I was back in Louisiana, just outside Keller’s ranch. It looked just as shitty and broken down and the front door laid on the ground. I’d jammed it into place before I’d left, but obviously someone had kicked it in again. There were no lights on inside, but Keller’s fresh scent was unmistakable.

“Why would he come here?” Jezze held up a hand and summoned a small orb of light to guide us in the dark interior.

“I exposed his Orlando hideout.” I drew my sword and stalked through the living room, following Keller’s stink. “He needed someplace to run, so he came home.”

“Or,” Sam moved to my side and pulled out his own blade. “He came back for some kind of weapon or magic he’s held in reserve.”

I preferred to think of him as a whiny little bitch.

“The journal.” Jezze yanked it out of her purse. “I almost finished the translation. It’s tied to his power over the ghouls. I need to translate the last passage and I think I can come up with a counter-spell and cut him off from the ghouls. If he lost his source of power, he’d just be plain old Keller again.”

“Other than the leftover werewolf and warlock parts,” I mumbled and then held out my hand for the book. “But yeah, you’re right. Lemme see.”

I grabbed the journal and flipped to the last section—the one that was troubling Jezze. I stared at the symbols, their randomness confusing until I found the pattern. One I never would have recognized before.

I may have hated having five dads in the past, but I was loving all this extra juice.

I took Jezze’s pen and traced a curving line between the symbols, connecting them in a shape of a sinuous rune before I handed it back. “How’s that?”

“Oh shit. Of course. I was trying to read…” Jezze grumbled and mumbled to herself. “…different pattern… more sense… How did you know?”

“Magic bananas?” I raised both my eyebrows and grinned.

She glared at me. Apparently now wasn’t the time to joke.

I unzipped my jacket and opened it to flash the sigil burned into my skin in golden light. The shape I’d sketched on the page matched my new freaky tattoo.

“Oh, well dayum.”

“Work on the counter-spell.” I zipped my jacket. “Sam and I will keep the asshole busy.”

Somehow.

Jezze cleared off Keller’s desk and got to work on her spell. I knew—from experience—that It would take her a few minutes. As soon as Keller realized his little puppet strings were about to be cut, he’d come out of hiding. Sam and I needed to find him first.

Sam and I headed through the kitchen and Keller’s scent led me to a door to the basement. I opened it and peered down the stairs, wondering what we’d find down there. Keller had to have returned to the ranch for a reason and I imagined that reason was in the basement.

“We could wait.” Sam spoke softly so his voice wouldn’t carry. “Let Jezze work and cut off Keller’s power source. He’ll be easier to handle if he’s wounded.”

“If we wait, he could finish what he’s doing and make himself more powerful.” I hated having to be rational. I just wanted to kill something.

“Your call.”

It took a split-second for me to weigh my options. Patience and waiting for Jezze or decisiveness and kicking ass now?

My gut—and wolf—wanted me to run in with claws flashing.

“Let’s go.”

Swords raised, we silently moved down the steps. At first the basement looked like any other neglected part of the house—old junk, a worn workbench and a washer and dryer filled the space. At the far end was a break in the cinder block wall, an opening I’d missed the last time I’d been at the ranch. The sound of chanting came from that dark hole and the staircase filled with a deep red glow.

I took a bracing breath and headed down the second set of stairs into the sub-basement—and Keller’s real workshop. Shelves loaded with spell components lined the walls and a desk in one corner overflowed with grimoires and loose paper covered in runic writing. A rotting dead body was chained to the far wall, guts spilling from a large gash and the poor soul’s flesh was carved with runes. In front of the body, a pentagram had been painted on the floor in blood. Probably his own.

Keller sat cross-legged in the center of the red design, naked and his own body was painted with runes. His chanting continued, fingers dipping into a clay jar of blood at the edge of the circle. He used the red liquid to draw another symbol on his forehead. It flashed with light and then burned into his skin, and his body jerked as it suffused him with power.

Sam and I moved toward him, blades raised.

“You’re too late, Caith.” Keller’s voice echoed through the room. “I didn’t want to do it this way, but you won’t stop interfering. You left me no choice.”

I hesitated a few feet from the pentagram. Something in me told me that crossing the circle could be fatal. “What is this?” I hoped to buy some time for Jezze to finish her work. “I have the sigil, Keller. You’re going to have to kill me to get it.”

