The handful of us who survived the passage hide
who we are, pretending to be human. The last
thing we want is for the growing evil we left behind
to find us here.
Shading my eyes, I look up at the client’s palace
at the top of the rise. A staircase cut into the cliff
winds up to a glass palace, beautiful and enticing.
Not a large island, it’s big enough for the mansion,
a beachfront far below me, and the servants’
quarters—nothing but some stilted thatch huts
along the beach. From the rooftop lounge, she
could be watching my approach.
I always do a background check on my clients,
and my informant says Jezebarra likes toying with
her prey … turning them into her sex toys until they
die or she tires of them and adds them to her
roster of mindless servants. The rumors appear to
be true—several men and women were busy doing
various jobs around the island, and all of them
trudge through their chores like listless and
haggard zombies. None of them talk to each other,
a vacant look haunting their eyes, a creepy grin on
their faces.
But I should have nothing to worry about. I’m
wearing an ugly glamour: a grizzled mountain of a
man. Horrid, filthy, detestable.
That should annoy the sorceress. Get your fill of
my ugly mug. Too disgusting to add to your
collection.
With a growl, I force myself to hike up the last
few feet at the slow lumbering pace she would
expect from my large size. When I finally crest the
top, heat builds up in my fur under the glamour,
and I want to growl and snap at anything in my
way.
I pause on the landing and study the sorceress’s
palace. A flowered path leads to marble stairs,
which climb up to large, glass doors. The white
walls gleam in the summer sun. The glass has to be
magically reinforced to resist the occasional
cyclone. I shudder. How can a place so beautiful
feel so … wrong? The place looks bright and
inviting. Why does it feel like walking into a
demon’s lair?
What fiend did she bargain with or what black
rite had she performed to gain such dark power?
A deeply tanned brunette in a gem-encrusted
bikini descends the steps to greet me. Like a
predator, I wait, watching her make her way to me.
She walks slowly, pausing on each step to show off
her long, bare legs, her large breasts and her tiny
waist. Almond eyes, dark curly hair, she’s a
Mediterranean temptress, maybe even some Asian
or Latino heritage mixed in.
Her long hair falls in waves down to her butt,
and her youthful skin glows, but the cloying smell
of powerful magic and centuries of age clings to her
like maggots.
To avoid the nauseating stench, I breathe
through my mouth and turn my head away from
her. My informant suggested she wears a glamour,
but this is no glamour—my sensitive nose tells me
she has magically altered her body. Magic works
better than any plastic surgery, without stretching
their skin too tight across their skull, and only the
most sensitive noses can pick up the reek of decay.
The spells need to be fed continually, and after a
while, they begin to smell of rot. She studies me
with a sneer pasted across her too red lips, and
wrinkling her nose, she waves her hand.
My glamour vanishes, leaving me in nothing but
my loincloth and my wedding torc—traditional garb
of my people. She runs a hand over my chest,
brushing my white fur the wrong way, and I capture
her wrist and hold her at a distance. Unable to
suppress a growl, I snap my teeth at her, but she
merely smiles.
“Much better, why do you hide such a delicious
form behind such a disgusting glamour? The
majestic beauty of a white wolf, such a strong
snout, glorious white hawk wings, the strength of a
man.” She glances down at my loincloth, and a coy
smile plays across her face.
From my full height of seven feet, I glower down
at her. If I were most men, I’d be tempted, but I
had a wife and lost her. A good wife. I don’t need
trash.
“My business is my own. You didn’t ship me out
here just to talk about my personal life.”
“Oh, I don’t know. That could be interesting …”
I sigh. It’s going to be one of those days. “We
both know why I’m here. Cut to the chase, or I’m
gone.” I spread my wings to remind her I don’t
need her plane to get me off the island.
“That won’t be necessary. Please come into my
office.” She takes her hand away and sashays up
the stairs. The skimpy bikini barely covers her ass,
and her hips sway in front of my face. I can tell
she’s trying for sexy but just being near her makes
me want to shower … in bleach.
I suppress a growl. Ten minutes in this festering
heat, and I’m already shedding. The nauseating
stench of her magic is overwhelming and the
wrongness of the whole island makes my skin
crawl. I want to rip something apart.
It is possible I might be a little short tempered.
Nothing a stiff drink couldn’t cure. Too bad I’m on
the job.
At the top of the stairs, the double doors swing
open as if invisible hands awaited her bidding. A
cold breeze greets me, but rather than the
welcome feel of air conditioning, I smell death and
sex.
