Her eyes, a grayish green, like the color of lichen or pale jade, were the most uncannily familiar part of her. When they fixed on him, he felt as if he had something on the tip of his tongue he meant to say but couldn’t quite recall it. And worse, Kur seemed to stir inside him at the sight of her as if he knew her.
“Have a seat, Miss Carlisle.” Dev sat behind the desk he realized was most likely her own, but it was important to maintain the symbolic position of authority. He couldn’t very well take her to task from the guest chair while she sat behind the large oak desk herself.
She took the empty chair without any sign of resentment. “Ms.”
“Sorry?”
“Ms. Carlisle. You keep calling me ‘miss.’ That’s considered a bit sexist and archaic here.”
“Oh. I beg your pardon. Ms. Carlisle—”
“And, frankly, that seems unnecessarily formal. Just call me Ione.”
He chose to ignore the fact that this pleased him unreasonably. “I am here in a formal capacity, but as you wish. Ione. Now that the others are gone, I wanted to get your thoughts on who amongst your coven might have reason for any kind of resentment or grudge against you.”
Her perfectly sculpted brows drew together in disapproval as she uncrossed and recrossed her legs. “Among my coven? You think one of them did that? Absolutely not. Even if they did have a grudge against me, none of them would do anything like that. I know them. It’s impossible.”
“The cat wasn’t killed by whoever put it there. At least, not directly. It was road kill, and a day or two old by the look of it.” Not to mention the smell.
“I don’t care. None of them did this.”
Dev clasped his hands on the desk. “Do any of them know of your ancestry?”
She shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“Who does?”
“My sisters. Rafe Diamante...” She paused, coloring. “And Carter Hamilton.”
“You shared that with him?”
Ione’s mouth was set in a hard line. Foolishly, he regretted being the one to provoke such displeasure on that otherwise lovely mouth.
“Shared it? I used it against him, Mr. Gideon. It’s how we managed to bind him.”
Dev hadn’t heard this detail before. “How do you mean?”
“As my report states, I tried to gather a quorum of coven members to perform the necessary ritual, but without proof of Hamilton’s necromancy, they were reluctant to interfere, particularly on the word of an outsider and in defense of a warlock.”
He nodded impatiently. “So you helped Mr. Diamante use his necromantic abilities against Mr. Hamilton. I’ve read all this.”
Her green eyes darkened. “We did not use necromancy. If you repeat that slander one more time, Mr. Gideon, I may be sorely tempted to violate the Covent doctrine against using magic for spite.”
Dev had to work not to smile. Those eyes were really wreaking havoc with his poise. “You may as well call me Dev—in the interest of not being unnecessarily formal. But I suppose I can refrain from making such judgments until my investigation is complete. Please continue.”
Ione’s expression said she thought he was full of shite. “Given that my sister Phoebe’s life hung in the balance, I reluctantly agreed to attempt to share magical energy with my younger sisters, who had just revealed their theory to me about our...enhanced blood. Despite the fact that neither of them is trained in witchcraft, I managed to raise sufficient energy with them to project a binding spell upon Carter Hamilton’s magic from several miles away. We arrived at the Diamante family home just in time to see Rafe recover his nagual from Hamilton as the result of our binding. At which time, a spirit Hamilton had enslaved entered him—of its own accord—and bound him physically, as well.”
“Nagual?” Dev wrote the unfamiliar word on the pad of paper he’d been using for his interviews. “And what is that?”
“I don’t fully understand it myself, but as Rafe explained it, it’s a sort of spirit animal representing the god Quetzalcoatl, whom Rafe claims to be descended from. He can project it outside himself in various forms—or he can take on its form himself.”
Dev glanced up from the notepad. “He transforms physically? Into what?”
Ione shifted in her chair. “He calls himself ‘quetzal.’ He retains a mostly human form, except the tattoo of Quetzalcoatl on his back becomes an extension of him physically.”
“I’m not following you. Quetzalcoatl is represented in Aztec art as a feathered serpent. You’re saying he transforms into a feathered serpent in human form? Exactly how does that work?”
“I haven’t examined him personally. It seemed a bit awkward.”
“Then how do you know he actually did it?”
Ione cleared her throat and shifted her legs again. “Because he had wings. Iridescent blue-green-and-violet-tipped wings with an eight-foot span. Couldn’t really miss them.”
The pen slipped from Dev’s fingers. “That—wasn’t in the report.”
“No.” Ione shrugged—a vulnerable, feminine gesture that Dev found endearing. “It didn’t seem relevant. The facts were that Carter appropriated Rafe’s power through necromancy, my sisters and I bound Carter’s magic and Rafe got the power back. I understand you’re determined to make me out to be the villain of this piece because I was briefly involved with Carter Hamilton, but the fact is that he did what he did on his own and I was just stupid enough to fall for his act.”
There was a weariness in her eyes that couldn’t be faked. He wanted to believe she was telling the truth. But Dev had to be objective. He couldn’t afford to let his basest instincts color his opinions in this investigation. He had a responsibility to the Covent. Several members of the Leadership Council had been against his appointment, and they were watching him like hawks, just waiting for him to screw up. Dev wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction. And he would not be ruled by the demon. Tales of winged reptiles notwithstanding. Though he was going to have to interview this Diamante fellow for more than just his version of the facts of that night.
“I appreciate your candor, Miss—Ms.—Ione. So if I understand correctly, Carter Hamilton was made aware of your unique bloodline because he felt the power you and your sisters were able to project?”
Ione’s gaze slid away from his. “Not exactly. I mean, I’m sure he must have felt it. But evidently he targeted me because he’d researched our family. He knew my sister’s blood would fulfill the requirement necessary to awaken Rafe’s quetzal power so he could steal it from him. He referred to Phoebe as a divine scion, as Rafe himself claims to be. In Carter’s mind, I suppose, Lilith is a goddess and not a demoness.”
Dev inclined his head. “If you subscribe to certain pagan theories and academic speculation, Lilith may be equated with a number of ancient Semitic deities. It’s a matter of perspective, I suppose. One man’s demon is another man’s divine. Or woman’s.” He cleared his throat. “Be that as it may, this additional information about Carter Hamilton is significant. If he has an obsession with your ancestry, I think it’s quite likely he’s behind this morning’s act of terrorism.”
Ione didn’t seem surprised. “You think he’s orchestrating this from behind bars?”
“He seems the obvious suspect and the only one with evident motive to want to harm you. This Nemesis may be an alias he’s using or it could be the alias of someone he’s convinced to act on his behalf. He can’t use magic against you from prison because of the Covent’s