I was the only one who seemed to be unaffected. I took a few steps forward to prove that I could still move of my own free will. Yep, it worked. This had to be the result of a spell, but why was I not frozen in place, too?
A twig snapped, breaking the new, complete silence. I whirled, expecting to see Leotie since she was the only one who had been powerful enough to render all of us simultaneously helpless before. Instead, a tall, square-jawed man with champagne-blond hair cocked his head at me, his smile turning crooked as he looked me up and down.
“And who are you, my pretty one?”
“Who are you?” I countered, putting my right hand behind me while I filled it with as much electricity as I could.
He laughed, tossing that light gold hair. “I’m Dagon, of course.”
That’s right, Ian had shouted, Dagon, I summon you! right before everything had frozen. The word summon along with everything getting really weird and a guy showing up out of nowhere told me who the blond stranger was. I gave his Icelandic blue eyes a wary look. They weren’t red now, but I’d bet my electrified right arm that he was a demon.
“You did this,” I said, a sharp nod indicating the artificially suspended world around us.
He hopped forward with the kind of gaiety usually reserved for children. “Isn’t it beautiful? I bet you’ve often wished that you could hit a pause button on life. Behold”—he spun around in a blissful circle, his smile beaming—“paused.”
Just as abruptly, that smile and his childlike glee vanished, and he became as menacing as a nightmare.
“Yet as much as I enjoy this, it’s time to start the killing now,” he said, striding past me as he headed toward Vlad and the others.
I snapped out the whip I’d been hiding, lashing it at him. Fear focused my aim and it followed my intended path, cutting right through the demon’s neck and coming out the other end.
“Yes!” I shouted with an overwhelming sense of relief.
But the stranger’s head didn’t fall off. Unbelievably, it stayed on. Then, to my complete and utter shock, Dagon turned around and gave me a chiding look.
“Never celebrate unless your opponent is truly dead, and you must not know much about demons if you thought that could kill me. Decapitation doesn’t work on my kind.”
“I—I can see that,” I managed, stunned into stuttering.
He gave me a cheery grin. “I’ll overlook your rudeness this time, but here is your second lesson about demons: Don’t piss us off. Ian didn’t learn that lesson, which is why I’m going to kill him now. Don’t interrupt, or you’ll make me angry, and as I just taught you, you don’t want to do that.”
So saying, he snapped his fingers, and Ian suddenly came to life. After a brief shiver as his eyes met the demon’s, he glanced down, then pulled up his pants in a nonchalant manner as he gave Dagon a one-handed wave.
“I expected you to be prompt, and you didn’t disappoint.”
“Oh, I’ve been waiting a long time for your warding tattoo to be damaged enough for me to find you.” Dagon’s easy tone was at odds with his truly murderous expression. “I don’t know why it appears as if you cut it off yourself, let alone why you summoned me, but no matter. I’m going to enjoy killing you.”
“Killing is always fun, but I have an even more enjoyable offer,” Ian said, leaping back as Dagon swiped at him with a hand that had somehow morphed into a monsterish paw.
“Nothing could be more enjoyable than your death,” Dagon growled in a voice that suddenly sounded more animalistic than human.
Ian continued to leap out of the way while wagging his finger at Dagon. “Haste makes waste. Why kill me only once when you can do it countless times over the course of eternity?”
Dagon stopped in the middle of his latest cat-playing-with-a-mouse charge. His hand changed back to normal, and he jerked it upward. At once, Ian was propelled forward as if hauled by a tractor beam.
“You’re offering me your soul?” Dagon asked, sounding both surprised and intrigued.
“Not offering, bargaining,” Ian corrected, with a rakish smile that was completely out of place for the topic. “Nothing this corrupt should be given away for free.”
“Ian, don’t,” I said with a gasp.
“Shut her up, will you?” Ian said in a casual tone. “Don’t know why you animated her in the first place.”
The demon shrugged. “I didn’t. This power doesn’t work on one of our own, however far removed the connection.”
“One of your own? I’m not a demon,” I said, aghast.
Ian let out an impatient snort. “You did catch the part about all magic originating from demons and your being a trueborn witch, right? ‘Trueborn’ means exactly that: born of the originating line. What’s the originating line? Demons.”
When put like that, it sounded obvious. However, I’d thought that demons had only taught magic to the first witches and warlocks, and the magic had somehow infused in them, similar to the legacy transfer. Yeah, it had infused, all right, just not the way I’d first realized.
“Now that we’ve cleared that up, kindly stay out of this, Leila.” To Dagon, Ian said, “Her piece of shite husband killed my friend, but you have the power to undo that. Therefore, in exchange for making Mencheres alive again, I will give you my soul . . . after the usual waiting period, of course.”
Dagon glanced at the crumpled body in the snow, then began to laugh with such heartiness that he bent over, holding out his hand as if he couldn’t stand to hear anything else this funny.