Sorcha had sensed Tavin’s ambivalence after she girded herself to approach him. It ran deep, and he’d come within a hairsbreadth of telling her to get lost. She’d played up her assets to give him a push, but she had no idea if it was what made the difference, or if he’d grudgingly accepted her offer for reasons of his own.

Reasons she wasn’t privy to.

Most men were suckers for a pair of tits, but somehow Tavin didn’t exactly fit that mold.

Regardless, it was good to be busy, and she was fascinated by his shapeshifting ability. Unlike her familiar, which was a separate entity, he and the bird were an either-or proposition. He maintained his human consciousness while in bird form; his comments had clinched it.

Shapeshifting demons were the same.

Did it mean Tavin had demon blood? Something he either didn’t know about or had been hiding forever? He’d been telling the truth when he told the Druids he had no idea how or why the bird had become part of him.

Still, demon blood was the most logical explanation for why she’d sensed the falcon right off and recognized it as something other than a garden-variety bird. Demon essence called to its own.

Sorcha was grateful to be in work mode. She’d jumped out of his car ready to keep her part of their bargain. She scanned an area and started to move on, but something made her do it again.

And then, once more.

“Aye,” Tavin murmured from where he stood near her. “’Tis subtle, but something is a wee bit off just there.” He followed her power with a beam of his own.

Sorcha hesitated. Did she dare focus more magic at the offending place? If she did, she’d give herself away to anyone with a child’s grasp of enchantments.

Tavin must have read her thoughts because he said, “Sheathe your power, lass. Let’s move closer.”

Protective warding enclosed them. She liked being surrounded by the feel of Tavin’s power. It held a characteristic Druid scent, but with undernotes of musk and rosemary. She threaded her magic along the underside of his to keep it better hidden.

The slight flaw that had alerted her might be an iteration of dark power. Or it could be nothing. It sure as hell wasn’t White Magic. Pockets of that, a surprising number, had been scattered through the northern port village. She hadn’t examined them, but assumed hedge witches, mages, and the odd sorcerer lived here. Along with a resident Druid population.

Tavin shepherded them through a warren of narrow alleyways.

“You know your way around,” she murmured.

“I should. I used to live here. ’Tis the same, yet not.”

“What do you mean?”

“’This hamlet is verra small. Only about 300 people reside here. ’Tis a jumping off spot for the Orkneys, but other than Druids, I don’t recall other magic-wielders living in John O’Groats.”

Sorcha tallied up what she’d found from the vantage point where they’d left the car. Before she jumped to conclusions, she asked, “How many Druids?”

“It varied. Not more than ten, though.”

“Mmph.”

He turned to look her way. “What does that mean?”

“I found double that number of people with magic when we were back up there.” She jerked her chin in the direction they’d come.

“As did I, but only a handful were Druids, and they were on their way back from our gathering in the cave.”

“You can sort Druid power from other types?”

“Of course,” he replied. “I’ll wager you can do the same for both witch and demon magic.”

She felt stupid. She’d just come to that conclusion, using it for an explanation of how she’d known his bird wasn’t quite what it appeared. They covered the remaining half kilometer in silence.

The sensation of malevolence intensified as they drew closer to the spot she’d identified. He stopped walking and thrust an arm in front of her to make certain she stopped too.

Sorcha waited, barely breathing. She would have forged ahead. Gotten near enough to determine what they faced. She angled her gaze his way and raised both brows.

Tavin shook his head, tilting it as if he were listening intently to something. She focused her hearing, but the only sounds that came her way were the cries of nighthawks on the hunt, owls, and the tide as it moved out. The moon rose, casting a vee of orange light across the sea, beautiful but brief. Within moments, it vanished behind Scotland’s typical thick cloud cover, and the water turned dark once again.

A whirr of feathers presaged her raven’s reappearance. After nudging her out of the cave, it had disappeared. It often left, but never for long, and she trusted it to return. Talons gripped her shoulders as her familiar settled into place.

“Follow me,” Tavin whispered and led the way along a nearby dirt track that wound between two old buildings made of peat blocks and down a rickety staircase. Refuse littered a recessed place between the structures; the outraged squeaks of a hostile rodent population grew louder.

Adding its own squawking to the mix, the raven launched itself from her shoulder. When it reappeared, a fat mouse wriggled between the sharp halves of its beak.

“Why are we here?” Sorcha asked. She had a high tolerance for filth and mystery garbage, so the trash under her feet didn’t bother her.

