Dark Forsaken (The Devil's Assistant Book 3) (13 page)

Chapter 18

“I’m changing,” I said to Mace. “Then we’re going to find Sydney.”

“Looks like they fixed your light problem,” Mace said.

I hadn’t noticed because I’d forgotten the transformer had blown, but the lights were back on in the apartment. “Good.” It was full dark now.

“What about Sorrel? Did you get the spell Mother mentioned?” Mace asked.

“I have it. He’s most likely with Sydney, so we’ll focus our efforts on her.” I didn’t mention I’d already tried to summon Sorrel to me and got nothing. Maybe I’d have better luck with Sydney, although just summoning her wouldn’t solve my Sorrel problem.

Mace raised an eyebrow, but I ignored him. I wanted out of these dusty clothes. I left him standing there.

“Need any help changing, Claire?” he called after me. “Nothing I haven’t seen before, you know.”

“Dream on,” I said, then warded my bedroom door against entry.

Although I could have changed my clothes with magic, it felt natural in the apartment to just change like a normal human.

Mace had obviously changed his clothes as well before kicking back on the sofa to play the latest game on his phone. I ignored him and headed to my office.

At my desk, I closed my eyes and thought of Sydney. The faintest line formed, as if she was being blocked from me, but there was a connection. I tried Sorrel again, but nothing happened—it was like he wasn’t anywhere. Thinking of Ronin, a line formed instantly, and easily my presence slipped the line to his location almost without thought. I caught myself just before I materialized and I remained in the in-between.

Ronin was with a group of ninjas in a facility with concrete hallways lined with florescent lights. The concrete blocks looked natural, unpainted in some areas, and painted a dull gray everywhere else to make it look as industrial as possible—a real underground bunker. Every square inch was covered with symbols and glyphs, all some version of
alert
or
intruder
. The moment I arrived, lights and sirens immediately started. Ronin and the six ninjas with him ran toward a door at the end of the hall. Not all the ninjas had their heads covered. I recognized one as the druid that had held a knife to Mace’s throat. Faith had an inside man—why didn’t that surprise me?

I followed Ronin and his cohorts as they entered a large room covered in more glyphs. They were all alarms, not protections, and, apparently, they worked—even against my presence. I scanned the room. Sorrel wasn’t there, but Sydney was locked in a large cage along the back wall. The bars gleamed a vibrant blue, which made them look electrified to the touch. She looked pissed and defiant in a way only seventeen-year-olds can pull off. Her cheek looked a bit redder than it had before. She must have fought them and taken a few hits.

“There’s nothing here,” one of the ninjas said.

“Sir, do you sense anything?” Faith’s man, Marcus Winchester, asked Ronin.

After a brief pause, Ronin said, “No, but I’ll remain for a moment to be sure. You may return to your posts.”

The other men nodded and left.

Ronin veiled himself as soon as the room was clear and joined me in the in-between. “What the hell did you do to Raal’s shop? He’s missing. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

I narrowed my eyes. Was he serious? He’d killed Raal. Of course, he had looked odd before he killed him. He had a red glow to his aura and a glassy look in his eyes.

He didn’t know.

This was not the time to explain. What would I say, that X spelled Ronin to protect him, which forced his hand when Raal threatened X’s operation? Would he even believe me? Was that even what happened?

If Ronin thought Raal was missing, did that mean the druids had cleaned up the large body-shaped mound of dust? Why would they do that? Maybe it hadn’t been Johnny’s boys. The questions would have to wait. Raal wasn’t something that needed to be handled. Sydney was in danger. She was the priority.

“The power’s under control now,” I said dismissively. “And how the hell would I know where Raal went?” I looked over at Sydney. “I’m taking the girl.”

Ronin crossed his arms over his chest. “That won’t work. There are spells here to strip power that will make it impossible for you to leave the way you came. You’d have to use the door, lass, and there are four levels and at least seven doors between here and the outside.”

“Only seven?”

“Don’t be a fool. Without your power, you’re just a wee lass. The guards will kill you without hesitation and you won’t be able to stop them.”

I glanced around the room again, looking for the spells he meant. I didn’t see anything except the alerts.

“The entire place is protected against magic. A dead zone, lass. Not even your newfangled powers will help you here.”

“But I see glyphs and symbols here for alerts—those are magic.”

He laughed. “Yes, this floor has some ability to hold low-level charms. The other floors are completely dark. It was designed especially for her,” he said, looking over at Sydney.

