Sword of the Raven (20 page)

Best idea you’ve had all day.

Spiky, forbidding plants that hid the house from outsiders now concealed their covert approach. Crouching beneath window level, they sidled around to the back door.

Sense anything?
Rowan asked.

She stretched out her Powers, which seemed to vibrate inside her clearer, easier, stronger since their kiss.
No.

Rowan placed his palm on the black steel panel.
Nor do I. But we’re screwing with a bloody powerful Sorceress.

She edged her reply with a warning.
I’m not about to forget.

Rowan circled his index finger in the air. The deadbolt clicked, then the door slowly, noiselessly swung inward.

Careful, Rowan. It seems too easy.

It does, that. It could be a trap. Or could be Zinter didn’t expect anyone to have enough Power to compromise her wards. Remember Rule One. Arrogance can be lethal, on either the enemy’s part or ours.

Delaney followed him inside. The stale smell of disuse permeated the house. A pristine stainless steel and black kitchen opened into a vast main floor dominated by a black granite fireplace and chrome furniture. The austere rooms were all black, white, and gray, with echoing vaulted ceilings.

She wrinkled her nose.
Ugh. Nothing homier than décor done in contemporary Abyss.

Rowan’s shoulders shook in soundless mirth as he cat-footed ahead of her down an adjoining hallway, boots silent on the cold marble floors.
Don’t hold back, what do you really think?

The first doorway revealed an immense library crowded with leather-bound volumes. All appeared to be about Magic and Supernaturals.

An ancient tome titled
Celtic Potions and Invocations
drew her interest like a magnet. Mindful of the worn spine, she reverently opened it and scanned pages.
I wish I could spend a week in here, reading. Do the good guys have a library?

Mages don’t keep written history. Nor do Guardians. We don’t divulge classified intel.

No doubt smart, but disappointing.
She re-shelved the book.

The library stepped-down into a hexagonal office. Floor to ceiling windows overlooked rocky cliffs with rolling blue-green waves slapping at their feet. A laptop sat on a massive black desk in the room’s center.

Hello!
Delaney pulled a high capacity flash drive from her hoodie pocket.
I came prepared.

Brilliant, lass.
Rowan cocked his head, listening.
Still no signs of anyone. You access Zinter’s intel while I scope out the rest of the top two floors. Contact me if you need me.

Delaney waved distractedly, already sliding into the leather chair and booting up the unit. Employing her Powers to ferret out the password didn’t occur to her until after a succession of dead ends.

Ah, open sesame.
She grinned as she easily penetrated the firewall and Zinter’s files appeared onscreen. Encryption thwarted her from immediate reading, but nothing stopped her from downloading them onto the flash drive.
You’d think a Sorceress with aspirations to take over the world would have better security.

Intent on her task, she barely registered Rowan’s low chuckle inside her thoughts. Or the soft rustling noises in the background. Until something thumped the bottom of a bookcase.

Her head jerked up. A scream jammed in her throat.

Dozens of
huge
rattlesnakes slithered across the floor toward her.

The scream burst free, echoing off the windowpanes as she scrambled onto the desktop.
Rowan, help!
Hissing vipers reared up, mouths gaping red as dripping fangs struck inches from her feet.

Terrifying seconds passed before she summoned her sword. Delaney swung left, right, her frantic chops unable to hack off the triangular heads faster than they attacked. Blood and venom sprayed her boots.
Rowan!

Hold fast, luv. On the way.

Oh, God, hurry!

Fog boiled through the doorway and he materialized—dead center in the writhing mass.

“Look out!”

“Sugh!”
He slapped his palms together.

Loud crackling noises erupted from the huge snakes’ scaly bodies. Squirming and hissing, tails rattling, fangs snapping, they began to shrivel…then evaporated to nothing but empty skin.

A thick, musty reptilian smell hung in the sudden silence. Rowan’s boots crunched on dried husks as he strode to where she stood trembling on the desktop. “Were you bitten?”

She swallowed, battling the overwhelming urge to vomit.

“Delaney?
Were you bitten?”

She shook her head.

