“No!” Gideon screamed.
He launched himself from the fountain, aiming for the vortex. But the vortex slammed closed, and Gideon landed facedown on the grass.
Everything in him rebelled. No. She couldn’t be gone.
Oh God! Oh God, Maggie! No.
Though it was a desperate struggle, he forced himself to focus on the house. He shimmered into the den, his wild-eyed gaze swinging around.
Alone. He was alone.
He shimmered to the bedroom.
Alone again.
To the farm.
Alone.
Bellowing, he went to his knees, his fists gripping his hair. His mind raced, but panic had him by the throat. Maggie! Maggie! He had to get her back.
Get it together. You’re not going to save her like this.
Forcing himself to his feet, he shimmered back to the plantation. With trembling hands, he yanked his phone from his pocket and began dialing.
Within minutes, Xander, Mikhail, Niklas and Carly arrived. But those minutes were the longest of his life.
“Where the hell is she?” Xander exploded the second he materialized. He had Gideon by the throat in the blink of an eye, slamming him into the kitchen wall. “Where’s Kyanna?”
Guilt kept him from fighting back.
“I don’t—” He gasped for air as Xander’s fingers bit mercilessly into his flesh. “I don’t know.”
Niklas and Mikhail leaped forward, peeling a straining, feral Xander off him. Head pounding, chest filled with terror, Gideon sucked in one breath after another.
“What happened?” Niklas, ever the voice of reason, asked, turning to face Gideon once Xander had backed off a bit.
“Maggie and Kyanna were practicing charms by the fountain,” he summed up succinctly, fearing their time was running out. “I felt an odd wave of power in the air, and a split second later this huge void opened up right beside them. The pull of this thing…it was unreal. It sucked them in and then snapped closed before I could jump in after them.”
All four demons glanced at each other. Niklas yanked his phone out and dialed a number. He cursed after a moment, then shoved the phone back in his pocket.
“Sebastian isn’t answering.”
“Can’t you shimmer Maggie back?” Carly asked, pointing to the cuff. “Won’t that work?”
Gideon shook his head. “I tried. When I shimmer, I get there alone. Whatever this vortex is, wherever it brought her…or whoever has her, something’s blocking it.” As soon as the words left his mouth, understanding dawned. There was another possible explanation. One he hadn’t thought of until that moment. There could be another reason the cuffs weren’t working. What if she wasn’t wearing it anymore?
Mortika? had the key to the cuffs. If she was no longer wearing her cuff, then Mortika? had to be involved. He remembered what Mortika? had done to the Amulet of the Gods, and a wave of nausea rolled through him.
“She might not have the cuff on anymore,” he finally managed to get out.
“What do you mean?” Xander demanded.
“Oh no!” Carly interjected, understanding dawning in her soft brown eyes as her gaze went to Gideon’s bare neck.
“You think Mortika? has her?” Niklas asked.
Carly turned to Xander. “Can’t you sense Kyanna? Through your connection? Can you feel her?”
If possible, Xander looked even more upset than before. “I can’t feel her,” he snarled. The demon looked like a wounded animal. A vicious, lethal predator a hairsbreadth from slaughtering everyone in sight.
Gideon didn’t feel much better.
Mikhail asked, “The vortex opened by the fountain?”
Gideon nodded, leading the group out the back door.
He watched as Mikhail paced off the area, a fierce frown of concentration furrowing his scarred brow. Gideon opened himself up, wide open, like a raw, exposed nerve.
Nothing but lingering remnants of pure evil.
He followed Mikhail’s movements hopefully, praying the Demon of War might have some trick up his sleeve to help them find the women.
At last, Mikhail stopped in his tracks. “I can see the path, but the way is not clear. There is too much interference. I can’t get a lock on the destination.”
Xander exploded, his skin began to turn demonic red and his fangs began to grow. His fist smashed into the fountain in a shower of dust and crumbled rock. The massive fountain crashed to the ground in pieces.
“But there is a path, right?” Carly pressed, turning in Niklas’s arms to look up at him. Ever since hearing of the vortex, Niklas hadn’t let her out of arm’s reach, as if fearful she, too, might be snatched away. “There has to be someone who can follow the path, isn’t there?”
“Asher,” Niklas said at once, his voice hopeful. “Asher might be able to.”
The phone was already in Gideon’s hand.
“Yo,” Asher answered.
“We need your help,” Gideon barked, skipping over the pleasantries.
“What kind of help?” Asher asked, his voice neutral.
“A vortex opened up and sucked Kyanna and Maggie into it. We need to know where they went, and how to get there.”
“Maggie who?”