Page 62 of A Fury Of Shadows

Vlad stared in the direction she pointed. His pulse spiked. Something glinted between the distant treetops to their left.

“Found it,” Serena said grimly.

She picked up speed. They’d just come in sight of a pair of dilapidated, wrought-iron gates when Mae barked out a warning.

“Stop!”

Serena slammed on the brakes.

Tarang yowled and tumbled into the footwell in front of Vlad. Brimstone hissed as he jerked violently against Mae’s seatbelt. Hellreaver smashed into the dashboard.

Tires screeched behind them, the rest of the SUVs decelerating sharply.

Vlad shot a worried look at Mae. “What’s the ma—?” He froze when he picked up what she had detected. Goosebumps broke out across his skin. He stared out through the windshield. “Shit. Is that—?!”

Cortes’s face hardened. “That’s black magic.”

They climbed out of the vehicle. Violet and Miles’s expressions were similarly strained when they joined them along with Tom and the rest of the super soldiers.

An oppressive pressure danced across Vlad in waves. Tarang growled, crimson lighting up his pupils as he reacted to the insidious power pulsing through the air.

Serena frowned at the gates thirty feet ahead, evidently unable to detect what they could feel. “This place is being shielded by the Dark Council’s magic?”

“Yes,” Mae replied in a clipped tone.

Lou looked around warily. “Are they here?”

“No.” Mae’s mouth tightened. “I just castNullifyandNegate. I can’t sense anything else around us or beyond that dome.”

Serena stilled.

“There’s a dome?” Lou squinted at the shadows ahead. “How can you tell?”

“Because I can see it.” Scarlet bloomed in Mae’s pupils and around her weapon and her familiar. “Here, I’ll show you.”

She released a faint pulse of magic.

The silent, red wave rolled up an invisible wall that curved above the treetops. A chill ran through Vlad. Tarang stepped closer to him, the tiger rumbling his alarm.

“Whoa,” Tom said hoarsely.

“That’s freaky as fuck,” one of the other super soldiers stated dully.

“Doesn’t that remind you of something?” Miles asked Violet uneasily.

The witch furrowed her brow. “The barrier around Artemus’s mansion.”

Mae startled. “What?”

“Don’t worry,” Serena reassured her at the sight of her horrified expression. “The one in Chicago was erected by a goddess.”

Cortes frowned. “A goddess?”

A muscle jumped in Lou’s jawline. “So, we can’t access the place from above either?”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Vlad muttered.

Serena frowned. “I don’t think anyone’s been home for a while.”

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