Clearly he’d got that wrong.
The thought soured in his head, like even thinking the words introduced poison into his thoughts. But damned if he should be giving her any leeway here. He’d been prepared to pay, as much as it took. Prepared to grovel even. Not having answers himself stuck in his craw. While he prided himself on refusing to give in to the illusion of being all powerful, it still rankled. Magic, even for one as formidable as he, wasn’t going to fix a demon problem when the multitude he suspected were coming were involved.
Hold them off, at best.
Channeling his frustration with Delilah and the entire situation, Alasdair pulled it into the whispered spell that teleported him directly outside a home in…he glanced around his surroundings with a frown. In the middle of New York City? Upper West Side if he wasn’t mistaken. His gaze skated up the front of the white limestone-sided house with impressive relief work carved into the facade. Five stories. Not an apartment.
The doorbell was answered by the epitome of a stiff butler who left him standing in the foyer, which might be the most marbled room Alasdair had ever encountered. The floors, stairs, and even walls were decorated in a white swirling marble with a star pattern in black and gold on the floor and small onyx squares spreading out from there.
He’d been born to wealth and privilege, used to the upper echelons of wiccan society, even after his parents’ deaths, but this was a bit much. The only things not marble in the space were the shiny black iron balustrades of an epic curving staircase and the matching scrolling iron grills over each of the downstairs windows and the front door.
Not a single Christmas decoration in sight. Not that all beings celebrated, but it was a small clue into who or what Delilah had sent him to. Meanwhile, magical energy pulsed from those grills, skating across his skin, almost undetectable. Wards?
Who the hell had Delilah sent him to?
“Mr. Blakesley?” He turned from his impatient perusal of the room to find a woman descending the curving staircase. Possibly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in real life, other than Delilah who, unfortunately for him, topped his list. He couldn’t put his finger on what made this woman beautiful, though.
Any single feature was lovely, proportioned, balanced, but not extraordinary, though when they were combined… Perhaps the impression had more to do with the aura of supreme confidence that radiated from her.
Eccentric, too. She wore a black bodysuit paired with a caftan that flowed behind her, brightly colored enough for a circus tent, and had her raven black hair piled in an intricate updo that reminded him of paintings of French royalty in the ostentatious days of Marie Antoinette. Only he got the impression that this woman, who at first glance might appear thirty years old at most, laid claim to an older soul than that. Centuries lurked in her dark eyes. A knowing that immediately set him on the defensive.
“How did you know my name?” he asked, even as he politely grasped her daintily extended hand.
“Delilah called ahead.” The woman didn’t release his hand. Instead, stepping in to him, she covered their clasped hands with her other one and stared deeply into his eyes. Like she was reading his essence.
“I see,” Alasdair said, forcing himself to stand still and endure her inspection. At least Delilah had bothered to do that much. “She failed to provide your name.”
Lips that reminded him of…someone else, though he couldn’t think who…tipped in amusement. “The silly girl.”
Not how he would describe Delilah.
“My name is Semhazah. You may call me Hazah.”
Why did her full name sound familiar? Something he’d heard before, or perhaps read? He mentally shook that off. How long before they could get to the point?
“So…you have a demon problem?” Hazah asked.
He held in the spurt of surprise that flickered through him and peered closer. Had Delilah sent him to a mind reader? How would that help? Only dark eyes returned his gaze with utter innocence and even a sort of amused tolerance that had him clenching his teeth. He needed all the help he could get. At least she didn’t waste his time with idle chatter, jumping straight in.
“Yes,” he bit out.
“Tell me about it.”
Quickly he detailed the growing number of incidents and his dealing with Agnes’s new situation, which was his proof positive of demons. Hazah, still not releasing his hand, nodded along.
“That is concerning,” she murmured when he finished.
Alasdair smoothed out the scowl that wanted to furrow his brow. This was like dealing with Delilah. “Concerning is putting it mildly.”
She gave a noncommittal hum.
Am I missing something?
The last time demon possessions occurred in these numbers ended up in a trail of events that escalated in horror at the turn of the first millennium. It had taken the combined powers of his people, along with demigods, and even a battalion of angels to eradicate them. Why was he the only one taking this seriously?
“Can you help?” he demanded.
If not, he needed to call the Syndicate together. Now. That was where he should be.
Rather than answer, Hazah lifted one beringed hand, a multitude of tinkling bracelets at her wrist, and waved it in front of his face, as though scanning him with her palm. Then she studied him with narrowed eyes. “Fascinating.”
What was she doing now? Spock imitations? “What’s fasci—”
She grabbed his hand and flipped it palm up, studying it closely. “Oh my. Yes. I see now.”
He jerked out of her touch. “Can you help?” he repeated the question, trying not to yell.
Hazah pursed her lips. “I’m afraid Delilah is the only one who can help you with this.”
“She refused,” he snapped.
“Is that what happened?” Her tone of voice indicated she didn’t entirely believe him. As though he’d be here if it weren’t true.
“Yes.” Dammit. “I just came from there.”
Hazah merely shrugged, almost appearing bored. “I guess I’ll have to send you right back.”
Before he knew what she was about, she whispered a series of words that sounded ominously like a magical spell, but in a dialect he only vaguely recognized. Then she pushed a single, manicured finger into his chest, directly over his heart.
The strangest sensation, like she’d tied a string to that beating organ and yanked hard on the other end, pulled at him, and suddenly he wasn’t standing in the gilded marble foyer in her home, but in the office he’d stalked out of not even fifteen minutes ago.
Delilah sat slumped in her chair, elbows propped on her knees and her head in her hands. As his arrival disturbed the papers scattered across her floor, she jerked her head up, pressing a hand over her breast.