Page 93 of Wicked Deeds

Meredith rolled her eyes. “Okay. We’re done. You have an appointment in another week. We’ll do some final tests and you’ll be good to go. You might have a scar, of course.”

“Scars are cool,” I said. “She can make up stories about how she got it.”

Gwen giggled. “Shark attack.”

“And on that note, the two of you are free to get on with your day.” Meredith politely waved us to her door. We made our way back down to the parking garage where Jake was waiting for us. Gwen kept coming up with new stories for a scar. My favorite was skiing accident while chasing a yeti.

I was still laughing about that when we started across the Bay Bridge. The silliness of it was a relief, but the reality that we were heading to Cassandra’s to talk about Usuriel’s news about Jack was starting to push aside the momentary reprieve. “Cassandra will probably have cookies,” I said. “Or biscuits, you’d call them. What’s your favorite flavor?”

Gwen didn’t answer. I glanced sideways and realized she’d gone very still, staring at the back of Jake’s head. I nudged her arm gently and when she looked round, raised an eyebrow at her.

Her eyes were wide, the color gone from her face. She mouthed something I couldn’t quite make out.

“What?” I whispered sharply.

She nodded once in Jake’s direction. “Not orange.Blue.”

Blue? What? It took a few seconds for my brain to catch up. Jake’s aura was orange. But auras didn’t change color. So this wasn’t Jake…it was someone else.

Someone with a blue aura. Like Jack….I reached for my magic, but before I could think what to do in such close quarters, whoever it was twisted casually in his seat and tossed a handful of…glittering dust in our direction. I heard something I thought might be ‘two for the price of one’ as my vision dissolved in jagged sparking light before the darkness rose up and sucked me down into its depths.

I woke up to the sensation of someone lifting my arm. I jolted, but didn’t move, as though my body didn’t quite want to respond. I thrashed—or tried to—but barely managed to twitch. Fear ripped through me, clearing the remains of sleep and bringing the image of Jake and glittering dust back to me.

We’d been taken. And I was still affected by whatever it was that had been thrown at us. My head felt like it was bathed in acid, pain rippling from temple to temple in nasty waves that made my stomach heave. I clamped my jaw shut and forced my eyes open.

Jack Miller stood beside me, his hand clamped around my right wrist, though the sensation was oddly distant. He wore a Riley Security uniform.Bastard.

I tried again to move. My arm stayed right where it was. He smiled at me and I dropped my gaze, taking in my surroundings. A room. White walls, beige carpet. A beige door off to my right. A desk I could half see to my left. Light coming from behind me. A bank of windows? So, an office? The surface beneath me felt soft,but not like a bed. A sofa, maybe? I couldn’t see more, because I couldn’t turn my head.

Where the hell had he taken me? And what had he done with Gwen? And Jake?

“Awake are you?” Jack said, his tone perfectly conversational as though we were discussing the weather. “I imagine you don’t feel so good. That particular cocktail is rough, but you should feel better in an hour or so. Not that it matters how you feel. It will decide what it wants to do with you once it’s here. Maybe it will send you through to the one who wants you so much.”

It? I tried to think through the pain. Nausea rolled over me again as I realized. A demon. He was talking about summoning a demon. Or a lesserkind. Not that a lesserkind was any better.

“Let me go and you might survive this,” I snarled. My tongue felt thick in my mouth, so the words came slowly, stripped of the threat I intended.

“That’s optimistic of you,” he said. “But I think I’ll take my chances. Now that I have my daughter, this will all be much easier.”

Fuck. He’d just admitted it. I was suddenly grateful for the drug slowing my reactions, keeping them off my face. He was our father. Fury rolled through me, and I closed my eyes, not wanting him to see, wrestling it under control. He’d said daughter, not daughters. He didn’t know about me. I had to use that. Keep the secret. Focus on Gwen.

He had Gwen. Bastard. I pushed the anger away and opened my eyes. I managed to move my head, enough to see more of the room. Definitely an office. But no sign of Gwen.

Where was she?

I had to think. An office building. Probably an abandoned one unless he owned it? There were plenty of industrial parks scattered around San Francisco and its surrounding cities that had never gone back into business after the Big One. Too many,in fact. It was one of the rebuilding projects Damon was still working on with the city consortiums.

Too many. Making us hard to find. And plenty of scope to stash Gwen somewhere that might not even be in the same building.

I swallowed. “Some father you are. What makes you think she’ll want to have anything to do with you?”

He still looked unruffled, his pale blue eyes all ice, no emotion. The same color as Gwen’s, but hers were warm. Jack was cold to the core.

“It’s not ideal, I’ll admit. But she’s not like you, Maggie. She hasn’t got the Cestis at her beck and call, and she has no idea how to use her magic like a witch. I made sure of that from the start. Of course, this would have been easier if she hadn’t decided to leave London, but what’s done is done. She’ll help me in the end, whether she wants to or not.”

Help him what? Summon a demon? I stared at him, hoping he could feel the loathing. At least he didn’t seem to have realized he was my father, too. Which could be bad for me. He’d have no compunction about killing me if he thought I was just an inconvenient witch.

I had to think. It took a huge amount of power to summon a demon. Could Jack manage it? He’d summoned imps. Was he strong enough to call a lesserkind. Who could then summon a demon. Not to mention take Gwen over. And with Gwen’s magic, maybe Jack could manage to bring a demon through.

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