Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

I raised and aimed my crossbow, moving between the door and Azazel on the couch. Stepping up next to me, Lucifer unsheathed one of his swords.

“Never thought I’d fight by your side one day,” I murmured. “For the longest time, I’d envisioned running a sword through you rather than drawing one together with you.”

“Such black-and-white thinking,” he said quietly. “You can still stab me once this is over, if you feel the need.” His eyes caught mine for a moment, and he added with fierce intensity, “But you have to be alive for that, you hear me?”

I gave him a firm nod just as the door splintered under a huge blast of power. The impact pushed me back a few steps even as I planted my feet. I aimed and fired the crossbow without pausing to assess who was coming through the door—no matter whom I could hit, it’d be good.

My bolt rammed into the skull of a demon in fighting gear who charged toward us, and he jerked and toppled over.

A shot to the head might not kill us, but it sure worked like a blade to the heart.

I didn’t have time to reload the crossbow, more demons swarming through the broken-down door, so instead I unsheathed my sword and parried the strike of the nearest attacker. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Lucifer engaged in combat with other demons coming at him. We slashed and hacked and blocked, and power swelled in the room, the air crackling.

Lucifer blasted his attackers off him with a blow of his magic—much weaker than what I’d felt from him before. I still remembered what his energy had felt like when he’d fought above New York, his potential almost fully unleashed.

But back then, he’d had the power of death fueling him, even if he hadn’t been aware of it. Now, without it, he still fought valiantly…though nowhere near as lethally.

That power, it now rested in Azazel and me, and I had no idea how to wield it, or if I even could.

But I still had the strength of an archdemon underneath that new, chilling force of darkness in my blood. While I parried another strike, I reached down and grasped that familiar power, brought it to the surface, and lashed out with it, just like I’d practiced with Lucifer.

Our attackers jerked and shook as if they’d been hit with a lethal charge of electricity, temporarily stunned, and Lucifer and I used the moment to lop off the heads of three of them. They dissolved into light, their empty clothes falling to the floor. More demons surged into the room behind them.

Not missing a beat, I sent out another wave of my power, fanning it into flames—hellfire, burning so hot that it melted the intruders’ hell-forged blades right in their hands. Now disarmed, they easily fell prey to our swords.

For a second, exhilaration rushed through me. We were holding our own. I was holding my own. We were fighting them back.

With the next wave of demons entering the room came a pulse of power that shook the floor. My breath got stuck in my throat even as I parried the strike of the demon lunging for me…and behind the warriors currently attacking us, four figures stepped through the door. Two females, two males.

I’d never seen any of the other archdemons, but even without any personal knowledge of them, I’d have recognized them by their power level alone.

Ashtaroth, Baal, Abaddon, and Gadreel.

Clad in fighting gear much like their soldiers, they appeared cleaner, less sprinkled with blood, as if they hadn’t actually entered the fray. Why would they, when they had magic galore to mow down their enemies?

I only had a second of taking them all in, though, before the taller of the females—her hair blindingly silver-white, her skin a shade darker—flicked her hand.

An invisible blow smashed me into the wall. Pain exploded in my back. I gasped for air, my lungs not working, and I slid to the floor. Next to me, Lucifer suffered a similar fate. With a groan, he tried to scramble to standing.

Another one of the archdemons, his burgundy hair framing a face of dark brown, waved his hand, and magic slammed back into me, pinning me to the wall. Lucifer jolted and was pressed to the floor as if a weight had settled on him.

I couldn’t move a muscle, but with a choked yell, I threw out my power again, aiming to annihilate anyone in front of me and Lucifer.

The other female archdemon, hair of honey and porcelain skin, hissed and parried my magical strike with a slash of her hand. The air shimmered and shook as she blocked a blow that would have melted the skin off a regular demon.

In fact, the demon warriors lingering just a little outside her sphere of influence screamed and convulsed as my power hit them. Their clothes burned to ash in a second, their skin bubbled, melted, and sloughed off their bones, even as they fell to the floor and writhed in agony.

My strike hadn’t killed them, just made sure they were horribly incapacitated.

“You dare,” the honey-haired female archdemon said, her lip curling. “You wannabe upstart. Wielding a power that is not meant for you.”

The next second, she was right in my face, her hand around my throat. I choked and gurgled. Whatever the other archdemon had hit me with still held me immobile, and now the female archdemon’s proximity stifled my power as well. It stuttered out whenever I reached for it.

“Shackles,” she purred and held out her free hand to the side.

One of the unblemished soldiers rushed forward and gave her a set of manacles which she clamped around my wrists. I felt the magic-subduing effect sink into my skin, and the uncomfortable memory of the last time I’d been bound like this surfaced—just before I’d been exiled from Heaven.

The clicking of chains drew my gaze to the couch where Azazel still lay unconscious, now manacled as well by the warriors who’d surrounded him.

Next to me, the silver-haired archdemon stepped up to Lucifer as more soldiers grabbed him and shackled his wrists, too. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, she pulled him up so he kneeled in front of her.

