Of course, that agreement technically no longer stood, because I'd been the one to find and kill the man who had murdered my mother, not Hunter. That man had been my Aedh lover, Lucian, who had managed to fool me in more ways than I was willing to think about. Not only had he been responsible for my mother's murder, but he'd also been involved in the theft of the keys.
And, as a parting gift, he'd kidnapped and impregnated Ilianna, and had tried to do the same to me. Thankfully, I'd already been carrying Azriel's child by that time.
Ilianna grimaced. "Yeah. Tao's fobbed her off a couple of times now, but she's getting pretty scary."
Scary was a normal state for Hunter, but I certainly didn't want to piss her off any more than necessary. Not after what I'd seen her do to the dark spirit who'd murdered her lover.
Still, it was decidedly odd that she didn't know where I was. "Why would she be hassling Tao, or anyone else, for that matter? She knows exactly what I'm doing every single minute of the day, thanks to the fucking Cazadors."
Cazadors were the high vampire council's kill squad, and they'd been following me astrally for weeks, reporting my every move back to Hunter.
"In this case, she doesn't, because they can't follow you here." Ilianna tucked her arm through mine and escorted me down the hall.
I raised an eyebrow. "You've spelled the place?"
She nodded. "Mom found a spell that automatically redirects astral travelers every time they approach the spell's defined area."
Just astral travelers, not Aedh, I guessed. Which was logical, given that the only spell we had to keep the Aedh out was the one we were using around our home, and that had originated from my father. Which meant my father and the Raziq could get to me here. I shivered and tried to ignore the premonition that I'd be confronting both far sooner than I'd want.
Still, some protection was better than nothing, and at least we could plan our next move without the Cazadors passing every little detail on to Hunter. "There wouldn't happen to be a mobile version of that spell, would there?"
"Unfortunately, no."
Of course not. Why on earth would fate throw me a lifeline like that? "Then I guess I'd better give the bitch a call ASAP."
And pray like hell she didn't have another job for me. I really didn't need to be chasing after escapees from hell right now – especially, I thought bleakly, when chasing hell-kind was all I had to look forward to in the long centuries after my death.
Besides, I needed to find the sorcerer and snatch the second key back. While he might not know which one of the items he'd stolen it was, there was nothing stopping him from taking them all to hell's gate and testing them out one by one.