Huntress

ONE

Sitting at the right foot of the devil could give a girl a complex about her pedicure. At least, that’s what Lilli Corbin had to assume when she walked into the designated meeting place and surveyed the tableau laid out before her. The small strip-mall nail salon had five nail stations ranged along the right wall and an equal number of pedicure chairs opposite. While three of the pedicure chairs were currently occupied, only two of the customers in them appeared to be availing themselves of the services of the frighteningly efficient nail technicians. The third lounged in the high, faux leather chair as if it were a carved and gilded throne.

Rounding the front desk, Lilli leaned back against the black laminate surface and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Busy night, Sam?”

Neither of the female patrons glanced up from their toes or the workers bent over them, but the man between them moved his mouth in a smile as dark as envy.

“Lillith,” Sam purred. “I’m so glad you could make it. I was afraid your schedule might place too heavy a burden upon you.”

His voice was as smooth as velvet, sweet as honey, warm as affection. And as deceptive as his fair, angelic features.

Lilli gritted her teeth and ignored the instinctive tug in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t stop herself from responding to him—no living woman, and very few men, could—but she could use her knowledge of him to nip that response in the bud. When she got home, she could try to shower off the memory of it.

“I suppose I could say something about how I’ve always got time for old friends,” she said, “but you’re not my friend, and we both know why I made it a point to rearrange my schedule for this.”

His smile never wavered. “You would consider it a matter of honor, of course.”

“That, and after this one, I’m done. I’ll be off the hook for good. That’s way too good to pass up.”

“You’re certain you wouldn’t like to sign a longer-term contract?”

Lilli leveled a sardonic stare at the devil. “Thanks, but I’m afraid I’m using my soul at the moment.”

“Hmm, pity.”

She left the bait alone. She’d already had almost twenty-four hours to revel in the idea of finally fulfilling her bargain with Samael and being free of his influence; there was no way in Hell she would risk that freedom now. Not when she could already taste it.

Seven long years ago, Lilli had made a deal with the devil: in return for his permission to enter his portion of the underworld and bring out a fugitive she’d been hired to apprehend, she agreed to do him three unspecified favors in the future. He could not ask her to kill anyone, nor to maim, torture, or deliberately injure or scar anyone. He couldn’t ask for a task beyond her abilities, and he couldn’t bind her soul in any way, shape, or form. He also could not demand or require any sexual favors from her, nor ask her to procure them on his behalf. Beyond that, Lilli agreed to grant Samael her assistance three times between the date the bargain was struck and the date of her physical death, without the option of refusal.

She’d regretted it immediately, of course, but at the time she’d had very little choice. The fugitive she’d been after had been a particularly nasty one, but then, when weren’t they? When you specialized in the identification, tracking, and apprehension of visitants (as the polite world liked to call the kind of preternatural things she dealt with, in spite of their inconveniently native origins), you learned that “nasty” could be a disturbingly relative term.

In the end, Lilli had caught up to the visitant—a goblin that time, one who had decided to branch out from the usual mischief-making to more fatal activities—and turned him over to the proper authorities. Without Samael’s help, the goblin’s killing spree would have been ten times worse, and Lilli would have had ten times the number of souls on her conscience, so she supposed the bargain she’d struck had been worth it. It had saved lives, and so far it had cost only one week’s duty as a personal bodyguard during a council of devils, and a thirty-six-hour imp hunt that had left her with nothing worse than a small scar on her left ankle and a four-day headache.

Judging by the glint in Samael’s eyes today, “so far” were likely going to be the key words in that particular thought.

Lilli knew better than to look directly into those eyes, though. She focused on a spot just between the devil’s toffee-colored eyebrows and decided it was in her best interest to move this little interview along.

“I’m a busy girl, Sam,” she said, her tone even and business-like. “Why don’t you just cut to the chase and let me know what you need from me this time?”

“Now don’t be hasty, my dear.” Samael accepted the hand towel a technician handed him with absent grace. “You’ll make me think you’re overeager to end our association.”

“That’s because I am.”

“I’m hurt.” He pressed carefully buffed fingertips to his chest. “But hardly surprised. You always were a stubborn little thing, so determined to draw a line in the sand between you and me.”

Lilli reflected that she’d actually have preferred a line in the reinforced concrete, but she kept the thought to herself. If he really was going to request his third favor tonight, she didn’t want to jeopardize her chances at freedom.

“Personally,” the devil continued, “I’ve always thought we had more than a few things in common. Our determination, our focus … the sense of pride each of us takes in our work.” His sharp obsidian eyes sliced toward her, hooked deep into her face. “Our ancestry.”

Lilli flinched beneath her mask of indifference. She knew better than to let Samael see a reaction. Exploiting weaknesses was his bread and butter, and she had no desire to satisfy his hunger.

It shouldn’t surprise her that the devil would bring up her heritage, or even really that he’d been able to dig up the truth she normally kept hidden. Few people outside of the underworld felt comfortable face-to-face with the daughter of a devil, even if her mother had been a completely average human. Being half Hell-blooded was enough to make most distrust her on principle, and she couldn’t blame them. If she were human, she’d probably distrust someone like her, too. It would be hard not to, considering her line of work. Bounty hunters routinely dealt with the dregs of humanity, but since Lilli specialized in hunting visitants, she saw the dregs of that population as well. She wouldn’t trust a devil farther than she could throw him, and a devil’s spawn only an inch farther than that.

On bad days, she even wondered if she could trust herself.

“It’s not like we’re cousins, Sam,” she said, forcing her dark thoughts back into the mental closet they’d escaped from. “We’re in no danger of meeting up at the next family reunion.” She had no desire to think about the rest of his comments, or to contemplate things they might have in common. If she did, she’d end up collecting a bounty on her own head. “You might have guessed as much if you’d thought about the fact that the only way you can get me in the same room with you is to call in one of the favors I owe you.”

The devil’s eyes narrowed. “You sought me out first, Lillith Corbin. Remember that. I would have remained in blissful ignorance of your existence if you hadn’t sought me out.”

Lillith saw a spark of genuine anger in his eyes and fought the urge to shift her weight to the balls of her feet. Fight or flight. Either way his mood shifted, she wanted to be ready; but in the meantime, maybe focusing him back on the business at hand would diffuse the situation long enough for her to walk out with her intestines and her dignity intact.

That was her definition of a win.

“And here I am, seeking you out again,” she said, “only this time I heard that you wanted to see me. Any truth to the rumors?”

Samael’s fingers tapped out a wave on the arm of his chair. His black eyes studied her from beneath narrowed lids. Lilli could feel the air pressure increase as he weighed whether or not to let her disrespectful demeanor go for now. She knew perfectly well she should have curbed her tongue, but that was a skill she’d never managed to master. The only excuse she could muster was that her mouth was just as sharp around those she did respect as those she didn’t. It wasn’t like she was playing favorites.

Maybe she’d have that engraved on her memorial.

“A possession of mine has gone missing,” he answered abruptly. “You will determine where it is and retrieve it for me.

That didn’t sound so bad, which immediately made Lilli suspicious.

“What kind of possession? I collect bounty on bodies, not souls, remember.”

“Yes, you are quite the puritan, aren’t you?” He swiveled in his chair and snapped his fingers. Immediately, the basin at the foot filled with water that begin to froth and churn even though the motor for the built-in jets remained silent. Samael slid his feet in and leaned back. “You needn’t worry, however. This is merely a book—a folio, actually. Early medieval, I believe. Vellum, illuminated, and bound in leather. It looks something like this.”

A wave of his hand and Lilli found herself blinking at an image of a large volume hovering in the air near her head. It looked old, the leather scuffed and cracked in places, worn smooth and slick in others. The image revolved slowly, showing her the thick spine, the uneven, hand-cut edges of the thick, vellum sheets. When the cover turned back, she could see the ancient, golden color of the animal skin pages, the still vivid red and blue inks of the illustrations, the faded black of the careful, stylized script. She could just imagine the robe-clad scribe, bent over the pages, carefully copying line after line of text in the light of the unfiltered sun and smoky tallow candles. She could almost smell the smoke.

Shaking her head, she looked away from Samael’s spell and lifted an eyebrow. “What kind of book is it?”

The devil’s brow mirrored hers. “Does that matter? It’s not ensorcelled to imprison a human soul, if that’s what your suspicious nature wants to know.”

It was.

“What about other kinds of souls?”

Samael made an impatient sound. “It’s not ensorcelled at all. Not cursed, not bespelled, not warded. For all I know, it’s not even charmed. It’s just a book.”

“Then why do you care about getting it back?”

His black eyes fixed on her, and Lilli had to struggle not to meet that gaze. She focused hard on an angelic golden curl of hair that tumbled over his temple and curled an inch above his cheekbone. Her life would have been easier if she could have looked into his eyes and read the truth of his statements for herself, but even if she had possessed that kind of gift (which wasn’t one generally passed on to offspring by generals in the armies of Hell), Lilli knew better than to attempt to use it on Samael. She already knew what she would see if she looked into his eyes—seduction, pain, pleasure, death. Lucifer, his master. The great abyss of evil of which Samael was only a small, pretty part.

She swallowed hard, counted the strands that made up the golden curl, and waited.

“It was mine,” he said, anger and avarice tangling in the rough silk of his voice. “I keep what is mine, and I do not allow it to leave me. No one steals from me.”

Chains, hot and black and heavy, rattled in the back of Lilli’s mind. She pushed the sound away and closed her nostrils to the smell of brimstone. Suddenly, only one more question mattered to her, so she asked it without artifice.

“And if I get it back for you, our bargain will be fulfilled?”

“Once the book is in my hands, you’ll never have to see me again, dear Lillith.” A smile slithered across his face. “Unless, of course, you discover you miss me.”

Lilli caught the snort before it escaped. Fat chance. She’d miss a cancerous tumor before she’d miss this dysfunctional little relationship of theirs. The glimpse of freedom he dangled before her tempted her like nothing she’d ever seen, and he promised all she’d have to do was return his book to him.

Just a book.

It was too easy, a voice inside her whispered. Much too easy, and too uncomplicated. Why would he be willing to use his last favor on so trivial a task? And for something as mundane as a book? No matter how old or rare, could there possibly be any book valuable enough to matter to Samael this much? But did she really care? After all, if she did this, her bargain would be fulfilled. She’d be free of the devil and the weighty stain their association left on her conscience. Could she afford to overlook that opportunity?

Was she overthinking this?

“Fine,” she said, pushing aside the doubts and straightening away from the counter. “I’ll get your book back. And when it’s done. I’ll expect to see our contract dissolved. Burning it works for me.”

His smile taunted her. “You know how I feel about fire, sweetheart. It always turns me on.”

Lilli grimaced against the wave of nausea that rolled in her stomach and turned toward the exit. “I’ll contact you tomorrow for the details on when and where the book was last seen and who else might be interested in it. You’ll have it as soon as I can get my hands on it.”

“Excellent.” His voice followed her as she pushed open the door and gulped the fresh, un-devil-tainted air. “You have three days. Always a pleasure doing business with you, Lillith.”

He tossed something at her, and she caught it reflexively even before his words managed to sink in.

Lilli stopped dead, her feet seeming to sink into the pavement as if it had turned to quicksand. She shrieked out the words before her brain could catch up with her mouth. “Three days?!”

Eyes wide, she spun around and pushed hard at the nail salon’s etched glass door, determined to let Samael know what she thought of that ridiculous deadline. The only problem was that the door refused to budge. Probably because it no longer existed.

In the place of the nail salon’s entrance, Lilli found herself facing a solid brick wall with a rather crude and physically implausible suggestion scrawled across it in bright blue spray paint. The door, the salon, and the devil were nowhere to be seen. She cursed a blue streak.

In her hand, the thing he’d thrown at her seemed to throb mockingly.

Lilli looked down. She’d caught it when the devil had thrown it, more out of reflex than intent. God knew she didn’t like to take gifts from Hell-spawn like that, but when she studied the small pewter pendant suspended from a thin, silver chain, she knew this was most definitely not a gift. It was a hangman’s noose.

Formed in exquisite detail was a miniature hourglass. The pewter casing had been etched to look like scales on every surface, but the clear glass inside was pristine and perfect, showcasing every single grain of crimson sand that fell from one chamber to the other.

A line from her favorite movie musical popped into her mind, and Lilli guessed her expression probably mirrored the one she’d seen a dozen times on Marlon Brando’s as she slipped the chain around her neck and let the clock start running.

“Daddy,” she quoted on a groan, “I just got cider in my ear.”

TWO

Aaron Bullard’s hands shook as he turned from the photo in the text on his left, removed his glasses, and polished the lenses on the tail of his rumpled shirt. They continued to shake as he shoved his already mussed brown hair away from his forehead and replaced the rectangular frames before his wide, bewildered, muddy-green eyes. They didn’t even stop when he stared down at the delicate ancient volume spread out on the desk before him. Could it possibly be true?

For a minute he wondered frantically if he’d just been working too long, as usual, poring over lists and catalogs and books for an hour or four too many. He couldn’t possibly have just made the discovery of his obscure and geeky career in the basement of his Uncle Alistair’s dilapidated old house.

But he had.

His secret hope and worst nightmare had just been simultaneously confirmed—the leather-bound tome he’d found secreted behind a collection of inconsequential eighteenth-century herbals on the bottom shelf of his late uncle’s occult library was indeed the world’s only surviving copy of Valterum’s Praedicti Arcanum.

Arcane Prophecies. The legendary playbook for the end of the world. The script that told how the devils of the underworld would start a war that would bring humanity to its knees and enslave the mortal population into eternal torment.

Wow, didn’t that sound like fun.

Blowing out a breath, Aaron rubbed his hand over his face, scrunched his eyes closed, and mumbled another curse, but when he looked back at the table, nothing had changed. He really had found the Prophecies, and Uncle Alistair had had it all along.

Christ.

Aaron tried to remember if his uncle had ever mentioned anything. He didn’t think so. After all, Aaron had been obsessed with the text for almost fifteen years; surely he’d remember if Alistair had ever said anything about owning it. He’d have leapt on the chance to examine it like a terrier on a barn rat. Provided, of course, that he’d believed the story.

