A Den of Tricks Read online

  He noticed my gaze fixated on the object in question, and handed it over. I brought it up to my nose and took a deep breath.

  “This is it,” I murmured, then coughed as the smell invaded my airways like sticky dust. It reminded me of gunpowder, but it seemed more potent and intense. It was a foreign chemical, and I had no way of ascertaining what it was, exactly, but there was one thing I could do while Heron continued to dig through the pile. “Do you have a lighter?”

  Heron gave me one of the two he always kept with him—it was team policy to always carry a source of fire for Caia to have handy, in case she ever lost hers. Mine had been destroyed during my attempt to leave the planet. I flicked it open and produced a small flame, then placed the flame against one end of the melted stick.

  It burst like a raging firework. I yelped and dropped it, especially alarmed because I was still reeling from the earlier interplanetary spell disaster that had nearly claimed my life. My body had already healed, but my inner wounds were still fresh. Both Heron and I stared at the stick as the fire ate away at it—it popped and hissed as sparks flew out.

  I glanced to my left, where the Lords and the rest of my team were standing, and noticed the frowns on the Exiled Maras’ faces.

  “That’s ephelis,” Caspian said, his eyes on the rapidly burning stick at my feet. “It’s a powder we make from certain mineral deposits in the caves around the mountain. It’s highly flammable. Our craftsmen blend it into a paste and make those sticks out of it. We use them to blow up sections of stone… It’s how we built the levels of Mount Azure.”

  “So it’s a local explosive,” I concluded.

  “Yes, and that’s a major problem because we only have one workshop that manufactures these things, and its ephelis reserve is meant to be under lock and key,” he replied, then snapped his fingers at one of the Correction Officers waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The uniformed Mara came up, and gave Caspian a brief nod. “Go check in on Master Dresdel. The explosives came from his workshop.”

  The Correction Officer obeyed and rushed downstairs to one of the lower levels of the city. Heron and I started digging through the rubble and cleared out another handful of melted sticks.

  “These didn’t ignite all the way, I’m guessing,” I said, looking at Caspian while pointing down at our finding. His nod confirmed my suspicion. I shifted my focus back to the rubble at our feet. “This was very sloppily put together, then. Had the detonator been more accurate, these would’ve substantially amplified the explosion.”

  Heron found the tip of a slim black tube, and tugged it until it revealed a small piece of what must have been a mechanical device. There was another tube attached to it, but it led nowhere, as the other end had been torn in the explosion, and the flames must have burned through the rest.

  “This must have been a part of the detonator,” Heron said slowly.

  He then glanced around, his jade eyes looking for other traces of the tube. I gripped the burnt end of the detonator tube and sniffed it. There was something rubbery in it, with a faint note of sulfur. It was enough for me to start tracing its remains around the center of the explosion. Heron noticed me moving toward the back of the house, and quietly followed.

  “Stop,” he said, then bent down and retrieved a solitary piece of the same detonator tube. “Yeah, you’re going the right way.”

  “Good. This has to lead somewhere. There’s definitely a main mechanical detonator, a shock tube of sorts. Air pressure was used to ignite the one in the house. I’m sure it was detonated remotely, but it wasn’t well made,” I replied.

  “Which means that whoever did this isn’t exactly an expert with explosives,” Heron muttered, watching as I walked closer to what used to be the kitchen door leading out to the back garden.

  “And that could also mean that they may not be experts at concealing their tracks, either.” I nodded and picked up the scent of more burnt tubes.

  Heron found another fragment, this one longer. The farther we got from the center of the blast, the better preserved our evidence was. Soon after that, we found a junction piece—two slim shock tubes, one of which came from House Xunn, tied up into a thicker one.

  “Follow the main shock tube,” I suggested to Heron, “and I’ll follow this second one.”

  He nodded and scoured the back garden, its grass and flowers burnt down, embers still glowing in the fractured remains of the wooden gazebo. This had once been a corner of comfort and peace, and it made my stomach churn to see it like this.

  I traced the second tube to House Kifo. There was another detonator buried under the pile of wood and stone that had once been the kitchen. I pulled it out of the rubble as Caspian stared at me and the object, apparently in a stupor.

  “You mean to tell me the second explosion came from my house?” he said, almost out of breath. Harper stood next to him, her eyes wide with shock, her brow settling into a concerned frown.

  “It appears so.” I shrugged, sniffing the melted device, then looking down. “But this was also poorly put together. There are several intact sticks of ephelis at the bottom. I can see them from here.”

  “Found the main detonator.” Heron came out of the woods behind the tattered stables facing House Xunn, holding another, larger mechanical device in his hands. The main shock tube was still attached to it, and it covered several yards in length. It had been built with a pump, from what I could tell at first glance. “It was twenty yards behind the stables, at the base of a tree.”

  “Remote detonation.” I nodded slowly. “Just as I thought. This was planned, but it required knowledge of both the Xunn and Kifo households to plant the explosives. If this was retaliation for what we did in the gorges, then their timing was way too good.”

  “True.” Heron came by my side, and we both looked at the Lords and the rest of our team. “They only had what, three, four hours since we left the Valley of Screams?”

