“So you’re the experts?” A big handsome dude with golden brown hair nodded as we exited the SUV.

It was me, Donovan, and Trent, who had changed into his regulation uniform of clingy black T-shirt and jeans that molded against his every muscle. He looked around as though taking in the neighborhood for every possible threat that could come our way. He pretty much did that all the time. It was his job. I bet he was hella fun at a Chuck E. Cheese’s.

“I’m Dr. Donovan.” The King of all Vampire was dressed down for this meeting. Not that he ever dressed up. He was a casual kind of dude. But he knew how to dress for a part. He was in a pair of khakis that would be hard to get blood out of, a button down shirt, and some glasses he didn’t need because his vision was way better than twenty-twenty. “I’m with the University of North Texas. I was told you have a series of murders where the killer has left messages in ancient languages. That’s my specialty.”

Donovan was actually crazy good with languages, but he tended to need to hear them. According to all reports, the king could go into a country, surround himself with native speakers, and be one of them within a day or two. Non-spoken languages took him a bit more time, but he’d explained along the way that he’d been using his free time to learn some of the more ancient languages from Marcus and Henri. It was a vampire talent that manifested particularly well in academics. Most wolves I knew barely spoke English. Trent was way better with wolfy growls.

“Lieutenant Derek Brighton, DPD,” the hottie with golden brown hair said, holding a hand out. He was wearing a suit and his wedding ring, the gold glinting in the late afternoon light. “This is the fourth. I called the Rangers in after the last one, but they said their expert is out of the country. When I called them today, they agreed to send a team in. I was expecting someone named Atwood.”

“I’m here!” Jamie yelled as he jogged our way. My brother had changed clothes and looked fresh as a daisy. Not at all like a dude who’d recently helped call a demon. He looked over at Donovan, his head going down. “Your… Hey, Professor Donovan. Good to see you again. And your assistants.”

Donovan didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, my assistants. This is Trent Wilcox and Kelsey Owens. They’re grad students with a vast knowledge of ancient history.” He nodded back to the DPD lieutenant. “It’s exciting to get out of the lecture hall. We never get called in on murders.”

Trent shook his head. “Never, Professor. Just the occasional forgery attempt.”

I simply nodded. I’m not good at pretending.

Brighton sighed as he turned toward the house we were standing in front of. It was a lovely suburban home with mature trees and a foreign luxury car in the driveway. It would be the perfect picture of suburban harmony if not for the multitude of cop cars jamming up the road and the distinctly horrified neighbors looking on.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Brighton said. “I’m more than happy to turn this over to the Rangers. That’s a brutal scene in there, and something about it feels off to me. I don’t know this is something my guys should handle. Let me know what you need from us. The forensics inspector the Rangers sent is already in there. She seemed excited about…well, you’ll see. I don’t understand body modification. Back when I was a kid, a tat was the height of rebellion. Whatever that dude decided to do, he was angry with his parents. Good luck. We’re heading out. Miss Ward is already on the scene. She’s told me she’ll handle things with the Rangers from here. I’m leaving a DPD contingent to surround the scene in case you have any problems. Call in if you need anything else. And good luck.”

The handsome cop strode away, looking super happy to be leaving the scene.

“Sometimes I miss Gray more than anyone can know.” Jamie looked up at the house in front of us. “He handled the glad handing with the police and all I had to do was give my opinion and help kill things. With him gone, I’ve got paperwork to do. It sucks because it’s all going to be redacted anyway. Nothing worse than writing a bunch of crap that someone’s going to mark through.”

“What do you know about this, James?” Donovan asked. “Sorry to call you on your day off. Were you relaxing at home? Watching the game, maybe?”

Jamie sighed. “Yeah, I was watching the game. Whichever one was on, Your Highness.” He rolled his eyes my way. “You’re a troublemaker, little sis.”

“Born and bred,” Trent said under his breath. He leaned toward Jamie. “It was the Cowboys. They’re playing a preseason game with the Giants. If anyone asks. Now, what are we walking into?”

