she’d spent years right under his nose, hiding in plain sight. Hiding inside the woman he’d fallen in love with. The woman she’d been possessing for years, before she even met him. So, in Daeva’s mind, he had fallen in love with her.
And she had loved him. Damn him for it.
She pushed the book to the side and stood. Pacing the room she flicked her hand and all the candles in her chamber lit. She tried to warm her body with their flames. It would surprise everyone to know that even in hell she could be cold. She worried about what was to come, fretted about the future.
Daeva knew she would be called upon. There was only one being still alive who knew she’d hidden the box. The man she’d loved, the man who had sent her back to hell.
Soon, Quinn Strom, exorcist extraordinaire, would come a-knocking at her hellish “door.”
A knock startled her. It couldn’t be Klix; she had told him to come back later. Her heart thudding in her chest, she opened the door.
Two soldiers with swords at their sides stood waiting for her. “Daeva, you must come with us.”
“What is this about?” Although, deep down in her churning gut, she knew.
“Please comply, or we will be forced to be unpleasant.”
Swallowing the fear that was quickly rising, she nodded and stepped out between them, firmly shutting her door behind her.
The sound was faint, maybe only a creak of the house, but Quinn Strom heard it. He sat upright in his bed, peering into the darkness of his bedroom and straining to listen.
Trained to sleep lightly, he was always alert at any out-of-place sound. He’d lived in his modest house long enough to have memorized every normal creak, squeak and groan of the place. And the creak he’d heard was from the stairs just outside his room; the fourth step from the top had a soft spot that only a certain amount of weight triggered.
The creak came again, prompting Quinn to bolt off the bed and reach under his bed for the arsenal that he’d stashed there when he first moved in. Fortunately he always slept in sweatpants, so in emergencies like these he didn’t have to bother dressing. He grabbed the shotgun, loaded with silver and rock salt, and the beat-up old satchel that contained ampoules of holy water and his blessed silver crucifix.
Quinn had been a demon hunter and exorcist for most of his life, so he was always prepared for any threat, be it human or other. His father had trained him since he was ten to be vigilant, to be wary of the things that went bump in the night.
All the doors and windows had been warded against demon attacks, so the intruder had to be human. But just because they were human didn’t make them any less of a threat. He knew that firsthand. He’d had his fair share of run-ins with sorcerers, especially those from the Crimson Hall Cabal, a powerful organization of one hundred members who were always searching for more power.
Quinn took position at the side of his door, his gun raised, the satchel hung over his shoulder. He couldn’t cock the gun now because of the sound it would make, but the moment the door opened, he would pump it and point it in a nanosecond. In his other hand he had a glass ampoule of holy water ready to be released, just in case his wards had failed. One splash of the water on unholy skin would incapacitate any demon for a few minutes. Enough time for him to shoot silver into a demon body and kill it.
Breathing deep and even, he counted down the seconds in his head. The attack would come any moment now. He could sense movement on the other side of the door, hear the swish of fabric moving. What the hell were they waiting for?
Could this be a regular, run-of-the-mill home burglar? Looking for expensive things to steal and hock? Quinn didn’t live in an affluent neighborhood. There was no indication in either his house decor or the vehicle he drove that he was anything but a blue-collar working man with nothing of worth to take except maybe a plasma TV and a game console. But nothing worth searching the rest of the house for.
No, Quinn didn’t harbor any delusions that the intruders were after his valuables. At least, not the type that a person could buy in a department store. He did possess some things of worth. Things that only certain types of humans and demons would know about.
Were they after the key? God, he hoped not. That thing had been nothing but trouble from the second his father had bequeathed it to him. He’d tried to hide it in plain sight by giving it to his sister disguised as a pendant, but it had ended up back in his hands anyway. Back to being his responsibility.
Before he could consider that further, the door burst open. And not in one push. It splintered into a hundred pieces, as if C-4 had been placed on it and lit by a fuse. But he didn’t hear an explosion. Something else of great power had rendered his door into kindling.
He cocked the shotgun and, stepping over the wood pieces scattered on his floor, he took a stance in the doorway, pointing his weapon. But he couldn’t get a shot off before he was catapulted backward by a ball of green light that hit him full force in the gut. All the air was knocked out of him when he hit the wall.
He slumped to the floor just as a man with long dark hair and glowing green hands stepped into his bedroom. He smiled down at Quinn.
“Quinn Strom, I presume. Where is the key?”
All of Quinn’s muscles quivered. It was as if a thousand volts of electricity surged through his body. He could barely blink.
The man stood over him, threatening green sparks dripping like melted metal from his long fingers. “I don’t want to kill you. But I will to get what I want.”
Quinn licked his lips, trying to get his mouth to work. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play with me, Strom. I know you have it. Your lovely sister, Ivy, had it and then she gave it to you.”
Quinn tried to sit up at the mention of Ivy’s name. “If you touched her, I’ll kill you.”
The man chuckled. “Don’t worry, she is quite safe. The cambion of hers is quite formidable. I should know, he killed Reginald, the man I succeeded as leader of the Cabal.” He turned his glowing hands this way and that, looking at them affectionately. “Although I probably should thank him for that...”
Quinn now knew who had broken into his house. The Crimson Hall Cabal. They were a ruthless group of powerful sorcerers who ran their organization pretty much like the mob and a gentlemen’s club combined. Not long ago, his sister, Ivy, and her lover, Ronan, a cambion, otherwise known as a half demon, had had a run-in with Reginald Watson. He’d initially hired Ronan to find Quinn and steal the key. But Ronan had had a change of heart—everything to do with the fact that he’d fallen in love with Ivy—and had given the key back. Then he ended up killing Reginald to keep Ivy and the key safe.
Obviously, the legend of the key had been passed on to the next in line for the cabal throne. The legend and the desire to possess it.
“You’ve wasted a trip. I don’t have the key,” Quinn croaked, his throat dry from the pain that still zipped through his body.
There was movement behind the sorcerer in the doorway. He turned
