He was also the source of that uneasy sense of trouble I’d felt earlier—only it wasn’t coming from the stranger himself, but rather from the area immediately around him. It was as if the air were so repelled by his presence that it violently recoiled.
And the air wasn’t the only thing repelled. The Dušan crawled around my left arm, its dark eyes spitting fire, as if it wanted nothing more than to be free from the flesh that bound it to attack the man who stood before us.
A man I wasn’t about to face unarmed.
I imagined Amaya in my hands, and she appeared in a blaze of purple fire, her normally shadowed blade so bright on the astral field it was almost impossible to look at her.
Hey, you. I projected my mind voice so hard it shook the very foundations of the buildings around us. Leave that woman alone.
He didn’t unhand her. Didn’t react in any way that I could immediately see. Then, slowly, he turned his head in my direction.
He had no face.
Where there should have been eyes, a nose, and a mouth, there was nothing. It was as if his features had been wiped clean. It was totally and utterly blank.
Impossible, I thought in disbelief. It had to be a trick of some kind. Had to be.
Go away. His voice was little more than a whisper, crawling around me like a dead thing.
I shivered and gripped Amaya harder. Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time. I said, leave that woman alone.
I heard.
Then do as I say or the sword I bear will sever your ethereal head from its body.
I didn’t know if that was possible, especially after Adeline saying you couldn’t actually die on the plane. But my sword was from neither the real world nor the astral one. She was born of a demon’s death, and was far more than mere steel. She had a life of her own, a serious hunger for blood, and she could destroy demons and spirits as easily as she did flesh. Surely it wasn’t such a stretch to think she could also kill someone on the astral plane?
The stranger raised his featureless face, oddly looking like he was sniffing the air even though he had no nose. After a moment, he said, As you wish.
He released the woman and stepped back. She collapsed in a heap at his feet and remained there. Which was odd—why hadn’t she zapped back to her body? In fact, why hadn’t she done that when she was first attacked?
Now leave, I said. Get off the fields.
He didn’t react, didn’t reply. He just stood there, his unseeing face pointed in my direction, as if he were studying me. The unease crawling through me grew stronger, but I ignored it and imagined myself closer to the woman. The charm at my neck burned to life, its white light slashing through the shadows. Whoever—whatever—this man was, Ilianna’s magic didn’t like it.
Did you hear me? I swung Amaya in warning. She reacted fiercely to the vibration pouring away from the stranger, spitting and hissing purple fire that danced across the shadowed buildings around us.
I heard. His voice remained soft and oddly free of emotion. But you should know that what I claim, I keep. You have saved no one here, huntress.
I wouldn’t be so sure of that, stranger.
He cocked his head sideways. If he’d had features, I think they would have appeared . . . amused. If you are so confident that you can save her, why don’t we play a little game?
There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of me playing any sort of game with a featureless freak on the astral plane. I swung Amaya again, her kill, kill, kill chant crystal clear in the back of my thoughts. For the moment, my desire for control was stronger than her need to attack, but I had to wonder if that would always be the case, given she’d already tried to take me over once before.
I’m not interested in playing games. I just want you gone.
Ah, but this game involves saving the woman’s life. We both know you are interested in doing that, huntress, or you would not be here.
He was right, of course, but I saw no point in admitting the obvious.
He nodded in the woman’s direction and continued. She has twenty minutes of life left on earth. If you can find her in that time, I will let her live.
Twenty minutes? That’s hardly fair.
Life is never fair. He shrugged. That is the offer. Take it or leave it.
And if I don’t take it?
Then she dies as I have planned, and you will be left to wonder if you could have done the impossible.
And with that, he was gone, taking with him the uneasy sense of trouble. As the charm’s fierceness died to a more muted glow, I imagined Amaya sheathed, then knelt beside the woman.
Miss? Are you all right?
She didn’t respond to the soft question, so I lightly touched her shoulder. She jumped, then shimmied away from me, her brown eyes wide and staring.
It wasn’t so much the fear in her expression that surprised me, but rather the mark burned into her forehead. It was raw and weeping, as if it had only just been done. It was also K-shaped, with a tail that looped, reminding me oddly of a serpent. Two wounds marred her wrists, slicing up the center of her arms. While these were neither raw nor weeping, they’d split the skin open and looked painful. Two red marks also appeared to ring her calves, but from where I stood I couldn’t really see if they were open wounds or not.
