Page 70 of Cold Curses

I was sweating and terrified by the time we reached the basement. I tried again to reason with monster, explain what would happen if we were caught. But its demeanor—in addition to “suddenly fucking intent on the armory”—remained jarringly positive.

For you,it said, making me stride down the hallway even as I fought it.

We passed the guards’ office, the doors thankfully closed. Inside, someone was giving instructions about responding to a hypothetical demon attack.

As we reached the armory’s locked door, I realized how this had happened. It was the haze of demon magic in Lulu’s room. Somehow, maybe because I was worried and exhausted, monsterhad managed to take in that magical miasma and use it to increase its own strength.

And then my hand was on the door handle, turning. I felt monster’s stark disappointment, its bright frustration, that the door was locked.

And then monster was moving my hand to the palm plate. I pushed back against it, beads of sweat rolling down my face as I tried to resist its remarkable strength. My arm shook with the force of our struggle, and I could smell the brimstone our battle was putting into the air.

I was sweating out the residue of demon magic, the excess power that was seeping out of Lulu and into Cadogan House.

Help you,monster said, apparently baffled that I was fighting against what it believed was an act of kindness.

The vampires will stop us,I said.They won’t let you take the sword. They’ll think we’re a threat.

It didn’t believe that or was too high on magic to care. With a final push, it shoved my hand against the plate. The light turned green, and the lock disengaged.

The door opened.

The sword lay on a bed of red brocade silk on a table in the middle of the room. It was a gently curved blade of folded steel, its handle wrapped in bumpy ray skin, its brilliantly red, lacquered scabbard lying beside it. The katana had been forged by a master bladesmith, magicked by Uncle Catcher, and tempered with my mom’s blood. And then magicked again by Aunt Mallory to hold the Egregore.

We were moving toward it, my feet shuffling as I tried for purchase to slow our journey.

The demon magic was finite; we hadn’t been in Lulu’s room very long. Monster couldn’t use it to fight me forever, so maybe I could stall.

An entire wall of the armory held katanas on horizontal racks. I looked at them, focused my gaze in attention there.The one on my table is my father’s,I lied.He doesn’t fight anymore. They put my mom’s sword with the others to make it harder to find in case of an intruder.

I could feel monster’s confusion, and it took seconds to consider.

I heard the door down the hall open. The guards were probably wondering who was in the armory.

They will hurt us,I pleaded, narrowing my gaze on a sword with chartreuse leather wrapped around the handle.That’s the one you want,I said, and stared at it.

There were steps moving down the hallway.

I will ask Lulu as soon as she’s awake. Not like this.

But it refused to believe the chartreuse sword was the correct one, and it was totally unswayed by the possibility we were in danger. It was turning me around, back to my mother’s sword and the magic that surrounded it.

I felt monster’s joy, its relief at the possibility of reunion. Of being made whole. Its emotion was as sharp as the edge of my mother’s katana.

More footsteps outside moving closer.

In its impatience to get to the sword, monster hadn’t closed the door.

My hand reached out, inches from the gleaming steel. And I knew what I had to do.

Voices, multiple, were only a few feet outside.

I’m sorry,I told it—and myself—and poured glamour into monster. And, thus, into me.

TWELVE

Secondary demon magic did not beat vampire glamour. In the wave of magic that covered me, monster let go of its control. I snatched back my hand and fell to my knees.

“Lis?”