Jamie put his hands on his hips, his eyes going serious. “We’ve been tracking a cluster of murders. Three so far. This would be the fourth. The first three victims were all demons, though two were highborn half-bloods. We’ve had a rise in demons living close to the king in the last decade.”

“I think it’s more about the Council,” Donovan said.

“You are the Council,” Trent replied in a big old kiss-ass voice. “They’re here to stay close to you, whether they’re petitioning you or spying on you, this is all about the king and the power you’ve brought to Dallas.”

“I’ve brought violence here, too.” Donovan stepped up the stairs that led to the porch of the pretty, Tudor-style house ahead of us.

It was a nice neighborhood. One that shouldn’t be featured on those murder shows. Still, this one wouldn’t be. This particular murder would go unheralded because the DPD knew how to not freak out the public. Despite what Brighton had said about body modification, he knew damn well there was a reason the police weren’t working this one. Law enforcement knew when to pull the shades closed and forget what they’d seen. The lieutenant would go back to his life and this case would disappear from the records.

My ex-honey had been the Mulder of the Texas Rangers. It looked like Jamie had taken on the liaison role between the Council and law enforcement. He stepped up, tucking his shirt in as he walked up to the porch.

“I’ve worked three murders in the last three weeks,” Jamie began. “They were all killed in a similar manner.”

“The manner being?” Trent asked.

“Complete and utter evisceration, with a side of dinner.” Jamie nodded at the cop standing at the door. “By that I mean whatever killed these guys ate a piece of them, too.”

“Wolf?” It wasn’t that I thought wolves were killers, but they were definitely known to get hungry in the middle of a job.

“Not according to Nicole.” He held the door open as the king walked through. “She found saliva on the bite marks, but it doesn’t match a wolf. It’s part demon, but she hasn’t been able to narrow down the species. That means something. Nicole is a specialist. She’s seen a lot of supernatural shit.”

Nicole had worked with Gray for years. She’d been his CSI and she knew her shit. She could get a spoonful of soup and in a couple of hours discern who and what and why. If she didn’t understand what was going on, I was a little scared.

“Do they have anything in common? Besides being demonic and ending up as someone’s snack?” I followed behind Jamie. If Nicole was back here, she was likely to be happy to see my big bro. The last time I’d met her, she’d revealed to me that she thought Jamie was a total hottie. I couldn’t see it because hey, brother, but he was single and not getting any younger. I was totally up to play matchmaker.

Maybe if Jamie got married and pushed a couple of rugrats my mother’s way, she would get off my back. I’d explained to her that Marcus’s baby-making days happened like a couple of millennia before, and Gray’s babies might come under his legacy, therefore condoms would be used, but she kept at it. I got a couple of texts every week describing what was happening to my aging ovaries.

“Not that I can see.” Jamie moved into the living room. “But I haven’t delved too deep yet. Four feels like a pattern. I’ll start trying to connect them.”

The décor was pretty sparse. As far as I could see, the deceased demon had a couple of La-Z-Boys and a massive flat screen TV. The living room was nice and neat, with two sets of controllers left on the table between the chairs. The media stand under the TV contained almost every game console known to man, so we knew he had a hobby and very likely a friend.

Jamie moved through the house, walking down the hallway toward the back. “All three demons are halflings. Two with royal blood. The first victim was what I would call ‘known to the Council.’”

“What does that mean?” I asked, following behind Trent and trying not to notice how muscular his back was. Maybe it was because Marcus had been standoffish lately, but it was hard to not see that wolf’s masculinity.

Trent stopped, turning and showing off his equally muscular chest because the dude liked to buy too-tight shirts. “It means the demon had either worked for or pleaded a case to the Council. He’s in our formal records.”

Donovan had stopped as well, turning toward me. “We have two records. The formal and informal. Informally we keep records on absolutely everyone we come into contact with, but those are kept in my office and not the official Council chambers. Even if it’s nothing but a name and some documentation. A formal record includes an interview. The first victim had dealings with the Council, serious dealings. I believe he’d come to us for protection. Which we failed at.”