“You mean Faith Dragon, right? They still think Sydney’s Mab’s untouchable?”

“Yes. My employer was informed of her existence before I was able to return. For now, it’s best that he continue to believe she’s the enforcer, lass.”

“Best for who?”

“The girl. If they thought she was someone else, they’d just kill her.”

“You’d let that happen?” I challenged.

“I never promised to save the girl. I said I’d try to get her out safely, but that’s not possible now,” Ronin said. “The man I work for is very powerful.”

I raised an eyebrow, but I’d seen Ronin go all deadly assassin, so I couldn’t dismiss the concern completely. “So am I,” I replied.

He laughed.

A surge of power welled within me. I tamped down the swell, shaking my wrist to dissipate the building energy.

“That doesn’t look like it’s under control, lass.”

I glared at him. “It’s not out of control. Trust me, you’d know if it was.”

He still looked skeptical.

“Just tell me what I have to do to save her.”

He glanced back at the door. The ninjas were gone. Turning back to me, he said, “There are four levels above this one, each is protected by magic and from magic. I’m surprised you were able to get here at all.”

“So there are spells that work on each level limiting the magic available on each subsequent level?”

“Something like that, but from your perspective it will be as if nothing is possible. That is how the spells work. They drain the source.”

“So how do I get her out?” I asked.

“Your best chance would be for them to bring her out, but they would need a reason.”

“A reason?”

“You need something X wants more.”

“Faith?” I said.

He nodded.

“Do you know why he wants her?”

“Aye,” he said.

“Do you really think she can give it to him?” I wasn’t convinced Faith could show X anything more than she’d already seen, but she’d claimed to know things Mace didn’t remember.

“I think he believes it and he’ll negotiate for a trade to get the enforcer.”

I shook my head in disgust. Why was Ronin working for this guy? Was it really that hard to find work? It wasn’t like X wanted to kill Faith, but it wouldn’t be easy to get her. I might be able to trick her by telling her I had Sydney, but leading her to X. It would be a risky move, but what other options did I have? Sydney was dead if X discovered the truth about her identity. He’d only keep her safe if he knew he could trade her for the real one.

“What is he trying to remember? Does it have something to do with his operation downtown? Why do the Jaded Dragon employees think he’s the true ruler of Fallen? Does he know Faith is a contender?”

“Not something I can discuss, lass.”

Faith had said X was Ancient. Ronin had to know more than he was saying. Forgetting he wasn’t really in front of me, I reached out to touch him and found I could. Our eyes locked and I asked, “What aren’t you telling me?”

“He hired me to militarize his operation. The downtown ventures are on the back burner as far as he’s concerned. His goal now is claiming his birthright.”

Ronin’s eyes went glassy. I released my hold. His eyes cleared and he blinked them a few times.

“What were you saying, lass?” Ronin rubbed his head as if he had a headache. He checked his watch. Before I could answer, he said, “I have a meeting. You must go.”

I considered touching him again, but his odd behavior concerned me. “I’ll be in touch once I’ve made arrangements to get Faith,” I said.

He nodded and checked his watch again.

“Where’s Sorrel?” I asked, remembering my other problem. “Did your guys let him go?”

Absently, Ronin said, “He’s dead, lass. The boss had Sage kill him.”

“What?”

Ronin touched his head again and his eyes went glassy for a second. “I shouldn’t have said that, lass. I don’t know what’s come over me. I have to go or I’ll be late.”

“You can’t drop a bomb like that and just leave. Where the hell is Sage? Sorrel’s dead?”

Ronin blanked out again as if he’d lost focus. He blinked his eyes and came back. “If you want the girl, bring me the Dragon—or don’t, but I must go. I can’t defy my master.”

“What the fuck? Your
master
? Ronin, you—”

“Go now,” he interrupted. “The master comes.”

Ronin disappeared from the in-between and returned to the room. Sydney stood up in the cage, noticing his sudden appearance. What the fuck had just happened? I watched in shocked silence as a man that glowed red-hot to my presence entered the room. Sydney backed up against the wall of the cell, as far away from the bars as possible. X’s aura was so bright that I could barely make out any of his features. Ronin dropped to one knee before him and X placed a hand on Ronin’s head. The action covered the bounty hunter in the same red aura, similar to what had happened in Raal’s shop, which was more proof that Ronin hadn’t been acting of his own accord. Raal had threatened to expose X to Harry, which, as I’d suspected, could have been a trigger for a spell X placed on Ronin. Would Ronin’s actions have included a call to the cleanup crew? If so, maybe the mob hadn’t taken me to the warehouse in Paradise. If that were true, why didn’t Ronin receive an update and know that Raal was dead?