“Oh,” she said with a cluck of her tongue, still holding him by his hair, “this was too easy! I’d expected a real fight, my dear. A show of strength from our former king and master, not this…” She waved her free hand at him in a vague gesture, her face scrunched up in disgust. “Whatever pathetic display of frailty this is.”

Lucifer bared his bloodied teeth at her. “You wouldn’t know power if someone forced it down your throat. Or else you wouldn’t have had to enlist the help of three other archdemons to take us down.”

She was about to snap something back at him, when the second male archdemon spoke up.

“Seems like you were right after all, Ashtaroth.” He sauntered closer, studying Lucifer with pity glinting in his eyes. He had dark curly hair that fell to his shoulders, and a soft brown tan. “He has lost his edge.”

Ashtaroth, whose similarities to her son I recognized now, smirked. “I told you. He’s been fading for a while now.” Leaning down to Lucifer, she whispered, “Your time is over. But not your life—I will enjoy keeping you around for entertainment.”

I shivered at the cruel undertone in her voice. I could just imagine what her idea of entertainment would be.

A demon ran inside the room, drawing everybody’s attention to him. His armor splashed with blood, he caught his breath and said in a rush, “Highnesses, we need reinforcements in the east wing. The dragons have entered the fight and are decimating our numbers. We need an archdemon over there. More than one.”

At that, Ashtaroth straightened and glanced at the others. “Go ahead, then. I shall take our prisoners to the throne room for the public execution.”

The blood froze in my veins. I knew this was their goal, but to hear her casually say it out loud…

Power pulsed in the room, coalescing into an invisible mist so thick that it nearly choked me.

The other female archdemon, who had to be Gadreel, narrowed her eyes. “I think not. You go with Abaddon and Baal, and I will take our captives.”

The burgundy-haired archdemon snorted. “As if I would trust you not to claim their deaths for yourself!”

“I agree with Baal,” the curly-haired male—Abaddon—added. “I will not hand the prisoners over to any of you while I go do the dirty work, lest the question of who may ascend to rule be decided by the one who takes them to the throne room.”

Lucifer sucked in air through his teeth, pulling the archdemons’ focus back to him. Raising his brows, he said with faux innocence, “Oh my, and here I was thinking our dear Ashtaroth was officially poised to become queen. Have you not actually agreed to that?” He glanced between Gadreel, Baal, and Abaddon, then smiled. Though bruised and battered, shackled and kneeling, he managed to look every inch the mischievous instigator. “Good for you,” he said with emphasis, leaning forward. “I would have thought either of you strong enough to put her in her place, not kiss her feet as your new ruler.”

“Quiet!” Ashtaroth barked and struck Lucifer right in the face.

His head snapped to the side, blood spraying from the hit, but his lips pulled into a small, sly smile.

“Highnesses,” the demon who’d showed up earlier said, shifting from one foot to the other. “I really must urge you to act. Without archdemon power to push back the dragons, we will be slaughtered.”

All four archdemons glanced at each other.

“You could take us with you,” Lucifer said smoothly. “Drag us along to the dragons.”

Gadreel rounded on him with her teeth bared. “So you can further incite them to fight us? Even bound as you are, your presence alone would make them double their efforts. Do you take us for fools?”

Lucifer wisely kept his mouth shut, but his eyes glinted ominously.

“I will not take the prisoners anywhere near the fighting and risk their accidental deaths,” Abaddon said with a slash of his hand. “Their execution must be a spectacle in front of the gathered court, to legitimize my claim to the throne.”

“ Your claim?” Baal hissed.

Abaddon shot something back, but both Ashtaroth and Gadreel spoke at the same time, and the tense conversation devolved into a cacophony.

Along the bond connecting me to Azazel came a sudden surge of energy. More of that deathly power flooded my veins, pressing outward to the point where it felt that my skin was barely keeping it all inside. My eyes widening, I looked to where he lay only a few feet from me. He was stirring. His chest rose with a deep breath, then his eyes fluttered open. With a jerk, he sat up, rattling the manacles binding his wrists together. Frowning, he glanced at his hands, then took in the scene in the room within a second. Alarm blared across our connection.

The archdemons hadn’t noticed him waking, too absorbed in their bickering, though the demons standing watch near Azazel stepped closer with their weapons raised in warning. He stilled, face unreadable as he assessed the situation.

I breathed through the flow and ebb of the new surge of power coming from Azazel. Now that he was awake, much, much more of that primordial energy he’d taken on from Lucifer reached me through our bond. It was enough to make it hard to focus. The power pressed against my skin from the inside, like some barely shackled beast straining to break free.

With gritted teeth, I pushed it back down. I still had no idea how I might be able to use it. Right now, I felt like that dude in the duct tape commercial who slapped a piece of tape on a water container with a gushing leak, only that I wasn’t sure I’d be holding up quite as well as that piece of tape. And I was even less certain that I’d be capable of channeling the power once I let it loose. How do you turn a tsunami into a targeted stream?

Lucifer caught my gaze and subtly jerked his head from me in the direction of Azazel. I gave him an infinitesimal nod and then scooted ever-so-slowly on my knees, inch by inch, closer to where Azazel sat on the couch. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I felt the need to be near him.

