“Ready?” Ian’s casual tone belied the new flare in his aura as he held out a pouch containing several magic-infused stones.

I gave him a level look as I took it. “More than ready.”

Ereshki had said if I knew where she was, I’d murder her and lie in wait for Dagon next to her bones. To give her credit, it was a good idea. I was just changing up the order of events.

We waited until it was so dark that only another vampire or demon could see. This section of road lacked streetlights and the lodge’s exterior illumination had long gone out, allowing blackness to swallow the area. Only the occasional headlight bit through the darkness. Thus concealed, Ian and I began placing the stones around the perimeter of the former ski lodge. Ian set his at the five tips of the pentagram’s star. I placed mine at the five vertices of the inner pentagram. I didn’t have the stealth advantage of teleporting, so in case I was spotted, I wore my usual glamour. Ereshki had only ever seen me in my true form, so she wouldn’t recognize me while I was wearing my slim, blonde Law Guardian appearance.

When we finished placing our stones, we drew a magic circle around the entire pentagram, then went back to our hiding spot. There, I began to fill the double-enclosed space with more magic, taking my time so the spell would be undetectable to all but the most attuned sorcerer.

“Done,” I said over an hour later.

Ian’s aura flared again. “Now, we wait for Dagon to use his tie in Ereshki’s brand to find her.”

Ereshki had said that Dagon checked in personally with her for updates when he wanted one. After everything that had happened, he’d want an update, all right. I only hoped he hadn’t already gotten one in the eighteen hours since Ereshki had escaped.

“If we’re lucky, it won’t be long until you get to kill her,” I said, trying to stay optimistic.

“Impossible.” Fast as a bolt of lightning, Ian’s tone changed to the deadly slice of a knife. “She laughed at what she did to you. Every second she lives after that is too long.”

I’ve had poetry written for me that didn’t make me feel the same warmth.

“You get her, and I get Dagon,” I said softly. “We’re ending this even if we have to sit here all week.”

He grinned, his expression changing from intense avenger back to his normal, cheerful arrogance. “Hope it’s not that long. My bollocks are already freezing into ice cubes.”

It always circled back to genitals with men. “They’ll thaw,” I said dryly, and began unpacking the rest of our bags.

Half an hour later, we were redressed in the tactical gear Ian had brought, with bone knives sheathed at our belts and other weapons strapped to our arms and legs. Then we crouched behind the remains of the fallen tree and waited.

I gave the setting sun a hopeful look despite it being the third one I’d seen from my cramped perch behind the tree. Darkness meant another chance that Dagon would arrive—maybe. This would be a hell of a time for the demon to get modern and contact Ereshki by text instead of a personal visit.

We were running low on blood bags since we were both eating more to keep our energy at peak levels. We were also getting texts from Ian’s people saying that Silver was acting “morose.” I hadn’t liked leaving him behind, but an outdoor stakeout was no place for a pet. I also couldn’t risk Silver getting hurt when Dagon—hopefully—arrived and the fighting began.

“You’re sure Ereshki’s still in there?” I couldn’t help but ask. This whole time, she hadn’t once left to get food or water.

Ian gave me a baleful look. “For the third time since we started this stakeout, yes.”

He made no effort to hide his annoyance, but I was starting to wonder if Ereshki had tricked us. We’d never gotten close enough to the ski lodge to verify that Ereshki was inside since we hadn’t wanted to risk being spotted. Could she have soaked an object in Dagon’s power and left it there to throw us off her trail? She knew that Ian had the Dagon-power-sensing spell in him, so despite my vow not to kill her, she might have taken precautions to avoid being detected.

Several hours later, I was so convinced of this theory, I was about to summon my friend Leah. The ghost could enter the lodge to check if Ereshki was in there without being spotted. In fact, why hadn’t I thought of this days ago? If Ereshki had tricked us, she could be continents away by now—

Ian suddenly tensed and his aura crackled with enough energy to make me feel as if I’d been stung by a swarm of bees. I gripped his arm, anticipation rocketing through me.

“Is it Dagon? Is he here?” I whispered.

“Yes,” Ian replied with quiet savageness.

I threw the blanket off us. Then, with barely any noise, we both got to our feet. I palmed one of my demon-bone knives before I met Ian’s eyes. The last time we’d ambushed Dagon, Ian had died. I wouldn’t let that happen this time, no matter what.

He gave me a look I couldn’t read as he handed me the sparkling blue diamond. Magic crawled up my arm, painful in its potency, but we needed every bit of it. I closed my fist over the diamond, and Ian took my clenched hand in his.

“This time, we win,” he said as if reading my thoughts.

“This time, we win,” I echoed. No matter what.

His hand tightened; then our surroundings blurred.

That blur stopped moments later, revealing an interior room on the first floor of the lodge. It was stripped except for a few benches, lockers, and counters where skiers must have once checked in. Now, graffiti covered the walls and trash covered most of the age-bowed wooden floors. The stench of old urine, feces, and garbage was almost overwhelming.

But beyond that, I smelled a hint of lilacs and lavender. Ereshki’s scent. Ian was right, she was here, possibly on the second floor. Another sniff revealed the harsher scent of sulfur. She wasn’t alone. Ian was right again. Dagon was here.

I went to the far side of the room, then looked at Ian. He checked the coordinates programmed into his smart watch and nodded, confirming that I was at the center of our pentagram.

I bent down, cleared the garbage away, and slammed the blue diamond onto the floor hard enough to puncture the wooden floorboards. Magic exploded with such a tangible rush that the garbage blasted out in all directions.

I felt that magic find the stones at the five tips of the pentagram’s star and activate them. Then it found the five stones in the circle surrounding the pentagram and filled those, too. But the circle allowed the magic to go no further, so it boomeranged back toward the blue diamond with the force of a thousand speeding trains. Feeling it coming, I ducked and braced.

The boards covering the windows exploded inward. Wood shards and the window’s remaining glass fragments pelted me before the magic caught me in a full-body blow that slammed me up and into the ceiling. Ian was thrown backward hard enough to tear a line of ski lockers off the wall. My head rang, my body ached, and I could barely see through the haze of garbage that swirled around like the world’s ugliest confetti, but despite all that, I let out a hoarse cry.

“Got you!”

The magic that had blown us off our feet now prevented anyone from entering the pentagram that surrounded the entire lodge and some of its grounds—critical to keeping Dagon from bringing in demon reinforcements. But the circle around the pentagram was the real trap. It kept everyone inside its limits until the sun shone through the blue diamond that now lay like a discarded toy on the garbage-strewn floor. No way in, no way out. One way or the other, our war with Dagon ended tonight.