Alistair Gerrald Eratosthenes Carruthers had been a remarkable storyteller. As a child, Aaron had begged his mother’s eccentric older brother to tell him stories every time the man had come to visit. He’d thrilled to the tales of Alistair’s occult experiments, his magical discoveries, and his adventures as a demonologist and defender of mankind. Of course, at the time, Aaron had been about seven, tops. By the time he hit the ripe old age of ten, his parents had taken him aside and explained to him in words a child could understand that his beloved Uncle Alistair was a total crackpot.

Oh, the man had been a renowned occultist, a gifted sorcerer, and a devoted researcher in the field of demonology, but he’d also possessed a wide streak of dramatics. He’d often become so caught up in his own stories that he forgot which parts of them had actually—technically—happened. An embellishment here or there was completely understandable, but in the most exciting of Alistair’s stories, the embellishments tended to obscure the facts of the matter. In fact, in the best tales, there was very little fact at all. Once Aaron understood all this, he had treated those stories very differently. He had still asked Alistair to tell them when they were stuck inside because of rain or snow or childhood groundings, but at some point, he had stopped really listening to much of what came out of his uncle’s mouth. Could that be how he’d missed something like this?

Well, he had no intention of missing anything now. Aaron leaned forward, reached for the corner of a fragile, vellum page, and cursed under his breath. In his excitement, he’d nearly forgotten all the years of his training and touched the manuscript with his bare hands. Some curator of rare books and manuscripts he was acting like. A wave of his hand and a tweak of his will and white cotton gloves appeared on his fingers.

He’d heard of the Prophecies, of course; he couldn’t think of a single witch, wizard, sorcerer, demonologist, or occult historian who hadn’t. Written by a ninth-century magician living somewhere in what was now Germany, the codex was reported to contain a record of prophecies that had been spoken ages before by a greatly respected oracle of the ancient world. Most experts had long assumed it had been lost or destroyed centuries ago, though rumors of it popping up in esoteric collections or middle eastern caves did crop up occasionally, only to be almost immediately disproved. Aaron himself had written an undergraduate thesis on this very book during his days in the Yale history department. Never, not in his wildest dreams, had he ever expected to see it, to touch it. To own it.

The knowledge hit him like a shot of single malt, heating his belly with excitement that spread faster than the glow of a good scotch. Uncle Alistair had left Aaron not only his house and his modest life savings, but also his extensive and eclectic collection of occult items. From the skull of Ezekiel of Bramley (a well-known magician, anatomist, and unfortunately poor alchemist who had been killed when the iron demon he’d summoned with the intention of transmuting it into gold had burst into flame and ignited the cottage around them), to the brass dog bowl owned by Pope Eugene III and supposedly blessed by St. Bernard himself, Aaron had inherited it all. Including the library.

Including the Prophecies.

God, he couldn’t wait to read them.

He swallowed a sudden mouthful of saliva and turned to the first page of the codex to stare in wonder at the sight before him. The first quarter of the page was filled by an intricate drawing of a serpent, huge and thick and crowned on each of three massive heads by a pair of wickedly sharp horns and sets of razor sharp teeth. The detail in the illustration almost made him see the gleam of venom on each curved fang and smell the taint of blood and death in each gaping mouth. The serpent’s red-and-black body coiled around an enormous capital letter C, twining in and out of the open curve. Dark smudges of black appeared to spread from its body to stain the vivid blue of the letter. In the background, lush greenery sprang up from bloody soil, but rather than looking alive and fertile, the vegetation managed to embrace and oppress the viewer as if drawing him into the page and suffocating him in moist, humid decomposition.

As his eyes moved across the page, they caught the first few Latin words, and he could almost hear them echoing in his mind in a deep, rumbling, oily voice. The imagined sound of it made him feel somehow compelled and tainted all at once. It hissed in his ear, until he could feel something inside him shrink back in horror …

Caveo rex malefic—

Blinking, Aaron drew back from the page and shook his head to clear it. Sheesh. He really had been working too hard. The words were just words, the picture just color and lines on tightly stretched and conditioned sheepskin. If he could read sinister intent into any of that, he clearly needed a break—a few hours of sleep, maybe a shower, and a cup or seven of coffee.

He pushed back from the desk, a huge, tall affair he imagined his uncle had gotten from either a British headmaster’s office or the Jolly Green Giant. It offered more space than any one person could possibly need, but the lack of drawers on both sides indicated that it wasn’t meant to seat two. Which was a good thing, Aaron decided, since currently every square inch of it was piled with books and papers and mostly empty mugs of the coffee he’d just decided he needed.

“Good idea,” he muttered to himself and headed up the stairs into the kitchen of the old Queen Anne-style mansion. He would put on a new pot of coffee, stretch his legs for a minute, let his eyes focus on something other than dense reference texts and oddly compelling illuminations. Maybe he’d even check the answering machine or bring the newspaper in from the front porch, just to make sure the rest of the world was still out there. When he was working, he tended to lose track.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he turned the lights on with a flick of his will, but lit the ancient gas stove and assembled the makings for coffee by hand. There was no rhyme or reason to his use of magic for mundane tasks. He used it when he remembered, or maybe more when he didn’t remember, but he didn’t neglect to use it for any particular reason. He filled the kettle with water and the French press with coffee grounds manually because he liked the ritual of it, but if he’d been in a hurry, he might just as easily have conjured a full mug of brewed coffee with magic. Neither method broke or obeyed any rules; he’d always figured the Elders who made and administered the Laws of Magic had bigger things to worry about than whether or not people with power chose to tie their shoelaces by hand or by wand.

Aaron raised his hands high over his head and linked his fingers together, gloves disappearing as he pressed his palms toward the ceiling. While he waited for the water to boil, he stretched cramped and tired muscles until he felt his vertebrae realign themselves with a series of satisfying cracking sounds.

God, that felt good. He let his arms swing back to his sides and reached for the kettle just as the spout began to whistle. The scent that rose from the mingling of water and coffee nearly made him weep with gratitude. Just the fumes infused him with a renewed burst of energy. In a few swallows, he figured he’d be ready to head back downstairs and translate some pages. As he recalled, the last time the Prophecies had been compared to actual events for accuracy had been just after the martyrdom of Joan of Arc. It would be fascinating to see if anything since 1431 had happened the way the oracle had predicted—

Thump.

Aaron froze, mug just inches from his lips. What the hell had made that noise? He had heard a noise, hadn’t he?

Scrape.

That had definitely been a noise. And it had come from the basement.

Shit.

Probably the cat, he told himself. The ancient and portly tabby, who had lived with Uncle Alistair for as long as Aaron could remember, didn’t get around with much grace anymore. Last night while Aaron had been relaxing in the living room and watching a movie, it had attempted the jump from the coffee table to the sofa, and landed on his shoe with an indignant yowl. He hadn’t noticed it downstairs when he’d been working earlier, but it did tend to trail around wherever he was, as if it missed human company. Most likely it had tried to climb the stairs and tripped over its own belly.

Setting the coffee aside, Aaron began to ease back toward the basement door. The noise had almost certainly been the cat, but it never hurt to make sure.

He really hoped it wouldn’t hurt.

A burglar would have to be insane to break into this house, he told himself. The only thing that kept it from looking like it had been condemned back in the fifties were the lights he turned on to keep from tripping over the threadbare rugs as he walked from room to room. The lot around it was overgrown; the house’s paint was peeling, its shutters falling, its porch steps rotting. And the battered pickup truck outside that he’d used to haul away the armoire Alistair had left to his sister shouldn’t have raised any hopes. Anyone who thought there was something worth stealing in this dump would have been sadly mistaken.

It had to be the cat.

Aaron eased down the stairs, sticking close to the edges where the joists still held strong and were less likely to creak. At first, the walls at the top of the stairs blocked his view of the space below, and he could see little but the pool of golden light cast by the lamp above the desk that he’d left burning when he went upstairs. Then, as he reached the seventh step, the room opened up to his right and he could see what had made the noise.

He blinked, froze, blinked again, and felt the breath in his lungs seize up like setting cement. In front of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase that lined the back wall of the cellar stood a woman, dressed all in black, with long hair so thick and black he took it at first for some sort of hood worn as part of a disguise. More than the hair told him she was a woman. The position she was in helped, especially where her otherwise loose trousers stretched taut and cozy over a round, heart-shaped ass that should never have been allowed on a burglar. Her indented waist and the sleek curve of her side gave him another clue beneath the snug, long-sleeved knit top she wore. All in all, the picture she presented made him wonder if she wore that body as the chief tool, or weapon, in her arsenal, because if so, he imagined she had to be the most successful criminal since the invention of crime.

Oblivious to his presence, she scanned the shelves with silent efficiency and the focused air of someone looking for something particular. When she got to the lower shelves, she shifted into a crouch, which simultaneously stretched her trousers even tighter across that mouth-watering bottom and caused the curtain of her hair to shift and the strands to part, revealing to him the curve of her jaw and the sleek, pale shell of her ear. The delicate lines seemed suddenly almost as erotic as her ass, and Aaron realized that if he didn’t draw breath again soon, he’d announce his presence to her by passing out from lack of oxygen and tumbling into a blue-tinged pile of stupid on the floor at her feet.

The air he sucked in nearly choked him when she stood and turned toward his desk, giving him his first look at her face. Not to mention the front of her body, which sported sweetly rounded breasts accentuated by a gleaming pendant that dangled between them on a thin silver chain. He figured he might have been more distracted by that body if he hadn’t immediately noticed that it was decorated with pockets and straps of leather that seemed to contain a whole host of weapons even more lethal than her figure, including a gun, a compact nightstick, three small throwing daggers, and a pair of knives that appeared at least as long as his forearms.

She also had a pair of wide, thickly lashed eyes the disconcerting copper color of flame.

Even as he watched, something must have alerted her to his presence, because she stiffened almost imperceptibly a moment before the gaze from those unsettling eyes fixed on him and went as clear and hard as amber.

“Well, shit,” he thought he heard her mutter, but then it got very hard to concentrate due to the matte black and lethally sharp dagger she sent hurtling toward his chest.

THREE

Lilli cursed her luck, Samael, devil’s bargains, medieval manuscripts, and interfering homeowners all at once, and all without opening her mouth. She should have known it couldn’t possibly be as easy as it had sounded. Even with the hourglass she wore cheerfully marking the time, it had taken her barely more than a day and a half to determine who had Samael’s missing book and where it was likely being kept, almost as if the thief hadn’t even bothered to cover his tracks. Another twelve hours and she’d been able to find out enough about the guy to decide that, even with the ridiculous timeline Samael had given her, she would be able to pull off this job in her sleep. Then, if that hadn’t tipped her off, her sources had told her the thief had died almost a month ago, just days after he must have taken the book to begin with. It played like some sort of cosmic coincidence.

She didn’t believe in coincidence.

She also didn’t believe in walking into any situation blind, which was why she’d lived to the ripe old age of twenty-eight still breathing and still in possession of all her limbs. Lilli had done her research on Alistair Carruthers. The man had been born into a very old magical family, but one whose family tree had stopped sprouting much new growth. He had only one sibling, a significantly younger sister, and his father and grandfather had both been only children. As far as Lilli had been able to tell, he had no aunts, uncles, cousins, or other relatives to speak of. He didn’t even have any children, having never married and apparently having been so devoted to his work and hobbies that she hadn’t even been able to find much in the way of a dating history. He’d lived alone and apparently died alone, and judging by the appearance of the house he’d died in, Lilli had assumed no one had very much cared.

She’d been expecting to find an empty house that no one would mind her breaking into, much less making off with one small book and none of the family silver (okay, a big book, but she wasn’t even going to look for the electronics). She hadn’t expected a tall, lean, rumpled-looking man wearing faded jeans that were worn at the seams, a Ramones t-shirt, a battered flannel button-down, and black-rimmed eyeglasses that made him look like a nerd and a face from a GQ cover at the same time.

She also hadn’t expected him to try to sneak up on her from the main floor of the house. That was why she threw the knife at him, she guessed. It was reflex. Most of the time, the things sneaking up on her didn’t have her best interests at heart, so she could be forgiven for trying to stop theirs.

The man on the stairs, though, he didn’t look very forgiving. He looked intent, then startled, then angry as he raised his own hand just as her fingers released their grip on the knife. With the flat of his palm, he slapped at the air in front of him, and her knife screeched to a halt, quivering as if it had impacted on wood and buried itself to the hilt. Only it hadn’t hit anything. It hovered in mid-air for a second, then dropped to the floor with a clatter. Clearly, Alistair Carruthers hadn’t been the only sorcerer to live in this house. Instinctively, she reached for a second blade, and the man on the stairs threw himself toward her with a growl completely at odds with his computer geek appearance.

The impact didn’t feel very geeky, either. It felt solid and heavy and knocked her ass-over-elbows onto the very hard and dusty concrete floor. Who would have guessed that all that solid muscle lurked under such worn and rumpled cloth?

Lilli didn’t pause to ponder the incongruity. Instead, she let the momentum of the impact and the fall send her into a roll that should have let her reverse their positions and put the sorcerer on the bottom with her knees planted on his elbows. Somehow, it didn’t happen that way.

The man reacted faster than a light switch, leaning into the roll until it became a sort of crocodilian death spin that sent them all the way across the floor until the immovable object known as the cellar wall brought them to an abrupt stop. Lilli squirmed to keep herself from being pinned between the man and the concrete. She sent an elbow toward his face, swearing when he jerked back so that the blow that should have shattered his cheekbone bounced off the edge of his jaw instead.

He countered with hands that moved faster than they had any right to. They reached for her wrists, and she took advantage of the distance his recoil from her attack had put between their torsos, twisting her upper body and planting her hands flat on the floor.

Lilli braced herself and executed a straining push-up against the weight of his body pinning her legs. She couldn’t get her hips more than a couple of inches off the ground, but that was all she needed. Grunting with strain, she lowered her head and pushed her hips back into his chest, using the leverage to drag her legs free. As soon as she felt the cool air on her calves, she swung her lower body around and flipped herself to her feet, wincing when the pendant swung up and smacked her between the eyes. Her movement shoved the man off balance, and he lurched backward with a curse to land on his butt a few feet away.

