by Ann Aguirre
Belatedly I realized I could find out by stepping on some loose gravel. When my footfall came whisper soft, I had my answer. I was too drained to devise a plan, so I just trudged after Booke. At the moment I didn’t know what spells he had left in his arsenal, but as we drew closer, I tapped him on the shoulder.
“Strategy? You’ve got the damage portfolio.”
“See if you can free Kel while I deal with the Nephilim. We can’t risk him killing your friend. He may have orders to that effect.”
Given what I knew of Barachiel, that seemed likely. I wished I could fuel up on magick as I had done in Sheol, but here and now I was weak, wounded, and . . . human. So I had to solve this problem with my brain; too bad it was muzzy and felt like a melon atop my shoulders. Still, I applied myself to the problem. Coming around the last curve in the tunnel, I searched my memory for any useful details about the setup; there had been magickal restraints on Kel—
When I hit the kill site, my feet skidded in the smoldering blood still oozing from the first hellhound. The soles of my shoes smoked, and Booke lifted me away. I was surprised at his strength, though maybe I shouldn’t be. Trapped in the ghost cottage, he must’ve done a basic workout in order to keep fit and sane. I clutched his shoulder as he set me on my feet on the other side of the corpse, wishing I could just dump this problem on his shoulders while I passed out. But that had never been my style, plus this was a two-person job.
Kill the Nephilim. Rescue Kel. Not necessarily in that order.
Free at Last
The Nephilim didn’t look like Kel. I didn’t know why I expected he would, but when I crept around to the side, I saw that he looked more like a normal human male, except for the gleaming silver blade in his hand. His expression, however, said he reveled in the cruelties he inflicted on his victim. There was nothing angelic about his demeanor at all. Privately I marveled that Barachiel—and others—had managed to construct this elaborate fiction, maintain it over eons.
When I got into position, I signaled Booke. Worry bubbled in my stomach, making me feel nauseous, or maybe it was a resurgence of the illness that had plagued me earlier. It wouldn’t shock me to learn I’d developed an ulcer. I wished I could be the one taking on the enemy, but between the Glock and his foci, the Englishman was far better suited to the task, especially since I was injured and still bleeding. Fortunately, the torturer didn’t possess the same sense of smell as the Rottweilers.
“You look bored,” Booke said, and the half demon spun. I wouldn’t call them Nephilim anymore, now that I knew the truth.
That was my cue. I crawled forward, using the edge of the stone table as cover. With preternatural speed, the demon lunged at Booke, who fired off a round. It pinged into the rock and ricocheted; I couldn’t watch the fight any longer. I had to find some way to free Kel. Bonds of shimmering energy coiled around his wrists and ankles, but I couldn’t find a genesis point on top of the table. From what I knew, all energy required a source, or continuous concentration. Since the half demon was trying to choke Booke at the moment, he couldn’t be the source. Which meant something near the table was keeping Kel in check.
Booke slammed a statuette to the ground and a riot of dark energy blossomed up. It wrapped around him like a cloak, lending him a terrifying aspect, as if he’d become death itself. Even the half demon paused his assault. Then he pressed, only to find that the black-violet tendrils lashed at him like snakes, and when they struck, they pulsed with a paler power, as if siphoning out his life force. The torturer scrambled back, seeing that he couldn’t complete a direct attack.
“You cannot defeat me,” he told Booke. “I am Nephilim. I am Ahadiel, enforcer of divine will.”
By his tone, he actually believed that. Poor bastard. They’d told Kel that he was God’s Hand, and that all the bad shit they made him do was ordered by a higher power. Now I knew that wasn’t true. And when he realized that, I didn’t know how he could live with it. He didn’t kill easily or lightly; each death weighed on him, but at least before he had the comfort of believing it was for the greater good.
“Your handlers had a sense of humor,” Booke responded, his tone gentle.
“You mock heaven itself.”
“No, I don’t.” He raised the Glock and fired, the dark energy still whirling about him. “And you’ve weakened. The reason that’s so interesting? The spell I used is a demon drain.”
