Won't, she said, as flames leapt from her blade to Jak's leg. He yelped again, and raised a hand to batter her away, but I grabbed it.
"She won't burn you," I said. "Just stay still."
"There are flames near my nuts," he shouted, his expression one of horror. "You stay still —"
"Jak," I cut in harshly. "Trust me."
His gaze flashed to mine; then he gulped and stopped moving. Sweat beaded his forehead as Amaya's flames wrapped almost lovingly around the two-foot snake of wiring stretching from just below his knee up to his groin. When the last of the snake was covered, her flames flared briefly, then disappeared. The snake was gone, and there was little evidence of its presence on Jak other than a few scorch marks on his jeans.
Magic bitter, Amaya commented. Hate made.
Lauren for sure, then. I still had to wonder why, though. It made little sense for anyone to want me dead, even if Lauren did want revenge for Lucian's death. Unless, of course, both she and the other sorcerer – if indeed there was another sorcerer; we still weren't entirely sure about that, despite the fact it had definitely been a male who'd snatched the first key from me – had decided they were happy enough having two of the three hell gates open. I guess, if nothing else, it would make accessing hell's minions a whole lot easier for them.
Although the effort-to-reward ratio seemed way out of whack to me. But then, we were talking about a pair of dark sorcerers. Maybe they planned to hold the world for ransom or something equally insane.
I released Jak's hand. "You okay?"
He took a deep breath, then nodded. "What the hell are we going to do about the wiring? Severing it doesn't stop it, and there's too much hanging down for us to do a proper search of the room without risk."
"True." I turned around. Amaya, are you able to burn a path between here and the bed?
She didn't answer, but flames leapt from her blade, shooting forward, creating a six-foot-wide avenue between us and the bed. The remaining wiring shivered and snapped, as if in anger or frustration.
Another chill ran down my spine. There was no way in hell I was going to use the elevator to get out of this place.
With our path clear, we moved forward. The bed had borne the brunt of the explosion, and was little more than a blackened, twisted mass of frame, springs, and fabric remnants. If there had been something hidden within it, it was unlikely to have survived.
I checked the remnants anyway, and found precisely what I'd expected – nothing.