Adrenaline propelled her forward. She had her misericorde drawn and the edged blade pressed to his throat before she stopped to think, but not before he spoke a hoarse, curt word. A second later her hand seemed to slip involuntarily, sending the long knife clattering to the floor.

Jerking back, Lilli balanced herself on her haunches and cast a wary glance from her adversary to the knife and back again. Her blade had been warded, so for him to disarm her would have taken some serious mojo. It also would have required that he cast his defensive spell not on her weapon, but on the hand that held it. She’d remember that trick in the future, and she’d sure as hell be buying herself a pair of warded gloves just as soon as she got out of here. In the meantime, she needed to keep from getting her ass kicked.

Quickness counted in this kind of situation, and it looked like Lilli had that advantage over her opponent. She executed a quick pirouette on one heel, sweeping the other leg out in front of her and knocking the man’s legs out from under him just as he tried to scramble to his feet. He hit the concrete with a grunt. Shifting forward, Lilli planted her palms on the floor and vaulted herself back onto her feet. She intended to throw herself right back into the fray, but something stopped her.

Across the space that separated them, Lilli met the man’s grim, hazel gaze, then watched it shift to his left. She followed his sightline and felt a surge of excitement when she saw what he was looking at. On top of the disordered desk across from the bottom of the stairs lay a huge leather-bound manuscript of certain antiquity. Lilli recognized it instantly from the images Samael had shown her. She’d been right; the Praedicti codex was in this house and almost in her grasp. She could practically taste her freedom. Between her breasts, the pendant seemed to pulse with anticipation.

Renewed determination flowed into Lilli. Jerking her attention back to the last obstacle in her path, she launched herself into an attack. Two lunging steps built her momentum so that when the man in front of her finally gained his feet, one of hers instantly whipped around and plowed straight into his stomach.

That was the idea, anyway. To her surprise, he reacted with unexpected speed, sweeping his arm down to knock her ankle up and away from its target. A quick balance adjustment allowed her to keep her feet, but it cost her a couple of steps backward. Raising her hands into a defensive posture, she danced forward until she came within arm’s length of him and punched the heel of her hand up toward his nose.

Again, he moved quickly. He slid to the side and turned his head in time with her blow so that the impact softened and glanced off his cheekbone instead of sending shards of bone and cartilage up into his sinus cavities. Before Lilli could follow through with the other hand, the man in front of her stepped back and began to mutter something under his breath.

ShitshitshitSHIT!

Again with the magic. Lilli did not intend to stand around and let someone cast spells on her, no matter what job she was here to do and no matter how much his glasses made her contemplate what it would be like to try to fog over the lenses. Quickly, she looked from the magician to the manuscript and calculated a few angles in her head.

Here goes nothing, she thought as she lowered her head and took a deep breath.

Several things happened in the next moment: the sorcerer in front of her raised his right hand and aimed his open palm at Lilli’s chest; Lilli bent her knees, gathered her strength, and threw herself into a flying somersault in the direction of the desk; and the open manuscript of the Praedicti Arcanum seemed to rustle its pages with a restless air of discontent.

“What the hell?” she heard the man—now behind her—roar as she landed hard where a wheeled desk chair had been sitting, sending the seat spinning and the entire chair rolling crazily into the far wall.

Not bothering to look around, Lilli made a grab for the book and gave a breathless cry of frustration when a body slammed into her back and pinned her to the surface of the short filing cabinet beside the desk. She tried to scramble forward, her fingers stretching toward the book, but a large, masculine hand attached to an arm with much greater reach shot past hers and shoved the manuscript off the other side of the desk. She cursed as she heard it thud to the ground.

Ironically, so did the man on top of her.

“I. Need. That. Book!” she grunted and shot her elbow back into her attacker’s ribcage.

She heard the dull thunk of the impact and his hoarse shout of pain, but the bastard didn’t move. That pissed her off. Gritting her teeth, Lilli pushed her hands into the top of the cabinet and tried to gauge her amount of wiggle room. With his hips pinning hers and his abdomen pressing down on her lower back, she didn’t have much.

Still, a girl always had options. Letting him take her weight, Lilli lifted her feet off the floor, spread her legs, and hooked her feet around the backs of her opponent’s knees. At the same time, she arched backward, raised her hands off the cabinet, reached back, and boxed his ears firmly.

The man behind her roared in pain, surprise jerking him backward. Unfortunately, with Lilli’s feet hooked around his knees, he couldn’t step back. He lost his balance and toppled onto his ass, curses ripe enough to peel paint coloring the air around him. Lilli tried to untangle her legs from his before he hit the ground, but gravity moved faster than she did. She landed on top of him and rolled off immediately.

Tucking her knees under her body, she attempted to hurry to her feet, her hands reaching automatically for her second misericorde when the magician’s fingers shot out and shackled her left wrist, pinning it to the floor. His other hand pressed against the center of her chest while the tip of her sharp, narrow blade pressed hard against his, directly above his heart.

Stalemate.

“You might be able to stick that knife in my heart before I can stop you,” he panted, his breathing as hard and rough as hers, “but I’m not sure you want to bet on it.”

Lilli hesitated. Was speed really the question here? She had no desire to kill this man for the sake of a damned book, even less when she thought about who had sent her after the book in the first place. She had taken this job as a way to free herself from Samael once and for all; if she killed for him, he’d own a piece of her for eternity.

Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t bluff.

“I like to gamble,” she said, deliberately stripping her voice of all emotion, making it hard and cold and deadly. “People tell me I have the devil’s own luck.”

“Go for it then. If you think you can beat me to the punch, why don’t you demonstrate?”

Lilli frowned. “You want me to kill you?”

“I already said I’m not sure you can.”

His voice sounded taunting, but his eyes were deep and serious. There was something in them that tugged at her. Lilli had been a hunter for years; she’d been in situations once or twice where she’d had to kill something, so she’d seen what eyes looked like when the light went out of them. She didn’t want to see his eyes that way.

“What are you waiting for?” he demanded. “If you think you’re that fast, prove it. Try to kill me.”

Cursing, she turned aside her blade so that the flat of it pressed against the man’s faded black t-shirt. From behind the desk nearby, she almost thought she heard a rumble of discontent.

“You first,” she snapped, jerking her wrist free of his surprised grip.

Slowly, cautiously, the man took his hand away from his threatening position over her heart and pushed himself into a sitting position. “How about you answer a few questions for me before I make up my mind?”

“Name, rank, and serial number?”

He shook his head. “Maybe later. But first, why don’t you tell me what you want with the Praedicti Arcanum?”

FOUR

Aaron watched the woman’s face as he pushed to his feet and took careful note of the emotions expressed there.

“Personally?” she asked. “Not a damned thing.”

She didn’t appear to be lying, but that didn’t make sense. “I saw you make a grab for it, and I assume that’s why you’re here. Are you a professional thief?”

“At the moment, what I am is damned sore.” The woman rose—her five feet and six inches looking much more impressively feminine when they weren’t concentrating on breaking his bones—and slapped her hands against her flanks, sending a cloud of dust flying from the seat of her pants. “You might not look like a linebacker, but you pack a hell of a punch when you’ve got gravity on your side.”

Aaron fought back a surge of pride at that. He’d never been a terribly physical guy, and he’d been afraid that he was the only one who felt like he’d just failed to outrun the bulls in Pamplona.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” he said. “Are you some kind of professional burglar, or is breaking and entering a hobby of yours?”

She appeared to consider that for a minute before she answered. “No, more of an occupational hazard.”

“In what occupation?” he demanded, attempting to mask his confusion with impatience. “What exactly is it that you do?”

“I’m an authorized Appearance Enforcement Agent.”

“A what?”

She sighed as if she’d expected the question and yet had been hoping not to hear it. “I’m a bounty hunter.”

“A bounty hunter?” he repeated incredulously. When in God’s name had he entered a surreal parallel universe? “I’m obviously missing something. How about we start again? I’m Aaron Bullard, and this is my uncle’s house. Who the hell are you and why did you break in and try to steal the Praedicti Arcanum?”

“Lilli Corbin.” She gestured to the knife she’d dropped in their earlier struggle and raised an eyebrow. “Do you mind if I pick that up?”

“That depends on what you’re planning to do with it.”

“Just put it away. I promise. The blade is warded, and I’d hate to lose it.”

Aaron couldn’t say he felt completely reassured, but he nodded his permission and only twitched a little when she picked up the misericorde. Sliding it into the sheath along her leg, she even went so far as to resnap the hilt guard. How much more could a guy ask?

“Now what about question number two?” he prompted when she seemed content to keep quiet.

Lilli frowned. “What?”

“You never answered my second question,” he said, folding his arms over his chest and fixing her with his fiercest stare. “Why did you break in and try to steal the Praedicti Arcanum?”

Damn, he had a good memory.

Lilli took a good look at the man in front of her and weighed her options. In her experience, people often reacted negatively to hearing you were working for a Prince of Hell, and she really had no desire to tussle with this guy again. He might look like a bit of a wimp, but he was surprisingly wiry. And intriguingly hard. She’d hate to tell him the truth and then have to knock him upside the head and steal the book while he was unconscious. Not to mention that, given the demonstrations he’d offered earlier, she thought she’d do well not to underestimate his magical abilities. A power blast to the head would not improve her mood for the remainder of the evening.

On the other hand, she was disinclined to lie. Telling the truth made her life easier, so Lilli always tried to stick to it where possible. It kept her from forgetting which lie she’d told earlier, and given the sort of company she tended to keep when she was on a job, a secret part of her had always assumed she had less wiggle room than the next guy when it came to keeping a pure soul. She also just flat-out revolted at the idea of lying for Samael, which was what this would feel like since he’d been the one who sent her here in the first place.

Maybe, this time, omission was the better part of valor.

Actually, the last thing she wanted was for there to be a next time. Her new mantra was “Get it over with!” She might even work it into a tattoo, one that featured an hourglass that seemed to run faster the closer she got to her goal.

Time to lay the tarot cards on the table.

“I was hired to retrieve the book by a client who claims that it was stolen from him.”

Aaron barked out a laugh. “You’re trying to tell me that you think Uncle Alistair was a thief? Lady, I don’t know who your ‘client’ is, but you need to go back and explain to him that my uncle wasn’t the type to cheat on his taxes, let alone steal from someone. You’ve come to the wrong place.”

Lilli watched his face as he spoke. He clearly believed what he said. In fact, his expression so clearly telegraphed his thoughts, she had a fleeting hope that he never acquired a taste for gambling. He’d suck at poker.

“Actually, I don’t think I have,” she said steadily. “I’m not a take-his-word-for-it kind of girl. I did a little research before I came out here, and from what I hear, Alistair Carruthers was asking some pretty detailed questions in the last couple of weeks before he died. The kind that wouldn’t just tell him what the manuscript was and where to find it, but the kind that could help him decide what to do with it if he happened to have it in his possession.”

Aaron shrugged, but a crease had appeared between his brows. It gave him an intent and worried sort of look. “So what? Asking questions about something has nothing to do with owning it. I can ask questions about the Book of Kells, but I think Trinity College and the Irish government would have something to say if I claimed to have it in my basement.”

Hm, he had books on his mind, did he? Maybe that was a sign. “Oh, and did you visit Dublin just a few days before they noticed the book was missing?”

He stilled. He hadn’t been moving, but stillness suddenly gripped him like a fist, tightening before her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

Lilli hesitated only a second before she laid it all out. No guts, no glory. “My client claims that he has evidence that Alistair Carruthers was on his property a few weeks before his death. He would have had ample opportunity to find and take the codex and to conceal it before my client got around to noticing its absence.”

“If that’s true, then it’s likely any number of people would have also had access and opportunity in that same time frame. How does your ‘client’ intend to prove that my uncle was the one who actually stole it?”

“Um, I’m not sure he’s really worried about offering proof …”

“Well, he should be. Unless he’s prepared to produce a bill of sale or some other documentation of his claim of ownership, I doubt there’s a court in existence that would support a claim of theft and order the artifact be returned to him.”

She snorted. “Record keeping is not my client’s forte. Mr. Bullard, while I didn’t see a bill of sale, my research turned up no evidence proving your uncle’s ownership, either; so I have no reason to dispute S—, um, my client’s claim.”

“Well, I do. I know my uncle, and I know he was not a thief. I’ve seen the man give back a penny of change to a store clerk if it was a penny too much. His family has lived in this town since it was founded. Heck, his family founded it. Honor and honesty were everything to him. But he was supposed to have broken into your mysterious client’s house and made off with an item as valuable and unique as the Praedicti? I have no reason to doubt that my uncle came by his ownership of the text in a completely innocent and above-board manner.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you some kind of lawyer?”

“No, a curator. Why?”

“No reason.” Lilli shifted and sighed. “Look, this obviously isn’t getting us real far. I came here to get the book. I was hoping I could do that quickly and discreetly, but we both know that didn’t happen. Now, we could turn this into a legal battle and pit you against my client and let you two duke it out to see who can prove they really own the thing, but I doubt anyone would want to do that. My client wants the manuscript. I have a feeling he’s willing to do a lot to get it. Why don’t you tell me how much you want to sell it back to him? I’ll run the number by him and see what we can do.”

“I don’t think I feel comfortable with that. Not when I know so little about your client. You haven’t even told me his name. He could be completely the wrong sort of person to allow to take control of the Praedicti.”

“There’s a right sort of person?”

“Absolutely.” When she opened her mouth below a rather offended glare, he bowled right over her. “You’ve already admitted that I know more about the codex than you do. Given the context of this conversation, I’m going to take it to mean that you also fail to understand what exactly the Praedicti is capable of.”

“It’s a book. I pretty much figured it was capable of lying there and being read.”

“And that’s it?”

She scowled. “I already made sure that it wasn’t cursed or enchanted in any way. And it’s obviously not a spellbook. So what else could it do? Prophecies don’t cause future events, they just speculate on what they might be.”

“In general, yes, that would be the definition of predictions; but the predictions in this book aren’t general. They are highly specific and are divided into two groups: the first set predicts events like the spread of the plague across Europe, the Norman Conquest, even the execution of Joan of Arc.”

“Right. I don’t see how that’s the sort of thing that becomes dangerous in the wrong hands.”

He ignored her. “The second set predicts the course and outcome of a great apocalypse brought about by the unleashing of the fury of Hell upon the mundane world.”