“Enough!” Gadreel shouted above the others’ raised voices, her face a mask of fury. “We will settle this right here and now!”

And before her fellow archdemons could utter a word of protest, she lashed out with her power.

This was not the kind of blow that had struck me and Lucifer earlier. It wasn’t meant to subdue with nonlethal force.

No, this was the kind of strike the archangels and archdemons had used against each other during the fight above New York. The sort of force that had leveled the city.

Ashtaroth screamed and threw up a shield, Abaddon and Baal did the same, and part of their protective sphere covered me. Still, I was blown backward and landed hard on my shoulder. The ground shook, a mighty crack sounded from above, and I looked up just in time to see the ceiling cave in.

With a choked yell, I rolled into a ball and covered my head with my arms. Debris crashed onto and around me, chunks of stone hitting me and causing pain to lance through my body.

“Are you out of your mind?” Ashtaroth screamed. “You’ll kill the prisoners!”

My whole body ached as I raised my head out of the rubble and took in the scene. The archdemons stood squaring off several feet away in the ruins of this part of the palace, with the lightning-lit sky visible through the hole in the broken roof, Lucifer lay half covered by a boulder-size part of the collapsed wall, and Azazel…my eyes scanned the debris for him, my heart beating wildly against my rib cage.

There .

He was crawling out from under chunks of marble, bleeding all over, but alive.

Ashtaroth’s warning had apparently fallen on deaf ears, because Gadreel gathered more of her power—the air thickened and shimmered—and both Baal and Abaddon did the same. Their expressions were savage, as if some sort of violent mania had taken hold of them, and I heard Abaddon snarl, “The throne will be mine,” just before he loosed his power.

The wave of his blast collided with Baal’s and Gadreel’s, and Ashtaroth unleashed her own magic as well, and the force of the four archdemons’ energies crashing into each other caused a detonation that rocked the ruins with a near-sonic boom.

I braced against the impact, hiding behind a nearby stone piece. The wave of power flashed and surged around me, causing my skin to heat, and I looked down to check if I was actually burning. I wasn’t, but the demon soldiers who’d survived the first blast weren’t so lucky.

Apparently of lower rank and power level, they melted in the wake of the energy unleashed by the archdemons. Nausea churned in my stomach. If I never had to see a living body liquefy like that again, it would be too soon.

Just a few steps away from me, Azazel was crouched behind a huge piece of debris, withstanding the onslaught of power much like me. I glanced over the edge of my chunk of the broken ceiling and looked for Lucifer, spotting him across the remains of the destroyed room, right behind Ashtaroth. He was still half covered by a large part of the collapsed wall, looking badly bruised and possibly immobile. I squinted, then widened my eyes, shock spearing through me.

He wasn’t just half buried under stone. Something sharp protruded from his chest, glinting bloody in the flashing light of the archdemons’ power. A piece of metal must have skewered him when the room collapsed. It hadn’t pierced his heart—he was still conscious—but it pinned him to the spot, and with his hands bound, he had no easy way to free himself.

The archdemons continued to duke it out, locked in their battle and—from the looks of it—currently oblivious to what else was going on.

Lucifer caught my gaze, and with a jerk of his head toward the hallway and the remains of the rest of the palace, he mouthed, Go .

My heart stuttered. Thoughts in disarray, I studied the distance between him and me, calculating, trying to see if I could reach him. But the fighting archdemons were in the way. I’d have to scramble and climb all over the debris to get to where he was trapped, and then I’d have to strain to lift him from whatever sharp thing impaled him, and my movements might alert Ashtaroth and the others. Right now, they were so caught up in their battle that they barely paid us any mind. Azazel and I were much closer to the hallway and our possible escape, the path there partly obscured from view by fallen parts of the wall and ceiling. The archdemons likely wouldn’t even see us leave.

Azazel and I could make it. Lucifer wouldn’t.

An ache shot through my chest. We couldn’t just leave him here.

Lucifer drew my gaze back to him with a terse shake of his head. He’d seen me survey the area and gauge the distance to him. Again, he mouthed, Go , followed by, Run!

My eyes clouded, and my throat closed up. A touch on my arm made me jolt and glance to the side. Azazel had made his way over under the cover of the debris, and he now nodded toward the half-standing wall behind us that led to the hallway and deeper into the palace, with the blown-down door in the middle.

His gaze tracked past me to where Lucifer lay, and while his face shuttered, his features turning hard, his eyes gave him away. Underneath a sheen of wetness, something broke in their storm-lashed depths. Deep agony rolled over through our bond, then he sucked in air, grasped my elbow, and pulled me toward our escape.

If we stayed and tried to free Lucifer, we might be discovered, and then we’d find ourselves in the same bind as before. If we ran without him, we’d at least have a real chance at an escape. And once free, we might be able to come for him later.

Azazel pulled at me again. My chest drawing tight, I threw a last look over my shoulder, and the relief on Lucifer’s face as he saw us leaving would haunt me for the rest of my days.