“Blair?”

“One of the Crow and Hammer’s telethesians.” He arched his eyebrows amusedly. “You didn’t think I would track the sorcerers, did you?”

I didn’t admit I’d assumed he would use some sort of fancy demon magic to do it. A telethesian was a much better plan, and I was embarrassed I hadn’t thought of it myself. I’d even met one of the guild’s telethesians, Taye.

“While we wait,” he said, “we should discuss our plan. Let’s go over here.”

He led me past the chain-link fence and into the stacks of tires. I went as far as necessary to lose sight of the street, but when I glimpsed the concrete wall where the overpass joined the hillside, I stopped.

“This is far enough.” I turned my back on the dried gore where Yana had died. “I don’t need to stare at old blood while we talk.”

“Those aren’t bloodstains.”

“What?”

“It’s … paint.”

My brow furrowed. “How can you tell?”

“I got a copy of the Vancouver PD’s preliminary findings and the autopsy report.” He pressed his lips together. “Those sorcerers are sick bastards.”

Crimson light flared through my jacket. Power pooled on the ground, and Zylas took form beside me.

“īnkavis are always broken in their minds, na?” he remarked casually, using the demonic word for a serial killer.

Ezra’s left eye gleamed scarlet. “These ones are even more twisted.”

“How so?” I asked.

“You’re better off not knowing.”

I almost dropped it, but I remembered Yana’s smile from her photo, and the Romeo and Juliet performance she’d never get to be part of. I straightened. “I can handle it.”

His expression suggested he disagreed. “The stains back there are red body paint. Yana was found covered in it.”

“You mean they painted her? Why?”

“To make her look like a payashē.” The gleam in his eye intensified. “A female demon.”

Zylas hissed.

All the hair on my body stood on end, revulsion closing my throat. I struggled to swallow.

“They stripped her, tied her up, and painted her red.” Ezra’s voice was flat, but his eyes—both his and Eterran’s—burned fiercely. “Then they raped her.”

I started to shake. You have the look, the first sorcerer had told me.

Zylas huffed. “I do not know that word.”

“It means …” Red flared brighter in Ezra’s pale eye and his voice deepened into Eterran’s tones. “Dh’keteh hh’ainunith amavren cun payilasith.”

Zylas’s eyes widened. “Dh’keteh?”

Eterran’s upper lip curled with scathing disgust. “Some human males enjoy this act. Human females fear males for that reason.”

“But …” Zylas stepped back as though distancing himself from the conversation. “But forcing …”

Arms wrapped around myself, I frowned at him, confused by his stunned reaction, as though the very concept were alien to him.

“Rape does not exist in the world of demons,” Eterran told me. “To be chosen by a payashē is an honor. To force her would be—”

“Gh’akis!” Zylas spat. “Better to die with no sons than do that. Eshaīs hh’ainun dahganul.”

“I agree.”

Eterran and Zylas could and would slaughter anyone without hesitation, but the idea of a sexual predator repulsed them? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. In a world as violent as demonkind’s, how could rape not exist?

Realizing they’d fallen silent, I looked up. Zylas was scrutinizing me, his eyebrows low over critical red eyes.


“Um.” I blinked. “Zylas?”

He turned to the demon mage. “Nailēranis et nā. Eshaillā kir?”

“Probably.”

Jaw tightening, Zylas returned his stare to me, his expression intent as though he were rearranging his understanding of my incomprehensible human brain. I looked away, unsure what conclusions he was drawing—not just about me, but about a world in which females were at the bottom of the power spectrum instead of the top.

“Time’s up,” Ezra said, the glow of Eterran’s magic in his eye dying. “Someone is coming.”

I waved at the infernus hidden under my jacket. “Zylas, quickly!”

He growled low in his throat, then power swept over him, dissolving his form before streaking toward my chest. Just as the light faded, a sharp whistle rang out.

“Here!” Ezra called.

Footsteps clomped across the ground, and a tall, thin woman strode into view. Long, straight hair the color of ice swept down her back, a shade only alchemic dye could achieve. Her skin was almost as pale, its porcelain tone accentuated by dark-lined eyes and blood-red lipstick. Her entire outfit was leather, but not the combat type—too many studs, chains, and ornate crosses decorated it.

“Hi Blair,” Ezra said. “Thanks for helping us with this. Do you know Robin?”

Blair’s eyes—bright violet, which couldn’t be natural—slid to me and she nodded. I forced a smile, desperately trying to remember if I’d seen her before. I vaguely recalled a tall woman with long, straight black hair from the last monthly meeting. Could that have been Blair?

“Hi,” I said awkwardly.

She nodded again.

Ezra pulled the broken armband from my hand and held it out. “This belongs to the sorcerer. He has a twin brother, so you’ll probably detect two similar trails. They were here last night and left with a third sorcerer. We need to know where they went.”

A third nod. She took the armband, pinching it gingerly between two fingers. Her smoky eyelids lowered as she focused on it.

I’d never had the chance to see a telethesian at work. Blair held the armband, presumably to get a psychic feel for its owner, then turned in a slow circle and walked back the way she’d come.

Falling into step beside Ezra, I followed Blair into the middle of the road. There she stopped, looked one way, then the other. Ezra and I hung back, waiting.

I chewed my lower lip. “She … um … she seems …”

“Confused?” Ezra guessed, keeping his voice low. “She isn’t. Blair is an extremely gifted telethesian, but she doesn’t do jobs often because her ability is so sensitive. She can sense too much.”