The mist parted and Merlin had a view of two figures. It wasn’t the best angle—he was somewhere above and to the left—but that was an advantage. Spy holes were unpredictable and he had no desire to get caught. Grumpy demons had sent the last unlucky eavesdropper home in a soup bowl.
At first he could only see two figures talking, but a quick shake of the ball fixed the audio.
“What do you mean, you were summoned?” asked the taller of the two in a scholarly accent. He was dressed in a well-tailored suit, his head bald and his black beard neatly clipped. He would have looked at home in any metropolitan city except for the claws, pointy teeth and yellow eyes slitted like a goat’s. Merlin knew this demon’s name was Tenebrius. They’d had uneasy dealings before.
“I know,” replied the other demon, who called himself Gorm. He was small, about the size of a large cat or a smallish monkey, and his leathery skin reminded Merlin of an old shoe. “In these days of computers and binge television, who bothers to summon a demon? But there I was in a chalk circle just like the old days. Talk about retro.”
“Don’t try to be funny,” said Tenebrius, narrowing his eyes. “Who was it?”
“LaFaye. You know, the Queen of Faery?”
The image of Tenebrius stiffened. So did Merlin. Morgan LaFaye had caused most of Camelot’s headaches until she’d been imprisoned. She shouldn’t have been able to summon so much as pizza delivery from inside her enchanted jail.
“What does she want?” asked Tenebrius with obvious caution. He was staring at Gorm with something between suspicion and—was that envy?
Gorm shrugged. “Power. Freedom. King Arthur’s head on a platter.”
Tenebrius looked down his nose and clasped his hands behind his back, resembling a supercilious butler. “The usual, you mean.”
“She is a queen locked up and separated from her people.”
Tenebrius snorted, releasing a cloud of smoke from his nostrils. “She rose to power by trading on the fae’s grievance against Camelot. I’d hardly call that a good qualification for a leader. They’re better off without her, even if they have lost their souls.”
And that summed up the damage caused by the spell Merlin had used to banish the demons. Gone was the fae’s love of beauty, their laughter, their art. Now they were emotionless automatons sworn to take vengeance on Camelot and feast on the life energy of mortals. Old, familiar guilt gnawed inside him, no less sharp for all the centuries that had passed.
Gorm frowned. “Her Majesty has a grievance.”
“Don’t we all?” Tenebrius examined his claws. “Do you trust her?”
“Would you trust someone who summoned one of us?”
Tenebrius rolled his slitted eyes. “But why you? Was her magic so weakened by prison that she was forced to grab the first demon she came to?”
“Uh—” Gorm started to look up, as if sensing Merlin’s intense interest in the conversation, but was distracted a moment later.
“Who’s grabbing whom?” came a third and very female voice.
Merlin all but dropped the ball, his mouth suddenly desert dry. The image warped and churned until he forced it back into focus—and then wished he hadn’t. Vivian swam into view. She looked as good as she had the last time they’d wrestled between her silken sheets. Scholars claimed demons were made of energy and therefore had no true physical form, yet there was no question that Vivian was exquisite. She was tall and slender but curvaceous in ways that were hard to achieve except as a fantasy art centerfold. A thick river of blue-black hair hung to her knees and framed a heart-shaped face set with enormous violet eyes. Warm toffee skin—bountifully visible despite her glittering armor—stirred dangerous, even disturbing, memories. Beyond Vivian’s inhuman loveliness, her demon ancestry showed in the long, black, feline tail that twitched behind her.
Ex-lovers were tricky things. Demon ex-lovers were a whole new level of dangerous. Merlin still wanted to devour her one lick at a time. Merlin the very, very Unwise. He closed his eyes, hoping she’d disappear. Unfortunately, when he looked again, she was still there. Then he cursed the loss of those two seconds when he might have been gazing at her. Vivian had been his, his pleasure and poison and his personal drug of choice. He’d moved on, but she’d never completely left his bloodstream.
“Gorm got himself summoned,” said Tenebrius.
“Who was the lucky enchanter?” Vivian asked. She gave a lush smile with dainty, feline fangs.
“The Queen of Faery.”
“Oh,” said Vivian, quickly losing the grin, “her. It’s almost tempting to give the fae their souls again. Then they’d get rid of LaFaye themselves.”
Tenebrius gave her a sly look. “You don’t think the situation presents some interesting opportunities?”
Merlin wondered what he meant by that, but Gorm interrupted. “Is it even possible to restore their souls?”
“Theoretically,” said Vivian. “Everything’s possible with us.”
“But we could do it?” Gorm persisted.
Tenebrius shrugged. “The spell came from a demon to begin with. Therefore, demon magic could reverse it.”
By all the riches of the goblin kings! Merlin sat frozen. Hope rose, wild and shattering, and he squeezed the ball so that his hands would not shake. He had searched and searched for a means to fix the fae, but had found nothing. Then again, he’d been searching among healers and wielders of the Light, not hellspawn. Demons corrupted and destroyed. They did not improve.
And yet Tenebrius had just said that the demons could provide a cure. Impossible. Brilliant. Amazing. Merlin struggled to control his breath. How was he going to get his hands on a demon-crafted cure? Because it was immediately, solidly obvious that he had to, whatever the cost.
His gaze went from Tenebrius back to the she-demon again. At the sight of her sumptuous body, things—possibly his survival instincts—shriveled in terror while other bits and pieces heated with a toxic mix of panic and desire. Any involvement with demons was an appallingly bad move. Sex was beyond stupid, but he’d been there and done that and insanely lusted for more.
Vivian wanted him dead, and some of her reasons were justified. To begin with, he’d stolen from her. The battle spell that had gone so horribly wrong had come from her grimoire—the great and horrible book of magic that rested on a bone pedestal in her chambers. Maybe she had the power to help the fae—but that would mean facing her again. Now, there was a terrifying idea.
The door behind Merlin banged open with a loud crack. “Hey, you busy?”
Startled out of deep concentration, Merlin jumped, dropping the globe. With a curse, he snatched it up.
“Oops. Sorry, dude.” The new voice seemed to ring in the rafters, blaringly loud against the profound silence of the magical circle. A corner of Merlin’s brain identified the speaker as his student, Clary Greene, but the rest of him was teetering on the edge of panic. When he righted the globe, the swirling clouds parted inside the stone once more. He peered until the image of the room grew crisp. Three demon faces stared back at him with murderous expressions.
Merlin said something much stronger than “oops.”
Vivian’s eyes began to glow. “Merlin!” she snarled, his name trailing into a feline hiss that spoke of unfinished business.
Merlin quickly set the agate ball on the floor and sprang away, colliding with Clary’s slight form. His student’s pixie-like features crumpled in confusion. “What’s going on?”
“Duck!”