Tavin’s brief sojourn in hell gave him a whole new appreciation for Sorcha. He’d known she was resilient, determined, gutsy, but now he knew why. The place drained hope and everything associated with it. Negativity was stenciled into every aspect of the netherworld from its drab, depressing surroundings to its inhabitants to the constant fires burning everywhere. No daylight. No sunshine. No fresh air.

The place made his skin crawl, yet she’d survived there long enough to grow up. Survived by her wits since neither father nor mother had anything to do with her. Goddess’s tits. Had she been the only child in Hell’s galleries? It seemed likely. He hadn’t seen any evidence of anyone young. Nothing he’d ever associated with children lay scattered about. It wasn’t as if demons needed to reproduce. They lived virtually forever unless someone went to a lot of trouble to kill them.

Sean’s great room formed around him and Sorcha. His spell wasn’t done shimmering to nothingness when he employed magic of another sort to see if anyone was here.

Sean ran into the room. “What’d you find?”

“Yes. Tell us.” Gloria and Liliana said nearly in unison from behind him.

“Gamma Four,” Sorcha said.

Sean whistled. “Something went right. Nice work, you two.”

“At least it’s close,” Gloria muttered. “Won’t take much magic to get there.”

“Any idea who’s on G4 with Arlen and Kat?” Morgan asked from the doorway. She wore her usual disheveled look, part academician, part dreamer.

“The Kelpies were back in Hell,” Tavin replied. “It’s how we found out where they’d taken them—just before Satan cussed them out. Apparently, he’s heartily sick of Rhea and wanted her much farther away.”

“To avoid her bouncing in and out of Hell asking for more favors, no doubt.” Gloria scrunched her face into a sour expression. “We have to assume Rhea isn’t by herself on the borderworld. Her magic is strong, but no match for Kat and Arlen 24/7.”

“She probably conscripted a few more dead Roskellys,” Liliana said followed by, “Does it matter? We need to get going. Before Kat or Arlen engages in some stupid, ill-thought-out heroics and ends up dead.”

“Arlen would never do anything like that,” Sean said stiffly.

“He went after Kat, didn’t he?” Gloria asked, barely avoiding an I-told-you-so tone.

“Aye, but he dinna place anyone else in danger by doing so, only himself,” Sean argued in Gaelic.

Tavin sensed Sorcha’s impatience. He wanted to get moving as well. The sooner they returned the Arch Druid to his rightful spot, the sooner he could have a heart to heart with Sorcha. Lay all his cards face up on the table and tell her how much he loved her.

Before, he’d walked around the topic. No more.

Sean held up both hands. “Absent Arlen, I’m Arch Druid. This is how we will proceed. I shall summon as many Druids as answer my call. Since G4 is close, we’ll teleport in a few small groups, so we all arrive at close to the same time. We will bring blades.”

He stood tall. “I’m heartily sick of Rhea Roskelly. She will not leave G4, no matter what it costs us. We will behead and burn her and every other Black Roskelly Witch we find.”

Sean wasn’t asking for discussion or agreement. He raised his mind voice and uttered the Druids’ war cry. Eerie, haunting, it rolled through Tavin’s mind and bounced off the walls of Sean’s great room.

Sorcha edged closer to Tavin and placed her mouth near his ear. “We don’t have to wait for them to get organized. We could go on ahead, scout things out.”

His mouth formed a crooked grin. “Rather like an away team?”

“More like a forward guard. I’ve watched TV and old movies too.”

Tavin gripped her hand. It made sense. He waited until Sean was done rustling up his troops to say, “Sorcha and I will meet you there.”

“We should all go together,” Sean replied. “Too dangerous.”

“Christ, mate. We just braved Hell. Gamma Four will look like a paradise by comparison.”

“Ever been there?” Sean furled both brows.

“Nay, but after Hell, it canna be that bad.”

“Please.” Sorcha tossed a single word into the mix.

It was so unlike her, Tavin stared. Was she really groveling? Or simply playing Sean to get him to acquiesce?

“We’ll do this,” Gloria announced. “I’ll accompany Tavin and Sorcha. The rest of you come as soon as you can.”

Tavin waited for Sean to tell his mother-in-law no. It never happened. He might be Arch Druid for now, but it didn’t mean he wanted to get into a spat with Gloria. Between her magic and kickass attitude, she’d probably have handed him his balls on a platter, and Sean knew it.

Gloria sidled to him and Sorcha. “Chop, chop, children. I’m as anxious to kick sand in Rhea’s face as you are. Remember, I actually knew her. Broke bread with her. Had to put up with her horrible lectures about what a loser I was for walking away from Black Witchcraft.”

“Were there a lot of them?” Sorcha asked.

