Darkness Unmasked

“I do not have enough magic left to create Razan,” he said. “So if they come, they are not mine.”

“But has your dark sorceress got enough magic to create them? Or something similar to them?”

He shot me a glance, his expression unreadable. “What makes you think that?”

“Call it an educated guess. You’re the one who said you don’t do anything without reason. Perhaps your apparent lack of magic strength—by Aedh standards, I’m guessing, not human—is the real reason you’re making out with a very powerful sorceress. I bet she could create all manner of magic with a little help from you.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “But those Razan are not here under my orders.”

“Yeah, but maybe they’re here under hers.”

He didn’t answer that particular accusation, meaning I’d hit the nail on the head. And if she was behind the creation of the twisted Razan who’d run interference when the first key was stolen—and who were here now—then maybe she was more involved than we’d thought. After all, there had been male clothes in her Gold Coast apartment. Maybe Lucian was being played just as much as he was playing us.

“Just find that key,” he growled.

“It may not even be here,” I reminded him. “And don’t stand so fucking close.”

“Or you’ll do what?” he mocked. “Let’s not forget who holds all the cards here.”

“Not all the cards,” I retorted. “You still need me to find the damn keys, and standing so close, radiating tension all over me, is interfering with that.”

He stepped back, but only a pace or two. Still, it gave me not only breathing room, but room enough to draw Amaya if I needed to.

From downstairs came a shout, then the sound of fighting. I knew Azriel was involved, but I resisted the urge to reach out to him. Distractions were the last thing he needed.

I walked on, scanning the displayed weapons, finding nothing, sensing nothing. Then, as I reached the end of the aisle, energy slithered across my skin—a caress so light, it barely brushed the hairs on my arm. But the Dušan stirred in my flesh and my gaze swept the remaining aisle. It was in one of them, somewhere.

“You’ve found something?” Lucian said, excitement in his voice.

“Not exactly.” I hesitated as another wash of energy ran over my skin, but this one was stronger and darker. “There’s something wrong.”

“Aside from the hullabaloo your reaper is causing downstairs, you mean?”

“Yes.” My gaze swept the room. There were still a dozen men up here, and none of them seemed overly interested in what was going on downstairs. In fact, they appeared to be deliberately ignoring it. Even the guards. Unease stirred. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

“The wards your father so kindly created have stopped the Raziq. Your reaper is taking care of the Razan. There is nothing and no one else here to worry about, Risa.”

He was wrong. Totally wrong. But I guessed he knew that. Guessed whatever or whoever I was sensing were either his people or his magic, or those belonging to his dark sorceress.

I forced myself to keep moving and tried to catch the elusive sensation that would lead me to the next key. The awareness of danger grew until it was a pulse beating in tune with my heart. My skin itched and sweat began to trickle down my spine, and all I could smell was fear. It was thick and rich and it was all mine.

I walked down the next aisle, drawn by the growing pull of power. The Dušan’s movements grew stronger, and she appeared to be moving from the left to the right. Knowing that the last time she’d done this, she’d actually been hinting at the key’s location, I walked to the end of this aisle and into the next one.

And stopped abruptly. The key was here.

But every sense I had screamed that pinning down its exact location was not a good thing to do right now.

“You’ve found it.” It was a statement, not a question, and again suggested that Lucian had not been altogether truthful when he’d said he couldn’t read my thoughts. Like that was a surprise.

“It’s there somewhere.” I pointed to the largest of the three remaining display cases.

But the words were barely out of my mouth when the shit hit. The dozen strangers in the room turned as one, and for the first time I saw their faces. They weren’t just men. They were the half-human, half-animal beings that had attacked us the first time.

Fuck.

Lucian yanked me backward and drew a long knife from god knows where. Its sides gleamed with an unearthly fire that matched the glow in his eyes. “You will not take it from me this time,” he growled.

And with that, he attacked. Three of the shifters met his charge head-on. The remainder flowed around him and came straight at me.

I swore, drew Amaya, and fell back. Her anger filled me, but it did little to shore up my courage. I knew what these fucking things could do, and I knew that against so many I stood little chance.

