I dove at his legs. As he stumbled back in surprise at my unexpected move, I thrust out my fist and shouted, “Ori amplifico!”

My knuckles hit his kneecap with a horrifying crunch. His leg flew backward from the blow, which caused him to pitch forward—on top of me.

The air puffed from my lungs as he flattened me into the grass. I whipped an elbow into a soft spot in his torso, then shoved up and sideways, throwing him off me. He rolled onto his side, clutching his leg, his face white and eyes bulging.

A few feet away, Hoshi clutched the pommel of his sword, the point dragging on the ground as she floated backward.

As I leaped up, a detonation of red power blasted me right off my feet again. A concussive wave of crimson magic swept out from Ezra, throwing his assailants back. The two cultists slammed down.

“Ori celare caligine!” the third one gasped.

Maroon-tinged smoke boiled out from him. It swept across the clearing, covering ten times the square footage of my smoke bombs. My vision blurred, and I rose into an uncertain crouch.

“Hoshi!”

Her glowing form appeared, and she flicked her tail. A powerful gust of wind blew across me, but the mist barely stirred.

Footsteps thudded loudly, and I tensed. Two shadows appeared, one with gleaming red eyes. The cultists. The sorcerer grabbed his newly gimped pal, while the demon mage swiveled toward me.

I didn’t move, painfully aware that he could kill me before I could get my paintball gun out. Hoshi drifted closer, her fear dancing in my mind.

The demon mage sneered, then swept into the mist. His two minions rushed after him, one supporting the other.

I shot to my feet and whipped out my paintball gun, but they’d already disappeared. Shit.

“Ezra?” I yelled.

He rushed out of the mist, left eye glowing. “Where are they?”

I pointed in the direction they’d vanished. “That way.”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “This spell is messing with my aero magic. I can’t sense their movements.”

“Then we find them the old-fashioned way,” I declared, marching forward.

I got two steps before he grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “No … we should let them go.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I think they want us to follow them.” His frown deepened. “Or … maybe not, but they want something. They weren’t even trying to kill me. The demon mage didn’t use his magic.”

I holstered my gun as my stomach sank with cold dread. “Then what was the point of ambushing us?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to walk into another trap.”

The Court was good at setting traps. Even though our guild had watched this location for any sign of cult activity, it seemed the cult had been spying on us instead. And as much as I hated backing down, I had to agree with Ezra’s assessment. Chasing them was stupid, especially when it was just me and Ezra against another demon mage.

But what had the cult wanted—and had they gotten it?

Chapter Five

Hot water rushed down my face and splashed over my shoulders. Head tilted back, I breathed the steamy air, trying to calm the tight, itchy anxiety in my chest.

Was there a point where fear and dread and urgency overloaded your system and you stopped feeling them? Could that happen? Numbness would be an improvement over this never-ending sense of doom.

Eyes closed against the spray, I reached out blindly and nudged the tap. The shower’s temperature increased another degree, threatening to scorch my skin. The heat pounded down on me, something to feel besides the churning emotions.

Yesterday’s attack in the cemetery wasn’t the scariest thing I’d witnessed, or participated in, since falling into this secret world of mythics and magic, but it had confirmed our suspicion that there was at least one demon mage in Vancouver.

When Ezra had been the only demon mage I knew, his frightening power had been our special weapon. Now that destructive demonic magic was our enemies’ weapon too. What if we succeeded in un-demon-maging Ezra? He’d get the world’s biggest power demotion, going from “unstoppable paragon of destruction” to an average aeromage. And the cult would still be trying to kill him. He knew too many of their secrets.

My phone, sitting on the bathroom counter, chimed loudly. I ignored it, steaming myself like a lobster and hoping the heat would steady my nerves.

It chimed twice more, and when I still didn’t reply to whoever wanted my attention, it began to ring. Swearing, I pushed the plastic curtain open, letting a rush of cold air into the steamy innards of the shower. I grabbed my phone, fumbled for the answer button with my wet thumb, then hit speaker.

“This better be good!” I barked at the unlucky caller.

“Am I interrupting something?” Ezra replied, the running water muffling his smooth voice.

My irritation vanished. “Just in the shower.”

“Oh. Hmm.”

I waited, allowing him all the time he wanted to think about me in the shower.