My mind wandered for a second when I realized how pretty the red glow was, which was when I also realized I was getting closer to it. I stopped myself and snapped open my eyes, pulling myself back to my body in the office.

Mace was sitting across from me with his usual smirk. He was twirling my letter opener between his fingers like a knife. “Where exactly did you go, Claire? And who the fuck killed my brother?”

Clearly, I should have warded the office. “You heard things out of context. I’ll explain later, but first we need to find Cinnamon. She was supposed to be watching Sage,” I said as I stood.

“Where were you?” Mace growled.

“Don’t growl at me,” I yelled, leaning over the desk toward him. The green shine ran across my eyes as white wisps of power danced at my wrists. The withdrawal feeling I had from being near X’s red aura was twisting me up inside. My power wanted out. I looked away, trying to get the power under control, but I was agitated and Mace’s usual attitude was really pissing me off. I let the control slip, just for a second, but that was enough in my current state to unleash the need within me. The blood red vine snaked up my arm, visible for all to see.

“What the hell is that?” Mace asked.

“That’s me losing it,” I growled. “So you might want to back off.”

The hunger within began to syphon power. Mace just stood there.

“Get the hell away from me,” I yelled, trying to make him understand.

Mace finally got it when the amber trickle of power filtered in through the window behind me and ran up my leg to be absorbed by my body, which was now covered in tattoos. He disappeared into the living room while I tried not to explode.

Chapter 19

Needless to say, the transformer didn’t make it and my apartment was in darkness once again. My phone rang—I sent it straight to voicemail.

I found Mace in the living room, wrapped in a protection bubble that must have worked, or maybe my magic wanted to avoid it because of the curse or Gizelle’s mark. I wasn’t sure, but he looked fine.

I headed straight for the kitchen. I’d eaten almost everything the first time, but there were some crackers and cheese left that I started eating as fast as I could get them to my mouth.

“What the fuck was that, Claire?” Mace asked.

“It’s what happens when you push me, so don’t push me,” I warned. “We’re going to see Cinnamon and find out what the hell Sage has been doing, but if you piss me off again, we could have another incident. So back off when I tell you to.”

Mace’s phone rang.

“Don’t answer that,” I snapped. “Let’s go.”

Mace silenced his phone and pointed to my arms, which had the faintest outline of a vine under my skin. I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down.

“I agree,” Mace said. “We should get in touch with Cinnamon, but perhaps we should call first and give you more time to settle down.”

I nodded.

He took out his phone and tapped the screen. “She’s not answering. I’ll try Sage.”

As I thought about all that had happened, it occurred to me that Cinnamon’s situation might not be like I had assumed. If X had access to Sage, he’d most certainly have had access to Cinnamon. She might have acted as though she didn’t care about her brothers, but there was no way she’d throw one of them to the wolves. Kill them herself, maybe, but let someone else do it? Never.

I closed my eyes and stepped outside of my body. I thought of Cinnamon and formed a line to her apartment. I slipped my presence there while my body stayed in the kitchen with Mace.

The apartment she lived in was expensive, and, as far as I knew, owned by her boyfriend, Parker Rosen. Cinnamon didn’t pay for anything—Parker took care of all the details. He was a billionaire, a self-made man from what I had heard, who’d made his fortune during the housing boom and got out before the market crashed. Cinnamon had been with him since shortly after we returned from the museum last summer. It wasn’t that long, but he’d been around longer than most in Cinnamon’s world. I’d never met him, but I was sure he was exactly the kind of man she liked to date: rich, lonely, and easy to control. What I couldn’t put my head around was how X fit into this equation. Was he a business partner of Rosen’s? Is that how he’d met Cinnamon?

Cinnamon’s apartment was eerily quiet when I arrived. I found her sitting alone in an overstuffed chair in the front room. At first I thought she was thinking, lost in her thoughts, but then I noticed she wasn’t moving. She was still as a mannequin—not even blinking.

“Cinnamon,” I said, but she didn’t look up. It was like she wasn’t there.

I opened my eyes and returned to the kitchen. “Cinnamon isn’t home,” I said to Mace.

