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How many witches had died last night? How many humans, slain in the melee of the demon insurgency? She didn’t even know what had happened after she’d spoken to Patricia!
“What time is it?” She sat up, frantically searching for her phone.
Tallak reached over to the nightstand and then handed her the device, which showed 10:21 a.m.
“Good gods.” With shaking fingers, she unlocked the phone, needing to check in with the other Elders.
If any of them were alive still, that was.
A message notification caught her gaze. Frowning, she opened the text from an unknown number, though the digits seemed familiar.
Congratulations on persuading your fellow witches to see reason. Arawn is pleased to welcome them into his fold and provide aid to them, now that they are part of his dominion. We’ve taken care of your little demon problem in the city. —Deimos
PS: You’re welcome.
Hazel blinked, her mind not comprehending. She had to read it three times before the words sank in.
“What is it?” Tallak asked.
She lifted her gaze from the screen, her mouth hanging open. “The witches have switched allegiance to Arawn.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? You’ve been working on that forever.”
“Yeah, it’s just…I’m not sure how it happened just now. I—I need to make some calls.”
While Tallak leaned back against the pillows, she quickly searched for Shobha’s name in her contacts, then tapped it to call.
“Shobha,” Hazel said when the oldest Gupta answered the phone, “are you all right? What happened last night? I got a call from Patricia about the demon riots. I was on my way to help when—I’ll tell you in a minute, but first, I need to know what happened. I heard you all switched allegiance to Arawn?”
Shobha’s deep sigh could have shaken the ocean. “I’m all right, child. And so is my family. We are all accounted for. Many others, though…” She clucked her tongue, her breath heavy. “It was bad. We lost good witches last night. We would have lost more if we hadn’t done what you’ve been asking us to do for months.”
“How—”
“It was Elaine. She started it. She was fighting with her daughter and her sister, and she felt her magic stuttering out. Remembering what you’ve been saying, she knew what this meant. She watched her sister and her daughter scramble to hold their own against demons, without their magic, barely more than human in strength. She’d just lost her niece, and she said she couldn’t bear to lose anyone else, so she made the decision. Said she’d rather have a deal with the devil than see her family die. She pledged her allegiance to the Demon Lord right then and there. It was instantaneous. Her magic came back in full force, and she was able to fight the demons with her daughter and sister.
“After that, she joined my group of witches, and she told us what she’d done. We were fighting alongside Sarai, and her magic had just failed as well. Sarai followed Elaine’s example. And so did I. We found Kristen’s group, who’d already lost three witches because Kristen’s magic was gone, and they’d been fighting without any powers. Kristen was distraught, and like the others, like all of us, she knew this was the only way to survive. And so it went.
“Our renewed powers, however, were barely enough to keep us alive. We wouldn’t have been able to corral the demons and protect the humans if it weren’t for the…unexpected help we received.”
“Deimos,” Hazel murmured.
“Yes. He sent his enforcers, and they cleaned the streets. He said Arawn informed him that we’d sworn allegiance, and thanks to your call, Deimos knew we needed help. So he gave it.” A short pause, then Shobha’s slightly disgruntled voice came on again. “I do not like that creature, but he did save us.”
Gobsmacked, Hazel had to process that for a moment. “So, you all changed your allegiance to Arawn?”
“Well, not all of us. Susanne, Tanya, and Carla refused. But when their magic keeps failing, it will be only a matter of time before they change their minds as well. I don’t know about the Laroches. We saw some of them fighting, but I haven’t heard from Sophie at all.”
“Um, yeah, about that.” Hazel bit her lip, then proceeded to tell Shobha everything. All the details about the murder case she’d kept to herself for so long, how she’d figured out the spell, found Selene, what had transpired out there in the old riding arena, and what Tallak had learned from Selene’s memories.
The line fairly hummed with energy when Hazel finished.
“That bitch,” Shobha said after a pause. “She would have taken my Thorne from me.”
Shobha’s granddaughter Anjali was mated to a shadow demon, and while Shobha had initially had trouble adjusting to that unusual pairing, she’d now not only accepted Thorne into her family but had also apparently taken a shine to the young demon. From what Hazel had heard, he was the only one for whom Shobha made gulab jamun herself, providing him with the sweet dessert every Sunday.
“Yes,” Hazel said solemnly. “And my daughter. Not to mention Rhun, and the unborn baby in Merle’s belly, along with so many others.”
“And Sophie knew about this?”
