3. Ember

3

EMBER

M y pulse thrumming, I slowly turned the doorknob. Someone had picked the lock. I held up my hand, telling my team to hold their positions, and stepped to the side as I inched the door open, ready for whatever awaited us inside to attack.

Eerie silence greeted me instead.

Ash cast her spell on the entry hall, but the only magic clinging to the walls was the residue of decades of our own work. I drew my sword, holding it down at my side as I crept inside. The library stood in its normal state of disarray, but Ash's desk, always neat and organized, held a messy stack of books and one half-open drawer. She would never leave it in that state.

"Did one of you use the desk?" I asked.

The guys shook their heads, and Ash frowned, pacing toward it and restacking the books.

"I was the last one to use it." She opened the drawer fully and rummaged through it. "Nothing is missing." She closed it and shrugged. "But I left my studio a mess this morning, so it's possible I did this. I haven't had time to keep things organized lately."

"Or someone was looking for something." I stepped into the studio. Everything seemed as we left it, but the storage cabinet had one door ajar. "Ash? Is anything missing from here?"

She joined me, opening the doors and examining the shelves. "It looks like everything is here." She moved a few items, tidying up the space.

I peeked into the darkened storefront. The layer of dust on the counter said no one had been inside for weeks, yet a sinking sensation formed in my gut. Nothing was missing so far, but something felt wrong. Very wrong. "Shade, Miles, check the basement storage and meet us upstairs."

"On it," Miles said.

"Do you sense any beasties in our midst?" I headed for the stairs, pausing on the first step.

Chaos inhaled, stilling as he sent out his demonic feelers. "Nothing of my kind. I don't sense anything from across the veil."

My heart joined my sinking stomach, roiling into a tangled mess of dread. "Boston. Mayhem. They tried to find his skull before." I darted up the stairs.

I'd left the skull on my nightstand for anyone brave enough to break in to steal. With Higgins on my back to hurry up and bust his "ghost," I hadn't bothered with a ward or even a hiding place.

If someone had stolen my demon, we'd be screwed.

I ignored the partially open drawers in the kitchen and barreled through the living room. Stopping in my doorway, I gasped at the sight, my roiling innards twisting and tumbling, taking the blood from my head with them as they threatened to splatter on the floor.

"Mayhem." My voice barely registered in my ears as I dropped to my knees. "I'm so sorry."

His skull lay in pieces on the hardwood. Someone had smashed him to bits and left the fragments for me to find as a big ol' eff you .

Pressure built in the back of my eyes, my throat thickening as I cradled the biggest piece in my hands, hoping for the not-unpleasant pinprick sensation to dance across my skin. I felt nothing but cool bone.

"Oh my goddess." Ash grabbed an empty shoe box from my closet and helped me gather the pieces. "What happened?"

"I don't know." I counted twenty-three fragments as we added them to the box.

"Someone does not want my brother to reform." Chaos went to my dresser and rummaged through the open drawers, pushing my clothes aside. "The amulet isn't here. Did you move it?"

I opened the nightstand drawer and held up the container. "It's here."

Chaos pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes in confusion. "Did the fae hit you in the head?"

Ash's expression matched his. "That's your vibrator, Em."

"No, this is my vibrator." I held up the device in question. " This is an amulet with a cloaking spell." I returned them both to the drawer and closed it.

My sister nodded her approval. "Smart. Nobody would mess with that."

Chaos raised his brow. "I suppose not."

I picked up the box o' bones and sat on my bed, holding it in my lap. My lower lip started to tremble for some goddess-knew-why reason, so I bit it. My mind reeled. Who could have known the skull was here? The only people I'd told were the ones who'd been with me all morning.

I took a piece of skull from the box, running my finger over the jagged edge. "Can he still reform? We have to bring him back. We can't do this without him."

And I suddenly missed the big beast. Sure, he drove me batty and needled me every chance he got, but I wouldn't wish an eternity in the dark prison on anyone.

If I were honest, I'd admit I kinda liked our banter.

"If all the pieces are there, he can reform." Chaos eyed the floor where his brother had lain. "You'll need the debris as well." He pointed at a few pea-sized shards lying on the wood in a pile of bone granules.

"I'll get the dustpan." Ash turned on her heel and stepped through the door.

"Who would do this? Nobody knew he was here." I kneeled on the floor and picked up the tiny bits, adding them to the box. "And how will we know if all the pieces are here? I won't chance possessing myself if we can't exorcize him."

"Exorcizing him won't be a problem." Ash swept the granules into the dustpan and emptied them into the box. "But if his skull isn't complete, he'll look for another host. He tried to possess you when we exorcized him from Chrys."

