Page 31 of Demon Loved (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #5)

The three elders looked over at Angela and Connor, both of whom were frowning mightily. It was easy enough to tell that neither of them was too happy with his suggestion.

And yet it might answer this particular question once and for all.

Belshegar spread his hands wide, hoping they could see from his expression and demeanor that he was not trying to play a trick on them.

“You will all be there with me,” he said simply. “I am not going to abscond with the artifacts. Even if I wanted to, your combined powers would be more than enough to stop me.”

Angela glanced at Levi, whom she clearly viewed as the expert on all things otherworldly, even if he had, as he’d explained, come to this plane as not much more than an unformed spirit and had no real knowledge of other worlds save that they existed.

“He’s telling the truth,” Levi said, his tone quiet but firm. “While he possesses powers that might seem miraculous to some, he is no demon lord like Loc. We would be able to contain him easily enough.”

“I think we should let him see the artifacts,” Connor said then. “Because I’m starting to have a suspicion, but there’s no point in bringing it up if it turns out that they really were made someplace other than this world.”

Questions crowded Angela’s eyes, and yet it seemed she was willing to listen to her husband’s suggestion, since she nodded after a slight hesitation. “All right. If Levi thinks we can handle him, then I suppose it should be okay.”

By some unspoken signal, Tricia and Allegra stood, and Belshegar got up from his chair as well.

In that moment, he didn’t think he could have even begun to describe the thoughts running through his mind.

It seemed almost impossible that they were going to allow him to see the artifacts, to even touch them — but he also knew their assessment of the situation was accurate enough.

He was powerful, but in combination, they could defeat him without even blinking an eye.

Not that he would ever go back on his word. He didn’t want to think about how the voice would react if it learned that he had held the artifacts in his hands and hadn’t made even a single attempt to take them, but he supposed he would deal with that eventuality when the time came.

For now, though, it was enough to follow Connor and Angela out of Levi’s home and down the street to the big white Victorian he’d thought could be the prima’s .

However, Belshegar couldn’t be too triumphant about that correct guess, not when he’d also speculated that several other houses on Paradise Lane were equally plausible candidates.

In contrast to the almost fussy architecture outside, the interior of the home was simple and yet grand at the same time, with polished dark wood floors and Navajo rugs and plain furniture that had the solidity of something crafted by hand rather than created in a factory.

Connor’s paintings hung on all the walls, giving the space the sense that it had many more windows than the ones incorporated into the structure.

“Just a moment,” he said, then left them all in the living room so he could go upstairs, presumably to fetch the artifacts.

“You can sit down, Belshegar,” Angela told him, but he shook his head.

“I think I would like to remain standing while I do this.”

Her shoulders lifted, but she didn’t insist. Perhaps following his lead, all the others stayed on their feet as well, even Allegra Moss, although he noticed that she had one hand on the arm of the big leather sofa, as if to steady herself.

Connor returned quickly enough, however, now carrying a small steel box measuring a little less than a foot on all sides. He set it down on the coffee table, which appeared to be carved from a single hunk of juniper, and looked up at his wife. Something in his expression was almost amused.

“Good thing we convinced Devynn that we should key our thumbprints to these locks.”

Belshegar had no idea who Devynn was — perhaps the person who discovered the first amulet in the past — but he supposed he could find out from Brianna at some point.

If he ever gained the courage to tell her the truth about himself.

Angela grinned. “Yes, this makes it easier.”

And she bent and pressed her thumb against a small square of glass on one side of the metal box.

At once, a light next to it flashed green, and Belshegar heard a faint click. Angela lifted the lid and drew out two small items, both of them wrapped in black silk.

“This is the one that Devynn and her fiancé Seth found back in 1884,” the prima said as she pulled away the silk that had shrouded the object.

Lying on her palm was a lozenge-shaped amulet that appeared to be made of gold, although Belshegar guessed it was more likely bronze.

Embedded in the center was a large garnet cabochon that gleamed dully in the sunlight streaming through the windows on either side of the living room’s stone fireplace.

