Page 56 of Coerced

“I’ll make him. A few hot coal shoved—”

“Pleasant, Kerry,” John interrupted. “Better stop before Gemma hears you.”

I made an ugly face at him.

“Let’s figure out what to do with Amanda first.” Tara held up both hands like Jax did when he was playing peacemaker. “Clem, if this works, you’ll have to take her back to the Sanctuary. Her and Kyo.”

“Anything Diabolical would follow them.” Maddy frowned and looked worried.

“Aw, Clem can handle that.” I waved a hand. “He’s old for a reason, you know.”

Clem’s smile was wolfish as he met my eyes.

“Or I can ’port everyone there in seconds,” John offered. “No problem.”

“We could cause a distraction. Give you time to get away.” Tara’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Setting up a wild goose chase would be even better!”

After she explained what that meant, I was all for it.

“That’s what we’ll do. We can draw out the traitor.” I looked around at their faces. “We’ll make it seem like Amanda handed the item off to us, then we’ll head the opposite way while John gets Clem, her, and Kyo back to the Sanctuary. Hopefully, anything Diabolical will follow us instead of them and we’ll take out the traitor at the same time. Win-win.”

“How would we make them think we have it?” Maddy asked.

“Easy.” I jerked my head toward Clem. “All he has to do is contact some of his pals at the Sanctuary and on the Council. Word will spread until the traitor hears it, then everyone will know.”

“Wait,” Tara said. “We don’t know if Amanda has an actual physical item to give us. Kyo said the prince thought she could help himfindsomething, not that he came totakesomething from her.”

“We’ll pretend we’re taking her with us and the woman with Clem is a decoy.” I slid my hands into my back pockets, thinking this through. “I’m pretty sure a miracle worker can cast an illusion to make it seem real enough.”

“And what do we do when something Diabolical catches up withus?” She chewed on a fingernail until John took her hand in his.

“I’ll kill it, of course.” I shrugged. “We’re a strong team. We can manage most things. Not a prince, but any of his boys for sure.”

“After Kerry told the story about the shadow prince, Travis did a little digging.” Maddy turned back to me. “According to his sources, the prince will stick to this shadow form because, if he puts too much of his essence onto this plane, he’ll make himself vulnerable to attacks hereandthe part of himself confined to the Pit.”

“That’s true,” Clem said. “He must have taken the risk and manifested a good bit of himself here to petrify Amanda. And let’s hope he doesn’t do that again anytime soon. None of us could hurt the prince himself. His shadow, though, is another story. As soon as it begins to take serious damage, he’ll dissolve it and pull that part of his essence back to himself.”

“He can’t get out of the Pit, so he sends out his shadow, right?”

John glanced at me, and I nodded.

“Yeah. It’ll look kinda human, but there will be something off about it. They never quite get it right.”

I looked at Clem and raised an eyebrow. He was the teacher, after all.

“Until - or unless - a demon finds a way to free himself, he’s bound there,” he told them. “The shadow, the prince’s avatar, can direct the prince’s minions and communicate with others for him. What Diabolical power it has access to would be very limited, though. Still, it can feed off humans for him, spy, give reports, and so on.”

“But youcandamage the shadow enough to buy yourself time?” John must have wanted to be clear on that.

“Sure you can.” I shrugged. “You can dissolve it just like any other Diabolical creature.”

“Kids, it’s a good plan, but it puts you in too much danger.” Clem scratched his head, then looked at me. “And I’d get in trouble for leaving you on your first mission.”

“As if that last part would really bother you.” I rolled my eyes.

“You’re right, but I don’t want to desert you. Especially if you’ll have a host of demons on your tail.”

“Got a better idea?”

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