I ignore the warning bells chiming in the back of
my mind and follow the sorceress deeper into the
mansion to a spiral staircase. She leads me up to
the top floor, passing several glass walled rooms,
each one containing someone involved in one kind
of sexual kink or another, until we finally come to a
door twice as tall as any other.
The door opens for her with a wave of her hand,
and I follow her inside. The room resembles a glass
tower. Large gems—rubies, emeralds, sapphires,
diamonds, and others I couldn’t begin to identify—
adorn the ceiling, creating a beautiful mosaic.
Unless you look too closely at the obscene glyphs
projected beneath them.
The glass floor allows a view of the entire house
from up here. Semi-naked men and woman scurry
around beneath us, not all of them are human. A
marble table dominates the center of the room, the
scent of blood and darkness oozes from it like an
open sewer.
A sacrificial altar.
Despite the smell of blood, not a drop mars the
surface. I shudder. The dark magic must have drank
it all down. I drag my eyes away from it with an
effort.
Over the mantel on the far wall, twin scimitars
catch my attention. The blades are made from
some kind of red material, shining like rubies, and
the silver handles are crusted with black diamonds.
“Aaah,” she says, “I see you’ve noticed my blood
blades, forged from the blood of my master. He
intended to betray me, to feed me to a demon in
order to create an item of power, so I did it first.”
Curling my lip in distaste, I slowly spin, taking in
the whole room. Book cases line the wall, climbing
high above my head, broken at intervals by gaps to
let even more light pour in, until they disappear
high in the crystalline brilliance, more than five
stories up.
“Do you like my tower?” she asks.
I grimace.
Laughing, she opens a drawer in the desk and
pulls out some photographs which she hands to
me. “This was stolen from me last month.”
I study the first picture—a bracelet laid out on
black satin. The intricate design features a silvery
metal and a large, pinkish-red gem in the center of
a mass of crossing vines. The next picture shows a
close-up of runes and symbols overlapping each
other as they cover the entire bracelet.
“It possesses powerful magic, and I want it
returned immediately.”
“Any idea who stole it?”
Her evil smile spreads slowly across her face.
“Oh, I know who has it. An ex-apprentice of mine
stopped by a month ago; he returned to me out of
the blue, asking for some advice about a spell he
was working on. One thing led to another and …
well, you understand. Afterwards, I helped him and
he left. It wasn’t until he had departed I noticed
anything was missing.”
“So what is his name?”
“Alistrad Karamond Zavisto, but he calls himself
Magellan and wastes his time running a circus. He
has quite a collection of creatures from the Wylds.
You should be able to find his show schedule and
track him down that way, but I should warn you. He
uses a pocket dimension for his performances.
Saves the trouble and expense of traveling. It will
be hard for you to get in and out undetected.”
A pocket dimension. I’ve heard rumors that a
few sorcerers and wizards are strong enough to
create their own miniature dimensions outside of
the two worlds, but I thought it was just that: a
rumor.
“Not a problem.” I have my own magical
experts, but I won’t tell her that.
“But this one will be. Alistrad will know you’re
there just by the smell of your glamour. What you
need is this.” She holds up a silver coin the size of
her palm. “This will teleport you out if you get
caught, and I have a gold dagger that will help you
in a fight.”
I shrug. “Fine. I’ll take the job. Along with your
toys here, I want five thousand in gold, up front.”
She looks good, really good. My eyes stray to
her breast and down to her bikini as she adjusts it.
Her fingers trail up her body as she reaches for her
top. I inhale her … stench.
What the hell? This isn’t my Sammi.
I growl. “Get. Out. Of. My. Head!”
Agony explodes through my brain. My vision
dims.
She steps close. “If you try to cheat me, pup. I
will make certain your sacrifice is exquisitely
painful.”
Rage surges through me blocking out the pain. I
grab her by the throat and shove her against the
wall. “I don’t take kindly to threats. You contacted
me because you know my reputation. I never cheat
a client.”
She licks her lips. “And they told me you like it
rough.”
I drop her as if she burned me. I never should
have let my temper get a hold of me. “Then they
probably told you I don’t take kindly to being
played. If you try to double cross me, I’ll destroy
this filthy little altar of yours and maybe take your
blood blades as compensation.”
Her eyes narrow, and her smile slips. She pulls
out a velvet bag from another drawer in the desk
and opens the drawstrings. “Five thousand
imperials.”
