"We like getting out. Getting out's good."

"Getting out safe's better."

"Well, nobody's disputing that."

They sound like they're at a party. God, get me out of this. I promise. No more fried food. No more extramarital sex. At least, not without love. Her brain kept veering like a frightened rabbit. A utility corridor, she realized. This was storage space or a utility corridor, just above the basement in the building next to hers.

The relief that came from solving that one simple puzzle was short-lived. The cold robbed her arms and legs of strength. She could barely keep up even with Paul dragging her. The prickling up her arm from the knife was the only thing keeping her on her feet; a warm wire of strength flooding up her arm and into her chest. She took a deep breath. Darkness swallowed them, she stumbled, and Paul's hand curled around her shoulder, held her upright.

"Um, Ryan? We can't see."

"It's all right. It gets better in a little bit. Just keep moving."

"Just keep moving, the man says.” Paul spoke under his breath, and Chess began to get the idea that the banter was for her benefit. If there was a chance they would be overheard, Ryan would have insisted on silence. Instead, they were lightening the situation. Making jokes. Gallows humor.

Her teeth chattered until she clenched her jaw. It was cold, the type of cold that stole into her marrow like frozen lead, making her arms and legs heavy. There was something else, too; something that teased at the edges of her mind, something she should remember, some important thing she wasn't thinking of.

"It's getting colder,” she whispered. “We're getting nearer to it. It was c-cold in the t-tavern t-too."

"It was? Don't worry, Chess. Everything's well in hand."

Don't worry, he says. I'm thinking I should be worrying right about now.

"Ryan—” This from Paul, whose hand suddenly bit into Chess's shoulder.

"Hang on a second.” There was a sound, soft and scraping, then a jingle. Chess stopped short, her breath coming in shallow sips. “Everyone involved in this is forgetting one damn thing."

"What?” I sound breathless. The cold bit into her bones, her knees turned to water, and Paul held her up with an arm around her shoulders. It's so cold. So cold.

"I'm part demon,” Ryan said, calmly enough. “And I'm not stupid. Something's wrong."

A faint edge of light appeared, a slice of dimness widening as he swept the door open. “Besides, there's something else. Something doesn't smell right here."

"What the hell do you—” Paul sounded like he'd been punched.

And that was when all hell broke loose.

Chess screamed as something boiled through the door, a wave of coldness so intense it burned. Then Paul shoved her aside, into the doorjamb, and there was the roar of gunfire. But it sounded wrong somehow. She couldn't quite think of why. A long, howling scream, Ryan yelling her name, and a warm hand closed around Chess's left wrist, giving a terrific yank that almost dislocated her shoulder. Her knife suddenly blazed with hurtful blue radiance, there was a confused flurry of motion as whatever had her arm let go. Chess's knees hit the floor with a grating shock.

A terrific impact smashed against her right hand, knocking the knife away; it skittered uselessly on concrete and Chess looked up, dazed, into Paul's dark horrified eyes. What did he… Why? He'd kicked her, kicked the knife right out of her suddenly numb right hand.

She heard her own horrified gasp and a low sound of pain that sounded like Ryan's. Another sound, awfully familiar, as if a fist made of concrete had just hit a heavy bag. But the other low sound of pain she heard told her it wasn't a heavy bag, it was Ryan, someone had smacked him a good one.

Paul held the gun, and it was pointed at her. “Don't move, Chess.” His lips were pulled back in a rictus of a smile, white sharp teeth gleaming in the sudden flare of crimson torchlight. “They want you alive. It'll all be over soon."

Darkness.

It was not the mothering darkness of night, the dark that called a hurtful flower of strength out from his demon half. No, this darkness was different. It closed around him like the steel jaws of a trap. He simply existed for a while, floating in the blackness, struggling to remember something very important. Something he had to do. The word came slowly, rising from the depths.

Chess.

Where was she? He had to find her.

Then the pain came, rolling in a great wave over him, and he returned to consciousness with a jolt. Red agony around his wrists, weight against his shoulders, he could barely breathe. His ribs felt like they'd been smashed in, and anklets of fiery pain closed around his ankles. He was hanging, and that told him what he needed to know even as the demon half of him felt others of its kind drawing close.

He forced his eyes open, a millimeter at a time. The light stung him, ruddy torchlight, fire straining and smoking against the choking breathless smell that was a High One. Salt stinging his eyes, too, sweat and warm blood, he felt the hot trickles from gaping holes in his chest. Four of them, nicely grouped.

Chess. Where is she? And the second thought: Who? What happened? They shot me, shot in the back, I remember that. But there was nobody behind us, I was certain of that Nobody except—

"I think he's coming around.” A familiar voice.

What the fucking hell?

Metal clashed as he stirred, unable to stop himself. He lifted his head, one slow screaming inch at a time. Stinging in his eyes, a rivulet of something warm running down his throat from his ear, his shoulders shrieking with rusty iron and broken glass.

He hung, his ankles loaded with weighted chains that crackled with etheric force. The black lightning of demon sorcery crawled over the cuffs at his wrists, too, shackling even a Drakul's strength.

Then another voice, a voice that slid along his skin like tiny, frozen, razor mouths, their bite so cold it didn't hurt for the first few seconds. A sibilant, soft, evil voice. “He iss traitor to hiss kind.” It was a High One. An unspeakable demon, a foulness on the face of Creation, one of the lords of hell.

And it was speaking to Paul.

The light ran through him. Paul and an Inkani.

What have you done? Jesus Christ, Paul, what have you done? It was impossible. Im-fucking-possible.

His mind began to work again through the screaming raw agony of pain from his wrists and shoulders. He was trained to function even through this blinding misery.

Paul had been gone from the rendezvous for days. The room had been rented out, a trap left for Ryan. Once the Inkani realized there was a potential in town, the High Ones would have come. They had been hunting down potentials for centuries and were damn good at it. They'd probably been alerted by the killing of the skornac and the golden scent that even then was following Chess around.

She was valuable, a potential so close to becoming a full Golden. The closer she was, the more powerful their Rite of Opening would be, and the more High Ones they could bring through to lord it over the skins.

But Paul didn't know she was a Golden!

No, he hadn't… but the books. The books would be valuable to the Inkani, to be used against the Malik. The sheela and the head librarian both stank of sorcery, and one of the library volunteers had been an Inkani dog. The demons had been trying to find the library for a long time, and Paul had taken himself off to strike a deal, certain the two women he suspected of knowing the cache's location would stay right where he wanted them, guarded by the dumb, faithful Drakul.

But first Paul had to find a demon who would listen, and then he had to bait and set the trap for Ryan. Once he found out Chess was the potential the Inkani were searching for, Paul had struck an even better deal. It all made sense now. And Paul had plenty of time to call in Chess's location while she was in the shower and Ryan was on the roof, checking the neighborhood.