Steal the Light (Thieves #1)(47)

Magic has an effect in the physical world that cannot be mistaken. The point is, you always know when magic has gone right.

I knew something was wrong when my every sense went crazy.

It started all right. Sarah placed Christine and Dev in their proper spaces around the circle. They formed a triangle protecting the circle within. She started burning the herbs and incense. Neil complained about the stench, but one threat about hexing his man parts and he decided to win the quiet game. Daniel managed to look disapproving while attempting to not spare me a glance. Everything seemed normal, or rather as normal as it could be when calling a lord of Hell. The ceremony began. After what seemed like an eternity of invocation, I began to wonder if it was going to fail. One minute Sarah and Christine were chanting in some language no one had spoken in a thousand years and the next…

Brimstone assailed me. It was so thick in the air, I gagged on it. It smelled like all the bad things in the world had gotten together and sunbathed on an August day in Texas. After the smell came the awful crack that threatened to burst my eardrums, and worse, the feeling of a thousand bugs crawling under my skin trying to find their way to the softer parts of me. I would have scratched through several layers of skin if I hadn’t been blinded by the lightning that found its way into my father’s living room.

“Son of a bitch,” a low voice growled.

“Don’t move, Dev.” I could hear the tension in Sarah’s voice. “I think we should stay in position. Consider it an added protection. Right now we have a magical connection, and that might help strengthen the circle.”

I steadied myself and managed to open my eyes. Dev held his place as Sarah asked, but he looked ashen, as though being a magical battery had taken its toll. Sarah trembled, her normal grace seeming to desert her. Only Christine looked satisfied. There was a slight smile on her face that made me uneasy. It was easy to see her ambitions went way beyond learning a couple of spells under my dad’s tutelage.

All thoughts fled because we were no longer alone. The demon, Brixalnax, alias Lucas Halfer, was in the circle. He was in full demon form, a massive display of bright red skin and muscle and he was…dear god…he was really not hiding anything.

“Whoa, dude, where are your clothes?” Neil asked the question. The rest of us just stared.

“I was on a date,” Halfer said through clenched fangs. “With twins, I might add. I didn’t expect a bunch of morons to interrupt me.”

“Really sorry about that.” I needed to keep him as calm as possible. I needed his help, and I needed him to not try to kill me the minute he got out of the circle. “I have to ask you a few questions. Oh, please, put some clothes on.”

He stared at me with red eyes and settled his hands on his well-muscled hips which led inevitably to that part that his dates should have been really glad to be free of. What did a demon consider a date? Somewhere out there was there a set of twins still screaming in the night, trying to get away from an attacker they didn’t realize was gone? I looked down and noticed his cloven feet.

They tapped against the hardwood. “I’m sorry I didn’t dress properly before I was torn through time and space and imprisoned in a shitty circle. Listen, little bitch, if you want the bull, you better get used to the horns.”

“It’s not the horns I’m worried about.” That was a lie. The horns totally freaked me out, too. They were red like the rest of him and wound around his head like a goat. It looked like someone had carved shapes into them, but I didn’t want to get close enough to be sure.

“Hey, don’t you talk to her like that,” Daniel threatened.

“Or you’ll do what, night crawler?” The demon sneered, midnight black eyes narrowing. “You’ll have to come in here if you wish to defend your bitch’s honor. I’m afraid I find myself trapped.”

“Stop.” I forced a breath into my body. “I didn’t call you here to fight.”

“You didn’t call me here at all, you puny human. Your witches called me, and trust me, I’m going to get well acquainted with them. Most witches on this pitiful plane know better than to call me.” He looked at each as though memorizing their faces.

“Why did you try to have me killed?” I went straight to the point. I got the feeling that we had surprised him, and if he hadn’t been distracted, we would never have caught him. We didn’t have a lot of time.

He stopped, his eyes swinging toward me. “What are you talking about?”

Daniel stepped too close to the circle for my liking. “Last night you sent three men to track her down and take her. Neil and I made sure that didn’t happen.”

“I was there, too,” Dev said.

“Yeah, you were there, getting your ass handed to you by a piddling snake. Zoey saved you,” Daniel pointed out before turning back to Halfer. “But more to the point, why the hell did you think we would let that go?”

I’d placed a chair in the center of the circle, and Halfer now sank into it. He crossed his legs, and I breathed a small sigh of relief. He seemed to think about what Daniel had said for a moment. As he thought, he took a deep breath and the skin on his body flowed around bone and sinew, changing shape and color right before my eyes. One moment he was a dark red that didn’t seem to be a color one could find in nature, and then he was the same Lucas Halfer we’d met at the restaurant. He was still naked, but he seemed so much more in proportion now. Only his eyes betrayed him. They were black without a hint of white showing. There was nothing vaguely human about those eyes.