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g behind me. Maggie closed and locked the door, slipped an “Open Again Soon” sign in the window, then lit four white candles, each one centered in a corner and surrounded by a series of black stones. Warding stones. That there were so many meant she’d taken Kiandra’s warning seriously. As any sensible witch would, I guess.
When she was finally seated opposite me, I said, “Is that going to be enough to protect us?”
She shrugged. “Under normal circumstances, yes, but we are dealing with a dark sorceress, and I daresay she is far more capable in the art of magic than I am. I am a seeker of the lost, not a witch of any true power.”
I frowned. “Then why put yourself at risk like this? I’m sure we could—”
“Psychometry is not an everyday skill,” she cut in, her expression as gentle as her voice. “And there is no one else in this city who has both the skill and the knowledge to at least provide some means of protection against any possible attack.”
I bit my lip and studied her worriedly. I didn’t want to get anyone else either hurt or dead because of this damn quest, but, by the same token, we really didn’t have another option. If there had been, Kiandra would have given it to us.
Maggie reached across the table and pressed her hand over mine. “This is important, is it not?”
“It could be, but—”
“Then we shall proceed,” she cut in again. “Please, give me the cuff link.”
I hesitated, then slowly retrieved it from my handbag and placed it in her waiting hand. Her fingers closed around it, and she frowned. “This piece has a very nasty feel to it—though I guess that isn’t really surprising given who it may belong to.” She rolled it around in her fingers for a minute; then she glanced up at Azriel. “Be on guard. There is undoubtedly a spell on this item, but I cannot sense what type it is. If the wards fail, you will need to protect us all.”
Azriel nodded, something I sensed rather than saw. Maggie took a deep breath, then pressed the cuff link between the palms of both hands and closed her eyes. For a long time, nothing seemed to happen. Then she twitched and frowned. “I see . . . many people. Men and women, all different, all the same.” Maggie hesitated, her agitation increasing. “Her soul is bitter, dark. I see . . . I see a connection to you, one that goes back to your very birth and beyond.”
I glanced grimly up at Azriel. I wonder if that means our sorceress has been connected to Lucian and his plans since before my birth, or whether the cuff link actually belongs to someone I know. Like Mike, I thought uneasily.
It could be either, he replied. Perhaps tonight you should ask if he is missing such an item.
He wouldn’t admit it if he were, I said. And it might just prompt him—or our sorceress, if he is connected—into some form of retaliation. We don’t need that right now.
No, but it would be one way to confirm if he is involved. Valdis could then consume his soul and that would be one less threat against you.
It was a nice thought, but a risk I wasn’t sure was worth taking.
“She has many faces, this one,” Maggie continued. “But there is one she wears most often.”
Again she paused, and fear began to taint the air. Fear and something else. Something that whispered of hell and was awfully familiar.
Ania.
I swore softly. Ania were demons and were usually summoned to perform minor tasks such as harassment or kidnapping, although they apparently weren’t above the odd bit of murder, either. We’d come up against them a number of times already on this damn quest, only on each of those occasions, they’d been sent by the Raziq to grab me. This was the first time the dark sorceress had resorted to them, though she had flung an odd assortment of other demons at us on various other occasions.
In the corners of the room, the air began to stir, waver. Tension wound through my limbs as I reached back and drew Amaya. Her hissing scratched at the edges of my mind, and lilac flames shimmered down the edges of her blade, filling the shadows with an eerie light. I rose, the chair scraping across the wooden boards, a sound that was abnormally loud in the thick silence that filled the room.
“Oh shit,” Maggie said abruptly, as all color leeched from her face. “They’re coming.”
And with that, the Ania hit us.
Chapter 7
“Grab Maggie.” Azriel’s expression was grim. “Get her into the back room and keep her safe. I will deal with these things.”
Maggie needed no further urging. She stood up so suddenly her chair crashed backward; then she ran for the back room. I followed but had barely taken three steps when the air between us began to shimmer and the uneasy sensation of magic crawled across my skin. I paused as a wispy figure appeared, then raised Amaya and brought her down, hard. Her sharp point tore through the center of the emerging demon, and her flames wrapped around its remnants almost lovingly, destroying it even as she fed on it.
Two more Ania appeared and surged toward me. I swept Amaya around in a half circle. The demons scattered, left and right, but as the blade whooshed past the tail of the one on the right, setting it aflame, the one on the left darted forward and seized my sword arm. It snarled, revealing several rows of tiny needle-sharp teeth, then bit down on my arm, drawing blood as it gnawed at my flesh like a dog would a bone.
I swore and battered at the thing with my free hand—an action that was instinctive more than useful, because my fist just went straight through the ethereal creature. Amaya hissed in fury and her flames raced over the hilt of the blade, then across my hand, heading for the demon. Her fiery fingers wrapped around the Ania’s body, wrenching it from my flesh even as she burned it to a crisp.
The air behind me began to crawl, the sensation stronger and fouler than before. I swung around, my grip on Amaya slick with the blood pouring down my arm. To the left of Azriel and the three Ania he fought, a dark and dangerous-looking doorway had begun to form.
It was a type of doorway that I’d seen once before, when the Ania had made their very first appearance in my life.
