Chapter 31

Nikki, Nigel, the weres, and I landed inside Dixie's chapel, in one of the small, sweetly decorated, vaguely official-looking rooms dedicated to launching the union of those hardy or foolhardy enough to begin their married life in Las Vegas. This particular antechamber was empty, but we could hear the demons howling outside the building. More alarmingly, bright light filled the space, as if the parking area between Dixie's chapel and the tattoo parlor across the way bristled with floodlights.

"Is that Celestine?" Nikki asked.

Torsten looked around with some confusion. "Probably. She can't abide being indoors." He strode up the slightly angled center aisle, clearly looking for a way out.

"She's got a lot of things she can't abide, seems like," Nikki observed drolly, but she headed out after him.

I noticed that, though the Magician had deposited us all inside, he wasn't with us. Neither was Kreios. I didn't wait around to think about what the implications of that might be, but hoped that they would jump into the fray sooner rather than later. I followed at the back of the pack, feeling weirdly like I shouldn't leave anyone behind. Who would I leave behind? Nikki was out, Nigel right beside her, Torsten's boy band on their heels. But as I cleared the doorway of the chapel, the feeling got even stronger.

Despite the urgency of getting outside, I slowed, letting the others pull ahead. I could hear the demons roar again, and Dixie's sharp cry of relief, probably as she saw Nikki and the others emerge. The demons' howls immediately stopped, and I wondered if the Syx had been brought to bear as well on the problem. They'd left before we did, after all, and their mode of transportation was every bit as efficient as Armaeus's.

I strode past the closed door of Dixie's office, when a force of anger punched out at me, so strong it rattled my teeth and knocked me up against the wall.

Without even hesitating, I turned to her door to yank it open. It was locked, but I didn't have time to screw around. The urgency I'd felt was, well, urgent. My hands lit with fire, I blasted the doorknob open. The smoke cleared, and there was nothing different. No change.

What the…Armaeus said Dixie had upgraded her wards after a series of break-ins and mishaps, but I was Justice of the Arcana Council, not your average lockpicker. I channeled my energy and felt a current of awareness from outside the chapel. A shifting of focus, like the Eye of Sauron turning toward me. Panic flared through me, and I pushed every bit of power I could into the freaking door, this time blowing it off its hinges.

And nearly choked on my own scream.

Inside the office, Sariah lay stretched out, suspended from the ceiling by four thick cords she'd wound her hands and feet into, her body flayed opened with a million cuts. She hung faceup over a bed of spiked nails, their tips crackling with fire. Sariah's back was a mass of scorch marks, her body healing new layers as fast as the fire could blast them off her. And she wasn't alone. A flat, thin pallet lay on top of her, and sprawled upon that were at least two adult-sized bodies and at least two smaller ones I could see. Corpses or knocked-out people, I couldn't tell. What was clear, though, was that they were only being kept out of the fire by Sariah's stubbornness to not let herself fall—or be burned to the point where her body disintegrated.

The innocents,I thought instantly, remembering Sariah's words at the pizzeria only a few days ago. Not their battle to fight. Not their day to die. But how—why—?

Sariah jerked her face toward me, her eyes boiling with fury, and I didn't need any further explanation. I rushed forward with my hands blazing, my arms stretching out—and more too. I screamed as flaming wings broke free from my back, triggered by me drawing on my deepest magic. I swept the lot of them up, even as I knew this had to be a trap—a trap that'd been laid for me, not Sariah—or not only for her. The bed of nails exploded as I crashed through it, and though I transported all of us to the parking lot between Dixie's chapel and Death's tattoo parlor, I could feel my power being sucked away, ripped bodily from me.

Then we were in the parking lot. Sariah and what I suspected were a newlywed couple and their three small children, one little more than a baby, slammed against the front door of DarkWorks Ink—all of them except Sariah knocked out cold. The door opened instantly, and a shadowy figure yanked the family inside—Sariah too, I saw blearily. Good. I needed her safe. She had…she had done enough.

But I wasn't fully present in the parking lot. I was held in a position of stasis. I could see but not act. And what I was being shown made my blood run cold.

Dixie might have screamed when Nikki and the others had come out, but I understood now her cry hadn't been one of alarm or even dismay. She stood on a makeshift stage in the middle of the parking lot as if she was born to it, her petite, hourglass body wrapped in a white cowgirl dress that ended midthigh, paired with a petal pink cowboy hat, pink boots, and a jaunty pink scarf. Her broad smile lit up her face with pure, unadulterated joy, her blue eyes dancing, her blonde curls flowing gorgeously over her shoulder. She preened beside the cowering Moon, who blazed with frantic white light, and in her hand, she held the Moon's ring.

"Well then. If I had known that all it would take to lure you out of your little shell was a pretty trinket, I would have solved this problem a thousand years ago, darlin'," Dixie drawled, jolting me. She spoke with her habitual confidence, but there was something harder, even defiant gilding her tone now. "It would have saved us all a whole lot of trouble."

Desperately, I peered through the smoke. Where was Armaeus or Kreios? Clearly, this was a bad situation—and in their own backyard! Why weren't they stepping in?