“That’s not true.” Shock and horror colored the words. “I am Nephilim.”
“So they’ve told you.” Booke sounded sympathetic.
I dropped to my knees, knowing how much my thigh would hurt if the numbing powder wore off. Possibly my movements were damaging my leg even more, but I had to get Kel off this table, and if the torturer noticed somebody coming in the back way, no telling what he’d do. Right now, Booke had him off guard, and that was the best-case scenario. The wizard was smart as hell; maybe only he could provoke an enemy to chat during a fight.
Angling my head, I peered beneath the table. Bingo. There were four gems inset into the stone, reminiscent of the soulstones that powered the gate between earth and Sheol. Hoping they weren’t full of somebody’s spirit, I took a deep breath and grabbed the one closest to me. Pain howled through me like a banshee’s wail, hot and cold at once, so my palm felt as if it was simultaneously smoldering and flash freezing. My nerve endings couldn’t process the overwhelming stimuli, so they shut down, leaving me with a numb right hand—and the jewel didn’t budge. I pulled with dead fingers, agony driving up my forearm toward my elbow. Only death and demon magick tended to be that strong. Please don’t let these be soulstones. If the paralysis reached my lungs, my heart, my brain, well, it was over. But I’d already started, so there was no way out but through. I wouldn’t let Kel down.
Maybe there’s a trick to it. I pushed and pulled, twisted, until I heard a click, and the crystal dropped into my hand. Inert. With trembling fingers, I set it down. Three more to go. Maybe setting a circle for protection would’ve helped, but I didn’t have witch magick, and the touch hadn’t responded; there was no emotional charge in these gems, just pure, crackling power. It’s too late to draw a demon magick circle.
I knee-walked to the second spot. Booke was cursing, so I guessed the fight was back on; Ahadiel had chosen to disbelieve the truth, but the demon-drain spell was making it hard for him to melee. And that gave Booke a fighting chance—strategy, not brute strength, would carry the day.
This time, I knew how to remove the gem, and my hand was already dead, so I didn’t feel much new pain, though the old anguish was busy chewing my biceps, up toward my shoulder. It felt as if there were tiny teeth savaging their way through tendon and muscle. Pretty soon, my arm would hang limp at my side, and I’d be unable to use it, except as a club.
Two more.
I couldn’t manipulate my right hand well enough to remove the jewel so I used my left, and the pain came at me fresh. This time, I wasn’t strong enough to stop the scream. It bubbled up from my throat, past my lips, into a pathetic sound that roused an answering howl from Butch, who was still cowering in my bag. The sounds echoed in the chamber, ringing off the walls. No hope he didn’t hear.
“Is someone else here?” Ahadiel demanded.
“No,” Booke said quickly. “Let’s finish this.”
“I heard a woman. Where is she?” He didn’t wait for a reply.
Instead I heard footsteps cracking closer and closer to where I fumbled with the third stone. As Ahadiel peered under the table, it dropped into my hand, and a shot rang out. The half demon toppled forward, cracking his head on the rock. The back of his head oozed blood, then Booke limped into sight. His cheekbone was bruised, his lip split and puffy, and I could see the marks from where he’d been throttled. The demon-drain spell must’ve worn off, giving Ahadiel the opportunity to fight.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“He very nearly stabbed me in the kidney. Bloody fast, that one. But I dropped a spell just in time. A
re you almost done?”
“Almost,” I said.
Only one left.
Booke bent to investigate the body. “He’s not dead, just incapacitated.”
“I’ll hurry.”
My left hand was clumsy, fingers numb, but I forced them to fasten around the final gem. It took me four tries to manage the special push and twist to disengage the connection. The pain in my right side had reached the juncture between neck and shoulder; on my left, it was at my elbow. I didn’t have long left. Moments, maybe just seconds. Breath felt more labored each time I pulled it into my sluggish lungs.
“The bindings have dissipated. He’s not responding, though. We’ll have to—” His words choked off, presumably because Kel had his hands on Booke’s throat.