That light revealed some sort of runes or symbols that had been engraved in the surface, but he didn’t recognize any of them.

What mattered more was how the thing would feel in his hand.

“May I?” he asked, and although Angela tensed for a second or two, at length she nodded and placed it gently in his palm.

It felt warm to the touch, even though he wouldn’t have thought the prima had held it long enough to transfer any of her body heat to the metal. Belshegar wrapped the fingers of both hands around the object and closed his eyes.

The thing was very powerful. Its energy seemed to radiate up both arms and then somehow spread throughout his body, even though he seemed to understand at an instinctive level that the magic it conveyed was nothing he required, since his own powers were more than sufficient and needed no enhancement.

Beyond that, though, he thought he saw a shadowy figure pouring molten bronze into a mold to create the basic shape, and then painstakingly setting the smooth garnet in its bezel. After that, clever fingers etched the symbols he’d seen into the now-cool surface.

And through all of this, the artisan’s magic had shimmered around him or her — whoever it was, they’d worn a hooded cloak that concealed their face, so Belshegar couldn’t quite make out their sex — pouring through their fingertips and into the amulet they’d created.

He opened his eyes to see everyone watching him expectantly.

This spacious room with the clear sunlight streaming through the windows and the magnificent landscapes on the wall was so different from the fire-lit chamber he’d seen in his vision that he found himself blinking, doing his best to bring himself back to the here and now.

“It was definitely made by human hands,” he said. “I saw it being created, and I felt the magic flowing into it. But I couldn’t see exactly who it was that made the amulet.”

Triumph flickered in Connor Wilcox’s smoky green eyes. “That’s all right,” he replied. “The important thing is that you were able to tell it didn’t come from anywhere except here on this plane.”

Yes, that piece of pertinent information had been clear enough.

“Try this one,” Angela said as she unwrapped the second object in her hand. “This is the one I’m really curious about, since it was found on a dead man and we have absolutely no idea where he got it.”

A dead man? Belshegar’s eyebrows lifted, even as he understood this was not the time for questions.

This new talisman looked quite different from the first amulet.

It appeared to be rock crystal carved into a perfect sphere, with a housing of thin bronze protecting one side of the piece.

Here, too, were symbols engraved in the metal, although they were much fainter, as if they’d been worn down by the passage of time.

He took it in his hands and at once felt its purpose, although its power couldn’t affect him, otherworldly being that he was. This amulet had been created to block magic, just as the first one had been designed to amplify it.

The rock crystal was cool and smooth in his hands. Once again, he closed his eyes and tried to absorb the energies of the object so he might know something of its origins.

This time, he could tell it was a woman who’d created the thing, because he could see her kneeling in a dark forest, her copper-colored hair falling forward to hide her face.

She appeared to be utterly alone in the woods, and although her waist-length locks concealed her features just as well as any cloak, he could practically feel the despair radiating out from her.

Belshegar couldn’t begin to say how he knew, but he somehow understood that this unknown witch had created the talisman out of desperation, and not out of any desire to triumph over others or perhaps gain control of them.

It pained him to see her desolation, even though he knew she must have been dead for centuries.

All he could do now was hope that the amulet she’d created had given her some relief during the time she was alive.

“This was also made on this world,” he said as he opened his eyes. “By a witch with red hair in a dark forest. I know nothing more than that.”

“Maybe she was a long-ago McAllister,” Angela said in musing tones. “Our ancestors were originally from Scotland, and we still have red hair that pops up every once in a while, like Tricia here, or my cousin Bellamy.”

Tricia’s hair was now mostly silver, but some of its original coppery tones could still be seen in the strands surrounding her face. Belshegar supposed it was possible that what he’d seen was a McAllister witch kneeling in a dark Scottish forest.

“But again, the amulet was made by a regular witch,” Connor said. “A powerful one, obviously, but we aren’t talking about extradimensional beings here. And that just proves my suspicions.”

“Which are?” Levi inquired. His expression showed only mild curiosity, but for some reason, Belshegar got the impression that both men had been thinking roughly the same thing.