She clutched the rod to her chest. “Oh Fari.”
The surrounding rooms had more old furniture or books or were locked tight. She pushed open the second to last in the hallway, dread pooling in her heart. The room was dark-the broken windows had been boarded over and only cracks of light shone through. Someone moved within. Someone big.
“Mehen?” She moved toward the shadow. The person was rocking on his heels, ever so slightly. She held the rod tighter, and hoped Farideh didn’t mind if she had to brain someone with it.
The shadow shuffled into the light from the corridor and Havilar made out russet scales and familiar armor. She cried out in relief and threw her arms around Mehen’s neck.
“Gods, I thought I’d never find anyone!” Mehen didn’t answer, so she kept talking. “We have a problem-a big problem. Rohini is a devil, and you’re the only one I can find! We have to get out of here, but I don’t know where Fari or Brin or anyone is. I’m afraid Rohini has them.”
Mehen said nothing. Didn’t even chastise her for being overexcited. He stood, rocking on his heels.
“Mehen?” Havilar asked. “Mehen, are you all right?”
“He’s fine.”
Havilar felt a hand-small but strong-close on her shoulder.
“Pity,” Rohini said, “Lorcan’s not here to help you this time.”
And something alien seeped into Havilar’s mind before she could point out Lorcan had never really helped her.
To kill the orc took until well after the sun had gone down, but the longer the sacrifice took, the more intense the power it created, and by the time he no longer screamed but made small hissing whimpers, Yvon was still wide awake and flush with the power of the sacrifice.
“The final stroke,” Sekata intoned. She pulled back her robe so the orc-had he eyes still-could see her angled, elf face. She pointed the ritual knife point down, and glanced around at her confederates.
“Take off your hood,” Yvon whispered to Creed.
“This is perfectly ridiculous,” Creed said, but he did as he was bade, revealing his own solid black eyes and pointed horns.
“It is part of the ritual,” Lector said.
“It’s a stupid part,” Creed said. “He can’t see us.”
“The entire ritual is critical,” Imarella whispered, her tail lashing in annoyance. “Or do you want our offering to the Supreme Lord to be for naught?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Creed said. “I-”
“Shut it!” Lector said. “You’re lucky we even asked you back.”
Sekata cleared her throat. “The final stroke!” She plunged the blade down into the erratically beating heart of the orc.
A sudden swell of black and silver energy swelled over the hilt of the blade, spitting and crackling.
Then abruptly, it coalesced and shot skyward, a missile of death. Sekata leaped backward. Creed covered his face. Imarella was so startled she backed into one of the tree’s root-branches. Yvon and Lector stared up at the sky as the crackling bolt faded out of sight.
“That,” Creed said, “is not part of the ritual.”
Again, Lorcan threw himself shoulder-first into the door. Again, it flexed and shivered, but did not budge. He stretched his jaw, the joint popping back into place after being so long clenched. Bloody Sairche.
She’d had time enough now to activate the Needle, to find Farideh-he didn’t doubt Sairche would seize the opportunity and damn the consequences. If she hadn’t simply appeared in the middle of all those people, she’d at least walked right up to Farideh and … and what? Would Sairche be so incautious as to kidnap his warlock?
He leaped at the door again. Again it didn’t move. Lorcan roared and kicked the portal hard enough to make it ooze.
An imp popped into existence beside him. “Are you Lorcan?”
“Not now!”
“Soul of yours is in dispute,” the imp said. “It was named Goruc Darkeyes?”
Lorcan fought the urge to kick the imp down the hallway, and kicked the door instead. If someone else wanted Goruc, they could have him. “Well, if there’s a prior claim, I cede,” he said.
“No,” the imp said. “A subsequent one. The Supreme Lord’s barbezu are claiming primacy. Starting trouble down by the Styx. The archduchess’s barbezu are spoiling for a fight and I think they might just tear the soul apart so-”
“He’s dead?” Lorcan cried. A number of curses fought their way out of his mouth, but none seemed quite graphic enough to capture his fury.
He channeled all of it into a blast of magic so intense it made the door scream. It charred half the portal to the bone and burned the jamb away with a smell revolting enough to make the imp behind him gag. He slammed against the weakened door again and it gave under his rage, knocking over the heavy axe that Sairche had shoved up against it.
The imp flapped in behind him. “If you wish to dispute the claim-”
“Tell His Supremacy to keep the shitting orc!” Lorcan snarled. “And you get out of my sight.”
There in the mirror, Sairche was walking beside Farideh, who had a stony expression that said she clearly knew Sairche was trouble. He’d seen that look enough.
“Good girl.” He waved the ring before the surface. The mirror had no trouble pinpointing Goruc, or at least what was left of him, spread-eagled on the ground in the mud of his own blood. Over him, twisting branches of a strange tree filtered down the moonlight. The axe still lay clutched in his dead fist.
Holding the image of the twisted grove in his mind and spitting a steady stream of curses, Lorcan activated the Needle. He wasn’t taking chances on who found Goruc’s body. He’d drag that sorry orc back from the grave if it meant stitching his body back together himself. Asmodeus could claim him after.
When Yvon bent to help the others take up the body, something gleamed at the edge of his vision.
“Hold.” He leaned over the corpse of the orc, peering at the viscera as if there were a secret message scribed upon them. He felt his cheeks flush, and his pupils open as he searched for the faint traces of diabolic magic. Something was definitely there. Someone or something had definitely made a claim on this orc.
Which meant someone in the Hells must have sent him after the warlock girl.
He looked at Lector and pushed his spectacles back up his nose.
“This one is marked.”
“He’s one of us?” Lector demanded.
Yvon peered at the orc a moment more. The twisting marks of the Hells were faint and hard to divine. Beyond sight, beyond touch, beyond any sense-and yet somehow with all of them, after long years of practice, he could perceive those identifying traces. These were particularly odd. But certainly not of Asmodeus or his legion of followers.
“No. Someone else’s.”
“A warlock?” Sekata said.
He shook his head. A warlock’s brand was much stronger, much more tightly connected to the Hells, even if it wasn’t so easy to sense where that connection lay. This was more like a net around the orc’s soul than a lead.
“What then?” the elf woman demanded.
“It …” Yvon squinted at the remains. “It is hard to say. It wasn’t a willing mark. Or a very powerful one.” He plunged one hand into the wet mess of the orc’s organs and squeezed his heart, gently, as if testing the ripeness of a peach. Ah-there. The patterns were distinct, and he’d felt this one before. “Sixth Layer,” he said after a moment. “He was a Glasyan.”
“So,” Lector said. “An orc marked by Glasya sought to openly murder an Ashmadai adept.”
Yvon raised a finger. “A warlock,” he said, “and a supplicant. She has not taken the mark of Asmodeus yet.”
“Always precise,” Sekata said.
Creed snorted. “Nevertheless. She’s a tiefling-and we’re blessed by the king of Hell-and a warlock bound to the Hells. And a supplicant is still Ashmadai enough for bloody Glasyans.”
“And,” Imarella added, “he did try and kill us all.” She nudged with one foot the axe that the orc still tightly clutched with one foot. Not once in the entire process had he loosed it.