Chapter 6

Chapter Six

ASH

Entering the cramped secret passage had been a mistake. He should have jumped out the window instead.

The cold, slimy grip of a tentacle constricted around Ash’s bare ankle with bruising force and pulled his foot out from under him. He fell forward, inches from the escape into the foyer.

A second tentacle, as thick as his forearm, coiled around his neck and squeezed.

The choronzon dragged him into the shadowy passage. Twisting, Ash glimpsed a gaping mouth large enough to engulf his torso, lined with rows of hooked teeth and framed by thick, writhing tentacles. The beast’s boneless body was crammed into the narrow space, the walls creaking and splitting from the pressure.

The creature pulled Ash closer, and he grabbed its upper and lower jaws before it could shove him down its pulsing throat. More tentacles wrapped around his limbs, trying to force him inside, and the appendage around his neck squeezed harder. The beast heaved on top of him, crushing him beneath its weight, and his hand slipped on the slimy teeth.

The huge mouth engulfed his arm, and three rows of fangs sank into his flesh.

Fist clenched inside the beast’s mouth, Ash snapped his fingers open. Power surged down his arm and exploded from his hand in a blast of black flames. The choronzon reared back, yellow blood smearing the walls.

It was barely a scratch—choronzons were difficult to kill—but Ash couldn’t unleash a proper attack any more than he could drop glamour in such a small space.

He sensed movement behind him.

Lyre appeared, golden magic swirling across both hands. With a flash, his first spell sliced into the tentacles binding Ash, severing three and damaging more. Lyre’s second cast burst against the choronzon’s face—or its bulbous approximation of one.

Ash tore free of the beast’s hold. Pushing Lyre backward with one hand, he unleashed another wave of ebony fire, filling the passage with heat and smoke.

He and Lyre scrambled into the Consulate’s front foyer. The apprentice girl was nowhere in sight.

Facing the passage, Ash widened his stance, prepared to drop glamour and take this fight to the next level.

Beside him, Lyre pulled a silver chain out from under the neckline of his shirt and ran his fingers along the dozen colorful, pea-sized gemstones hanging from it. He snapped an emerald free.

Magic sparked over his fingers. Then he tossed the gem into the passage.

They waited. Within the darkness of the passage, wood creaked as the choronzon shifted its massive weight—then a blaze of golden light erupted. The walls vibrated and the floor shuddered.

The light died away. Silence.

“Think it’s dead?” Lyre asked.

“Maybe.” Ash couldn’t sense any movement inside the passage. “Let’s get out of the house.”

If the choronzon was still alive, they’d have a better chance of killing it out in the open. He and Lyre hastened through the rubble of the entryway and out the gap where the double doors used to be.

The cool night breeze hit the open wounds on Ash’s arm, but he ignored the searing pain as he angled toward the rear of the property. “Which way did the apprentice go?”

Lyre caught his wrist. “Not sure, but your arm?—”

Ash pulled away, impatience burning through him. “We need to find the girl.”

“What you need is to stop bleeding. Stand still for one minute, would you?”

Teeth gritted, Ash waited as Lyre sent a hot wave of healing magic into his arm. The wounds burned excruciatingly, and the bleeding slowed to a trickle.

Lyre released him. “I’ll do more later, but you know I’m shit at healing.”

“I’m not any better. This is enough.” Ash powered forward, lengthening his stride.

Where was the apprentice?

Zwi flew out of the darkness and swept past Ash on silent wings, circling the house to watch for the choronzon. The breeze shifted, carrying a foul odor of charred wood, flesh, and death to his nose. He broke into a run, racing toward the back of the house.

A smoking hole yawned in the side of the manor. Hunks of debris littered the lawn. Scents crisscrossed the grass—far too many for the number of delegates and consuls.

The scene was unnaturally quiet, broken only by the soft pop and crackle of burning wood and the muffled sound of harsh, panting female breaths coming from somewhere inside.

Ash stepped over the rubble, Lyre a few feet behind him. Just inside were the bloody, blackened remains of whoever had been sitting closest to the explosion. They were scarcely recognizable, but Ash picked out two haemon consuls by scent. Half buried in rubble was a pair of female daemons, their chestnut curls charred and crumbling.

He crunched across the ruins of the room. There, an older griffin in red. Thrown against the wall with killing force, a dark-haired daeva stared with dim, lifeless violet eyes. A pair of legs and the bottom of a black cloak stuck out beneath a heavy block of exterior wall, the bricks blackened with soot.

The meeting room had become a tomb, and there was only one living person inside it. The heavy table the daemons had been sitting around was on its side, peppered with shrapnel, two legs broken off. Ash stepped around it.

Kneeling on the other side, clutching the arm of a burnt corpse, was the apprentice.