He sat back and sighed, his eyes still on the door. Like me, he didn’t want Lee to know anything about his big sister because Lee could be reckless at the best of times. I did not need him trying to open doors to other planes. “I think we should consider what the demon said.”
I leaned over. “You are not selling your soul to a Planeswalker.”
There are a couple types of specialized demons who do specific jobs. Like Kelsey’s new butler, Eddie. He’s a satan, one of the underworld’s lawyers. They are the arbiters of contracts, though Eddie greatly prefers running a household and trying to wrangle Fenrir into pants. Planeswalker demons are exactly what they sound like. They spend their time walking the various planes of existence. I like to think of them as bees, except they pollinate planes instead of flowers. From what we’ve gathered, the Planeswalkers get their energy from crossing the planes. The planes get something from this too since the rumors are the walls that separate us would collapse without the demons doing their daily walkabouts.
A Planeswalker could take a person to another plane of existence. There was only one problem. The price of the ticket was pretty hefty. It cost a person their soul.
“We don’t know that I’m not already going there, girl.” My father’s jaw had gone tight. “I’ve done things in my life I’m not proud of.”
Oddly, I was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about the times he’d stolen stuff. He was proud of that. “I’m not going to allow you to sell your soul, and I doubt any demon would sign a contract with you. Daniel has made things pretty plain since Abbas Hiberna used Lee to get him to sign one. Any member of our family is off limits.”
Some asshole elemental demon had decided to start a civil war among the Earth plane’s supernatural creatures by killing my husband. As he couldn’t do it without Daniel’s own consent, because that went against our contracts, he threatened our human child who wasn’t covered by them.
Like I said, I worry a lot about Lee.
“I could make it happen if I wanted to,” my father replied with his trademark stubbornness.
But I had an argument for him. “We don’t know what plane she’s on. Haweigh and the faeries took her to one of the outer Faery planes. We have no idea which one. From what I understand, they’re kind of endless.”
I’d certainly told my father the story of Haweigh. She was the faery priestess who’d been moving a transference box across the plane when I might or might not have stolen it. Then Daniel and I might or…okay, we totally primed it and then a baby came out. Haweigh had taken that baby—our Summer—with her when she’d left the Earth plane.
“I’ll start with Tír na nÓg. My research has found that it’s far easier to move around in the outer planes than it is here.”
From what we’d learned, the Earth plane, Hell, and Heaven planes were considered the inner planes, and they were the most difficult to get to. Over the years I’d consulted with everyone from Marcus to some angels I knew, to a few of the more friendly demons. They agreed that all creatures flowed from either Heaven or Hell, with Earth as the in-between. From the Earth plane others had been created. I’d heard reports that there were some planes where the citizens had open doors and welcomed commerce and trade with neighboring planes and others who zealously guarded their doors. Some had advanced far past the Earth plane, while others were barbaric and war torn. But I’d gotten that intel from a demon, and sometimes they lie. “Dad, give me a little time. Gray’s prophecy says she’s coming, so maybe we won’t need to do anything but get another bedroom ready.”
“And come up with a way to protect our girl because if she’s pure magic, that wizard will want her. He’ll want to use her.”
I sighed in relief. “I never told you how I felt about Myrddin because I thought you would side with Dev and Danny. They think I’m paranoid.”
He shook his head, his ever-intelligent eyes on me. “They’re starstruck and not thinking straight. The man’s last name is Satanspawn. I don’t trust him any farther than I could throw his demonic arse. I didn’t say anything because he seemed to want to stay away. Now we have a prophecy that might bring my magical grandbaby back to us and he shows up. No. He’s not touching my girls. I’ll fight him and anyone else who comes after me family, and I won’t fight fair.”
That was my father in a nutshell. He was in his late sixties and he was ready to go to war for me. I reached out and squeezed his hand. “I won’t either, Dad. That’s why I’m going to get that damn grimoire and find out what he’s been doing.”
“He’ll come after that book. He’ll have a way to track it. It’s got all his secrets.” My father’s lips ticked up. “Ah, you’re going to use the bag of holding. Excellent choice. Did you tell your husbands about that gift of mine?”
I shook my head. “No. I did exactly what you told me to do. It’s in a chest in my closet. I put objects in it from time to time.”
He nodded sagely. “To keep it primed.”
I’d followed his instructions to a T. Sometimes I’d put in innocuous things like a shirt I no longer wore or receipts that might have made Danny’s brain bleed. Other times I tossed in Danny’s old ratty T-shirts he refused to get rid of and that no man who wore a crown should wear. I did not feel bad about that at all.
“Excellent. You know you’ll have to read it either in the bag or with that invisibility cloak around you.”
“I can fit in the bag?”
It was a nice-sized bag, but certainly not human sized.
“It’s called a bag of holding for a reason,” Dad explained. “As far as I know there are only four on the Earth plane. They were fashioned by angels to aid in fighting demons back when the great wars were held before humans even came into existence. The fact that it’s magic is the purest white is why Myrddin won’t be able to find it. It’s tuned to its owner.”
“That’s why you needed the blood.” The day he’d given it to me, he’d pricked my finger and had me drip a few drops into the bag.
“Yes,” he agreed. “No one else can find it. It was used originally to carry weapons from Heaven, so the angels wanted them protected from all other creatures. It’s far bigger on the inside than the outside. You’ll see. Let’s get the book, shove it in the bag, and then let the fallout happen. You have to be patient with a theft like this.”
He was right about the fact that I wouldn’t want to be patient. I wanted to get the book and immediately open it and read that sucker. Or rather have Sarah read it since I wasn’t sure what I was looking for.
My father shook his head like he knew exactly what I was thinking. “You need to give it a bit of time. He’ll know it’s gone. He’ll know who to blame. You have to look innocent as pie for a few days. Maybe even weeks. If this was any other job, I would make a copy and try to buy us some time.”
“He would still know.” What my father was talking about was making a copy of the book that looked pretty much like the one we wanted to steal and hope Myrddin didn’t need to read it for a few days. We were dealing with the wizard of wizards. The only reason we might pull it off was he was in the dark temple, and I’d found out that sucker was warded against a whole lot of things. Apparently the dark ones need their space to be free of all distractions. I wasn’t completely certain, but I didn’t think Myrddin’s warning wards would be able to get through while he was essentially on the Hell plane.