Page 93 of Rites of Passage

“I hope you’ll clean your mouth out with soap before we go on our first date,” Raven told the aide.

Abraham almost dropped his sword. His owl’s head spun around in shock.

“We’re going on a date?!” the sorcerer squeaked to the witch.

“For the love of God, people, time and place!” Derrick barked. His gaze found Mae and Vlad. “We’ve got this! You take care of those assholes!”

Mae nodded grimly. Heat washed across her skin as Vlad let his powers loose.

A feral expression stretched the incubus’s face. “Shall we, Princess?!”

Brimstone stepped up beside Mae, nine tails quivering with unholy energy and magic. She narrowed her eyes, her familiar’s bloodlust and that of the man her soul had acknowledged resonating fiercely with her own.

“Yes!” she growled.

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

Oscar was running away, the compass in hand.

Alarm squeezed her chest. She opened her mouth to yell out a warning, saw the figures descending inside the catacombs, and stopped. Relief surged through her.

* * *

Nikolai’s pulsethrummed as he landed on the stone floor with Alicia.

He scanned the shadows, found the man he was searching for, and pointed. “There!”

Alicia drew her arm back and threw her scythe. The weapon hummed as it sailed across the crypt, spinning edge gleaming with a sinister light. It decapitated three demons and lodged into Oscar’s right shoulder with a meaty sound. He cried out and dropped the object in his hand. Drabek hissed by the sorcerer’s side as he spun around and cast a black magic globe at them, the lynx’s eyes brimming with darkness.

Nikolai raised a shield and blocked the attack.

“Looks like you’re feeling better,” Alicia said with an appraising glance.

He bobbed his head, frowning. He’d known his brother would attempt to flee the battle, just like he’d done in New York. Rats always abandoned a sinking ship.

His gaze found the item on the floor behind Oscar. It was a metal compass. The invisible white magic it contained throbbed with Nikolai’s heartbeat.

Something told him he was looking at theBook of Lightin a different guise. And the transformed grimoire was slowly replenishing his core and that of Alastair, returning the magic it had sucked out of them.

Oscar yanked Alicia’s scythe out of his shoulder and cast it aside. The weapon stopped an inch from striking the floor. It rose, shot across the catacombs, and returned to the reaper’s grip, handle striking bone with a clunk. Black magic detonated around the sorcerer. He charged them, sword in hand and Drabek spitting at his side.

Nikolai unleashed his spear.

Oscar’s eyes rounded when he countered his strike.

Alastair dropped from his shoulder and aimed his claws at Drabek’s eyes, angry caws leaving him.

Nikolai glanced past his brother to where Mae and Vlad fought Barquiel. He could sense magic inside the demon. Magic that tasted of his father’s powers.

“Go!” he told Alicia. “They need your help!”

Outrage distorted Oscar’s face. “You think you can defeat me on your—”

Nikolai elbowed him in the nose.

Oscar grunted and stumbled back, almost swallowing his tongue in shock. He clutched the broken, bleeding appendage.

Fury filled Nikolai’s heart and belly. “I’m not the man I used to be, brother!”

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