AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“None? But how—”
“It was targeting merchandise, not people. The creature appears to have had a disagreement with the family who used to control this world, long ago, before the council settled here. They also had a market, and it seemed to believe that if it destroyed enough of their wares, it would draw them out. However, the council was drawn out instead.” He lit another cigarette. “It was an . . . interesting . . . fight.”
I swallowed some more and decided I didn’t feel well. Relief was warring with guilt, and they were both being put in overdrive by a rush of adrenaline. It was making me want to bolt out of my chair and pass out at the same time, and the combo was making me nauseous.
I settled for sitting there miserably instead.
“I’m . . . really sorry,” I said, because Adra was looking at me, and tried not to wince at how inadequate that sounded.
But he shook his head. “I am less concerned with apologies than with where you found it. We thought we had the Ancient Horrors safely locked away.”
“In a book,” I said, and told them about my shopping trip, which felt like a hundred years ago now.
“A fey released it?” Adra asked when I’d finished. “You are sure?”
“Pretty sure,” I said, remembering t
he merperson’s otherworldly appearance. He’d been amazing, mesmerizing—like he’d been formed out of the water itself. As if the currents had decided to sculpt something, but couldn’t decide whether to make a man or a fish. He’d been beautiful . . . in a murderous sort of way.
And didn’t that just sum up Faerie perfectly?
“Make that absolutely sure,” I said, in case Adra didn’t get sarcasm.
“This is troubling,” he said, but his face didn’t reflect it. It had fallen into the blank, almost dead look he got when he was too busy to remember to animate it. So instead of a bad glamourie, it looked like what it really was: a mask hiding a terribly old, terribly powerful, terribly intelligent being.
Who suddenly snapped out of it and smiled charmingly at me. “Could I see this book?”
“You could, if I hadn’t left it behind,” I admitted. “The covens have it now, if they haven’t destroyed it. Which they might have. They don’t like demons, and right now, I’m not much more pop—hey!” I said, because he’d reached out a hand, only to have Pritkin jerk me away.
He’d pulled me completely out of my chair before I realized what was happening, and got between me and Adra. And he didn’t look so closed off now. He looked furious.
“You don’t touch her!”
“Ah,” Adra said, studying him, maybe because the green eyes were definitely glowing now. I’d thought that might have been a trick of the light back in his room, but in the dim little office, there was no question. He suddenly looked like what he was: a powerful demon lord in his own right.
One who was ready to throw down.
I caught his arm, because no, no, no, not again! We didn’t need a replay of last time, and I was pretty sure that that’s what we were about to have. Because Pritkin might have gotten an upgrade, but Adra wasn’t head of the demon high council for nothing. And this was his turf.
Unlike us, he had plenty of backup.
But Adra wasn’t looking angry. If anything, he looked the opposite, with a strange little smile flirting with his face. “Pit bull, indeed,” he murmured, and then glanced at me. “With your permission, of course.”
“Permission for what?”
“A different way to see.” He looked at Pritkin, who hadn’t moved, and sighed. “Sit down and stop acting like the maniac everyone believes you to be.”
Pritkin did not sit down. “I’ve been called worse than maniac through the years. But hurt her and find out how true it is!”
Adra started to look annoyed. “If I wanted to hurt you—either of you—you would be hurt. If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead. I clearly want to talk, which we cannot do if we have nothing to talk about!”
The not-sitting-down thing did not change.
Adra sighed again. “I am using the—” he began, and then went on to utter a stream of syllables that made my inner ears want to turn inside out and crawl off somewhere. Preferably somewhere that wasn’t using whatever language that was. It sounded the way the things I’d seen outside had looked, the ones I’d glimpsed behind the failing cloaking spell. My brain hadn’t been able to handle them, either, giving me a scrambled egg feeling up there, and this wasn’t helping. I was about to have to ask him to stop when he finally did anyway.
“That is all?” Pritkin demanded, having apparently been able to follow all that. “You will swear to it?”
“I assume you mean formally?” And before I could ask what that meant, a series of what sounded like bells rang out, loud enough to make me jump.