“You have no idea. Now let’s go.” Gloria summoned magic.

As it built around her, Tavin added to it. Sorcha blended her particular elements into the weave last of all. The walls of Sean’s castle fell away, replaced by the familiar dark void that lay between worlds. Originally, the borderworlds had long, convoluted Celtic names. Sometime after the birth of the twentieth century, a Druid with an astrological bent had renamed them using the Greek alphabet and numbers. Tavin never understood why the worlds nearest Earth weren’t labeled Alpha X, but he’d never run into the Druid in question to ask about it.

Regardless, the current labeling system was a vast improvement.

“Ward yourselves,” he cautioned.

“Do you think I need a reminder?” Gloria’s reply was caustic even in telepathy. Tavin didn’t blame Sean for not challenging her.

Borderworlds came in as many iterations as there were worlds. Some were as strange as the one hosting jagged peaks and orange trees. Others looked a whole lot like Earth. Not much point in second-guessing this one. He’d find out soon enough. It had to have a breathable atmosphere, though, or Rhea wouldn’t have chosen it. Beyond that, anything was possible.

“Be prepared for Hell’s denizens,” Gloria said.

“Unless G4 has turned into a demon-specific borderworld, how would they leave Hell in the first place?” Sorcha retorted. “Satan isn’t particularly generous with His resources.”

“We’ve dealt with a demon who nearly broke through Sean’s warding and into the castle. Beyond that, Sean and Liliana saw Rhea and a few other Roskellys astride dragons back in the 1700s.”

“What in the nine Hells did the old bitch do to ingratiate herself with Satan? Fuck him while swinging from a chandelier?” Sorcha’s smirk was obvious.

“It’s not wise to underestimate her,” Gloria answered. “She and Satan are old chums. It’s how Mother ended up mesmerized by demonkind and ensorcelled in Hell.”

“Pay attention. We’re nearly there,” Tavin warned.

He shored up his warding and made certain it circled the women as well. Black shaded to gray as the emptiness between worlds ceded to a jungle overgrown with tangles of vines hanging from trees. Garbed for a Scottish winter, Tavin began to sweat immediately in the heat and humidity.

Gloria rolled her eyes. “The old biddy always favored the tropics. Makes sense she’d choose a world like this. Do not use magic. Not for telepathy or anything else. I don’t want to offer anything for her to latch onto.”

“What do you want to bet she hasn’t even posted a guard?” Sorcha raised one blonde brow.

“Like I said before. It’s not wise to underestimate her. She’s well over a thousand years old, and she—”

“But she’s dead, right?” Tavin cut in.

“Yeah, but it hasn’t slowed her down much.”

Something that sounded a lot like a flock of monkeys chittered overhead. Tavin glanced up but couldn’t see through the thick canopy blocking out the sky. “Watch out for snakes,” he cautioned.

“How do we choose which way to go absent magic?” Sorcha asked Gloria.

The other witch sent a pointed glance her way and tugged a dirk with a nasty-looking six-inch blade from a sheath hanging off her belt. She jabbed her index finger and turned it over to let blood drip. Tavin expected it to fall straight down, but a crimson globule floated parallel to the ground before moving forward a few meters.

Gloria snatched up the wandering blood and licked her finger. The wound sealed immediately, and the bubble of blood vanished. She tucked her dirk back inside its leather covering.

“Looked like magic to me,” Sorcha mumbled.

“Blood-fueled seeking spell.” Tavin was impressed. “’Tis the type of thing we’re taught when we first come into our magic and forget almost immediately because it’s not very powerful. The flip side of not very powerful is it’s also not accompanied by the flare of energy announcing your presence.”

“Exactly.” Gloria had started in the direction indicated by her blood. “Only reason it had any chance of working at all was because Rhea and I are related.”

Sorcha yanked her foot free of something in the lush undergrowth and stalked after Gloria. “Damn it.”

Heat was an oppressive constant companion as they chopped their way through jungle that made navigating the Amazon rainforest look like child’s play. He swiped the back of his hand across his forehead for the millionth time, but sweat dripped into his eyes anyway, making them sting.

Not being able to see more than a few meters ahead was annoying. Everything looked the same except for the beaten track behind them where they’d forced their way through. Vines. Trees. Brush. After half an hour, he said. “Hold up. I have a better idea.”

Gloria and Sorcha turned to face him. “I already thought of loosing my familiar,” Gloria said, “except Rhea would recognize it. Witchy familiars have a particular magical feel to them.”

“Aye, but my falcon doesn’t have that liability.” He hesitated for a beat. “Shifting will create a blast of magic, but it will be short-lived. It’s possible the two of you could ward me while I shift.”

