“That makes sense,” Simon replied. “A Fallen would love having someone like that on its leash.”

  “Exactly. That is why the worst of our kind are secured in that world by a spell. So far none of them have figured out how to break it. You were able to retrieve the ring because you were not one of the prisoners. If you’d helped one of them escape, you would have died instantly.”

  “That place still went nuts when we tried to leave,” Katia said. “So, whose skull was that? It was just sitting on a rock. The button pointed right to it.”

  Ozymandias attention instantly shifted to her. “Did you touch it?”

  “No way.” She gave Simon a look now.

  “I was going to check it out,” he admitted. “I thought the ring might be underneath it, but Katia insisted that wasn’t what we were after.”

  “It felt evil,” she added. “Really evil.”

  “It is good you trusted your instincts. I must insist that none of you speak of that realm’s purpose to anyone. It must remain secret, or others will try to access it if they can find a way around the sentinel. There are immensely powerful objects stored there.” He was still staring at her. “Like the skull.”

  “What does it do?”

  “Nothing good.”

  “But how did this rogue necro know where to find the ring?” Riley asked. “I mean, if this realm is a secret and all that?”

  “My guess is a family connection,” Ozymandias replied.

  Mort tapped away on the keyboard, doing just such a search of the family’s history. “There are only a few Chaffins in the U.S. that are registered through the Society,” he said. “How old do you think this guy is?”

  “Forty, maybe a bit older?” Simon replied.

  “Okay, there’s one in Cincinnati, but he’s seventy-two. Another in Philadelphia who is fifty-six.” Mort kept eyeing the screen in front of him. “Ah, here’s a possibility.” Once again he shifted the laptop so it faced them. “This guy look familiar?”

  “Yes! You got him,” Katia said as Simon nodded his agreement. Though the summoner looked younger in the photo, it was the man who’d so callously thrown them into another world.

  “Our rogue necromancer is Mathias Lynley Chaffin and he’s the . . . great great great grandson of Lord Chaffin. He’s forty-four and has been awarded a dark navy robe. Got some serious power behind him, but not as much as I’d have thought given what he’s been up to. Single, last address was in Charlotte, North Carolina.”

  “And now he’s here,” Riley said. “How did this guy know his great, great whatever was in this other realm?”

  “Someone was working on the Chaffin family history a while back. It might be this man or someone he knows. If so, he may have heard what really happened to his ancestor,” Ozymandias replied. “The Summoners Society was not as closemouthed back then as it is now.”

  It was at this point that Katia realized that the most senior summoner on the veranda was still watching her closely.

  “Is there more you’d like to tell us, Journeyman Breman?”

  Damn.

  “Katia. Just Katia.”

  “Katia, then. Tell us why you were leery of the skull. And yes, I know you sense magic but I believe it’s more than that. Now is not the time to hold anything back, no matter how odd it might sound.”

  Simon wasn’t going to be happy with what she was about to tell them.

  “Okay, there’s another person, well another someone involved in all this. I call her The Lady because I’m not sure what she is. I first met her at TrapperCon.” She looked over at her partner now. “You were in the restroom at the time. I was hanging in the hallway when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and there she was.”

  “What does she look like?” Mort asked as he closed the laptop’s lid, his focus on her now.

  Katia pulled up the memory. “Her skin is pure white, like alabaster. Her eyes are steel blue, her hair bright red and she has ferns and flowers growing in it. She’s what I think a faerie would look like.”

  A cup of water appeared at her elbow courtesy of Riley, and she nodded her thanks. After a long sip she continued. “The Lady winked at me, put a finger to her mouth to tell me not to say anything, then she just sailed over to the closest wall and went right through it.”

  “And you never thought to mention that to me?” Simon demanded.

  Yeah, he was upset just like she knew he would be.

  “We’d just met that morning so you wouldn’t know if I was on the level or totally wacko at that point. We had Azagar and those kids to worry about. Things were bad enough.”

  He grumbled under his breath, but she could see she’d made her point.

  “But that wasn’t the only time you saw her,” his lordship said.

  She shook her head in amazement. “You know, you’re really scary when you do that mind reading thing.”

  “I don’t read minds. I read faces.”

  “Well, you’re damned good at it. And you’re right. I saw her again in downtown Atlanta the night we fought off a Big Mouth demon.”

  Her master blinked at that news. “Where was she?”

  “In the alley, after the fiend was dead. She looked ill. Her ferns and flowers were dying, and her skin was gray. Something had happened to her since the con, something bad.”

  “And?” the senior summoner pressed.

  This guy is scary. “I hear her in my head sometimes. When we were in the skeleton realm she warned me away from the skull. She kept speaking to me while we were trying to escape, helping us get out of there.”

  “You sure she wasn’t there as well?”

  “I didn’t see her, no.” She hesitated because what she was about to say did sound crazy. “The summoner said something about doing all this for someone. Last night I had an awful nightmare with him in it. He was screaming in pain, and I saw a lot of blood. I know he’s the bad guy here, but I swear something else is going on.”

