by Cate Corvin
“Percival.” Sitri’s warning rang through the church, blasting my eardrums like a siren.
My stepfather looked down, realized he was blooding my mother. Another slip, and she’d become the sacrifice whether he’d meant to or not. Then his eyes flicked up to me, and I knew he was warring against an internal struggle.
Me, and whatever he wanted me for, or his youth returned.
And clearly, the struggle was much harder than I’d bargained for. I would’ve thought it a simple choice. Guess I’d have to take matters into my own hands.
I spread out my arms, taking a step forward. “I’m game. Send me to Hell, Percival. Mom never did anything but love you. Surely that deserves a reprieve from eternal damnation.”
Sitri’s face split into a wolfish grin. “A willing sacrifice. Even better.”
I hoped my trepidation didn’t show on my face as I took another step. Càel was with me. Everything would be okay.
Because as long as the summoning artifact holding Sitri on this plane was destroyed in time, I’d be yanking Percival’s throat out before he could place that blade against my skin.
Percival looked down at Mom and the blonde hair fisted in his grasp, and I cast my gaze around the church. A human skull was perched on the altar where they’d married, scorched black with hellfire and wavering with the heat shimmering over it.
Will and Sura had to be here soon. Will would know what to do.
I just needed to stay alive long enough for Càel to grab Mom. “You know me, ‘Willing’ is my middle name.” I shot Percival a cold smile, twinkling my fingers at him. “Toss me that dagger and I’ll do it myself.”
Percival drew in a deep breath. Blood spotted the legs of his otherwise-pristine trousers, and Mom let out a strangled sob. “Don’t do it, baby.”
A shiver ran over my spine. She should be screaming at me to get away. Begging Percival to take me instead of her.
After all, I was her worst nightmare now, inhuman, a creature that lived on blood.
Maybe she hadn’t realized. She had to be terrified out of her mind right now.
I raised an eyebrow and dropped my arms. “Well? Are you going to get on with it, or are you too chickenshit, Perce? I’m standing right here, just a dagger throw away.”
Sitri purred. The sound vibrated through the church, all the way through the soles of my feet. “Yes, I want this one, Godalming. Make the sacrifice, and I will grant you what you’ve asked for.”
Percival’s lips drew back over his teeth, making him look almost feral. Mom let out a watery gasp as his hand tightened… then he threw her bodily across the room. She slid over the boards and stopped at my feet, curled into a fetal ball and sobbing.
I stepped over her vulnerable form without looking down. The urge to pick her up and cradle her would be too much.
The dagger fell from Percival’s limp hand and buried itself point-first into the church floor. He took a deep breath, eyes glittering as he took me in. I held back my own smile as his face resolved into a grim expression.
Checkmate, fucker.
“There’ll be others,” he said hoarsely, justifying what he was about to do. “A lifetime of more.”
I heard, rather than saw, Càel pick up Mom, and then I was alone in the church, just me, my fuckwad stepfather, and a Prince of Hell.
“Then pick up that dagger and let’s do this,” I said pleasantly. Mom was safe. That was all that mattered.
Percival’s hands clenched, shaking at his sides. “No. Yours isn’t the blood I wanted on my hands.”
My jaw clenched as he reached behind him and pulled a loaded crossbow from the pulpit. He aimed it at my chest, his hands no longer shaking but steady. “I’ll make it fast,” he said, a tic starting in his jaw. “It’s the least I could do for you.”
There was no way I’d make it close enough before he pulled the trigger. He was fifteen feet away. I wasn’t fast enough yet, too young a vampire to outrun a bolt.
My heart thumped in my throat, counting its beats as Percival took a breath and steadied himself.
How had I been so blind? Will had called it months ago, but my own need to remain blissfully ignorant of how fucked up his family was had taken precedence over opening my eyes. Percival was a predator, hunting down Mom… and me.
Searching for a replacement for Michèle and Connie, once he’d sacrificed them to get what he wanted. I’d always been his back-up plan.
“Thanks, Perce, I really appreciate that. Nothing like a bolt through the heart to tell me how you really feel.”