"I thought he was in a containment circle." I stood and carried the box to the living room.

"It cracked." Ash followed. "His smoke poured through and circled above you before we vanquished him."

"Why am I just now hearing about this?" I set what was left of Mayhem on the coffee table and plopped into my favorite chair. Normally, news like that would have me reeling. Now…it seemed like par for the course.

Chaos shrugged. "It's not important. Do you have all the pieces?"

Not important that a demon prince tried to possess me, and it never crossed their minds to tell me. In the grand scheme of things, I supposed it wasn't. Not anymore.

The door swung open, and Shade stepped through. "The basement seems fine."

Miles followed. "It's hard to say if anything is missing, but nothing appears out of place. Whoa. Is that…?"

"It's Mayhem. Can you get the superglue?" I sat cross-legged on the floor and grabbed the two biggest pieces, turning them until they fit together. "It's arts and crafts time."

"Here." Miles set the glue on the table and joined me on the floor. "What happened?"

"That's the million-dollar question." I applied a thin strip of adhesive to one of the pieces and pressed them together, counting to fifteen for it to set before picking up another piece.

"Someone was obviously looking for something." Ash sat across from me and helped rebuild the skull.

"Yeah, but what?" I found another piece that fit. "If they were here to destroy the skull, it was in plain view in my room. They wouldn't have gone through my dresser."

"It has to be the amulet." Ash handed me a triangular piece to add to the cranium. "Maybe one of Chrys's followers knew about it."

"How would they know it was here?" Shade grabbed a protein bar from the pantry and shoved the whole thing into his mouth. "They'd look for it at Chrys's," he mumbled around the food.

"They could have scried for it." Miles tried a tiny shard in the hole on top of the cranium, but it didn't fit. "Maybe they went to her place first. Who knows?"

"Wait." I handed the partially assembled skull to Miles and grabbed my phone. "Patrice said Chrys's mom knew about our break-in. Maybe she…" I swiped open the screen and read the message I'd ignored. Oof.

"Someone went in after us." I swallowed the bile from the back of my mouth. "A human was murdered…gutted. A cat too."

"Oh crap." Ash set the piece of skull she was gluing on the table. "Livers?"

"She didn't say. They turned Chrys's apartment upside-down, though." I dialed Patrice's number and put it on speaker. She answered on the fourth ring.

"What else did Ivy tell you?" I asked.

"Hold on." Rustling sounded through the phone, followed by a door clicking shut. "Just what I told you. Did one of your demons…?"

"No." I shook my head adamantly, though she couldn't see my rejection of the idea. "Mayhem broke down the wrong door, but no one was home. And we unraveled the ward, but we found what we were looking for at Chrys's without tearing the place apart."

"What were you looking for?"

"She had a piece of an amulet that gave her more power." Ash glued another shard of skull. "It's how she got so strong."

"Oh," Patrice said. "That makes sense, I guess. But you have it now?"

"It's in a safe place where no one will find it." I plucked the missing cranial fragment from the box and handed it to Miles. "We have to find the rest of it before we can summon Discord."

"And before whoever else is looking for it finds it," Chaos said. "Did she tell you anything about it?"

"She never mentioned it to me," Patrice said.

"Not even in a villainous monologue when she rooted you to the basement floor?" I held the cranium while Miles glued the rest of the orbital bone into place.

"No, sorry. But the coven has sealed three rifts today, and it's not even noon."

"Thanks, Patrice." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "It's only going to get worse from here. Stay vigilant."

"We will."

I hung up and glued a tooth into a section of jawbone. "What would the fae want with the amulet?"

"If they're even the ones looking for it." Ash handed me the rest of the mandible. "It could be Boston making it look like the fae."

"Shit. You're right." I fastened the two pieces together, completing the jaw.

"The amulet grants immeasurable power to its bearer." Chaos cracked his knuckles. "The half-blooded fae prince and the High Priest of Boston would both benefit from finding it."

"Great. So it's either Ignacus the Imbecile Insect, or it's Adrian the Asshat pretending to be the Imbecile." I arched a brow at Miles. "Can you talk to Wendy and find out which?"

He closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. "For the greater good, yes. But if I have to watch her pick her nose one more time, I might put her out of her misery myself."

"Hey now. That's not what light witches are about." I balanced the top part of the skull on the jaw.

"I'm happy to do the dark work for you," Chaos said, and Ash backhanded him on the shoulder, making him laugh. "I kid."

"Uh-huh. Something's off. It's not fitting right." The skull slipped off the jaw.

"It's missing a piece. Look." Ash turned the left side toward me, and sure enough, a half-inch chunk wasn't where it should have been. "That part probably got pulverized." She ran a finger through the granules in the box.