He opened his arms. During the past few seconds, her sword had disappeared into the ether. She fell into Rowan’s embrace, let him swing her to the floor. “S-snakes. M-much better than a f-firewall.”

Big, corded arms wrapped around her shaking body. “It’s all right, luv. You’re safe.”

Delaney burrowed into his heat and strength. “D-did you j-just dehydrate a horde of rattlesnakes…” She shuddered. “With a word?”

He rubbed her back. “Too bad that Power’s not effective on demons. Would save me effort, wouldn’t it now?”

“Does it work on people?”

“It could. But I haven’t had to wield it on a human. So far.”

Props to him for control. She thought of her stepfather. Judge Zinter. The guards who’d hurt her brother. If she’d possessed Rowan’s weapons, she wouldn’t have managed the same self-restraint.

Those who were given prodigious Powers truly did bear heavy responsibility.

Her teeth sank into her lower lip. Right now, she wasn’t sure she qualified.

“Aye, lass, you
are
worthy,” he said, reading her thoughts. “Or you wouldn’t have been granted the Gift.”

“Hey!” She made herself straighten, step back from the security of his embrace. “Just because I went all girly on you there for a minute doesn’t mean you can hack into my thoughts without permission.”

His hands spanned her waist and sat her up on the desk. Planting his palms on either side of her, he leaned in to hold her gaze. “There’s no shame in having chinks in your armor, Delaney. Tames the ego, reminds us we’re not invincible.”

“You mean there’s no embarrassment for a rank newbie to have vulnerabilities.” She stared into those expressive quicksilver eyes and her trembling subsided. “But where’s your chink?”

Sorrow sharpened his features, dark with regret.
Wanting something the Creator has not chosen to bestow. And the wanting cost me everything.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

His appalled expression revealed he hadn’t intended to bare his heart, but she understood his yearning. His pain.
I get it, Rowan. I’ve always felt as if pieces of me were missing.

Aye. I know that ache.
Rowan leaned closer. Closer still. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

His mouth a breath from hers, he checked. “Aren’t we a pair of hardened soldiers, then? Interrupting a recon mission for tea and sympathy.” He tugged a stray curl that had escaped her braid. “Did you finish downloading the files?”

“Almost.” She glanced apprehensively at the snakeskin-covered floor.

Before she could climb off the desk, he gripped her thighs. “Wait.”

The heat of his fingers branded her through the ribbed cotton. If he slid his thumbs just a few inches higher, his touch would become exquisitely intimate. The touch she longed for.

Despite the damning results.

He cocked a brow and a window flew open. One spoken command called a controlled blue-green wave that arched into the room, where it swirled over the marble floors. Another order from Rowan, and whirlpools gathered up the snake husks, then the wave streamed back out the window and tumbled down rocky cliffs, back into the ocean. He straightened, snapped his fingers. The window shut, then all the moisture in the room dried up. Everything returned to immaculate condition.

She’d seen him do a similar Power maneuver with the bath water, but… Delaney sucked in an astonished breath. “You’d come in handy during spring cleaning.”

But he probably wouldn’t still be here in the spring. She slowly exhaled air that suddenly felt too dense. And she would miss him.

“I’ll stay while you complete the downloads, then we’ll scope out the basement together. There’s nothing upstairs except bedrooms.” He grimaced. “You don’t even want to know the pervy shite I found up there.”

“Ew! Why am I not surprised?”

While she rushed through the final downloads and closed the system, Rowan chanted something he said would erase their energy signatures from inside the house.

Every instinct on edge, she accompanied him to the basement entrance beneath the staircase leading to the second floor.

He opened the door. Switched on the light. She bolstered her bravado as she followed him down a long flight of open steel stairs. “I wonder what treats are in store for us in the dungeon? Tarantulas the size of dinner plates? An army of pissed-off fire ants?”

He went statue-still in the center of the room. His wide shoulders stiffened. “That would be the good news.”

The immense chamber was as big as the entire house above it. Black shades shrouded small windows high in blood red walls, and scrawny fingers of light from spidery-looking chandeliers didn’t illuminate the dark corners. Empty cages lined one wall—steel prisons way too tall for animals. Sooty sconces and wicked iron hooks hung beside two imposing altars.

