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I could have guessed at where we were as well, since a line of cliffs was dimly visible in the distance that looked a good deal like those running along the coast to Dover. We weren’t quite there, for the huge Dover Castle was a Circle stronghold and I knew the covens would avoid it. But the cliffs ran for miles and there were plenty of other options.

But it was hard to concentrate on anything other than the sky. It was a vortex of churning hate above us, a swirling cauldron of lightning, sleeting rain, and dark clouds with angry gray-green underbellies. And below wasn’t much better.

The air felt like worms crawling all over my skin, stinging, biting worms; my hair had immediately lifted off my skull and levitated around my head, and I tasted something odd on my tongue. It echoed the great storm, harsh and coppery and full of anger, like biting a penny and feeling it resonate in your teeth. I had only experienced that once before, just prior to being struck by a filament of lightning, which had cost me two weeks at an inn healing up.

Yet the storm that had spawned it had been nothing compared to this one.

I would have taken cover, but there was nowhere to go. The whole sky was full of fury as far as I could see in every direction, and although there were no horses or lances or bows in sight, that was an army up there. One forged of iron and will and malice, a literal witch’s brew of death just waiting for a target.

I wanted to leave; I wanted to leave right now.

Louis-Cesare looked like he felt the same, with that splendid hair a levitating mane about his pale face, and his eyes wide and staring. Mircea was more stoic, and his hair was already plastered to his skull by the rain, for he was outside of the shelter of the tree line. But his jaw was clenched as was the fist at his side.

The demon, on the other hand . . .

Was laughing. It spread its arms and waded into the storm, despite the fact that the rain was hissing on its “skin” and the wind was tearing pieces of its fire away. But it only raised its face up to the night and laughed and laughed.

Louis-Cesare gripped my arm. “Go.”

“What?” I had to almost scream to be heard over the storm.

“Go! Something is wrong!”

“No,” the demon said, its unearthly voice cutting through the violence around us. “Something is very, very right. I am back! After four hundred years in exile, I have returned!”

“Returned,” Mircea said.

“Yes, vampire! I was here before, on this night of nights, in the midst of fury and rage and mayhem. But was caught before I could achieve my aim and defeated by the Circle. They had an army here, and they turned it on me. And whilst they could not kill me, they banished me back to the hells, injured and barely alive.

“And when I crawled back into this world, for staying defenseless in that den of predators would have meant my death, I found myself in the East, and a mage trapped me!”

“I thought you said that happened hundreds of years ago!” I said.

The creature grinned at me. “Demon,” it pointed out.

“I told you so,” Louis-Cesare muttered.

“But now I am back!” the demon said. “Back to fulfil my purpose and I have you to thank!” It shot Mircea a triumphal look. “The easiest to fool are always those who think themselves wise.”

“Then enlighten my foolishness,” Mircea said. “What is your purpose here?”

“Why not?” the creature laughed. “Not everyone in the hells is pleased with the Great Council’s iron-fisted grip. There are many who wish them gone, even if they have to welcome the old gods back in their place. For the gods cannot walk the hells easily, if at all.

“Destroy the Circle and you bring down the barrier. The gods return and eat the Council, quite literally!” It laughed some more. “But soon after, they will flee the hells, for there are far more of us than there are of them. It will upset the order of things, yes, but that is to the better if the old ways were forever a boot upon your neck!”

“You are here to make sure that the witch succeeds, then.”

The demon scoffed. “The witch! She was useful as a lifeline, but she is irrelevant now. I doubt she can accomplish the plans I nurtured within her. She hates, oh yes, she does, but she is weak without my power. I will turn the great spell onto the Corps myself, with the help of a certain staff—”

“What staff?”

“A very special one. Which I do have the witch to thank for informing me about. Perhaps I shall let her continue to exist, after all.”

It started off across the landscape, but Mircea’s voice followed it. “Aren’t you forgetting something? I am your master now.”

It turned, and even without features, managed to express utter contempt. “You would try to thwart me?”

“I do not have to try. You swore yourself to me—”