Page 63 of A Fury Of Shadows

They looked at her.

She squatted and indicated the tire marks in the muddy trail. “There are no fresh tracks apart from ours. I looked at the weather forecast. It’s been raining here on and off for the past month.” She studied the gates and the fading red light of Mae’s magic. “I’m pretty sure this place has been abandoned for years. If we can get through that barrier without triggering whatever measures the Dark Council may have put in place to warn them of intruders, they’ll be none the wiser.”

Spell bombs whooshed into life above Miles’s hands. “Let’s blast a hole through it!”

Mae grimaced. “I don’t think attacking it is going to work.” She shrugged. “That’d be like, I don’t know, deactivating a bomb with C-4.”

Lou and several super soldiers cut their eyes to Tom.

“For the last time, I didn’t know it was a bomb, okay?” Tom protested.

“Wait,” Mae said, shocked. “Hereallydeactivated a bomb with C-4?!”

“Luckily, it was inside a bank vault, so the damage was limited to the basement,” Serena said thinly.

Vlad inhaled sharply. “That Rio de Janeiro hostage situation? That was you guys?”

“Yeah.”

“That could have ended badly,” Cortes observed.

“It did,” Lou groused. “My hip still aches on cold days.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “The reason your hip hurts is because you can’t keep your hands off your husband. That poor guy must have the sorest behind in all of Mexi—ouch!”

Lou had hit him on the head.

Brimstone huffed something. Hellreaver vibrated.

Mae chewed her lip. “You know, that might actually work.”

“What did they say?” Cortes asked.

“That I should tryAbsorb.”

Violet sucked in air.

Vlad’s stomach lurched as unpleasant memories of their trip to Philadelphia rose at the forefront of his mind.

“Absorb?” Lou asked, puzzled.

“It’s a crazy spell that allows Mae to consume the magic around her,” Violet explained animatedly.

Vlad clenched his jaw.

“I saw what state you were in when you used that spell in Philadelphia,” he told Mae heatedly. “I’m not letting you do that again!”

Her expression grew pinched. “The reason I ended up like that was because I usedAssimilatefirst. This is different.”

He was about to voice another protest when Cortes cut in.

“We’re wasting time, Vlad. Let her try it.”

The incubus fisted his hands, frustration churning his insides.

“I’ll be careful,” Mae said quietly.

This did little to comfort him. He startled when she came up to him and kissed his cheek.

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