Chapter 1
Blaze McKenna sat at the polished wooden table in her workroom, gazing at the Tarot cards spread out in front of her.
She’d known what they would say, even before she saw them.
Her past was coming for her. It was sitting on her doorstep, hovering over her shoulder, lurking in every shadow and making the place between her shoulder blades prickle with a primitive, visceral warning.
Not just trouble. Evil. Soul-deep destruction. Hell on earth.
Every night for weeks she’d cast the runes, she’d laid out the cards.
Every night she’d prayed for a different answer.
Every night they told her the same thing.
The darkness she’d tried to escape so long ago had never stopped hunting her down. And now it was about to find her.
She stared at the last card she’d dealt.
Death.
She told herself the Death card almost never meant physical death. It represented transformation—leaving behind one phase of life and beginning another.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t as comforting as you’d think.
Over ten years ago, when she was only sixteen, the leaders of the coven she’d grown up in had transformed, all right—when they became possessed by an evil power.
Gradually, they’d turned from witches and sorcerers who believed in using their magic to help and heal, to dark, greedy, power-hungry creatures she didn’t recognize. It had destroyed her father and killed her mother.
The thought of them still made her heart ache.
One by one, the coven leaders had tried to initiate the young witches and sorcerers into their darkening circle. Blaze, unable to stand by and watch the destruction of everyone she’d ever cared about, had done the only thing she could.
She ran. She stole the source of the darkness and took it away with her, hoping to save the people she loved.
Determined never to use it, never to be caught in its web.
She stared at it now, sitting in the middle of the table, wrapped in silk and protective runes, emanating icy black evil.
She’d kept it locked away all these years, afraid to go near it, for fear she wouldn’t be strong enough to resist.
Now it was out of her vault, here in the room with her, and she could hear it calling. Coaxing her, trying to draw her in with false promises that sounded terrifyingly seductive.
Everyone had darkness inside them, no matter how deep it was buried. Whatever darkness lurked in her soul yearned toward the artifact like a twisted tree leaning toward a dark sun. That was its power.
Blaze shuddered.
She studied the Tarot cards again, scanning them for some ray of hope—some sign that, when the time came, she wouldn’t let the darkness consume her the way her coven had. That the light she’d tried to keep alive inside her would keep her safe, keep her strong.
So far, the cards said no. They said the darkness would change her, making her into something she didn’t recognize.
She tightened her lips.
Over her dead body. Blaze McKenna was no pawn of the Universe, and she sure as hell was no pawn of the dark power in the artifact. Magic was all about inner strength and focus—will and intention. With a strong enough will, you could make the Universe follow your intentions, bend events to your choosing.
She’d done it before. She could do it again.
She held the Tarot deck in her left hand, gripping it so hard the oversized cards dug painfully into her palm.
One more, and the layout would be complete.
She flipped the top card over and dealt it into the final spot.
The Tower.
The card showed a stone tower getting struck by lightning. It was crumbling to rubble, stones tumbling down and people falling from its heights, their mouths open in silent screams.
There was no misinterpreting that. Sudden, disastrous change. Destruction of everything she knew, everything she was.
Her coven was coming for her. And when they were through with her, there would be nothing left of the life she’d built.
Nothing left of the person she’d been.
All she could do was take them down with her.
And for that, she had to know more.
She swept up the cards in front of her and shuffled the deck, focusing on her next question.
Who?
She squared up the deck and dealt out the top card, laying the rest of the deck aside.
The King of Swords. Upside down, or ‘reversed’ as Tarot readers called it. The King of Swords was an intelligent leader. Powerful, making decisions with his head rather than his heart. Reversed, it implied the dark side of the card: A man who was all that, and also ruthless. Obsessive. Cold. Relentless.
Power with no heart.
She knew who that was with a cold certainty in the pit of her stomach. Silas. Once the surrogate big brother she’d adored and worshiped, now he was her nemesis. The one she’d felt behind her all these years, the shadow she couldn’t quite escape. The son of the coven leader, the one who’d taken the artifact they were sworn to protect and tried to use it.
The one who’d destroyed the coven, and who would never give up until he’d found Blaze and destroyed her too.
Until he made the artifact his own once more.
But she couldn’t rely on her feelings—they were too likely to be influenced by fear and dread. She had to be sure.
Her guts twisting in distaste, Blaze reached for the silk-wrapped object. Despite the circle of protective gemstones that surrounded it, its dark power reached for her eagerly.
She jerked her hand back, unable to make herself touch it. She didn’t feel herself hit the Tarot deck, but she must have, because the top half scattered across the tabletop. One card fell on the floor, face up.
Blaze leaned over and picked it up.
The Knight of Wands. A man ruled by the element of Fire: passion and raw power. Warm, optimistic, creative, impulsive, unconventional. This card was right side up, representing the positive side of those characteristics.
Slowly, thoughtfully, Blaze laid the Knight next to the reversed King. Any time a card ‘accidentally’ jumped out of the deck at you, it was important. This was a clear message: not one man coming into her life, but two. One she expected, and one she didn’t. But there was nothing to tell her whether the Knight was working with the King, or against him. Was he an enemy, or an ally?
No. She had no allies. She’d always been alone; the dark power of the object before her was such that she could trust no one near it, not even herself. This was the first time she’d had it out of the vault since she moved to this house five years ago.
Blaze stacked up the scattered cards and set them aside. Then she widened the circle of protective stones so that it included the King and Knight cards as well as the dark artifact. Reaching for the container of salt at the side of the table, she sprinkled it around the protective circle, and used her finger to trace powerful runes of protection and containment in the salt.
She set up a triad of candles made of swirled red and black wax—two at either side of the circle, and one at the top. More protective magic. With a quick huff of breath and a flick of her fingers, she lit them—one, two, three. Gritting her teeth, she finally picked up the silk-wrapped artifact. It was heavy and felt ice-cold, even through the layers of cloth. She unwrapped it and set it back inside the circle, above the two tarot cards.
It was solid gold, shaped like the head of some alien creature, vaguely human but completely out of proportion. The face was tall and elongated, with a thin nose, a tiny mouth with curled lips, and slanted eye sockets containing dull red rubies.
The top of the head was squared off and carved to resemble a helmet with snakelike scales. The face looked benevolent, almost kind, but that just made it creepier.
Blaze could hear it whispering, trying to draw her in, and she ruthlessly blocked out the sound. If she started to listen to it, she would be lost.
Like Silas and her father and her friends had been lost.
Instead, she focused her attention on the spell she was about to cast.
She touched the King of Swords, and began her incantation.