mission magic 01 - the incubus job by Diana Pharaoh Francis Page B

clues to put it together.”
    That left me with only one thing to do. The root of this mess was the stolen box. I needed to call Ivan. Unfortunately my cell was in my suite.
    “Let me borrow your phone.” I held out my hand.
    Law’s brows rose, but he said nothing as he pulled his cell from his pocket and handed it over. I did my best not to notice the jolt of heat that ran through me as his fingers brushed mine.
    “Maybe we’d better step out of here while I reach Ivan,” I said, eyeing the cone shapes.
    “You read my mind,” Law said and pushed me ahead of him to the door.
    It didn’t open.
    I frowned, depressing the thumb lever and yanking. Nothing happened. Law elbowed me aside and did the same, rattling it back and forth. It might as well have been a solid wall. He swore and slapped his hands flat against it, releasing a blast of silvery magic that should have charred the wood to cinders. Instead it bounced away and sucked down into the nearest cones, disappearing like water into dry sand.
    “They absorb magic,” I said. “But I did the revelation spell and they didn’t interfere. Why not?”
    Law turned, his eyes flinty and faintly worried. He glanced at me then scanned the collection of cones. “Could be your spell armed them. It was predictable that one of us would cast a revelation spell, so once we did, the door sealed and the cones activated. I don’t like this.”
    Preaching to the choir. I didn’t say it. A shiver rippled across my skin. I should have known or at least expected the trap. It seemed obvious now, though it wasn’t an easy sort of magic and nothing that an incubus should have been capable of. It was a complex working and required a deep ability. I didn’t know how he would have come by such a spell or why he’d have set it. He’d clearly made a beeline to Effrayant because he thought it was a haven. All the same, I could have kicked myself. It pays to be paranoid in my line of work. Either I was more tired than I thought or Law had me that distracted. Or both.
    “We were meant to be here,” I said slowly as my brain started to work. “This is a witch trap.” I quickly leaped to the obvious conclusion. “This isn’t the incubus’s work at all. This is So’la’s.”
    “I agree. The question is, what exactly does he or it want with us?”
    I didn’t have an answer, but I did still have Law’s phone. I tapped Ivan’s number into it and waited. Nothing happened. I hung up and tried again, but even though the phone had full bars and a healthy battery charge, it refused to connect.
    I resisted the urge to throw it at the wall and instead handed it back to Law.
    “No signal,” I said.
    He scowled and hit a speed-dial number. He tried three different times before he gave up. I wanted to tell him I told you so, but I refrained—barely. Did he think I’d forgotten how to use a stupid phone?
    I crossed my arms, and the beading of my dress rustled, the silk cool against my skin. I would have given a lot to be wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
    “Got any good ideas for escape?” I asked, mentally ticking through my own arsenal.
    The only way to really take out magic suckers was to overload them. That could easily exhaust us both before we succeeded. As it was, I could feel them sucking on my shields. I was replenishing them with a trickle of magic, but a constant drain would take its toll. Once my shields went, the suckers would drain the spell carvings and eventually kill me.
    Even though it wouldn’t help, I backed away from the cones as far as I could get. At some point the doors to the other bedroom and the bathroom had swung closed.
    “The ghosts might overload the cones,” Law said.
    I knew he’d get around to suggesting it sooner or later, and I couldn’t resent him for it. After all, as far as he cared, they were already dead and unnatural. Their potent energy could be used to save our lives.
    Was it crazy that I wasn’t even tempted to ask them? Suicide is insane,