hidden talents (22 page)

Francis the sorcerer followed the downward migration. He, Blackwater and four guards joined Ari, Adam and Grygir in the metallic-floored spell room.

Blackwater instructed another dozen men to remain outside the door with their weapons drawn.

“You know what to shoot if it comes through that door,” he said.

Ari didn"t enjoy noticing that a couple of the soldiers looked frightened.

She wondered what was happening on the roof. Was Grant"s spirit ascending like he"d hoped, or was he simply dead? She couldn"t tell if she felt guilty about what she"d done to him. For the moment, her emotions were numb.

“Don"t let the Outsiders interfere,” Blackwater instructed, inadvertently pulling a thrill across her shoulders. Blackwater still didn"t realize Adam was a were, and that he"d been born here in Resurrection. “You don"t need to chain them unless they fight.”

As aces in the hole went, Adam"s true nature remaining hidden was a small one. All the same, Ari sensed a note of hope vibrating in him as well.

They were pushed back against the wall where Adam must have been

whipped. His blood hadn"t been washed off. Two hulking spink demons, neither of whom was Darius, took charge of Adam - which might have been a

compliment. A human who looked and acted like he could have been Secret Service guarded her. He"d already slapped magic-damping cuffs around her wrists, which were in front of her. Adam had a pair as well, on account of his firebug power. She could tell there weren"t any wards against using magic here.

Grygir could too, because he began to whisper under his breath. His guard shoved him to his knees and gagged him with a cloth that looked like silver lame, but was probably woven and warded electrum thread. Silenced, Grygir glared at

Blackwater. Blackwater was lucky the fae lord couldn"t strike him dead with his eyes.

Through it all, Francis was hastily drawing three symbol-decorated circles on the gleaming floor. The patterns meant nothing to Ari, but Grygir must have recognized their purpose. He roared at Blackwater through his gag, his words unintelligible, his sentiments obvious.

The faerie would have wriggled up, except the guard who had charge of him pushed him back to his knees. Blackwater smiled down at him pleasantly.

“Don"t worry, Grygir,” he said. “While I fully intend to fuck your „girlfriend"

once I"m inside your lovely body, I promise not to enjoy it.”

Knowledge lit up Ari"s mind even as Grygir went wild with rage. This was what Blackwater wanted from the demon: for him to swap their bodies. No wonder he"d stared so avariciously at the fae in Mariska"s club. The Eunuch literally wanted to be him.

Finally, Blackwater would have everything he wanted. No more barely Level Two power for him, he"d stand on the tippy top of Resurrection"s supernatural heap, a genuine lord of enchantments. Prestige would be his, plus a beauty so radiant no one could outshine it. The Eunuch would cease to exist. Lord Grygir would supplant him as the head of Blackwater"s criminal empire. Details of the transfer might need to be finessed, but Ari was certain Blackwater had planned for them.

He"d planned everything else perfectly.

Except for Adam. Except for Grant and possibly her.

God
, she prayed.
If I’m right about You, and if I really am this pureheart
thing, please help us find a way out of this
.

She didn"t know what response she expected, but Adam"s head jerked to her.

The softest glimmer of green fire shone in his eyes. The emotion that rose inside her might have been love, but it certainly wasn"t soft. What it felt like was incredibly resolute. She wouldn"t just give her life for him. If she had to, she was willing to give her soul.

She kind of suspected he was thinking the same thing.

“Ready, boss,” Francis said, his expression tight and resigned.

“Strip him,” Blackwater ordered Grygir"s guard.

The barely visible magic that trussed Grygir"s arms to his sides didn"t prevent a pair of shears from cutting off his clothes. When his business shirt fell free, Ari sucked in a breath. His wings were both unexpected and a rapturous sight: filmy dragonfly sort of things that grew from his shoulder blades. They overlapped so closely to his back they hadn"t affected the drape of his shirt. Even folded up, colors sparkled and danced across their transparent iridescence, forming shifting patterns that mesmerized. Though delicate in appearance, she sensed they weren"t fragile.

For all his beauty, nothing about Grygir seemed fragile.

