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The house didn’t look up, and I got the feeling she was ready to dismiss me. “Oh, you’re looking for who sold the drixalranous.”
“Yes, there was a brand on his body. It was obvious he wasn’t a wild creature,” I replied. “But there are over three million different brands recorded in the agricultural census. If I had my powers…”
I left it dangling because we all knew I wouldn’t be here if I had my powers, but still.
“I’m sure you would already know the answer,” the house explained. “Luckily, I have them all memorized, and I’ve seen the brand. You’re looking for the leader of a small plane where many of our perfumes and oils come from. It’s the Daybreak Kingdom she formed on her own. I’m surprised she would be involved. She normally only talks to her sons. Now that might be why. Her favorite son works here.”
Shit. “Are you talking about Lilith?”
“Yes, the mother of demons. Though you should know a lot of that is hype. She’s not as powerful as the humans make her sound. She couldn’t handle her place. She thought she was better than everyone else.”
“Well, there were only two people at the time, so I think she just thought she was cooler than Adam,” I pointed out.
She looked up, and there was a pit of black where her eyes used to be. “You’ll do well to remember what I told you before, witch. There is freedom in knowing where you belong, in having the boundaries of the universe in place. Lilith is the epitome of chaos. It’s good that she’s shoved away in a nothing plane of existence.”
A shiver of fear went through me, the instinct thatthiswas a place of danger. I’d pushed this entity and I needed to back off. I was wary of her, but she couldn’t know that.
I could still do this. For the last twelve years I hadn’t needed to soothe anyone. I’d learned to smash my way through barriers, but there was still enough of the old Liv inside me I could deal with this. I schooled my expression. “Sure. Like you said, I don’t actually care about anything but getting out of here. But if we’ve got a few days, I might as well figure out why Tix’s mom wants the new Lady Sloane dead.”
She shifted back to her grimoire and flicked a hand my way. The door was suddenly open. “Excellent. I’ll let you know if I need to talk to you. You should hurry, though. It appears she’s trying again. Well, that’s Lilith for you. If she doesn’t succeed, she’ll give it another go, and with more dangerous creatures.”
Kelsey was in trouble?
Damn it. I wanted to say I didn’t care, but I was out that door in a heartbeat, yelling for Casey and trying to figure out where the battle was this time.
Chapter Twelve
Kelsey
I found myself in the middle of snarling hellhounds, Lee against my back as we made a slow circle to keep continual watch.
“It’s going to be okay,” Lee promised. “I assure you I can take on a couple of hellhounds. I bet they don’t even fart fire.”
I was glad Evan had taken Puff upstairs with her. If he’d been out here with me, he would already be a treat for these massive brutes.
I counted three and wondered how the hell they’d managed to get onto our land without detection. Although I supposed we had hellhounds running about. Which made me wonder why they weren’t here defending their territory.
“Do you think they belong to the pack that lives here?”
“If they do, then something’s gone horribly wrong because they’re not supposed to be able to harm you,” Lee replied. “Besides, I thought I saw Tix locking them in their kennel earlier today. I don’t think our pack is free to roam around right now.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. It would explain why these hounds hadn’t been confronted.
I heard a howl in the distance.
“That’s Fen,” Lee said with absolute certainty. “He’s picked up the scent, and he’s coming. Do not let them bite you, Kelsey. Sometimes a hellhound is bred with enough serpent DNA that his saliva is venomous. It’s not legal, but here we are.”
On the Hell plane, where rules were both paramount and a suggestion. It depended on how high up you were in the pecking order.
“How far away is he?” I wasn’t sure if his powers worked on hellhounds who weren’t puppies who considered him a dad. I felt a sizzle on my right side and knew I was sporting my handy demon arm, which had tough enough skin it could handle those teeth.
I hoped because getting a big dose of venom probably wasn’t good for Rain.
Not Rain. Damn it. I wasn’t naming my baby Rain, but it was kind of nice.
“From the sound of that howl, he’ll be a few minutes.” There was a tension in Lee’s voice I didn’t normally hear, but then I hadn’t been in battle with vampire Lee. “Really wish you’d brought like a sword or something. I’m worried that gun is going to send them into a frenzy, and that caliber might have worked on the murder cat, but it’s not going to work on the hellhounds.”
I stared at the one who was right in front of me. There was at least twenty feet separating us from the big canine.
