I frowned up at Darius. What sort of dabbling was he doing, and why wasn’t he helping me more if he had connections?

If Darius saw my questioning gaze, he didn’t let on. He nodded at Vlad. “I’ll see you in the lair.”

“I’ll look forward to hearing about this exquisite treasure you’ve collected.” Yuck.

Vlad bowed to us and then reached out his hand. The male vampire melted out of the night and handed over my phone. Before he turned away, I was the recipient of an intense scowl.

“Dude, you started it. Just be glad your face healed,” I said. His scowl deepened.

“Here you go, Reagan.” Vlad handed it to me. “Take care of yourself.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

Vlad’s eyes twinkled as he bowed again. “Something tells me I’m going to regret passing you off to Darius. Ah well. Such is life. You can’t be lucky all the time.” He winked before he turned and strode away.

“Lucy, you have some ’splaining to do,” I said to Darius as I pulled up the text message app on my phone.

Immediately, an outgoing message from me to Darius caught my eye. It informed him I’d meet him at the hotel in a half-hour.

The vamp must have sent it, but Darius hadn’t known that.

“You ignored my text, I see.” I pulled up an old group message between Callie, Dizzy, and myself.

“I knew you didn’t send it.”

“How?”

“It was much too polite.”

I nodded, because that was a good call, as I texted Callie and Dizzy where to meet us. When that was done, I turned my attention back to Darius. “What’s this about the aswang?”

I pointed to the right because I needed something to eat, and there was a restaurant down the way.

“Vlad knows about that, does he?” I barely heard Darius sigh.

“The question is, why don’t I know about that?”

“I wanted more evidence. When I got it, I had other things on my mind.” His touch slid down my back and across the top of my butt. I wiggled out of the way, knowing exactly what had been on his mind. “It seems my fears—our fears—are coming to fruition. The demon from—”

“I know that part. What I don’t know is how the aswang fits into this.”

“The aswang that you killed didn’t come from New Orleans. Or anywhere in Louisiana. It left a chain of murder victims across the country. If one painted a line on the map, stringing those murders together…”

“You’d get that Northern California town.” I let out a breath slowly.

“The aswang fed every so often en route to New Orleans, stopping and killing one person before moving along. Its first feed in town was across the street from your house.”

“It was spooked off from there, I think,” I said.

“Yes. But it didn’t leave town quickly, as it had done on those other stops. It lingered, killing again. And again. I believe that was to gain strength. Only after the last feed did it try to infect you.”

“It wouldn’t have succeeded, and not because of stupid Garret firebombing my face. So then what?”

“I’m not sure. But it seems that the powerful demon sent the aswang to you specifically. Then it came here, possibly hijacking the mages’ summons—”

“Everyone knows these things can happen but me. Why is that?”

“—and when the aswang failed in its duty, whatever it might’ve been, you were sent for. The demon is trying to suss out your power. There can be no other explanation.”

“I was sent for by Seattle PD, though. And even if the MLE office had a hand in my coming, I doubt any of them hold hands with demons.”

“The demon, no. The mages summoning the demon, however, had already stopped the MLE office from investigating. How hard would it be for one of the mages to put a bug in the detective’s ear and call in reinforcements from your branch? Specifically, you, the number one bounty hunter in the country. The human detective would go along with that in a heartbeat. And he did.”

“Except I’m not number one. I’m literally a nobody. That’s a long shot.”

“You worked directly with Detective Smith just once, and that was enough to make him your biggest fan.”

I gave up arguing. It didn’t change the situation.

“I’m not sure the demon wants to meet me face to face,” I said. I told Darius about the crime scene and what had happened afterward.

“That stands to reason. It’s looking for the heir to the Dark Kingdom; it must assume you are all-powerful, like your father.”

“Joke is on him. Or me, I guess, depending on how you look at it.”

Darius’s eyes softened. He stopped me and reached up, waiting for my flinch to subside before he ran a thumb across my lips. A fierce explosion of heat blasted through me. My lady bits tightened up—half painful, half pleasurable.

“Nope.” I slapped his hand away. Now was definitely not the time. I had a level-five demon on my ass. I had to stay focused.

“Together, with the Banks,” he said in a low, intimate voice, ignoring my reaction, “we can defeat it. I will keep you safe, Reagan.”

“I think it’ll definitely be a team effort. Okay, game face. I need to find addresses for those mages the bartender named. After I scarf down a quick bite, let’s hook up with Callie and Dizzy, and we’ll pay them a visit.” I threw up a finger at him. “And don’t, for one minute, think I am ignoring the fact that you initiated the bonding stuff. We will most certainly circle back to that.”

“I am looking forward to it.”

“You really shouldn’t be. It isn’t going to go well for you.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

An hour and a half later, I was crouched in a hedge with Callie and Dizzy, staring at the front door of a house that was about a half-hour outside of Seattle. The area was on the rural side, with the next house probably a half-acre to an acre away, separated by trees and wild grasses. In front of us, a wicked spell twisted and turned, invisible to the naked eye. This wasn’t a mere surveillance spell, like the one we’d encountered at the other house—it was designed for active security. Out in the boondocks, this mage wanted to make sure his homestead was protected. I bet the neighbors knew to steer clear of this whacko.

“What’s the plan?” Callie asked, her hand in her satchel.

I glanced off to the right, where Darius waited in deep shadow. He hadn’t wanted to join us in the spider-web-infested bush for some reason.

“Cut down the spell and charge in?” I asked. “I did the creeping around thing with the last one, and that was the pits.”

“Should we go through the front, or the back?” Dizzy whispered. “The light we saw was at the back.”

We’d taken a tour of the outside, monitoring the complex spell, seeing if it wrapped around the whole house. It did.

“Or we could split up,” I said. “After I slice down the spell, I’ll hit the back, and you come in through the front. Darius can wait at the side. At the sliding glass door. Unless the mage jumps out a window, we’ll have him.”

“This is probably a stupid question, but can Darius hold his own against a mage of reasonable power?” Callie asked.

“Yes, that is a stupid question.” I dug in my pouch. “We can also make the spell go boom. That’d get him all excited. Maybe he’d do something stupid.”

“Whatever we do, we’ll get him excited. I doubt this guy has seen half as much power on his doorstep as what we’re packing.” Callie squinted in the darkness. “Judging by the complexity of this spell, its power, and the way it’s set up, I’m guessing we’ve found the lead mage.”

“I agree.” Dizzy dug into his satchel before extracting a leafy plant. “A mage such as this would want to be in charge. He’d want underlings. It would stand to reason he’s the lead.”

“Happy days,” I whispered. “Remind me to pay a visit to that bartender and thank him.”

“Joe, you mean?” Callie asked.

“I have no idea. I had Darius with me, remember? Shifters don’t play nice with vampires.” I blew out a breath. “Screw it. Let’s do this. You guys wait until you hear a crash, then run for the door.”