Moonlight streaming in from the open door provided the only illumination in the space, so I lit a fireball in my hand to better see my surroundings. Exposed ductwork lined the ceiling, and metal tubing ran down the walls, enclosing the wiring that had been added long after the structure was built in the late sixteen hundreds.
To my right, a staircase leading up to the ground floor stood next to a shelving unit, but the tug in my gut pulled me to the left, toward an empty wall. I ran my hands along it, searching for a seam or other proof that a door had been plastered over, but I couldn’t find anything physical to suggest another room lay behind the wall.
Nothing physical, but the intensity with which my bond with the demon insisted I go through meant magic must’ve concealed the space. I opened the front zipper pocket on my backpack and pulled out a small envelope filled with powder.
Ash normally packed all our travel potions into glass bottles. Some of them were volatile and would eat through paper or melt plastic, so she preferred not to take chances. This spell was simple, though, and it did absolutely nothing until the incantation activated it. I poured a bit of the powder into my hand and returned the rest to my backpack.
“Magic cloak, I now revoke.” I blew the potion onto the wall, and the surface wavered as if I were watching it from the other side of a blacktop highway in the middle of the summer. I counted to three, and the centuries-old shroud slipped away, revealing a wooden wall and a waist-high door with a rusted iron padlock.
“You were one strong witch.” I crossed my arms, shifting my weight to one leg as I appreciated Isabel’s handiwork.
Not only had her cloak lasted over four hundred years, but it changed with the times. Drywall didn’t exist when she cast it, so this spell had adjusted the shroud’s appearance to blend in with its surroundings throughout the centuries. How much vim must that have taken? I couldn’t imagine.
Footsteps sounded from above, bringing my focus back to the present. I could contemplate super-duper complex spellcasting later. Right now, I had a demon prince to summon.
I hovered my hands first over the door and then over the lock, searching for signs of magic, and Hecate on a hellhound, was there plenty of it. A smart witch would cut her losses and leave it the eff alone, but Discord’s skull lay on the other side of this door. The tug in my gut grew stronger, threatening to turn me inside out if I didn’t get the damn thing open ASAP.
The door at the top of the staircase opened, and a swath of light penetrated the room. “Who’s down there?” a deep voice commanded.
Crap. Out of time. I grabbed a dagger from my thigh holster and beat the pommel against the antique lock. Rust rained onto the floor as it busted, and a pulse of sharp, dark magic shot outward, blasting into me. I careened backward, my body slamming into the shelving unit, the air whooshing from my lungs with the impact.
A can of wood lacquer toppled from the shelf, smacking my shoulder before rolling toward the stairs. The man took two steps down and flipped a light switch, bathing the room in an orange glow.
“I have a gun,” he said as he took three more slow steps downward.
I highly doubted a priest in Massachusetts was packing heat, but why take chances? I grabbed another envelope of powder and tossed half the contents at him. “Standing tall or on your knees, in the name of the goddess, I force you to freeze.”
His eyes widened as his body immobilized. I had a good ten minutes to get the skull and get the hell out before the spell wore off, so I clambered to standing and dusted off my pants. I was lucky the ward only knocked me off my feet and didn’t melt my face off. What was I thinking busting it open like that? That was such an Ember move.
Oh, yeah. I’d connected myself to a demon. The need to get to whatever lay beyond the door had activated something primal inside me. I hadn’t been thinking when I’d done that.
The tug in my gut pulled me forward, my feet moving long before they received the signal from my brain. No use fighting it now.
I did take a moment to check for a second layer of wards before I yanked the door open. It seemed the single blast was all Isabel had had the strength to cast after the mega-shroud she’d put on the wall. Or maybe she was counting on what awaited me inside the tunnel to do the heavy lifting.
A deep whine emanated from the darkness, and as I crouched to enter the passageway, the sound turned into a growl. I lit a fireball in my palm, illuminating the dirt walls around me and signaling my location to the snarling beastie guarding the room at the other end of the corridor.
3
CINDER
You know those hairless Sphinx cats that look like they just crawled out of an alien egg? Imagine that, but five feet long and in dog form. That was the beastie that awaited me.
Its yellow eyes glowed in the dim firelight, and ashy skin stretched taut over its bones. It snarled again, saliva dripping from long, pointed teeth. The poor thing must’ve been starving, but I wasn’t about to become dinner for a hellhound.
“Hey, buddy. I just need that box over there, and I’ll be on my way.” I touched the flame to each of my sigils, activating them before extinguishing it and clutching a dagger in each hand. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Normally, my voice was soothing enough to calm upset animals and humans alike, especially when I laced it with magic. But not this time. The hellhound stomped a massive paw next to the two-foot wooden box at the back of the small room, and dirt rained from the walls around us. It peeled its lips even farther back, showing me the full length of its teeth as it crouched, shifting its weight to its back legs as if it were ready to lunge.
Well, crap. It looked like I would be hurting the beastie after all. I blew out a hard breath. “I refuse to watch movies where the dog dies, yet here I am, about to unalive you. This is so messed up.”
The beast sprang, massive cat claws extending from its doggy paws as it soared toward me. I parried, flattening myself against the wall to slide by it.
It snarled and leaped again. At the back of the room, I had nowhere to go but down, so I ducked. The hellhound landed on my back, its razor-sharp claws cutting through my shirt as it snapped at my head.
Ash’s protection sigil did its thing, thankfully, and though the back of my shirt probably looked like jagged ribbons, the hellhound’s claws and teeth didn’t penetrate my skin. I grunted and threw the beastie off me, slamming it into the wall before grabbing the box o’ skull and darting away.
Well, I tried to grab the box and run, but the damn thing was rooted to the ground.