“Where is she?”

“She’s at the apartment, but she appears to be in some type of stasis. I don’t know if we can help her. What do you know about her boyfriend?”

“Was he there?” Mace asked.

“No, she was alone.”

“Was Sage with her?”

I shook my head.

Mace banged his hand on the counter. “Where the fuck is he?”

“I’ll find him.”

I held out my hand for Mace to take. He eyed it warily, but I just raised one of my eyebrows in challenge. He took my hand, and I closed my eyes and thought of Sage.

I checked before materializing on the other side of our jump, just to be sure we didn’t die trying to save his brother. Mace nearly landed on his butt, but caught himself in time.

Scowling, Mace had to yell to be heard over the noise in the crowded room. “A little warning next time.”

I ignored him, surveying the melee in front of us. The old warehouse had seen better days. Hundreds of people were huddled around a metal cage in the center of the steel and concrete room. Blinking my second sight on, I checked the room for magic wards. There were glyphs that translated to non-detection, blood lust, and thirst, all of which hit me at the same time.

A wave of sensation covered me as the glyphs took control of my mood. The spell for blood lust rolled over me, causing the vines on my arms to ignite.

A woman to my right yelped when she caught sight of my tattoos. Mace, clearly affected by the same spells, pulled me around to face him. He snarled at me, but in that sexy way he had of being all badass and cute at the same time.

The power at my core roiled when he grabbed me by the back of the neck and jerked me forward. Part of me, the part being driven by the lust spell, wanted it as he slammed his lips down over mine. As the energy built up in my palms, the tulip and rose tattoos blazed with fire as Mace’s kiss burned through me. His tongue pushed past my lips in the kind of kiss you dream about—unrelenting, wet, and oh so good. Just as quickly, my power reversed the spells causing me to lose control and I kneed him in the groin.

Even so, the no-holds-barred power-whore inside me had been unleashed, and she was sucking as much energy as she could out of everything around.

I pulled on the power of the spectators. The woman who’d yelped dropped to her knees in pain. I had to get control before it was too late. I yanked hard with my will and wrenched the power back. I tamped it down into a tight, controlled ball at my core.

Mace pushed back to his feet, anger and lust still written all over his face. I put my hand to his cheek and locked eyes with him. A static charge passed between us, removing the blood lust and reminding me of the first time I’d controlled him this way, which reminded me of Faith’s assertion that I’d been pregnant.

While our eyes were locked and I had his undivided attention, I asked, “Why does Faith think I was pregnant with your child?”

“It wasn’t mine,” Mace said, surprising me that he had any information at all.

“Whose was it?”

“I assumed Jack’s.”

I dropped my hand, falling back a step before running into someone and righting myself. I thought back to everything that had ever happened between Mace and I, and I saw the void in my memories with him. There was a missing space centered on the time he held me prisoner last spring. How the hell had I lost those memories? But then I knew: Death. He was the only one that could remove my memories. He must have taken them, but why? What happened to the baby? There was no way I could have had it. Maybe that was why Death took away the memories. In the beginning, he’d been kind. Was it Jack’s baby? Who else’s could it have been?

I was shoved from the back and I whirled around to face the crowd, my arms reigniting with vines of blood and my palms sparking with hellfire.

The crowd was chanting, rooting for something in the pit below them, but they started backing away when they got a good look at me. Mace pushed his way through to front. I followed, creating a wake of pagans and druids as I moved through the crowd. The tattoos on my body flared when I saw what they were cheering. Sage was fifteen feet below us in a stone pit fighting for his life against a bear-sized tiger with two heads—and the crowd was rooting for the tiger.

I went ballistic, unleashing the power with no plan to let anyone leave alive.

I’d already been on the edge. Seeing Sage in the pit tipped me over. I pulled hard, letting the power from the mob soak into me. In an instant, they fell silent. You could hear a pin drop, the quiet only broken by Sage’s pained cries. I wanted them to pay for their cruelty. Sage was a bastard, but no one deserved this kind of treatment. Some of the stronger ones in the crowd tried to flee, but I stopped them.

I watched in fascinated horror as the beast in the pit with Sage took a swing at him and caught him in the side. I smelled the blood before I saw it.

Mace hit his hands against the cage. “Help him,” he growled, bringing me back to my senses.

The tiger lunged at Sage and it looked like the injured hellspawn wouldn’t survive the blow. “Sleep,” I commanded and everyone—including the tiger—went down.