“Earth to Ezra,” Aaron said sarcastically. “You were calling to tell Tori how she needs to get over here, remember?”

My phone wasn’t the only one on speaker, it seemed. “Why do I need to get over there?”

“Robin is on her way.” Ezra’s tone gave no indication that my shower comment had derailed him. “You should come over too. Kai will be here any minute.”

I snapped to attention. “Robin is going over there? Why?”

It took only an instant for Ezra to reply, but that moment in time seemed to stretch forever, the planet’s orbit frozen as I waited for the words I hadn’t dared to hope for so soon. Words I’d been afraid would never come.

“She figured it out.”

I flung open Aaron’s front door, rushed inside, and almost crashed into Robin’s back.

She yipped in surprise and turned, her arms overflowing with long rolls of brown paper and a gray backpack hanging off her shoulder. Amalia was just ahead of her, halfway out of her leather boots.

Aw damn, I’d hoped to beat them here. I’d hurried as much as possible, but considering I’d been wet and naked when Ezra had summoned me, I supposed it had been a long shot.

“Hi Tori,” Robin said, oddly breathless. “How are you?”

I arched my eyebrows. “If you’ve actually found a way to save Ezra, then I’m absolutely fantastic.”

Ezra and Aaron were waiting for us in the living room, and standing between them was Kai, looking as cool and poised as always in dark jeans and a slim-fitting black sweater. He gave me a quiet smile when I rushed over to hug him.

Greetings were brief, then we moved to the dining table, where Robin laid out her armload of supplies.

“All right,” she said, her voice higher than usual with nerves. “Amalia and I looked at every angle of the demon mage ritual. Like a regular demon contract, there’s no way to break it. Once the demon spirit and human soul are bound, it can’t be undone.”

Standing beside Ezra, I waited silently. If that’s all Robin had to say, she wouldn’t be here.

“So we looked for ways to circumvent the contract instead of breaking it. After all, the biggest issue here is that Eterran is trapped inside Ezra’s body. The contract between them is secondary to that.”

Amalia put a hand on her hip. “From start to finish, contracting a demon requires three steps: summoning the demon, negotiating a contract, and binding the demon to the infernus.”

Robin slid the cult grimoire out of her backpack and opened it to a marked page. “The demon mage ritual is four steps. Summoning is exactly the same—the demon is called into a summoning circle. Then negotiation.”

“That’s a bit different,” Amalia noted dryly. “From what I’ve read, demon mages are damn near impossible to create in part due to ninety-nine percent of demons refusing to agree to it.”

Tucking a damp curl behind my ear, I grimaced. “Yeah, well, what is the demon even getting out of the deal?”

“Lies,” Ezra answered in a growl. “That is what they offered.”

Robin frowned. “But you can detect lies. All demons can.”

Aaron and Kai stiffened as Ezra’s left eye burned crimson.

“Lies given as truth.” Hatred chilled Eterran’s quiet snarl. “A second man explained the contract. He did not lie, but every word he spoke was false. I knew nothing of humans and their ways. I did not think to make the summoner speak the same words.”

“Wait.” I peered at his crimson eye. “You know when you’re being lied to?”

“Not in this body.”

“Oh.”

Robin glanced between us, then cleared her throat. “The contract for a demon mage is straightforward. Simply put, the demon agrees to bind itself to the human’s soul. We’re not really sure what that entails, but I’m assuming that bond gives the host enough control to keep the demon from immediately overpowering his mind.”

We all looked questioningly at Ezra/Eterran, but he didn’t speak.

“The third phase,” Robin continued, “is the ritual that turns the host into the equivalent of a summoning circle. Then, for the final stage—”

“—the demon is summoned into the host,” Ezra finished quietly.

A dark, haunted shadow lurked in his eyes, and I reached out, surreptitiously sliding my hand into his. His fingers closed tightly around mine.

“And that’s the key,” Robin said. “That’s how we’ll undo this.”

I blinked dumbly. “How?”

“We’re going to summon Eterran out of Ezra.”

Silence.

Kai stepped closer to the table. “It’s been a while since I studied Demonica basics, but from what I remember, summoners can call a demon of a particular type, but they can’t summon an individual demon.”

“Not from the demon world, no,” Robin replied. “But making a demon mage requires summoning the already summoned demon a second time in order to insert him into the human host. We’re going to do exactly that.”