Crawling out from under the stone table took all my coordination, given that I could hardly feel my arms, and I had pain shooting into my spine. My voice came out hoarse. “Kel, we’re here to help. Let go.”
His icy eyes opened and cut to me. On waking to find himself freed, he’d lashed out at his tormenters instinctively; I had some experience with his tendency to do that. He breathed once, twice, and then opened his hands. I put my dead fingers over his, hoping it was a comforting touch, as I couldn’t feel it. So much of my body was numb at the moment. That couldn’t be good.
Booke staggered back a few steps. Another wave of agony pulsed through me, and my vision darkened at the edges. It was all I could do to gasp, “Can you remove a . . . curse? If not . . . I think I might . . . die.”
His mouth dropped open, but he didn’t ask questions. Booke dug into his coat as I reeled backward. Kel’s hands steadied me against the stone table. He was horribly wounded yet he could still manage to be gentle; I felt it in the careful press of his palms to the small of my back, one of the few spots on my body that retained any feeling. Booke crushed the statuette at my feet, and I received immediate relief. As the attacking magick drained away, I regained more motor control.
“What happened?” he demanded, once he could see I was breathing easier.
“I think it was some kind of magickal trap. Like a poison, kind of. There’s one that shuts down your bodily systems one by one, inducing paralysis until your lungs don’t work anymore.” I shrugged. “That’s what it felt like anyway.”
Booke glared at me with startling ferocity, the first time I’d ever seen him angry. “Corine, that’s absurd. You shouldn’t have continued. I could’ve—”
“How many curse removals did you have in your bag?”
He paused. “Just the one.”
“Exactly. So once I started, if I didn’t finish, we couldn’t have freed Kel without one of us dying. I had to gamble.”
“You should not have taken such a risk for me,” Kel said softly.
He wore his sorrow and disillusionment nakedly, as visible as his tattoos. Though he was still big and powerful-looking, he also carried despair with him, worn like a dark cloak. His eyes gleamed with powerful regret, a millennia of misdeeds weighing on him like gravestones. Now he must live with the knowledge that he’d done everything for Barachiel’s agenda, not a higher power.
“You’re my friend. Of course I should.”
He shook his head. “When I confronted Barachiel with the truth, he laughed, Corine. He laughed. I tried to fight him . . . and could not. I am bound to serve him, bound to suffer his punishments, for no purpose greater than his whim. And I begin to think he is truly mad.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” I said.
Barachiel hadn’t struck me as possessing an excess of sanity anyway. Plus, power had a track record of sending people around the bend. The more they had, the more they wanted, until they reached critical mass, where nothing in the world could content them. I feared Barachiel had long since reached that tipping point.
The half demon stirred at our feet. A bullet in the brain had only slowed him down, not neutralized him. Given what I’d seen my friend endure, I had no idea how to take this monster out. To make matters worse, I felt sorry for Ahadiel, as he was trapped, just like Kel. If only there was some way to break Barachiel’s hold . . .
Kel’s features hardened. “Take his head. It’s the only way.”
I didn’t blame him for that response. The wounds Ahadiel had inflicted were still raw and numerous, and since they had been carved with one of those special silver knives, they took longer to heal. The agony must be excruciating.
But Booke paled, his face going green at the prospect of decapitating a humanoid. I guessed it was different with hellhounds. And I didn’t look forward to doing that job either. Kel seemed to read our reluctance.
“Help me up. If you cannot, I will. It must be done.”
I offered him my hand, as did Booke, and together we towed him to his feet. He rocked a little but got his balance, and then he took the knife from the other half demon. I could see it required all his energy, but he bent to do the job. He sawed through the neck while the half demon squirmed on the ground, moaning. Butch whimpered inside my bag. Poor dog. I know just how you feel.
When I realized how Kel intended to finish the job, I grimaced and turned my face away. But I still heard the wet, squelching pop of a head being torn away via brute strength. Some horrific part of me had to see, had to know, so I glanced back, to find Kel standing with bloody hands, a hopeless expression on his face. His tatts glimmered with faint, arcane light, a sign of magick being expended, or strong emotion. In this case, I suspected it was both.
