“I have a line on that. Get back here, understand me?”
“I’m in San Rafael. Give me half an hour.” He thought about Alexandrine’s call and got a chill. “Wait a sec.” He put Kynan on hold and listened to her voice mail. He switched back to Kynan. “He took her to the Palace Hotel. Meet me there by the registration desk.” He called Durian next, got voice mail, and left a message. Gray was next.
“What’s up, Iskander?” she asked.
“You anywhere near the Palace Hotel?”
“I’m not far from downtown. You need something?”
“I’m giving you a potential sanction. Nikodemus authorized me, but you can call him if you need to confirm.” He switched to his Bluetooth so he’d have his hands free. He intended to drive like a goddamned demon.
“Not necessary. Nikodemus warned us you might call.”
“Get a room at the Palace Hotel and text me your room number as soon as you have it.” He started the Reventón and headed south to the Golden Gate Bridge. “Kynan’s on his way. I’ll meet you there.”
“Who’s the sanction?”
“Rasmus Kessler.” He spoke over the silence at the other end. “Maybe Fen, too.”
“On my way.”
He checked the time. Nine o’clock in the morning meant the commute was barely winding down. The Reventón had some after-market work, illegal, that had removed the car’s speed limitations for the U.S. market. He knew for a fact he could get it to one-fifty. At this time of day, there was a chance he could do close to that in the car pool lane for some of the drive into the city.
Twelve minutes later, his phone dinged with a text, and seven minutes after that he had the Reventón parked on the street in a red zone with a haze of magic over it to keep the police from noticing. Kynan was already heading for him. He read Gray’s text while he waited for the warlord to dash across the street, found out she’d sent another one with a new room number, and without doing anything more than signaling to Kynan to follow, he went inside.
In the lobby, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. There was a fucking mage here, no question. Kynan made a low sound. Yeah. He felt Kessler’s magic. His sense of Paisley got stronger, but she was still locked down tight. Every oath he’d made to her kicked in. Kynan had much the same reaction because she was sworn to Nikodemus, just like the rest of them. She was as good as kin, and important to Nikodemus. Good, because a pissed-off Kynan was a fucking dangerous beast.
They got into the elevator and went to the room Gray had reserved. She opened the door before they got there and stood aside to let them in.
“Smart,” Kynan said. “Calling Gray.”
True enough. Gray was a human woman who had, through a series of events that had not been entirely her choice, taken on the magic of one of the kin. She’d ended up training with Nikodemus’s assassin, Durian, and though she didn’t have the same set of skills as Durian, she did have an idiosyncratic and no less deadly set of gifts all her own. The fact that she was human and had something of a grudge against the magekind gave her an ironic edge when she got sent against a mage or a witch, as had happened once or twice.
The tall, slender woman shut the door after them. She wore black jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. Her short hair was black. “Kessler’s on the next floor up, three rooms over.” She pointed at the ceiling in the direction she meant. “I changed rooms once I figured out where he was, then did some recon.”
Kynan nodded his approval. “Excellent. Magehelds?”
“Eleven,” Gray said. “Xia and Alexandrine weren’t available, so Carson’s on her way.” She shot a glance in Iskander’s direction, but her next words were directed at Kynan. “I hope you don’t mind that I called her.”
The warlord shrugged. Everyone more or less knew that Kynan had once been ordered to rape and murder Carson. She was lucky to be alive.
“Good thinking,” Iskander said. Carson would sever the magehelds, releasing them from their enslavement to Kessler.
“Last check,” Gray said, “there were four in the lobby, two on guard outside the room. Best guess is five inside with Kessler and a human woman. I couldn’t get close enough to be sure. She could be a witch. I assume it’s Paisley.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the mental condition of the magehelds?” Kynan asked Gray. “Can you tell?”
“I don’t know about the ones in the room, but the others are a bit off. Not insane, but off. Carson will have to be careful.”
Kynan pulled out his phone and called Carson. He put the call on speaker and explained the situation.
“I’m parking at Minna Street. Should be there in less than five,” she said. “Have Gray meet me in the lobby in case I need her to terminate any of the ones there when I’m done.”
