“I believe you were looking for these,” he said.
The moment I saw the shoes I felt an almost overwhelming desire to possess them. They looked like a pair of red satin ballet slippers, just like the red shoes in that old movie about the dancer. Ribbons trailed from the ankles, shackles for whoever was unfortunate enough to be tempted to put them on. An aura radiated from the shoes, a palpable sense of wrongness, and it blended with desire.
I realized that was the power of the shoes—not simply that they would hurt you but that you would want the hurt, that they would twist you and bend you and break you, but you would love it all the while, down to your last moment on earth, still dancing, dancing forever like the twirling ballerina in a music box. I could see myself there, spinning in joy and agony, my arms thrown to the sky, welcoming death.
No, I thought. I was an Agent of Death. Death did not dictate to me. I would not let my life end like this, a broken marionette for the amusement of Sammy Blue.
The effort it took to tamp down the desire for the shoes made me nauseous. It took every shred of will that I had to remember who I was, and why I was there.
I looked at the shoes, and then at Sammy Blue with clear eyes. Surprise registered on his face.
“Interesting. There are few who can withstand the call of the shoes. Your will is very strong. It must be, to have survived the Maze.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then smiled. “That strength will make the spell last longer. And that will give it more power, yes?”
He turned to the witches for confirmation. They had all paused in their activities to watch Sammy gloat over me. One of them, a skinny redhead in designer jeans, nodded.
“The greater the endurance of the sacrifice, the stronger the curse will be when it is completed,” she said. She looked at me as she said this, with no malice or guilt. It didn’t make a difference to her one way or the other if I lived or died. This was just a job to her.
The other two seemed to share her indifference. There was no help coming from that quarter.
It was down to me, as usual.
“Now,” Sammy said, smiling widely. His smile was getting crazier by the minute. He was definitely looking forward to this. “I think you need to change your shoes.”
The longing for the shoes rose up again, but I tamped it down. I shook my head. “Uh-uh.”
Sammy narrowed his eyes at me. My resistance was a benefit to them, but it was also a problem. No doubt they had counted on me wanting to put the shoes on voluntarily. Now someone would have to break the circle to get them on me, and that would mean I’d have access to my magic again, even if it were for only a moment. I could see him calculating rapidly. He turned his back on me so he could conference with the witches.
I had to do something. I couldn’t wait for Sammy and his three little sorceresses to figure out how to force the shoes on me. But the only thing I had at the moment was my will—no magic, no sword.
Your will was enough in the Maze.
The thought appeared out of nowhere. My will had been enough in the Maze. My magic had been taken from me there, and I’d survived. More than survived—I’d beaten it, and no one in history had ever beaten the Maze. Except me.
The snake on my palm twitched. My Agent’s magic wasn’t the only power inside me. The blood of Lucifer Morningstar ran in my veins. The well inside me was deep with magic, more than I’d even begun to touch. That magic made the witches’ circle seem like a toy, a toy I could break if I so chose.
The spell over me wavered. I felt it, like a radio signal breaking up. I drew up my will, concentrated on the place where I felt the spell breaking.
And I snapped it. Beezle grunted awake inside my pocket and poked his head out.
“Better stay inside,” I said. He ducked back under my lapel. I pushed the force of my will into the knots that bound me and, like that, they were gone.
I stood and faced Sammy Blue and the three witches. They were huddled together, not concerned about me at all. Too bad for them.
Before I’d learned I was the many-greats-granddaughter of the first of the fallen, I’d killed a nephilim called Ramuell. I’d done this by letting my power flow up through me, allowing the full force of it to blossom and become something I could not control. It had exploded out of me like a burst of sunlight.
All that had remained of Ramuell was a little pile of ash. Ramuell had been a creature of darkness, and the merest hint of the sun would have melted him anyway. But it’s not a good idea for humans—or faeries—to fly too close to the sun, either.
I drew on the power that lay buried inside me—the light of the sun, the light of Lucifer Morningstar. Instead of letting it explode out of me indiscriminately, I focused it on the four people in front of me, who all looked up at the same time.