Soul Cage Read Free

see Rhonda flying out of the House at him on a broom or a
horned devil?
    Charming, but not
accurate. Mephistopheles sounded
tired. She and Manuel are fully engaged.
It might be some time before she realizes Dags isn't in the
house.
    Jason pushed the car into
fifth gear as they merged into traffic on 85 South. Just let me know when she does discover it.
She'll be determined to find him.
    I will. She can track him
through GPS.
    "Dags," he said as he pushed the car
visor down. "Turn off your phone. We don't want to be
disturbed."

 
     
    -2-
     
    Rhonda Orly, former head of the
Society of Ishmael, the community started by her Uncle and Zoë
Martinique's great-great uncle, glared at the damned, irritating
little prick in front of her. She didn't care if he was a Revenant.
She didn't care if he housed inside of him one of the oldest of the
First Born. She didn't care that he was a thousand times stronger
than her.
    She carried the knowledge and
confidence in herself that she possessed an arsenal of spells that
could be used to defend herself in an instant.
    Really? I don't remember
you using any of that magic on Zoë when she damned near killed you.
No… you lay there choking and grasping for air, a weak kitten at
her feet .
    Damn she hated that voice.
Hated it because it was right. And hated it because she had no idea
where it came from. Hated it because….because it reminded her how
powerless she really was.
    Powerless to have anything she
wanted.
    Before she met Dags McConnell that
fateful Saturday morning, Rhonda believed she had everything she
could possibly want. She had money, though she rarely touched it.
She had a career of a sorts—one that she enjoyed. She had
friends—and a wonderful magical mentor in Nona
Martinique.
    And she had Zoë.
    It'd been an impossible friendship.
The latino bombshell with the incredibly long legs who just
happened to have the ability to go out of her body—friends with the
shorter timid geeky gothy introvert with wanna-be witch. Rhonda had
dabbled in magic back then. Been successful with the occasional
spell, but everything changed once Nona started teaching
her.
    Her magic bloomed. A new door opened
for her and a new world was born.
    And
then… he walked
through that door. Darren Gregory McConnell, III. Cute, compact,
smart, a dazzling smile.
    But it became painfully clear Dags
only had eyes for Zoë.
    They always had eyes for her.
    Why? She was too tall. She had
freckles on her cheeks. She had some seriously big feet—couldn't
they see that from the size of those bunny slippers?
    But
always… always …men
were drawn to her.
    Rhonda stayed close anyway to support
the work her uncle wanted done. She still monitored Zoë, witnessed
the changes the symbiont / First Born TC, aka Azrael, had wrought
on her Irin power. She'd even endured Zoë's wrath after Rodriquez
felt it necessary to expose her to Zoë. And for the first time, one
of their group had actually noticed her.
    Joe.
    He'd kept her sane when she took over
the Society after Zoë killed her uncle.
    But then he too had
returned to her side.
    Then Zoë finally tossed Daniel aside
and took Dags as a lover.
    The very thought of her
using them the way she did galled Rhonda. No…it fucking pissed her off. And then
Zoë was gone, and Dags was there. Even though he was little more
than a vegetable, he was hers. She'd taken care of Dags when
Maureen scrambled the pages of the Grimoire . She didn't want him like
that…and it hurt her down to her soul to see him stare into space.
But she could touch him, love him, take care of him.
    She tasked their group to find the
pages, those friends of Zoë. The ones that wanted to find her.
Azrael, Joe, Jason, and even Daniel.
    Daniel, so dark and brooding now.
Beautiful as a Revenant and so sad. He carried a burden he didn't
deserve. Possessed by Zoë's darker self, her Horror, and made to
kill again and again. And then the death of his captain who saved
Zoë…
    When they had the pages—all but