Chapter Twelve

Malphas POV

He thought it was a reaction to Asmodeus’s magic at first.

He’d seen people react that way when they were particularly repressed.

As the elevator door swished shut and Maddie slumped against the mirror, with her forehead pressed against the cool glass, he noticed the blood surrounding her nostrils. The nosebleed renewed, even with a stout door between her and the Lust Queen’s magic.

He didn’t have a chance to ask if she was okay. Maddie took a single shaking breath, her eyes rolling back in her skull. Her legs gave out, and he snatched her before she hit the ground—her body wracked with convulsions.

He lowered her to the ground, cupping her head as she continued to seize. He’d never seen such a thing. Was Maddie sick? Was it a reaction to the magic? The champagne?

Malphas wasn’t the planner. He wasn’t the best to have in a crisis. Malphas’s magic was the art of persuasion. You couldn’t persuade a seizure to just stop.

The bastarding elevator took its sweet time as it lowered to the first floor with all the urgency of a nun dropping her panties. Malphas mashed his hand against the buttons, but they did nothing to speed up the mirrored box.

Maddie was cold as the grave, her cheeks growing sallow as if she was dropping weight in front of him. Her hair grew darker and longer, reaching out like curling hands, and it took everything in him not to jump away.

Malphas held her close, protecting her head as she writhed. She spat blood from her mouth, biting her tongue. Silent, bloody tears rolled down her face.

He needed a hospital. Maybe the Tailor? Someone who could help. Who could save her?

The elevator doors opened, revealing the empty concierge desk. Malphas pulled Maddie’s body closer to him, lifting her in his arms. She flopped like a dead weight.

He could see the car.

Just a few more steps.

Stolas would kill him if he let Maddie die on his watch.

He pushed through the doors, leaving a smear of blood on the glass.

Caim waited at the car, leaning against the ancient SUV with the relaxed demeanor of someone with something to hide.

Before Malphas could utter a single word, a heavy weight smacked against the pavement a few feet away. The sound was like a slab of meat colliding with the ground at high speed. A fine sheen of mist coated him.

Screams echoed into the night from the floors above. Malphas followed the sound to the upper floors of the Episilon building, lighting up the sky above the Red City.

The mist was blood.

The mess on the pavement was a body ravaged by the effects of falling fifty stories.

Malphas had almost forgotten about Maddie entirely when he looked Caim in the eye and asked him. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Get in the car!” Caim shouted.

“Not until you tell me what you did!” Malphas barked back.

Caim jerked open the back door. “What the fuck is wrong with Maddie?”

“Answer the damn question!”

“Asmodeus wanted Gremory gone,” Caim said through gritted teeth. “Gluttony is planning something bigger than this Red City. Bigger than us.”

Malphas bit back his anger. Fucking Caim. He knew the fucker had done something stupid the moment he’d disappeared from the party. Asmodeus had promised to help them regain their magic. Still, Malphas hadn’t realized that the Queen of Lust had an ulterior motive.

He should have known, but Stolas and Caim were the clever ones, and he’d followed their lead.

Malphas had thought Caim was busy fucking that human, Darla, but instead, Caim had been busy with an assassination .

Blood poured from Maddie’s mouth, and her teeth were locked so tight that it looked painful. Her eyes were entirely white as her eyes had rolled back in her skull—it almost looked like some kind of demonic possession. But not like any he had seen before.

He barely had his seatbelt fastened before Caim pulled away from the curb and the dead body in pieces on the sidewalk.

They made it to the end of the block before Maddie’s jaw unlocked, and she screamed.

She screamed.

And she screamed.

And Malphas felt both of his eardrums rupture.

The world grew very dark.

And all that existed was the scream.