“We were still deciding his status when he was killed.” Trent turned my way. “And it was less than half a day between his request and demise, so don’t bitch at the king. We have to have some time to decide.”

“We don’t need time. I knew all three of them.” Donovan’s jaw tightened, making him look like a pissed-off superhero. He was good at that. “They were…if not friends, I would call them allies. They gave me good information and I’m sorry to see them go. If that tells you anything. Someone knows that they were passing me knowledge I could use. That’s why I’m here today. I’ve got a small network of helpful halflings, and it’s getting smaller by the day.”

That answered a lot of questions. He’d been gathering intel and someone had found out. I was in the middle of a political battle. I’m going to be honest with you here. I don’t love politics. I find them nasty and obnoxious, and I know they’re necessary. I’m not some impractical girl who thinks everything is love and daisies. Sometimes crappy things happen and there’s not a lot I can do about it.

I followed him through the house. The walls were empty, as though the owner had enough money to buy this beautiful place but nothing to truly show off. No family photos hung on the wall. No movie posters or football pennants that bespoke of a man’s hobbies.

I nodded toward a DPD officer who rushed down the hall, his skin the tiniest bit green. If he saw me, he didn’t acknowledge it. I think he was trying not to throw up.

Trent took a deep whiff and held up a single fist. Our entire party went still. Trent walked ahead of the king, who seemed used to his bodyguard shutting the party down for a nice smell.

He was still for a moment and I watched him, utterly fascinated. I’ve got a decent sense of smell, but nothing like a purebred wolf. Werewolves aren’t bitten and turned the way you see in movies. If a wolf bites you, you’re simply going to die or spend some quality time in the ER. If you see too much, a nice cocktail of antipsychotics tends to help. Trent had been born a wolf, his parents’ DNA informing his own. He’d always had these powers, and though he’d never once led a pack, he was all alpha.

I’d never asked him why. It seemed too intimate a conversation to have. From what I knew of Trent’s history, he’d had a mate once and she’d died. He went into the Army and then later served under the king.

I had to think that was why he hadn’t led his own pack. The king was right about one thing. Wolves tend to mate for life. Some will wait very long times to find the right mate. Some marry young, but it’s almost always for life. Trent had lost his mate, and alphas are never single for long. They have to show their prowess by mating and having children. Never more than a few. The most I’ve ever heard of was three children, and even then it had happened because of Devinshea Quinn’s fertility magic.

Trent was an only child, his mate dead, and he would likely spend the rest of his life without a true partner. He would take lovers when he needed to, but his heart and soul had been given already. He would be alone for the rest of his life.

Somehow that made me feel infinitely sad.

“What is it, Trent?” Donovan asked. “Past the humans and decomp. I can smell those. And at least two other demons.”

Trent breathed in again, letting the scents wash over him. “Several humans, including one who takes her laundry seriously.”

“That would be Nicole,” Jamie said with a grin. “She always smells like fabric softener.”

Trent closed his eyes and tried again. “But I’m not sure about the demons. One is dead. The decomp is attached to him. Smell again, Your Highness. And Kelsey. Open your senses. Take it in.”

I shook my head his way. “I don’t smell the way you do. I can follow a trail, but I can’t pick out scents. It’s all a jumble.”

I have heightened senses. I could certainly smell the decomp, but honestly, I couldn’t tell how many humans had come and gone and I couldn’t say anything more than there were two demons. At some point he’d burnt microwave popcorn. That was a smell that lingered. Other than that, I was clueless.

Trent moved to my side as the king seemed to take him seriously. Donovan went still and breathed in.

“Yes.” Donovan’s eyes opened and he turned toward the room at the end of the hall. “I see what you’re saying. I can smell demon and something else. I don’t know what that is. Is it an animal of some kind? And damn, that’s a lot of demon blood.”

Trent stood behind me. “Close your eyes.”