The tic in his jaw was spastic now. “If you hadn’t interfered, things wouldn’t have turned out this way. Why spend the rest of your life saddled with a useless slayer of a mother? You could’ve stood back and let me take care of that problem for you, and then you would’ve been set for life.”
His coldness astounded me. “The thing is, I’ve got a little problem called vampirism, and you’ve got a little habit of staking them in the back. So, realistically, it never would’ve worked out anyways.”
“No?” Percival’s finger twitched on the trigger. “You and I both have eternal life, Victoria. That makes us evenly matched.”
A sudden insight occurred to me as to why Percival hated vampires so much: he was jealous of what they had. He just didn’t want to sacrifice his ability to walk under the sun as a slayer. He’d thought it better to lose his humanity in bargaining with demons than to put himself at a vampire’s mercy with the promise of being Made.
“Oh, look, you’ve pinpointed problem number two.” I chanced taking another step. “The thing is, we’re not evenly matched. Far from it. I’m better than you, Perce. Sticking around would be a raw deal for me.”
The blow to his pride hurt him far worse than the thought of murdering me in cold blood. He sneered behind the stock and pulled the trigger before I could blink.
I anticipated the sensation of an iron-tipped stake ripping through my body at close range. Instead, something much bigger pummeled me to the floor.
Suraziel spat up blood, blowing out a whole spray of it as he laughed. His back was to me, the tip of the bolt thrusting from a wide-open wound to the left of his spine.
I took a shuddering breath, tasting the thick sweetness of that blood in the air, and my mouth started watering.
Then the incubus stopped laughing, his laugh becoming a choke. “Blessed iron…?” he whispered, looking down and touching the bolt in his body.
Sitri’s face was terrible, white with fury. “You’ve murdered my son, Godalming.”
Percival cowered as the Prince loomed over him. Sitri’s sculpted lips flattened, the corners of his mouth pulling back towards his ears as his face split into a set of toothy jaws. “The bargain is null and void,” he boomed. “Your soul is mine.”
I flipped onto my feet and knelt over Suraziel, who had fallen to one knee. Black blood gushed from the neat hole punched in his chest, pooling on the church floor. There’d be no consecrating the church again after this.
“Sura, why’d you do that?” I whispered, touching the flood, temporarily forgetting his true name.
The incubus managed a weak grin, but his face was drawn with pain. The blessed iron would be burning him from the inside. “Better me than you, Victoria the Reckless.”
I looked up at Percival, my limbs tense. He stared back at me open-mouthed, the crossbow dangling in his grip. I’d rip that fucker’s spine out before he took another step-
A blonde form loomed over him, one smaller than Sitri, but still towering over Percival’s slighter form. I barely had time to move before Càel’s hands wrapped around my stepfather’s throat and squeezed.
Percival turned a deep shade of plum and let out an agonized groan as my knight tore him apart.
Seconds later, Percival’s head rolled over the floor, leaving a broad swath of blood, and his body collapsed to the floor like a sack of bricks. His bulging eyes were still rolling in his skull.
“Suraziel,” Sitri boom
ed. He’d abandoned all pretense of humanity, hellfire burning in his eyes, face distorted from his too-wide mouth. “Your time with these fools is over.”
“Yeah, about that,” Suraziel wheezed. He pressed a hand over mine, holding the wound shut. “I really don’t think it is.”
Sitri had taken a step forward, his horns ripping through one of the wooden beams overhead. The ceiling groaned.
“He’s mine, Prince Sitri.” Will’s even voice rang through the church. My gaze tore from Sitri and went to the dark form at the altar as the demon Prince spun on his heel.
Will held up his arm. A fresh red sigil was visible in his arm, flesh carved into a Solomonic seal. In his other hand he held a mace. The spiked iron head gleamed dully in the firelight.
Almost miraculously, he didn’t seem fazed at all about being face-to-face with a twelve-foot-tall demon that could literally bite his head off. Under my fear for Suraziel’s life, pride for Will’s bravery welled up in me.