Dread overwhelmed Delaney again, and she moved close to his side. The first altar was a black wavy mass formed from Mount St. Helen’s volcanic lava, and covered with melted black and red candles. The second was a roughly hewn chunk of gray Oregon Coast rock that looked unused. Both were laced with shackled chains.

She had a horrifying suspicion the coastal rock altar had been made recently, for a specific purpose. To restrain a water Mage.

Disturbed vibrations emanated from the dense silence surrounding Rowan as he walked across the room. He stood frozen in front of shelves stacked with glass jars of preserved organs. From here, they looked disconcertingly human.

Her scalp prickled, and she shivered beneath an arctic blast from behind her. She whirled.

And saw her stepfather looming over her.

All the breath was sucked from her lungs. She couldn’t make a sound. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t even send a mental SOS to Rowan.

She could only wait, paralyzed with terror, for Graves to strike. Stanton’s hands reached for her throat.

Then Rowan’s arms wrapped around her. “Delaney.” He stepped back a few inches, shook her gently. “Snap out of it.”

Stanton leered at her over Rowan’s shoulder. She struggled to break loose, free Rowan to fight. “Behind y-you!”

“‘Tis only an illusion, luv. A spell that preys on your worst nightmares.” His graveled voice was as grim as his face. “This chamber was constructed for torture. Physical
and
mental.”

“You—you don’t see Graves?”

“I see…other things. But there’s no one here but us.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “This entire setup reeks of Ceard’s vile stench.”

“Ceard?” Delaney forced herself to look Graves in the eye. Her stepfather vanished. She pressed trembling lips together. “Balor’s High Priestess of Psycho?”

“Deception is her MO. I feel her particular brand of depravity at work here.”

“You think Judge Zinter teamed up with Ceard and Balor?”

“Aye. An unholy alliance, forged in Hell. Joint forces we’ll be hard-pressed to fight.”

“But we
are
going to fight them. For your family…and my brother.”

Rowan stared at the adamant woman in front of him. “For my Clan, I will see justice done.” He fisted his hands, resolve chilling his veins colder than the stone floor beneath his boots. “No matter the cost.”

Melodic murmurs whipped his attention toward a floor-length black curtain obscuring one entire wall. “The sea speaks to me.”

He strode over, thrusting aside the drapes to see a wide steel door mounted on a sliding track. A hand motion sent the door rumbling aside to reveal a tunnel beneath the cliffs, hewn large enough to stow the private yacht he’d blown sky high. He sniffed the salty tang floating through the passage. Didn’t scent another presence. “It leads to the ocean. We’ll take this way out.”

Eager to leave behind the oppressive altar room and its torturous visions, he stepped into the throbbing darkness.

Delaney stopped short inside the entrance, staring up through the gloom at ominous ranks of ugly, mammoth gargoyles carved into the rocks overhead. “Um…are we sure we want to go this way? It’s very…dark.”

“Do you fear the dark?”

“No. However, I’m not so crazy about the creepy-crawlies the dark might be hiding.”

He reached for her hand, so small and delicate within his as they walked toward the first bend in the tunnel. Was he dumping her in over her head by bringing her into his war? Guilt blasted him. Because of his decisions, too many had already died.

The possibility of Delaney being captured by Balor seared his guts.

“I’ll be protecting you from any creepy-crawlies.” And Balor. As well as he could. For as long as he could.

But time was running out. Ceard would strike on Samhain Eve, when the barrier between the living and the dead grew whisper thin, to perform a ritual to free Balor from the Abyss.

Eleven days to prepare his innocent lass for brutal battle.

Rowan slammed the cellar door shut with his Power, slamming shut his emotions with the same force of will. He had no time for weakness. Had no other choice.

Nor did Delaney. She’d been Chosen. Been Gifted. Not to mention that she’d already put herself on Balor’s radar. Training her to fight, teaching her to use her abilities, was the
only
way to keep her alive.

The Creator willing, they’d both survive to fight another day.

She edged nearer. "I wish I’d brought a flashlight along with a flash drive.”