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it to the flames of Hell in front of me. That pendant was the symbol of my grandmother’s power conferred to my mother, and had been in our family for generations. It was a great dishonor for it to be stolen.”
    I’d stopped listening right about the time the phrase “flames of Hell” had come out of Soo’s mouth. I stared at her. “You can’t seriously be asking me what I think you are.”
    “I am.” She nodded. “I want you to go into the bowels of Hell and recover my pendant. Immediately, before the portals are closed again.”
    I kept my tone carefully neutral. “You want me to go to Hell for you. We barely know each other.”
    Her gaze remained steady. “I was a child when Gamon killed my mother and stole the pendant. Where he sent it was immaterial, I thought, especially as I came to understand that multiple dimensions of power surrounded the Connected community. At the time, however, it appeared exactly the way I would have expected Hell to appear. Multicolored flames shooting in the dark, twisted artwork, decadent statuary.”
    “Sounds like a rave.”
    “Do not play the fool with me,” Soo retorted. “Two days ago, a ripple of panic went through every dark practitioner on earth.”
    “I missed that.”
    “You are not a dark mage.” She lifted a brow. “The practice involves more than the occasional spell.”
    The woman’s attitude was seriously beginning to cheddar my cheese. “Is this where you show me the secret handshake? Because I’ve been dying to learn that.”
    “This is what I need you to find,” Soo said. She lifted the remote from the side table. With a click of a button, one of the rococo paintings on the nearest wall lifted, revealing an enormous flat screen.
    One thing about the Connected kingpins, they truly enjoyed their toys.
    Soo clicked again, and the screen displayed a circular jade amulet with a curving, sinuous dragon stamped into it. “Once you return it to me, I will be able to restore the honor of this house.”
    “That’s the amulet that Gamon stole from your mother?”
    She nodded. “Whether or not it was thrown into actual Hell, my mother believed it was. I did as well. Gamon taunted us with the knowledge that he was placing it in a location of desecration and lust, where the lowest impulses of man are acted out. My mother died knowing that the thing of greatest beauty to our family would be defiled, corroded for all eternity.” She stared at me. “With the portal being triggered, I have sensed it again. It is there.”
    “And you want me to go get it.”
    “Your Magician has entered Hell. If he can do it, you can. It should not be difficult.”
    I blew out a breath. “Setting aside the fact that he’s a nine-hundred-year-old warlock and I’m not, then no. It shouldn’t be difficult. At least not if I’d been with him when he opened that portal—which I wasn’t. Or if I knew my way around the place—which I don’t. Or if I had any, excuse the pun, shot in Hell of finding a tiny little amulet in the midst of however many circles of undying misery that place is up to now.” I spread my hands. “As much as I want your money, I can’t take this commission. I’ll never be able to find the thing.”
    Soo’s lips flattened into a thin line. “Fortunately, you are wrong.”
    She stood, and her steps made no sound as she moved to her desk, practically floating with the same grace the geishas had displayed. In contrast, I seemed excessively loud simply sitting in my chair. She placed the remote on the corner of the desk and laid a hand on the ornate inlaid box that sat next to her reading lamp. At her touch, the box’s lid popped open. Then she pulled something free.
    “There were two jade amulets in our family,” Soo said, turning back to me. In one hand, she held the remote again. In the other, she held the same jade amulet that had been depicted on the screen. It was the size of her palm, threaded with a red-and-gold silken cord that fell