Chapter 37

For the briefest of moments Bael stared at her. Was that incredulity she saw in his eyes? Red welts were seared into his arms where the chains had burned his skin. Then, like smoke caught in a breeze, he slipped free. In an instant, he gripped her shoulders, his face taught with fury, and he slammed her into the wall with the speed of a gale-force wind. His strength was terrifying. He slipped a hand around her throat and snarled, “You gave my soul to the fire goddess. You deserve to die a painful death.”

Ursula’s heart hammered against her ribs. This is it. I’m going to die. “You can’t kill me,” she stammered. “I have your soul.”

“You’re lucky I’m not at my full power, or I’d compel you to do as I pleased,” he growled. He relaxed his grip on her, but his eyes continued to bore into her. “Of course one of Emerazel’s dogs would act dishonorably.” He stepped away, glaring at her with disgust. “Stay here.”

Ursula raised her dagger in a shaking hand. “You need to take me to?—”

But he was already gone. Just a rush of air and dark magic, and the sound of the door slamming. She started after him, and something heavy crashed outside the door. He’d locked her in. The fucker.

She tested the door anyway, but it wouldn’t budge. Muffled noises echoed through the wood—doors opening and shutting and unidentified banging, a demonic rampage through her apartment. As she was deciding whether to try her luck on the ledge, she heard a scraping sound by the door. She whirled, just in time to see the door ripped from its hinges.

Bael stood in silhouette, shadowy magic curling from his enormous body in dark tendrils. Backlit by the crystal chandelier, he filled the doorframe. The man was a mountain of muscle. In one hand he clutched one of the Zhanmadao swords. The blade was close to five feet long, but looked smaller in his grip. In his other hand, he held Honjo.

“The wings aren’t here.”

Ursula had to fight every instinct to run for the window and throw herself off the ledge. “You said Abrax has them.”

“I had to be sure you weren’t lying about Henry—that you weren’t secretly working for him. I had to be sure that my wings weren’t hidden here.”

“And now you’re sure that I’m not working for Henry?”

“Yes. I can hardly smell Henry’s stench anymore. He hasn’t been in this apartment in months. Kester has been here, though.”

Ursula’s eyes locked on the sword in Bael’s hand. Why had he brought it? She was defenseless with the stupid dagger. He could hack her to pieces in an instant. Don’t antagonize him. That’s what Kester would have told her. And don’t let him see your fear. “I admire your taste in weaponry.”

“I feel more comfortable with a blade in my hand.” He tossed Honjo to her, and it spun through the air. She caught the hilt nimbly, and relief flooded her. He wasn’t going to murder her. Shockingly, her plan was working for once.

“I smelled you on that one. Please understand that you can’t use it against me, or you will die.” He spoke matter-of-factly.

“That is fairly obvious.” As she followed him out the door, her eyes flicked to her overturned dresser. Apparently, he’d used it to barricade her in.

As they walked through the hall, the sword hanging loosely in his grasp, his eyes followed her every move. She had the distinct impression he was calculating and recalculating how quickly he could decapitate her if Honjo so much as twitched in her grip.

Up close, he was downright terrifying. Where Abrax was all lethal grace, Bael was pure, shadowy power. His arms were massive, knotted with muscle. She was certain he could tear her limb from limb without breaking a sweat. He’d certainly rearranged her entire apartment in only a few minutes.

“How do you move so quickly?”

“Emerazel gives you access to her infernal flame, Nyxobas lets me draw upon his shadows.” It wasn’t much of an answer, but his expression told her that she wasn’t going to get any more than that. He cast her another disgusted look. “Your natural smell is polluted by Emerazel. It sickens me.”

“You know, in the human world, it’s kind of weird to comment on how people smell.”

“You’re not human.”

As they walked down the stairs, Bael continued to glare at her, but didn’t speak. God, he was unnerving.

She cleared her throat, watching as he pushed the elevator button. “How are we getting to this lair?”

“We drive.”

Drive? “We’re not using some kind of magic method?”

“I can’t fly, and without my wings…” As they stepped into the elevator, he studied her carefully, a look of uncertainty on his face. “I don’t have all the magic we need, since one of your brethren mutilated me.”

“I guess it’s a good thing we’ve got Joe.”

His pale eyes slid to her, as if he was staring right through to her soul. “I must warn you that you’re in way over your head.”

