I looked at Mal. “She’s not?”
“Conari are venomous daemons, identified by their wide mouth with serrated teeth and the scales across their brow.”
She reached up and rubbed away part of the scales. Makeup. “You faked it?”
“Because you’re a djinnan,” Mal said.
“A genie?” I was so confused.
“No,” Mal said. “Genies are creatures created in mythology by humans and given magical properties such as the ability to grant wishes. In truth, there is no such thing. The djinn were a powerful, proud race that ascended to greener pastures millennia ago, leaving only remnants of their existence here in the Underealm in the blood of demons.”
I needed to know… “What happened to you?”
“A jealous lover decided if he couldn’t have me, no one would want me.”
He ruined her face?
“I’m not strong enough to hold a glamour for more than a few seconds,” she continued. “I couldn’t fix myself, and I was sick of being stared at, of being looked at with disgust, so I decided to become something people would fear rather than pity.”
So she pretended to be a Conari daemon. “What about your husband. Does he know?”
“He knows. But he has no use for my face. He covets only my body. We have an arrangement. But I’m sick of living half a life. With your amulet, I could be free. I could use it to power my illusion. I could be whole again. I could leave this shitty village and live again.”
But the amulet wouldn’t work forever. It would need to be recharged. Jasper had gotten it for me, for short-term use. I’d never meant to get it recharged, and if I left it here with her, she’d have no way to charge it, but my heart ached for her. I wanted to help her.
“I can’t give this to you, not yet. But I promise that if you help me, I will return this to you in a week’s time. I give you my word. But in the interests of full disclosure, you should know that the power inside it isn’t infinite. It will need to be recharged, and I don’t know if you have anyone in the Underealm who can do that.”
“Fucksake, Fee,” Mal groaned. “Do you always have to be so honest?”
My stomach dipped. He was right. Maybe I should have kept my big mouth shut. Shut.
The djinnan studied me for a long beat, eyes locked on mine as if reading my soul. Finally, she nodded. “Thank you for your honesty. Once I have the amulet, I’ll find a way to keep it working.”
“So, you’ll help us?” Mal asked.
“Yes.”
I exhaled in relief. “What’s your name?”
“Nirma.”
“I’m Fee. Thank you, Nirma.”
I thought Nirma would take us further out of town, to a warehouse or some kind of rundown building, but she led us deep into the village onto the edge of a fancy estate blocked off by high hedges and a tall gate made of a rust-colored metal. It was slightly open, wide enough for us to slip through, and the cobbled drive beyond looked empty. But then a figure strode across it carrying a huge gun braced on his shoulder.
“A fucking musket,” Mal said. “Who uses a musket in this day and age?”
Nirma sniffed, annoyed. “Not progressive enough for you? This isn’t Imperium. Not all of the Underealm wants to embrace technology, especially when it’s only ever led to the destruction of every race that has ever advanced.”
“Or saved it. Plastic surgery could fix your face,” Mal said.
Nirma flinched. “Can it fix your broken soul?”
Shit. I needed to defuse this. “What is this place?”
Nirma tore her gaze from Mal with a weary sigh. “The mayor’s house. They took it over a month ago. The mayor and his family are still in residence, and the two times we’ve seen him in the village, he acts as if everything is fine. But one of the maids who does the food shopping told the baker’s wife that they’re practically prisoners in their own home. She said the bastards keep the mayor’s two daughters in a separate wing. Goodness knows what they’re doing to the two girls.”
My blood simmered. “We need to get in there. Now.”
Mal nodded. “We need to find a back way in. Walking in through the gate isn’t an option.”
“There is no breach in the perimeter,” Nirma said. “The hedge covers a rock wall.”
“Fuck.” Mal pinched the bridge of his nose. “Then we wait for dark and scale it and—"
“They have sentries posted on the grounds,” Nirma said. “If they see a demon come over the fence, they’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”
Mal shot her dagger eyes. “It sounds almost as if you want us to fail.”
“If I wanted you to fail, I wouldn’t be telling you all this.”
My mind was whirring, mulling over the problem, and then I had an idea. “Hey, do you have dogs in the Underealm?”
Mal looked confused. “What have dogs got to do with anything?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Huge dogs,” Mal said. “So what?”
I grinned. “They’ll shoot if they see a human, but what about a huge silver dog?”