“On it,” Gray said. She handed a key card to Iskander while Kynan disconnected the call to Carson. “Extra room key, just in case. I’ll text you when Carson and I are done. You let us know where you need us next.”
Iskander nodded and Gray headed out.
“What the hell happened, Kynan?” Iskander said. He was hyped up, looking to kill himself a few magehelds and, if he got lucky, a mage. And Fen, if Gray didn’t take care of that for him. He forced himself to settle down so he could hear Kynan’s recitation about what had happened to Paisley. When he was done, Iskander filled him in on Nikodemus’s orders to keep Rasmus alive if possible. Not that he cared right now, but orders were orders and he didn’t want Kynan in trouble if he could help it.
Kynan said, “He’s already in a jam from a dead witch someone dumped on him. If Kessler goes down, too, he’s not going to be happy.”
“Asks me if I give a shit,” Iskander said.
“You getting anything from Paisley?”
“She’s shut down hard,” Iskander said. “I can barely tell she’s here.”
“Then I guess we wait.”
Ten minutes later, Iskander’s phone buzzed with a text from Gray.
Clear. Where u at?
He texted back instructions to meet at the elevators on Kessler’s floor, and then he and Kynan headed there. Once there, the four of them—Carson, Gray, Kynan, and himself—opened themselves to one another to minimize the need for words.
Kessler’s suite was in the middle of a hall after a left turn. Carson and Gray took the point since they were going to deal with the magehelds guarding the door. Until they were inside the suite, all Iskander and Kynan could do was follow along and not fuck things up for whatever Gray and Carson had to do.
The magehelds were baffled about what to do with the two women who both felt like magekind and therefore were not to be harmed, so they stood there like dolts until it was too late. Like taking candy from a baby. With Gray behind her, Carson strode up and touched each one in the center of the chest. The blowback was cold, but it was over fast. Both magehelds fell to their knees. One of them twitched uncontrollably while the other struggled to breathe.
With their bond to Rasmus severed, their link to the kin was restored. Iskander almost wished it hadn’t been. The damage done to their minds was sickening. There wasn’t much left to save. At a signal from Carson, Gray bent down and touched them both.
Done.
And done.
They weren’t dead. They were both twitching. Gray had just scrambled their brains enough to take them off-line. She straightened, did a quick hack job on the hotel lock, and opened the door.
Iskander pulled his magic and so did the others. The goal was to get Paisley back alive and safe. “Let me deal with Rasmus,” Iskander told the others. “Kynan, back me up. Gray, once you and Carson have dealt with the rest of the magehelds, stay close to me in case I need you to terminate Kessler.”
“Will do.”
If he could help it, nobody but him was going to take the heat for killing Rasmus, but he wasn’t going to risk Paisley’s life if he thought Gray would do it better or faster. The suite opened onto a wide living room with a wet bar at one end and a door to the bedroom at the other. A mageheld shot to his feet when the door opened. Carson strode in like she had every right to be there. Gray was right behind her.
After that, things happened quickly. Carson severed the first mageheld, and Gray took him out. There were two more at either side of a closed door and another two moving toward Carson from a blind corner of the room. The two magehelds were just plain wrong. Iskander, Gray, and Kynan had all encountered magehelds like that, and the fact was, there was no point in severing them. Their minds were completely gone.
Iskander intercepted the first one, and pulling as much magic as he’d ever done before, he punched through its chest. When his hand whipped back, he had the mageheld’s heart in his fist. He whirled in the same motion and did the same to the other. It was over before Carson had even moved from the middle of the room where she and Gray stood.
He faced the two magehelds at the door and grinned. The thought of solving his problem by taking their hearts, too, made his limbs light with anticipation. None of the kin liked to use their magic on a mageheld. You couldn’t feel what they were doing for one thing. That hadn’t stopped him before. It sure as hell wasn’t going to stop him now. He lifted his hands and made a
come here
gesture with his fingers. They held fast to their places, as they must have been ordered to do.
Carson slid in front of him and severed the first one while Kynan immobilized the other. She did the other as well. Done.
It had been less than two minutes since the four of them had come inside.
Iskander opened the door the former magehelds had been guarding.