I frowned up at him, turning so he could see my non-amusement. It brought me into close contact with him and reminded me that my sex life had started to resemble a TV show on pause. My inner wolf immediately responded to his scent. Clean and masculine. He’d taken a shower and washed his hair before we’d come here. Not that there was much hair. He kept it high and tight. He also had that sexy half beard a lot of wolves seemed to keep. Some of them go for the full ZZ Top, and then there are wolves like my uncle who shave three times a day and look soft as a baby’s butt. Trent probably shaved when he woke up, and then his wolfiness took over again and left him with that perfect scruff that kind of did something for me.

“I told you. I’m not great with the scent thing.”

Donovan nodded toward Trent. “Walk her through it. She needs to get better with her senses. She can’t always kill everything in her path. I’ll take Jamie and go talk to the CSI.”

“Or I can talk to the CSI myself and she’ll tell me what’s going on.” I didn’t see the need for a lesson.

Donovan shook his head. “Nope. Marcus said you’re proving stubborn when it comes to using your full wolf senses, and you won’t take a werewolf mentor. Now you’ve got Trent. Good luck with that. We’ll talk about a training schedule when we’re done. Come on, Jamie. Give your sister a minute for this particular lesson.”

Motherfucker. Damn it. I had been a little stubborn about spending time with Trent, but that had a lot to do with what had happened with the visions back in January. It felt weird to be around Trent. I tried to avoid him, but he was always around the wolves in one way or another. He was either running with them or they were talking about him. The one time I’d run when he wasn’t there, they’d talked about how he worked with the king and they couldn’t trust him.

It pissed me off. It made me sympathize with him since he was an outsider, and I knew how that felt. I didn’t want to feel for Trent. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t, so I didn’t.

It was yet another of Marcus’s frustrations when it came to me.

Donovan strode away. Jamie winked my way as he went past, as though everything was a grand and glorious game, and we should simply enjoy playing.

“Close your eyes.” Trent used his deep alpha voice on me.

Naturally, my she-wolf complied. Sometimes when I’m around Trent, I can feel her pacing inside me. Sometimes, like now, she stills and a certain peace settles over me. Like she knows she’s with her people and she’s content. My eyes slid closed. “Fine. Let’s get through this.”

I felt his big palms cover my shoulders. Warm. He was so warm. “Scent is a multilayered thing. It’s never simple. There are always layers. Start with the beginning. What do you smell?”

“You.” Because he was too close. Because he was touching me.

He chuckled behind me. “I bet you do. I hope your nose is as bad as you think it is, Kelsey. Tell me about me.”

It was obvious he wasn’t going away and that my lovely crime scene had gone crappy. So I breathed him in. Most living things smell warm. I know that’s a weird word to use, but it’s true. There’s a warmth to Trent’s scent. A heat, as though his blood is hotter, his skin more alive than the others around us. I could smell Donovan, though he’d left. His scent didn’t have the same liveliness as Trent’s. I would describe it as cool. If I put a color to it, Donovan would be blue. Jamie would be a nice orange. Jamie smelled like home and hearth. I’m pretty sure my mom still does his laundry. There’s this scent of her that lingers.

But Trent was a nice shade of red. The fiery kind. “I can smell the soap you used.”

“Describe it to me.”

Only a freaking wolf… “It smells soapy.” When he growled, I decided to give him what he wanted. I breathed in deeply and tried to think. It’s hard to peel apart the layers. I got why he was using himself as the trial. He was close to me, his body against mine, so he was the strongest scent. It washed over me and I tried to let go, to allow instinct to take over. His smell was pleasant, soothing even, as though my body recognized the alpha inside him and knew I was safe. I felt my body relax as his scent worked its way inside. “You smell like the forest.”

I could practically feel his satisfaction. “Yes. The soap has a pine base. I like it. It’s not too frilly. Go deeper. What else do you smell? You can tell a lot about me from my scent.”

