Probably better to find someplace more private.
“Ladies’ room,” I said, and we all bustled in that direction, then squeezed into the handicapped stall, ignoring the curious looks from the girls gathered in front of the mirror adjusting dresses and skirts.
“So go,” Kiera said, though I wasn’t sure if she was anxious to see me do my stuff, or because she wanted out of the cramped little stall.
I pressed my hand to the still-aching mark, drew in a breath, and waited for that sharp tug around my middle, then the sensation of being jerked by the umbilical cord into another world.
It didn’t come.
“Nothing,” I said, slapping my palm down and trying again. “Dammit, there’s nothing.”
Kiera sighed. “Come on,” she said, her tone suggesting that she’d been partnered with a complete and total loser. “Let’s go see Clarence.”
THIRTEEN
Zane’s basement looked just like it always did. The training ring in the middle. The gray cabinets that I knew were filled with a variety of unusual and lethal weapons. The man himself, standing dark and tall, with catlike grace and commanding sensuality.
The only thing different—other than the presence of Rose and Kiera—was the large red circle that had been painted on the floor.
“That’s only paint, right?” I asked, eyeing it suspiciously. Actually, it was a dumb question. If it were blood, I would have smelled it. If it were blood, I’d be craving it.
I looked over at Clarence, who was walking beside it, mumbling something to himself. “So, what exactly is that?”
“The bridge, ma chère,” Zane said. “It is the path to your destination.”
Behind him, Rose was curled up on a bench, her head on her knees. At his words, though, she lifted her head and her expression was sharp. It reminded me of a wolf. A predator. And the wolf had something in its sights.
“I thought I was the bridge,” I said. “I thought I traveled through the portal on the tattoos.”
“The protections,” Clarence said. “Can’t get there through you anymore. Now you’re the navigational system, not the train.”
“But I went once,” I complained. “I dove through my arm, and I saw those funky cave buildings. Why couldn’t I go again?”
Clarence looked at me, his expression stern. “You went once. You saw too much. Do you think the magic will willingly let you return?”
“Enough with the fricking metaphors,” Kiera said, stepping up behind me, her hand on my shoulder. “What are you talking about?”
“As a rule, Lily’s gift allows her to both find objects and travel through the locator tattoo to the object’s location. The image becomes a portal,” he said, and I provided the visual aid to his little speech by holding my arm out. “But whoever hid away these relics was clever. Nefarious. And very, very careful.”
“She can’t get there,” Kiera said. “That was what you were trying to do in the bathroom.”
I nodded. “Didn’t work.”
“Couldn’t work,” Clarence said. “The protections are too strong.”
“Can’t you fight them?” Kiera asked. “Find some sort of mystical mumbo jumbo to take them down?”
“Probably,” Clarence said. “With enough time. But we don’t have time.” He looked back over his shoulder to one of Zane’s gray weapons cabinets. Zane had taped a calendar there, the kind with a photograph on one page and the month displayed below it. On this one, the photo was the famous poster of a cat struggling not to fall from a bar, along with the caption: Hang in there, baby.
But it wasn’t the cute cat that had us all suddenly somber. It was the date circled in red—the next full moon, and it was fast approaching.
I nodded at the circle on the floor. “So this isn’t about removing the protections?”
“This is about sneaking in around them,” Clarence said. He looked from me to Kiera. “You two ready?”
“Wait,” I said. “She can come, too?”
“That’s the beauty of my solution,” he said with a smile that turned almost immediately into a frown. “It’s also the curse.”
“Explain,” I said, sharply.
“I’m using your arm to aim the bridge in the right direction, but it’s an open doorway now, not a private portal through the map on your arm.”
“So?”
“So you may not be the only ones who use it to travel.”
I held up a hand. “Wait. What?”
He had the grace to look sheepish. “If they’re paying attention, other demons might recognize the energy. They might follow you. And they might try to get to the relic before you do.”