Page 102 of Wicked Deeds

My focus narrowed to just him, all the tactics Callum had drilled into me running through my head. Before I could make a move, there was a blinding flash of white and the ward vanished. The buzzing stopped for a second, then seemed to redouble, making my spine crawl as the circle of fog crept outward.

“Maggie, getback.”

Damon’s voice. I obeyed it without thinking.

A gunshot cracked, cutting through the buzz, Jack crumpled forward, clutching his side. His knees hit the edge of the fog and his eyes widened in terror. “No!” He tried to jerk back but the black fog flowed over him, around him, and then swallowed him whole.

The sense of demon magic vanished so quickly, it was like I’d gone deaf.

I stood trembling, staring at a charred circle of cement where the fog had been. The symbols Jack had drawn had vanished. So had he.

I lifted my head and my eyes found Cassandra’s. “What the hell just happened?”

“A summoning can’t work without the summoner,” she said, somewhat wide-eyed. “And he’s…gone.”

“Dead?” I asked. My gaze sought Damon’s. His gun was still raised and the harsh satisfaction on his face told me he was the one who’d shot Jack.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Cassandra said. “Though demons don’t generally deal kindly with those who disappoint them.”

Epilogue

“Pleasechange your mind,”I said desperately to Gwen five days later.

We were standing in the kitchen of my house in Berkeley. There’d been plenty of fallout from Jack. The rest of the night was still half a blur in my memory.

Damon had swept in and carried me out of the room, and one of his security guys—I had no memory of who—dealt with the gash on my hand.

After that Cassandra had ordered us out of the building and Gwen and I had been bundled into a car and driven back to the city. Meredith had been waiting at Damon’s house to finish the job of patching us up. I’d waved her off after she sealed the wound on my hand, but she’d spent a long time talking to Gwen, who was shocky and shaken, withdrawn like she had been in Slovenia. Meredith gave her something to help her sleep.

The next morning Cassandra and Lizzie had turned up, smoke stained and bleary eyed. They’d torched the office complex—owned, as it turned out, by one of the companies in the chain that owned Ajax’s apartment—and cleansed the site with Cerridwen’s help. Usuriel left before Cerridwen arrived.

Cassandra and Lizzie had also checked Gwen and I over, looking, I assumed for demon taint. But neither of the lesserkind had broken through our shields and—to my astonishment and relief—no one had fucking mentioned demonstone.

Mitch found Jake in the trunk of a car in the lowest level of St. Isidore’s parking lot. He was dehydrated and had a nasty concussion, but was going to be okay.

Gwen had stayed pale and quiet. She’d retreated to the game room, playing old tech games involving cute animals and magical farms, Lianith curled in her lap.

I’d joined her once or twice, but she’d made it clear that, while she was happy for the company, she wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened.

“Give her time,” Damon said. So did Lizzie and Audrey and Cassandra.

The second night, Lianith woke me and I followed her out to the garden. This time it wasn’t a nixling waiting for me, but Usuriel.

He inclined his head at me. Not quite a nod of approval but almost.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, still too exhausted to even wonder how he’d breached our wards.

“I came to see if you are well,” he said in a tone that was somewhat less scary than his usual Lord of the Nichtkin, Elder power, hear-me-and-tremble voice.

“The Cestis already checked me for demon taint. Perhaps they should examine you, my lord. You’re the one who splashed himself in lesserkind blood. Which was well-done, if messy.” It was as close as I would come to saying thank you to him. Thanks implied a debt.

“I would speak to your sister,” he said, not deigning to dignify my dig with a response.

I opened my mouth to refuse, and realized it was pointless. The secret of my parentage was out. The Fae present understood well enough what me being able to pass through Jack’s blood-locked ward meant. Cerridwen had had words with me about not telling her. I assumed she had the same conversation with Cassandra.

The atmosphere had been distinctly awkward. Callum and Gráinne had both been making themselves scarce. But Lianith had stayed put.

Hopefully her staying was a sign that I hadn’t completely fallen out of Cerridwen’s good graces or set human-Fae relations back a few centuries.

---