“Seven thousand.”
“You had said five thousand.”
“That was before you tried to screw with my
mind. Limited time offer. Take it or I walk.”
She takes a vase from a corner shelf, and I can
smell a surge of magic. She tips it into her palm and
puts it back on the shelf before adding the extra
coins to the bag.
I heft the bag in my hand; it feels like the right
weight. An illusion can look real, but it won’t feel
real. I tie the sack and turn to leave without a word.
“Until we meet again,” she whispers huskily in
my ear. Her arms wrap around me, and she grabs
me between the legs
I whip around, ready to shred the flesh off her
bones, but she’s gone.
Chapter 3
~ ANGELINA ~
The sound of a car honking wakes me. I’m
standing in the middle of the road—wearing
nothing but my nightie, my bare feet frozen in the
slushy snow on the ground—and a car veers
around me. Three lanes of busy traffic separate me
from the sidewalk.
A semi truck barrels down on me. I can see his
surprised face as he stares at me. He honks and
slows, but he isn’t going to stop in time.
My heart in my throat, I dash across the road,
and when a car slams on its breaks in front of me, I
dive onto the sidewalk. My knee burns and aches
How did I get here?
Nothing answers me but the sound of the voices
cackling in delight.
Nauseated, scared, cold and hurting, I stare up
at the morning sky. All this to punish me because
the blue lady didn’t give them what they wanted.
They almost killed me.
“You okay, miss?” An old man helps me up.
“Yes, I just got a little lost.” In my nightie on a
busy street. Right. I need to learn to be a better liar.
Teeth chattering, I wrap my arms around my
chest. The hotel where we are staying is right in
front of me. At least I hadn’t gone far.
I pad barefoot into the hotel lobby and to the
elevators.
“Nice legs, Angie. You should walk around
campus in that outfit.” Tyler whistles, looking me
up and down. A group of the basketball team is
heading toward the cafeteria.
My ears burn as I hit the button to call for the
elevator. “I was sleepwalking,” I say. That’s not
such a bad admission, right? People do sleepwalk
even when they don’t hear voices.
“You can sleepwalk into my bed anytime. I’ll
keep you warm.”
“Thanks, but I need to go get dressed.” The
doors open and I step in, thankful to get away from
him.
My room is on the fourth floor, and I hurry past
the maid’s cart to my room. I don’t have a key, but
&nbs
p; thankfully I left the door unlocked. I slip in and
close the door behind me, leaning on the door to
keep the rest of the world away.
Never did four coffee-and-cream walls and deco
art staring back at me feel so safe and secure.
I look down at my knee. I’ve got a good road
rash and a bruise, but thankfully I’m not bleeding. A
clean bandage and a shower, and I’ll be fine.
The sound of puking interrupts my thoughts. My
roommate must be recovering from yesterday’s
festivities.
I push myself away from the door and force
myself to the bathroom where Brianna kneels over
the toilet. Her long, black hair falls forward, and I
hold it away from her face and rub her back.
“Come on. We’ll order room service. Get a
healthy breakfast into you.” I help her up and lead
her into the other room.
“Don’t tell the others. Please.” Fear and worry
surround her like a heavy cloud. Most people have
a dulled aura after getting drunk, but hers whirls
around dizzily.
“I thought you’d been drinking. Are you—?”
She looks away. “Yeah.”
“Oh no, what are you going to do?” I wrap her in
a hug. “It’s going to be all right.”
Pushing me away, she goes to the window and
stares out at the morning sunlight, her arms
wrapped around her stomach. I stand where I am
and wait for her to speak.
The dark cloud of fear envelops her, masking all
her other emotions. I’ve always been able to see
what people are feeling simply by watching the
colors surrounding their auras—yellows for
happiness, blues for tranquility, reds for passion.
Most people have a mix of colors swirling around
them. People are complex creatures.
My mother is an artist, and she taught me to
draw what I see. When I drew the yellows and
blues around the neighbor woman tending her
flowers, my mom asked me about it. I told her
that’s what I saw.
“Angelina, that’s very creative.” She dismissed it
as an art form, but my mom never really lived in
the real world anyway. To her, nothing existed but
art and artistic expression.
Brianna coughs. “Tyler says he’ll take me to get
an abortion next week.”
“That’s a big decision. Is it really what you want?
It’s your choice, not your parents’, not Tyler’s.”
“I’ll ruin my chance at college, and I don’t want
to hate my baby. But I’m afraid …” She shakes her