Devil's Gate: Elder Races, Book 3 by Thea Harrison

fiercely, “We’re done here, right?”
    “We’re done,” he said. He sounded as calm as he always did, his rich voice mellow and soothing, but as he strode toward her he pulled his gun.
    She sucked air, held Vetta tighter and said between her teeth, “What now?”
    Sympathy darkened Duncan’s gaze as he reached her side. He gripped her shoulder and said, “Malphas has chosen to disengage, but that doesn’t mean anybody else at Devil’s Gate has.”
    “Shit,” she muttered. Of course he was right. She looked around but the other Vampyre had disappeared as well.
    Vetta lifted her head. Her eyes were smudged with streaks of black eyeliner, and her small, slender snakes were entirely subdued, curled quietly against her head. Seremela could see in her niece’s young, exhausted face the ghost of the five-year-old Vetta had once been.
    “I really need to go home now, Aunt Serrie,” she whispered.
    “Of course you do,” she said gently. Now was not the time for recriminations or lectures. “Are you hurt?”
    Vetta wiped at her face. “Just tired and hungry.”
    “All right.” Seremela looked at the backpack that the Vampyre had tossed to the floor. “Is this yours?”
    Vetta nodded. Duncan said, “We’re not going to try to retrieve anything else. We’re going straight to our car and leaving.”
    “That’s fine, I don’t care,” said the girl, her voice wobbling. “I just want to get the hell out of here.”
    As Seremela turned her attention fully onto the backpack that Malphas’s guard had tossed onto the floor, she immediately sensed a warm glow of aged Power. She bent and reached for the pack, scanning it carefully.
    When she had been a medical examiner, most of the deaths she had autopsied had occurred through magical or Powerful means, and her magical sense was finely honed.
    She was used to handling dangerous residual Power. Usually when she scanned for magic, she could compartmentalize it within moments. A spell cast by a human witch, an item infused with Dark Fae Power, Demonkind, Elven, Djinn or Light Fae—she knew the flavors and characteristics of all their magics, and most of the time she could either disable or contain the spells.
    This, though. This was something different from anything she had ever encountered. The harder she concentrated, the deeper the well of Power felt underneath the veneer of that mild, mellow glow. For a moment she felt as though she might fall into something vaster than she had ever experienced.
    Astonished and more than a little frightened, she jerked back and heard herself say sharply, “What do you have in there?”
    “The goddamn Tarot deck from hell,” Vetta said on a fresh sob.
    She turned to stare at the girl. “Where on earth did you get something like that?”
    Vetta’s face twisted with a flash of her old rebellious self that crumpled quickly. She wailed, “I stole it a couple months ago. I’m already so, so sorry I ever set eyes on it, so I don’t need for you to yell at me about it right now, all right?”
    Seremela angled her jaw out. She said in a soft, even tone of voice, “I can’t help but notice your choice of words, Vetta. You’re sorry you set eyes on it, but you’re not sorry you stole it?”
    The girl’s reddened eyes widened with fresh dismay.
    Duncan said quietly, “This conversation can wait until later. Seremela, is the pack too dangerous to take with us?”
    She gave him a quick glance then turned her attention back to the pack. After a moment, she said, “It doesn’t feel active at the moment, so I don’t think so. It’s a very old item of Power, though. We shouldn’t just leave it.”
    “Then we’ll take it,” he said. “As long as you’re willing to look after it and we leave right now.”
    She nodded, took the pack and slung it over one shoulder. Duncan strode to the trailer’s open door and looked out. Moonlight edged his set expression and sharp gaze.
    Seremela had grown accustomed reading to the subtle