  Ozymandias shifted in his chair, pensive. “It would help if we knew if this Lady is fae or not. Would Ayden be willing to help us with that?” he asked, looking over at Mort. “My knowledge of their world is miniscule, at best.”

  “Same with me. I’ll text her,” Mort said and then set about doing just that.

  “But why did she choose you?” Simon asked, still fixated on Katia. “Out of all the people at that convention, why you?”

  He wasn’t going to let this slide so more personal history was needed.

  “My grandmother said she spoke with the fae. I never really saw them, but I always felt that someone was watching me when I was walking in her woods. Flowers would appear on her doorstep, out of nowhere. She had a little shrine in the woods and sometimes left them gifts. Feathers, stones, things like that.”

  “And you’re named for her,” Riley said. “They might know of your connection to the one who believed in them.”

  “But here, in Atlanta?”

  “For them, geography is no big deal. They’re everywhere, or at least they want you to think they are.”

  Simon seemed mollified at her explanation, though she suspected there’d be more questions later. As they waited, Katia kept poking at her food. It held no interest. After he rose to refill his own plate, a half of an apricot muffin was set in front of her.

  “Eat,” he mouthed. She rolled her eyes at him. He immediately repeated the command.

  “Yes, Dad,” she muttered, then took a bite of the offering. It tasted good, better than the fruit, so she quickly finished it off. All the while Simon was doing his best not to look smug, and failing.

  When Ayden joined them on the veranda she carried an embroidered bag on her shoulder. She held it close to her body as if protecting it. Her eyes swept everyone at the table, pausing on Ozymandias. “Ouch. Walking the worlds again?”

  “Yes. I do not recommend it.”

  The witch arranged herself in a chair, then removed a white velvet cloth from a satchel and laid it on the table. It was followed by a thick leather book with an ornately embossed burgundy cover held closed by a silver clasp in the shape of a star.

  Ayden looked at each one of them in turn. “Fae come in all kinds. Small, big, clever, wicked, devious, you name it. Just like people.” Then she laid her palm on the cover of the book and closed her eyes while murmuring something under her breath. The metal clasp snapped open though the book remained closed.

  “Katia, please place your hand on the cover. Imagine what this being looked like when you met her.”

  Katia dusted off her hand on her jeans, then laid it palm down on the leather. Closing her eyes she recalled the first time she’d met The Lady. How unbelievable that moment had been. Underneath her fingers, the book began to move on its own. She yanked her hand back and watched as it opened, then flipped pages. Finally, it stopped.

  “Ah, I see,” Ayden said, studying the page in front of her. “She is definitely one of the Kindly Ones.”

  She turned the book around and then carefully held it up so all could see.

  Katia stared at the image. “That’s her!” A few lines of calligraphy sat below the colorful illustration, far too small for her to read. She wondered what it said.

  “We do not know her name,” the witch added. “She has not shared that with us, at least not yet. Did she with you?”

  Katia shook her head. “I call her The Lady.”

  “That works as well as any. They don’t reveal their real names if they can avoid it.”

  “So, I’m not nuts.”

  “No. I’m guessing this goes with your ability to see angels.”

  And spirit cats.

  “Katia said her grandmother had an affinity for the fae, so maybe it’s in the bloodline,” Mort replied.

  “Very likely.”

  “Could this necro have met her somehow? I mean, how else could she have known where the ring was in that realm?” Katia said.

  “Ring?” Ayden asked.

  Mort quickly brought her up to speed on what had happened in the other world without once mentioning the word “prison.”

  After mulling over that information, Ayden shifted her gaze to the most senior summoner. “You took a big risk retrieving those two.”

  Ozymandias shrugged, though it didn’t look like a gesture he made that often. “You would have done the same if you could travel the realms.”

  The witch nodded reluctantly.

  “You think there was contact between this Lady and our thief before all this began?” Mort asked.

  “Not sure, but he seemed driven to help someone,” Katia said. “Could she have talked him into getting the ring for her? Wait, that makes no sense. If she knew it was there why didn’t she get it herself? Damn, I’m so confused.”

  “Perhaps there was a reason the summoner had you fetch the ring instead of The Lady, as you call her. You’re assuming that she could enter that realm, which might not be the case,” Ozymandias said.

  “And if she’s like Ori, she can speak to you without being physically present. He does it to me all the time,” Riley said. “I bet the fae can too.”

  “Whatever is going on, be on your guard,” Ayden advised. “The Kindly Folk have their own rules. If your necromancer has gotten enchanted by one of them, it would be dangerous for you to interfere with that relationship.”

  “Or dangerous if we don’t interfere,” Ozymandias said.

  The witch nodded in agreement. “That’s the problem. You never know where you stand with them.”

  Riley’s phone pinged. She took a quick look at the message, straightened up, and then read it through a second time. Then she tapped out a reply. “Speaking of Hellspawn, the police want us to check out some dismembered demons. Like totally dismembered. They usually wouldn’t contact us unless it’s something odd.”

  “Like the other day?” Katia asked.

