Chapter 2

The Devil of the Arcana Council was usually tall and broad shouldered, his bronzed skin kissed by the sun and his tawny hair flowing over his shoulders, but tonight, he stepped into the restaurant with a glamour that reeked of Mafia enforcer. His body was thick, heavy, and stuffed into a suit that emphasized every bulging muscle, and his face was hard and iron-jawed. A thatch of dark hair swept back from his temples, graying slightly above the ears, but I doubted anyone would suggest he was past his prime. At least not to his face.

"Maria," somebody bellowed from the kitchen. She stood, bumping the table, the wood surface so thick that the cards didn't shift.

"Something's going to happen tonight," she hissed. "Something bad." Then she hurried off, grabbing her apron from the stool and lashing it on again with the ease of long practice.

After a quick survey of the room, Aleksander Kreios strolled over to us with an easy smile, though his gaze remained on Maria. "How do I look?" he asked as he slid into the booth beside me.

"Like the cat who just incinerated the canary," Sariah answered, her gaze going from him to Maria. "What are you doing here?"

"Why wouldn't I come?" Kreios asked mildly. "When I paid a visit to Mrs. French at Justice Hall, she told me where you were. I did a little research myself, and I must say, I'm hurt. Barry's a devil worshipper. Forget my newly minted role as head of the Arcana Council, how could you not have asked me to come along?"

"Maybe because it's none of your business?" Sariah put in, with just enough edge to her voice that I lifted a brow.

Sariah and the Devil were rarely together, but for the first time it occurred to me that they might not be natural allies. For all that Kreios was known as the Lord of Hell, he'd never spent much time in those subterranean passages. I didn't think he and Sariah had ever encountered each other before she'd exited Hell to come to Vegas…which had arguably been a lateral move. And they generally didn't spend too much time in each other's company, though I'd never noticed that before now.

Nevertheless, Kreios turned to her and eyed her with barely a flicker of curiosity—something else that was unusual. One of the Devil's most profound traits was his insatiable need to know everything in another person's mind, yet he didn't push Sariah to spill…anything.

"On the contrary," he drawled. "It's exactly my business, or at least my business for tonight, and this glamour will get me prime seating for the show. More to the point, what I can do for myself, I can also do for you."

I blinked, and Sariah let out a low, appreciative chuckle as she tapped her newly long, lacquered fingernails on the scarred wooden table.

"How do I look?" she asked me, and I turned to see Maria sitting there again, speaking with Sariah's laconic voice. A second later, the image cleared, and Sariah settled back once more in the booth, looking satisfied. "Okay, you can stay," she told Kreios. "But you're here just for the party tricks, while I need to figure out…"

She blinked, then looked away as she cut herself off, her face reddening slightly. I narrowed my eyes again at Kreios. Sariah wasn't one to show her cards, while the Devil was a big fan of helping everyone flash their hand early and often. Had he used his skills of persuasion on her after all? And if so, how had she managed to stop herself from sharing her thoughts midsentence?

"Why are you really here?" I asked Kreios.

He shrugged. "It's safe to say that the Magician is growing warier of the events coming to pass. His need to locate the outstanding members of the Arcana Council, the Moon and the Star, weighs heavily upon him. Every new request for your services, every shift in magic is connected, he believes, to a greater picture that we cannot yet discern. He can't fully discern it either, which is more the problem."

Sariah scoffed. "I mean, seriously. The guy has one job."

The Devil looked at her with wry amusement. "Whereas you have many jobs, don't you?" he asked quietly, the question so laden with hidden meaning, I blinked. What was with these two?

Sariah narrowed her eyes at him. "Look, Grandpa, if you've got a problem with me, you can come right out and say it. Whether you split into sixty-seven different versions of yourself or man up and present as one, I'm more than happy to take you on."

"Whoa," I said, lifting my hands slightly. "Did I miss someone pulling somebody else's hair or something?"

The door opened at the front of the restaurant, and a cool breeze flowed in along with a new set of diners. The Devil lifted his head to peer over the edge of the booth.

"Super smooth," Sariah observed.

"You forget that anyone looking at me sees only what I want them to. Just as they will see you the way I'll be presenting you shortly," he murmured. Before Sariah could respond to that, Kreios turned back to us, his eyes gleaming with a faint red glow. "For all the professed devil worshipping that goes on in this world, there are few who truly take the time to get it right. The gentlemen who just entered are among those few."

