He was right. “Foreign” was a good word. It tasted strange, more than just sulfur. It had an odd undertone.
Something flew over the wall in front of us.
It howled on the way down, crashing into a nearby Dumpster. It was an imp. There was a ferocious roar and another one flew over, greasy hair flying. Then Rourke’s entire body smashed through a hole in the wall.
He was livid, his arms braced.
I crossed my arms. “There’s my guy now.” I smiled at Marcy. “He must’ve come across some more trouble. The ward has completely fallen, because the imps must be coming in from the other side. Can he see us?”
“Holy caveman. He can see us, but we look like human bag ladies watching the show from behind a heap of scrap metal.” Marcy chuckled.
I glanced at her sideways. “You know, you never cease to amaze me.” Marcy had definitely found her groove. There was a time when she’d suffered from a lack of confidence, which had kept her out of her aunt’s Coven, but the world wasn’t dealing with the same girl any longer. Her recent adventures had changed her in a big way. “Did I mention I’m glad you’re alive? Not only do I love seeing your smiling face but if you’d have turned up dead, I would’ve followed you shortly if Tally had anything to say about it.”
“Yeah, she’s a cranky old bitty. She would zap you into never-never land just because she can. But can you believe she showed up here?” she exclaimed. “She never does anything for anyone. So consider yourself part of the elite. But, honestly, do you know how much this is going to cost you? Witches never do anything for free. You’ll never make another dime. All your future paychecks are going straight to the Coven.”
“Not this time,” I said, shaking my head. “She’s fighting for you, not me. I’m pretty sure she’s here because Maggie told her to come. That child probably had another vision and said, ‘If the wolf lady gets killed, Auntie Marcy will die.’ So Tally felt compelled to come to save her favorite niece.”
“Isn’t Maggie a little charmer? Spooky as hell, but you can’t help wanting to give those cheeks a squeeze. I love her up every time I see her. But I also plug my ears whenever she starts chanting. Some things are better left unknown.”
“You got that right,” I said.
“Jessica, where are you?” Rourke’s bellow was just short of manic. “The low-level demons have broken through the wall. If they have you, I’m going to tear this place apart.”
“I’m right in front of you,” I called, waving. “But you have to come inside the barricade to see it’s me.”
He paced closer, growling fiercely. “The vamps have disappeared. They were there one second and gone the next. The witches seem to know what’s going on, however, and are prepared to fight. Whatever’s stocked in their ammo is working on the imps.” He lifted his nose to scent the area. “I can smell you, but I can’t see you.”
“Keep walking. Marcy has spelled a small area. Once you get closer, you should see a couple of old ladies. Did the curse get on anyone?”
“Yes, one of the witches who was coming around the yard got sprayed, but Ray is on it.” He made his way over to us. “Tally has him by the neck, even though he’s cooperating. She doesn’t trust him not to drink her witch dry.”
“What about my dad?” He had taken off like the rest of us.
“I haven’t seen him,” he said, coming closer. “I see three old ladies, one who smells like you.”
“Three?” Nick said. “He thinks I’m an old lady?” He turned to Marcy with a questioning glance.
Marcy pressed her lips together and replied, “Gender bending is hard, so you get lumped in, my friend. My spell reads lady, so lady it is.”
Just before Rourke reached us, flames erupted in a single circle around Marcy’s blockade, separating us.
“Jess!” Nick yelled, grabbing my arm. “We have to get out. This is a demon circle!” He leapt around a car door, pulling me along.
I didn’t need any urging. I was right behind him. “Go, go! I’m following you.”
“Jessica,” Rourke yelled. “The flames won’t kill you. Get the hell out!”
“I’m going as fast as I can—” There was a popping noise and something grabbed me by the neck.
“Going someplace?” it hissed in my ear.
“In fact she is, asshole demon guy,” Marcy said. “Let go of her.”
I twisted in its grasp right as Marcy hit him with a spell. I’d never seen her spells manifest physically. This information was new and very welcome. Her signature was pink.
So very Marcy.
The demon let go and howled in pain. He wasn’t a Lord, so his power signature was much lower. We were lucky. But that meant the sorcerers were hiding somewhere close and they’d discovered our location and cover.
Things were about to get even uglier.
“Come on, Jess,” Nick urged from the other side. “You have to get out before the wall of flames grows.”
“I’ve got this demon businessman. Go while you can,” Marcy ordered. She glanced down at the demon that was sprawled on the ground. “Where’s your briefcase? Huh? Who comes to a fight in a three-piece suit? Take that for being such a dumbass.” She shot him with another spell and he went limp.
I took a running leap through the flames.
They weren’t hot like normal fire, but they still licked along my skin, stinging me like burning sandpaper scraping along every nerve ending.
I landed in a crouch next to Nick. His hair was singed, but other than that he appeared to be fine. “We need to find your father,” he said. “I may be able to use my persuasion and I want to find the source. The imps fell easily, but I’ve never met a Demon Lord. It’s worth a try.”
“How do you find the source?” I asked, glancing to the right, noting that Rourke was engaged with what looked to be a group of sorcerers. They were all wearing robes, but he had it handled.
