Chapters (42)
- Title Page
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Acknowledgements
- Also by Kim Harrison
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
- Cover
Al was silent, his jaw clenched as Pierce arched his eyebrows in challenge. “Come along, let’s go,” the demon abruptly said. “Pierce, stay here. I’ll send her back before sunup.”
Blinking, I stared at him. “Go? Go where?”
Al looked back to Ivy, Lee, and Pierce and sniffed. “I’m not going to twist curses in front of an audience.” Al grimaced, looking pissed.
I suddenly realized that Pierce had done it. Al was going to live up to our deal. It had taken me being dragged around, drugged, and headed for a lobotomy, but I was going to get my name back. Teeth gritted in a weird smile, I looked at Ivy. It was going to be a good day.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, stumbling when Al pulled me to him and a puff of burnt amber rose. “Why can’t we do it here?” I asked, but with a gasp, I found the air crushed from my lungs. We were gone.
Seventeen
Seventeen
My lungs rebounded, and I felt myself slip; then I jerked upright even before flesh had reformed to separate Al from me again. Pulse hammering, I staggered when Al let me go, narrowly avoiding a fall to the slick black stone engraved with that same pattern of intertwined icy-white-edged circles that the coven had. Wincing, I tucked my fading pain amulet back under my shirt. I leaned to snatch Pierce’s hat off the floor, and my hip protested. It was probably black and blue by now.
Al had his back to me as he poked about in one of the tall cupboards, the old glass in the wooden frames making his face a blur. “Make up the fire if you’re cold,” he said, tossing a palm-size bag at me.
I scrambled to catch it, knowing he’d smack me if it touched the floor. The bag was squishy, probably holding coarse salt. Feeling achy, I crossed the room to set the black silk bag on the corner of the slate table standing between the smaller hearth fire cheerfully glowing and the huge—but dark—circular fire pit in the middle of the room. With a sigh, I dropped Pierce’s hat on the bench surrounding the central fire. The drugs were wearing off, and, arms around myself, I weighed the trouble of starting a fire in the main pit with simply being cold for the time it would take to do the curse. My God, he was finally going to do it.