The command to force everyone to sleep pulled hard against my core power base, breaking my power grab. Looking over the side, I saw that the beast, which had been mid-lunge when I’d given the command, had fallen on top of Sage and trapped him.

Focusing my energy on the trapped hellspawn, I said, “Sage, wake up.”

Coming to, Sage had enough energy to throw the tiger off, but not much else. Sage stood, but fell to his knees, his wounds still oozing blood.

“Mace, wake up,” I commanded.

Mace stood, scanned the area, and then took off to find a way to his brother.

I closed my eyes and stepped outside my body. I tuned everything else out and breathed. Concentrating all my energy on locking down the power, I waited until the vines had disappeared from my arms, then opened my eyes and returned to my body.

That’s when I started hunting. I wanted to know who owned this place because it was getting shut down tonight.

With everyone lying on the floor, it was easy to spot the guy I’d say was house muscle. There were a few doors at the back of the room along a walkway a few feet above the main floor. A large pagan leaned against the last door in the back. Once I got closer, I saw the bulge in his jacket where he had a gun in a holster. I pushed him aside to open the door he’d been blocking. The stench of stale tobacco and other not-so-innocent aromas wafted out of the small room. It had most likely been the foreman’s office when this place was used as a warehouse, but now it was someone’s love shack.

I blinked my second sight and saw glyphs for sex, attraction, and lust, none of which had much affect on my heightened senses. The spells rolled over me and reversed without effort. Once I got a look at the guy being ridden hard by the buxom pagan, it was clear why he needed the spells. He had to be the ugliest druid in Underworld. I instantly knew both of their names. I touched the beautiful pagan, Samantha, and felt a small charge of energy pass to her. She wouldn’t be looking at her bedmate, Roger, the same way again.

I used my will to flip them over, putting Roger on top. I grabbed his arm and commanded, “Roger, wake up.”

As soon as his eyes were open, I snapped a line to the pit below and transported us there. Mace had already taken Sage away. I could hear them in the outer room, which left me alone with the very naked, very unattractive Roger. I glanced at the tiger. This close it was massive and its teeth and claws were razor sharp. Sage shouldn’t have been able to survive this beast.

Roger began to speak with a pronounced southern twang. “I’m runnin’ a legal bettin’ establishment here. You got no right to stop me.”

My eyes flashed green and I glanced at the door behind us where Mace was tending to Sage’s wounds. “That belongs to me.”

He swallowed hard. “I didn’t know nothin’ about that, my lady.” He bowed at the waist. “You’re certainly welcome to your property.”

Keeping an even tone, I was working hard to remain in control, I asked, “How exactly did you acquire my property?”

“He was brought in earlier. It seemed legit.”

Legit my ass—he knew what he was doing was illegal. “Who brought him in?”

He was hesitant. I closed the distance between us quickly, not giving him a chance to run. I whispered his name, “Roger,” and watched his eyes turn as dark as night.

“Who brought him in?” I repeated.

“Thanos.”

What the fuck? How would Thanos have gotten his hands on Sage? And why would he have brought him here? “Roger,” I said, surprised when his eyes cleared, as if my control over him had been released. “Never turn your back on a two-headed tiger.”

“What?” he stammered, looking down at the sleeping beast and covering his family jewels.

I turned to leave.

“Your boy’s fine. He fights better than most,” Roger whined. “He even killed one of my cats.”

I followed the owner’s gaze to a bloody streak on the concrete floor. Something big had been dragged out. This guy deserved his fate, pitting these animals against magic users.

“Do you think that matters to me?” I growled.

Roger flinched as if I might hit him, but I decided the beast deserved that honor.

Roger whimpered as I pulled the heavy iron door closed. “You can’t leave me in here with this thing. It’ll kill me.”

I sealed it shut and locked him in the pit. I had no remorse for what I was about to do. Through the small square opening in the door, I focused on the beast. “Awake.”

“You bitch,” Roger wailed as the tiger got to his feet. “The true ruler will prevail. You’re nothin’—”

His words were cut short by his screams and the tiger’s snarls as it tore Roger to shreds. I think Mace said something, but I was too entranced by the big cat mauling the owner to hear him. Then the tiger’s voice came through the melee. “You die now,” it roared. “Killed mate. Must die.” The two heads spoke as one voice. It seemed the beast had more than one reason to kill Roger: he’d let Sage kill the tiger’s mate.