I instinctively took a step forward, anxious to see what might lie beyond the door, but Rozelle grabbed my hand, stopping me from going any farther.
“Wait,” she said. “We’re not finished yet.”
I took a deep breath and tried to curb the impatience that rattled through me. We were dealing with a dark sorceress’s lair, and god knew how many traps might wait inside. But that still didn’t stop the need to get in there, to know whether Mike was just a lackey or our shape-shifting sorceress himself.
Though why I was so certain I’d find confirmation inside, I couldn’t entirely say. Maybe it was just wishful thinking.
I crossed my arms and watched the witches continue to work on the door. Their magic was sharper than before, holding a knife-edge that bit into my skin without drawing blood—meaning, no doubt, there were even darker spells on the old metal door itself.
Five minutes passed. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, trying to curb impatience and the growing need to
know
.
Their magic peaks,
Azriel said.
It won’t be long now.
As if his comment was a catalyst, the metal door began to groan, to creak. Its metal hinges seemed to get longer and longer, as if there were two opposing forces holding either end, stretching them thinner and thinner.
Then, with an explosive roar, they shattered, firing shards of thin metal through the air. Rozelle ducked, as did I, and the deadly missiles flew over our heads and pinged off the shelving behind us.
As the dust settled, it revealed the metal door lying at a downward angle, suggesting there were steps just beyond the doorway. The candlelit room beyond appeared to be large. Nothing moved within the room. Nothing leapt out at us.
I remained where I was. There might not be hellhounds and whatnot inside that chamber, but if there were candles lit, there might very well be magic.
Two of the six witches sitting within the protection circle rose, chanting softly as they joined hands and stepped onto the first step. The tension running through me ramped up several notches as they gradually disappeared downward, but there was no immediate or obvious response.
After several minutes, the sharp sense of magic eased, and one of the witches reappeared in the doorway.
“It is safe to enter,” she said, voice weary. “We have deactivated the remaining spells.”
I glanced at Azriel, who raised an eyebrow at my unspoken query, then took the lead, skirting around the witches’ protection circle but pausing on the top step. I stopped beside him. This chamber, unlike the others we’d discovered, had not been hewn out of the earth. It was obviously part of the building’s fabric, a deep, wide bunker that, like the room behind us, was longer than it was wide. At the far end of the room several large black candles burned, their light barely illuminating the heavy stone table that stood between them. Even from here I could smell the blood, desperation, and fear that clung to the stone like a well-worn cloak.
“Her ritual table,” I murmured, trying to ignore the urge to turn around and run, as far as I could, from this place and that table.
“Yes,” the second of the two witches said. She tucked her brown hair behind her ear and gave a small grimace. “It will take some time to fully nullify its power, I’m afraid.”
I frowned. “You can’t just use holy water on it?”
“Oh, we can, and will. That will at least prevent her from using it in the short term. Longer term, however, needs a more careful destruction. We need to ensure this table can never be used again, either by our sorceress or anyone else of her ilk.”
My eyebrows rose. “Meaning ritual tables are handed down from one generation to another?”
She nodded. “And each generation enriches the stone with their dark energy. That is why
this
sorceress has been able to do all that she has—this stone is very, very old. You may come farther into the room, reaper,” she added. “It is safe enough for now.”
Azriel walked down the remaining dozen steps.
Valdis’s fire cut across the deeper shadows, revealing more metal shelving. Unlike those in the other room, these were filled with earthen jars, glass bottles in just about every hue imaginable, and all sorts of witch tools. But I couldn’t see anything in the way of an athame, and there were certainly no chalices, which meant that while this might be her main ritual site, she certainly wasn’t keeping her most important ritual items here.
It is possible they were kept in those chests we saw in her Gold Coast home,
Azriel commented.
It would make sense to keep her most important tools close and safe.
