Battle With Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights)

“You asked if I come here often, and I do. As often as I am able, in fact. It isn’t because this place is comfortable and crazy, though it is. It is because of the part I must play in all of this.” She licked her lips. “My magic doesn’t work like that of a normal Seer. I don’t need cards or a crystal ball to use it. I don’t need to study you or look into your eyes. If I am in tune with you, I See without trying. Without wanting to. I use hallucinogens and other mind alterants to crystalize my focus, or else I would be bombarded at times. Especially at a time where the future is so uncertain and there is so much at stake. My nemesis can step away from her trinkets and act normal, without feeling the pressures of her magic. I cannot.”

She paused and pulled back her shoulders.

“I call the other Seer my nemesis for a reason. She is the light, and I am the dark. She is the one who must steer the shifters and the fae—the goody-goody crew. I am the one who needs to monitor Reagan, the princess of the Underworld.” She cocked her head at him. “A title she can only claim if she lives, and that seems to be a very narrow outcome. There is something lurking in her future that I cannot quite grasp. It is her salvation, I know that much, and it is monumental. But it…”

She hissed and slowly curled her fingers into a fist.

“It is beyond me. All I see is death right now. A thousand ways she might die. More. My mind frays when I think of it. No amount of hallucinogens is helping. She is on a very shaky road, the drop on each side precipitous. I need…more. I need Sight on you.”

He squinted at her, turning that over in his mind, when she continued.

“I’ll also need to betray my faction in order to do my duty to them.” She licked her lips. “I will be heavily policed. Maybe jailed, I don’t know. I certainly won’t be a favorite.”

“And so you will need a place to go. A place that, you will be grateful to hear, can help with your Seer issues—your magic won’t work in the Underworld. You’d go blind to the future.”

“Yes.” She sighed in relief.

He studied her for a moment. “You can’t See me, so to speak, but…did you know I would come here?” he asked.

“I knew something big was going to happen in Reagan’s life today. I made arrangements to make sure she wouldn’t be home.”

“Except…her demonic magic is pulsing in that house. If she is not there…”

“Oh yes, that.” She waved it away. “She had Penny the mage rig up a spell with Reagan’s blood to direct you here. She didn’t want you to catch her out in the wild.”

“Your idea…”

“Guilty. A good idea, nonetheless. I don’t know where she is, though. I only know she will make a wonderful discovery, and it will likely be followed by drinking.”

Clever, creating a spell like that. He hadn’t known that could be done. It would explain the heightened feeling of it, something he’d thought could be attributed to Reagan’s power level or maybe his attachment to her.

“You orchestrated that because you knew it would be me?”

“You’re my only blind spot. I sensed Vlad was making an arrangement hours ago, securing the sort of power he would need to sweep through the Realm. The details were hazy, though, and I figured it was because you were involved.”

“Yes. It seems it was not he who snuck into the Underworld. He had a traitor. I brought him that traitor, who had been left behind by some others, and found the viciousness with which he handled the situation to my liking.”

“I know. I see his path with crystal clarity now. He is undermining Darius and a few of the dissenting elders as we speak, give or take ten minutes.” She tilted her head up and looked at the sky. “The unicorns might be a problem for you. That is part of the deal he offered, but he cannot control the outcome. It will depend on the goodness of a certain heir.”

Lucifer kept somewhat still, watching her. No one could’ve known they’d discussed the allegiance of the unicorns, given they’d done so while wrapped up in Lucifer’s magic. Lucifer had come straight here—even if Vlad had spread the knowledge, and it would have hurt his cause to do so, it couldn’t have traveled here so fast, especially not to this creature.

Her gaze came back to rest on him.

“We already knew you would work with Vlad, though, and the unicorns won’t make or break you.” Her stare was direct. “Reagan can, however. She can break you as no other heir could.”