Mal stared at me in dawning comprehension. “No. Hell no. You want to go in as a wolf?”
“I can play a demon canine. I’ll even put on a limp.”
“Then what?”
“I’ll take a headcount, scope out the place, and find another way to get you inside.”
Mal frowned as he considered it. “An injured dog. A big injured dog… I don’t know, Fee. It’s risky.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
His shoulders dropped. “No. But I don’t like this.”
Yeah. Neither did I. Especially because it meant getting naked. But there was no one about. The place was deserted. In fact, we’d barely seen a living soul since leaving the tavern.
Nirma was staring at us, and it hit me she had no idea what the fuck we were talking about.
I sighed. “Want to watch me turn into a wolf?”
Chapter Seventeen
Being in my wolf skin was like slipping off my bra and letting my boobs breathe. I was free, running toward the gates to the mayor’s house.
“Fee, pssst,” Mal called out. “Limp, remember?”
He was crouched to my left behind the hedge with Nirma beside him.
Oh, yes, doh. I gave him a wolfy grin, then broke into a limp through the gates.
The cobbles were cold beneath my paws, the air smelled sweet and kind of musty; it was the Underealm smell but magnified for my Loup nose. My vision was sharper, the night brighter, even though the moon was trapped behind a cloud. I smelled the demon before he stepped out from behind the fountain. Dirty demon in need of a wash. Dirty demon that reeked of blood. Conah’s blood. The demon needed to die.
My chest vibrated in an almost growl that I suppressed into a whimper.
“Oh, hello there. Big boy, aren’t you?” The demon was holding a musket but pointed it down as I limped toward him. “Hurt?”
I recognized him as the demon who’d stabbed Conah. The smell of blood on his clothes made sense now. Resisting the urge to bare my teeth, I ducked my head and whined. All the better to stop me ripping your face off, my dear.
“Let’s see.” He crouched and probed my limb, checking for injury.
Ah, he was touching me. Control, Fee. Just keep it in control. I made sure to whimper a couple more times.
“No broken bones. You’ll be fine. You hungry?”
I guess demons had a soft spot for dogs, even if they did like to spend their spare time stabbing other demons.
He rubbed my neck, and once again, a growl rose up my throat, but I bit it back. Oh, fuck, this was hard. I wanted to snap and lunge. I wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt Conah. Instead, I stood my ground and attempted to look grateful, about as grateful as a Loup could look.
He stood and waved me toward the huge house. I resisted the urge to look back at the gates. Mal could take care of himself. My job was to get inside, allow myself to be petted, and then wait for a chance to scope out the place. How many fake guards were there? Where were they holding Conah? Was there a back way onto the grounds? I mean, there had to be another way—
The demon veered around the side of the house.
Wait. I needed to be in the house. Where was he going?
We rounded the house, and an outbuilding that looked suspiciously like a stable came into view.
“Come on, boy,” the demon said. “There’s some mulch in here you can have.”
Mulch? As in the icky shit the drakes ate? No thanks, buddy.
He yanked open the stable door, and the smell of shit hit me. It was so strong it had me backing up a step.
Nope. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go in, and yep, that was bile clawing up my throat.
He lit a lamp and then turned to look at me with a grin on his face. “It’s safe. Come on, boy. You could do with fattening up.”
Was he fucking serious? I was a hundred-pound wolf, and the last thing my ass needed was fattening up. How was he standing in the barn? Did he have no sense of smell? God, that smell. Oh, fuck. I’d have to do this.
I followed him in, hoping to God my olfactory system would get used to the overpowering stench soon. Wait, did that happen to Loup? The place was a mess of storage, much larger inside than it looked from outside. There was hay, a trough of water, and one of mulch, but the thing that commanded my full attention was the monster chained to a post in the center of the barn.
The demon gave it a wide berth, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off it. It looked like a drake, but was much bigger, and whereas the drakes looked like Komodo dragons with bony frills, this one was serpentine with a tail that was at least four feet long. Its wings were folded and bound with silver rope. It clawed at the ground with its talons and fixed its crimson eyes on me before flicking out its forked tongue to taste the air.
Oh, boy, he really didn’t want to be doing that, not to this air, but the pie of crap not too far from the post told me he’d be tasting his own shit particles on the atmosphere.