LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 1

      Ethan Pierce stood before a steel-barred cage in the Acquisitions department’s clean room. He was the director of the department, which was responsible for hunting, collecting and containing objects of magical nature, dangerous curses and talismans, even volatile creatures that may prove harmful to common humans if left unmonitored in the mortal realm. Ethan sent retrievers out on jobs that canvassed the world, and those adventuring professionals returned with the items.

      This latest acquisition, brought in hours earlier by the retriever Bron Everhart, was needed to help locate an even more important item. For what Acquisitions ultimately sought was the blood demon Gazariel, who had stolen the code for the Final Days. If that code was to be activated, all the angels from Above would fall and smother the mortal realm with their smoldering wings. Literally. And the only way to find the demon was with the one thing in this world that wore its sigil.

      “A witch,” Ethan muttered as he paced before the cage.

      Behind the steel bars, which were warded to keep in the subject, yet also wired with electricity to keep her docile and hamper any magic she should attempt to use in defense, stood the witch. She was a head shorter than Ethan, thin and dressed in clingy black leggings, fierce-looking black ankle boots with high heels and a silky black shirt that revealed a toned abdomen. Over it all she wore a heavy coat made of what looked like fake gray fur, which was studded with silver and black spangles. Her long white hair spilled forward, concealing one eye, and fell messily over one shoulder to her waist.

      The other eye held him intently. It was a blue eye, the iris circled with black as if someone had drawn those eyes to be colored in. And on her eyelids, black shadow granted plenty Gothic melodrama. All together the look was...

      Wicked, Ethan thought.

      Hatred was too strong a word to apply to his feelings about witches as a species. Not all witches were evil or malicious. Yet he’d never completely get over his dislike for witches. They’d once held a murderous reign over his species, vampires, when their blood had been poisonous. One dip of the fang into a witch’s vein could bring an ugly and permanent death. That was no longer. The Great Protection Spell, which had turned all witches’ blood poisonous, had been broken decades earlier.

      Rationally, Ethan knew not all witches were dangerous. And besides, it was the twenty-first century. Things had changed. He worked with a few witches here at Acquisitions and the overseeing department, the Archives. For the most part, witches of the light were safe and trustworthy.

      But the dark witches, such as the one standing in the cage before him? A shudder traced Ethan’s spine.

      The witch didn’t move, only held his gaze, as if breaking it might arrest her breathing. And he wasn’t about to look away. He must show her his dominance. In order to work with the witch to find the demon, she must be kept under control. Subdued. Yet her magic should remain accessible, which would keep the sigil she supposedly wore somewhere on her body open and ready to lure in the demon Gazariel.

      Capturing this specific demon would prove a challenge. All perfunctory means of tracking him through Acquisitions’ database had turned up nothing, though intel revealed that he was definitely in Paris.

      Upon receiving orders to obtain the missing Final Days code—from a highly unprecedented command—Ethan had considered all the dozens of retrievers he had on staff. Who could do the job? Most were currently on assignment. None were stationed in Paris at the moment. But that wasn’t the problem; any retriever was available and on call 24/7, able to move about worldwide.

      The problem was that blood magic may be required to hold the demon once found. And the best one to deal with such magic? A vampire. Of which Ethan had been since his birth in the 1500s. Of course, he wasn’t willing to give his own blood for this mission, but he didn’t expect he would have to. He’d learned once that his blood could have a devastating effect on another being.

      He never made the same mistake twice.

      It had been decades, maybe even close to a century, since Ethan had gone out on a job. He’d become complacent, sitting behind a desk, clacking away at reports on the laptop and ordering others around. He loved his job. He did it well.

      And yet, the call to adventure, to get out and actually participate in life again, was too strong to resist. He’d once stood alongside his fellow warrior vampires in the Blood Wars of the sixteenth century, defeating werewolves and slaying random witches who would deign to assist the nasty wolves. Then, he had been undefeatable, powerful and virile. He still was. The urge to exercise his soul beyond the paperwork and office politics was strong.

      So Ethan had assigned this job to himself. His knowledge on the various demon breeds was minimal, yet he knew Paris, and more importantly, had the determination to root out the target. And he was the perfect partner for a witch. He wouldn’t fall under her spell or forget for one moment who or what he was dealing with.

      A dark witch who wore the demon Gazariel’s mark.

      * * *

      The deflecting vibrations coming off the steel bars were strong, electronic in nature, but Tuesday didn’t allow that to bother her. Yet. What was more disturbing was how she’d just been sitting in a bar, nursing a pink Panty Dropper cocktail, and then the world had gone black. And now she was standing in a cage.

      Had someone roofied her? She always wore protective wards to deflect any silly human trick. And a clasp of the obsidian crystal that hung from a leather cord around her neck and above her breasts confirmed they hadn’t removed her grounding and protective wards. That could only mean someone with power greater than hers—and was aware of who and what she was—had been able to drug her, kidnap her and cage her.

      And while that realization was humiliating she had to remain calm and focused. She wasn’t about to let the vampire see her sweat. No weakness here, buddy.

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