I jumped on the shovel’s step with both feet, wobbled, and almost fell. When Aaron tugged the handle away, I let him take it with a bitter sigh. He set the shovel against the earth—and the ground heaved.
Staggering, I flailed my arms for balance. As quickly as it had begun, the mini-quake ended. My glower flashed toward the asshole terramage.
He stood beside the passenger door—which was now open. And in his hand was the eight-year-old envelope I’d left on my seat in plain sight, like a complete dumbass.
“This address,” he growled. “Is it—”
Aaron snapped his fingers.
The envelope burst into flame. Yelping, Blake dropped the flaming paper. The scepter inside fell to the ground and bounced on its stubby handle, shreds of flaming envelope clinging to it.
I folded my arms. “Get lost before Aaron lights you on fire too.”
Blake smirked. Turning, he walked away from our vehicle. Aaron, Justin, and I didn’t move, watching until he’d disappeared down the road that led away from the property. A minute later, the echo of a car door slamming reached us. An engine rumbled to life, and the sound receded into the woods.
“Finally,” I growled, stooping to pick up the scepter. “Now let’s—”
I broke off. The front edge of the hole our SUV was trapped in had, moments ago, been a straight vertical edge. Now it was a smooth ramp.
Snatching the scepter, I puffed out an angry breath. “He’s still an asshole.”
“Yeah,” Aaron agreed, collecting the shovels. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before he decides to come back.”
Chapter Ten
The drive from Enright to Portland was two hours, most of it winding mountain roads. Aaron and I didn’t even try to talk until we were back on paved highway. I never wanted to see another dirt road again in my life.
“Tori …” he began in his “bad news” voice. “You know this address is even more of a longshot than Enright was, right?”
“I know.” I tugged the strap of my seatbelt away from my neck. “We can always go back to Enright to search the ruins again if we have to.”
“I doubt we’ll find anything, even if we turn the whole place upside down.”
Trees flashed past, sunlight sparkling through their branches, and I wished I could enjoy the nice weather. My stomach grumbled, complaining about the insufficient amount of food I’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours.
“You can do what you want, Aaron,” I said, staring out the windshield, “but I don’t care how bad the odds are. I’ll turn over every rock on that property until I find something. I’ll knock on every mythic’s door in Portland until I find someone who knows about the cult. As long as Ezra is alive, I’ll keep searching.”
“I know, Tori. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up that we’ll find something.”
“I want to get my hopes up. You and Kai and Ezra lost hope, and that’s why you stopped trying.”
Aaron’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Kai and I stopped searching because Ezra asked us to. He didn’t want us wasting our lives trying to save his. After three years of searching, we’d run out of ideas …”
“I’m not blaming you,” I said softly.
He was quiet for a long moment, then his gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. “So … do you want to explain what your brother is doing?”
I scowled at the mirror too. An unfamiliar black pickup truck followed a dozen car lengths behind us. Justin, the sneaky jerk, had rented a vehicle so I wouldn’t spot his recognizable Challenger.
“Justin wants to mend bridges,” I muttered. “And according to Justin logic, putting a tracking app on my phone and following me when I leave town in the middle of the night is a good way to accomplish that.”
“Hmm. Well, it’s nice that he’s finally trying to understand what you have going on, right?”
“Sure, yeah,” I replied sarcastically, resting my head against the passenger window. “And he’s getting a fantastic crash course in mythics as a result. Demon cults and mass-murders and a terramage-pyromage battle. Great intro.”
“He’s stayed pretty levelheaded, though,” Aaron pointed out. “He even saved our butts against Blake.”
I pressed my hands into my seat. Justin had been more useful than I had, and that grated in a big way.
“He got lucky,” I growled. “And we only needed him because you didn’t use lethal force on Blake first.”
“Suppose. He would’ve been difficult to beat either way.”
Kicking my boots off, I pulled my socked feet onto the seat and hugged my knees. “I wish Kai was here.”
“Me too.” Aaron’s blue eyes dimmed. “I’ve been texting him updates. He said he almost has Makiko convinced, but he’s probably deluding himself.”
I hesitated. “How about Ezra? Have you talked to him?”
“Yeah, he said this morning that he was going with Darius to spend the day at the guild.”
My heart clenched painfully. I’d texted him four times, but he hadn’t answered any of my messages. “I screwed up big time, didn’t I?”
“It’s …” Aaron took a hand off the wheel to rake his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know, Tori. Maybe, maybe not. You’ve only seen glimpses of what it’s like when Eterran …”
His jaw tightened, gaze fixed on the road. “The first time Ezra’s demon tried to kill me, we were on a job taking down a small band of rogues—us against five mythics. One of them stabbed Kai in the gut. It was bad, and you know how Ezra reacts when one of us gets hurt.”
Yes, I was very aware.
“Right then, a telekinetic hit Ezra in the head with a piece of metal. The blow stunned him, and Eterran took over. He obliterated those rogues with one spell—killing them in a flash.
“Then he turned on me. He could’ve killed me just as fast, but instead, he pinned me to a wall and grabbed me by the throat. He started choking me and I couldn’t do a thing to stop him, not without lighting Ezra on fire.”
I hugged my legs harder, muscles vibrating.
“It only lasted a few seconds before Ezra regained control, but …” Aaron glanced my way. “You know why Eterran choked me instead of blowing me up in two seconds with magic? So Ezra would have to watch me die, unable to stop it.”
I put my chin on my knees, feeling dizzy. I knew Eterran was lethal, but imagining the demon choking the life out of Aaron just to torment Ezra was something else entirely.
“Do you … do you think Eterran could have changed since then?” I asked hesitantly. “Him being inside Ezra has changed Ezra, hasn’t it? Maybe Eterran’s been changed too.”
“I don’t know. The demon’s power has changed Ezra’s body, but I don’t know if it’s changed his mind. We’ll never know what he was like before becoming a demon mage. I’ve always wondered, though …”
I raised my head. “Wondered what?”
Aaron frowned at the road. “I’ve wondered what he’d be like if he didn’t always have to worry about Eterran and his emotions.”