I took another breath and kept my eyes closed. He was right. It was easier to concentrate on scent without my eyes. It was easier to concentrate on him. “I can smell fabric softener and when you talk, I get the faintest hint of mint, but I think it’s covering up something. Did you have a beer before we left? And you didn’t offer me one?” That was rude, but he simply chuckled again. I breathed in, opening myself a little more this time. I smelled blood. Not blood really. But it had been there and now it was gone. “I think I can smell where you’re healing.”

“Very good, Kelsey. That demon roughed me up, but I’m almost healed. The fact that you can smell healing skin means I was right about you. I knew you had better senses than you let on, likely better than you can imagine. Your problem is you spend all your time around those vamps and you never end up testing your senses. If you spent more time with wolves, they would get a workout.”

It took all I had not to relax back against him because the truth was he smelled…comfortable. Like a recliner I could sit in and know I could sleep in for a long time and it would shelter me. I would wake up feeling totally relaxed.

I didn’t relax around the wolves. I tried to stay hyperaware because the one time I had let myself go while with the DFW pack when he’d been there, I’d ended up cuddled against Trent and it had been embarrassing for both of us. He’d been twelve kinds of naked and I’d woken up with my head against his heart, my sleep informed by the beat. His arms had been around me and Marcus had been so mad when I got home because he did have good senses.

I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t kissed Trent, though the impulse had been there.

That wasn’t the point here. He was trying to teach me something and it wasn’t sexual, though I could smell something earthy and male coming off him I couldn’t quite describe. It made my nipples hard and I hoped Trent was enough of a gentleman to not notice.

“So you took a shower. What else should I notice? The lieutenant dude likes coffee and his wife wears a citrus scent. Or he does. But it’s faint. I think it’s a transfer.”

“Very good.” Trent’s voice rumbled along my ear. “Now go further. Spread your senses out. Smell what I smell. Take a deep breath and dismiss the scents you already know. It’s like turning the channel.”

I took another breath and tried to do as he said. Turn the channel. I could smell all the things I’d talked about, though now there was a spicy, almost salty smell I got coming from Trent. No idea what that was. I let it go because it clung to him and I’d already catalogued him. I let my senses flow wider.

I could smell the bleach from the bathroom and the place where the owner of the home had tried to hide doggie do. That was the worst. Feces covered with a wretched fake floral scent.

Beyond that I smelled the loamy scent of decomp. That was heavy in the house. Blood. The coppery scent was there but subdued, as though it lost its scent as it aged. It matured to a low-grade metallic smell after a good while.

Trent was right. There had been more than one demon here. I caught the scent of the dead one. Death changes the regular scent, lending a gravity to it. He’d been a bit like Gray. He’d been able to take demonic form without having to possess a human. The victim could walk around and not be questioned when he was in the right form. He would look human, talk human, and when he wanted to go all demonic, he could grow horns and fangs and whatever other parts he’d been born with.

“He was royalty,” Trent said, his mouth still close to my ear, as though he was trying to shut out the rest of the world and draw it all down to the two of us and our noses. “Can you tell me why I think that?”

“He had control of his form.” Like Gray, whoever this demon had been, he’d had royal blood. Royalty isn’t a confirmation that the demon can take human form, but it was a requirement. If the demon could take human form, he had some royal blood. Take Gray and his brother. Gray was a halfling, but he had control of his form. Despite Nemcox’s full-on demon status, he could not. Nemcox required a host, hence all those Exorcist films.

“Very good. Now tell me what you’ve missed. Go deeper.”

I followed the scent, allowing it to move. I left the body and tried to case the actual scene.

“I don’t know what that smell is.” It was slightly dirty, a bit rancid. It wasn’t the body though. If anything, I would bet I was smelling saliva. “I can’t tell because there are too many chemicals.”

“That’s Nicole at work. I wish we’d gotten here first.” Trent breathed deep behind me. I could feel the way his body moved against mine. “There’s something else. It’s faint.”

“The second demon.” I could smell him clearly now. Or her. “Is that perfume?”

