“Right.” She consulted her watch. “We’re almost at the zero hour. Everyone ready?”
There was a murmur of assent.
“I hope I get to use my Taser,” Cyrene whispered to me as we followed May, who as the official shadow walker, took the lead to watch for any stray guards we hadn’t pinpointed earlier. “I’ve been dying to try it out, but Kostya is just completely unreasonable and won’t let me use it on one of his people.”
I slid her a quick look, but said nothing other than that if everything went as we planned, we wouldn’t need the Taser.
May waved us forward. We skulked along the edges of the eerie hedges, my unease not at all lessened by proximity with the hulking black shapes, but the thought of Cyrene at my back with a primed Taser gave me enough peace of mind to get past them to the side of the huge stone house. At the far corner of the house, the shadow of a man could be seen, no doubt one of the guards waiting to be relieved.
“This is interesting,” Aisling said softly as she paused next to a window.
“What is?” I asked.
“That’s a bane.” She pointed at the window, sketching out a shape. “I assumed Drake wouldn’t use them since the dragons need to get in and out of the house daily. But if he ordered up banes on all the entrances . . .”
“We’re up excrement creek without a flotation device, not to mention a paddle,” Jim finished. “You aren’t thinking of using me for that bane, are you, Ash? Sweetie? Honey? Baby? You wouldn’t do that, would you? ’Cause I just got my coat looking the way I like, and if you go and make me break that bane, it’ll destroy my fabulous form, and—”
“And you won’t stop bitching about that for months. Yes, we know,” Aisling interrupted, patting the demon dog on its head. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to break the bane. Those are three-demon jobbies, and we just don’t have the time. Whoops. Incoming!”
We ran for the creepy hedge as the staticky sound of a walkie-talkie moved toward the dragon at the corner of the house.
“We should have about three minutes while they chitchat,” Aisling whispered.
“This way.” May melted into the darkness, with us following in a line. We went around the side to the back of the house, thick with shadows since the moon was behind clouds.
“No bane on this one,” Aisling said softly. “This is it, ladies.”
May and Cyrene held penlights as Aisling, muttering to herself, rolled up her sleeves and wrestled with the ward that had been drawn on the window to keep people from using it. After some words I felt were best ignored, she finally stood back, panting. “OK. Your turn, Ysolde. I can’t do anything with the malediction, so it’s all yours.”
“What’s a malediction?” Cyrene asked her twin as I reached out with both hands to touch the powerful spell woven into the surface of the window.
“It’s like a bane, but uses dark magic as its source of power,” May answered.
“But Ysolde doesn’t have dark powers, does she? Why can she break it?”
“I can’t,” I said, trying to calm my mind and focus my attention on the feel of the malediction. “But arcane magic has much power against dark magic, and it can be used to break down dark spells. I think I have it, but just for safety’s sake, everyone should probably stand back.”
“Two minutes, thirty seconds,” May said, glancing at her watch.
All three women moved backward into the deep shadows, leaving Jim standing next to me.
I glanced down at it.
“Never seen a malediction broken,” it answered my unasked question. “Besides, it’s not like you can turn me into a rabbit. I’m a demon. We don’t polymorph easily.”
It had a point. I closed my eyes, the feel of the malediction making my fingertips numb as I searched for the spot in my mind that would let me draw power from everything around me.
It wasn’t there.
“One minute, forty seconds,” May’s voice reached me from the blackness. “You should probably hurry, Ysolde.”
I shook out my hands, refocusing my attention. I could do this. I tried to hold a picture in my mind of the arcane magic, glowing bluish white, of the sensation of joy that manipulating it gave me. I tried to remember what it felt like to cast a spell and watch it succeed, but none of that helped me find the place in my mind that I so desperately sought.
“Dammit.”
“One minute.”
“Problems, Soldy?” Jim asked, nudging my hands.
“No.” I bit my lip as I hesitated, but the feeling of the dragons around me decided me. “Here we go.”
I placed my fingers back on the malediction, pulling hard on Baltic’s fire, which always seemed to slumber within me. It roared to life, filling me with its power, racing down my veins until it sparked along my skin. I held the malediction for a second, then unleashed the full force of my magic upon it.
Golden light flashed before me, then reflected off the window and bounced away, dazzling my eyes in the process.
“Um . . . Ysolde?” Aisling’s voice sounded strained as I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the stars from my vision. “I think we have a problem.”
“What? Not another rabbit?” I squinted at the window, expecting to see it changed into a furry little rodent.
“Gloriosky!” Cyrene gasped. “Is that . . . is that . . .”
“Yes, it’s me,” Jim said, its voice filled with resignation.
I spun around and felt my jaw sag as I beheld a brawny dark-haired, dark-eyed man. A naked brawny man. “Jim?”
The man put his hands on his hips, his lips twisting sourly. “I can’t tell you how much I hate human form!”
Chapter Six
“I’ve never been so mortified in all my life, and that includes the first time I was kicked out of the Court of Divine Blood for trying to get busy with the Sovereign’s favorite collie, and that little misunderstanding with a male boggart who thought I was into bondage. Change me back!”
Aisling whapped the demon on its butt as May and I peered from the darkened room we’d climbed into, through the slightly opened door, to a lit hallway. “Hush, Jim! We’ll deal with your situation once we have Thala out of here.”
“Order me to change again! Maybe the first time didn’t take because you weren’t bossy enough, not that I believed I’d ever have a reason to say that, but still, Abaddon might have frozen over or something equally unbelievable.”
“I think you look quite handsome, Jim,” Cyrene told him. “And you have a really nice butt.”
“Man, I just knew this was going to happen! Last time I got forced into human form, there were chicks all over me,” Jim grumbled as it adjusted the sweater I’d given it, and Aisling’s jacket, both of which it had tied around its waist as sort of a makeshift loincloth. “How am I going to suck Cecile’s ears when I’m in this form, huh? Huh?”
“Jim, I know you’re upset—” Aisling started to say, but fell silent at a gesture from May, who hurriedly closed the door, counting under her breath.
“Guards?” Cyrene asked almost inaudibly.
“Two of them,” May answered, her ear pressed to the door. “You’re sure Drake said Thala was on the third floor?”
“Positive,” Aisling answered, jerking when a sudden buzzing started about her person. “Sorry! I thought I turned my phone off. Thank god I left it on vibrate. . . . Oh, no. It’s Drake. I’m going to have to take this, ladies. Jim, go with them and be helpful. Yes, that’s an order. Drake? Hi. What’s up?” Aisling moved off to stand near the window.
“Let’s go,” May said after peeking through the door. “We have less than a minute before the shift change is over.”
We left Aisling speaking softly to her dragon and hurried up thickly carpeted stairs until we reached the third floor. We hovered uncomfortably on the landing while May slipped into the shadow world to reconnoiter, returning almost immediately to urge us forward. “We’re out of time. We’ve got to make this quick.”