“The Revelation of St. John does the same thing,” she pointed out impatiently.

“Yes, but St. John doesn’t preface his vision with a recipe for how to accomplish that unleashing.”

Lilli froze, felt herself go cold. “The Praedicti does?”

“Add a sprinkle of brimstone and bake at three-fifty until golden brown.”

She closed her eyes and groaned.

“Well, shit.”

FIVE

The coffee had gone cold while Aaron and Lilli tried to kill each other, but it didn’t take long to boil the kettle and fix another pot. Pouring a cup for each of them, Aaron set Lilli’s in front of her and then slid into his own chair across the kitchen table.

“Thanks.”

“I suggest starting at the beginning.”

“That would take way too long. There’s just too much.”

“Sum up.”

She took a drink, lingered over it, obviously stalling. “A few years ago, I was doing a job that involved tracking down a particularly bloodthirsty goblin.”

“I thought you said you were a bounty hunter.”

“I am. I specialize in non-human tracking, capture, and rendition.”

“Non-human?” Aaron repeated. “You mean visitants.”

She made a face. “I’ve always hated that term. Doesn’t it imply that they’re visiting from somewhere else? Because I can guarantee that most of what I go after is completely homegrown.”

“I think it has to do with their ability to visit to or from those planes that humans normally can’t.”

Her shoulders shifted in a shrug. “Anyway, yeah. I go after the nasties. Mostly I contract out with the police, the courts, bail bondsmen. When a non-human doesn’t show up for court or when the police lack the expertise to handle a supernatural creature, I step in and get them or return them to custody.”

Aaron nodded for her to continue.

“A few years ago, one of the things I was after—a goblin—thought he would be able to give me the slip if he beat a path into Hell.”

That made sense to Aaron. Hell was the nickname given to the parallel plane of existence inhabited and controlled by nine devil princes, immortal beings of great power and no discernible redeeming qualities. Devils lived to accumulate wealth and power, and one of the ways they did so involved the enslavement of unsuspecting humans and visitants alike. Aaron had never paid the plane a personal visit, and he intended to continue to stay very far away. If he’d been following someone who had ducked into Hell to evade him, he’d have waved goodbye and headed out for ice cream.

“Not a bad move.”

She shot him a very level glance. “I don’t give up on a case,” Lilli informed him steadily. “If I agree to bring something in, I bring it in. I don’t care where I have to go to make it happen.” She paused. “Well, okay, I care, but I don’t let it stop me. I went in after the goblin.”

Aaron shook his head. Already he could tell this story would not end happily.

“I decided to do it the smart way, though,” she told him. “Instead of just following the trail and stepping on a bunch of pointy tails, I found out which part of the pit he’d gone to and I decided to ask the prince of the area for his permission to wander around his land. And then I decided to go for broke and ask if he would be willing to ensure me safe passage until I found the goblin and left.”

“With brass balls like that, I’m surprised you don’t rattle when you walk.”

Lilli snorted. “It had less to do with balls than with a sincere desire not to have to fight my way into and out of the principality. So anyway, the prince agreed, provided I paid for the favor.”

“How?”

“I agreed to do him three favors in return,” Lilli explained her agreement with Samael, including all the restrictions she’d insisted on. “This—getting the book back for him—was supposed to be the last favor. I almost had it.”

He could hear the wistful tone in her voice and felt a stirring of sympathy. She might have broken into the house and attempted to steal part of his inheritance from his uncle, but frankly he couldn’t swear he wouldn’t have done the same if their positions were reversed. He figured he’d be willing to do whatever it took to get a devil off his back, too.

“I understand the bargain,” he said, “but how did you get into Hell to begin with? I always thought that humans had to either be summoned there or escorted by a demon or devil to get onto the plane in the first place.”

Lilli shrugged. Her gaze held steady on his, but he could see a flare of defiance in her unusually colored eyes. “Humans do, but I’m only half human. My father was a devil.”

He experienced the shock just as if he’d built up a bunch of static electricity and then grounded with a jolt. “You’re a demi?”

Her mouth tightened. “If you want to use the term. Personally, I’m not wild about it. Labels aren’t really my thing.”

Aaron could sense her discomfort with the subject, but he couldn’t stifle his curiosity. He’d never met a demi-human before. They were incredibly rare, mostly because few humans chose to associate with Hell-folk, let alone mate with them. Of course, according to the stories, choice often had very little to do with it. Often the children of human-devil matings owed more to rape than to romance. He longed to ask her about her parents, about her history, but his conscience managed to step in and rein him back.

“That must be where you got your eyes,” he said finally and a little weakly. “They were the first thing I noticed about you. Well, after I noticed you were in my house when you weren’t supposed to be, and you were armed like a Navy SEAL.”

“Yeah, the eyes are hellish. Some people get freaked out by them, but I’ve always considered myself lucky not to have inherited horns or something even worse. I knew a kid when I was growing up who had the complexion of a three-day-old corpse—kind of a greenish, purplish gray. He went to the tanning salon every damned day, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t change his skin tone. Made weird eyes seem like not much to worry about.”

Aaron shook his head. “I don’t think they’re weird. I think they’re beautiful.”

Lilli stilled and raised her eyes to his, her gaze searching his expression for the truth. “You do?”

He nodded. “I do.”

“Oh.”

She swallowed, and he watched the muscles in her throat work until the urge to lean forward and trace the movement with his tongue nearly overwhelmed him. He swayed forward, caught himself, jerked back. He cleared his throat.

“So, uh, like I was saying,” he coughed, struggling for calm, “I, uh, I think what we should do next—”

He never got to finish his sentence, ridiculous though it would have been. Not when Lilli rose slightly from her chair, leaned forward, and laid her soft, warm, expressive mouth over his and stole his breath in a kiss.

The world froze. Time may have stood still, the universe may have stopped expanding, he couldn’t be sure. All Aaron could be sure of was that sinking into Lilli’s kiss felt like coming home. He may as well have been the people of Israel, wandering the desert for forty years, and now finally entering the promised land. She tasted of coffee and strength and a subtle tang of smoke that wrapped him up in an ever-tightening ball of fascination.

Moving without thought, he rose from his seat, careful not to lose the contact with her mouth. He would rather have lost his mind, which seemed like a distinct possibility. Two shuffling steps brought him around the corner of the table toward her and more importantly allowed him to get his hands on her. He slid them around her waist, his fingers flexing on the soft, muscled warmth of her. She felt as resilient as youth and as tempting as experience. When she answered his touch with a soft sigh that filled his mouth with her flavor, he felt his body tighten and his knees go weak. She laid her hands over his, then slid her palms up his arms, kneading as she seized the opportunity to explore him.

Aaron deepened the kiss, pouring into it the mysterious, inescapable intensity that had seized him. He slid his arms around her back and explored the slim length of her spine even as his tongue explored the slick, inviting cavern of her mouth. He could feel the superb conditioning of her muscles, the hard, faintly intimidating capability of them to move, attack, defend, absorb, and carry her through places as dangerous as Hell and still guide her back to safety. But he also felt the blatant flare of her hips, the incredible, luscious femininity of the bottom he cupped in his hands and kneaded with frank appreciation.

Lilli moaned and pressed herself against him, her arms twining around his neck, slim, clever fingers burrowing into the shaggy fall of hair at his collar. He felt the scrape of her fingernails across his scalp and his head reeled, his entire body tightening and quivering as electricity jolted through him. He tugged her closer, his hands on her bottom, pressing her hips against the hardness of his erection. Instead of backing away, she rubbed against him like a cat in heat, all elastic muscle and shameless sensuality.

Christ, he couldn’t ever remember being this aroused. Not from a first kiss, that was for sure. One taste of her, and he was ready to lay her back across the table, drag those no-nonsense BDU pants down around her ankles, and sink into her up to his damned fool neck. He guessed this was what people called “chemistry.” Morons. Aaron had never in his life felt a more powerful magic.

Magic, he thought hazily as he skimmed one hand up her side to close it around the soft swell of her breast, was the only possible explanation for this madness.

But at least he wasn’t alone in his insanity. Lilli continued to press and rub against him as her mouth ate at his. It was like she was trying to climb inside him, which made perfect sense to Aaron; the only thing he could think of right now was getting inside of her.

Shifting, he pressed her half a step backward until her ass—and his very appreciative left hand—bumped against the edge of the kitchen table. He had urgent, heated, erection-swelling thoughts about whether the ancient piece of furniture would hold up to what he planned to do to her, but by then it was too late to care. Tightening his grip on her bottom, he boosted her up a few inches and nearly swallowed both their tongues when she parted her legs and wrapped them around his hips, pushing the hot, damp softness of herself against the monster in his pants. He could almost picture coming just like that, like a teenager dry humping on his parents’ sofa.

Aaron struggled for control, found the last few threads that remained, and gathered them up in a tight fist. If he didn’t get ahold of himself, he was going to last about fifteen seconds, most of which would be spent muttering apologies for his technique of shoving it in and then shaking like an earthquake while the force of this mad chemical magic overwhelmed him.

He reached for the hem of her shirt only to find that she’d beat him to it. Their kiss broke just long enough for the fabric to whisk over her head and go sailing in the direction of the refrigerator. The strange little hourglass pendant she wore dropped back to her chest with a thump, the red sand inside seeming almost to flash with inner light at the movement. Then he laid his hands on her bare skin and jewelry was the last thing on his mind.

Her skin felt like warm cream, soft and smooth and voluptuously silken beneath his fingers. At the moment, he could see a flush of pink adorning the pale expanse of it, and he wanted nothing so much as a taste …

She reached behind her and flicked open her bra clasp.

Make that a huge, greedy mouthful.

Brushing the scrap of dark fabric out of the way, Aaron cupped a soft mound in his hand and lifted it to his mouth. Bending low, he took the rosy tip between his lips and drew her inside himself, groaning in pleasure at the sweet, warm, dusky taste of her. His tongue played over the hardened nipple, teeth lightly scraping the sides until he felt her quiver under his hands.

“Aaron,” she breathed.

He released her nipple with a soft pop and dragged his lips across her chest to the other peak. He felt her fingers tighten in his hair and hoped he’d still have some by the time they were finished. Of course, shaved heads were in, he reflected, and baldness seemed like a small price to pay for something so astoundingly perfect.

Rearing back, Aaron reached for the fastening on her jeans, watching as her eyes fluttered open and blinked hazily up at him.

“Wha—?”

He leaned forward, pressed a hard, hungry kiss to her mouth and drew down her zipper. “Sh.”

Something hot passed between them, but it wasn’t until Lilli muttered something against his lips and began to press her hands into his shoulders that he realized it wasn’t their mutual attraction.

Tearing himself from the kiss, Aaron reared back and frowned down at his own chest where a black singe mark now stood out against the top of the white O in the name of the band on his shirt. “What the hell?”

Lilli wasn’t paying attention, but Aaron could hardly blame her, not when he saw the patch of livid red skin above her breastbone and the brightly glowing pendant that seemed to be causing it.

“Damn him,” she hissed, reaching for the chain with both hands and yanking it off rather than fumbling with the clasp. “He didn’t just want me keeping track of the time, the bastard; he wanted to keep track of me.”

“Ah, Lillith,” a voice purred from the shadows in the hall door, “you always were such a clever girl. You get that from your father. It’s just such a shame you won’t be able to pass it on to a child of your own one day.”

Aaron turned and instinctively placed himself between Lilli and the intruder. That earned him a smack on the shoulder blade hard enough to make him wince, but he didn’t step aside.

“Who are you?” he demanded, even though he had a sneaking suspicion he already knew the answer. Behind him, he heard the shifting of cloth as Lilli tugged her shirt back on. Good. Now at least neither of them would be naked when they were slaughtered by a devil prince.

“Didn’t you tell your new friend?” the figure asked, finally stepping forward into the light from the chandelier above the table. “Lillith, darling, I’m hurt that you wouldn’t think to mention me.”

With every step the devil took, Aaron felt more intensely the sensation of things crawling on his skin. He knew better than to look. Devils and demons often gave humans who glimpsed them the feeling of being somehow contaminated, either by insects or vermin or even acidic liquids. It was purely psychological.

At least, that’s what Aaron hoped.

“Sam,” she bit out, her voice sounding as grim as the face he glimpsed when she stepped out from behind him and squared off against the intruder. “Checking up on me already? I thought I had until dawn to run your little errand.”

The devil shrugged and propped one shoulder against the refrigerator in a negligent pose that did nothing to disguise the malevolent power he embodied. “Technically, I suppose you do, but you appear to be a little distracted. I was afraid you might have forgotten why I sent you here.”

“Not likely.”

“Really?” His black, blank gaze shifted from Lilli and Aaron to the bra she had discarded on the floor beside the table and not bothered to put back on in her haste to redress herself. “Funny. I thought you looked quite absorbed.” His gaze shifted to Aaron, focused, glittered dangerously. “Maybe if I gave your beau a few lessons in seduction you’d have better luck next time.”

Aaron’s skin gave up crawling and felt as if it were trying to leave the room at a dead run. He would have very much liked to follow it. Straight into a boiling hot shower. The idea of Samael, Prince of Hell, Lord of Deception, and Master of Depravity, teaching him anything about women held even less appeal for him than apprenticing at the hands of de Sade. He didn’t think immersing himself in a vat of full-strength bleach until his skin melted off would be enough to remove that kind of filth.

God, he thought suddenly, how the hell would he ever get this kitchen to feel clean again?

Now that he thought about it, Aaron couldn’t understand how the devil had even gotten into the house to begin with. Uncle Alistair had the place warded from attic to building site. Aaron remembered teasing him years ago about his paranoia. After all, Alistair was just researching the darker forces, he wasn’t offering to show them a good time. All the wards and charms and spells and blessings that encircled the house and gardens had seemed like overkill. Now, he couldn’t have been more grateful for them.

Fixing his eye on Samael, Aaron studied the devil closely, looking for a clue as to how he’d gotten past the guards. He didn’t appear to be harmed in any way, and he knew several of those wards were strong enough to burn a body to a crisp if they were tripped. He might have suspected that the devil had used magic of his own, but that would have been impossible. No creature could take down a ward specifically designed to keep his kind out. That was what made them effective. So how had he gotten inside?

