Tangled Webs

Lucivar could probably drive his fist through stone.
    “You see, that’s the thing,” Lucivar said as he called in his Eyrien war blade and began coating the lethally honed steel with layers of Ebon-gray power. “This game depends on the Blood using Craft once they’re inside the house, which works to the advantage of the spells woven in and around the place. Those spells can’t do a damn thing to any Craft that’s done before entering the house. So Surreal and Rainier should be safe from physical attack.” He paused. His eyes narrowed. “If they didn’t shield before they walked through that gate, I am going to beat the shit out of both of them.”
    “They thought they were going into the spooky house Marian and I made,” Jaenelle protested.
    “I don’t care what they thought,” Lucivar said. “They were entering an unknown building. If they didn’t shield, they will regret it.”
    “What about you?” Daemon asked. “What are you going to do?”
    “Based on those rules, this place was made to hobble the Blood from using Craft in order to fight whatever is in the house, so everything will be designed to push the Blood into using Craft. But it doesn’t take into account what happens to the game when you throw a trained warrior into the mix. This place was designed to hamstring your way of fighting, not mine.”
    “Wait here,” Jaenelle said. She ran back to the Coach.
    “She’s getting stronger,” Lucivar said quietly as they both watched her enter the Coach. “Moving better. You must be letting her ride you half the time. Gives her leg muscles a good workout.”
    Daemon choked back a laugh. Then the humor faded. “What are you going to do?”
    Lucivar tipped his head, as if he was conversing with someone. Then he looked at the house. “You said this place was built to kill us—you and me—so no matter what Surreal and Rainier have done to protect themselves and the people with them, not everyone has survived through the night. Anyone who was Blood probably made the transition to demon-dead and is now an enemy, and there must have been predators in the house in the first place. Surreal and Rainier are going to be moving, trying to find the way out. Whoever is alive is with them. So I’m going through the door, and I’m going to find Surreal—and I’m going to kill everything in between.”
    Daemon looked at his brother, armed for the killing field. “Are you sure you can avoid those ensnaring spells?”
    “Don’t worry, Bastard. I won’t leave you to raise the little beast,” Lucivar replied with a grin.
    “I don’t care about that,” Daemon snapped. “I care about losing my brother.”
    The grin changed to a warm smile. “You won’t lose me.”
    Jaenelle hurried back to them. She handed Lucivar a pack. “There’s water, a couple of sandwiches, some fruit and cheese. Just in case it takes you a while to find them.”
    Daemon felt his gut clench when he saw the ball of clay she held out next. The last time he’d seen one of those, Jaenelle had prepared the balls of clay for the game he had played in Hayll to buy her the three days she needed to make a full descent into the abyss while keeping Marian, Daemonar, Lucivar, and Saetan from being killed by Dorothea and Hekatah. “What is that?”
    “I asked Jaenelle to make a rough version of an air slide,” Lucivar said.
    Daemon looked at Jaenelle and raised an eyebrow in question.
    “The coven and I used to use Craft to shape air into a slide,” she said. “We’d add color so the formation would be easy to see, and we had spirals and loops and all kinds of things. This one is a straight slide that’s already primed. Once it’s triggered, people sit at the top, push off, and slide to the end.”
    “And the end will be on the other side of the fence,” Lucivar said as he used Craft to set the pack on air before he slipped the ball of clay into the pouch attached to his belt. “I’m not going to look for one of the exits; I’m going to make one. Side wall of the third house is closest to the fence. I’ll blow out the wall on the second floor and open the spell for the slide. You two will take care of whoever has survived once they’re over the fence. Is that clear?”
    Jaenelle stepped back. No embrace. No distraction. Not when a Warlord Prince was about to walk into a fight. “We’ll be waiting for you, Prince.”
    Lucivar waited until she walked back to the Coach. «If I’m not out by sundown, you destroy