“To talk. Why else? We have enough earth around us, it should shield our words from prying ears. It scarcely seems possible, but I thought I sensed a portal. Don’t know what else it could be. There’s a definite liminal border. What lies beyond it is definitely not part of this world.”

Sorcha frowned. “Gateway to where.”

“I have no idea. It holds a wrongness, so it might be a fixed gateway, one through which evil enters our realm. If I’m correct, and I hope I’m not, Hell’s creatures can come and go as they please. Once discovered—or once they’ve completed why they came here in the first place—they scurry for the exit.” Tavin paused to take a measured breath. “There could be more than one of these things, whatever they are.”

The thought chilled her. It was a very demon like thing to do, though. They fought dirty, and creating secret entrances meant they could race in, wreak havoc, and vanish before anyone discovered who was behind it. She blew out a thoughtful breath.

“I’m not trying to hide from the truth, but perhaps these portals—assuming you’re right about there being more than one—are still in the construction phase. Granted, I’ve not lived anywhere near this era for a while, but if there are multiple portals, I’d have run across at least one of them when I did live in modern times. They’re not all that subtle. And I never heard boo about them in Hell.”

“One way to find out for sure.” He cast an appraising glance her way.

“Indeed. That would answer the when of things,” she agreed. “We go back in time. Not far, but a few years, and check to see if this location has the same rotten feel. It’s better than the idea that was forming in my head.”

“Which was?”

“Going through the portal to see where it comes out.”

He whistled, long and low. “Christ, lass. Ye’ve steel balls. If the thing pumping out malevolent intent truly is an entrance to fell places, it has to be guarded. Otherwise, Hell or wherever it leads to would empty out damned fast.”

She shrugged. Never one to retreat from a good scrap, she said, “What a grand excuse to exercise those blades in the back of your car.”

“I like my plan better, but we’re a team.”

“Nothing says we can’t do both,” she pointed out. “Try to hit a spot maybe ten years in the past, first. Depending on what we find, we can play things by ear.”

She was more of a “just do it” witch than a “sit around and talk about it” one. Neither half of her bloodlines conferred much in the way of patience.

“What do you think?” she asked her familiar.

It had finished the mouse and regarded her with its amber eyes. “It is an entry point from…elsewhere, but I have no idea how long it’s been here.”

“Another vote for time travel,” Tavin muttered, having obviously heard her bird’s comment. Magic jumped to his call, and she set the location vector, embedding it within his casting.

Bending time’s veils was one of her métiers, but this trip was quick even by her standards. Almost before their spell launched, they rolled out of it. Sorcha glanced from one side to the other. The refuse-strewn hole hadn’t changed much, but the trash beneath her feet wasn’t quite as squishy—or odiferous.

“After you.” Tavin followed her up stairs in slightly better repair than they’d been when she descended them.

She wanted to know precisely where they were, but she could tack that down easily enough. A newspaper stand would have the date. As if in response to her thought, a corner kiosk flashed past, and she snatched a flyer. “Not bad,” she said, examining it. “Eight years.”

Time travel was far from an exact undertaking. To hit a spot within two years of a goal required skill. She’d been off by as much as a century when she’d first learned the knack.

And then she focused her attention on the spot where Tavin had sensed a gateway. This time, rather than stopping, he led them right to the lip of the wrong place. Except it wasn’t any different from everything else surrounding them. Centuries-old buildings, some in better repair than others, lined a cobblestone street.

“This is the spot, right?” she asked.

He nodded. “Aye, and ’tisn’t here.” He turned to her and dropped his hands onto her shoulders. ‘This is verra good news. Means the gateways are on the newish side.”

“Still under construction as I’d hoped.” She screwed her face into a thoughtful expression. “But this is only part of the puzzle. We have to know where they go.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “I’ll take my bird form and fly inside a little way. Not far, just enough to see if I was right about it being guarded.”

“Too dangerous. If it’s demons, they’ll know straight off you’re not a falcon.”

“Safer than walking through as a human.”

“I’ll go with him,” her raven cawed.

A corner of Tavin’s mouth twisted downward. “Thanks.”

“Now, wait a minute—” Sorcha began.

“’Tis decided.” He cut her off.

She curled a hand around his forearm. “What happened to being a team?”

“Part of you will be with me.”

She wanted to punch him. “Yeah, like two birds, ones who don’t normally hang out together, aren’t a huge red flag.”

“Maybe they are, but absent assembling more Druids, I don’t see a better path.” He eyed her before going on. “What were you thinking? That you’d take a broadsword and race through the liminal space screeching like a banshee? No way can you sneak inside. If you drew an invisibility spell, another magic-wielder would see right through it. Plus, you escaped Hell. No one may have tried verra hard—or at all—to bring you back, but you can bet your last farthing if they stumble across you, they’ll not bungle the opportunity to return you there.”