“You bound my son?” Sitri’s tone was flat, impossible to read.
“Don’t pretend you care, Father.” Blood spilled over Suraziel’s lip as he spoke. “The only thing wounded here is your pride.”
Sitri’s burning gaze swung between the two of them, and he smiled. “Do you think I’m a fool? You belong in my Court, not among these piteous maggots.” The church’s walls shuddered under the timbre of his voice.
“You sent me here. The job isn’t done.”
Sitri paused, his head cocking to the side with that unnerving alien grace I’d caught a glimpse of before. “Nevertheless. I’ve tired of these useless slayers and their spawn. Come.”
Suraziel groaned, his shoulders bowing. I couldn’t feel the tension, but I knew Sitri was pulling at him, unpicking his child’s moorings from this plane.
If he went back to Hell with Sitri, we’d never see him again. At least, not in the incarnation we knew him as. He’d revert to the demon he’d been before he met us.
I gripped Suraziel’s arm, my nails digging into his skin. Over my dead body, Sitri.
But Will was on the same page.
“I don’t think I’ve made myself clear enough,” Will said, raising the mace over his head like it weighed no more than a feather. “Which is amazing, because I was pretty fucking clear the first time. Suraziel is bound to me now. Blood of my blood. He’s going nowhere, but you are.”
He brought the mace down on the summoning skull, shattering it to charred pieces and a puff of dust.
Sitri’s body immediately grew less stable, wavering at the edges, and his enormous form lunged towards Will, fingers exploding outwards until they were over a foot long-
Will raised the mace, but Càel burst between him and the Prince, his hand thrusting out to catch the demon by the throat. “That’s my singer’s dinner you’re fucking with,” he growled, and squeezed, the cords of his arms standing out like bars.
Sitri’s form was already dissipating, and the strength of an elder vampire pushing him back broke the last of the summoning. My ears pounded as the Prince vanished into Hell, reality warping around us.
The air filled the sudden empty space where Sitri had been with a loud pop, and the equilibrium in my ears stabilized.
“Fucking Christ,” Will whispered, still clutching the blessed iron mace in a death grip.
Suraziel gave him a thumbs-up and collapsed on the church floor in a puddle of his own blood.
Nine
Tori
Will and I jogged across the lawn to the light of Godalming Manor, Suraziel draped between the two of us. With the height disparity, it was an awkward trip with lots of jostling, but Càel was carrying Mom. She’d passed out after he’d rescued her from the church and was limp in his arms like a doll.
Behind us, the church was going up in flames like a beacon, blowing black smoke into the night sky and consuming the remnants of both the ritual and Percival’s body. Will had barely spared his father a glance before rushing to Suraziel’s side.
“His study,” my stepbrother- or rather, former stepbrother- gritted out. I was of the opinion that attempted sacrifice was a perfectly legitimate reason to consider oneself divorced, official or not. Mom was a free woman, which meant from this point on, Will was no longer a “step” anything. “We can open a liminal door from there.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Càel. The hands holding my mother were painted with blood again, and from the set of his mouth he was feeling as hungry as I was. I’d resisted the urge to lean down and lap at Suraziel’s wounds. I could hold out a little bit longer before giving in to the thirst scorching the back of my throat.
I let Will lead us up the sweeping stairs to the third floor of the manor, where the hallways were strangely dark despite the pristine whiteness of the place. Percival’s study was like a caricature of masculinity: mahogany desk and shelves over a dark Oriental carpet and the scent of tobacco lingering in the air.
My stomach lurched at the sight of a stuffed moonspawn head mounted on the wall behind his desk, still in its wolf form, like that made it any more civilized.
It was hard to believe I’d considered my kind to be morally superior only months ago. That was a person hanging on his wall. Probably a person who’d mauled someone else to death in the throes of lunacy, but still.
Càel paused outside a glass case. Percival’s war-chain hung inside it on metal prongs, displaying the countless vampire fangs like a trophy. He shifted my mom’s weight so he was holding her with one arm and punched through the glass to take the chain from its stand. “I don’t think slayerkind has any need for this,” he said, and I shook my head.