Trent chuckled behind me. “Yes. And not a particularly expensive one. It’s like she’s trying to cover her natural pheromones with fake pheromones. Although her pheromones are wow, they are quite strong.”

“Eww, they had sex recently. You see, this is why I don’t open my damn senses.” Some smells should be private between a low-level demon and her royal lover.

He chuckled again. “Sometimes I forget how prissy you can be about sex. You weren’t raised with your kind. You’ve got a very human view of fucking.”

I winced and moved away because being that close to him might get my own pheromones going, and I did not want his wolfy senses smelling that. He’d done his job. He’d gotten me to think about the scene with more than my brain. It was way past time to move on.

“We should join the king. I think I get your point.”

 “Not even close, sweetheart, but you did well.” He nodded toward the bedroom, allowing me to go first.

You know it’s a sad day when you’re relieved to get to the dead body. I strode across the well-done hand-scraped hardwoods. Everything about the place was upgraded, but there was little that seemed personal about it. It didn’t feel like a home, more like a way station. I would bet the owner didn’t spend the majority of his time here. This was where he came when he was spending time with the Council or other Earth plane friends. Dallas had become the hub of the supernatural world ever since the king took over nine years before. Every kind of supernatural species had an embassy here, and many of the higher-ups kept houses in town.

I walked into the master bedroom and was assaulted by the stench of stale sex, fear, and death. I had to shut my senses down it was so overwhelming. It was nicer to concentrate on the body.

He’d been caught in mid shift, horns barely starting to penetrate his thick brown hair. His skin had begun to turn and still had a slightly reddish tone, despite the fact that death had settled in. He was on his back, his mouth slightly open to show the beginnings of a nasty set of curved fangs. The king was standing over the body and Jamie was talking to a pretty blonde with a laptop in front of her. Nicole had used the top of the dresser to set up an array of weird equipment that would break down the elements of the crime. Nicole would use that equipment to figure out his species and hopefully his clan, to find the mysteries of anything left behind—and there was always something left behind.

I personally was interested in that smell I couldn’t define. If Trent wasn’t sure about it, then I was interested in it. There weren’t many smells in the world Trent hadn’t gotten a whiff of. He’d been Special Forces for years, and then undercover for the king. He’d put paws on almost every continent and hunted every creature known to man.

But he didn’t know what this was.

“That’s a lot of blood.” I made sure I didn’t step in the congealing pool that coated the carpet around the body.

Nicole looked up from her laptop, a grin on her face. This was like Disneyland for the CSI. “It’s not all his. I’m super excited about that. I found some drops of blood near the door. I think Lester here nicked his assailant at some point and the dude bled a little, though it’s easy to see who was on the receiving end of this particular fight. But you should understand, it wasn’t much of a fight. It was more like a slaughter.”

“Why don’t you fill the Nex Apparatus in on what you’ve discovered,” the king said.

Nicole’s ponytail bobbed as she talked. “It’s cool to hear you called that. Like you’re a superhero or something. Anyway, here’s what I’ve got. Time of death can be super hard with a demon because liver temp tells you nothing. Everything cools quickly and I think we’re in the time that I can’t use body temp. If I don’t take it within about thirty minutes of death, the body hits room temperature and that tells me nothing. But what we do have is a police disturbance at two in the morning last night.”

“A disturbance?”

Jamie took over. “Yep. According to the reports, at two in the morning the nearest neighbor saw a flash of light and felt an earthquake. I checked with the ANSS and they did not register a quake at any time in the last twenty-four hours, so it had to be incredibly localized.”

North Texas had become a hotbed of minor quakes. Some people blamed fracking; others claimed we’d simply found new fault lines, previously undiscovered. Yeah, that was mostly from the gas companies.

I happened to know that certain demons kind of shook the earth when they departed or were forcibly exorcised from a host body. The effect was localized and most of the Metroplex wouldn’t even notice. The rest would probably think there had been a bad crash nearby or the city had blown up a bridge to make way for new traffic patterns.

“So we think the murder occurred around two? Did the police follow up?” I asked.

