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“Then you’d know Mrak just wants to save his people,” I said as I swiped my hand through the air. “He wants peace.”
Leif’s lips tightened. “That peace isn’t coming.” He ripped up the sleeve of his coat jacket to reveal more tattoos—all runes with lines through them. Leif’s gaze had hardened as he did so. His jaw locked. “More are coming, and this will not end well for you. You’ll become like them.”
“Powerful,” I said, nodding a little. It sounded great to me. “Finally in control. I’ll broker peace. I’ll stop these feeder communities and save innocents.”
Leif looked for all the world like he was desperate to find footing all of a sudden. “Aisling, you don’t understand.”
Fire lit in my palms. “I wish you would stop telling me that and give me actual information to go on.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” I spat as the fire grew.
Leif’s gaze settled on my magic. “Because your point of view on this is so cursed because of the pact you made with this shadow demon that you won’t believe me anyway. I see that now. Well, guess what, Aisling?”
He took several steps toward me. I backed away down the alley, ever aware of the dead end behind me.
“If you open that portal,” Leif said, “even if you do it with the best intentions, even if you kill every vampire running a feeder community in this country, your soul will still be forfeit. All of our souls will be because that portal to Kithonia is just the start. There are scarier monsters out there than Mrak and Lazarus and even me if it’s demon hunters you’re worried about.”
“Iamworried about you,” I spat. “And the Lunar League. You’re going to kill me trying to get to Mrak.”
A look of pleading took over Leif’s expression. “Not if you let me help you. If you follow me into our headquarters right now, I’ll sever the connection between you and that shadow demon. You don’t have to be his chosen anymore.”
“Chosen,” I chuckled darkly. “I was his chosen, now I’m his love. And we’ll rule Kithonia together. Why do you even care about me so much?” It couldn’t just be because I was an innocent. If that mattered, Leif would have dealt with the other feeder communities producing traumatized innocents like me all across the city and country.
No, there was more. And if I was being honest with myself, maybe that was also part of the reason why I’d come here to confront him. I just hadn’t quite expected to do it here and now.
Leif studied me for a moment before cursing loudly. “You know what? Fuck it. I care, Aisling, because my sister has been trapped in your shadow demon’s world for ten years. She, too, tried to deal with a shadow demon and got pulled to the other side. Your monster is the key to saving my sister. But if I can’t do that, I will kill him for her.”
Shock registered through me. “Mrak couldn’t have done that.” If he’d known how to get back to Kithonia without me, he would have gone.
“They’re all the same,” Leif said, venom lacing every word. “They’ll take our loved ones, destroy our lives, and when they’ve done that, they’ll open a portal to their world and spill their kind into every city and street on this planet. I can’t let that happen here with you. With your shadow demon.”
I was still shocked, trying to process this new information, when Leif backed off a step and grabbed his gun. It had runes along the side, too, ones that’d summon magic and cast spells. I recognized them from the daggers and other weapons I’d forged for witches in the city.
“Go with me into our headquarters right now, Aisling,” he said, his gun pointed directly at my head. “Or I will end this for all of us.”
My eyes narrowed. Guns weren’t nearly as terrifying as fangs. “Killing me won’t bring your sister back. Destroying Mrak’s anchor on this world won’t give you vengeance against the shadow demon who stole your sister.”
I stared at a point just past him as I said this, building a fireball behind Leif’s shoulder. I’d be leaving the alleyway and not with Leif. Not on my way into a den full of vipers waiting to attack.
I’d come here to corner Leif. To get information and to remove him as a threat. But I hadn’t anticipated this exact turn of events—that he’d be so adamant about saving me as to kill me if he couldn’t.
Leif held his weapon steady. “No, it won’t bring her back or kill the shadow demon who took her. But it’ll save you, and that’s more than I was able to do for Quinn.”
I saw him touch the trigger of his weapon—just barely—and I exploded the building ball of fire in my palm before he fully squeezed it. I ducked out of the way, his shot going wide, but my fireball hit his shoulder and back.
Flames burst along that end of the alleyway. I held up my arm to block my eyes. When the warmth died down and the fire dissipated, I was afraid to look and see what might have been left of Leif. He’d been nice, and he’d cared, but he was a threat. If he hadn’t yet placed a report about me to the Lunar League, then they might know very little about me and Mrak, and yet he’d given me so much information in return.
Portals had opened before. Other shadow demons had moved through them.
Mrak and I were closer than we’d thought.
And then I saw Leif’s body on the ground, his jacket burned and destroyed, and his one tattooed arm, the sleeve pushed up. All of the tattoos still there and intact.
Leif was a Seer. He’d had all of these wards.
More were coming.