  They all mulled over the information for a while. Heron and I continued to look through the rubble of the Kifo mansion for anything else that could be of use. We then moved our search into the woods, where Heron had found the main detonator.

  “Maybe I can pick up a scent here,” I said as we walked over to the tree in question.

  “Avril, I… I need to talk to you.” Heron caught my right forearm before I could circle the tree for foreign scents. I gazed up at him with both eyebrows raised.

  “What is it?” I asked, trying to hold it together. His touch triggered tiny electrical currents flowing through my arms. My heart started pounding, a sensation I was still getting accustomed to whenever he was near me.

  He needed a few moments to put his thoughts in order, judging by the way his eyes absently darted around me before they settled on my face.

  “I… I need you to be more careful from now on,” he replied, his eyebrows drawn closer, his gaze clouded.

  “What do you mean?” I shrugged. “We already know what happened here. No one’s coming at us at this point. It would be foolish.”

  “I’m not talking about this. I’m talking about you. Just… Please, be more careful. No more volunteering for swamp witch travel spells and stuff like that. It’s just… Just don’t.”

  “Neither of us knew what was going to happen up there, Heron. It’s not like I had any plans to get myself burned alive.” I sighed.

  “I know, but… but I almost lost you back there.” The pained look on his face floored me, and I had to swallow back the bundle of emotions working its way up my throat for some reason. “I have never experienced something like that, Avril, and I don’t want to feel it ever again.”

  “What… What are you talking about?” My brain slowed down, leaving my body in charge as he gently pulled me closer to him.

  “I like having you around,” he replied, his expression softening a little as the shadow of a smile passed over his lips. “So, you know, just be careful.”

  I needed a minute to take it all in. Was this Heron’s way of tellin
g me that he liked me? That he was into me? …Maybe as much as I was into him?

  “Okay, I promise to do my best not to get myself blown up again.” I gave him a wink, trying to diffuse some of the tension I felt building up. The longer we gazed at each other, the thicker the air between us grew.

  He licked his lower lip, then bit it. He let go of my arm, put his hands behind his back, and looked away, somewhere to his left. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and I had a feeling he had more to say, so I waited patiently. I continued asking myself the same questions in the back of my head—what was he really telling me with “I like having you around”?

  “You know, I’ve never done Pyrope before, with anyone,” he breathed, then shifted his focus back to me. “It’s a very important ritual to me. I was hoping I’d share my first Pyrope with my soulmate one day.”

  It hit me then what he was talking about. I’d offered him my blood back in the Valley of Screams, of my own accord. He’d taken that as Pyrope, the Mara ritual in which non-Maras give their blood willingly, either as a one-off or as a recurring experience. The only solid example I was aware of was the deal between Jax and Zeriel, King of the Tritones. But I also knew that Pyrope was often practiced by mixed couples, and it was a very intimate thing to do.

  “I… I’m sorry,” I mumbled, lowering my head and suddenly feeling out of place. “I guess I ruined Pyrope for you, but you know we had no choice. I mean, you were injured, and we needed you healed fast, given our circumstances.”

  His fingers gripped my chin as he lifted my head. His gaze found my eyes again, and he gave me a soft smile that sent waves of sunshine through my body, rippling toward the tips of my fingers and toes. He’d never looked at me like that.

  “Don’t be sorry,” he replied. “I just didn’t expect my first Pyrope to happen so… fast and unexpected, so broken from tradition, that’s all. I’m not unsatisfied by it happening.”

  I stilled. Was I hearing him right? He’d just mentioned experiencing his first Pyrope with his soulmate, but that the circumstances were different from what he’d imagined. Was this his veiled way of telling me that I meant more to him, or was this just me misinterpreting his words?

  “Wait… what do you mean, Heron?” I asked, feeling my heart thudding in my chest.

  “I guess I—”

  “Heron, Avril, come over here for a minute,” Hansa called out, interrupting him.

  Argh… Horrible timing!

  Heron gave me an apologetic look, and I gave him a brief nod in return, hoping we’d get to resume this conversation later. I took a deep breath and followed him back to the group on the edge of the first level.

  My only fear was that I’d misunderstood what he’d just said. It scared me more than I’d thought it could, probably because I was genuinely falling for Heron and I dreaded the thought of it all being one-sided.

  Jax

  There were too many things going through my head at once, on top of what had already happened before the explosions. I was having a hard time holding it all together, so I tried prioritizing first, and did my best to focus on the attack on the Lords’ mansions.

  I could easily blame Hansa for throwing me off balance like that. The impact of her kiss was far more devastating than I’d originally thought. My blood was constantly simmering and my senses were amplified in her presence, as if every atom in my body were suddenly energized just from being close to her.

  The worst part was the mixture of pain and shame I felt on the inside, where she was concerned. I’d fallen in love with her, so hard and fast, from our first encounters back on Calliope. After her near-death experience at the hands of Azazel, however, I’d shoved those feelings somewhere deep down, where it was meant to be dark and cold enough for them to never resurface.