Aaron craned his head and tried to look around the demon. That was when he noticed it. Despite the uneven light in the kitchen, Samael cast no shadow. The floor and refrigerator behind him remained blank and well-lit, which would have been impossible if the devil were actually in the room. He wasn’t; the figure Aaron and Lilli were seeing was a projection, a kind of magical hologram that looked and sounded exactly like the real thing, but had actually been created to be used as a sort of live-action attendee at a supernatural conference call. He could speak to them, and his presence could still cause them the same physical symptoms as if he were in the room, but the projection was essentially powerless. It could not touch them, and more importantly, it could not use magic against them.

Aaron let himself relax. Just a little.

“Unfortunately, your luck doesn’t seem to be holding out so well, does it?” Samael continued. He smiled, and Aaron marveled that a face so beautiful could be so chilling at the same time. “Of course, you are doing better than your dear uncle, but considering he’s dead, I don’t suppose that takes all that much effort.”

His chuckle made Aaron’s blood run cold. Something tickled at the back of his mind, something he’d heard about the Praedicti, or something he’d maybe even included in his thesis. Something about the coming of an apocalypse …

Lilli just continued to glare at her client.

“I think we’re doing just fine without your help,” she snarled.

What had it been? Aaron wondered frantically. Images flitted through his mind—a burning tower, the crack of whip, long lines of rattling chains. Was that why Samael wanted to get his hands on the codex? Did he think it would help him to bring about a war between humanity and the powers of Hell?

“If that were true, he’d already have fucked you, wouldn’t he, my dear? But then, I’ve always found that those who try too hard to resist temptation have the hardest time giving in to it. Or rather, the softest, to be frank.”

Something about an offering. Not raised up to the Gods, but lowered into the abyss.

No, not offerings, Aaron realized, feeling himself stiffen. Sacrifices. Three deaths were required to bring about the war foretold in the Praedicti. The one who possessed the book had to sacrifice three people and use their life force to crack the seals that divided the planes of Hell from the ones of mortal reality.

Aaron uttered a word so foul he hadn’t even realized he knew it. Throwing up his hands, he stepped forward and sent a stream of rage-fueled energy straight at the projection of Samael.

“Vade!” he shouted and watched as the figure of the devil straightened and snarled something in a language Aaron was glad he couldn’t understand. Then, with an ear-popping pressure vacuum and a whiff of brimstone, the projection winked out, leaving him alone in his uncle’s kitchen with Lilli.

“What the hell just happened?” she demanded, looking from the refrigerator to Aaron and scowling. “How did you make him leave?”

“It wasn’t really him,” Aaron explained, but he didn’t wait for more questions. He turned on his heel and headed straight back down the stairs and carefully retrieved the Praedicti from where it had fallen during their earlier struggle. He heard Lilli following hot on his heels, still spouting out questions about Samael and Aaron’s banishment spell, but he didn’t stop to explain. He just flipped carefully through the pages until he found the prediction he was looking for. Quickly, he skimmed the text, located the correct passage and read the Latin with a growing sense of mingled rage and dread.

“You need to forget about upstairs,” he said, cutting Lilli off mid-rant and pointing to the words he’d just read. “We’ve got much bigger things to worry about at the moment.”

“Like what?”

“Like the world as we know it is about to end, and it looks like Samael will be leading the parade that brings a new and literal meaning to the phrase ‘Hell on earth.’ ”

SIX

“Um, ex-queeze me?”

Lilli felt a bit like she’d just taken a home run swing straight to the stomach. She wondered vaguely if she looked like it as well, since she was having a hard time keeping from bending over as she struggled to get back the breath that had been knocked out of her.

Aaron gave her a sympathetic look and gestured toward the page he’d just read on the left side of the book. “This is one of the most famous prophecies in the Praedicti. Scholars have been debating it for centuries. Some of them link it to the same sort of events depicted in the Revelation of St. John of Patmos, but there have always been a few dissenters who thought that this pointed to an entirely different war between good and evil.”

Lilli took a good look at the ancient manuscript for the first time. Before, it had always been just a means to an end for her, but now she could actually appreciate the beautiful illustrations, the colors still vivid and vibrant, even after centuries had passed. Even the pages it was printed on were beautiful, more striking than the finest luxury paper she’d ever seen, still thin and delicate, yet somehow conveying the strength of all those years of survival.

“My Latin is a little rusty,” she said, bending closer and struggling to make out the antiquated script, “and I’ll never get used to u’s that look like v’s, but this looks like it’s talking about exactly the same thing as the Bible—armies of good and evil meeting in a final battle for domination of the world.”

“Okay, so there are similarities,” he said impatiently, and she couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at his dismissive understatement. “What’s important is that in this version, there’s no antichrist and no certain victory for the forces of good. According to whomever wrote this text, if this book falls into the hands of a leader on the side of evil, three human sacrifices could be used to break the seals that separate the planes of Hell from ours, and thereby unleash every kind of devil or demon that has ever plagued mankind, and every one who hasn’t. The population of the earth right now is around six billion, right? Well, there are experts out there who estimate that the legions of Hell encompass at least five times that number, all of whom have powers humans can’t even dream of, and the kind of bloodlust that makes Adolf Hitler look like a Girl Scout! And the only way to avert it for once and for all is to do the impossible—to get a righteous child of Hell to spill the blood of both human and devil. Why do they even offer that as an out? It’s completely ridiculous!”

Lilli heard every word Aaron was saying, and it wasn’t that he didn’t make a good point; it was just that when she finished reading the prophecy he was pointing out—which was much shorter than she’d imagined, really—her eyes skipped naturally to the next page, which contained a striking illumination of a medieval knight locked in battle with a huge, serpentine dragon against the backdrop of a lush garden. In the picture, the knight brandished a long, silver sword and wore only a tunic of chainmail over his regular clothes. The dragon, by contrast, appeared to be covered with thick, heavy scales that glistened almost like steel in the light of the afternoon sun.

The illustrator had made sure to indicate that this battle had not just begun, but had raged on for hours, perhaps even days. The knight’s garments were torn and stained. Debris consisting of splintered wooden shields and broken scales littered the ground at their feet, and several less stalwart knights lay dead in a heap beneath a castle wall. Once again, the theme here was good against evil, but this time, the illustration seemed to imply that good might very well win out in the end. The knight’s expression was grim and set, while the dragon’s head bobbed low, its red eyes narrowed in pain or exhaustion as blood seeped from a wound in its side. The death blow would come soon.

Around the edges of the illustration—above, below, and running down each side—were four brief paragraphs of text that appeared to discuss three different prophecies. They almost resembled the quatrains of Michel de Nostradamus: succinct, poetic, and emphatically honest. It was the one on the left side of the page that caught Lilli’s attention. Even with her shaky declensions, she recognized it as a verse and translated in her head as best she could:

Lilli frowned, then repeated the lines over in her head. Typical poetic rambling, she told herself. Most likely it meant nothing. Prophets loved to make their visions as vague as possible so that they could be interpreted to fit any given situation or outcome.

Something about this, though, niggled at the back of her mind. She read it again.

Valiant knight.

She looked back at the apocalyptic page, then back at the verse that intrigued her.

Prince both dark and fair.

As if in the distance, she could hear Aaron still talking and knew he was trying to get her attention, but she had felt an idea, still amorphous and shaky, grab hold of her and tug her insistently back to the page with the knight and dragon illustration. She quickly skimmed through the other three verses and discovered with a jolt that each of them shared a common theme—a battle between two single adversaries, one dark and one light, who would settle between them a greater dispute between their peoples. The dark warrior would have superior numbers, superior funding, and greater overall power, but the bright warrior would be able to win the battle by paying a kind of forfeit that would not only avert the coming war but would somehow undermine the loser’s ability to rise up again.

Lilli felt a sudden rush of understanding. Excited, she turned to look back at Aaron and hushed him with an impatient gesture.

“I think you’re wrong,” she said, almost laughing when Aaron recoiled as if she’d just told him she thought he was Jack the Ripper.

“I beg your pardon?”

Then she really did laugh. He sounded so indignant.

“I think you’re wrong,” she repeated, “and I’ll tell you why. I’m sure Samael would very much like to bring about the apocalypse if for no other reason than to curry favor with Lucifer. He’s always looking for a way to suck up to the head honcho, but that’s not what I think he’s after at the moment. Sam doesn’t need the book to bring about the apocalypse. If he wants to do it, all he needs is to perform the right actions in the right order and, voilà! Instant Armageddon.” She shook her head and pointed to the verses on the next page. “I think this is why he wanted the book back. Specifically, I think this is why he wanted the book away from you.”

She waited while Aaron skimmed through the verses, then looked up and shook his head. “I don’t get it. Why would Samael care about these prophecies? They have nothing to do with the apocalypse page. I don’t even think they were written by the same oracle. They’re in a completely different style, almost nursery-rhyme-ish.”

“I know, but just think about the main characters in all of them—a dark prince and a valiant knight?”

“So?”

Lilli rolled her eyes. “I think they’re referring to Samael and you.”

“What?”

“ ‘Dark prince’ is pretty self-explanatory, don’t you think? I mean, come on, that one is practically handed to us. It took me a minute to think through the ‘valiant knight, brilliant mind, acquires a page’ thing—that’s a little more esoteric—but it has to be you. You said your uncle left you the house and the contents, right? Including a whole lot of pages. Books full of them. Including this one. Because you were his favorite. He loved you.”

“But—”

Warming to her topic, Lilli didn’t let him finish. “And the brilliant mind thing is a given. I’d bet you a year’s income you’ve got an entire bowl of alphabet soup after your name. You probably got perfect scores on your SATs.”

“I still don’t see what that has to do with anything. Why would Samael care about four badly written rhymes about an interpersonal conflict between the two of us when he could be instigating a rebellion that would lead to the destruction or enslavement of the entire human race?”

Sheesh. For a smart guy, Lilli realized, Aaron could be really thick. “Because if one of these ‘badly written rhymes’ comes true first,” she explained patiently, “Samael wouldn’t be able to start a rebellion. He’d be finished, at least for the foreseeable future. And you, my friend, are the one who’s going to bring him down.”

SEVEN

Three and a half hours later, Aaron found himself standing around his uncle’s basement and feeling like an idiot while Lilli drew a huge circle on the floor with a thick stick of white chalk. Dawn was still more than an hour away, which according to Lilli meant that Samael and his hologram would leave them alone a while longer. He would pop back up once Lilli’s time ran out for retrieving the book for him, but he wouldn’t want to be caught in this realm for very long with the sun approaching. His powers were already weak on earth, and the sun would only drain him further, so he would wait until the last possible minute before he showed his face outside of Hell. When he did, the wards would keep him outside the house, unless someone invited him in.

That should give Lilli just about enough time to answer one more question for Aaron.

“Tell me again why this idea is not completely ridiculous and suicidal,” he urged, leaning against a bookcase with his arms folded defensively in front of him. He was trying not to stare at her ass while she crouched down to draw her circle, but frankly, it was an extremely fine ass, and he could still remember the way it had felt cupped in his hands upstairs.

Aaron swore and shifted. The erection he’d sported then had finally subsided and he really didn’t think now was an appropriate time for its return. Unfortunately, the fire that fed it seemed disinclined to go out as long as Lilli was anywhere within a fifty-foot radius of him. It was becoming damned inconvenient.

“I already told you, I’m sure this is going to work,” she said, setting aside her chalk while there was still about a twelve-inch gap at the base of the circle. “The prophecy says so. You’re going to kick Samael’s ass, the apocalypse will be averted, and then we can call live happily ever after and you’ll know you’re the one who made that possible. Think of the sense of satisfaction that will give you.”

“I’m too busy thinking of the sense of pain I’ll feel when Samael decapitates me with his bare hands and uses my head for an impromptu game of Hacky Sack.”

Lilli shot him a quelling look as she began to place white and black candles around the perimeter of the ten-foot-wide circle. “Your pessimism is not going to be helpful.”

Aaron threw up his hands. “You know what would be helpful here? Automatic weapons. Before today, I was always an advocate of strong gun control laws. No one needs a machine gun to defend themselves unless they’re being invaded by the Turkish army, I told myself. But you know what? I’ve changed my mind. Give me an Uzi; give me an AK-47. Hell, give me a Gatling gun. I don’t care. Just give me something that will allow me to pump the maximum amount of lead into Samael’s body in the minimum amount of time. That’s all I care about. Just call me Charlton Heston with a death wish.”

“Oh, relax. You know as well as I do that bullets are like mosquito bites to a devil as powerful as Samael. A gun wouldn’t do you as much good as a letter opener with a good steel blade. An iron fire poker would work even better.”

“Really? I’ll just run upstairs and get one, then.”

She stood and put her hand on his arm. “Aaron, it will be fine.” Her fire-colored eyes, the ones he now knew came from a true devil of a father, glowed up into his, warming him. “I’ll be right there with you. And I believe in this prophecy. You have nothing to worry about, because you’re going to beat him. I promise.”

Aaron felt the predictable tightening of his body the instant she touched him, but this time he felt something else, too. Something just as strong, but softer somehow. Something new, like a kernel waiting for the right time to flower.

He uncrossed his arms and lifted one hand to her cheek. Cupping her face in his palm, he lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers. When this was all over, he promised himself, they were going to finish what they’d started on the table in the kitchen. He didn’t care if Lucifer himself interrupted.

“Okay,” he said softly, lifting his head. “I still think that deliberately summoning Samael in the flesh is the dumbest thing that any human being has ever attempted in the entire history of human stupidity, but if you think this is what we have to do, why don’t you run me through it?”

Lilli smiled, and despite all her reassurances, Aaron thought he detected a hint of nerves. “Sure.”

She stepped back and gestured briskly toward the area she had set up in the center of the open area of the floor. The white chalk stood out starkly against the dark gray of the cement floor, and fourteen stout black and white candles, seven of each, ringed the outer perimeter of the space. In the middle of the circle, she’d laid down the soft fleece lap blanket his uncle had always kept folded neatly over the back of the desk chair.

“We’re going to cast a basic circle of protection first,” she explained. “I’m sure you know how to do those, so I won’t bore you with details.”

