Page 169 of House of Pain
“Who would have been able to pull off something like that?” Jolene asked, spreading her arms. “Rogue clearly wasn’t working alone, right?”
Val paced back and forth, a joint already perched between her fingers, burning.
“Who do demons work for?” Blaze mused. “The Imp Queen.”
Val stopped. “It was not the Imp Queen.”
“How can you be so sure?” Andro asked. “If the Imp Queen is behind this, we might as well just give up.”
“It wasnotthe Imp Queen,” Val snapped before returning to pacing once more. “She has no interest in seeing the House of Snakes fall.”
“How do you know that?” Alecto asked.
“Val knows the Imp Queen intimately,” Blaze supplied.
Alecto, Jolene, and Andro stared at Val, waiting for an explanation. But Val didn’t offer them one, ignoring them for another heartbeat.
“Someone’s probably fucked with the guardian spell,” Val said suddenly. She whirled, her eyes wild. “We called for a Guardian. A demon showed up. I thought it was just because we used blood magic to summon a creature, and the spell for calling a demon and a Guardian is very similar. But—”
“You think someone interfered with the spell and that they were the ones pulling the strings all this time?” Alecto interrupted.
The thought alone was terrifying. But it was a smart move, the only way to infiltrate another House.
“Fucking Hel,” Jolene breathed out the words. She rubbed her temples. “Fucking Hel, we’re fucking idiots.”
Alecto snorted a laugh.
“I warned you not to have him in all the meetings,” Andro said, crossing his arms. Val glared at him, and that seemed to shut him up from saying anything else on the topic ofI told you so.
“We need to find him,” Val said suddenly. “Once we find him, hopefully we can get the information out of him.”
“How? By asking nicely?” Jolene asked.
“By torturing it out of him.”
Alecto’s mouth fell open. She wasn’t going to ask how Val was planning on doing that.
One step at a time.
“Prepare the circle,” Val instructed. “We’re going to perform the locator spell.”
“You have his blood?” Blaze asked as he walked around to the cupboard.
Val shoved a hand down her oversized shirt and dragged up a chain up with a small vial attached to it. There was something black inside.
“I have his blood, his nails, his hair, and even his fucking tooth,” Val said.
“Alarming,” Andro mused, helping Jolene draw the chalk circle on the floor. “But I suppose I’m grateful that you’re a psychopath at times like these.”
Alecto rolled her eyes as she took the bronze bowl from Blaze’s hands, still avoiding looking at him, and placed it in the middle of the almost finished circle.
She plucked the herbs and dropped them inside, then added the black salt and the feather of a Hellbate as well. Then, she extended a hand towards Val.Val dropped the vial in her palm, and Alecto poured the blood over the other ingredients.
Alecto took her place around the circle, linking her fingers with Jolene and Blaze on either side of her.
“Locarccio prioti,” they all chanted in unison, and Alecto closed her eyes.
She conjured Rogue’s face in her mind, tracing the lines of his body, his outfit as accurately as she could remember.