“Let’s do it.” Sorcha blotted sweat from her face with her vest. “Any desire I ever had to go to the Caribbean vanished five hundred steps back.”

A distinctive pair of boulders lay ahead of them. Tavin beat his way through brush until he stood on a circle of bare ground flanked by their bulk. By the time he’d stripped out of his clothes, witch magic pressed in on him from all sides. He didn’t tarry but summoned his bird form. Unlike his earliest shifts that had been painful, they happened quickly now.

Beating powerful wings, he rode updrafts until he cleared the forest canopy. While still hot, he no longer felt he was suffocating. He scribed widening circles. They were near the edge of the worst of the jungle. It looked more travelable half a kilometer to the east of where the women were. His falcon’s eyes were very sharp, designed to pick out small prey from hundreds of meters in the air, but no matter which direction he flew, he didn’t see any evidence of Rhea or her captives.

So long as he was airborne, he flew a grid. Like many borderworlds, this one was on the small side, which made it manageable. Unlike Earth, it was flat, suspended in the void between worlds where it floated much like a ship bobbing on an endless sea.

A quarter of an hour later, he landed between the boulders and shifted to human. He hated to put his thick clothing back on but scrambled into it anyway. As he dressed, he said, “The good news is ’tis easier going a wee bit to our east. The bad news is I couldn’t find them.”

“Not possible,” Gloria said. “If other Roskellys weren’t here, my blood spell wouldn’t have worked.”

“Could it have been reacting to me?” Sorcha asked.

“Sure, but it didn’t track toward you.”

A deep, rolling boom crashed against something a long way from them. Another followed it, but somewhat closer. The ground quivered beneath Tavin’s feet before it bucked and groaned.

“Sean and the others should be here by now,” he said.

“We were just talking about that,” Sorcha agreed. “It’s worrisome.”

“We could see one group going astray,” Gloria added, “but not everyone.”

Tavin shuffled through possibilities. There had to be some reason other than liking hot, sticky weather Rhea had chosen this location. He was certain the Kelpie wouldn’t have lied to Satan. There was no reason for it to, plus Hell’s overlord probably had ways of sniffing out untruths.

“Have you heard any more monkeys?”

“Nope.” Sorcha said. “No animals at all.”

Tavin leveled his gaze at Gloria. “We need magic to solve this, plus I have a feeling—” His words were cut off by the same crashing noise, except far nearer this time. He braced himself in time to ride out the earthquake that followed.

“I believe the monkeys were illusion, meant to reinforce whatever other deceptions are in play here,” Tavin said. “Rhea’s borrowed the equivalent of a “don’t look here” spell and swathed the borderworld in it. Given the results of your tracking spell, she seeded the place with her blood. Regardless, there’s nothing here of interest. No reason to stay.”

“So where are they?” Sorcha demanded.

“They’d have to be underground,” Gloria said.

“Which suggests entrances somewhere, but we’ll never find them without magic,” Sorcha mumbled.

The dirt shuddered beneath their feet; Tavin’s skin crawled with premonitions of evil on the loose hunting them. “We can’t remain here,” he said and herded them back into the jungle.

The next detonation nearly deafened him. It started beneath his feet but ended with the boulders crashing into each other as the dirt beneath them fell away. The air filled with dust and grit, whipped by a strange wind that blew up out of nowhere. In defiance of the principles of physics, the wind was cold.

“She must know we’re here,” Sorcha said.

“Nay,” Tavin replied. “She knows someone is here and is applying countermeasures since her tropical jungle cover didn’t chase us off.”

“Us or some of the Druids who were heading this way.” Sorcha shook herself from head to toe. “Sorry, sister, but I’m using my power. I’ll be quick about it—and I’ll lead with my demon side—but we need information before this whole borderworld implodes around us.”

“Not that you need my permission but go ahead. I was about to do the same, absent demon magic,” Gloria muttered.

Tavin staggered back a few meters and looked at the place they’d stood beneath the boulders. Rather than standing upright, they’d fallen against one another forming a granite vee. Beneath it, a yawning chasm still spit dirt and pebbles. It might be a path to whatever lay beneath the borderworld’s surface, but it also wasn’t very stable.

He hustled back to the women. Sorcha was reeling in her magic. Fury twisted her beauty into a grim mask. “This whole thing is a false front. Gamma Four is a short jump over.”

“I don’t understand how we were tricked,” Tavin said.

“Easily,” Gloria growled. “Think about how you delineate a location when you teleport.”

“It’s a lock-and-key match. So Rhea perverted the combination and linked it here?”

“Not that difficult to do.” Gloria shrugged. “Kind of a lot of trouble, but she’s devious enough to not want to be disturbed. Not without a whole lot of warning.”