The logic in his words was like a bucket of ice water dumped over her head. A shudder trailed down her spine.

He drew a key fob from his pocket.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“As you know, time travel is a bit of a crapshoot. I’ll be casting a seeking spell with my Renault as the object.” He dusted a hand off on his slacks. “At least we won’t waste time working our way back to the place we left.”

Sorcha offered him points for thinking ahead and wondered what it would be like to have a home, somewhere she wanted to return to. She’d been rather like an escaped prisoner, running forward and back in time for as long as she could remember. So far, it was the only strategy that had kept her safe.

His spell snatched her up, and the battered old car that had once been light blue but was now mottled with rust spots rose to greet her.

“This will go against the grain”—he skewered her with his green eyes, darker now, they resembled wet moss—“but you need to remain here. The Renault is warded, even when I’m not inside, so ’twill afford some level of protection for you.”

“But I’ll be too far away to help,” she protested and caught the key fob he tossed her way.

His eyes pinched at the corners. “’Tis relative, lass. If things go badly, there won’t be much you could do, even if you stood beneath the portal.”

The raven bent and brushed its beak across her cheek. Its way of soothing her, but Sorcha wasn’t buying it. The stiff set to Tavin’s shoulders told her arguing would be useless, so she unlocked the car. Before she got inside, the raven moved to Tavin’s shoulder.

She bit back hot words about it being a traitor. “See you soon,” she said a shade too brightly, and jumped into the passenger seat, pulling the door shut behind her.

Concern etched into his features, but his high forehead, square jaw dotted with beard stubble, and sculpted cheekbones were still movie-star gorgeous. Damn. She fisted her hands where they lay in her lap. Why’d he have to be such a hunk?

He’d be a shit-ton easier to argue with if he were old and wizened and surrounded by a passel of bairns.

He tapped on the window, and she rolled it down a few inches. “Best get moving.” Her tone was crisp.

“Ye’ll be right here when I return?” he asked in Gaelic.

“Yup. Right here.” A thought occurred to her, and she arched a brow. “Where will you be leaving your clothes?”

“Nearer the gateway.”

“Why not in your car? Not like I haven’t already seen you naked.” The possibility of viewing his muscled torso excited her. Her suggestion had been tongue-in-cheek. She was still furious at being booted to the curb, but it didn’t mean she was immune to wondering what his chiseled body would feel like pressed up against hers.

“Maybe next time,” he blurted, clearly uncomfortable with her innuendo. Tavin turned and left at a lope with her raven flying beside him.

Sorcha didn’t lose any time. She climbed over the divider and into the back of the car to take a closer look at the weaponry. After selecting her two favorites, she sent a pulse of magic to open the hatch and crawled out. A few experimental swipes, and she belted a slender longsword in place. Its hilt was carved of yew, and it fit her hand as if it were made for her.

She glanced to the east. Dawn wasn’t terribly far off, which meant it was edging toward midmorning. The citizenry of John O’Groats would be out and about quite soon. A downward glance made her wince. Between her old-fashioned garb, poorly tanned leather clogs, and the blade strapped to her body, she looked like a movie extra, not someone who belonged in a rural hamlet.

Since it took less magic to make herself invisible than to craft a glamour, she swathed herself in spells, added a touch of “don’t look here” for good measure, and hustled toward the liminal boundary marking the threshold to another world.

Sorcha didn’t think too hard. If she had, her courage might have faltered. Hell was at the bottom of her list of preferred destinations. Demons might not be overly bright, but they had long memories, and they’d hurt her. Punishments in Hell lasted forever. Whatever you feared most happened again and again and again. Another favorite was making you relive your worst failures. So you had time to truly absorb just how badly you’d fucked up.

Worse, her jailors would make certain she was never near enough the exit to finesse a second escape. She wanted to reach for her familiar, interrogate it about how things were going, but a shot of telepathy might put both birds in even greater danger than they already were.

She had a plan, and by god, she’d see it through. Tavin had been right when he’d mentioned her standing beneath the gateway. It was precisely where she planned to be. If neither bird flew back out in a reasonable amount of time—ten minutes or so—she was going in to find them.

Tavin’s scent made her nostrils twitch. She must have just run past where he’d left his garments. Not much farther. She paid out a slender twist of magic and moved to the right, correcting her trajectory. She was near enough, she felt the demarcation—Tavin had labelled it a liminal boundary—and it had demon written all over it.