“DPD drove by, but the neighbor couldn’t tell them which house they thought it had happened at. According to the neighbor, it was a bright flash of light through his bedroom window and then he felt the earth shake,” Nicole explained. “It doesn’t help that the neighbor was absolutely certain it was an attempted alien abduction. The police weren’t going to go door to door looking for Reticulan Grays, if you know what I mean.”

“I do not.” I have enough weird shit in my world. I don’t need to know varieties of aliens. “Do we have any citizens in the area?”

“Yes.” Trent had his cell phone out, scrolling through a list of all known supernatural creatures. The Council kept meticulous records and they were all probably on Trent’s phone. “We have two listings within a mile radius. One is a Larissa Dymone, a halfling. She’s in a condo two blocks from here. The other is a werepanther family. Greg and Maria Garcia. We’ll also talk to the crazy alien man and see if he remembers anything that didn’t come from space.”

Sometimes my job is super fun. “Did we have any signs of forced entry?”

I glanced around the room. The bed was rumpled, the sheets askew. The pillows had fallen to the side and one corner of the fitted sheet had come undone. There were two glasses on the side table, a half drank bottle of some kind of wine there, too. Old Lester had been having a nice night it seemed. Right up until his murder.

“Not according to the police. The door was locked,” Nicole explained.

“Yeah, but look up there, sis.” Jamie was staring up at the wall over the French doors that led into the bedroom. The ceilings were vaulted, going up probably twelve feet high, but I could see the small disk that had been mounted about halfway between the ceiling and doorframe.

“I’m going to need a boost.” I could bet what that small circle was, but I needed to see it with my own two eyes. As it looked as though it was untouched, I definitely need to inspect it.

Trent was right by my side in a heartbeat, kneeling down and offering me a lift. He cupped his hands and I slid my boot between them. It was a simple act of Lycan strength that lifted me up and allowed me to grab the ward Lester the royal demon had used in a vain attempt to secure his home.

Trent brought me back down and then it was Donovan at my side, pushing his way in.

“Is that a ward?” Donovan pulled his glasses off, leaning over for a closer inspection.

In our world you can’t be too careful. Sure an alarm is awesome when it comes to scaring off the humans, and the high-pitched sounds will rattle most were creatures, but demons will blow right past one. A vampire doesn’t care that you have a triple reinforced door with dead bolts. They’ll punch right through the sucker. No, if you want to keep out supernatural creatures, magic is the way to go, and witches are your friendly neighborhood security advisors.

“It looks like a standard protection ward.” From what I could tell it was your typical keep-out-all-ye-who-would-do-me-harm kind of thing. They were all over Ether and the building that housed the Council. There were wards that protected against violence, wards that made it hard for a person to lie, wards that kept out certain ghosts and revenants, because damn they were hard to get rid of once those suckers dug in. I suspected that this was nothing more than a ward to keep out all the uninvited.

Lester obviously had some serious cash. That meant he would go to a serious witch and the ward should have held.

“It’s not broken.” I inspected the whole thing. It was completely intact. It was a lovely piece of work, made of what looked like onyx with an opal inlay. The incantation was laid in some kind of a lovely white paint with gold flecks. “Can you read this, professor?”

Donovan didn’t take the bait. He simply stared down at the ward. “Most of it’s in an archaic form of Latin.”

“Isn’t all Latin archaic?” Jamie asked.

Nicole chuckled, but looked at Jamie like he was lucky he was hot. “There have been many, many versions of Latin throughout time. Languages evolve. The king is right. I’m pretty sure this is one of the first forms. It would be powerful for use in a spell. And the symbology is interesting. Not that I know a ton about witchcraft, but I think some of these come from a demon language.”

“Yes.” Donovan ran his hand over the disk. “This part is a combination of old Latin and Demonish. I can’t read it entirely. And there’s a piece on the back that I don’t understand at all. Never seen that language before. I know this should have kept out anyone with bad intentions, but other than that, we’re going to need some research.”

Luckily, I knew some people.