Jory Strong: Spider-Touched

“He wants an urn destroyed.”

Rebekka started in surprise. She’d been sure the witches intended to use Araña to trap the demon and bring them the urn.

Now, framing it with Annalise’s talk of war between supernatural beings and the forming of alliances, she considered that maybe what they really wanted was to free the demon and had made a deal with Draven to hide their connection to it.

“The urn the demon is bound to?” Rebekka asked, needing to understand.

Araña went completely still at the question. Tir cursed.

Without it being a conscious decision, Rebekka pulled the folded papers from her pocket and gave them to Araña. “They’re from a book in The Iberá’s possession.”

A glance at the rough sketches and Araña nodded. “These urns are very like the picture Thane showed me.” Her eyes scanned over the accompanying entries. She quoted a portion of the passage, “Demons have no love of humans and will expend as much energy twisting and evading and turning a command into something to suit their own purposes as obeying it.”

Araña looked up at Tir. “This is why I need to go into Anton’s house alone. Abijah will use Anton’s command, not to kill me unless I’m escaping the maze, to his advantage. He was granted permission to ‘play with me.’ It might keep him from investigating what’s going on in other parts of the maze.”

“No.”

Levi spoke for the first time. “The demon’s intentions won’t matter at all if you— we —can’t get into the compound in the first place without being seen.”

Nothing could have prepared Rebekka for Tir saying, “If Araña’s vision proves true, we’ll find the man named Gulzar dead in a house he maintains in the red zone. We intend to use his car and his keys to gain access to the office, and from there, Anton’s house.”

Levi’s hands opened and closed as though he still had a lion’s claws. “How did he die?”

Araña gave a small shake of her head. “I don’t know the exact manner of his death, only that he died last night.”

HIS death was brutal, Tir thought a short time later.

Blood trailed everywhere, as if Gulzar had been nicked and chased until the floors were painted red and he’d finally bled out. And when he could provide no more entertainment alive, his attackers still found another way to make sport of him. They tore him apart.

Pieces of Gulzar were everywhere. What remained of shredded skin and muscle and organs was on the walls and furniture. Shards of bone, none of them bigger than a coin, crunched underfoot as the four of them moved through the carnage, looking for the key chain Gulzar had once worn on his belt.

Tir’s gaze kept returning to Araña. Suspicion descended and clung to him. There was more to her visions than she admitted.

Twice he’d seen her bleed as a result of them. Twice he’d thought it was a cost unwillingly paid. But what if it was an offering instead? This violent death was no coincidence.

His hand snaked out when he neared her, catching her arm. “Don’t think you can continue to hide the truth about the mark or its vision gift from me much longer.”

Araña’s fear lanced through him, confirming his suspicions. “I know,” she said, unfathomable emotion becoming a wall between them as she reached up and touched the hated collar. “The incantation is in Anton’s possession. You won’t gain it unless you allow me to go into his house alone.”

Her words from the night before slid from the dark place his hunger for revenge lived. If I asked it of you, would you turn away from seeking vengeance against the one who put this on you?

Tir’s hand tightened on her arm. “Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

Centuries of memories and hate whipped through him, all that he’d endured while at the mercy of humans. “If you prove to be my enemy, not even the love I feel for you will save you from death,” he said, knowing it was a lie even as the words left his mouth, but there was no taking them back as Levi and Rebekka stepped into the room with Gulzar’s ring of keys.

Levi said, “There’s a good chance Farold will be walking in the maze, checking the cameras and traps. It was a habit of his on days when the magistrate arrived in town. We may be able to catch him there. That would leave only Anton and the demon.”

Fear for Araña added to Tir’s anger over her refusal to tell him what she knew of the incantation. She’d placed him in an impossible situation. Freedom was too close for him to turn away from it. But beneath his hand her bones were fragile, her lifetime finite without his vigilance. She was mortal, and there were no guarantees he would be able to heal her if things went wrong.

As if sensing the violent turmoil of his thoughts, Araña’s finger traced the collar. “Trust me to deal with Abijah and Anton while the three of you handle Farold and free the Weres.”

Suspicion flared again at her choice of the word deal . But this time it was doused immediately, and the hollow place it left filled with guilt and repudiation as he remembered her fear at L’Antiquaire when she’d entered into the vampire’s bargain in order to allow him access to the texts, as he thought about her kneeling in front of him in the woods and working desperately to free him of the shackles before the guardsmen reached them.

He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers in apology. “I trust you.”

THE car had been in the garage where she’d seen it from the vision place. The gate controller made it unnecessary to do more than slow as they approached the entryway.

She drove—because she knew how thanks to Matthew—and because if Levi was wrong about Farold being in the maze, then the sight of her alone in the front seat and behind the wheel would suggest Gulzar was behind her with a gun pointed to her head.

But Farold wasn’t there, or if he was, then he intended to meet the car around back, where trucks carrying hunters or groups of human prisoners were directed.

Araña stopped the car at the side of the building and they all got out.

“How long do you need?” Levi asked.

“If I don’t encounter anyone, three minutes to get in and through the first walkway door.”

Araña’s eyes met Tir’s. Her heart thumped in her chest and she fought to hide her fear from him.

“Leave the doors unlocked or open,” he said. “As soon as Levi and Rebekka are done, I’ll come to you.”

She nodded and turned away, resisting the urge to wrap her arms around his waist and bury her face against his chest. To soak in his heat and cling to him one last time just in case it was the last chance she had.

With the keys it was easy to get into the front office where she’d been held at gunpoint by Jurgen. The door between offices was unlocked and she slipped inside to confront the first of the keypads Thane had told her about.

Always before she’d thought she had a knack and was simply picking up on changes of texture and slight discolorations to the keys, using hidden patterns her subconscious detected when she and Matthew and Erik made their detailed studies before attempting a job. This time as she touched her fingers to the numbers, she knew her ability came from her gift, from her connection to the vision place.

A verse whispered through her mind. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still. And he who is filthy, let him be filthy still.

Her smile was a snarl of remembered suffering as the hell of her early years finally served her. She recognized the words and knew Anton had set this code from Revelations, the twenty-seventh book, the twenty-second chapter, the eleventh verse.

She punched in the numbers and heard the satisfying click of a lock disengaging. A second later she was inside the covered walkway, the open door triggering lights along the rocked corridor.