He"d been great looking in his clothes. With them gone, he was so gorgeous he dried her mouth. Like, Greek god gorgeous. Like, Michelangelo would have wept to sculpt his rippling muscles. His shape was perfect - broad shoulders, tight narrow hips - and his flawless skin shimmered all over.

He was also pretty darn well endowed.

Adam cleared his throat beside her.

She pulled a
sorry
face in response to his raised eyebrows. So sue her. She was human. If it came right down to it, she liked Adam"s rough looks better.

Out of nowhere, the thought came to her that babies with faerie wings would be seriously cute. That was weird. As a rule, Ari rarely remembered infants existed.

Her reaction to the faerie"s beauty had prevented her from noticing

Blackwater undressing too. His nudity was an eye-opener, but in a different way.

The man people called the Eunuch really was. Between his legs, he was

featureless. No hair, no genitalia, nothing but smooth pale skin. Ari imagined this precluded chats with underlings in front of urinals. Blackwater must have had to sit down to pee.

Had he known he"d look like this when he made his initial deal? Would it have mattered to him? More than anything, his choice made her realize how committed he was to his goals. Nothing was going to keep Blackwater from being who and what he aspired to.

Lord Grygir looked away from him. He didn"t seem disgusted, more like he just didn"t want to see. Blackwater didn"t notice his aversion. Possibly, he didn"t care.

“Open the portal,” he said to Francis.

Ari"s heart clenched tighter. Opening a portal suggested she was about to meet the demon who wanted to eat her. She remembered Adam mentioning his parents worked in Portal Management, and that they"d died in an explosion. She found herself half wishing this one would explode. At least they"d all die clean.

Francis looked like opening one wasn"t easy. His face broke into a sweat as he knelt and chanted. Ari was no expert, but she thought it was the same language Lord Grygir had used earlier. The hollows under the sorcerer"s eyes grew darker by the second, and his hands trembled where he"d rested them on his thighs. If she"d ever doubted the stupidity of learning sorcery, watching Francis struggle to get through the spell put an end to it. He couldn"t have been more than thirty. By the time he finished, he could have passed for twice that age. Finally, like a laser show at a concert, the shape of a door shot up from the two hunks of crystal he"d set in the main circle.

Blackwater now stood in the smaller circle to its left, while Lord Grygir"s guard forced him to remain on his knees in the right. As the portal appeared, the atmosphere took on the scent of a locker room ... lots of males perspiring before a game they weren"t certain they could win. When the odor of rotten eggs joined the sweat, Ari had to fight not to gag.

The smell eased off as she noticed the next development. The rectangle inside the frame of light was changing color and moving. A tall dark figure materialized within it, seeming to stand behind slightly wavering glass - the barrier between the dimensions, she assumed. The figure was humanoid: two arms, two legs, and one extremely erect penis. Its hands and feet sported claws, and its skin was deep purple. Its very visible veins were black. As it finished becoming, its great dark eyes zeroed in on her.

Ari couldn"t stop herself from shrinking back to the wall.

“Ahh,” it said, a deep and creepily sexual groan. “You bring my tribute.”

“I do,” Blackwater said. “Precisely as we agreed.”

A dark tongue swept across the demon"s sharklike teeth. “Give it to me.”

“When you fulfill our bargain.”

“I will not be tricked,” the demon warned.

“I wouldn"t dream of trying, but if I give you your payment first, you will be

... too distracted to hold up your end of the deal.”

“Hah,” the demon laughed. He jerked his hairless skull toward Grygir. “I expect you don"t want to miss your chance to live in that body. You"ll finally have a fuck-stick after all these years.”

Blackwater inclined his head, hiding - from the demon at least - that his lips were thinned with distaste. “Who wouldn"t be eager for that, my lord?”

The demon"s amusement faded. “You need to let me taste the sacrifice. I must know she"s a true pureheart.”

Oh boy
, Ari thought, knowing her personal moment of truth was coming.

Were Grant and Adam right about her? Was she good enough, and did she believe enough to fail this test the right way?

“Ari,” Adam murmured, but she couldn"t look at him.

She"d want to live too much if she did.

