Page 56 of Demon Loved
“Maybe she was a long-ago McAllister,” Angela said in musing tones. “Our ancestors were originally from Scotland, and we still have red hair that pops up every once in a while, like Tricia here, or my cousin Bellamy.”
Tricia’s hair was now mostly silver, but some of its original coppery tones could still be seen in the strands surrounding her face. Belshegar supposed it was possible that what he’d seen was a McAllister witch kneeling in a dark Scottish forest.
“But again, the amulet was made by a regular witch,” Connor said. “A powerful one, obviously, but we aren’t talking about extradimensional beings here. And that just proves my suspicions.”
“Which are?” Levi inquired. His expression showed only mild curiosity, but for some reason, Belshegar got the impression that both men had been thinking roughly the same thing.
“That this ‘voice’ that instructed our friend to come here and steal these things isn’t a member of the Council at all.” Connor paused there and sent a sideways glance at Belshegar, one that again seemed oddly triumphant.
“Then who was it?” Allegra asked in her quavery voice.
“The Collector, of course.”
Belshegar could only stare at Connor Wilcox with puzzled eyes.
Who in the world was the Collector?
Clearly, everyone else there understood the reference, because although they seemed a little startled by this revelation, no one asked any questions as to who Connor was talking about.
Belshegar had no problem with that, however.
“What’s a Collector?”
“Who,” Angela corrected him gently. “To be honest, we don’t know a whole lot about the guy. The only thing we do know is that he’s on some kind of a tear to grab as many magical objects like these as he possibly can. He came out of nowhere last month to try to steal the first amulet, the one with the garnet.”
“Well, to be more accurate, it was one of his lackeys who tried to steal it,” Connor said, his tone now much grimmer. “He broke into the house and laid hands on the safe, but it seems the thief wasn’t powerful enough to get past the biometric lock or to take the safe beyond all the wards we put on the house. Still, it was kind of a shock to know he was able to get inside at all.”
Belshegar could see how that would have startled the prima and her consort. Although they’d lowered the wards to allow him entry, he could still sense them humming in the background, ready to be deployed once again. It was hard to believe that a single warlock would have been able to breach them on his own.
“We think he used that,” Angela said, inclining her head toward the rock crystal amulet Belshegar still held in one hand. “One of our witches found it on him after he fell to his death, and it makes sense that it might have been enough to help him weaken the wards to get inside the house.”
Such an explanation made some sense. Still, so many questions crowded his mind, Belshegar wasn’t sure which one he should ask first.
“Is this Collector human?” he asked, and Angela glanced over at Levi, whose shoulders lifted slightly.
“We don’t know,” Levi said. “We know he exists, and we know he is on the hunt for magical artifacts, for whatever reason, but other than that — and that he seems to have some witch-folk working for him — we can’t really say.”
“If he’s human, I can’t see how he could have possibly known about the Council,” Belshegar replied. “It exists, many, many planes above this one, and mortals would have had no reason to interact with anyone on it.”
To his surprise, Tricia was the one who responded to that comment. “If this person has been collecting magical objects for a while, isn’t there a chance that he might have picked up something along the way that would give him access to that knowledge?”
Belshegar hadn’t considered that angle to the problem, but her suggestion made some sense. Both of the artifacts in the McAllisters’ keeping appeared to have a direct effect on magical powers, and yet that certainly didn’t mean others couldn’t exist that had an entirely different purpose. Clearly, human magic had its own way of reaching out to other dimensions, or the witch who’d summoned Levi here all those years ago would never have been able to accomplish such a feat.
And Elena would never have been able to sense Belshegar in his world, or the other “demons” she had visit her when he was unable to be there, for whatever reason. What if some long-ago witch or warlock had found a way to harness such a power and then placed it in an amulet or other talisman of some sort so it might be used by anyone who possessed it?
It was possible, although Belshegar didn’t much like knowing that an artifact with such powers was now apparently held by someone who appeared to be ruthless in his pursuit of anything that might benefit him.
Angela’s mouth had compressed, and he had the impression that her thoughts had run along the same lines and she wasn’t overly happy with them, either.
“Have you had any contact with your ‘voice’ since you came here?” she asked, and he shook his head.
“None,” he replied. “I’ll admit it has seemed rather odd to me, just because I have now been in Jerome for a week and thought for certain I would be called upon to provide some sort of progress report. But there has been nothing.”
Both the elders and Connor and Angela seemed nonplussed by this statement, which seemed to indicate they had no real idea why the voice — the Collector — hadn’t demanded to know why it was taking so long to retrieve his treasures.
But then Levi spoke. “Possibly he hasn’t demanded an accounting because he would rather you take your time than risk the chance of rattling you to the point where you might make a mistake.” He paused there, and then offered Belshegar an incongruous smile. “That is, I’m assuming you’ve never done anything like this before.”
“No,” he replied at once. “I live a very quiet life.”