“She booby trapped this place.” Sorcha snarled low in her throat. “Fuck her.”

“Might explain where the other Druids went,” Gloria continued. “This might not be the only ‘extra’ spot Rhea earmarked to subvert teleport spells.”

Magic bubbled around Sorcha, tinged red from her anger. “I don’t care if the others show up. I’m done letting that conniving bitch run me around in circles.”

“She couldn’t have done all this by herself,” Gloria cautioned.

“Fine. We’ll figure it out as we go.” Tavin sided with Sorcha. He’d only known about Rhea’s meddling for a week or so, and he was already sick of her.

“Sorcha will control the teleport,” Gloria said. “No wards this time. Full power from the moment we emerge.”

The spell simmering around Sorcha circled him and Gloria. Before he could take a deep breath, it dropped them on a sunbaked plain. Cracked dirt spread in every direction. Two suns sat directly overhead, suspended in a mud-colored sky. Boulders littered the plain. Mountains rose in the distance, capped with puke-green snow.

A strident cry split the still air just before a black dragon winged into view, clearly heading right toward them. Fire spewed from its mouth, and its front talons were extended, gleaming red in the sunlight.

“Goes against the grain,” Tavin cried, “but we have to bring it down.”

The full force of Sorcha’s magic slammed into him. Gloria dove into their linked power. Tavin spread his arms. Lighting bolts shot from his fingers. Ivory tinged with red, they chased the dragon as it tried to evade them.

“Oberon’s balls,” he muttered. “Since when did Druid power turn into a heat-seeking missile?”

“Not Druid. Demon. Complaints?” Sorcha was breathing hard.

“None, lass.” He altered his aim, loosing a second volley of lightning to chase the dragon. It bugled its contempt and annoyance but didn’t fly closer. Another dragon, a red one, popped into view on the horizon, screeching merrily. The first dragon’s attention flagged as it glanced over a shoulder at its companion.

Tavin took advantage of the split second and sent a blast of magic straight into its open mouth. It shrieked just before it exploded in a fiery eruption. Scales and bone and wet, pink tissue gushed in every direction. The second dragon wheeled, flying back the way it came. It wasn’t bugling anymore.

“Coward!” Sorcha shook a fist at it.

Tavin balanced power between his hands, waiting for the next onslaught. He felt sad about the fallen dragon. They were noble creatures. Once upon a time, they’d chosen to aid those with pure magic. When had they switched sides? He hoped it wasn’t all of them.

Gloria turned in a circle, power deployed as she hunted for Arlen and Katerina. Before she was finished, Druid magic filled the air. Tavin blew out a tight breath. Finally. Given all the unknowns, having a spot of assistance would be welcome.

A phalanx of Druids ran through a gateway that formed in the dry, still air of the borderworld. Liliana and Morgan were with Sean, one on each side. Sean looked as if he’d chewed through a box of nails for breakfast. Water dripped from him, forming puddles in the dirt.

“Goddess damn that witch to Hell and beyond,” he exclaimed. “We ended up in a frozen ocean inhabited by sea serpents.”

“At least it’s warm here.” Liliana bent to wring water from her skirt.

“None of that matters,” Tavin said. “We can compare notes later.”

“Arlen and Kat are that way.” Gloria pointed. “Same direction the dragon vanished.”

“It looks dead to me.” Morgan gazed at the still-twitching carcass and winced.

“There were two,” Sorcha explained.

“I see. No friends on battle days, eh?” Morgan laughed coldly at her own joke.

“Come on.” Sean started across the plain at a lope. Everyone fell in behind him. Portals opened on both sides; more Druids hurried through.

Tavin stopped long enough to scoop up a dragon horn from where it had fallen. Still warm, it pulsed with magic. Maybe it would come in handy. One thing he’d learned from his years bending over a forge was to never throw anything away.

Sorcha materialized by his side. “If we find Arlen and Kat, Sean will want to leave.”

“Not what he said back in Inverness,” Tavin reminded her.

“Yeah, but this has become so much harder than any of us anticipated, and wise men pick their battles.”

He laced his fingers with hers. “If it’s a backhanded way of asking if I’m still determined to rid us of Rhea, the answer is yes.”

Gratitude flared through their linked hands. “Thank you. I want her gone, but I can’t do it alone.”

“Ye’re coming to trust me, lass,” he said in Gaelic.

“Yeah, but how can you tell?”

“I bet ye can count the times ye’ve asked for help on the fingers of one hand.”

Sorcha didn’t answer, so he knew he’d guessed right. This might be the first time she’d ever curried assistance from any quarter, and he was grateful she’d chosen him.

It meant the trust between them was a two-way street.