I glanced over and saw six men, all of them dark suited, walk through the restaurant while no one so much as glanced their way. The newcomers disappeared into the back room, while Kreios regarded Sariah more steadily.

"Did you ever encounter husks in Hell?" he asked her.

She shrugged. "Hell took all types, but yeah, we had husks. They were dormant until they were called, then they returned once their work was done. That's what we're dealing with here? He's not making his golems with dough anymore, but with husks?"

"I can't speak to what he did in the past, but now…it would seem things have changed." Kreios turned to me. "Husks are created out of human blood, ground animal bones, poisonous plants, and various other ingredients known to a rarified few. They are summoned much like demons, and their use is to effect a very specific kind of possession."

I lifted my brows. "I've dealt with the Possessed before, but I've never encountered a husk—or a golem, for that matter. What's the difference?"

"A golem looks like a human, and can act like a human for a time, with the human's tacit permission given via their blood. A husk pulls a human to them and wears it like a skin. There's no conflict, no compulsion, because the human is already dead."

I slid my gaze to Sariah, and she shrugged again.

"Ah… Dead, dead?" I asked. "Not just seriously in need of therapy?"

"Correct," Kreios said. "It's a nasty piece of business. And an interesting new staffing choice for Demonico's proprietor."

Sariah leaned forward. "That's a good point. You use golems mixed in with the population of the homeless and the disenfranchised, nobody notices, right? They just think somebody else is off their meds, or drunk, or just having a really bad day. Then the golem leaves, no harm, no foul. The host might trade a few pints of blood for a couple of pizzas, but nobody else would pay that much attention. But making dead people into husks? Bodies are gonna add up, and be found in places they shouldn't be. Why would you do that?"

"Because you can." Kreios's expression had turned a touch darker. "Husk magic is a particularly dirty form of necromancy. Someone wants to send a message that he can play with the big boys, and the big boys have decided to come around."

"Last call," Maria said, walking up to our table. Her eyes were wide and glassy, but her smile was as genuine as ever. She was working hard at keeping it together. "Can I get you anything?"

The Devil regarded her steadily. "Maria Romano, what magic do you deal in?"

She blinked at him, opened her mouth—then closed it again.

Kreios smiled like a shark. "What is it you want to tell me?"

"My family are healers," Maria blurted, her words rushed, almost panicked. "We deal in white magic only. It's how I've been able to work here so long. Barry and Joe before him—they're good people. They've always been good people. But this is different. Barry's going down some dark paths, and word's getting out. I've tried to keep the place safe, but what he's doing, it's gotten bigger than I can contain."

Kreios nodded. "That's probably why it's taken him so long to draw the attention of the others. You can't heal this, Maria. You need to go home."

She shook her head. "I can't. He'll never let anyone else…" Her words faltered as she glanced around the table, stopping when she got to Sariah. To me, Sariah looked the same as she ever did, but to Maria…

"Oh…" she whispered.

"Go home, Maria. Sariah will follow you out and then reenter as you." Kreios fixed her with a stern gaze. "The magic you summon, use for your family this night. Hide them. Hide yourself. If husks walk the street this evening, they will come for you."

"No," Maria said, shaking her head quickly. "No, they won't. Barry wouldn't do that. He—he wouldn't. But I'll go." She stepped back, and Sariah slid out of the booth, raising a brow to Kreios as Maria turned on her heel and hurried away, the poor woman visibly restraining herself from running through the restaurant.

"You really do have such a way with people." Sariah smirked, then she headed out after Maria.

"You want to tell me what's going on between you two?" I asked as Kreios turned back to me, picking up one of the bottles of beer and sniffing it, then curling his lip. I took it from him and took a long swig before settling back in my booth.

Kreios regarded me with an intrigued gleam in his cool green eyes. "Sariah is more complicated than the Council has given her credit for. Her elevation to the Night Witch position has set off a series of events in the underworld that we did not anticipate, and that the Magician in particular did not anticipate."

I frowned. Not too much got past the Magician of the Arcana Council. "What are you talking about? Is she in trouble?"

The Devil huffed a soft laugh. "Not exactly. All I know is that trouble is now poised to find Sariah, wherever she roams." He gestured around the room. "Trouble, it would appear, already has."