Page 48

His talon suddenly glowed. She gasped as his magick took hold of her. “As your one true king and master, I command you to tell us your future queen’s name.”

“Lilith,” she whispered. “She has returned. The former hunters serve her now.”

“We shall see if that is true,” Conn said.

Conn removed his talon from her chin, turned from us, and stalked to the rear of the church. I knew it was to keep from doing exactly what the demoness and I had expected him to do. Anger radiated from him.

The demoness stared at me. “I expected him to kill me.”

“I expected it as well. Today must be yer lucky day,” I said. “Could ya answer one more question for me?”

She stared at the back of the church where Conn stood with clenched fists. “I will if I can.”

I pointed to Rasmus. “I found yer compulsion and one other from Lilith. Can ya tell if there are others?”

She looked at Rasmus. Her eyes turned red as they searched him. “Your human is hard to read. His kind did something to him before they asked me to seal the compulsion. They probably chose his ear because it was one of the few areas on him that remained unaffected.”

“Are ya saying that humans drugged Rasmus?”

“They made him forget himself. The blockage of those memories swirls around his root and rises to his third energy center.”

“So ya’re saying the drugs did something to block knowledge of his own body.” I turned to Rasmus and studied him. This was certainly a twist.

“It is not my place to guess anyone’s intentions other than my own. I have done all you asked, daughter of The Dagda. Return to your kind.”

“Stop selling compulsions,” I told her. “They aren’t fair.”

She lifted an eyebrow in challenge.

“And ya better not have an open demon portal here or I’ll be coming back to shut it. Those aren’t allowed, either.”

“We’ve been in Salem for as many years as your kind has witch. None of you ever learned to leave things be.”

“I come from Ireland, but I know all about yer Colony witch hunts. We had them in Europe. Don’t be thinking I’m above putting a curse on yer caste because I’m not. I can stop the regeneration of yer people for centuries. Ya can continue to live here in peace, but ya have to leave the humans alone. That was always the bargain. Nothing has changed.”

“Then stop the demon hunters from hunting us while hiring us. Their actions make a mockery of your words.”

I looked at Rasmus who was frowning deeper and deeper, before looking back at her. “I’ll add disbanding the demon hunters to my to-do list. That’s going to be a tricky one.”

She turned toward the stage. All the male demons disappeared when she did.

Rasmus stared at the floor where she evaporated into thin air. He was probably in mild shock. I babbled to give him time to get hold of himself.

“Demons call that vanishing act transmogrification because they disintegrate their entire form and reassemble it somewhere else. Rumor says there’s a finite number of times it works before they simply crumple to bits and have to regenerate.”

Rasmus looked at me. “What did they do to me? She insinuated there was something non-magickal going on.”

“She did indeed, and I don’t have the answer to that question, Rasmus. We’ll deal with it when we can, but right now, we need to help Conn calm down. He’s worked up over having Lilith’s identity confirmed. She’s sort of his ex-girlfriend. He’s shook up about her.”

Nodding absently, Rasmus turned and followed me to the back of the church. I uttered the command to store my mantle away.

Knowing he’d never harm me, I put a hand on Conn’s demon arm. “Let’s get something to eat and go home. These weren’t the demons we were looking for, which means we can cross this place off our search list.”

He nodded once before morphing into human form again.

This time when Rasmus talked about cars and other nonsense on our drive, I didn’t roll my eyes. He eventually got Conn to smile at something he said, and I was grateful he provided my upset friend with a distraction.

ChapterSixteen