Celestial Ashes: The Celestial Marked Series: Book Three

by Adams, Emma L.

  I took a step back. “I’m willing to listen when you come to your senses and beg me for help.”

  “Two days,” she said. “You have two days, precisely. That is all I’ll give you.”

  Her blood slave stepped up to me. I elbowed him aside, and stalked from the room before I activated my celestial hand and set the place on fire.

  This will come to war before the week’s over. Whether I handed over the vampires or not, someone would snap. The celestials and the vampires, all fooled by a madman who was supposed to be dead.

  Forty-eight hours until the celestials killed every infected vampire in the city.

  No pressure, Devi.

  Chapter 10

  “What is it?” Nikolas asked when I joined him at the car. He had his phone out, probably messaging Rachel.

  “She asked me to hand over every vampire I’ve helped. They’re onto us.”

  He pocketed his phone, his expression tightening. “Why? To deal with the virus herself?”

  “Worse.” I climbed into the car and ran through what she’d told me, finishing up with my suspicions that Damian Greenwood had not only apparently risen from the dead, he’d managed to fool both Madame White and Inspector Deacon. Which should have been impossible, given his history with the guild.

  Nikolas didn’t respond for a moment. Then he turned to the house, his aura pulsing with darkness. The message was clear.

  I grabbed his arm. “Nikolas. Don’t start a war before we have to. Of course I’m not going to hand anyone in. We’ll find somewhere else for the vamps to go. If anything, I think she just wants an excuse to start a war between the vamps and the warlocks. Or Damian does.”

  He turned back to me, his golden eyes burning with fury. “Yes, I suspect he does. That’s why I thought I’d get there first.”

  “Don’t you find this whole setup suspicious as hell? I have a shortcut to the guild. I can get in there and find out how deep Damian’s influence goes. Or even if it’s there at all. You know he worked for the inspector’s enemy.”

  “Did the inspector know that?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t even know what the guild is doing. If I didn’t know better, they’re in on this. But I don’t know who, and for how long.” My arms dropped to my sides. “And if they have a cure, I can steal it. If Damian’s not there in person…”

  His jaw clenched. “We’re no closer to finding a cure. You didn’t see anything the last time you were at the guild?”

  “No,” I said. “But I didn’t search the whole building. They’ve moved things around since the tower blew up. Their defences are probably back up so we can’t get in from the outside, but I can use the demonglass… wait. Can I borrow Rachel’s power?”

  His brows rose. “Haven’t you tried?”

  “No. I didn’t think… but Damian can’t teleport—or hell, maybe he can. I don’t even know what he is—if he’s actually a celestial-vampire or a demon masquerading as one. I didn’t check he actually died. But I have to try.”

  He nodded. “Then we’ll go.”

  We drove back in silence. My mind spun in circles. I took it for granted the guild was demon-proofed, but I hadn’t actually checked while I’d been snooping around the inspector’s office. If Damian wasn’t human—if anyone else there wasn’t—then it meant the inspector hadn’t reset the wards after the attacks. Which seemed impossible. Someone surely would have noticed. But if Damian really did have an arch-demon helping him, the whole world was set against us.

  Rachel waited in the hall with her hair sticking up all over—judging by the state of her eyebrows, there’d been another explosion.

  “I was in the lab,” she said unnecessarily. “Your friend… she volunteered to help. What happened?”

  “Trouble,” I said. “A metric crap-ton of it.”

  I gave her a run-down. She bit her lip, looking uncharacteristically grim. “You want to try taking my magic? I have no issue with you borrowing my power, but you’ve only stolen from higher demons before. Dunno if I’m high level enough. I’m more of a Grade Two than a Three.”

  “You’re powerful,” I said. “I don’t know anyone else who can do what you can.”

  “If you’re sure,” she said dubiously.

  I raised my right hand. Immediately, my demon mark snapped on, power tingling up my arm. I stepped back, looking at the glowing arrowhead symbol. “Er… when you use your power, do you just picture who you want to turn into?”

