of accumulated junk, consisting mostly of the remains of shipping crates, stacks of loading pallets, and broken boxes. An area in the center of the floor had been cleared, and the concrete had been heavily marked up with occult symbols painted in blood, around a table that was obviously intended to be an altar. A kid, a little boy maybe nine years old, was bound hand and foot on the table, his face blotchy from crying. He was screaming and struggling against the ropes, but was firmly secured to the table.
Harry cried out again. The glass in both windows at the front side of the warehouse exploded inward in a flash of scarlet light. Something that looked disturbingly like a severed arm went tumbling by the open doorway.
I kept looking until I spotted it—the Lexicon Malos, a leather-bound book, like a big old handwritten journal, just the kind of impressive grimoire occult nut-jobs like the Stygians are so giddy about. It rested on a little pedestal beside the table. It didn’t actually have a flashing neon sign over it reading NOTICE ME, but it was pretty close.
I went hand over hand along the steel-beam rafters until I got to one of the girders that ran down the wall. Then I slid down it to the floor and hurried over to the altar and the pedestal. I opened the nylon backpack in my hands, stuffed the Lexicon Malos into it, zipped it closed, and then slid my arms through the shoulder straps.
I could have bailed then. I suppose it would have been the smartest thing. Once the book was removed from the equation, the Stygian’s entire operation was blown. Granted, she and the other members of the Sisterhood would try it again somewhere else, but they would have been stopped for the time being.
But the bitch had messed with my brother.
“For the time being” wasn’t good enough.
Harry came through the front door of the warehouse, with the Stygian treading fearfully behind him, pretending to tremble. Tall, skinny, sharp-featured, and somewhat rough-looking, Harry wore his usual wizarding gear—the black leather duster. He carried a carved staff in his left hand, a shorter, more heavily carved rod in his right, and the tip of the rod glowed with a sullen red-orange flame.
I was waiting for them.
I had wrapped the dark red blanket around my shoulders and upper body like some sort of dramatic ceremonial garb. I stood over the child, a wicked-looking knife I’d found lying on the altar in hand, with my head thrown back and a sneer on my illusion-covered face.
“So!” I boomed in my most overblown voice. “You have defeated my minions!”
“You have got to be kidding me,” my brother said, staring at me with an expression somewhere between bemusement and naked contempt. “I mean . . . Jesus, look at this place. I’ve seen high school plays with a higher production value than this.”
“Silence!” I thundered, pointing the knife at him. I had eyes only for the Stygian, in any case. She was staring at me with a look of blank surprise. Heh. Serves you right, sweetheart. You shouldn’t make up stories about imaginary villains until you’re certain they won’t come true. “Who dares interrupt my—”
“Yeah, you know what?” Harry asked. “Forzare!”
His staff snapped forward and an invisible truck hit me at thirty miles an hour.
I flew backward, thirty feet or so, and hit a stack of loading pallets.
I went through them.
That hurt.
I hit the wall behind them.
I did not go through it.
That hurt even more.
I landed, dazed, and wobbled to my feet with the help of my demon. No problem, I told myself. I’d planned to fall back to this position in any case—just not quite that vigorously.
The circuit box for the building was on the wall two feet to my left. I reached out and killed the lights.
“Crouch down!” Harry shouted to the woman he thought he was protecting. “Stay still!”
My demon and I adjusted to the darkness almost instantly. The Stygian had done the same. She had produced a wavy-bladed dagger from nowhere and was running toward me on silent feet, her eyes narrowed and intent.
I threw the prop knife I’d been holding when she was ten feet away. She slipped to one side, and it went spinning through the air, striking sparks off the far wall. Her knife struck at me, but I slammed the edge of one hand against her forearm, knocking it away before it could do more than scratch me. I followed