“I’m sure I have no idea,” Nigellus said. “Perhaps you’d do better to ask them. Good day.”
He closed the door in her face, cutting off her cry of, “But Mr. Benecea, wait!” and locking the latch behind her. I could see the demon’s shoulders rise and fall in a sigh of irritation. A moment later, he turned to regard us at the top of the stairs.
“Is the rest of the house secure?” he asked. “I wouldn’t put it past the bloody woman to try and sneak in a back door or take photos through a window.”
“Yes, of course it is,” Rans replied. “Doors locked, shades drawn. So... would you care to explain that?”
“Some explanations would be good, yeah,” I said, fighting down a sudden chill. “Who on Earth was that woman, and why the hell haven’t you mentioned anything about out-of-state auditors before now?”
We made our way down to the main level, where Nigellus raised an eyebrow at me.
“I will admit, I’m surprised the state of my finances on Earth is your main concern under the circumstances,” he observed.
Rans saved me from having to answer. “Caspian originally tracked Zorah down in St. Louis using human shills from the Missouri State Auditor’s office.”
“But don’t think we missed the part about the invisible house, either,” I added. “How could she even find this place and knock on the door when it’s warded?”
“Ms. Lane is rather a mystery,” Nigellus said. “She turned up a few years ago in Atlantic City claiming to be an investigative reporter, and started asking awkward questions. Though she also has a habit of dropping odd tidbits of information into the conversation while doing so, like her mention just now of the out-of-state auditors.”
“Interesting, but none of that really clarifies who she is,” Rans observed. “Much less what she is.”
“You felt it, too?” I asked. “She’s not Fae, I can tell that much.”
“Not a demon, either,” Rans added.
Nigellus waved our words away as though they were buzzing flies. “Some humans are magically inclined. It seems likely that she’s one of those. A more important question is whether the Fae have become aware of your presence in this area. Ransley, have you sensed any evidence of such a thing since your arrival? I gather from both of your auras that you’ve been out feeding while I was gone.”
“No,” Rans said.
“Maybe,” I interrupted.
Both men looked at me.
“I felt a prickle of something the night we were in San Francisco,” I explained, irritated with myself for dismissing it. “I’d overdone it a bit with feeding, so I discounted it as a side effect of too much animus. It was faint, and it only lasted for a second... but it could have been Unseelie magic. It was that same sort of unpleasant skittering feeling along my nerves.”
“You should have said something,” Rans murmured.
“I know,” I agreed. “But I doubted my own perceptions. And to be fair, it may not have been Fae magic at all. It could have been animus indigestion paired with a healthy dose of paranoia.”
“I’ll make some discreet inquiries,” Nigellus said. “It should be possible to—”
The words cut off abruptly as the demon went rigid, one hand lifting to his chest in a movement that almost appeared convulsive.
“Hey—what’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed.
Nigellus’ eyes flared with molten hellfire. “Edward.”
“Damn. That certainly didn’t take long. How bad is it?” Rans asked.
“Bad,” Nigellus bit out.
I looked between them, trying to decipher the conversation. “Wait. Something’s happened to Edward? But... he’s supposed to be with my father...”
Nigellus met my eyes, and a chill trickled down the length of my spine.
“I must leave immediately,” said the demon. “I will return as soon as I’m able to do so.”
I didn’t even think. “Oh, hell, no,” I said, lunging forward to grab Nigellus by the arm before he could teleport away. “If Dad’s in trouble, I’m going with you!”
Now Rans’ eyes flared, burning with blue flame every bit as intense as Nigellus’ fiery gaze. “Zorah—”
His hand reached for me, but I twisted away—not letting go of my grip on Nigellus for fear the demon would pop out of existence without me. True, I could probably make my way to the gate at the bottom of the Moaning Caverns on my own, but I’d be far too slow to get there in time for whatever crisis was currently happening.
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry—I love you, Rans, but trust goes both ways. It’s my father, and I’m going. You can’t come with us, or you’d be trapped in Hell. I’ll come back as soon as I can, I promise.”
I tried to convey with my eyes that Nigellus couldn’t afford to let anything happen to me. If it did, he’d lose his precious vampire blood source at the same time. The look on Rans’ face told me exactly how much he didn’t like this plan.
“Time is of the essence,” Nigellus snapped, and our surroundings winked out before I could even consider second-guessing myself.
What replaced them was... nothing. I almost panicked before realizing that Nigellus must have foregone the intermediate stop at the top of the Moaning Cavern in favor of transporting us directly into its lightless depths, where the gate itself was located. Even so, an undignified squeak escaped my throat as I tried to get my balance in the pitch darkness.
An instant later, I realized that I was barefoot, dressed only in the shorts and tee I’d been wearing to lounge on the couch and watch movies. My experimental salt dagger was still sitting in the basement workroom back in Vallecito, and basically, I hadn’t thought this course of action through to even the smallest degree.
“Move!” Nigellus commanded, manhandling me around until my questing hands met the pile of tumbled stone leading up to the stretch of cave wall that hid the gate.
On the other side of that unseen barrier of rock, my father was in danger. I felt my way forward, scrambling up the