  Rachel’s eyes gleamed with interest. “More or less.”

  I thought. Then my body thickened and I shot several inches up into the air. Whoa.

  “Ugh,” she said. “Who’s that guy? He has terrible hair.”

  “Bad Haircut Sammy,” I said, in his voice. “Wow. That’s weird as hell. Wonder if I can try…”

  I shrank, turning into Rachel herself. Then I tried Javos. Rachel lost it at that point, collapsing into shrieking giggles. “I’m Javos and I have a stick jammed up my arse,” I said in his rumbling voice. I gave a pirouette and turned into Rachel again. Then the inspector.

  “My name is Inspector Deacon,” I said in a serious tone. “I’m the biggest dickhead on the planet.”

  “Devi,” said Nikolas in an exasperated voice.

  “I wish I could read this guy’s thoughts.” I turned into me again. “That’d help us work out what the hell’s going on.”

  “I wish,” said Rachel. “Even the Divinities can’t read minds.”

  But they can raise the dead. I sobered instantly. “All right. I think Sammy is the least conspicuous, but he spends a lot of time around the inspector anyway. I know most of the senior management, too. What I don’t know is how many are in league with Damian. Sammy’s a clueless sycophant, so he’ll copy what everyone else does. I reckon I can fake that. Even if he’s told Sammy something important, he’ll probably have forgotten it.”

  “If you’re sure,” he said. “You’ve taken enough risks today already.”

  “No kidding,” I said. “Warlocks, celestials, vampires… want to check into Babylon again so I can piss off your brother, too?”

  “I really wouldn’t,” he said.

  Bad joke. After all, Zadok might be planning a coup. As though all the crap in this realm wasn’t dire enough on its own, Babylon had its own issues, which Nikolas was neglecting in order to help me. Maybe he’d understood my indecision about which side to help better than I’d thought, after all.

  I turned to the corridor, checking my weapons were still in place. The jolt of demonic power had given me an energy high, but my head throbbed and the prospect of jumping through those demonglass fragments into the celestials’ place again wasn’t appealing in the slightest. Luckily, Javos wasn’t in the storeroom, and the main demonglass sheet was free. Here we go again.

  I stepped through the glass, emerging in a painful heap in the inspector’s office. Gritting my teeth, I got to my feet and turned into Sammy. He was so much bigger and clumsier than I was, so I hoped I’d at least retained my skills and reflexes.

  Apparently, I’d left my intelligence behind. Because the door was locked from the outside, trapping me in the office. Great. In fairness, getting locked in empty rooms was the sort of thing Sammy did. I looked around for something to use as a lockpick—and froze, staring at the cabinet at the back.

  The guild’s gold-plated pentagram was gone. I hadn’t even looked behind last time I’d been here. Who’d moved it? Now I knew Damian had been here… had he taken it elsewhere? Oh damn. I’d completely forgotten about it. But given recent events, its absence couldn’t mean anything good.

  I stopped again at the sound of a key turning in a lock. Putting on my best approximation of Sammy’s perpetually clueless expression, I turned around to face the inspector.

  “What are you doing?” he asked sharply.

  “Got locked in,” I said in Sammy’s voice.

  “Why not tell me you were there?”

  “Couldn’t do it with the door locked, sir.”
Maybe I was laying it on a bit too thick, but he gave me an exasperated look and stepped aside to let me out.

  “I wondered where you were,” Inspector Deacon said. “I need you to watch the patients. Take notes. Better notes, this time. Did you fail all your English classes?”

  “Yeah,” I said, figuring that was a safe bet. “Four times.”

  “For the Great Divinity’s Sake,” he growled. “This way, and try not to spill anything this time.”

  Okay. So either Sammy was in on the plan, or did whatever he said anyway.

  Divinities above, I’d better not regret this.

  I’d bet my demon marked hand that the ‘patients’ he referred to were either celestials or humans who’d been bitten. Perhaps he was testing the cure on them. Actually—that didn’t seem far out of the realms of possibility. Or they were imprisoned, awaiting execution. Damn. I was already wanted for harbouring supposed criminals. What I needed was a way to permanently sabotage this whole operation.