He laughed and shook his head. “You don’t understand what the sigil is, do you? It’s not something to be claimed by a person. It is power, Caith. Power cannot be claimed and owned.”

“But I have it,” I raised a brow and pointed at my chest.

“The sigil is stepping through a door into a new level of existence.” He didn’t speak any louder yet his voice still boomed as if he’d shouted. “Anyone can go through a door. Anyone can evolve and reach new heights. How they get there is the question.”

I stared at the pentagram and finally understood Keller’s intent. “You’re opening a ritual circle, a portal to Hell. And you’re going there in the flesh.”

“That’s suicide.” Sam put voice to my thoughts.

Keller laughed. “Almost. Which is why this wasn’t my first choice. Better to tie my strings to your soul, Caith, and send you to retrieve it for me. I could have drawn on its power through our connection and never put myself at risk. Now I can travel there in the flesh and claim it for myself.” He looked at me then, eyes completely black, the darkness in him growing with every breath. “You cannot stop me.”

I licked my lips, mind shuffling through my ideas while I sought my next move. Ritual circles were a sonofabitch. They were used to summon demons, and once the dem arrived, they would be trapped in the circle and bound to the summoner’s will. The circle acted as a magical force field (Star Trek totally got the idea from a warlock), holding them captive. Some dems escaped by tricking the warlock into breaking the circle and setting them free in the process.

Keller did the reverse. He was creating a portal into Hell.

So what would happen if I broke it?

Fucked if I knew, but I had a bad feeling it would suck us down to Uncle Luc’s territory. Fine for Keller and me. Not so much for Sam. Every demon in Hell would tear the gel apart the moment they saw him.

Keller lifted an athame and dragged it across his palm, drawing blood. As soon as his blood dripped onto the circle it would open the portal.

“Sam,” I looked to my mate, “go.”

“But—“

On High love him, but he didn’t listen. “Go!”

I raced forward and tried to reach Keller before he opened the portal. His blood fell toward the ground, drawing closer with each millisecond, and fuck… There wasn’t time to catch it before it touched the floor.

But it wasn’t a question of my speed, only how I moved through time. I extended my arm and called on my hellfire. The flames rose straight from the depths of Hell, fueled by the darkness in that realm. It came from a place where time meant nothing. I didn’t have to worry about calling it fast enough. I merely had to let it free.

The Hellfire erupted around Keller, scorching his skin and boiling away the blood on his hand. That single droplet vaporized before it could touch the ground and the blood runes that Keller had painted on his skin were seared from his flesh. The pentagram vanished in the same instant, cutting off the ritual circle and closing the portal.

I brought my sword down on Keller a moment later. My sharpened blade was anxious to taste the warlock’s blood. He deflected it with a blast of magic that knocked it from my hand.

He leapt to his feet and lunged, screaming as he attacked. “You vile bitch! You’re ruining everything! I was going to make you my queen. We belong together. You’re my soulmate.”

I snorted and punched Keller in the face. “You’re wrong, asshole. I was never your soulmate. You were a good time when I was foolish and lonely.”

“And what,” he shouted. “You think the fucking angel is your soulmate? He’s nothing and I’ll prove it.”

Keller thrust a hand toward Sam and I swung for Keller’s wrist. A burst of magic shot from my ex’s hand just before my blade connected. The metal sang as it sank through flesh and bone, severing Keller’s hand. It fell to the ground with a wet splat.

Keller’s spell shot toward Sam and a swirling vortex formed in the air. It was a smaller, cruder version of the magic he’d used to attempt the portal to Hell. This couldn’t open a passage that a man or demon could use, but it created a connection to the realm.

A horde of screaming spirits poured out, all flying at Sam. He swung his divine blade and the sword glowed with holy power. He hacked through several of the angry spirits, slicing them to pieces as easily as my own blade cut through flesh and bone.

But there were too many. Too many and their claws tore into Sam, ripping at his soul. Their ghost-like forms couldn’t harm flesh or draw blood, but they could shred his soul if I didn’t stop them.

“Jezze!” I screamed and hoped she could hear me. “You need to finish that spell, now!” Keller’s phantom strings allowed him to control the spirits. If they were severed, they’d fade and vanish back to the spirit realm.

But it didn’t look like Sam would last long enough for Jezze to sever that link.

