“Why did it work on you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You are bound to me, but it’s all a chain, isn’t it? I answer to Invadiah, so you do as well. And eventually all of us answer to Glasya, who answers to Asmodeus-for all I know the rod works on everyone who serves beneath the god of evil.”
“I do not serve Asmodeus.”
He laughed bitterly. “Whatever you say, darling.”
“Why did I have the rod?” Havilar asked.
“What?” Lorcan lifted his head, forcing the tip of the implement into his throat. Farideh hesitated, but pulled it back so he could sit up. “When did you have it?”
“Fari said I had it when I killed the Ashmadai,” she said. “There’s … Fari, there might be someone’s … blood and things on it.” The rod was indeed caked with blood and pinkish flesh. “But why did I have it instead of my glaive?”
Lorcan peered at it. “Did you beat someone to death with it?” He looked up and seemed to register for the first time the fact that Havilar was stained tip to toe in blood. He swore ripely. “What happened?”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Farideh said.
Lorcan fumed at her. “Stop trying to be difficult and tell me what in the Hells happened.”
“I don’t remember.” Havilar started trembling again, and Brin put an arm around her shoulders.
“Farideh,” Lorcan said. But it wasn’t a threat or a chastisement this time. “Please.”
“Something took Havilar over,” she said. “Brought her to an Ashmadai meeting place and killed the lot of them.”
“ ‘Took her over’?” Lorcan said. “Ashes. And she was carrying the rod? You don’t remember anything and you killed, what, a dozen Ashmadai? A score?”
Havilar shook her head. Her knuckles whitened around the glaive.
Lorcan swore again. “Nothing? Not even as you’d remember a dream?” Again, Havilar shook her head. Lorcan turned back to Farideh. “This is very, very bad. We need to get somewhere safe.”
“We don’t need to get anywhere,” Farideh said. “Havilar and I need to get Mehen and-”
“And if you try you’re going to be killed,” Lorcan said, pulling himself to his feet. “Possibly by Mehen. Listen to me, darling, this time I’m useful.”
Farideh kept the rod pointed at him. “Mehen wouldn’t … he wouldn’t do that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lorcan said. “Rohini is a devil. She’s a succubus. She’s here for … darling, let’s put it as such: you do not send Rohini to cause mere mischief. And Rohini has Mehen in thrall. He’ll do whatever she says, whenever she says it.”
“Mehen?” Farideh said. “That’s not possible.”
“I was going to ask, how does a succubus …” Brin said. “I mean he’s a dragonborn.”
Lorcan rolled his eyes. “She doesn’t need to bed him, you dolt. She just has to get close enough to dominate him.” He smirked. “Besides … she’s a shapechanger. If she wanted to she could bed just about anything under the sun.”
“Is that what happened to Havi?” Farideh asked. “Rohini dominated her?”
“No,” Lorcan said. “Being dominated is like a dream. You’re watching yourself act. You’re aware, you just can’t do a thing about it. If Havi doesn’t remember, she was possessed.” He regarded Farideh soberly. “Which means Rohini is even more dangerous than I previously supposed, and our problem is growing rapidly.”
Possessed. Farideh kept the rod pointed at Lorcan, clinging tightly to it as if the implement were holding her up and not the other way around. Lorcan couldn’t hurt her under the amulet’s compulsion, but she could hurt him. She wanted to hurt him.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, and she wanted him to stumble, to lie, to give her more reasons not to trust him. She wanted to hurt him-some part of her wanted to obliterate him.
Give me a reason, she thought. Give me an excuse to reduce you to ashes and bones. Give me a reason to shove these stupid hopes aside and get rid of you before you hurt me again.
But then he sighed. “Normally, you shouldn’t. You know that and I know that, and I’m not foolish enough to pretend otherwise with that rod pointed at my heart.” There was no bravado, no threat, no wheedling, coaxing tone in his voice. “But this time, darling, if you don’t trust me you are going to die. Havilar is going to die. Mehen is certainly going to die.”
“You’re just repeating your threats,” she said. That was reason enough wasn’t it?
“Farideh,” he said. “Farideh, look at her. Look at the blood. Rohini did that. Rohini slaughtered an army in Havilar’s body and left her to answer for it. You know why she did that.”
“Stop it,” Farideh said, as Havilar-her brash, brave, reckless sister-started to shake again. She could not hold the rod on Lorcan and comfort Havilar. “Stop it.”
“Farideh, please,” he said. “Listen. That was supposed to be you. Why else put the rod in Havilar’s hand? Rohini took the wrong twin. My darling, you’re supposed to be dead, because we are both mixed into this now.”
Do not trust him, she thought. Do not.
“If she realizes you’re alive, she will make certain it’s not for long.” He shuddered. “Or worse. Much worse. You have to leave. You cannot get tied up in her plans. Let her think you’re dead.”
“What is she planning?” And how do I know you’re not a part of that plan too? she thought. Or some worse, greater plan?
How could she claim innocence if Lorcan held her reins?
“Get out of the street,” Lorcan pleaded. “I will tell you everything I know, just come out of the open. It’s not safe.”
Farideh shook her head. “Nowhere is safe with you.”
Lorcan started to retort but his eyes caught on something over her shoulder. “Shit and ashes.”
Farideh heard Havilar’s sharp intake of breath. Heard Brin’s whispered prayer. She turned back the way she and Havilar had come to see two creatures heading toward them, as unstoppable and imminent as a thunderstorm on the horizon.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The creatures towered over Farideh on hooved feet that threatened to crack the cobblestones. Their skin was red as hot irons, and their eyes were black as Lorcan’s. Their armor sucked in what remained of the light and their swords gleamed in the dim. Crowned by rows of cruel horns, one was whip-thin and red-haired, the other black-tressed, with a thick scar running down her throat and across her breastbone, down under the armor plate.
As Farideh stared-the splinters of seconds-they closed.
Lorcan grabbed hold of her arm, and in her terror and rage, Farideh started to draw up the powers to cast a spell-but even before she could, he had pulled her behind him and out of harm’s way. His eyes locked on the creatures.
“Go!” he said. “Run, darling, fast and far.”
Farideh wanted to ask what they were. She wanted to ask what they wanted. She wanted to call him out, to be suspicious of these sudden heroics that didn’t so much as agitate the amulet’s magic. But the only words that left her mouth were those that cast a bolt of fire that turned into a torrent of hellfire. It crashed against the raven-haired monster and splashed flames onto her sister.
Both flinched. Neither cried out as the flames burnt them.
The redhead sneered. “Rohini hasn’t caught your little pet yet?”
“How amusing,” the other said. “Won’t she be livid when we do it for her, Aornos?”
“Let’s bring her the head,” Aornos said.
Her sister’s cold black eyes flicked over Farideh. “No, no: the hands.”
Aornos chuckled. “Oh, Nemea, how clever.”
Lorcan reached back and pushed Farideh away. “Run, damn it.” He cast his own bolt of flames, but the devils closed in on him. And Farideh.