  “When do I get to try it?” I asked, in Sammy’s most whiny voice. “Can’t I be super-powered like them, too? I’ve proved I’ll do as I’m asked to. I can help.”

  “You’d certainly loyal,” he said. “Unfortunately, you’re not ready to take the serum yet. If you die, I’ll have to find someone else to assist me. It’d be inconvenient at the least.”

  So he was distributing the ‘cure’… the one that wasn’t a cure at all? But he must know what it did. The inspector of all people always seemed to have it together, but either recent events had driven him over the edge, or he’d actually been totally batshit the whole time. Not like anyone would have noticed the difference. But there was something… off about him. Not so much the words as the cold way he spoke. He looked the same, but…

  My gaze drifted downward. His right hand was covered.

  Oh fuck.

  Looked like Sammy—and even Damian Greenwood—weren’t the ones I should be worrying about. The inspector was in the service of an arch-demon. I’d bet he had Damian, too, if it was actually him. They’d taken the guild, all right. And I wasn’t powerful enough to go head to head with the gods. I was willing to bet I couldn’t steal their powers.

  Covering my panic behind Sammy’s whiny voice, I said. “But can’t I at least see it?”

  “You’ve seen enough,” he said. “If you don’t get on with the job, I’ll find someone else.”

  “I haven’t seen the vampires yet,” he said. “I heard—Madame White, I heard she’s beautiful.”

  He scowled. “That’s Damian’s job. You’re not reliable enough.”

  I’d got it dead right. He was in on it. She hadn’t lied. Damian had got to both of them. Which didn’t leave me with a ton of options, to be honest.

  Except my own demon magic.

  In the medical bay, several celestials lay on hospital beds, unmoving. Either they’d been bitten, or injected with the so-called cure, or both. I couldn’t carry unconscious people out of here, and besides, it wouldn’t stop the inspector—or the demon. They’d just bring in more.

  “Stay,” he said. “Watch them. Report any symptoms.”

  He roughly shoved a clipboard and pen into my hand. I took them without speaking, my mind racing. None of the patients stirred. I scanned the room, taking a mental note of the layout. The actual nurse wasn’t in here—hadn’t been here in ages, if the smell was any indication. Nobody had cleaned this place in a long time. Dust covered every surface, including the patients. They weren’t hooked up to machines, so I assumed they were drugged. Then I looked closer. Straps held each one of them to their respective beds. In case they wake up and the demon takes over? Rage surged through me, and my right hand tingled in anticipation of violence on the bastards who’d done this. Two celestials I recognised as the inspector’s most trusted novices aside from Sammy stood guard outside the door. Let’s go, then.

  When I was certain the inspector had gone, I stepped back against the wall, and sent a current of Nikolas’s lightning magic from the palm of my hand. The ceiling lights flickered and died. In the dark, I approached the female celestial who’d been guarding the room, and zapped her from behind. She gave a startled scream, then fell. I whirled on her partner and zapped him in the same manner.

  If I’d had the slightest sliver of doubt that the place was unprotected, I knew it now. Because the demon detectors should have been set off the instant I used my magic. But they hadn’t. Someone had dismantled them. This whole building was vulnerable from the outside, even as the worst threat came from within.

  In the dim light of my celestial hand, I scanned the clipboard’s papers, picked up the most likely ones and stuck them in my pockets. From what I could discern from the notes, these celestials were mid-transformation. Everyone who’d been bitten had been elevated to the next stage of the transformation. They hadn’t been executed at all.

  They’d been upgraded.

  There was nothing to do for them. When they woke, they’d be bloodthirsty killers, stripped of all reason. Those who survived with their sanity intact as Damian apparently had would be forced to serve the enemy anyway. There was no answer, not here. But I needed to figure out how the demon had got into the guild and marked Inspector Deacon in the first place. The inspector hadn’t left the guild according to all reports, so the arch-demon must have come here. Possibly through the portal. But how had nobody noticed?

