Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [104]
“That the object Mr. O’Halloran asked for?”
“Do you have any more stupid questions for me?” I snapped. “Want to know if I come here often, perhaps?”
He jerked his head at the second thug, who led me into the private room behind the desk. “She’s here, Mr. O’Halloran,” he murmured, and got the hell out.
Not that I blamed him in the least. Seamus glided forward, clad in black slacks and a crew-neck sweater. It was no robe with a pentagram topped with a headdress of antlers, but it was intimidating enough.
“Thank you for being on time, Detective,” he said, inclining his head. “And for not attempting anything stupid.”
I swallowed and thrust my chin out. “You don’t know that.”
He smiled. Not an evil smile by any stretch. No moustache-twirling or sardonic smirking. Just a small, satisfied expression that assured everyone he was in complete control.
Bastard.
“I’m sure we don’t want unpleasantness at this late date, Detective Wilder. Show me the Skull.”
“Show me Shelby and Valerie and Victor,” I countered, holding the canvas bag closer.
“They’re not here,” said Seamus. “Trust me, I’ve seen all the same spy movies you have, Detective. They’re in the secure room in the basement. I think it was a bomb shelter at some point. Very quiet and secluded, to avoid any questions about screaming. But they’re alive. I am a worthy witch. I keep my promises.”
I looked into Seamus’s eyes, trying to see the lie there. He betrayed nothing. But he was a worthy witch. Evil, ambitious, depraved, but still a witch. And they were all OCD about the honor-and-promises crap.
“Fine,” I said, pulling the Skull out of the bag. “Let’s get this stupid Centamen or whatever over with.”
Seamus held out his palm and I slapped the Skull into it. “Very good,” he said. He went and set it back on its pedestal, and then bowed to me, gesturing to a circle worked into the gaudy floor tiles I hadn’t noticed before. “Please.”
I made sure we both stepped into the circle at the same time, and Seamus brought his hands together and muttered a few words to close the circle and bring up the energy.
It snapped shut around us like the jaws of a trap, and I almost staggered under the weight of Seamus’s power. He was stronger than Sunny by a thousand times, even stronger than my grandmother. Even Alistair Duncan hadn’t been this bad.
“By the laws laid down at Rouen in 1597, we battle for honor and for prestige on the even field of a working circle,” Seamus said, muttering quickly like you say grace when you’re really, really hungry and don’t mean it anyway. “Do you stand as a combatant of your own free will, so bound until the contest is ended?”
“Um,” I said. “Sure. Yes. I do.”
Seamus nodded. “Very good. Unfortunately, I do not.”
And as his power hit me, blue flames that burned my clothes and skin and seared me body and soul, I saw just how foolish I’d been. I’d let my worries for Shelby blind me to the fact that once Seamus had the Skull, he didn’t need to be honorable anymore. And he didn’t need me alive.
You’d better believe I fought, though. I tried to draw the power into me like when I’d copied the runes. I tried to feel the strength Asmodeus had imbued me with and just as quickly screamed as I felt the cold certainty of the daemon’s gift burned away by Seamus’s magick.
“Whatever little tricks you might have picked up,” said Seamus, “won’t do you a damn bit of good inside that circle. I’m as safe from you as you are from an inmate at the jail.”
“Hex … you…”I moaned, and then I couldn’t speak anymore. My heartbeat fluttered, and it was hard to draw a breath. I was angry, at my own arrogance and that I’d made a deal with Asmodeus for no reason and that someone like Seamus O’Halloran had outsmarted me with casual effort.
I lay in the circle with the blue lines of manifested magick crackling over me, watching as Seamus marched back to the Skull, breaking the circle’s bonds. It didn’t matter. He had what he needed.
“Tatum lucidium,” Seamus read reverently from the Skull. “Tatum nocturnum. Infine mortis, lucium est.” He kept chanting, low