Aaron shook his head. “I’m far from an expert. I’ve done one or two, of course, but not since I was still studying with my father. I’m more of a magus than a summoner. I generally leave circles to the people who know how to use them. I just work in the open and rely on my personal words to keep away the baddies.”

“Oh, right. I see. Well, um, it’s really pretty simple. You can just watch me and follow along.” She cleared her throat, her glance sliding away from his and toward the center of the circle. “We’ll need to raise a pretty intense level of energy, though, Samael isn’t a garden variety demon or a low-level devil, so it’s going to take more than a quick chant to get the job done. Then once he’s in the circle,” she continued hurriedly, “I’ll ask him what the price is for his agreement not to break the seals to Hell.”

“See, this is where things start to break down for me,” he said. “I know what you read in the Praedicti, but what could either of us be able to offer than would make a Prince of Hell give up the quest for world domination? That’s like asking how much a bird would want in exchange for giving up its song.”

Lilli nodded, her mouth settling into grim lines. “He’s going to ask for a soul. At least one of ours, maybe both.”

“And you think that’s a fair exchange?” He tried not to sound as appalled as he felt, but wasn’t sure he succeeded.

“Of course not. We’re going to negotiate.”

“I thought there was supposed to be a battle.”

“A battle of wills.”

Aaron knew his skepticism was showing. “I’m not quite sure prophecies are really as elastic as you seem to think they are. When they talk about battles, they usually want battles, complete with injuries and the potential for death and/or putrescence.”

“Don’t worry. If it does come down to an actual fight, just remember two things. Number one: even in the flesh, Samael’s powers are limited in this realm—severely limited as long as he stays inside the circle—so whatever you do, don’t open the circle. Keep everyone inside and he’ll be at most equivalent to an elder master magus.”

“Oh, right. No problem, then. Do you have any idea how many elder master magi there have been in recorded history? Three! Three out of all time! But sure, piece of cake. I can take him with one hand tied behind my back.”

“And number two,” she continued, her mouth curving into a smile that both infuriated and tempted him, “remember that you have a secret weapon.”

“What?”

“Me.”

EIGHT

Lilli glued her smile in place like a Kabuki mask. She could feel her cheeks threatening to quiver from the strain, but she ignored them. She had no intention of giving in to her own fears, especially not when Aaron obviously had so many of his own. To be honest, she had no idea whether or not her plan was going to work, but she didn’t see any choice but to give it a try. Their current choices consisted of dying now, together, in an attempt to save the world from Samael’s apocalyptic war, or dying in a few weeks or months along with every other human being who resisted his dominion. She’d rather die on her own terms.

She thought Aaron would feel the same, but thankfully he wouldn’t have to make that choice. If a sacrifice had to be made to keep Aaron alive and avert the apocalypse, Lilli would make it herself. But before it came to that, she had a plan that would make the next few moments ones she would always remember, whether or not they ended up being her last.

“Are you ready to get started?” she asked, her voice already gone husky with anticipation. She held her hand out toward him and saw him hesitate for an instant before he took it and clasped it warmly in his own.

“Ready,” he smiled.

“Then come into my parlor.” She chuckled as she stepped into the mostly completed circle and tugged him in behind her. She gestured toward the blanket spread on the chilly floor. “Have a seat while I finish this up. It’ll only take a minute.”

Once he had folded his long legs beneath him and settled himself on the floor, Lilli turned away and picked up a book of matches, a small bowl of salt, and the chalk she’d used to draw the outline of the incomplete circle. First, she moved around the circle and lit all of the white candles. When she got back to her starting point, she repeated the process with the black ones. The tiny flames didn’t look like much, but when they were all lit, their collective warmth began to raise the temperature in the circle by a couple of degrees. She knew they’d be glad for that in a little while.

Lilli pushed back a tickle of nerves and knelt down to close the gap in the drawing, making sure the line was thick and solid with no blank spaces. Then she set aside the chalk, returned to her feet, and began to sprinkle salt along the edge, making her third trip all the way around the circle. She might not be a magician, but even she could feel the way a wall of energy seemed to form around the perimeter of the space, stretching into a dome above their heads. When she glanced back at Aaron, she could see him staring at it with a hint of a smile on his face.

He must have sensed her eyes on him and glanced back at her. “Nice work,” he said. “That shade of blue is a good color for you.”

Lilli looked back at her handiwork, but she could see nothing, just the light of the candles rendering the room beyond them shadowy and indistinct. Still, it was nice to get the vote of confidence.

She completed her binding of the circle by spreading the salt back to her starting point. Setting aside the tools she’d used, she dusted the chalk off her hands and took a seat on the blanket facing Aaron.

“Okay, so that was the easy part,” she said with a wry smile. “From here on out, things might start to get tricky.”

“Devils and demons and apocalypse, oh my?” he grinned back. “Bring ’em on.”

She laughed. “Down, big boy. You’ll get a chance, but first I want to go over just a couple of things.”

He took her hands and held them between their bodies. “Shoot.”

Lilli took a deep breath, blew it out long and slow. Then she looked directly into his eyes and said, “I want you to know that I’m sorry for getting you into this.”

“What? Why? What are you talking about? You didn’t get me into anything.”

“Yes, I did. If I hadn’t broken into your house and tried to steal the Praedicti, you might not be caught up in all of this.”

“That’s a stupid thing to think,” Aaron said, squeezing her hands gently. “I got caught up in this, so to speak, the minute my uncle left me his house and the contents. He’s the one who got me involved with the Praedicti, not you.”

“I know, but I’m the only reason Samael is paying any attention to you. If I’d done the job right or left as soon as I heard you come down those stairs tonight, he never would have known you were alive.”

“Um, hello, but aren’t you the person who told me that he’s been trying to get back a book that basically warns him about me in four different ways?”

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about it, and I think it’s just as likely that the prophecy was talking about your uncle as about you,” she said, which was at least half true. She did think there was an equal chance for Alistair and Aaron to be the knights; she just thought there might be another knight in there entirely whom they hadn’t talked about yet. “Especially since he’s dead. Fallen, as it were.”

“Then what we’re about to do now is make the prince flee, huh?”

“That’s the plan.”

“And tell me again how you’re planning to manage that.”

Lilli made a face. “I’m going to offer to give him exactly what he wants. If he’ll agree not to start the rebellion, we’ll give him back the book. I think the four small prince verses are the real reason he wanted it in the first place. If he had those, he’d be in a much stronger position to know where his enemies were likely to attack.”

“He didn’t see us coming.”

“No, because your uncle had the book. Samael had no way of referring to the prophecy ahead of time. I think that may be why your uncle was killed. Samael was responsible, and he did it to get the book back. But since your uncle wasn’t a stupid man, he made arrangements to keep Samael from finding it—namely concealing it on the wrong shelf and ensuring that you were put in place to take charge of his effects after his death.”

“You really don’t believe in coincidence, do you?”

“Not when Samael is involved, I don’t.”

“Then I’m glad I get the chance to face him again,” Aaron said, and his hazel eyes hardened behind his scholarly glasses. “Are you sure we can’t make this a more traditional sort of battle?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

The thought of it made Lilli’s stomach clench. Even she had no intention of trying to best Samael in a physical contest. She’d been telling the truth that he would be less powerful here in his physical form than if they had confronted him on his own plane, but he could still squash either one of them like a bug with the same effort it would take to blow his nose.

“Let’s just stick to the original plan. We’ll summon him, we’ll offer him a deal, we’ll send him back where he belongs. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Good.” Lilli let herself relax and rose to her knees to inch forward until she could slide into his lap and wrap her legs around him. “That means it’s time for the fun part.”

His hands rose instinctively to steady her and secure her close to him. “You didn’t tell me there was going to be a fun part,” he said, his voice low and a little hoarse when she dipped her head and dragged her lips along the side of his neck.

“Oh, absolutely. Don’t you think we deserve a fun part?” She rocked slowly against him and felt his instant, gratifying response.

“Sure I do.” Her teeth closed lightly on his ear and made him shudder. “I just, ah, thought we might save it until after we finished here. You know, give ourselves a sort of reward.”

“Why wait?” Lilli felt his fingers tighten on her hips and pressed closer, dragging her breasts across the warm plane of his chest. “Did you know that aside from a blood sacrifice, the most effective way to raise energy for a magical purpose is through sex?”

She slid her hands under the open edges of his flannel shirt and pushed it off, dragging it down his arms and dropping it to the floor. When those curious fingers brushed against his belly as they sought the hem of his t-shirt, he groaned softly.

“I’d … heard about that.” Aaron lifted his arms to allow her to pull off his tee and leave him bare-chested on the claret-colored blanket. She could hear his voice deepening, see the gooseflesh on his skin, which she knew had nothing to do with the ambient temperature.

“But like I said,” he continued, “I’m not a summoner. Magi tend to, ah, work alone.”

Lilli let her mouth curve into a grin. Crossing her arms over her chest, she drew her own shirt up and over her head, revealing nothing but bare skin underneath. When Samael had interrupted them earlier, she’d been in too much of a hurry to cover herself up to wrestle with her bra. Now she relished the convenience of one less layer.

Almost as much as she relished the way her breasts seemed to draw his gaze like magnets. His gaze and his elegant, long-fingered hands.

Lilli leaned into his touch and lowered her head until her breath brushed across his mouth like a caress. “Oh, but it’s so much more fun with a partner,” she whispered. “Don’t you think?”

NINE

Think? At the moment, Aaron considered himself lucky that he could still breathe, and if Lilli shifted a little further to the right, all bets were off on that, too.

Groaning, he angled his head and took her mouth in a kiss he could feel all the way down to his toes. Or maybe she took his mouth. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that they sank into each other as easily as the ocean, riding a wave of mutual desire that threatened to swamp him at any moment. He didn’t think he could ever get enough of her taste, of the sweet, smoky tang that was Lillith Corbin. He drank it in like water and never seemed to quench his thirst.

She returned the kiss just as avidly, whimpering as she struggled to get closer. Her arms twined about his neck, tangling him in an embrace he could cheerfully have called home for the rest of eternity. She had no need to hold him to her, since the last thing he wanted was to get away, but maybe, like him, her head was swimming and she had to hold on to him to keep from losing her balance.

Come to think of it, he realized, they would both be a lot safer if they were a little closer to the floor.

Easing himself back, Aaron carefully lowered himself to the soft fleece blanket beneath them, reluctantly removing one hand from her breast so that he could help her stretch across him like the sky. He felt her purr of pleasure against his lips and sent both hands back to wandering, briefly cupping and cuddling her breasts before sliding along her smooth, curving sides to knead the mounds of her amazing ass.

The feel of fabric beneath his hands irritated him and he suddenly, violently, wanted them both to be naked. He supposed he could have done things the old-fashioned way and fumbled with buttons and zippers, tugging and rearranging cloth to reveal the hidden prize beneath. There were times when he loved that process, relished its slowness, but this was not one of them.

With a wave and a thought, their clothes melted away and his mouth caught her gasp of shock when she felt the hot press of his erection between her legs. Aaron echoed the sentiment and froze for a moment, battling against the primitive urge to grip her hips, position her opening, and plunge deep inside her tight little channel. A minute ago being cradled between her legs had felt so sweet and almost innocent, like they were a couple of teenagers necking in the back of a car. But now he could feel the slick heat of her wetness coating his shaft, and innocence was the last thing on his mind.

He felt Lilli stiffen and pull back from him, bracing her hands on the floor and levering her upper body off of his so that she could look down at his flushed and desire-hardened face. He couldn’t stop his fingers from clamping down on her like vises to keep her from escaping him, but he tried to school his features into something that would at least not scare her away.

She watched him for a long moment, her flame-colored eyes so filled with heat that he swore he could feel it against his skin. Then her reddened, swollen lips curved into a smile as old as Eve and she freed one hand to reach for his glasses.

“Let’s just set these out of the way, shall we? We wouldn’t want anything to happen to them,” she said, tugging the frames from his face, carefully folding the arms over each other, and stretching to put them beside the salt dish at the far edge of the circle. Then she leaned back into him and dragged her teeth along the edge of his jaw in a way that made his eyes roll back into his head. “If you have any trouble seeing something, I want you to feel free to lean in real close.”

With a desperate laugh, Aaron gripped her tightly and flipped to reverse their positions. When he had her pinned beneath him, he reached back to grip her knees and lift them high along his rib cage.

“Close, hm?” he growled, reaching between them to grasp his erection and position the head against her weeping entrance. “Let me get a little bit closer and you can let me know if it’s too much.”

She laughed up at him, her face gorgeous and mysterious and expectant in the wavering light of the candles. Perspiration glistened on her skin as she spread her arms wide in welcome and tightened her legs against his sides. He could feel her body thrumming with expectation, wondered if she could possibly want this as much as he did.

“Come on then,” she urged, beckoning him forward. “I promise to let you know if it becomes too much.”

Taking her at her word, Aaron fixed her gaze on his, drew a breath and thrust hard inside her.

Lilli bent beneath him like a bow, a look of exultation dawning on her features, her eyes going dark and hazy with pleasure.

“Too much?” he panted, bracing his hands on the blanket on either side of her and struggling not to pound into her over and over like a barbarian intent on plunder. But he wanted to plunder. God, he wanted it more than he wanted his next breath.

She shook her head, her dark hair spilling in tangled waves around her. It framed her face like an ebony halo, and Aaron wanted to tangle his fingers in it and use it to hold her still while he sated himself within her.

“More,” she gasped, her voice so low and choked that he had to lean close to hear her. “Please. More.”

He was happy to oblige.

With a grunt, he shifted and seated himself more deeply inside her. Her breath rushed out in a sound of urgent pleasure that acted like spurs to his flanks. Bracing his knees against the floor, he grasped her hips and lifted them off the ground. He pulled her with him as he leaned back until he held her lower body almost in his lap, making his penetration almost terrifyingly deep within her.

Lilli offered not a sound of protest. The only sounds tumbling from her lips were moans and cries and whimpers of pleasure. When he began a deep, steady thrusting rhythm, she moved with him, letting her legs fall to the side, her feet bracing against the floor to give her even greater leverage to meet his thrusts. Her upper body arched off the blanket, her head thrown back. To Aaron, she looked like a pale, perfect altar, soft and sacred. He could have worshipped her forever.

She clearly had other ideas.

