Ilona Andrews - Hex Appeal

“It’s okay.” His voice strained tight like wire. Around him, angry magic sparked, and the wraithlike things gnashed and hissed and shied away.

At last, we reached another landing, and the staircase ended. Above, the ceiling tapered to a jagged hole, and hell’s red sky glared through, casting bloody shadows. On the wall, a rusted mirror warped our reflection, and in the shaft of light lay a dusty black metal box with a spiked padlock.

We halted, and I caught my breath, glad of the light even though it scorched my face with fresh heat. “Is that a strongbox?”

Ethan nodded. “I’d say so.”

I frowned. “Did that seem too easy to you?”

“We’re not finished yet.” He inhaled, scenting for trouble, and crept forward.

I hesitated. Lightning flashed, the thunder shaking the walls, and a fine golden glint at thigh level caught my eye.

My heart skipped, and I grabbed Ethan’s arm and yanked him back.

He lurched, and recovered his balance with a little jump. “What?”

I pointed. Smoke particles drifted in the light, around a hair-thin golden wire stretching across the floor. Together, we craned our necks upwards. Above, wicked curved blades glinted, waiting to slice us into salami.

Ethan grimaced. “You’re kidding. Trip wire?”

“Crude but effective. Our demon pals have a sense of humor.”

“Terrific. Watch out for banana peel and itching powder.” He hopped over the wire, sword poised, and I followed.

The strongbox just sat there, black and boring. I eyed it suspiciously. Couldn’t be this easy. Not like a job topside, where you just break in, take stuff, and run away. Surely?

Ethan lifted two fingers, and a soft breeze whistled, blowing away the smoke. Tiny sparks crawled over the box, testing, seeping into the crack between body and lid. He shrugged, and the sparks extinguished. “I get nothing.”

“What? No alarms? No threats of imminent evisceration?”

“Not a whisper.”

“Maybe what’s inside is the kicker.”

“You think? How are you with locks?”

I whipped a shard of glowing pink fairyglass from my corset—who says you can’t use an ingredient for more than one spell?—and waved it at him. “Watch me and weep.”

I bent closer to the barbed padlock, and now that prehistoric coward inside me was really getting her voice on. Demon box! Eek! Run! she squealed, and, for a moment, I hesitated.

Stealing a cursed amulet from a demon lord. Not one of my safer ideas.

I glanced at Ethan, who crouched, alert, surveying the creeping darkness for threats, blood still trickling from his nose. I still didn’t get what was in this for him. Was this the part where he turned me over to Kane? Pity. I’d liked having him around. And working for a demon sorta … dirtied him. Ethan wasn’t like me, doing anything for a living. He had standards, at least I’d thought so.

But Phoebus’s whisper from the nightclub caressed my memory, tempting me reckless. One favor, Lena Falco. No catch. Whatever you desire.

This was my big prize. Whatever the risks, it was worth it.

I gripped the glass between thumb and finger and shoved it in the padlock.

The sharp wingshard sliced my skin. Blood seeped, and pink fairy glitter puffed, intoxicating, lulling the lock’s tumblers into submission. I rooted around a bit, feeling for the springs. Click, one. The spikes on the lock jabbed into my palm. Click, two. Clickety click, three. And … clunk. Open.

Thunder rolled, threatening. Carefully, I eased the padlock from its socket on the strongbox, and laid it on the floor.

The box just hunkered there, menacing.

I glanced up, and Ethan shrugged. “Now or never.”

I poked the lid experimentally. It didn’t poke back, and I gritted my teeth against disaster and levered it up.

The hinges creaked, and it opened. Silence. Together, we peered inside.

Just a pile of ashes. And atop it, a dusty red gemstone the size of an egg.

A deep, velvety chuckle echoed in my ears. I squirmed, my belly warming. Were those flames, flickering deep inside the stone?

Something inside it that belongs to me, Phoebus had said. Maybe he meant something alive .

Whatever. I reached for it, but Ethan caught my wrist. “Let me,” he said, and he darted forward and wrapped his fingers around the amulet.

And the world burst into flame.

My body slammed backwards, and my head hit the wall with a sick crunch. Heat scorched my lungs, sizzling my mouth dry. I shook my head, clearing my blurred vision in time to see Ethan get hurled across the burning room by some invisible force. The trip wire sprang, and huge blades scythed. But he’d already hurtled past and smashed into the wall, falling in a twisted heap. His sword clattered from his hand and spun away, which was just as well, because if he hadn’t dropped it, he’d have sliced himself in half as he fell.

Flames licked up the rusted walls, ringing the room in glare. The gemstone skittered onto the floor, attached to a spiked-iron chain. Light pierced the stone, and against the wall sprang a dark, hulking shadow. A slavering beast in silhouette, four twisted legs, spiked tail, razor-sharp fins along its spine.

I scrambled away in fright, searching for the monster. It was nowhere in sight. Only the shadow, the evil black projection of whatever lived inside that amulet.

Hollow female laughter boomed, and the shadow-demon swelled in triumph. “Give up, puny human. You’re too decent, and your little slut is too weak. You can’t control me.”

I coughed, spitting dry with dread and black humor. Puny human? Seriously. Next it’ll say, Soon I will be invincible!

But Ethan lay gasping, bleeding, fighting to rise, and it speared hot anger into my belly. He might be immortal, but he wasn’t indestructible. And damn right he was decent. He’d grabbed the amulet to protect me. Screw me if I’d let this demon cow insult him.

I hurled twin knives at the shadow, and they clanged harmlessly off the wall and arced back to me. “Bite me, hellbitch. We’ll see who’s weak once I’ve hauled your crooked ass back to your boss.”

The shadow whiplashed and snapped crocodile jaws at me. I dodged, scrambling to my feet. Ethan flung out his arm, sparks flashing, and his sword erupted in angry green flame and dragged itself across the floor toward his fingers.

But the shadow-demon kicked it away—no fair, a kicking shadow, it’s just a shape on the wall, right? Wrong—and stomped a fat clawed foot on Ethan’s forearm. Hard.

Bones snapped, and my teeth grated. Jesus in a jam jar, that must have hurt. Ethan gave a strangled gasp, and the sword’s flames sputtered out.

Furious, I hurled myself at the monster, but the shadow just darted out of the way, cackling like a wart-nosed witch. “Dance with me, while I suck out his tasty-sweet soul,” it sang. “You can’t stop me.” And it leapt on him and lunged with gnashing teeth for his throat.

He kicked, and fought it off with sparking fists.

My heart clenched. I sprinted for him, but the demon flung me away. Bad plan.

I picked myself up, teeth rattling, and dived for the amulet instead.

The spiked chain bloodied my palm. The pulsing red stone sizzled, and my skin melted, but I didn’t care. Don’t break it, Phoebus said.

Well, screw him.

I slammed the gemstone into the iron floor. It didn’t break. I tried smashing it with my knife hilt. The demon just laughed at me. I jumped up and crushed it under my bootheel. The fucking thing wouldn’t break. I flung my poison hex at it, adding some stolen sunlight for good measure, but it just bubbled and seared the toxic goo to steam.

I yelled in frustration, and my hex pendant burst into furious red flame.