“Bring her closer,” Blackwater said, his voice just a little hoarse now that his dream was a hair"s breadth from fruition. “Francis, open a hole in the door.”

Ari recognized Francis"s pretty ritual knife as an athame. Under other

circumstances, she"d have been proud for remembering the arcane word. Under this one, she was too busy trying to struggle neither too much nor too little as Secret Service man dragged her forward across the floor. She had to sell this, or they"d lose the element of surprise.

The portal surface made a thick ripping sound as Francis pulled his knife through it, reminding her of raw meat being sawed. It felt like raw meat when the guard shoved her cuffed hands through the opening.

She noticed he was careful to keep his own outside when he did.

The dimension her hands had been thrust into was icebox cold. Frost began forming on her fingers.

And then the demon took hold of them.

She cried out because the pain of his touch was incredible, like every bone she had was being ground into the one next to it. Even worse was the sucking sensation - and never mind the crude hungry noises the demon was making. Some fluidlike essence was being pulled from her, something important to her existence. Ari"s head spun with nausea and dizziness.

“
Ari,
” Adam said, his voice sharper than before. “Look at me now.”

Ari looked. Away from the demon. Away from the odd bony hands that

clutched and sucked at hers. Knowing she had to, she let Adam be her fortress.

It seemed her fortress was close to turning. Framed by his thick dark lashes, his eyes beamed phosphorescent green. Fortunately, no one but she was paying him any mind. Her struggle with the demon had everyone"s attention.
I love you
, he mouthed to her, those three small words any woman - including her, apparently

- knew how to lip read. She gave her head the tiniest shake to let him know he didn"t need to rescue her.

The demon coughed like it was politely hacking up a hairball.

Ari didn"t move her gaze from Adam, and she saw him grow more alert. He was breathing faster, crouching slightly between the spink demons who gripped him. His eyes narrowed on what was happening behind her.

The demon suddenly pushed her hands from him. Ari yanked them back to

her chest, not surprised to find them coated in ice crystals. Thankfully, all her fingers were there.

“Poison!” the demon roared like thunder. “You dare to -” It broke off to retch and then recovered. “You dare to poison me!”

“I wouldn"t,” Blackwater protested.

“The pureheart is
too
pure,” the demon accused, then had to vomit again.

Thick white light issued from its mouth.

“She can"t be,” Blackwater said. “I oversaw her sin myself.”

A number of important things seemed to happen at once. Adam let out his own roar, his shoulders straining massively as he yanked his cuffed hands apart.

The charmed restraints snapped open and fell from him, a feat Ari hadn"t thought possible. Brute force and familiarity with the things from his job must have allowed them to exploit their weak spots. Hands free, he cracked his gaping demon guards" skulls together. Their heads must have been hard, because both were knocked unconscious. At the same time, the demon squeezed his clawed purple hands into the slit in the portal and started pulling it bigger.

“Seal the hole!” Blackwater ordered Francis.

Francis barely looked capable of crawling. She saw the realization finally enter his face: that Blackwater had always intended to use him up to the last cinder, that he was going to die tonight. A second later, his horror was erased for him. The demon stretched through the widened slit, caught the sorcerer"s neck and crushed it.

He was dead before he hit the floor.

Blackwater didn"t miss a beat. “You,” he said to Secret Service guy. “Patch it.”

Evidently he was yet another Talent who"d been trained in sorcery. He must not have studied as hard as Francis. Though he immediately started chanting, and at a safer distance than his peer, the demon continued to rip the hole wider.

Meanwhile, Adam finished tearing off his clothes. He fell to his hands and knees and started growing fur. In a night of wonders, this was possibly the most amazing one.

“Shit,” breathed the guard who"d been holding Grygir in the third circle.

“He"s a werewolf.”

The fae lord took advantage of the guard"s distraction to throw his weight back and knock him over. This was a good thing, because Adam was still

transforming, an act that didn"t seem conducive to fighting off attacks. Ari guessed he couldn"t shift rapidly without a full moon. She winced at the way his skeleton wrenched and popped, though he made no sound but panting. She had the impression he was concentrating on changing as fast as he could. To her dismay, the spink demons whose heads he"d cracked together were recovering consciousness.