Chapter 21

"You have my name, demon," I shouted out into the writhing darkness, trying to calm the fears that were crawling along my spine. "What is yours?"

Laughter, deep and gravelly, rolled out of the creature, or maybe creatures was more correct as it sounded like the smaller shriekers were echoing their larger friend, which created an orchestra of sound around us.

You will not have my name, Phoenix. For I know that which you seek, as does Bazixal. And you will not have it. Not from me. Not from him. We care not if the fallen take this world. They do not know what we know.

"No?" I settled my legs into a stance meant for fighting an opponent at least close to my own size. Something tangible and not a chunk of writhing darkness. "You sure about that? 'Cause I'm about to make you my bitch, name or no name."

The demon pulled back. Why are you not afraid of me?

I grinned as that fear that had started on me swept away. "Because I'm the goddamn Phoenix, and I'm going to turn you into ashes."

I leaned back and then leapt forward, running toward the darkness even as I called up my fire. The fire of an angel trained to kill her own. The fire that had been in me all this time. It ripped through me, crawling along my limbs and lifting my hair around my face.

No fear. There could be no fear in me.

The shrieker tried to fall backward, scrambling to put distance between us, but I was already on it, driving my hands deep into its mass and taking hold of the . . . black? The dark? It was like grabbing hold of tissue paper that didn't tear. I clamped down and immediately saw inside the demon's mind.

Not pretty.

The evil that lurked inside of it was overwhelming, and I screamed as I dug through it. Because I needed to see how the fuck Gardreel had convinced it to help him. Why would a demon help a fallen angel? And if it had information, I would take it—happily by force.

Bits and pieces came to me as the demon writhed and fought to keep its secrets.

That the fallen didn't understand that they would lose if they took the world. They were not angels any longer. It was good for the demons to help them. And there were bigger demons than even Bazixal waiting to take hold of the world.

I bore down, tightening my hold on its body. That truth I'd already suspected.

The fallen were demons that still had bodies. That was the only difference. Once their bodies were gone, they would be demons. Just like the rest of them. And the world would be owned by us.

"Son of a bitch!" I dropped to one knee and dug in harder as I tried to find out where Bazixal could be called up. Because I realized with what I was learning, that Bazixal would fight me too. There was no way he wouldn't. Not if by sitting back and doing nothing, he'd essentially become free to walk the world.

The shrieker lived up to its name—it and all its small ones screamed and howled—as I burned the ever-living shit out of it. My flames seared over me, rising higher and higher as I clung onto the demon, turning bright white. It thrashed and we went down in a heap, but I didn't let go, not even once I realized that the flames weren't just hurting it, but me too.

They were starting to crisp the tips of my fingers. Burning parts of my belly where the fire originated.

But I didn't have what I needed.

You see? The shrieker began to laugh, you are not strong enough even now. You cannot take what you need from me. You can kill me, but you can't break me. And to take a demon's power, you must break them!

I roared as the flames consumed us both, my throat tightening around the heat. The screaming that erupted out of me was not pain, but rage. Because I could feel the weight of his words. Demons were fucking liars, but they could also be stupid and let things slip. He was so busy bragging that all I'd be able to do was kill him, he didn't realize he'd given me a key.

And a place. I saw it, just a flicker in his mind but I knew the place and I wasn't surprised, not a bit. The mansion in the swamps where I'd banished Bazixal. Where I'd stopped him, that was where I would call him up again.

As all that fire poured out around me, the waves of orange and red and gold and white, the demon shrank, falling in on itself. Folding like an intricate piece of origami, over and over. The smaller ones were doing the same, growing tinier yet until they were all the size of larva squiggling on the ground.

I let the flames go, but there was a cost to all that heat. I looked down, fully expecting my clothes to have been charred off. But my mother's corset had protected my upper body and seemed to have deflected a lot of the flames.

The cost, though, was in me. I could feel every part of me that had been walls for so long, gone. Torched away. Every part of me was open and I could . . . feel the others around me.

Killian's concern I'd be hurt badly.

Emerald's fear that we would all die by the shriekers.

Easter's confidence that I had this.

Even Ruby's worry that she couldn't get close to me.

Distantly, I could even feel Pete and Carlos.

Lives popped up all around me, distant and close.

Eligor, on the other hand . . . his emotions were blocked. I could sense Cowboy faintly and he was still freaking the fuck out.