I held the skull in my hands, staring into the vacant eye sockets. The piece could have been smashed beyond repair, as she said, but something in the core of my being told me that wasn't it. Setting Mayhem on the table, I rested one hand on his skull and put two fingers into the pile of granules, closing my eyes and letting instinct take over.

A faint pricking sensation made my palm tingle, and I focused on what was left of the demon's essence. I pictured his face, the amusement in his eyes when he goaded me, the surprise when I one-upped him with my retort.

My stomach tightened, and the urge to return to my bedroom had me on my feet before I realized I had moved, my mind's eye showing me exactly where the missing piece lay. I strode down the hall and lowered to my knees, peering under the bed. Sure as sugar, there it was, right where I'd seen it in my mind.

Strange. I'd never been able to locate stuff like this before.

I returned to the living room and held it up triumphantly. "Maybe I have a little bit of Dad's magic too."

Ash looked at Chaos, and he nodded, opening his mouth to speak before I cut him off.

"It is not more proof of your soulmate theory, so don't even try." I ignored the looks they all exchanged and glued the final piece into place. "Now he's complete. Has Wendy replied?"

"I haven't texted her." Miles tugged his phone from his pocket and typed on the screen.

I gingerly picked up the skull and laid it in the box with the too-small-to-assemble pieces. "This is all of it. I'm positive."

The moment I let go of Mayhem, the skull trembled. The pieces vibrated against each other, shaking back and forth as if every seam were a fault line. Smoke rose from the glue, spiraling upward and dissipating in the air.

Every fragment we had carefully put together crumbled apart.

"Why is it doing that?" My pulse sprinting, I reached into the box, hoping to save the pieces, but the moment I touched bone, it turned to sand, sifting through my fingers as if it had never been a solid object. "What the hell?"

Chaos leaned forward, scrunching his brow. "It's as if the glue has broken the bonds of the skull…a chemical reaction unlike anything I've seen."

"Oh, crap." Ash grabbed the tube of superglue. "Crappity crap. It's the magic."

"What magic? It's just glue." I took it from her and examined the label. It looked and felt completely mundane, but knowing my sister… "Ash, what did you do?"

She held up her hands. "Not me. It kept getting clogged, so Cinder cast a spell on it so the glue would never dry unless we wanted it to."

"She magically changed the chemical makeup." Shade took the tube from my hand. "That's genius."

"Then why couldn't we feel the magic when we used it?" Miles took a turn holding it.

"Because she focused it only on the contents," Ash said. "She can cast spells through objects."

"And we just turned all we have of Mayhem from bone to sand." I ran my fingers through the grains, and they crumbled even more, turning to a fine powder. Cinder and I would have words if we made it through this ordeal.

"What now?" Miles asked. "We can't summon him without his skull, can we? I mean, not unless someone wants to sacrifice their life so he can burn through them."

"And that is out of the question." My heart sank. How could I have been such an idiot? I'd screwed us six ways to Sunday when, if I had stopped to check on Ash after I lobbed off Mayhem's head, I would have known I didn't have to vanquish him.

Then I didn't bother setting up a ward on the skull because I let Higgins get to me.

And now, this demon…this man…who'd shown me a shred of humanity, of vulnerability he'd probably never shown anyone else, was rotting in a dark prison because I didn't stop to consider the consequences of my actions. To realize there might be a better way to handle the situation than through violence. My chest tightened, a fist of longing squeezing my heart because, goddess dammit, I missed Mayhem and now I might never see him again.

No. No, I couldn't think that way. I would get him back if I had to go to Hell and bargain with Lucifer myself. Whoa. Where did that come from? It didn't matter. We needed him, and we would save him.

"It's still his skull." I shot to my feet and paced in front of the television. "Even if it's turned to dust, it's all there. We can still summon him." I squared my gaze on Chaos. "Right?"

"I believe so," he said.

Nausea churned in my stomach. "You believe so? If we're going to do it the way you suggested, I need you to be certain."

He ran his fingers through the grains. "It's still bone. It will work."

A flash of red sparked inside the box, and a stream of black smoke rose in a spiral from the center.

"What's happening now?" I dropped to my knees and peered inside. "Holy Hecate. It's turning to ash."

"Super crap." My sister blinked at me, her eyes widening. "Ashes can't be resurrected without a phoenix spell."

"Phoenix spell?" Chaos asked.

"It's the darkest of dark. A form of necromancy." I gripped the table so tightly, my nails made indentions in the wood. "We have to summon him before his skull completely burns away. Go get the grimoire. Now ."