“From what I understand, there are six Lords, but there is only one Prince of Hell. If he’s here, he’s in charge. If I can convince him to leave, maybe they’ll all leave.”
“I’ve met a Demon Lord and it was incredibly powerful, but I’m willing to try anything,” I said. “But we don’t need my father—we need Naomi. She can fly you closer. Scale the wall in front of us and we’ll go from there.”
I made a move to help Rourke. Most of the sorcerers were already down. “Go!” he yelled. “I’ll be right behind you. These guys are useless.”
Nick leapt easily to the top of the wall and I followed. The scene below was ridiculous. Wolves were fighting wolves, witches were shooting demons, and the vamps had formed a ring around Eudoxia in the corner.
“What are the vamps doing?” I asked.
“It’s a circle of some kind. I think she’s generating power. See her hair billowing out?” he said. Orbs crashed into the wall below us and footfalls were coming fast. We’d been spotted. Nick sprang off the ledge.
Right before I joined him down in the melee, something caught my eye.
I landed next to Nick and grabbed on to his shirtsleeve. Without talking, I directed his gaze to where I was looking. As we watched, one by one, they popped into existence in the ruins of the far wall, just outside the grounds.
Five Demon Lords.
There were all dressed impeccably, each one more precise than the next.
“Eudoxia knows what’s coming,” I whispered. “She’s trying to block it from happening.” As much as she hated me and wanted me dead, she still had to protect herself and her flock. “See how these Lords are all just outside the wall? It’s working so far. We have to help her keep the ward up.” I took off. “If the Lords get in, the chance of me dying increases exponentially.”
“Go,” Nick urged. “I’ll take care of this.” Several imps had converged on us.
I raced over the lawn, outrunning them easily.
But before I could reach her, one of the fracture wolves, this one luckily not cursed, came barreling at me. I shifted power to my wolf
and we collided. I grabbed its neck, and as I rolled I yanked.
It stayed on the ground and I kept going.
“Jess, look out,” Nick called from behind me. On instinct, I flipped, bringing my feet around, fingernails digging into the grass to propel me. This time it was one of the possessed wolf-hybrids. It was mangy and awful. My body was already in motion, my feet hitting its flank soundly. It flew backward, but before it crashed into the wall, Ray snatched it out of the air, his fangs at the ready.
“This is the last one, Hannon,” he yelled. “After that it’s all regular wolves. Your father took down the Southern leader, so they should be running home to lick their wounds shortly.” The cursed wolf tried to break out of Ray’s grasp, but he reared up and bit deeply into its neck.
That meant my father had killed Redman Martin.
It was going to cause huge ripples in our world. Redman’s wolves would have to join our Pack, the fracture pack, or go rogue.
Too much to think about now. I had to get to the Queen.
I nodded at Ray and turned to run. The vamps were still linked in a tight circle. Two deep, no spaces. I had to add my power to hers to keep the ward strong, but before I could reach her, the ground started to quake.
I slid to a stop.
A huge vibration spread through the yard, followed by a gigantic sucking sound, like a cork being yanked out of a bottle of champagne the size of a building.
But this was no celebration.
The Prince of Hell had arrived.
28
“You cannot stop me no matter how hard you try, so I advise against trying to do so.” Its voice was exact.
It was the same Lord who had come to pick up Selene.
This demon was the Prince of Hell.
It had called itself a Prince of Thrones, but I had no idea it was the Prince. I’d pissed it off once already, and there was no way it was going to turn tail and leave without something in return this time.
There was only one thing I could think of that could help me. “Ben?” I called. “Are you out there?” I hadn’t heard from the ghost in a while, so I figured he’d split. If I were him, I’d escape the anarchy if given a chance.
“I’m still here.”
“Know anything about demons?”
“I have never seen one before, but I can feel its power and it has a strange color.”
“Color?” I asked. “Like an aura?” Ghosts could see auras?
“I don’t know. Humans have no pigment, but supernaturals glow.”
“What color is it?”
“It is black. Like a void.”
“What color is the Queen?”
“She is white.”
“And me?”
“You are gold.”
“I think you’re picking up our power signatures. Gold is the color that manifests in my mind and would come out in my fingers if I could cast a spell,” I said. “Ben, more importantly, can you get into this thing’s mind like you can mine?”
“It is not the same, but there are scattered pieces I can read.”
The Prince of Hell stood very still as its serpentine gaze scanned the grounds. I knew what was behind that glamour and it wasn’t pretty. Everyone had stopped fighting. It was hard to fight each other when you were all facing the biggest threat in the room.
Ben whispered, “It wishes to blow up this entire place. It seeks to destroy you at all costs. It is not thinking clearly. You make it nervous.”
Pay dirt.
Having a ghost was handy.
“Why are the other Lords outside the boundary?”
“They do not seem stronger than the Queen. She is warding us. But the Prince can enter. All will be lost soon. He will kill her first.”
“Not if I can help it.” As the Prince lifted his hand, I ran, leaping over the screen of vamps who stood in front of their Queen.
The Prince intoned, “You will die now, Queen of Vampires.”
Power sizzled through the air.