  Yet all it took was for me to see her every day for my heart to thaw. Feeling her lips on mine was the ignition point of no return, but all I managed to do was hurt her again. I was terrified of falling for her because of my tragic past experiences, and I hadn’t even thought of what my wavering did to her.

  I’d have to make it up to her. There was no point in denying it anymore. I loved her. It was just a matter of getting myself settled into that mindset, and gaining some form of control over the situation. We were in a strange and hostile territory, and the last thing I wanted was to go back to Calliope with her remains. I needed to focus on her safety, so we could both go back and take this… this thing between us to the next level.

  Until then, however, I had to come forward as the leader she expected me to be. She’d challenged me, and I was determined to prove to her that I was the Mara she’d met back home. The best way for me to do this was to find a way to take the fight back into the Valley of Screams.

  Provided that the Druid could amplify and expand the protection spell over the city, we could focus on retaliation. The daemons had struck back hard, but we weren’t done yet. On top of that, Avril’s discovery had shed light on how fast the fiends operated, and what their shortcomings were.

  “What’s up?” Avril asked as she and Heron rejoined the conversation. My brother had a peculiar look on his face, but that was a conversation best saved for later.

  “We’ve been talking about the daemons’ way of operating,” I replied, “and I think it’s time we organize another incursion into the gorges.”

  “What for?” Heron frowned, stealing a glance at Avril.

  I knew it!

  My little brother had the hots for the young vampire, which meant there was still hope for him to recover from his imprisonment trauma. I’d feared I’d be left to deal with his philandering nonsense for an eternity.

  “Well, think about it this way,” I said. “The daemons were able to put together a counterattack in a matter of hours, and they clearly had knowledge of the mansions’ layouts and the Lords’ movements. This means they’re highly organized, despite their sloppy but still devastating explosive charges. I don’t think we can just stay here and wait for GASP to come for us. Every day that we spend here counts. We should go back into the Valley of Screams and look for a way into their underground cities. Scope out the enemy… find out what else they’re hiding down there, besides swamp witch spells, armored daemons, and pit wolves.”

  The Lords glanced at each other, then looked at me and nodded vehemently.

  “We’ll arrange for Correction Officers to join you again,” Emilian replied with determination. “How many would you need?”

  “None,” I replied, prompting my team to raise a collective eyebrow at me.

  “What do you mean by ‘none’?” Hansa asked.

  “If we’re going in there for recon, we can’t have a large group to draw attention,” I explained. “Just a handful of us, with enough invisibility paste handy in case we need it. We need to be swift and quiet, make good use of shadows and blind spots.”

  Heron then gave me a conspiratorial grin as he patted my shoulder.

  “I get it!” he replied. “We go in, a handful of us, capture ourselves a hunter daemon or two, and force them to take us down below. Right?”

  “Exactly.” I nodded. “And since they’ll be carrying their own, modified version of the invisibility spell, we can use it to replenish our resources, since we’ll be infiltrating enemy territory.”

  I noticed the expressions on my team’s faces change from uncertain to somewhat enlightened, as they understood the premise of a scouting mission. Harper took a step forward, her hands resting on her sword handles.

  “Okay, I’m in,” she said. “How do we do this?”

  Her energy was very much welcomed. We were all tired after the night and day we’d spent in the Valley of Screams, first looking for Fiona, then making our way back into the city. We’d failed with the interplanetary spell and were clearly stuck on Neraka, for the time being. And the daemons had just carried out a deadly attack on the Five Lords—who were now Four.

  I glanced at Hansa, and I knew, deep down, that she was coming with me, whether I li
ked it or not. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer, no matter how much I needed her here, in the city, in relative safety as opposed to in the gorges.

  It was definitely one of the reasons I’d fallen for her in the first place. She was fearless.

  And she stood by my side, even when I faltered and foolishly rejected her.

  Harper

  (Daughter of Hazel & Tejus)

  “I know I’m going,” Jax said, then nodded to Hansa, “and I know she’s going.”

  “And I’ve already called dibs on the third spot on this mission.” I smirked, eager to get deeper into enemy territory and learn everything I could before we could deliver a large-scale, devastating blow and wipe those horned bastards off the face of Neraka.

  “And we’ll take Caia and Blaze with us again,” Jax replied, looking at Heron, Avril, Patrik and Scarlett. “We’ll need that firepower down there, in case something goes wrong. You four stay here with the rest of the team. The city needs GASP in the aftermath of what just happened.”

  The Lords watched quietly as Jax laid out the plan. Caspian was next to me, and I could feel his gaze on the side of my face. I gave him a brief glance and felt my heart skip a beat. There was a peculiar warmth in his jade eyes, the kind of emotion that promised sweet, beautiful moments, in a dramatic contrast with what had been happening in Azure Heights.

  “What do you need us to do here?” Avril asked.

  “You and Heron can start questioning witnesses regarding the explosions,” Jax said. “Use a broader timeline, though. From this morning until right now. Someone must have seen something out of place. Start with the Imen and Maras who were on this level.”

  He then glanced up at the asteroid belt, a string of shimmering purplish dots in the sky, and frowned, then shifted his focus to Fiona.