Despite the bone-aching cold, Emily only wore what amounted to a halter top and hip-hugger shorts. She went without shoes even though the snow reached her mid-shin. They were clothes probably every university girl had hidden away from her parents and older brothers.
Now, though, Emily embraced her sexuality. She claimed that clothing interfered with her ties to the arcane forces that the presence of the demons had loosed in the world.
Rob didn’t believe her. He was a scientist. He believed in things that could be weighed and measured. Magic was something for role-playing games.
Not all of the Cabalists, as they called themselves—and Rob called them cultists—had the same control over their bodies. Plenty of them that Rob had seen wore winter clothing.
“Rob,” she said in that eerie voice she’d developed. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Neither should you,” Rob countered. He watched the shadows closely. The demons liked shadows because they could use them to hide in.
“You’re cold,” Emily said. “You should get back to the house.”
“Not without you.”
Quietly, her face serene, she turned her gaze back to the full moon. “It’s not going to be safe out here for you.”
“Then it won’t be safe for you, either.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Rob shook his head vehemently. “I’m not leaving without you, Em.”
“All right,” she told him, and sounded just for a moment like the little sister he’d pulled from university four years ago. “Follow if you must, but run if there’s any trouble.” She started walking.
“Trouble?” Rob made himself follow. “What trouble?”
Emily didn’t answer. She strode through the snow as if it weren’t there. Her exposed skin turned blue-green, and Rob noticed that it suddenly looked scaled in the moonlight. He’d seen the effect on other occasions, but never was it so pronounced as tonight.
Several of the cultists had taken to grafting the parts of slain demons onto their bodies. They claimed that the demon parts helped them amplify their powers. Rob didn’t think that was true. As a geneticist, he didn’t know how that could be true. The recipient of a transplanted organ didn’t suddenly experience a DNA change. And that was the comparison the cultists offered. Except their change was on an arcane level, not a genetic one.
“There will be trouble,” Emily stated.
Unconsciously, Rob shoved his hand into his coat pocket and felt for the massive Webley .455 revolver his grandfather had prized. Until he’d left London, he’d never touched a firearm. Now he not only knew how to use them, but he’d practiced till he was proficient with the Webley.
“Then you shouldn’t go,” Rob protested.
“I have to.”
“Why? Who said?”
“I said.”
Startled, Rob pulled the Webley from his coat pocket and took aim. Even with gloves on, the pistol was so big it accommodated the gloves easily. He aimed at the shadow next to a bare elm tree.
“Who are you?” Rob demanded.
“It’s Seeker Orrus,” Emily said. “The one I came to meet. Put away your weapon, Rob. It’s not needed here. You’re among friends.”
Rob kept his weapon where it was. It suited him there. And he definitely wasn’t among any friends that he recognized.
Seeker Orrus remained by the tree and surveyed Rob from under hooded eyes. He was tall and lean to the point of emaciation even in the winter clothing he had on. His head looked heavy for his thin shoulders. He leaned on a tall staff.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” Orrus said.
“I’m safeguarding my sister,” Rob replied.
The tall, thin man barked laughter. “Your sister is far more capable of protecting herself than you are.”
“On that we disagree.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Orrus said. “She’s here because I asked her to be.”
“Why?”
Orrus lurched out from the tree. Evidently he’d suffered an injury in the past that left him at least partially crippled. When the moonlight stripped the shadows from the man’s long face, Rob thought he was going to be sick.
The cultist had braided small demons’ horns from the bridge of his nose all the way to the base of his skull. Weird tattoos in a half-dozen colors covered his shaved scalp. One of his eyes was yellow and far too large for his head. Ridged scar tissue around the eye socket showed where someone had removed bone and tissue to make it fit. Two more horns, these downturned, jutted from either side of his chin. His breath leaked away from him in a slow pour of gray fog.
“Because she has done something no one else in our sept has been able to do,” Orrus declared. “She’s touched the mind of a demon.”
Rob kept his pistol pointed at the man. “I don’t know what kind of tripe you’ve been filling my sister’s head with, but—”
“This isn’t their doing,” Emily said. “I truly have touched the mind of a demon. I called Seeker Orrus here tonight to help me work through this.”
“Work through what?” The pistol had grown heavy at the end of Rob’s arm. His hand shook and his shoulder ached from the weight of it.
“I dream of the demon,” Emily said in a quiet voice. “I dream of the demon every night.” For the first time in months or years, she looked distraught. “I can’t tell you what it’s like, Rob, but I’ve got to gain control of this…or it’s going to destroy me.”
Pain tightened Rob’s throat. “What you need is to get out of here. If you get out of here, Emily—”
“I will only dream of the demon somewhere else,” she interrupted. “Seeker Orrus believes he can help me.”
Rob hesitated, but he didn’t shift the pistol aim from the cultist.
“Please,” Emily whispered. “Rob, permit me this. I can’t bear this much longer.” Fear showed in her eyes along with the pain. “I can’t do this on my own.”
“I can help her,” Orrus said. “You can’t.”
Knowing he was defeated, Rob lowered the pistol, but he didn’t put it back in his pocket. “What are you going to do?” With his surrender, the wind suddenly