The dead half demon on the ground crumbled from fresh corpse to dry remains and then down into dust. I figured once the magick keeping him alive went away, age and physics took over. Kel raked his boot through the ashes, head bowed. I could only imagine what must be running through his mind.
“Are you good to go?” I asked.
That wasn’t what I wanted to know. I wanted to ask if he was all right—and yet I already knew the answer. He wasn’t—not even close—and his problems weren’t physical. Kel had just discovered that his whole life was a lie, and that those he trusted had used him for evil. I stumbled away from the table, hating the pain I saw in him, but unable to impact it.
“I can walk,” Kel said.
As for me, I needed Booke’s shoulder because the charm he’d used to remove all magickal effects from me also negated the numbing powder he’d used on my thigh. So while my arms and shoulders were all right again, my leg hurt like a bitch. He guided me carefully out through the tunnels, though I rested periodically, fighting the urge to pain-vomit. Eventually we made it to the car, so I handed him the keys.
“I can’t. I think we need to find a hospital.”
“I could not agree more,” Booke said.
He held the seat so I could tumble into the back of the Pinto. Kel offered, but he was hurt worse than me; I feared the wrong angle would make his intestines fall out. He just needed a place to sleep for three days. My leg would grow putrid if I tried the same treatment. I angled to the side to stretch my thigh, but it hurt so much, a fierce throbbing deep in the muscle.
“I’ll probably be unconscious by the time we get to the hospital,” Kel said softly. “So I’ll say it now. Thank you. Nobody’s ever come for me before.”
Gods, that just broke my heart. By the way he cleared his throat and murmured a choked You’re welcome, Booke felt the same way. To cover his reaction, he started the car, then belted in.
I dug into my bag to get my phone. A few clicks and then: “This is the nearest hospital, and I’ve mapped the route for you.” I handed it to Booke.
“Hang on, Corine. Everything will be all right.”
Emergency Services
That was all I knew for a little while. I blacked out in the car and woke to Booke dragging me out of the Pinto. He’d parked the car askew at the Emergency entrance. I didn’t blame him, as two of his passengers had passed out.
As I pulled myself onto the pavement, I said, “Go park the car. We can’t let them see Kel. They’ll want to admit
him too, and we’re gonna have a hard enough time explaining my wounds. Let’s not add his fast healing to the mix.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded, limping toward the doors, which slid open at my approach. Fortunately, an orderly was passing with a wheelchair when I stumbled in, and he rushed forward to help me. I sank down into the seat, huffing out a pained sigh. He pushed me toward the front desk.
“Animal attack?” he asked.
“Yes, a big dog.”
“Surely you didn’t drive yourself to the ER? Why didn’t you call 911?”
Here we go, I thought. Now I get to tell the story in a way that makes sense . . . and doesn’t include demons.
“No. I was out hiking with a friend, no emergency response where we were. We paused to eat, and some wild dogs came after us. They must’ve been hungry.”
“Probably. How many were there?”
“Three. All Rottweilers.” That much was true.
“Jesus. Somebody running a fight ring probably. How many of them got at you?”
“Just one. My friend managed to kill the others.”
“Shit, did the biter get away?”
I had no idea why that mattered. “No, we got that one too, eventually. But not before it chewed the hell out of my thigh.”
“Did you bring the body with you?”
“Uh, what? No.”
“Your friend will need to go back out there. We can’t be sure if you need the rabies vaccine until we test the animal.”
Oh, crap. I never even thought of that. “Isn’t that like sixteen horrible shots in the stomach?”
He laughed. “These days, it’s like a flu shot, and you get it in the arm. But you’ll need multiple vaccines over a few weeks to complete the course.”
That was better than a needle in the gut. “When Booke gets in here, I’ll tell him to drive back out there. Hopefully the carcasses are still there.”
“Don’t leave it long, or other predators may carry off the remains.”
