“Stane, it’s Risa.” Impatience edged my voice as I stared up at the camera. “I need some help rather urgently.”>He was also the source of that uneasy sense of trouble I’d felt earlier—only it wasn’t coming from the stranger himself, but rather from the area immediately around him. It was as if the air were so repelled by his presence that it violently recoiled.
And the air wasn’t the only thing repelled. The Dušan crawled around my left arm, its dark eyes spitting fire, as if it wanted nothing more than to be free from the flesh that bound it to attack the man who stood before us.
A man I wasn’t about to face unarmed.
I imagined Amaya in my hands, and she appeared in a blaze of purple fire, her normally shadowed blade so bright on the astral field it was almost impossible to look at her.
Hey, you. I projected my mind voice so hard it shook the very foundations of the buildings around us. Leave that woman alone.
He didn’t unhand her. Didn’t react in any way that I could immediately see. Then, slowly, he turned his head in my direction.
He had no face.
Where there should have been eyes, a nose, and a mouth, there was nothing. It was as if his features had been wiped clean. It was totally and utterly blank.
Impossible, I thought in disbelief. It had to be a trick of some kind. Had to be.
Go away. His voice was little more than a whisper, crawling around me like a dead thing.
I shivered and gripped Amaya harder. Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time. I said, leave that woman alone.
I heard.
Then do as I say or the sword I bear will sever your ethereal head from its body.
I didn’t know if that was possible, especially after Adeline saying you couldn’t actually die on the plane. But my sword was from neither the real world nor the astral one. She was born of a demon’s death, and was far more than mere steel. She had a life of her own, a serious hunger for blood, and she could destroy demons and spirits as easily as she did flesh. Surely it wasn’t such a stretch to think she could also kill someone on the astral plane?
The stranger raised his featureless face, oddly looking like he was sniffing the air even though he had no nose. After a moment, he said, As you wish.
He released the woman and stepped back. She collapsed in a heap at his feet and remained there. Which was odd—why hadn’t she zapped back to her body? In fact, why hadn’t she done that when she was first attacked?
Now leave, I said. Get off the fields.
He didn’t react, didn’t reply. He just stood there, his unseeing face pointed in my direction, as if he were studying me. The unease crawling through me grew stronger, but I ignored it and imagined myself closer to the woman. The charm at my neck burned to life, its white light slashing through the shadows. Whoever—whatever—this man was, Ilianna’s magic didn’t like it.
Did you hear me? I swung Amaya in warning. She reacted fiercely to the vibration pouring away from the stranger, spitting and hissing purple fire that danced across the shadowed buildings around us.
I heard. His voice remained soft and oddly free of emotion. But you should know that what I claim, I keep. You have saved no one here, huntress.
I wouldn’t be so sure of that, stranger.
He cocked his head sideways. If he’d had features, I think they would have appeared . . . amused. If you are so confident that you can save her, why don’t we play a little game?
There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of me playing any sort of game with a featureless freak on the astral plane. I swung Amaya again, her kill, kill, kill chant crystal clear in the back of my thoughts. For the moment, my desire for control was stronger than her need to attack, but I had to wonder if that would always be the case, given she’d already tried to take me over once before.
I’m not interested in playing games. I just want you gone.
Ah, but this game involves saving the woman’s life. We both know you are interested in doing that, huntress, or you would not be here.
He was right, of course, but I saw no point in admitting the obvious.
He nodded in the woman’s direction and continued. She has twenty minutes of life left on earth. If you can find her in that time, I will let her live.
Twenty minutes? That’s hardly fair.
Life is never fair. He shrugged. That is the offer. Take it or leave it.
And if I don’t take it?