She nodded grimly. That much was clear.

Ursula and Baelstood on a crumbling pier, completely alone. A row of industrial tanks roughly the size of two story buildings towered over them. The black waters of the East River flowed nearby.

Chilled by the winter winds, she hugged herself. “So this is the lair?”

Bael growled. He hadn’t said much in the car, beyond giving basic instructions to the driver—“right,” “left,” and “next exit” being the entirety of his dialog. Not that Ursula had been in the mood for talking. While the streets had flickered by, cold and desolate in the early morning darkness, she’d rested her head against the window and shut her eyes. She desperately needed sleep at this point.

Now she stamped her feet to stay warm in the cold. Out of habit, she took a mental inventory of the weapons she carried. One, Honjo strapped to her back. Two, Kester’s reaping pen stuffed in her pocket. Three, a kaiken dagger hidden in her boot.

Lastly, zipped into her jacket were a flask of scotch and a plastic lighter.

Scanning the buildings, Bael gripped the great Chinese Zhanmadao sword. She suspected he had a bunch of other weapons hidden beneath his coat, pilfered from the armory during his rampage.

“Down here,” he said at last, nodding to a stairwell that led to the river.

She followed him down a flight of rickety steps to a rusty old pier. The air bit her skin, and she wished she’d brought a warmer coat.

Bael muttered the spell for light, and a small orb bloomed into existence above his head. He peered around, looking for something, then bent and pulled on a rope that dangled into the water. From the shadows under the pier, the hull of a small rowboat glided into view.

“We’re going onto the river in that?”

Bael nodded, then turned the boat over to dump out the water.

Ursula shivered as her toes slowly lost feeling.

“Get in,” Bael said at last.

She sat in the front, while the demon took the middle seat, his weight creaking the boat’s old wood. He pulled a pair of oars from under the seats. Dipping them into the water, he pushed off, maneuvering them onto the river. As she sat in the bow, her back to the river, she could see the whole of New York City lit up before her. With each stroke of the oars, the gleaming lights seemed to get a little smaller. Had it been only a few days since Kester first brought her here? Her whole world had changed in the blink of an eye.

Bael rowed silently, his oars gliding effortlessly in the water, the river rippling behind them.

Ursula twisted around to see where they were headed. In the gloom, a dark shape loomed. She strained her eyes, just making out the form of a small island.

“Are we going to that island?”

“Yes.”

“That’s were Nyxobas’s New York lair is?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Man of few words. She peered at the island again as they rapidly drew closer. Trees covered the land, but no lights glinted from the forested depths.

They pulled up on a gravelly beach and Bael hopped out into knee-deep water, dragging the boat onto the rocky shore.

Ursula stepped onto the rocks. Ice slicked the stones, but the tread on her boots gripped them tightly. She glanced at Bael, who already stood at the tree line, his pale eyes watching her impatiently as she hurried up the beach.

“You could have waited,” she grumbled when she reached him.

“We were exposed on the beach.”

Before she could ask where they were headed, he started into the dark forest.

It was slow going as her boots crunched between frozen kudzu vines. She had to shield her eyes from branches that clawed at her face. After a few minutes they broke clear of the underbrush onto a narrow animal track. Bael paused, sniffing the air. A thin dusting of virgin snow covered the ground. No one had been here.

“It looks like we’re alone,” she said, more to break the tension than anything else.

“That may not be true. Most of Nyxobas’s brethren are nocturnal, and most can fly.”

In her mind’s eye, an image flashed: Abrax standing over her, his great leathery wings beating the air. She reflexively reached to touch Honjo’s hilt from where it protruded from the sheath on her back.

With Bael in the lead they moved along the path, deeper into the island, until the dense underbrush cleared. This would have allowed Ursula to see more of the interior, had the canopy not simultaneously thickened.

On her left, a dark form towered above them, but Bael hardly paused as they neared it. Up close, she could see more clearly in the pale moonlight—an abandoned building, completely overgrown with kudzu, as if the vines were trying to suffocate it. The path wound on between more abandoned buildings, totally desolate in the cold light. Ursula had a distinct feeling of déjà vu, like she was again walking between the towering blue stones on her way to her trial with the moor fiend.

At last, the path opened into a clearing. Bael held up a hand, and Ursula stopped behind him.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“We’ve reached the lair.”