He had settled into a rhythm designed to give them each the maximum amount of pleasure without the risk of ending things too soon. He wanted to savor the tight warmth of her wrapped around him, the feel of her body beneath his hands, the sight of her blind and quivering with pleasure. He wanted to take hours, days, weeks, to enjoy her, and he might have come close if she hadn’t slowly and deliberately tightened her muscles around him like a fist so that every thrust felt like a direct assault on his most sensitive nerve endings.

God, she was going to kill him.

He could have cared less.

Determined to torture her as thoroughly as she tortured him, Aaron leaned forward again, changing the angle of his penetration until the length of his shaft rubbed against her swollen clitoris on every hard stroke. Within seconds, he had her writhing. A minute after that he heard her breath strangle in her chest and felt her orgasm swallow her like a giant black hole, leaving nothing behind but waves of pulsing pleasure.

Her face in that moment became the most breathtaking thing Aaron had ever seen. Her eyes stared up at him, unfocused and unseeing, the pupils almost swallowing the rings of copper fire that surrounded them. Her mouth fell open on a silent cry of awe. She looked as if she beheld the face of eternity and the beauty of it reflected itself in her expression.

Aaron felt his heart clench and knew himself to be lost. Love at first sight? He wondered, but only for a moment, because in the next instant the pleasure dragged him under, leaving him limp and dazed and thoroughly in love in the center of a magical circle.

TEN

Dear God, Lilli thought as she lay still and breathless beneath Aaron’s equally limp form. How could this have happened? How could she have fallen in love with a man she’d known for less than a single day? Less than a single night! This wasn’t supposed to be possible. It had been bad enough when she’d known that if things didn’t go well with Samael, she would never get a chance to find out what might be between them.

Now she knew, and it was so much worse.

“Lilli?”

She lifted a hand as far as the back of his head, which took about all the strength she could muster, and sifted her fingers through his damp, shaggy hair. “Mmm?”

“I don’t suppose you’d like to grab a cup of coffee with me sometime. Maybe have dinner?”

In spite of the gloom that threatened to overwhelm her, Lilli felt herself smiling at his goofy charm. “Are you asking me on a date?”

She felt him nod against her chest and press a kiss to the breast that cushioned his head. “I hope you don’t think it’s too pushy of me, but I think you’re really attractive and easy to talk to and I’d love to have the chance to get to know you better. What do you think?”

Lilli tilted her head down and kissed his cheek, then rubbed her own against the sandpaper stubble she found there. “I think that you should ask me that question again in the morning.”

Planting his elbows on the floor, Aaron levered his shoulders off of her torso and grinned down at her. “It’s a deal.”

When he leaned down to kiss her, Lilli answered him eagerly, savoring one last taste of him before he rolled to the side and let out a long, low whistle.

“Was that for me?” she joked, pushing herself into a sitting position and looking around for her discarded clothes.

“The sentiment is the same, but no.” He pointed toward the ceiling. “It was for that.”

Lilli followed his gesture up, but all she could see was a collection of shadows above them. The light from the candles blinded her to the rest of the room. “For what? I don’t see anything.”

Aaron laughed. “Wow, you really are energy blind. That is the biggest, thickest cloud of hot pink energy I have ever seen in my entire life. It’s got to be the size of a Volkswagen. You must at least be able to feel it.”

Grateful to discover that Aaron’s disappearing act with their clothes had been more like a teleportation act, Lilli shrugged and dragged on her dusty BDUs. “Sort of, I guess. I couldn’t tell you where it was or name the color or size or anything, but I can tell that the air in here feels … thicker somehow.” She pulled her shirt back over her head, covering up the gooseflesh that had risen on both of her arms. “I know there’s more energy in here than there was before, which was at least part of the point. Let’s hope it’s enough.”

Aaron caught her by the wrist when she began to turn away and held her still. “You do realize that raising energy wasn’t the only reason we did that, don’t you? It wouldn’t matter to me if the apocalypse had already started. If I didn’t want you, we wouldn’t have had sex just now.”

“I know.” Lilli offered him a weak smile and wished he wouldn’t press. This was going to be hard enough for her as it was. If he kept being so sweet and affectionate, she might not be able to manage it at all. “I’m sorry. I’m getting a little wound up here. That was just nerves talking. I’m reeeeally anxious to get this whole thing over with.”

He watched her for an instant longer before his expression relaxed into the easy grin of a satisfied man. “I suppose I should just be glad you didn’t say that fifteen minutes ago,” he quipped and reached for his glasses before levering himself to his feet.

While Aaron dressed, Lilli moved the blanket, reclaimed her tools, and moved to the southern side of the circle. With the chalk in hand, she knelt and drew a second smaller circle within the confines of the first. The smaller circle was about two and a half feet in diameter and at least a foot from the outer edge of the larger one. It looked big enough for an adult to stand in, but not large enough to allow any steps to be taken. When she was satisfied with the outline, she took a deep breath and used the chalk to draw a complex, sinuous figure in the center, making the sigil large enough to fill most of the blank space. Then she reflexively wiped her hands on her trousers as if even drawing those particular lines and left her somehow dirty.

She bound the circle efficiently with the salt, glad she had poured herself enough to do the job. In the end, only a few grains were left in the little bowl. Setting it aside, she rose and turned to face Aaron.

He had finished dressing while she worked and stood watching her with an intent and focused expression.

“What?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious.

He shook his head. “Nothing. You just do that so seamlessly for a woman who claims not to do magic.”

Lilli shrugged. “I don’t claim I can’t do a few useful spells; I just know better than to call myself a magic user. That would be like only knowing how to make one edible dish and calling myself a chef.”

“I think you underestimate yourself. I mean, your father was a devil, so it would make sense that you would have inherited some kind of ability from him.”

“The only thing I inherited from my father is my eyes.” She hadn’t meant the words to come out quite so forcefully, but once they did, she couldn’t take them back. “I’m sorry again. I’m just … I don’t like to talk about my father. Mostly, I don’t like to think about him. I really have no idea who he was. He was some sort of hellish soldier who picked my mom up in a nightclub somewhere, talked his way into her pants, and then disappeared.”

Unlike the Princes of Hell, minor devils and demons had much greater access to the human plane, many of them able to move freely between the two worlds. Too bad for Lilli.

“I don’t remember my mother ever talking about him after she told me the story on my ninth birthday, and frankly that was fine with me,” she said. “He’s not important to me. He never was. What is important is convincing Samael to exchange the Praedicti for his vow not to harm you or start any world-ending wars.”

Aaron didn’t look convinced, but he let it drop. “All right. We’ll leave it alone for now. Does that mean it’s showtime?”

“Places, everybody,” she confirmed, pushing aside all thoughts of her past and focusing on the future she had left. “The show is about to begin.”

ELEVEN

Aaron didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he saw the column of energy Lilli had wedged inside the small chalk-defined space begin to spin like a tornado, forming a vortex of power that bounced off the edges of the summoning circle like a possessed, misshapen pinball. Beside him, he could feel Lilli’s tension and he wanted to reach out to take her hand in reassurance, but she had warned him not to touch her. If Samael saw the connection between them, she had explained, he would view it as a weakness to exploit. It could give him power over them, and they couldn’t afford to give him any advantages.

It took a force of will to keep his hands at his sides, but he managed it. At least he didn’t have to worry about trying not to look at her. The sight inside the small circle was so compelling, he didn’t think he could have turned away if he’d tried. As he watched, the tornado of energy seemed to bulge in places, as if something trapped inside of it struggled to get out. Before their eyes—or at least before Aaron’s—it began to expand, stretching and widening until it filled nearly the entire circle. Then, as fast as it had grown, it contracted, shrinking into a tiny pinprick of light before seeming to explode with a sort of subsonic boom that Aaron didn’t so much hear as feel. A hot, bitter wind, it stank of blood and sulfur, and when it passed, Samael stood in the center of the circle, his angelically beautiful face drawn tight and pinched in its intensity.

“I taste lust,” he hissed, his soulless gaze locking on Lilli. “I can even smell it. It clings to this place like sewer gas. Have you finally decided to take me up on my offer, pet? Are you going to let me taste that sweet, human flesh of yours?” His expression shifted, smoothing into lines of sly seduction. “I could make it good for you. Mind you, I probably won’t, but I’ll make you beg me for it anyway.”

Aaron knew Lilli suppressed a shudder at that, because he had to do the same. If he’d thought that Samael’s presence had made his skin crawl before, this time it was infinitely worse. He had to clench his hands into fists to keep from scratching at the millions of tiny things his nerves told him were swarming over him.

“Not if the future of humanity depended on it,” Lilli retorted, and Aaron felt a surge of pride at the steady timbre of her voice. He could sense her disgust as well as her fear, but not even Samael would guess it to hear her speak. “I’d rather see the world go up in flames than let you lay one filthy little hand on me, Sam. That I will swear on the bones of all the saints.”

Samael sneered. “You shouldn’t make promises you might not be able to keep, little girl. One day I might just make you eat those words.”

“But not today.” Reaching down, Lilli picked up the manuscript she had placed inside the circle earlier and cradled the heavy volume in her arms. “Now, about why I brought you here tonight.”

Aaron saw the devil’s eyes fix on the codex and sharpen.

“You found it.” A spark of avarice gleamed in Samael’s countenance. He quickly hid it behind an expression of mocking disappointment. “Too bad you brought it to me too late. The deadline passed almost ten minutes ago, Lillith, my love. I’m afraid this means that our agreement is nullified.”

“You’re welcome to shove your agreement anywhere you’d like. All I want to know is, do you still want the book?”

The devil made a show of indecision. “I’m not sure. I’d hate to gain a reputation as someone who is willing to overlook shoddy performance … On the other hand, my extensive private library is a bit of a weakness of mine, I’ll admit. Oh, decisions, decisions.”

“Before you make up your mind, you might want to hear my price.”

“As I already told you, Lillith, dear, I’m afraid I can’t consider your final favor repaid after you failed to meet the terms I set out.”

“I’m not interested in the favor.” She looked grim to Aaron, grim and a little sad. “I’m ready to strike a new bargain. I’ll return the book to you if you give your word that you’ll make no further attempt to unleash the apocalypse.”

Samael threw his head back and laughed. To Aaron, the sound was like a thousand cries of pain all unleashed at once. The devil laughed long and hard. When he finally calmed enough to speak, his voice still quivered with amusement.

“And why on earth do you imagine I’d be willing to strike such a lopsided bargain, my pet?” he asked, and the eyes he fixed on Lilli held something much sharper than laughter. Something more like hatred. “While it’s true that having the book in my possession would make everything much, much simpler, it certainly isn’t necessary for my plans. This war has been the fondest wish of Hell since the beginning of time. Once I bring it about, every inhabitant of the Nine Hells will owe me allegiance, from the lowest demon to the haughtiest prince. My dear, there aren’t enough magical texts in existence to make me abandon my plans, but if you would like to pledge your soul to me now, I would consider keeping your torment brief after my victory.”

Aaron heard the hubris that laced every one of the devil prince’s words and knew that Samael could already see himself as the newest overlord of Hell. The devil had, oddly enough, been telling the truth; he had too much at stake to accept Lilli’s bargain. Seeing that knowledge reflected in her eyes, he felt a surge of anger fill him. Their plan had failed, but while Samael remained in the summoning circle, they were safe from him. The only power he had to hurt them resided in his words. Still, Aaron couldn’t help but wish he could blacken the bastard’s eye without breaking the protective barrier between them.

“Oh, don’t look so disappointed,” the devil purred, all of his attention still focused on Lilli. “Just because the book doesn’t meet my price doesn’t mean that I don’t have one. I suppose there is one thing you could do for me that would make me consider postponing my plans for war.”

“And what would that be?”

Even before the devil answered, Aaron knew they had walked into a trap. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and the crawling sensation on his skin abruptly changed to the feeling of thousands of angry fire ants all stinging him at once.

The devil smiled a smile that made Aaron’s soul cringe and gestured in his direction. “Kill the magus. His family has never brought me anything but trouble. I thought I’d taken care of the last of them when I killed his uncle, but clearly I was mistaken. Correct my oversight and I’ll not only halt my work on that little pet project of mine, I’ll mark the last favor you owe me paid in full.

“What do you say?”

TWELVE

There it was.

Lilli heard the devil’s words through a of fog of pain and fought hard not to let him see their effect on her. Ever since she had laid eyes on that page of four prophecies, she had feared it would come to this. It was the only explanation she could think of that justified Samael sending her after the book. Like he’d said, he hadn’t needed it to foment the apocalypse; the only reason he could have needed the book back in his hands was to keep it out of Aaron’s.

Aaron—and his uncle, too, Lilli suspected—had looked at the problem from the wrong angle. Each of them had believed that the most powerful prophecy in the book was the one with the greatest potential impact on humanity, but Lilli knew Samael and she knew that he would always view the world through the lens of his own selfishness. To Samael, the question wasn’t how would a prophecy affect the world, it was how would a prophecy affect him. In the devil’s mind, the only prophecy that mattered was the one that spelled out his own downfall.

Samael had never cared about the apocalypse, at least not in the way Aaron and his uncle had assumed. Sure, he wanted to go to war with humanity and wreak havoc and destruction on the mortal plane just as much as any devil, but Lilli would be willing to bet the plans he had supposedly set in motion were a long way from completion. She would bet that he was more than willing to be patient. All that had mattered to Samael had been getting the book back before Aaron realized that the prophecies on the dragon page placed the devil’s downfall squarely in his hands.

It was the same reason why the devil had murdered Alistair—because the prophecies said that someone from Aaron’s family would be the one to destroy Samael’s power. Aaron was a smart man. As long as the codex remained in his hands, Lilli knew that chances were he would put two and two together and decide to take care of the devil once and for all.

But all of those worries would disappear, Lilli knew, if Aaron were dead.

And Samael wanted her to kill him.

“He must have been a pretty good lay,” the devil drawled, yanking her attention back to him, “otherwise it wouldn’t be such a hard decision. You can kill him, or I can lay waste to all of mankind.” He held his hands up like scales and pretended to balance them. “Hm, yes, I can see where that would be a tough call.”

Lilli turned her head and looked at Aaron. He was frowning, his brow furrowed, but the hazel eyes watching her were steady and unafraid.