The first thing he saw was goddamned Rasmus Kessler sitting on the edge of a king-sized bed with Paisley next to him. He had a finger on her wrist. The magic in the room had sent a scattering of sparks into the air. Paisley was facing the door, and even from where he stood, he could tell her eyes were blank. Possibly, she didn’t even see him. He didn’t dare risk a connection with her. He didn’t want to do anything that would break down or weaken her resistance.
He was aware, tangentially, of Carson, Gray, and Kynan behind him. All his attention was focused on Rasmus and Paisley. Gray moved closer but kept a safe distance.
Mentally, Paisley was fighting hard. Not many humans looked normal when a demon was fighting to indwell. He wanted to kill Kessler so badly he could taste it. In his mind, he saw himself punching a fist through the mage’s chest, breaking through his sternum and closing his fingers around Kessler’s beating heart. He wasn’t just going to take the fucker’s heart; he was going to rip out his spine, too.
“What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?” Iskander said. Just to get something going.
Rasmus jumped off the bed like someone had set him on fire, but he moved without the grace for which he was noted. The mage’s eyes shook uncontrollably, and Iskander recognized that as a peculiarity of Fen’s. He couldn’t feel her, but that skittering inability to focus her eyes had started shortly after she met Rasmus. He figured if he was seeing it in Kessler, then Fen was probably indwelling.
As for Kessler, though he was a naturally pale-complexioned man, his skin was ashen and his braided white-blond hair was damp around his forehead and temples. He extended a hand, palm out, as if that was going to stop Iskander from pulverizing him. In a tortured voice, he ground out, “Help me.”
“Fuck you, mage.”
Kessler’s eyes closed and when he opened them again, his eyes were normal. “Come no closer.” The words and their intonation, if not the voice, belonged to Fen. He knew her too well not to recognize that Rasmus was not in control of himself. It was Fen who was fighting for control of Paisley, not Rasmus.
Iskander took a step forward and welcomed the slip of his mind from his hard-won control. “Mage,” Iskander said. “Are you there?”
Kessler’s eyes jittered again, His mouth opened, and fuck all if Iskander didn’t get a wave of despair coming from the mage. “She is no longer sane,” he said. He ground out the words. “She must die.”
The mage’s head snapped back as if he’d been struck, and Iskander’s brief contact with Rasmus Kessler shut down. Kessler had once been a mage of significant power, and Iskander didn’t have any idea what effect his siphoning of magic into Paisley had been having on his magic. Did time restore his power, or was he permanently diminished by what he was doing to Paisley? Safer all around to assume he was in command of all his magic.
There was no telling what Fen would make Kessler do at this point, because Kessler was right: Fen was no longer sane.
“Fen,” Iskander said. He had himself wide open to the psychic energy in the room, and now that he knew the difference between Rasmus when he was in command of himself and Rasmus when Fen was indwelling, Iskander could construct a sort of mirror image of his former blood-twin. He was, of course, intimately familiar with the madness that had nearly taken him, too.
He didn’t bother hiding anything. Not the physical changes and not his boiling rage. At this point, thanks in part to Rasmus fighting Fen’s indwell, Paisley was holding her own. He just needed her to hold on a little longer. “What is it you want, Fen?”
Rasmus smiled, but it was Fen’s smile he was seeing, her cadences in Rasmus’s voice, her mannerisms in the tilt of his head, the quirk at one side of his mouth. On the bed, Paisley’s shoulders relaxed enough that he guessed Fen’s attempted indwell had eased up while Fen concentrated on him and Rasmus.
“We need you back,” Rasmus whispered in Fen’s voice.
Rasmus Kessler had been in the business of fucking over the demonkind for more than his fair share of years, and now Fen had access to all the skill and knowledge he’d gained over the centuries. If she was in control of Rasmus, then Iskander had to assume all that magic was at her command. Except maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Rasmus had realized the danger before it was too late, and by sending his magic into Paisley, he’d drained himself of power. He’d endangered his life by making himself less useful to Fen.
“Let him go, Fen.”
“We love him, Iskander. He is ours.”
The skin along his back rippled, but the magic he was reacting to wasn’t coming from Rasmus. It was coming from Paisley.