Page 48 of Hexbound

Both he and the butler caught her. A deeper glimpse at her aura showed that it was savaged almost beyond repair. Something had happened to her—something magical.

Drake set a hand to her face, caressing her clammy skin as he used his power to soothe her aura.

The girl wilted in his touch, pressing her forehead against his hand. "Thank you."

"What happened to you?"

"They took everything away from me. I was halfway through a Vision when my father removed my blindfold, and suddenly I could see everything...." She swallowed hard, forcing herself to calm. "My visions are gone now. It's the first thing I ever predicted—that I would lose them the day I saw the world again."

Drake frowned. Visions? He felt a sudden clench of cold spear through him. There'd been a blindfolded girl in the house where his son died.

"My name is Miss Cleo... well, it was Sinclair, but now it is Montcalm." Then she said the words that rocked him to the core. "I'm your son Sebastian's wife, and he desperately needs your help."

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Chapter 11

"NOAH GUTHRIE USEDto frequent Balthazar's Labyrinth," Verity said, peering at the Black Horse Pub, which was the entrance to the occult world they called the Labyrinth. The Portobello Road markets bustled around them, completely unaware of what dark secret was hidden nearby. "That's where he fell in with a bad crowd and turned to darker arts than what we're supposed to practice."

"Typical," Bishop murmured, flexing and unflexing his fist. "If you want to find the scum of the sorcery world, you look here."

"Why thank you," Verity announced. "I'd have thought you'd consider the Hex to fit that description."

"The Hex has its charms, surprisingly enough."

"Do you know, you can be almost charismatic when you set your mind to it?" Verity cleared her throat, flushing faintly.

He looked away.

"Lady E said if we were looking for Phineas Trask, he'd be here too. And this is where Murphy and I met with the demon," Verity said. "It makes sense to start looking here."

"And all it costs to get in is a drop of your blood to pay the stone golem at the door."

Blood. Verity forced a smile. "I can cope with that, Bishop."

"Blood can be used in a lot of spells."

"You don't trust the Labyrinth, or its denizens? Everything I've ever heard about the Labyrinth says that it has rules and they're strictly enforced." Rather like the Hex, in a way.

"Fine," he muttered under his breath, shoving his hands in his coat as he stalked across the road toward the Black Horse. "Just don't say I didn't warn you."

The pub was nearly empty this early in the afternoon. The short man behind the bar jerked his head toward the steel vault door in the wall and continued polishing his glass as they entered. A chain manacled him to the bar.

"Odd little fellow, isn't he?" Verity murmured, glancing over her shoulder.

Bishop slashed his thumb with a blade he produced from somewhere inside his coat sleeve, and held it over the lead bowl in front of the altar. "Fellow may be somewhat imprecise. I'm not certain what he is, but it's not entirely human."

Verity echoed him and the ex-bank vault door swung open, revealing an enormous stone golem that guarded the entrance. She smiled at it uneasily as she stepped through. Constructs could be made of anything: blood, shadow, grass, stone.... But they remained inanimate objects, driven purely by their master's will, and rather difficult to destroy.

Then they were through into the narrowed streets and mishmash of alleys that formed the Labyrinth. Dirty glass panels far overhead kept the weather out and watchful eyes away. The street was lined with little shops tucked in against each other like little old ladies on a winter's day, and people hawked their wares from barrows in the square up ahead.

"This way," Bishop told her, directing her down a small laneway that appeared empty. Except for the shadows and gloom, of course.

Verity sighed. "Always the back alleys."

"Where else does scum hide?"

"You know where we're going?" She swept her skirts clear of a puddle of... something oily.