I guessed it would. I clattered down the stairs after Azriel and walked across to the nearest shelving unit, my gaze running across the different bowls, jars, and bottles. If Mike was involved in this whole mess—and really, any doubt had now all but disappeared—and had placed a
geas
or some other sort of spell on Mom, then there
would
be something here belonging to her. Hell, there might even be something here belonging to me. We’d already found strands of my hair in one of her other lairs, and I doubted
that
would be her only cache.
As I walked up and down looking at the shelving, Rozelle came down into the room, two heavy-looking canvas bags gripped in her hand. Once she’d reached the base of the stairs, she placed both on the floor and opened one of them, revealing several large bottles of liquid. Holy water. The cleansing of this space was about to begin.
“Will she sense it?” I asked, briefly diverting my attention away from the shelving.
“Not unless she suddenly decides to appear.” Rozelle handed one of the bottles to the taller witch. “Though she will sense the destruction of the ritual table when we split it asunder.”
“You split it?” I said, surprised.
She nodded. “Once we deactivate the spells that still
protect it, yes. It is the heart of the stone that holds the power; destroying it will render the stone unusable not only for her, but for future generations.”
“Good.” Especially when it meant there was one less means of dark magic and mayhem in this world.
“Risa,” Azriel said. He was studying a row of glass jars on the shelving opposite. “You might want to come and look at these. They have a very familiar resonance.”
“Familiar as in me or someone else?”
He glanced at me, expression grim. “Both.”
I walked across and stopped beside him. The jars that had caught his interest looked far newer than any of the others that sat nearby. Those were covered in a thick layer of dust and obviously hadn’t been touched for years, if not decades. Of the four jars that had caught Azriel’s interest, two had a light coating of dust that was smudged in various places, indicating more recent usage. The other two had a heavier coating, but it was nowhere near the thickness of the other jars on the shelf. Unfortunately, the glass was smoky, making it difficult to see the contents.
“The resonance from the recently used jars is an echo of your own,” Azriel said. “The other two are reminiscent of your mother.”
So she
had
been spelled. There could be no other reason for her resonance to linger in these jars. I blinked away the tears that were both remorse and anger, and glanced at Rozelle. “There’s no spell lingering on these things, is there? They’re safe to pick up?”
Rozelle nodded, her concentration more on the water line she was creating around the base of the stairs. “The only magic that now resides in this chamber is that within the ritual table.”
“Thanks.” I plucked the nearest bottle off the shelf and unscrewed the lid.
Inside sat a solitary earring. It was simple in design—
a perfectly circular dark pearl in a gold setting. I couldn’t remember ever seeing Mom wearing something like this, but maybe Mike had stolen it when I was little more than a baby. I tipped it out into my palm and for an instant heard an echo of my mother’s warm laugh, felt the kiss of lips across my cheek. Impossible, I knew, because she’d long ago moved on.
Not so impossible,
Azriel said, mental tone soft.
Not when her resonance lingers.
And this solitary earring, I realized suddenly, was the only piece of her jewelry I had left. Everything else she’d left me had been stored in the safe at our apartment and was now little more than a sprinkling of dust in a hole filled with ash and destruction.
Yet I couldn’t regret my actions and certainly wouldn’t have altered them even if I had a chance to do it all again. Mom lived on in my memories and in my heart, not in material things. And she would be the first to call me foolish for mourning the loss of such unimportant things as jewelry.
Still . . .
I closed my fist around the earring, holding on to it fiercely as I reached for the next jar. This one held more personal items—hair, nail clippings, and several other bits and pieces that I couldn’t actually guess at. But these sorts of items were all used in placing a
geas
or spell on someone.
I swore softly and handed the jar to Azriel. He shoved Valdis’s tip into it, and in very little time, the contents were ash. Mom might be dead, but I still wasn’t about to risk leaving the things in that jar here. If it was possible for the Raziq to call me back from the dead, then it was also very possible that Lauren could do the same. She’d been hanging around Lucian long enough to learn at least enough Aedh magic to get herself onto the gray fields without his aid, so heaven only knew what else he’d taught her.