Adeline had said you couldn’t be harmed on the astral plane, and yet this woman had been injured, and one of those wounds lay right where the stranger had been touching her. I doubted it was a coincidence.
Who are you? Her mind voice trembled with the fear so obvious in her pale features.
I’m a friend, I thought softly. There was a man attacking you—
Attacking? She frowned. What do you mean, “attacking”? We were having sex, for fuck’s sake!
Sex? On the astral field? How the hell was that even possible? That’s not what it looked like. Besides, you were screaming in fear.
She gathered the remnants of her clothing. Just because I don’t like it vanilla doesn’t mean it wasn’t sex.
I frowned. She was making all the right sounds, but there was something not quite right about her eyes—something beyond the fear. It was almost as if someone else was staring out of them.
I shivered. I need to know where you live, Miss—
Like I’m about to tell you that! And with that, she disappeared.
I swore softly, then closed my eyes and imagined myself back in my body. I whooshed back with surprising speed, my eyes springing open as I gasped in shock.
“Returning swiftly can be quite painful when one isn’t used to traveling on the astral plane,” Adeline commented. “Lie there and rest. I’ll bring you your tea.”
“No!” I jerked upright, and immediately regretted it as my stomach jumped into my throat. I swallowed bile, then added, “We don’t have time.”
Adeline stopped and frowned down at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I came across a woman being attacked by a man with no features.” I pushed to my knees, but the room spun around me, and it was all I could do not to fall back down. “He gave me twenty minutes to try to save her on this plane.”
“Meaning she wasn’t actually being attacked on the astral plane. What you saw was merely a reflection of what is happening here.”
“If that’s the case, he’s branding her with a hot iron and pulling her brains out.”
Adeline went pale. “Then you’re definitely dealing with a dark traveler.”
“Yes.” I pushed to my feet, then flung out an arm to steady myself, only to catch Azriel rather than the wall. The fingers that wrapped around mine were gentle steel, and heat leapt from his flesh, warming the chill from my body and lending me some much-needed strength.
“How are you going to find him if he has no features?” Adeline asked. “Did he give you any clue as to his identity? Did the woman?”
“No, so we’re going to have to do this the hard way.” I glanced at Azriel. “You need to take me to Stane’s. Now. Adeline, I’ll be back.”
Azriel stepped close and wrapped his arms around my waist. His scent—a scent that was both masculine and sharply electric—filled every breath as his power burned through me, sweeping us from flesh to energy in an instant. A second later we were on the gray fields, but these were very different from the ones I traveled. The fields I knew were little more than shadowed echoes of the real world, a place where things not sighted suddenly gained substance. But in Azriel’s arms, I saw the fields as a vast and beautiful place, filled with structures and life that were delicate and unworldly.
We re-formed outside of Stane’s electronics shop in Clifton Hill, which happened to be on the very same street that Nadler’s consortium had been attempting to purchase. In fact, only Stane’s building and one other—a bar—remained in private hands.
I’d known Stane a good part of my life, simply because he was Tao’s cousin. Tao, like Ilianna, was a childhood friend and current housemate, and he and Stane had come from the same brown werewolf pack. Their fathers were brothers—although Tao’s had died when he was young, and Tao himself hadn’t actually lived with the pack; he’d lived with his mother, who was human. Stane was a whiz at all things computer related, and he’d become a rather invaluable source of information and black market technology. If he couldn’t get me the information I needed in record time, no one could.
“You should have just zapped us inside.” I glanced at Azriel as I pushed open the somewhat ratty-looking door. A tiny bell rang cheerily above our heads. “It would have saved us a few seconds.”
“Stane does not react well to sudden appearances.” He shrugged.
I guess that was true—and certainly the last thing we needed right now was Stane passing out in shock. Once we were inside, the camera above us buzzed into action and began tracking our movements. Not that we could go far—the shimmer of light surrounding the small entrance was warning enough that a containment shield was in action.
“Stane, it’s Risa.” Impatience edged my voice as I stared up at the camera. “I need some help rather urgently.”