“You do realize he’s up to something, don’t you?” he asked. “He’s trying to trick you. My uncle could count as the first sacrifice. If he gets you to kill me, that’s number two. One more and he’s won. Game over. The prophecy is fulfilled in one fell swoop, the world is ended, and oops, bad time to be human, I guess.”

That’s when it hit her, the most ridiculous bits of prophecy suddenly illuminated by an unintentional turn of phrase.

She felt like laughing and crying and knew that either would give her away and ruin her chances of saving the only things that mattered to her.

“Lilli.” Aaron’s insistent voice dragged her attention back to him. “You know I’m right. You can’t trust him. He’s the Lord of Deception. You don’t think they gave him that title because he’s got a talent for acting, do you?”

“I’m not lying about this,” Samael pressed. “Kill him and there will be no apocalypse. Is that the kind of offer you’re really willing to pass up?”

Lilli shook her head, unable to completely suppress her smile or her tears. She guessed her eyes were glistening as she drew her misericorde from its sheath and held it aloft, the blade catching the light of the candles and sending it bouncing around the circle.

Aaron reached out his hand toward her, his eyes full, not of fear, but of concern. “Lilli, you have to ignore him. You know he’s not being honest. If you were to kill me, what’s to stop him from reneging on his promise? Who would be able to hold him to it?”

Samael glared at Aaron. “I do not take having my honor impugned lightly, magus,” he growled. “I would watch my tongue if I were you.”

“You’re a devil,” Aaron snapped. “The only honor you have is the kind that suits you in any given moment. Lilli is too smart to fall for your lies.”

His faith in her made Lilli struggle even harder not to cry. She gripped the hilt of her knife in suddenly damp fingers and stepped forward to press her fingers to his lips.

“Sh,” she urged, replacing her touch with the brush of her lips, then repeating the gesture helplessly. “It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Oh, spare me the touching display.” Samael’s voice grew louder, angrier, but Lilli ignored it. She was not about to let him intrude on the last moment she would ever have with Aaron. She didn’t care what the devil had to say. “Get it over with already. You’ve fucked him; now kill him!”

Aaron gripped her upper arms, not as if he were trying to restrain her, but as if he needed to touch her, to feel her beneath his hands again. His palms rubbed at her skin as if to warm and soothe.

“Ignore him,” he repeated. “He has nothing to say that you need to hear.”

She nodded. She wished she could tell him something that would reassure him, but her throat had closed up against the welling tears, and speech was impossible. Instead, she stepped even closer, until every rise and fall of his chest brought the fabric of his shirt into contact with hers. She wrapped her free hand around his neck and pulled him close, pressing her forehead against his shoulder until her tears soaked through the fabric of both his shirts.

His arms went around her and he cuddled her against him, ignoring the cold steel of the knife she held poised between them as he soothed her with words and touches. “Sh, it’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay. You don’t need to cry.” He slid a finger under her chin and tilted her face up until their eyes met. He smiled down into hers. “Don’t cry, Lilli. Everything is going to be fine. I know you’re not going to kill me.”

Swallowing hard, Lilli licked her lips and managed one final smile before she brushed her lips against his mouth. With skin pressed against skin, she savored the last taste of him and drew him in until his breath become her breath.

“Lilli,” he repeated, “I know you’re not going to kill me.”

“You’re right,” she whispered brokenly just before she turned the knife and drove it high between her own ribs and deep into her heart.

Aaron felt her body sag against him and tightened his arms automatically. He couldn’t manage to wrap his mind around what she had done. While the devil urged her to kill him to save the world, she had chosen to kill herself and condemned him instead to a lifetime without her. He had never guessed she could be so cruel.

In the very instant the knife struck home, the devil behind them let out a howl of fury and threw himself against the side of the circle that imprisoned him, but Lilli’s magic held strong. Samael gathered himself for another attack, but before he could launch it, Aaron watched in disbelief as the frantic movement of energy that had presaged his arrival began again in reverse, moving from explosive brightness to a pinprick of light and back to the swirling vortex of energy the magus had witnessed before. This time, however, the energy seemed to suck Samael in, sweeping him up into the funnel cloud and carrying him away until not even the echo of his raging cries of protest lingered inside the summoning circle.

Aaron could have cared less if the circle had suddenly filled with dancing monkeys. Lilli had sacrificed herself for him and now she hung pale and lifeless in his arms. He felt as if the world itself had ceased to spin.

Numb with shock and disbelief, Aaron shifted his grip on the woman he’d first met only hours before and brought her into his lap as he sank to the cement floor. A thin trickle of blood seeped out from around the dagger blade and spilled into his hand, staining his skin an obscene liquid crimson. He felt it cooling rapidly in the open air and thought vaguely that here was the proof of the futility of blood sacrifice. Blood was only precious as long as it flowed inside the body of someone you cared about. Otherwise, it had about as much intrinsic value as tap water.

The first stab of grief hit him with the force of a freight train. If he’d still been standing, he knew his knees would have buckled beneath him. As it was, he doubled over in agony, feeling as if he’d just taken a mule kick right to the kidneys. His heart and stomach clenched in unison and the only thought in his head was that after thirty-five years, he had finally found the woman he loved, and now he would be expected to live the rest of his life without her. He didn’t believe it was possible.

What he was thinking in that moment, he didn’t know. He acted purely on instinct, which was likely what did it, because if he’d stopped to think, he’d have decided that what he attempted was impossible. Not even the most powerful sorcerer on Earth could bring life back to the dead. Death was the one finality in the universe, and spells that reanimated flesh could never restore the soul that had existed in the living being. So when Aaron placed his palm over the still-bleeding heart of the woman he loved and poured every ounce of energy he had and every ounce of the energy they had raised together into that tiny, cold muscle, he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that his magic was bound to prove useless.

Bending toward her, Aaron rested his forehead against Lilli’s silken hair and tried to remember how to breathe. More than his heart felt broken. He felt as if everything inside him had fractured, leaving a million tiny, jagged pieces behind, allowing the tears to seep out from between them.

The first of them fell on her hair and glistened against the dark, shiny strands. Another followed close behind, then another and another until he was weeping for the first time in his adult life.

Maybe the experience confused him so much that when he felt the first tiny movement, he wrote it off as something he had done. He had shifted or jostled her somehow and that was why it felt almost like her fingers had twitched against his leg.

But then he felt a second twitch, and fear and hope began to war inside him.

“Lilli?” he ventured, and his voice was hoarse and soft with grief and doubt.

The soft moan that answered him was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.

Well, maybe the second sweetest, after the sound of her distinctly cranky voice saying, “Christ, do you think you can pull the knife out for me before it gets welded in place?”

THIRTEEN

Lilli felt as if she’d not only been stabbed in the heart by a lethally sharp assassin’s knife—which Aaron quickly removed, praise be—but as if said assassin had then hog-tied her, strapped her down in the middle of the African savannah, and allowed herds of zebra, musk ox, and elephants to stampede across her body. Repeatedly. Too bad she knew she had only herself to blame.

“Lilli!” Aaron’s voice held a wealth of emotion, but it overflowed with hope and excitement as he shook her like a pair of dice and called her name repeatedly. “Lilli! You’re alive? You’re alive! Are you all right? Are you okay? What happened? God, baby, you scared me to death!”

Clenching her teeth mostly kept them from rattling around inside her head, but she would have preferred not to have to put in the effort. “If you don’t stop shaking me,” she hissed through clenched teeth, “I am going to start having serious doubts about this relationship.”

Immediately, the shaking ceased and Aaron’s arms wrapped around her, cradling her against his chest while he rained kisses down upon her face.

“God, Lilli, I thought you were dead,” he groaned, his body shaking as he said the words. “I thought I’d lost you. Come on, sweetheart, open your eyes and look at me. Let me see you in there, baby, please. I thought you were dead.”

Lilli sighed and took a minute to gather her strength before she could manage to drag her eyelids up and fix her gaze on his. “I’m pretty sure I was, but don’t worry about it. I’m feeling better now.”

She saw his fear and nearly felt overwhelmed, but then the fear faded and was replaced by relief and joy that left her truly humbled. If she had planned to entertain any doubts about whether he felt as strongly about her as she did about him, they disappeared immediately in the light of those emotions. No one in her life had ever looked at her like that, as if the world would no longer exist if she left it. It kind of frightened her to think she could be that important to someone, but then she realized that was how important Aaron felt to her, and the fear melted under an onslaught of tenderness.

“What happened?” he demanded, shifting her in his lap so that she could meet his gaze without craning her neck. His hands moved over her almost compulsively, as if he needed to touch her to reassure himself that he wasn’t imagining her with him. “I saw you stab yourself. I saw you die. What happened?” He paused and glared down at her, his eyes narrowing. “No, wait. Scratch that. First you’re going to tell me why you did it, then we can discuss what happened. Lilli, you killed yourself! What the hell were you thinking?”

Lilli sighed. “It hit me when you were trying to convince me not to listen to Samael. You said something about the prophecy being fulfilled in one fell swoop and I realized that it was possible. Not to fulfill the apocalypse prophecy, but to thwart it and to fulfill the valiant knight prophecy all at the same time.”

“Explain.”

She shifted, feeling strength slowly beginning to return to her body. At this rate, she might just be able to get up and walk up the stairs to the kitchen by Christmas.

“When I read the valiant knight prophecy, I got hung up on the idea that you were the knight,” she explained. “It seemed to make so much sense that it would be talking about you and your family, especially given your uncle’s role in all this. I had no reason to look at it any other way. But then Samael kept urging me to kill you and I knew I couldn’t do that. Not only could I never bring myself to hurt you, but there was a small part of me that feared you might be right and he was trying to turn you into the second sacrifice for the apocalypse. And that’s when you brought up the fell swoop.”

Lilli paused for breath and sighed with relief when she realized that the pain in her side had lessened to a dull throb as the wound knit itself back together. She didn’t have to look at it to know that was what was happening; she could feel it. Plus, she knew she’d be dying again if a wound that serious stayed open.

“It was like a bolt of inspiration,” she continued. “All at once, I remembered what you said about the way to avert the apocalypse being for a righteous demon to spill human and devil blood in one blow and I realized that I was the only person in this situation who could do that. My blood is both human and devil, because of my parents, and while I’m not going to claim to be a saint or anything, I thought there was a pretty good chance that I could qualify as a ‘righteous child of Hell.’ I mean, I try not to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”

Aaron squeezed her gently. “Oh, so I deserved to have my heart broken, did I?”

Lilli stilled and watched him intently. “Did I break your heart?”

He nodded. “But you’re doing a pretty good job of putting it back together now, so I suppose I’ll be able to forgive you.”

She felt happiness warm her like an internal sun and let him see it in her beaming grin. “I appreciate that.” There was a short pause while she tried to remember what she’d been saying. “Oh, yeah. Anyway, when I realized that I could fulfill all the requirements for averting the apocalypse, I started to think that maybe the valiant knight in the dragon prophecy wasn’t you after all. Maybe it was me.”

Aaron looked stunned for a moment, then his expression turned thoughtful as he mulled that over. “You have a brilliant mind?”

“No, you do. And I got the book from you, in between falling ass-over-elbows in love with you. I think you just have to look at the words from a different perspective.”

“I think you should forget my question. Your mind is definitely brilliant.”

Lilli grinned. “So then it just seemed to make sense. If I paid the appropriate price, I might die, but Samael would be banished. And even if I was wrong about the valiant knight prophecy, my sacrifice could still prevent the apocalypse. It seemed worth it to me.”

“Well, next time ask me before you decide on that kind of thing.” His voice was fierce as he issued the order. “You might have thought it was worth it, but it was a hell of a lot higher than the price I was willing to pay. I’m crazy-assed in love with you, no matter how long we’ve known each other. That means that the idea of living the rest of my life without you, believing that you killed yourself to avoid having to kill me, is not on the list of noble gestures that I can afford.”

Lifting her hand, Lilli laid her palm against his cheek and smiled. “I think I’m in love with you, too,” she murmured. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I must be, since I think that’s what fulfilled the final part of the knight prophecy.”

“What do you mean?”

“ ‘The magic’s in the seed,’ ” she quoted, grinning.

He scowled, then sighed and gave her a raised eyebrow of inquiry.

She repeated the entire line. “ ‘A knight is fall’n, a prince is fled, the magic’s in the seed.’ The fallen knight was me, clearly, having just stabbed myself and quite literally fallen, I assume. The fleeing prince was Samael. The payment of the price meant that he was banished back to Hell, at least temporarily. And the magic …”

Lilli broke off to feather a kiss across Aaron’s lips, smiling when he returned the gesture with interest. It took several breathless minutes before she managed to tear her mouth away from his and another couple to catch her breath.

“The magic,” she repeated, her voice husky with tenderness, “was what brought me back to you and healed my wound.”

She watched as Aaron verified that for himself. He shoved her shirt up under her arms until he could see the round pink mark where Lilli’s misericorde had punctured her fair skin. It was the only remaining sign of her injury.

“You know, my uncle once told me that love was the greatest magic in all the world.” Finally relaxing, Aaron cuddled Lilli close and asked about the final aspect of the prophecy. “But where was the seed?”

“Right here.” Lilli pressed her palm against his chest, right above his heart, feeling its strong steady beat beneath her fingers.

“And here.” Taking his hand in hers, she mirrored the gesture and laid his palm over her own steadily beating heart.

“The magic was in the seed of the brand new feelings we have for each other.” She grinned. “It was pretty nice of the prophet to word it that way, actually. If he’d said we had to be fully, deeply in love, things might have gotten hairy. After all, we barely know each other.”

In the dim light of the candles and the first faint traces of dawn that peeked into the basement from the open door at the top of the stairs, Lilli and Aaron gazed into each other’s eyes and knew that the seed they shared had already sent up a beautiful, leafy bloom. The prophets could say whatever they wanted; in the end, it was love that called the shots.

“Right, that reminds me,” Aaron said, reaching up to tuck a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. “I know we’ve only known each other a few hours now, but what would you say if I asked you to go out with me? I know a place nearby that makes really killer waffles. We could head over there and have some breakfast. My treat. How does that sound?”

Lilli laughed and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him with a burst of returning strength. “I’d say that sounds like one hell of a bargain!”