As Azriel placed the jar back on the shelf, I reached for the first of the more recently used ones—and wasn’t exactly surprised to find it contained hair, nail clippings, and whatnot. I gave it across to Azriel, then opened the second jar. Silver gleamed back at me from the bottom of it. I frowned, tipped it into my palm, and realized with a sense of shock that it was a baby’s bracelet.
My
baby bracelet. I’d seen pictures of it over the years and had eventually asked Mom what had happened to it. She’d shrugged and said she had no idea. And maybe she didn’t. Maybe she’d handed it over to Mike at some point and then had been prompted to forget about it.
I stared at it for a moment, then took a deep breath and released it slowly. I couldn’t keep it, as much as I might want to. Just as I couldn’t keep Mom’s earring, no matter how much I might want to. The earrings might not have any sort of spell on them, but they’d been in Lauren’s possession for a long time, and I had no idea whether she could trace me through either of them. Better to be safe than sorry. I dangled them into Valdis’s flames and watched the silver and pearl slowly disintegrate, until there was nothing left.
I resolutely turned away and inspected the rest of the shelves. I couldn’t see anything else of either mine or Mom’s.
I glanced at Azriel, and he shook his head. “Which does not mean she has nothing else of yours, just that it is not kept within this ritual room.”
I swung around and said to Rozelle, “Would she have more than one ritual room?”
“No.” She drew her athame from the second of the bags, then met my gaze. “It takes strength and time for a sorceress to attune such a table to her psyche.”
“Does that mean she can’t create spells wherever the hell she currently is, or simply that she can’t create any major spells?”
“The latter. If the spell involves blood magic, then it must be performed here, on this table. Other magic—and not necessarily minor—she can perform anywhere she can create the appropriate protection circle.”
“Damn.”
“Indeed.” Her smile was grim. “However, the destruction of the table will impinge on both her strength
and
her ability to perform any sort of magic. Which is why we must hasten its destruction.”
“Then we’ll get out of your way.” I hesitated. “You do remember you’re dealing with someone capable of taking on any form, don’t you?”
Her smile grew, though there was still very little in the way of amusement in it. “Which is why the very first thing we did, before we even attempted to access this room, was create a spell that was not only a barrier against evil, but would reveal the true form of anyone coming into this basement.”
“Which won’t stop a human type of assassin coming down here and shooting the lot of you.”
“It does when we are guarded against all evil—human or otherwise.” She half shrugged. “It is not dissimilar to the magic that guards the Brindle.”
“Then good luck with the table destruction.”
“Luck is not something the Brindle has ever relied on,” the taller witch commented. “It is far too fickle a beast.”
Well,
that
was certainly true. We headed out of the basement and went back through the warehouse, until we were once again standing outside. I stretched weary limbs, but before I could say anything, my phone rang. The tone told me it was Uncle Rhoan, and my stomach tensed again. Even if he’d said he’d track down what information the Directorate had on Lauren’s other aliases, there was something deep within me that said two calls in such a short amount of time could
not
be good.
I dug out my vid-phone, hit the Answer button, then said, voice holding a false note of cheer, “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon.”
“And I certainly wasn’t expecting to call again so soon.” His voice was as grim as his expression.
The tension ratcheted up several notches. “I’m gathering there’s a problem?”
“You could say that.” His expression became grimmer—fiercer—though I hadn’t thought that was possible. “Jack’s gone missing.”
Chapter 9
Surely to god Hunter wouldn’t have . . . not to Jack. Not to her own
brother
. I swallowed heavily and said, “What do you mean, he’s missing?”
“Missing as in out of contact and untraceable by any known method,” Rhoan growled. “Missing as in, we can’t find either him
or
his tracer signal fucking
anywhere
.”
Holy fuck, she
had
. Which meant she was even
more
insane than I’d figured.