I collided with the Queen right as a shock of demon power hit me squarely in the back. It plowed us both to the ground, me on top.
The vamps went crazy, tightening the circle around us.
All my limbs were locked together. The same black mist Selene had shot into my psyche before, infiltrated my senses now, but this time it was a million times stronger. I could barely see through the thick cloud of darkness that was quickly engulfing me.
My wolf fed power in a constant stream, but it wasn’t enough to clear it out.
“You don’t seem so powerful now, Little Wolf Girl,” the Queen said, her voice slick and devious. “Looks like I will win after all.”
She made a move, but I grabbed her wrist, forcing my muscles to react. I focused on her through the darkness. “Give me your power,” I ground out. “Help me fight this and I will give you mine. We will fortify the ward and send these assholes back to the Underworld.”
Her irises shot silver. This was her chance to kill me. “Why would I possibly do that now?” she spat. “Feeding you to the demons works perfectly for me.”
“Because I just saved you,” I said, still fighting the power, “again. And you have honor. You chose this path over another. And no”—I grit my teeth—“god is without honor.”
She sucked in a breath.
“Yes, I said god,” I gasped. “I know what you want and there’s only one way to get it. We could’ve solved this twenty minutes ago, but you”—I struggled to get another breath in—“chose to be difficult.”
“Fine.” She hissed, placing her palms on either side of my head, “But if you do not survive this, it is your fault, not mine.”
“Deal,” I managed.
The shock was instantaneous.
Her power entered my system like a white-hot light, infusing every cell in my body. But instead of coupling with my own power, it reverberated around my mind like a giant pinball of energy on steroids, threatening to short-circuit me as the black continued to fill in around it. We have to merge our power together. Neither of our magic is strong enough to defeat this on its own.
It took everything I had. Eudoxia’s magic was heady, but I managed to grab hold of it, but only for a moment. It was enough. As I forced my gold to meld with her white, I rolled off her onto the ground. Starburst lit behind my eyes and I convulsed. Once they were connected I shot the magic forward, obliterating the black mist in one explosion of power.
I blinked.
I could see again.
Gunfire blasted around us.
The witches were firing on the Prince of Hell.
Eudoxia was already up. The vampires had moved back. Seeing their Queen alive and well had improved their attitudes greatly.
“I will take my prize or I destroy this place,” the Prince of Hell intoned.
“You’re not taking anything,” Tally called. “You’re not welcome on this plane and we’re prepared to send you back.”
“That’s interesting indeed,” it said. “And how exactly are you planning on sending me back, lowly witch?”
I stood. The vamps were in front of me, but I could see the Prince of Hell from my vantage point.
“We know your rules.” Tally’s voice was confident. “And I came prepared.” There was some clanging and shuffling, and then as one, the witches lobbed spelled grenades at all the Demon Lords.
As the devices exploded, the Demon Lords disappeared one by one, popping out of existence like firecrackers, leaving behind a trail of smoke.
Tally was right.
She’d come prepared. Whatever was contained in those explosives had been enough to send the Lords back to the Underworld.
Except for one.
“You may have temporarily sent my comrades back to our home, but your spells do not affect me, witch.” Everything quieted as the Prince of Hell strode forward for the first time. He wasn’t confined to a circle, and that was enough to make everyone take notice. A deep feeling of unease hit the yard. “I will take what I came for
, and only then will I leave this plane.”
Its eyes scanned the grounds and landed on me.
One of the witches lobbed another hand grenade. It flew directly at the Prince, who reached out and plucked it from the air and crushed it into dust.
“Well, crap,” the witch said. “That was my last one too.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” I stepped forward, the vamps parting for me.
It knew I’d been struck down by its power and it sized me up, its eyes narrowing. “You will come of your own volition, or I will destroy this place.” It crossed its arms. “And everyone in it.”
Rourke moved to meet me in the middle, his face set, his energy palpable. Instead of forming a rebuttal, I asked, still moving forward, “Why are you here? You said I had a court date, and my trip to the Underworld would be nonnegotiable. If that is true, why come here at all?”
“I needn’t explain myself to you or anyone else,” it said. “You are a criminal. An outlaw in our world. We apprehend those who act against us. It is our way.”
My father, still in his wolf form, paced up behind me as I stopped, growling and snapping his jaw. He was ferocious, and it was nice to see him back to his full power.
I took a decided step toward the Prince of Hell to let my father know I had this. I couldn’t risk him attacking the most powerful Demon Lord in the Underworld, unless absolutely necessary.
As I moved forward, I said, “I’m no criminal, and I’ve told you already I want nothing to do with your race. That still stands, but things on this plane have changed considerably. From now on, any imp or demon that crosses my path, or any of my Pack members, will be killed on sight.” I snarled as I moved closer. “Do you hear me? By coming here, you’ve started a war with all of us—the wolves, the vampires, and the witches. We will not be cowed by you. You cannot defeat us all.” To help accentuate my point, my father and all his wolves, including my brother and Danny, fanned behind me. My father gnashed his teeth, snapping his muzzle down hard to show his intent. It was a show of strength and I hope it made the Prince of Hell think twice.
Cold Blooded Page 27
