After all, if no souls could move on, then no souls could be reborn. And if there was no soul, then there could be no spark of life. The thought of babies being little more than lumps of meat, without inner life or any sort of hope, made me shudder.
It was the Raziq who had developed the keys, but my father had arranged for them to be stolen before the Raziq could put their plan into action—but whatever he’d intended had also gone awry, because the people who’d stolen the keys had died before they could tell anyone the exact location of them.
Why, exactly, my father had the keys stolen when he showed as little consideration for humanity as the Raziq did was something I’d yet to figure out. Especially when he kept saying he wanted me to find and destroy the keys, and yet had gotten dangerously annoyed when I’d suggested that leaving the damn things hidden was probably safer for everyone.
“I did mind-read one of the Ania during the attack,” Azriel said. “The creature did not know who summoned it.”
“So how did those things find us? You said the Raziq probably wouldn’t be able to locate me once I was away from either my apartment or the café.”
“It may not be the Raziq.”
“Let’s just forget the who for the moment.” Annoyance edged my voice. “How did the Ania find me?”
“The Ania work along the lines of bloodhounds, only they are visual rather than scent hounds. Show them a picture and they will scour the earth until they find that person.”
“How could someone show them a picture of me without becoming visible themselves?”
“If it is the Raziq, then they have Razan. The only time the Raziq ever acquire flesh to do a task is when they cannot use the Razan to interact with this world—such as the time of conceiving. And even then, it is only the shortage of Aedh females that drives some of them into the arms of humanity.”
Well, that was one thing I wasn’t going to complain about, considering it had given me life. “And if it wasn’t the Raziq?”
He shrugged. “Whoever stole the key from us and opened the first portal would be clever enough to conceal their identity from any low-level demons they’d summoned.”
I pushed open the side door into the parking lot and walked down the stairs. My footsteps echoed in the concrete void, but Azriel was as silent as a ghost.
“So what do we do, given that they’ll probably hit us again?”
“We attempt subterfuge.” He paused, suddenly appearing just ahead of me to hold open the fourth-floor door. “How long can you hold a change?”
I frowned. While I was part werewolf, I couldn’t actually attain a wolf shape. In fact, the moon held no sway over me at all, and I was neither afflicted by the moon heat—although I did have a healthy sexual appetite—nor forced to change shape on the night of the full moon.
However, Mom hadn’t been just an ordinary werewolf. She’d been a helki werewolf, and one refined in the labs of a madman. Helkis were face-shifters. They could literally alter the shape of their face, hair, and eyes—although, oddly, the eyes were the most difficult to keep altered over long periods of time. I’d inherited that ability from her, but it wasn’t something I used very often, so it took a whole lot more out of me than it had Mom.
“That depends on just how much of a change we’re talking about.”
He stopped the door from slamming shut with his fingertips, then fell in step beside me. The heat of him washed over me, warm and comforting. “The Ania are somewhat rigid bloodhounds. Show them an image and that is precisely what they search for. I would think a simple change of hair color would suffice for now.”
I grimaced. I actually loved my coloring. Silvery hair and lilac eyes were a startling—and somewhat rare—combination, and I liked the attention they sometimes gave me.
“Black hair and lilac eyes would be no less startling,” he commented. “And as your skin is not pale, it would look very suitable on you.”
“Suitable?” I said, amused. “God, Azriel, surely even you can come up with a better compliment than that.”
He raised his eyebrows at me. “Why is ‘suitable’ not an adequate compliment?”
I studied him for a moment, not sure if he was teasing me or not. “Because I guess it sounds so… average.”
“Which you are obviously not.” His expression was still totally serious and yet, if he’d had an affair with a human woman, he surely couldn’t be as obtuse about human—or non-human—vanity as he was making out. “So, would the word ‘stunning’ be considered more appropriate?”
I rolled my eyes. Why was I even bothering to fish for compliments from him? “This conversation is insane. Let’s just forget about it.”
“As you wish. You have not, however, answered my original question.”
It took me a couple of seconds to actually remember his original question. “I’ve never actually held either a full or a partial change for any great length of time. I could probably hold a hair color change for three or four days if it’s continuous, but it’ll wear me out physically. If I simply revert back to my natural color once I’m home, it might be a little more sustainable.”
“Then do it.”
“What? Now?”