might pop and bleed any second, just to relieve it.
Then the darkness lifted and she stood at the edge of a massive crater, debris from what, at a guess, used to be the Syndicate’s headquarters littered the ground in chunks of white cement and twisted metal, the stench of ozone all around, and dust clogging the air. Alasdair’s people lay dead or dying in the rubble. White sparks of…whatever had blown the structure to kingdom come…continued to ignite, like a glittering pantheon of fist-sized fireflies that would flare to life and burn out in a blink.
Incongruously, snow lightly fell over the scene, pristine and clean, like some horrible cosmic joke.
She closed her eyes against the sight. How far into the future was this? Was Alasdair too late? Had he already failed?
I’m sorry.
She wanted to go after him now. Warn him before this happened. Before it was too late. Only she was trapped here, in a future that would come to pass if she didn’t figure out how to change it.
The future. Always the crux of her mother’s lessons.
So pay attention, she told herself.
A boom echoed off the mountain peaks in the darkness, followed by a red flashing glow and several screams. Another boom, and something dark whisked past her in the darkness, sending a spiderweb of shivers over her skin.
Demon.
A huge blast from the direction of the crater practically shook the mountain under her feet and her vision blacked again only to come back so fast, she would’ve wondered if she’d blinked if she wasn’t looking at a different scene. Still in the wooded mountains surrounding the area where the Syndicate’s headquarters had once stood, she stared at the bald side of a mountain.
This area was worse than the last.
Bodies littered the boulders and ledges of the mountain, strewn about like tissue paper after a child’s birthday party, limp and lifeless. Only, as she watched, darkness appeared to leak from each like liquid smoke dripping out of every orifice and pooling on the ground before reshaping and reforming. Another hundred demons at least.
“Merciful heavens,” she whispered.
Horror clawed at her insides like a trapped feral cat, and she could do nothing. Impotent in this scene. Unable to help even if she were not in a vision. Damn her oath.
With another flash, she appeared in the bottom of the crater. Whatever had blown this had to have been massive because she stood at least a hundred feet below the top. As though the explosion not only took out the structure but disintegrated the giant flat-topped mountain of pure granite the structure had been built upon. The area was glittering. Not from the firefly-like sparks, which still popped up all over the place. Now, the sky was lit by a strand of lightning stretched overhead, but frozen there, blinding to look at directly, casting a blueish flickering glow over everything.
Just enough to see Alasdair—the future Alasdair—facing off against a legion of demons, some inhabiting bodies of witches and warlocks. His people. Some still in shadow form. Black eyes flashed at him in the spitting, hissing light of the electric bolt she had no doubt he’d put in the sky.
“Teleport,” she whispered. Urging him with her entire being to get out of there. Forget horror—fear clawed her raw from the inside out. “Get out of there.”
She was practically rocking as she willed him to listen, despite knowing he couldn’t hear or see her.
But he didn’t leave. Of course he didn’t. This was Alasdair.
Something—she wasn’t sure what—caught his attention and he lifted his gaze up, way up. She turned her head, following his eyeline. Over the lip of the crater, a pair of red glowing eyes appeared, seeming to hover in the blackness, beyond the reach of the lightning bolt. Only after staring hard did a faint outline make itself clearer.
Hellhound.
Then another set of eyes, and another.
Three hellhounds.
Seven hells. These demons weren’t fucking around. Even her mother knew better than to mess with those dogs. Unpredictable and able to kill with one bite, injecting poison into their victim that slowly ate them from the inside out.
Suddenly, one shadow broke from the others and sprinted toward him so fast it blurred with the speed. Without a word, Alasdair reached into the sky and formed a glowing energy orb, purple and brilliant. The demon backpedaled but not fast enough. Hurling the orb, Alasdair smashed it into the shadow, which disintegrated on the spot.
Then another came at him, smashed the same way. And another, and another, until the