With some effort I pulled myself together and blocked out the others, putting my walls back in place, keeping myself safe. The last thing I needed was to feel their thoughts inside of me.

My knees buckled even as Easter and Emerald smashed their heels into the larvae around us.

There were no words from the things that were on the ground. I caught a glimpse of Emerald's face. Horror. Disgust. She was looking at something she could have been related to—but was it the demon, or me?

Hands slipped around me, and Killian was there, tipping water into my mouth. "Drink, Nix. Drink."

The water helped soothe the ragged edges of my throat. "We have to go." I managed to get the words out, but they sounded about as solid as I felt.

He scooped me up. "Easter, you're driving. Eligor in the front."

They did a quick shuffle and then we were on the road again, only me and Killian in the back, stretched out with Ruby lying full length beside me. I closed my eyes.

"What do you need?" Killian had his mouth close to my ear, his breath tickling me.

"Sleep, but we don't have time for that." I lay there with my eyes open, one hand on Ruby, the other reaching back for Killian. "He said . . . he said I wasn't strong enough to break Bazixal. That it is in the breaking of a demon that you can take their power. And that is what we need to stuff him into a gun because he sure as shit won't consent. He won't go easy." I winced as we hit a pothole. "The demons . . . they're going to help the fallen."

Killian's face changed and I knew I was looking up at Ipos. "He spoke truth in that. We have to be broken or give consent."

I lay there as we bumped along, and I realized that no one was going to speak until I had worked this out.

"It's got to be different than when you willingly give up your soul to go into a weapon." I did a long slow blink as I tried to wrap my head around what I was dealing with. "My ability, it kills demons, but not the fallen. Why?" I forced myself to sit up. "Eligor, why is that? It makes no sense. That's what my bloodline was created to do."

He looked over his shoulder from the passenger seat. "Because you are not pure. I do not mean that as disrespect. But you are only partly of the fallen. You are partly human too. That dilutes your abilities."

I waved a hand at him to go on.

He cleared his throat. "You killed one of the fallen already. But you used his own power against him. You were a conduit. The same way you will need a weapon to become a conduit for the power of . . . Bazixal." He spoke the demon's name in hushed tones, as if he were worried that he would accidently call him forward.

"So, I can fend off the fallen. But not kill them. Like with the dust." I had hoped, a small part of me thought maybe we could bypass all this running around shit and get right to the fighting part. The killing part.

"Yes. You can injure them, as you've been doing—I believe that all abnormals can injure them, but not kill them. They regenerate and can come back. At best—and this is if Gardreel would even let you get close—you could slow him down. But not for long. He has a source of power that even I do not understand."

He looked over at Easter, then to Emerald and Killian. "All of you carry some abilities that could hurt the fallen. Not to the extent that Phoenix can, but it is there. It is why we chose to knock you out before we took you into the facilities. We had to, in order to not be injured ourselves."

His words were starting up a thread of ideas in my head. Abnormals could injure the fallen.

The battle that was coming. The abnormals would need to stand with me, to give me time to deal with Gardreel. Like a fucking general and her army.

"But what about when they have all the arms and the wings?" I frowned and then realized that we hadn't actually used any abilities on the ones that we'd faced down at Carlos's house. We'd shot them.

"Those too." Just like back at the airstrip. He ducked his head. "Where you used the bullets, you dusted them with the remainder of a fallen? They did damage then. But only then."

The pieces were coming together, slowly, but they were clearer than they'd been only a few minutes before. "I thought Bazixal would want to kill the fallen." I closed my eyes. "I will have to force him into a gun."

There was quiet all through the car. No sirens, no police chasing us down, no shriekers.

"Do you think they just gave up?" Emerald asked quietly.

"No." I leaned into Killian, letting him take my weight. "They're trying to figure out where we're going and how we killed that shrieker. And with no Hider to keep us out of sight, they'll figure the first part out soon enough."

Easter tapped her hands on the steering wheel. "They'll be waiting for us then."

"Yes." I reached over and pulled Ruby a little closer. Her warmth and Killian's sunk into me. I didn't think I could sleep after seeing inside the shrieker's mind, after looking evil in the eye and truly understanding how much they hated us.

They hated abnormals almost more than the fallen did.

Because we represented everything they could have been.

And if they were helping the fallen now, truly helping, we were good and royally fucked.