I swung my sword, slashing right and left, Amaya’s blade little more than a blur as she cut through the air and flesh with equal efficiency. Blood and body parts flew, and my arms shuddered with every strike, but nothing seemed to halt the creatures’ onslaught. They didn’t feel pain, didn’t even acknowledge limb loss, never hesitated for one moment in their mad charge. Their eyes were filled with the desire to kill, to rent and tear and taste blood, and yet, oddly, they didn’t. They attacked, but it was nine against one, and even with Amaya in my hands, the odds should have been overwhelming. But while they kept forcing me back, they hadn’t yet done any serious damage.

And maybe that was the whole point. Distraction, not destruction.

The key, I thought, and desperately jumped sideways, trying to see past the wall of twisted flesh. A dark figure stood near the display cabinet, sweeping everything within it into a large rucksack.

“No,” I screamed, but was hit by one of the shifters and sent tumbling backward, over the guardrail. I hit one of the display cases below with a resounding crash and for a moment saw stars. Every breath hurt, and pain slithered down my back and right leg. Then twisted flesh replaced the spinning stars, and I threw myself sideways, off the broken display case and onto the floor.

“Hey, what the hell do you think—” someone shouted, but the sound was cut off abruptly as one of the shifters leapt at him.

There was a gargled cry and somewhere a woman started screaming, but I barely had time to scramble to my feet before the rest of the shifters were on me. I slashed Amaya across the face of one, sending bits of flesh and blood flying, then spun and stabbed upward, hitting another square in the chest. Amaya screamed as her flames leapt from steel to flesh, eating into him even as she sucked his life into her steel.

I shuddered at her voraciousness, then pulled her free and ran as hard as I could for the stairs. The remaining shifters came after me, snapping and snarling at my heels. Fingers snagged my foot on the third step and brought me down. I twisted and booted the shifter in the face with my free foot. His head snapped back under the force of the blow, and he snarled, revealing a bloody mouth and broken canines. But he didn’t let go. I swore and swept Amaya from left to right. Her steel bit into the shifter’s neck and she screamed in pleasure as she severed arteries and sprayed blood all over us both. I bit back bile and scrambled to my feet, only to be brought down again by another shifter. Teeth tore into my arm, and I screamed as he worried at my flesh like a dog with a bone. I hit him with my free hand, clawing at his eyes, trying to force him to release me. His teeth were biting deeper and deeper, and my fingers were beginning to lose strength. Amaya was stuck like glue, but it was her doing, not mine. I gouged my fingers deeper, until one of his eyeballs popped. He snarled and his grip on my arm momentarily lessened. I pulled free, clenched my bloody fist around Amaya’s hilt, and hit him, as hard as I could. His head snapped backward and he went tumbling back down the stairs, knocking down several others in the process. But they were only down, not out, and already others were leaping over them and coming at me. I spun and raced up the rest of the stairs.

And saw Lucian thrust his arm into the middle of a shifter’s chest and literally blow him apart.

I stopped cold.

Watched the bloody body parts fall as if in slow motion. Saw in the way they fell an echo of my mother’s death.

And knew, with absolute cold certainty, that it had been Lucian who’d killed my mother.

Chapter 14

My mind went dead.

For several seconds I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything. I just stood there, horror filling every part of me, as the man who had fooled me in more ways than I’d ever imagined stepped over the broken remnants of the body and turned around. He didn’t see me, didn’t even look in my direction. He just raised the knife and ran at the darkly shadowed person still stuffing weapons into the rucksack.

The thief swore; the voice was male, not female. Not Lauren, then, some distant, still-aware part of me registered. Then magic surged and the cloaked stranger disappeared. Lucian screamed his fury, and it was that sound, more than anything, that unfroze my lips and got my mind working again. Suddenly, I became aware of the footsteps behind me and Amaya’s screams. I swung, lashing out as hard and as fast as I could, slicing across the chest of the nearest shifter. As blood flew, I twisted and lashed out with a booted foot, knocking the second into the first and sending them both back down the stairs. Then I turned and ran straight at Lucian.

He saw me. He was always going to see me, given the noise Amaya was making. He made a mocking half bow, then threw something to the floor. Power surged, and he began to disappear. No fucking way, I thought, and threw myself at him. I hit him at the precise moment the energy reached its peak, and the power tore through us both, disintegrating flesh and body and bone in a manner very similar to the Aedh shift. It swept us into a void that lasted for several seconds; then the power surged again, and suddenly we were skin, rather than energy, and tumbling to the ground in a tangled mess.