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“It’s close,” Gabe said. He dribbled his hands over the armrest, his gaze searching the houses. “Why are we getting the pull to somewhere where we think Liam has been?”

His question hung in the air, heavy, like concrete. I refused to think any deeper into that question. The two couldn’t be related. They just couldn’t. Demonic familiar or not, Liam would never do anything bad.

Travis pulled the Jeep sharply to the curb in front of a blue house. Yep. That was the one. Liam would’ve normally thrown up a visibility spell, but Randy did it first. Maple aroma filled the car as he worked, but still only a staticky view of the interior appeared. My eyes darted over the rooms in the house but was pulled to the living room where a woman stumbled toward her couch.

Gabe had the door open within half a second. He ran toward the house and we all followed. Unlocking the door before we got there, he burst in and turned right, making it almost in time to catch the woman as she was falling to the floor. He pulled her hands forward, guiding her toward the couch. Her eyes widened as fear pierced through. “No.” Her nose sniffed the air and then curled in disgust. “No. I swear to God it wasn’t me.”

Her face paled. Right before our eyes, her cheeks sunk in and dark shadows moved under her eyes like creeping black clouds.

“Who was just in here with you?” Randy asked.

The woman shook her head, her dark curly hair snagging on her chapped lips. “No one. I was here by myself. I think. I don’t know.” Her hands started to tremble. “I can’t remember now, it’s all dark. I was in the kitchen, and then I got a headache. I—I was then in here, trying to make it to the couch.” She turned scared eyes toward us. “What happened?”

Travis pushed Randy, and they both took off. The stench in here was fresh and just awful. I wanted to hold my breath to steel myself from it.

“You don’t remember anything else?” Gabe asked. “No one was in here with you? You didn’t see anyone? A boy?”

I blinked at him. “Gabe. You can’t think…”

He shrugged, and we both stared back at the lady. Her eyelids drooped. “What’s happening to me? I feel sick. Drained.” She rubbed her fingertips together, and I knew what she was searching for. The magic. We always felt it there first. It didn’t live there, but it escaped from there. “I’m…nothing.”

The woman passed out.

Gabe and I took a couple steps back, eyes darting around the room for any sign of what had happened here. Randy and Travis ran back in and noticed her sprawled out on the couch. They both shook their heads. “Anything?” Travis asked.

Gabe moved forward, picking up her feet and laying her across the leather couch. “Nothing. She didn’t remember a thing and then she just kind of fell apart. She changed right in front of us.”

“Whoever was here was close,” Travis said. “It’s downright putrid in here, and whatever they did to her, theyjustdid it because she didn’t look like that when we first came in.”

I ran my hands through my hair. “I think someone’s stealing their magic.” They shifted from foot to foot, so I kept going. “Or at least draining them. Anna, she’s sick, right? No magic. We found Jules the same way as this woman and it wasn’t her either. The Akasha found her pure. And at the magic den,” I said, staring at Randy. “All those girls looked like these ones. Maybe not as bad, but they were like drugged-out fiends looking for their next fix. Is this what it looks like when you get your magic taken away from you?”

Travis shook his head. “We’ve stripped people before and they never look like this.”

“But you do it with the Akasha. This is different from that. Someone is doing this to them against their will, and with negative magic, for evil purposes.”

“Dupre,” Randy said. “It has to be. He still wants Norah. He’s not going to give up.”

Gabe sighed. “Or Liam.”

I whipped my head toward him. “What?”

He held his hands up. “We got an image of Liam on this street. Now we find this here.” He motioned toward the still passed out woman. “He has a familiar on him. He could’ve been doing this all along and we wouldn’t have known.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No. It’s not him.”

Gabe stood and took a step toward me. “I don’t want it to be him either, and I’m not saying it’s even him. Remember what Madame Serena said? She thought she was doing good. She had no idea she was marking those clients of hers for the Liderc. She didn’t mean to do it. Liam could be the same type of situation. The familiar could be controlling him.”

My hands started to shake, and my stomach rolled over itself. My skin went cold, clammy, and it was difficult for my brain to process anything anymore.

“Let’s get her back to the house,” Randy said. “She used a shit ton of magic to help find Liam. I know that wasn’t me back at the shop.”

Gabe put a hand around my waist and led me from the room.

“What about her?” Travis asked, pointing down at the woman on the couch.

“Well, if it’s the same thing as Jules, she’ll recover in an hour or so,” Randy said. “We’ll check on her later.”

Cinnamon wafted toward me as Travis put a tracking spell on her. My feet moved ahead step by step, but only because Gabe had a tight hold on me. As soon as we got into the Jeep, I fell asleep in his arms.