The third man, this one shaved bald to show the tattooing across his skull, drew a blocky-looking pistol. A strange liquid reservoir attached to the top glugged as he fired.
With one hand, Warren raised a shield. Four small demons no bigger than the end of his little finger embedded in the shield. They wriggled horned tails angrily, striking the shield again and again.
Naomi choked back a curse and retreated. The demons had weapons that fired living ammunition, insect swarms and things like this, but Warren had never seen them in the hands of Cabalists.
“Interesting,” Warren commented. “Did you make the weapon yourself? Or did you learn how to use it?”
The Cabalist leveled his weapon again.
Warren gestured and the wriggling ammunition flew back from the shield and stopped only inches away from the Cabalist’s head. The man got the message and lowered his weapon.
The Cabalist with the three small horns stood. A look of amazement showed on his face as he ran a hand over his horns. “My head feels strange,” he said.
The pistol-wielding Cabalist looked at him. “Your head has been healed, mate. The horns look like they’ve grown there forever.”
“Healed?” The Cabalist ran his fingertips around the horns. Surprise filled his features, too. He looked at Warren. “You did this? You healed me?”
“Yes,” Warren answered.
“How?”
“This is one of the things I have to offer.”
The Cabalist kept pulling at his horns as though he couldn’t believe it.
“I want to see the Voice,” Warren repeated.
“All right,” the man said. “Let me send someone to let her know.” He gestured to the Cabalist with the Mohawk.
Growling curses, the younger Cabalist got to his feet and went inside the building. As an afterthought, Warren imploded the live ammunition and let their lifeless bodies drop to the ground.
The building’s interior was a wreck, but a few areas had been cleaned out to make living space. Warren counted as many as thirty people, but there might have been more. None of them appeared happy to see him. Watchful eyes stared at him as he walked up the stairs to the third floor.
A large section of the second floor held garden containers. Herbs and vegetables flourished. Judging from the size of the vegetable boxes, everything was designed to be immediately mobile.
He recognized some of the herbs and spices as things that were used in natural medicines, but there were several plants that looked warped and twisted. Some of them only grew in areas the Burn had claimed.
A young woman stood waiting on the third floor. She looked nineteen or twenty, slender and Asian. Her shoulder-length hair was electric blue, and she had almond-shaped green eyes. Tattoos covered her face, arms, and legs. She wore a tunic top, cargo shorts, and hiking boots. Although she didn’t look like someone who would be a Voice of a Cabalist sept, Warren felt the power rolling off her.
“I’m Daiyu,” she said. Four Cabalists stood around her.
Warren almost smiled at that. Although the woman was petite, probably not even five feet tall, the power he sensed about her offered more protection than the men.
“I’m Warren Schimmer,” he said.
“I’ve heard of you. They say that you belong to no sept.”
“I don’t.”
Daiyu studied him with open interest. “I also heard that you command power without wearing tattoos or sigils.”
“I don’t need them.”
“They say that’s because you wear the demon’s hand and his mark.” Daiyu’s eyes rested on Warren’s silver hand.
Warren flexed the hand to show that he owned it and that it worked. “It allows me to focus my power, but the power I have is my own.”
“I see.” Daiyu focused on his eyes again. “What do you want here?”
“To make you a deal you can’t refuse,” Warren said.
“There’s nothing you can give me that I can’t take for myself.”
Warren gestured to the man whose horns he’d healed. Reluctantly, the man approached them.
“Your people try to emulate the demons by wearing their trophies,” Warren said. “All they do is make themselves weaker by opening wounds into their bodies. I can heal them, and I can teach you to guarantee that the transplants you’re attempting take hold and become permanent.”
“Look at my horns,” the Cabalist entreated. “He healed them only moments ago.”
Daiyu waved the man down to his knees, then examined the horns. Cautiously, she touched one of them with a forefinger. An electrical spark stung her flesh, and she jerked back.
“Once the transplants are in place,” Warren said, “they become foci and allow a greater control of the arcane forces your people can control.”
The young woman eyed him suspiciously. “Will the body later reject them?”
“No. Not unless the person wearing them decides they no longer want them.”
Conversations around them grew louder. More Cabalists came from the other floor to listen in.
“We’re supposed to accept your word on this?” Daiyu asked.
“If you have another offer,” Warren said, “then you should take it.” He made himself sound brave, but he’d never interacted with people well. He wasn’t forceful by nature, and he wouldn’t have been now if he hadn’t been so desperate. He had nowhere to run, no hiding place, and Lilith seemed bent on dragging him to his destruction if he couldn’t take care of himself.
“You said you came to make a deal,” Daiyu told him.
“Yes.”
“But it’s not a deal until you get something out of it.”
Warren was impressed. She was smarter than he’d expected.
“I want the same thing you want,” he told her. “I want more power. I can’t get any more without help.”
“You want my help?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I want you to follow me.”
“I follow the First Seer.”
“That’s fine,” Warren said. “Follow the First Seer if you want to. But follow me in this. I can make you more powerful. The First Seer can’t. I can