The liminal door was quiet, a large, rounded iron arch set against the far wall. Runes made of onyx and bone lined the frame.
Will and I eased Suraziel into a chair. The incubus’ blue-brown skin looked pallid after the blood loss, and I caught myself unconsciously licking my lips at the sight of his wound.
God, I was depraved.
“How do we wake this thing up?” I asked. “Do you even know where Heartfall is?”
I glanced at Will. He was holding it together against the shock, but soon the toll would catch up with him. He’d just watched a vampire rip off his father’s head, after said father had tried to sacrifice his stepsister.
“Yeah.” He started searching the top of Percival’s desk, scattering pens, papers, and tossing a massive crystal paperweight to the floor before coming up with a plain silver dagger. “A bit of blood should do it.”
Something glinted gold among the things on the desk. I frowned, reached into the mess, and held up a little baggie of golden dust.
Everyone who was conscious stared at it. “Why does Percival have pixie dust?” I asked, turning the baggie. Bits of teal and lavender glinted among the gold. Càel’s blue eyes met mine from across the room, his brow creasing.
“Just take it,” Will said, digging the knife into his palm and swiping it over the archway. “We’ll figure it out later. Sura’s dying.”
The scent of ozone filled the air as the archway flickered to life, sparkling with pale light at the edges. A tiny black dot appeared in the center, growing wider until it expanded to fill the entire archway.
I shoved the baggie of dust in my pocket and helped him lift Suraziel. “Take her first, Càel,” I said.
He gave me a burning look, pausing outside the liminal door. “You’d better be on my heels, shíorghrá. Don’t make me come back through for you.”
Oh, boy. After offering myself up to Sitri, there was going to be a whole lot of overprotective testosterone floating around for a while. “I’m right behind you, promise.”
As soon as Càel and Mom disappeared through the door, Will tugged us forward, and we stepped through what looked like a pitch-black veil. Liminal doors were one of slayerkind’s greatest achievements, melding Nephilim technology with the Dread Mothers’ magic to create a door that traversed space as easily as a demon could.
So when the veil lifted, a
second later, we’d taken one step and traversed three hundred miles.
Suraziel groaned between us. “Is that a castle?”
“That’s Heartfall.” Will pulled Suraziel’s arm more securely around his neck. We’d walked out through an archway similar to the one in Percival’s office, but the exit was set in the flagstone wall of a courtyard.
Heartfall was a castle. A full-on, turrets and towers, creepy crenellations and gargoyles, honest-to-God castle rising out of the side of a mountain. As we watched, lightning flashed overhead, temporarily dispelling the darkness of night.
“I hope that’s not an omen,” I groaned, and we hauled Suraziel through the courtyard to the front doors.
Càel hammered the door with his fist, the string of fangs rattling in his grip. The door swung open a second later, and all I saw at first was a rack of curling horns and eyes flashing yellow against a backdrop of candlelight.
“Who knocks on the doors of Heartfall at this hour?” the infernal Legionnaire boomed, filling the doorway with his huge bulk. Hellfire burst into life behind those eyes. Were all humanoid demons that shredded? He and Suraziel could’ve had an ab-off and it would’ve been a close call.
A fraught silence followed, then the Legionnaire stepped outside, holding the door open. “Just kidding,” he said. His voice was still deep, but he sounded sarcastic, not angry. “Sometimes I need to liven up my duties, you know?”
The hellfire died down, and his gaze landed on Suraziel, hanging limply between Will and me. Silver chains strung around his horns shimmered as he jerked his head, motioning us inside. “Blessed iron, huh? Looks like you all had a rough night.”
“Are you the Paladin?” I blurted out. I was under the impression the current Paladin was a geriatric slayer, but I’d been wrong before-
“Arkomoch, are you going to invite our guests inside- oh, my.” A wizened man with horn-rimmed glasses and a clock of white hair came to the door. My first wild thought was that he was somebody’s grandfather, but magic shimmered around his hands, and every inch of skin on his hands and exposed forearms was covered in thick, black tattoos.
