Page 46 of Mending Mayhem
“Very well.” He opened to me before I was ready, a surge of demon magic coursing through my psyche, making me gasp.
Shade’s brow furrowed. “How about a little of that over here?”
Amusement sparkled in Mayhem’s eyes as he withdrew a fraction of his magic and offered it to Shade. My stomach looped at his playful expression, so I focused on the water bowl instead. If I didn’t get myself under control, this would never work.
“Let’s begin.” I gazed at the water in the bowl, the candle flames filling the periphery of my vision until everything started to blur. I allowed my sight to remain unfocused and thought about the amulet.
Forged in the depths of the Underworld. A joint project between Hecate, our goddess, and Hades, their god. Why would a god and goddess need an artifact that increased a being’s power beyond compare? I couldn’t fathom it. Then again, I’d never met a deity. Who knew how their brains worked?
Picturing the red stone in my mind, I held on to the image, visualizing the broken piece and how it would fuse with the rest of the gem. Ash’s energy vibrated high on my right while Mayhem’s low rumble pulsed on my left.
I invited both into my psyche, letting them mix and meld in the core of my being, pulling me deeper and deeper into the trance. Though my eyes remained open, I saw nothing but the darkness of the ether, which I sifted through as if it were sand running through my fingers. All I felt was the void.
“Does anyone sense it yet?” My mouth felt dry, my tongue sticky.
“Nothing yet.” Ash’s voice was hoarse and thick, a side effect of the scrying trance. “Let’s go deeper.”
I inhaled and let out a slow, controlled breath before allowing myself to slip in further. The outside world ceased to exist. I couldn’t feel the hands I held nor smell the burning wax. With all my senses focused into the ether, I searched for the energy of the amulet.
A tickle formed in my consciousness, the sensation pulling me forward. “I feel something,” I said silently.
“Share it,” Ash replied in my mind.
I did, allowing it to seep into our shared trance, and a vision began to form. It wavered, sparkling around the edges and fading in and out. My only thought the matter at hand, I focused harder, bringing the amulet into clear focus.
The sparkles dimmed as the image took shape, an unassuming red stone attached to a shimmering gold chain.
“That’s it, right?” I asked the demons, but they couldn’t reply. Even though they shared their magic with us, they weren’t part of the collective trance.
“It has to be,” Shade said. “Pull back so we can see where it is.”
I pictured the area around the stone. It lay nestled on a pillow of black velvet. Pulling back further, I saw the plexiglass container holding it on a shelf. It sat in a massive storage room, with rows and rows of shelving units. Jewelry, hand-drawn maps, and pottery filled the shelves, and antique furniture lined the floors.
“What the hell?” I pulled back more and found security guards armed with assault rifles at the entrance to the room. The vision wavered, the sparkles returning to the edges.
“Stay in the trance. We need to see where the building is.” I sent out another wave of magic as I pulled back in the vision. A lobby. Three sets of heavy double doors. More armed guards. Finally, I made it out of the building, a brick and glass structure that stood at least ten stories high.
“I recognize this,” Miles said. “I know where it is.”
“Let’s pull out, then. We’ve used enough vim.” I took a deep breath, bringing my senses back into my body. The candles’ blurry flames flickered in my peripheral vision, and warmth from Mayhem’s and Ash’s hands seeped into my palms. I blinked the water bowl into focus and gasped, letting go of Ash to press my hand to my chest.
Mayhem held my other hand tightly. “Are you okay?”
I looked at him, the concern in his gaze making me feel things I didn’t know how to name. “I’m good. Everyone good?”
“Yeah,” Shade said, and Ash nodded.
Miles’s brow furrowed. “I’m okay, but…someone put the rest of the amulet up for auction. It’s in New York City.”
“A heavily guarded auction house. Fabulous.” I rolled my neck from side to side, stretching the tension from my muscles and hoping my spine would crack to relieve some of the pressure threatening to build into a massive headache. Sadly, it didn’t help.
“Human guards will be no match for a Prince of Hell and his fire witch. We will simply go in and take what is rightfully ours.”
“Whoa. There are so many things wrong with that sentence.” I tugged from his grasp and stood before extinguishing the candles and carrying them to a shelf. A trace tingle of Mayhem’s magic still danced across my skin, so I shook my hand, chasing away the sensation.
Mayhem stretched out his legs, clasping his fingers behind his head. “It makes perfect sense to me.”
My teeth clicked, the tension in my jaw adding to that in my neck. “Let me dissect it for you. A: We don’t know for certain all the guards are human. That’s a high-paying job, and witches have to work too. So do shifters for that matter, and New York is home to plenty of them.”