to puke all over my damn desk. “It’s impossible to give you that sort of guarantee. I have no power over the speed of computers, for starters—”
“Then use other methods, my dear,” she continued evenly. I might not have spoken for all the impact my words seemed to have made. “You seem to be very chummy with the Brindle witches at the moment, so why not ask one of them to do a scrying for you? Or perhaps use some item of the sorceress to uncover a location?”
“Great idea, except we’ve tried the first and can’t do the second until we actually have something of the sorceress’s.”
That we actually did have something was a point I wasn’t about to mention. We’d already tried to use it to find the sorceress, and we’d come damn close to snaring her, too. But events since then had left us with little time to make a second attempt.
Besides, if the sorceress was still in hell, how would that affect any attempt at scrying? Or even the use of psychometry? Would it actually work? Or would it be dangerous for the practitioner to even try to locate our sorceress? Hell wasn’t a place you messed with, in any way, shape, or form. Unless, of course, you were a dark practitioner—and our sorceress had certainly shown very little fear or concern about playing in the underworld’s gardens.
“I do not care about your problems,” Hunter said. “I merely care about the end results.”
I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to scream. We had a week. The fates had also warned that this would all end in a week. Did Hunter have a direct line to those in charge? She drew her power from an old god, after all, so it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.
