“What do you want to know?” I asked.
“Lizzy,” Jimmy snapped. He was the only one who called me that, the only one who dared.
“Doesn’t cost anything to ask,” I said, but I was just stalling. I wasn’t going to tell them jack. Jimmy wouldn’t either.
Just because he could heal didn’t mean he couldn’t hurt. Though I’d spent the past seven years hating Sanducci’s guts, lulled myself to sleep many a long, lonely night imagining ways to make him cry and scream, beg and bleed, times had changed. Now I just wanted him to forgive me, but I didn’t think he was going to.
“Sanducci and Phoenix, what a prize we have won.”
The varcolacs had returned to their human forms. I’m sure it was difficult to perform torture with claws where your fingers should be.
“You know killing us won’t change anything,” I said.
“Killing you will change everything, seer. You are the leader of the light. If you die without passing on your power, all that power is lost.”
Well, there was that. What they didn’t know was that I was even harder to kill than Jimmy.
The head varcolac—a guy who resembled some minor pretty-boy actor on a stupid show with numbers for a title—crouched at my side. Another one—big guy, wide shoulders and teeth that reminded me a lot of the Governator before he’d had them fixed—hovered over Jimmy. They both carried sharp, golden weapons, and they appeared as if they knew what to do with them.
But really, how hard was it? Pointy end goes into flesh, rip and tear. The only difficulty was if hurting someone bothered you. These were demons. It didn’t.
“I’m going to give you one chance, seer. You answer my question, I will kill you . . .” He took the flat of the blade and ran it over my hip. Wherever it touched, I burned. “Quickly.”
In the depths of his eyes, yellow flames flickered. He wasn’t going to kill me quickly no matter what he promised. I wasn’t capable of dying quickly anyway.
The point of the knife, which was big enough to have been fashioned by Bowie himself, pressed to the throbbing vein in my neck. “Where is the key?”
“To what?”
He nicked my skin, and blood trickled. “What do you think, fool? To your house? Your car? Your heart?” His eyes twinkled yellow again as he lowered the knife. “Ah, your heart. I always wanted to see what one looked like.”
He sliced me across the left breast. The blade grated along bone, and I gritted my teeth to keep from reacting to both the pain and that annoying noise. Wouldn’t do any good.
“She doesn’t know anything about the key,” Jimmy said.
I blinked. That sounded like he did.
The varcolacs exchanged glances. Pretty Boy lifted his chin, a signal to the other, and Jimmy grunted. I caught the scent of fresh blood.
“Leave him alone.”
The varcolac at my side snorted. “I don’t take orders from you.”
“Who do you take orders from?”
A few weeks back I’d torn their leader limb from limb, literally, so the forces of darkness should be in chaos. That they weren’t was more disturbing than I wanted to admit. Because if hell had flown open and all the demonic fallen angels were now free, that meant the one who’d instigated the rebellion in the first place was free too. And we all know who that is.
“Samyaza,” I said. Another name for Satan. There were quite a few of them. “Beelzebub is pulling your strings?”
His eyes flared. He was pissed about something. But what?
I shifted. I was tied pretty tightly, and any movement caused the golden chains to scrape my skin. The burn was excruciating, but I managed to brush my finger against his knee, and suddenly I understood. “Whoever has the key can command the demons. And you want it to be you.”
Dissension in the ranks. Gotta love it.
The varcolac shrugged. “I don’t take orders well.”
Most Nephilim didn’t. Which made me wonder how Satan planned to rule this rock. Simple answer—he was going to need the key too.
What I’m referring to is the Key of Solomon, a grimoire or book of spells, supposedly composed by King Solomon. In it are incantations used to summon, release and command demons—for starters. Over the years several translations had been made, but none of them were complete. What we were looking for was the original copy, which held everything.
Unfortunately, no one knew where that was. The last person to see it had been a rabbi by the name of Turnblat. Wild dogs—code for shape-shifters—had killed him, and the key hadn’t been found in his personal effects.
I’d figured the Nephilim had it. How else had the damn demons flown free? But if they were asking us where it was . . . Well, that threw things into a whole new light.
“Where is the key?” the varcolac demanded again.
“Seriously, pal, we thought you had it.”