Page 76 of The Darkest Night

Mae masked a frown.Think you can take him on, Hellreaver?

The pendant answered with a smug hum.Of course.

Two of Sobol’s men started talking to one another in low voices, brows furrowing. They were staring at Nikolai. The tension winding through Mae intensified.

The pair were sorcerers.

Dammit! Have they recognized him?

Nikolai’s fingers strayed to his watch. Violet and Miles braced themselves where they sat at the next table.

“Oops, sorry about that,” Vlad observed, not sounding the least bit contrite. He shot a glance at Nikolai. “Looks like I was wrong.”

Nikolai gave him a dirty look. Gomez stared, puzzled. One of the sorcerers whispered in Sobol’s ear.

“Vasco?” Vlad said calmly.

“Yeah?”

“This isn’t personal.”

Vlad grabbed Gomez’s arm and hurled him to the far side of the room with superhuman force. The mobster crashed into the wall and slumped to the floor, stunned. Mae blinked.

Vlad hadn’t used his magic to throw the guy.

There was a moment of breathless stillness. TheBacatá Cartelmembers jumped to their feet and drew their guns, expressions furious.

The fourOniksmembers hosting demons in their souls transformed, their eyes going midnight black and their pupils flaring ochre. The Colombians cursed and backed away hastily as the monsters grew in size, shirts and suits ripping over bulging muscles and nails lengthening to ugly claws.

The terrified strip club staff screamed and legged it to the exit, several stumbling and falling in their haste to get away.

“Take Gomez and go,” Vlad told theBacatá Cartelgang coldly. “Tell him I’ll be in touch after this is over. You don’t want to be here for what’s about to go down.”

He joined Mae where she’d moved to the middle of the basement, Nikolai at her side and Violet and Miles covering their backs with Vlad’s bodyguards.

Magic flared on Violet and Miles’s hands. The ring and bracelet transformed into the arming sword and saber, Trixie and Millie focusing their powers where they sat at their feet. Alastair squawked threateningly on Nikolai’s shoulder as the sorcerer unleashed his spear, white magic dancing on his fingers and in the crow’s eyes.

The studs in Vlad’s ears dropped into his hands and changed into two black swords with gleaming, diamond edges, his power a red light blazing in his pupils and dancing on his blades.

The Colombians stared, looked at one another, and left hurriedly. Gomez groaned between them as he started to regain consciousness. Vlad eyed one of his men. The bodyguard dipped his head and vanished after the Colombians.

Sobol pressed his hands on the table and rose to his feet.

“My men tell me you are the Dark Council traitor the Sorcerer King is seeking to capture,” he told Nikolai, his voice deepening to an inhuman growl.

Capture?Mae’s chest tightened.I thought they were trying to kill Nikolai!

Nikolai tilted his chin defiantly. “Yes, I am Vedran’s son.”

His words seemed to infuriate the sorcerers withOniks.

Sobol let his demon free.

Mae swallowed, head angling to take in theOniksgeneral’s monstrous, seven-foot frame as his shadow fell over them. Some of his menstaggered away, their fear all too apparent. Though they didn’t leave, it was evident they were human through and through, unlike some of their peers.

“That’s one fugly son of a bitch,” Vlad remarked as he studied Sobol. “He must be a modified demon, like Antonovich.”

Tarang snarled beside him.

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