I ran to Sam, but Keller intercepted me. He thrust his remaining hand at my chest, his palm slamming into my chest over the sigil that was burned into my skin. He grabbed me and a heaving lurch jerked me forward. He fought to tap into the sigil and suck its power the same way he’d drained so many innocent people.

I grabbed his wrist in a tight grip and swung my sword with my other hand. He stepped close and swung his bloody stump to block my attack. He was too close for me to use the sword. I didn’t have the leverage to get into his body.

I dropped the sword, grabbed his wrist with both hands, and strained to draw him away. His hand shifted into his wolf’s claw, sharp talons digging into my flesh. Asshole wanted to claw my heart from my chest along with the sigil.

Yeah, not happening.

I channeled a combination of Hell and holy fire into my hands, savoring the conflicting warmths while I burned his flesh with darkness and pure light. His skin crackled and burned, the fur sprouting on his arm catching fire. He screamed in pain and I smiled widely even as he pushed me against the wall and tried to pin me there. His naked body pressed against mine and the stench of blood, sweat, and burning fur made my stomach heave.

“You’ll be mine, Caith.” Keller’s spittle peppered my face. “I’ll kill you and then rebuild you. You’ll be my eternal undead servant to use as I please.”

Keller’s hard cock pressing against my thigh told me how excited he was at the prospect of using me. My stomach clenched again and I grimaced in disgust. I released his wrist and lowered my hands, fingers still burning with the twin flames.

“Is this what you want?” I grabbed his exposed dick in an iron grip.

Keller howled and staggered back, his grip on my chest abandoned to clutch at his burned crotch. Ouch. That looked like it hurt. It was one of those wounds a man didn’t recover from easily. Or ever if I had got a say. While he clutched his burnt crotch, I kicked him in the chest and he fell to the ground. His screams echoed off the walls, the screeches hurting my ears with every new wail.

Using the toe of my boot, I flipped my sword from the ground and caught it mid-air. With a flick of my wrist, I aimed the blade at Keller.

“Goodbye, Keller.” I brought the sharpened metal toward his head.

“Then let his fragile mind join me in Hell!” That shout was different from his screams of pain, the deep tenor and hollow words reverberating in the room.

Like a spell.

Just before my sword pierced flesh, Keller threw his hand toward Sam. A flash of light and the air shook like a crack of thunder bouncing through the sub-basement.

I drove my sword into Keller and he shuddered before going still.

Just to make sure I stabbed him a few more times. (Okay a dozen.) And cut off his head for good measure. His head rolled across the basement floor, not stopping until it hit the wall with a sickening, wet thud.

I spun, searching the area for Sam, ready to celebrate victory, but… But he’d dropped to a knee and clutched his head, eyes shut. The last of the spirits had vanished—Jezze’s spell must have worked in those final moments—but I wasn’t sure how much damage they’d done to Sam’s soul.

Nor did I know what Keller’s final spell had accomplished.

“Sam?” I went to him, dropping to my knees and cradling his head to my chest. “Sam, baby, are you okay?”

Sam groaned again, still clutching the side of his head. He went limp and leaned into me, his chest moving with his deep, slow breaths. I stroked his face, brushing hair out of his eyes while I looked him over for injuries. I used my expanded senses to search for spiritual damage. He was weak, but it didn’t seem like anything was horribly wrong.

“Sam? Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

He pushed away from me, enough space between us so he could look in my eyes, his gaze unfocused. “You…?” He frowned and shook his head while he rubbed his temple. “I… I know you? I know that I know you, but…”

But he didn’t recognize me and my heart… We could fix this. I cupped his face and held him still. “No. No.”

He pulled from my loose grip and scanned the sub-basement as he pushed to his feet. “I don’t know where I am. What happened?”

“Sam,” I stood as well and cupped his shoulders to hold him steady. “Sam, please tell me you’re okay.”

He looked hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure what to say. It was an expression I’d never seen on him. Sam was never unsure. “I don’t… I don’t remember anything.”

Sam took my hand and gave it a squeeze. He said he knew me and he seemed to trust me on some deep, instinctual level, but I saw the truth in his gaze.

There was nothing there.

Keller’s last words echoed in my mind. Then let his fragile mind join me in Hell!

Keller had taken Sam’s mind—his memories—with him to the depths of Hell.

And there would be no way to get Sam’s memories back.