“How do you know?” I headed back into the kitchen.

“First, who else would know? He watches the underworld closely. No one else has all but taken up residence there. Second, when he wants to influence matters with an unseen hand, he spreads clues for his marks, leaving it to them to piece it together. That makes them feel privileged to the information. They are more inclined to believe it. I’ve known him a long time. I know how he works.”

“You had me at who else would know.” I sagged into my seat. “But still, we don’t know if it’s true, or just his way of screwing with the shifters.”

“True. If Vlad is planning something and wants to keep the shifters’ focus directed elsewhere, it would be an easy thing to create rumors, then let a couple demons loose for them to deal with.”

“We can find out,” Callie said.

I shook my head, because I knew how she could find out. Why they were so hellbent on calling demons after all we’d been through, I didn’t know, but it was really annoying.

“A simple circle to call a weak demon should suffice,” Dizzy said, confirming my suspicion. “The demon might not know the answer when we call it, but we can send it back to find out. It’s pretty simple.”

I dropped my head to the table. “If what Roger said is true, Agnon is running around the underworld telling all its friends about me. They are probably on their way to tell my dad now.” A weight lodged deep in my gut.

“What are the odds we can summon that particular demon?” Darius asked.

Callie chewed her lip. “We know its name, and its…essence, I would call it, so that would help, but if it crossed the river into the Dark Kingdom, it would require a lot of power for us to summon it. It’s too high level, even in its weakened state, and it’s harder to call a specific demon. Plus, if it is traveling with its sect, they can block our summons.”

“In other words, our odds of summoning Agnon are next to nil,” I muttered into the table.

“If it crossed the river.” Callie drummed the table.

“Worst-case scenario: what if we find out that the demon has crossed the river, is with its friends, and is on the way to tell my dad?” I asked, trying to push through the fog. “What are my options?”

“We hide you,” Dizzy said.

“If Lucifer is looking for her, Vlad will volunteer his services,” Darius said. “He’s been seeking a relationship with the demons, and this would be a perfect way to make the connection.” He crossed to the counter to pour himself a snifter of cognac. “Hiding her from the two of them would be…challenging. In the short term, I can manage it. But eventually they would find her.”

“Is the short term enough time for her to learn the extent of her powers?” Dizzy asked.

Darius nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps.”

I wasn’t so sure.

I sat back in my chair. “Just spitballing here, but can we command a demon to be a hit man?”

Dizzy frowned and scratched his nose. “I have no idea. I can research and find out.”

“What about burying you behind a wall of all the shifters, vampires, and mages we can get on our side?” Callie asked. “If they come, we’ll tear them down.”

“Few vampires would stand against Vlad,” Darius said. “Shifters and mages would keep the lesser demons at bay, though it would be a stretch if they’re faced with a large host of the higher levels. But Lucifer?” Darius shook his head. “There are very few creatures on this earth that can kill an elder vampire one on one in hand-to-hand combat, and when Reagan is operating at the higher levels of her power, she is one of them. Lucifer would be mightier still. No, standing against him would not be an option. Another worry would be, if a large host of demons come to the surface, and the shifters—which represent the elves’ presence in the Brink—have to stand in their way, what will that mean in the grand scheme of things? Will it be the conflict that starts an incipient war between the magical species? A conflict that Vlad has been attempting to orchestrate.”

“Whoa. Can we just back up a second?” I held up my hands. “If Vlad is the one spreading the rumors, and the rumors are true, he must also know how detrimental this situation is to me. He’ll know why.”

“Yes. We have to assume he is privy to at least part of what you are.” Darius took a sip of his drink. “He has been unusually quiet of late, and it being so soon after Seattle, where he made known his interest in Reagan, only backing off after I’d told him I’d submitted the bonding paperwork—”

“You what?” Callie jumped in.

“He didn’t.” I dramatically shook my head. “He just said he did to get Vlad off my back. He really didn’t.” I sure hoped he hadn’t, at any rate. Because that was not going to happen.

“I’ve suspected he has secrets he is trying to keep from me,” Darius continued as though we hadn’t interrupted. “So the question is, what are his goals? He would’ve taken this to Lucifer himself if he had simply wanted the connection with your father.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know what to do, which is why he’s lobbing it at us?” I asked.

Silence filled the room, no answers to be had.

“Well, first things first—we need to make sure the rumors are true.” Dizzy knocked on the table. “Let’s get that warehouse fixed up, because we’re going to call a demon.”

Chapter Five

Two days later, enough time for the dual mages to research the right circle to use and, presumably, for the warehouse to be patched up, I parked in front of the warehouse next to Dizzy’s beater. Clearly the dual mages worried about my propensity to damage property when using my magic. Darius’s sleek sports car was parked half a mile away. If he’d just lower himself to driving the town car, something he never did when he didn’t bring a driver, he wouldn’t have to worry about damage.

I turned off the car and hung out for a second, weighed down by the rock I’d had in my gut the last two days. Something inside of me said this was legit. That Vlad wasn’t just blowing smoke to freak out the shifters. He’d witnessed some of the chaos in Seattle. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that he’d followed me once or twice without us knowing. There had been plenty of opportunities for a savvy onlooker to get a glimpse of my special abilities. Being that he had a presence in the underworld, he’d have more pieces to the puzzle than anyone else. That was all someone like Vlad needed.

The question was, why was he indirectly warning me? Was it because he knew that the only way to keep this from escalating was to cut it out at the root, Agnon, and I was the only one who could get past the river to do it? Maybe he didn’t want Darius to know that he knew what I was for some reason.

When had my life gotten so complicated?

As soon as I’d hooked up with elders, that was when. They were so high maintenance.

I blew out a breath and leaned my head against the steering wheel. Cutting out the root was a tall order. While bounty hunting was sort of my thing, or at least it had been, normally I had breadcrumbs to help me find a mark.

Normally I knew my surroundings.

If I attempted this, I would be going into the underworld as probably the only thing resembling a human, full of latent magic (which could as easily turn me into a monster as save me), and with absolutely no clue as to where I was going. I might as well paint myself in neon and strut around with jazz hands. Hey, y’all, look at me!

This would be an extremely well-paying job, being that I’d get to keep my freedom, but some jobs were just too great. Too complex. I didn’t have the chops to complete it.

Realistically, though, what was the alternative? Let Darius hide me, like the mages had said? Try to learn my magic in time to combat my father and/or a host of extremely powerful demons?

I laughed sardonically, the sound jarring in the quiet car.

I’d been trying to master my fire magic most of my life, and I was still basically a novice. I couldn’t even access half of it. Using my powers together? Yeah, right.

Learning my magic, even with a teacher, would take years. Years! I probably didn’t even have months. The demons would come, regardless of whether my father knew about me or not, and Roger had already made it clear the shifters intended to amass in front of them. Dizzy and Callie would wade into the fray, trying to protect me, dragging a bunch of wide-eyed, blackmailed mages with them.