The Syx also stood outside the ring of demons, their faces stoic and resolute, but they didn't move. What the hell was everyone waiting for?

I scanned the crowd again and blinked. There weren't any humans here, other than Dixie, Nikki, and Nigel. Otherwise, it was demons and shapeshifters, and those weren't the kind of victims the Syx were called to protect.

I struggled against the miasma of smoke surrounding me. The Magician might not want to act, but I wasn't the Magician. I didn't know what game Dixie was playing, but it felt deeply wrong. Was she somehow channeling the deep energy of the Star? Was that what was happening here? Or was she…

No. Even as the idea slammed into me, I rejected it. Dixie couldn't be the actual Star. There was no way. But the alternative wasn't much better. Had she deceived us all and used our affection for her to deliver us on a platter to the most hidden Arcana Council member? Was that even possible?

"You can't win." The soft, plaintive cry came from a completely unexpected source. Beside the posturing Dixie, the Moon straightened, and I instantly saw what so enthralled her honor guard, despite her frailty. She was beautiful, of course, but that wasn't it, exactly. The Moon seemed draped in a gossamer shimmer of wonder, radiant with the energy of pure potential, of planting and growing, flowering and transforming, the cycle continuing over and over again, time without time. When she looked at Dixie with deep and profound acceptance, a chill ran through me.

The Moon was psychic. She knew what was coming with some part of her fractured mind. Knew it and both welcomed and dreaded it at once, the sign of a Connected who had survived more lifetimes than anyone could count.

"Of course I'm going to win, sweetie," Dixie cooed, and I searched her voice for the core essence of the being that was channeling itself through her. Was the Star, in truth, male or female? Or something else entirely? "You yourself beheld it, the glorious rise of the Star while all the Council tried so desperately to return the world to order after the fall of Atlantis. The Sun saw our chance to rule, but he told me to wait, to grow my strength. He didn't tell me you would run away from the battle altogether. That surprised us all."

Dixie lifted a lazy finger, curling it in a come-here gesture, and the nearest demons howled with salivating delight. One of them cracked a switch I hadn't seen it was holding, and a mark appeared on the Moon's forearm, her blood blue and shiny in the supernatural light surrounding her.

I jerked forward in anger, but I couldn't move. Furious, I pushed out with my mind as hard as I could.

Armaeus!

This time, the Magician responded.

"This is a fight between members of the original Council, Miss Wilde,"he said heavily.

The Devil unexpectedly chimed in. "Between members of the original Council who have specifically excluded themselves from our protection. We have no power here."

What? How is that possible?I stared furiously around the place. Nikki and Nigel were caught in some sort of a weird thrall with Torsten's crew, the silent shifters in service to the Moon held fast by the Moon's own magic, while the demons writhed and chanted, in service to the Star.

Where the hell is Michael, then?I demanded. Shouldn't he be involved?

Only silence greeted me. I turned around, a wave of fury burning more deeply within me. What was the point of the Council if they refused to help in times of need?

"A question worth considering,"Armaeus agreed, though I hadn't thought that last protest out loud. It'd been loud enough, apparently. No matter what happened here tonight, the Council was heading for a serious identity crisis after this.

Is Dixie possessed? I pressed Armaeus, glancing back to her as she admired her shiny ring.

He didn't respond, but Nikki pushed forward as if she could hear my thoughts, shoving against a wall of energy.

"What has gotten into you?" she demanded of Dixie, equal parts of anger and genuine concern.

Dixie turned to her one-time best friend with an indulgent smile that turned harder along with her knife-edged words. "Oh, you're a fine one to talk," she said. "Since the moment you turned up on my doorstep, I've had the distinct displeasure of watching you slowly build your grub-like abilities to something approaching skills. How often did I long to dispose of you, but I couldn't draw the anger or the attention of the mighty Council, a mighty Council that treated me like a second-class citizen when I was far more powerful than you are. More powerful than any of you."

The subtle shift in Dixie's speech made me narrow my eyes. This wasn't the declaration of a Possessed. This was the rage of a woman truly spurned.

Nikki seemed to pick up on it as well. And, being Nikki, she doubled down on the insult.

"Oh, please. You didn't have enough ability in you to pull together a proper bake sale," she sneered, her bold defiance drawing the cool, ethereal gaze of the Moon. Her expression softened as she took in Nikki's fierceness, her lips curving into a smile that made my heart shiver. For all that her mind was fractured, she was truly a wondrous creature—a goddess, through and through.

"You think you've got what it takes to best the Moon?" Nikki continued. "You think you've got even one ounce of her badassery? You can't get people to stay married longer than thirty hours after they leave your door. What power do you have?"

"Enough!" Dixie shouted. She flapped her hands again, and a dozen demons cracked their fiery whips, making the Moon cry out in pain as she staggered back. "I've been drawing down this pitiful wretch's power long enough. I've gotten everything I need."

She pulled something out of a hidden pocket, bright and steely, and I could feel Nikki rush forward before I could shout a warning.

"No!"

The knife came down, but it struck Nikki, not the Moon, the blade sinking deep in her gut.

I exploded.