  I left the medical bay through the back entrance. Voices came from behind, but I didn’t slow. I took the shortcut around to the west tower. As I’d feared, it was no longer locked. After all, it’d been destroyed. Crumbled brick was heaped where it’d once stood tall, the smell of burning lingered… and something else. Brimstone.

  I moved in closer, pushing the door inward. It hung from its hinges, and behind came an eerie red glow. The pentagram. I knew it.

  Damian must have left the portal open, and a demon had slipped out. But what—and how deep did its influence run? What about the Grade Fours? Were the celestial guild’s elite demon hunters now demons themselves? And the rest of the world—they were following the orders of an arch-demon, without even knowing it.

  I have to tell them.

  A voice spoke from the pentagram. “I know it’s you, Devi. I’d sense your magic anywhere.”

  Damian Greenwood stepped out of the pentagram, wreathed in fire and smiling broadly.

  Chapter 11

  Damian smiled at me across the ruined tower. I glared back, willing the disguise to recede so I could face him as me. “Get the hell out of here.”

  “That’s not very nice, Devi. Don’t you want to know how I survived?”

  “I was raised from the dead before you were even a novice,” I said, with a shrug. “Reckon I got a better deal, too.” If he could borrow magic like me, he’d have done so already. So if he bore a demon’s mark, it must give him some other power. As though being a celestial vampire who’d come back from the dead wasn’t enough.

  “A real-life miracle,” he said, with a barely-concealed laugh. “That’s what the inspector believed, anyway. It wasn’t even that hard to convince him in the end. The Divinity who raised me asked for a meeting… and we all know how that goes.”

  “Wait, the demon who got him pretended to be a Divinity?”

  “Don’t sound so shocked, Devi. You forget arch-demons were once divine. It takes one misstep to fall. As you should know well.”

  Damn. The inspector… well, it made sense. Appeal to his ego, make him think an actual Divinity was present… and then get into his head, or mark him. The guy had blinds spots, and after the recent attacks, he’d have been desperate enough to believe anything. Oldest trick in the demons’ playbook.

  “Of course, I have you to thank for allowing us access to this city in the first place,” he added.

  “Don’t pin this one on me,” I snapped. “You’ve been scheming this for a long time. Before Rory died, even. You were behind the attack on the old guild HQ, right? I wasn’t even in the country at the ti
me.”

  “That doesn’t lessen your role,” he said. “That Divinity of yours… has he spoken to you about what his intentions are?”

  I wish. It would help if he gave me a clue.

  “I’m more concerned with what your arch-demon wants,” I said. “But I guess you weren’t important enough to tell, right? You’re not that special. You’re a pawn. We all are. And if you don’t want to end up dead for good, I’d tell me what the arch-demon wants with the celestials. Where is everyone else?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He stepped back into the pentagram, and vanished.

  Damn him. Damn him. He was gone.

  “Devi,” hissed a voice from the shadows. “Devi. Leave. Now.”

  The pentagram vibrated, and power rushed over me, shaking the ground under my feet. An alarm sounded from within the building, and I ducked out of sight, around the rubble of the tower.

  “This way,” whispered a voice. Clover.

  “What are you doing?” I moved over to join her, casting a wary glance at the guild’s darkened windows. “Please tell me you at least know what’s going on in there.”

  “I know.” She moved forward a little, the moonlight painting white stripes on her scarred face. “There’s nothing that can be done.”

  “Is there anyone in there who isn’t working with the demons?” I spoke more to myself than anything. Part of me still hardly believed it’d happened so fast. The last attack had hit too hard for anyone to notice the demon slip into their midst. Even I hadn’t paid enough attention. But I’d thought Damian was dead, and so were the demons he worked with.

  “Anyone who wasn’t bitten and isn’t the inspector or Damian,” she said. “The others—there aren’t many left, but they’re the ones he selected as the most loyal.”

  I glanced back over my shoulder at the ruins. “But—the defences are out. There’s a giant pentagram inside that tower. Have they really not checked?”