At that question, Alyona finally looked up, blue eyes blazing. “Adler’s home.”
William swore, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Her coven will pay for this.”
Spencer chewed on the inside of his cheek. He figured he had until, oh, sunset to try to figure out what to report to the SOA, if he even could, because the second Takoma had solid confirmation of Caitlin’s involvement, Seattle was going to erupt in a supernatural territory war.
“Can you get ahold of whoever you might have as a contact with the Cascade Coven and tell them your Night Court will want a meeting?” Spencer asked.
William gave him a derisive look. “Takoma isn’t going to want totalk.”
“For the sake of keeping the federal government out of his business, Takoma needs to pretend he does. He shouldn’t be the one going anyway. He can send another vampire.”
“You clearly don’t know how a Night Court works.”
“Just make some phone calls and send some texts. I want a paper trail showing your outreach for the SOA.” Spencer nodded at Alyona. “What did the demon do before it brought you here this morning?”
“We—it stayed with Adler,” Alyona said.
“Where?”
She scrunched her nose, wincing like she had a headache. “My memory isn’t the best. There’s blank spots, and some moments are fuzzy, but others are a little more clear.”
“Just try. Sometimes demons let a host see everything; sometimes they don’t. It sounds like yours was rifling through your memories for whatever information it was after and didn’t exactly keep you caged up in a corner.”
Stasya said something in Russian he couldn’t understand but which seemed to soothe Alyona. She slouched a little to the side, leaning against her mother. “It looked like a place to cast magic or pray, but it wasn’t in her house or a church. It had a pentagram on the floor.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t in her house? Say, a basement?”
Alyona shook her head. “No, this place was bigger. There were portraits on the wall, and it had a glass ceiling. She had a mirror the demon kept looking at.”
Spencer went still. “Was the mirror made of black glass? Weird snake frame with a missing glass eye?”
Alyona gave him an odd look. “Yes. How did you know?”
“The Ouroboros Mirror is why I’m in Seattle.” It went against agency protocol to disclose that, but considering the circumstances, Spencer hoped Priya would forgive him under the emergency clause she’d enacted. “The SOA had suspicions the Cascade Coven or another coven had it, and now we know they do.”
“You still don’t know where it is,” Wade pointed out.
“If I had to make a guess? I’d say it’s at her family’s museum. Fatima and I didn’t see it when we were there the other week, but the museum does have a room open to the public for casting and prayer purposes, which sounds like what Alyona was describing.”
“I haven’t ever been in the museum, but others have. Someone could maybe confirm my recollection,” Alyona said.
“No need. I walked through that space in the museum the day after I flew in. You described it well enough.”
“What does this Ouroboros Mirror do?” William asked.
Spencer shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”
“That’s bullshit. We need to know what that artifact does so we aren’t caught flat-footed when we go after Adler.”
“Do you really think a supernatural turf war is the best answer? My agency doesn’t want that.”
“What makes you think that’s not what our master will want after what happened today?”
“Maybe because he’s the one they’re after. Alyona was just bait, but when Takoma didn’t leave to go look for her, they came to him when they knew he’d be at his most vulnerable. Caitlin Adler is trying to bring over a Great Duke of Hell, and usually, a spell like that requires a sacrifice. Who’s the most powerful supernatural being in Seattle? In Washington State? I guarantee you it’s not Bigfoot. The best thing any of us can do is to not give Caitlin and the Cascade Coven what they want, which is Takoma.”
William stared at him before swearing and getting to his feet to pace. Alyona was quiet but thoughtful-looking, frowning at her tea before she spoke up. “So we make sure they don’t get him.”
“Yes, exactly. Someone else can go in his stead to draw them out.”