  “No, that was just someone playing games with the cops. This sounds real.” She glanced at the phone again. “It’s downtown, in The Gulch.” Riley looked over at Mort now. “Can I send this to you? I think we need to see this on a bigger screen.”

  “Go for it.”

  The photo transferred via email and then Katia found herself staring at absolute slaughter. The bodies had once been Gastro-Fiends, but exactly how many of them was hard to tell from the picture. She saw at least two heads, maybe more. Limbs torn off, gnawed on, entrails looping across the dirty pavement.

  Something about the scene called to her. “I’m in. I’m not sure why, but it feels important.”

  “I’d like to go, too. I trust Katia’s instincts,” Simon said.

  Riley looked over at her fellow necromancers. “You guys okay if we check this out?”

  “The timing is good as I need more rest,” Ozymandias admitted. “Lots more rest.”

  “We’ll let you know what we find out. Might not mean anything.”

  “Thanks, Ayden, we really appreciate your help,” Mort said, rising.

  The witch nodded as she packed up the book and placed it back into the satchel. Then she hesitated. “If the Kindly Folk are involved, you may need our expertise when it comes to dealing with them. Let me know if that’s the case.”

  “We will. Again, thank you.”

  As he helped the older summoner to his feet and slowly escorted him back into the house, Ayden trailed behind them.

  “Let’s go see what the cops have found,” Riley said rising. “I’m hoping it’s no big deal.”

  In the Gulch? No, this was something important.

  Katia could feel it deep in her bones.

  TWENTY-ONE

  There were things you expected to find in a city parking lot. In this case, cars and trucks, the occasional motorcycle, empty beer cans, maybe a discarded lotto ticket or diaper. But not savaged demon corpses.

  “Looks like something tore them apart and ate all the insides,” Katia said, eyeing the grisly remains.

  “Now that’s a disgusting thought. Can you imagine what that tastes like?” Riley said.

  “Rancid chicken mixed with slimy motor oil.” At her raised eyebrow she added, “I got a face full of the stuff in Lawrence once. I couldn’t stop gagging for over an hour.”

  The master trapper shuddered. “Just, yuck. So, we have at least four mature Gastro-Fiends, a good hundred pounds each, who have been ripped apart and then partially eaten.” She moved closer, staring down at a pile of intestines. “No flies. You’d think this mess would be covered in them.”

  Chunks of the demons’ matted and filthy fur was scattered around what was left of their bodies. One of the arm bones displayed gnaw marks.

  “There’s defensive wounds on some of these. They fought back,” Simon said.

  “Then this is something bigger, or quicker, than a Three,” Riley mused. “Or something way more vicious, which is hard to imagine.” Then she frowned. “No slicing marks on the bones, so this was a physical assault, not one with bladed weapons.”

  “And that leaves out . . . ?” Katia asked.

  “Archfiends, for the most part. They love their scimitars. A Fallen could easily tear these guys apart, but frankly they couldn’t be bothered. And if they did, they wouldn’t eat them. Not their style. No scorch marks so that means a Pyro-Fiend isn’t an option.”

  “What about a Big Mouth demon?”

  The master pondered on that. “Maybe. I could see one of those grabbing these guys and chomping on them. But I would have thought there would have been torn-off tentacles or something when the Threes fought back.”

  “Yeah, good point.”

  “Check this out.”

  That had come from Simon who was about ten feet away, staring at something on the ground.

  “Whatcha got?” Katia asked as they joined him.

  He pointed. “To the right of the demon’s head.”

  “All I see are guts, guts, more guts,” she said, then stopped. One of the entrails lay next to a claw attached to a scaly arm. The arm was at least six feet long. “Could that be from a demon?”

  Riley didn’t reply, but murmured something under her breath that made the arm rise out of the carnage and float over to a body-free section. It landed on the ground and then she stepped closer to it.

  “Not a demon,” she said, looking up at them.

  “Something from another realm came out for a quick snack?” Katia asked.

  “That’s my guess.”

  Simon kept eyeing the scene, section by section. “There’s another something that doesn’t look demonic,” he said, pointing again.

  A severed wing. It sure wasn’t from an angel.

  It was then something pressed against her mind, a strong nudge that made her skin crawl. As the sensation increased Katia became oblivious to whatever the other two were discussing, at least until Riley touched her arm. That touch made her jump.

  “Hi. You’re off in that little world of yours when you’re seeing stuff the rest of us don’t. I only feel the Hellspawn, or whatever’s left of them. What about you?”

  Was this a test? Her last master had been great at exploiting her mistakes, at least until she realized he was purposely setting her up for failure.

  She glanced at Riley, then back at the corpses, taking a few more steps forward. Whatever had happened here was so wrong she couldn’t put it into words. Was this an invasion that had failed, even if it was only one monster?

  “Katia?” When she still didn’t answer, Riley moved closer. “You do feel something, don’t you?”

  She had no choice but to answer. “I’m not sure.”

  “Not sure of what you’re feeling, or not sure if you want to tell me?”

  Atlanta’s youngest master was too damned perceptive.