Sorcha kicked herself hard. If she’d been half a kilometer nearer when she and Tavin approached this spot together, she’d have known the portal led to Hell—or maybe to a borderworld controlled by demons. Not much difference between the two. All the demons’ worlds led straight to Hell. She’d visited a few over the years she’d resided there.

Fear gripped her, but she crept forward, checking her warding. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t understood Black Magic lay behind the gateway. She’d hoped witchcraft was responsible, but no such fortune played out.

Ha! Since when are the Roskellys and all the other Black Witches something to long for?

Sorcha didn’t bother answering herself. Compared with demons, witches were pikers. They knew it, and it was the sole reason Rhea was so dogged in pursuing her.

Sorcha felt the tug of evil. It sang to her demon side, alluring, tantalizing.

Slowly, she lifted her head. A gateway formed before her third eye. Crafted of burning timbers that resurrected themselves as perpetual fuel, it screamed Hell-spawned workmanship. Once she saw it, the stench of ozone and scorched flesh surrounded her.

She tugged the blade free, holding it across her body like a shield. The metal smelled clean, pure. It made the Hell-scents more tolerable. Because she was rattled, she counted. When she’d reached 600, she figured more than enough time had passed.

The birds should be back.

They weren’t.

Her throat was so dry, she couldn’t swallow. For a fleeting moment, she considered retreat. She could summon the Druids, and her witchy kinswomen. Power lay in numbers. They’d be better off that way—

“Bullcrap,” she said softly.

By the time reinforcements arrived, it would be too late. Tavin would be lost. She assumed her raven could escape any magical snare, but the falcon couldn’t. It got by on stealth. She should have asked pointblank, but she was fairly certain Tavin commanded far more magic as a human than in his bird’s body.

She took a step. And one more. The third step carried her through the liminal space. The feel of Earth vanished, replaced by the roar of fire and the stench of brimstone laced with decaying flesh. Rivers of liquid metal ran beneath her feet. She snorted. It was an old demon trick, one she’d discovered spying on Satan’s princes. She barked a word, and the glistening metal formed a solid spot. Driven by instinct, she spun until she faced the gateway, except it wasn’t there.

She skinned her lips back from her teeth. Another demon trick. Build a trap and bury the entrance so no one can find their way out. She’d always had solid intuitions, and she blessed the one that had urged her to turn around. Since she seemed to be alone, she walked fast, reversing her course. The solid spot beneath her feet traveled beneath her, simplifying her journey.

Three steps may have carried her inside. It took over twenty before she emerged through the gloomy liminal boundary. Her heart thudded hard, and she was panting.

Understanding punched her in the guts, almost doubling her over. No reason to waste demon power posting a guard anywhere near the gate. Not when illusion did as effective a job. She turned once again and faced the entrance. What could she use to mark it from the inside?

A beacon no one else would notice, but something to guide her to the exit. She had a feeling the portal would fade still more the farther inside she traveled. She still clutched the sword. It was sharp, and a drop of her blood fell to the ground, sizzling in the chill air.

“Of course,” she muttered.

The solution was elegant, simplistic, and staring her in the face. She had enough demon in her, no one would notice a few drops of her blood. She’d leave a blood trail, like Ariadne’s thread or Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs. Before she changed her mind and raised her mind voice to summon aid, she sliced an inch-long gash in the meaty part of her thumb.

After leaving a few drops next to her, she hurried beneath the portal, taking care to mark her path with her own blood.

All she had to do was locate Tavin and her familiar and reverse her trail.

It sounded so easy, but it wouldn’t be. If Tavin and the raven had been able to find a way out, they would have. Sorcha hurried deeper into the tunnel. Just because the entry wasn’t guarded didn’t mean unpleasant surprises weren’t lying in wait for her around the next corner.

She wanted to use magic to hunt for her bird but didn’t dare do anything that might reveal her presence.

The sound of voices conversing in demonspeak—one of her many languages—brought her to a halt. Deepening her warding, she crouched low, intent on learning everything she could. The river of molten metal split and flowed around her. If her luck held, she’d escape notice.

If not…

She chased the thought away. No point cataloguing all the bad shit. The world was full of it, and no one ever got anywhere focusing on distasteful outcomes.

Yeah, plenty of time to wallow in might-have-beens if the fuckers catch me.

Sorcha smiled grimly. One benefit of her humble beginnings was she didn’t waste time feeling sorry for herself. Or worrying overmuch about the consequences of her actions.