by Becca Blake
He appeared behind me and waited until I spun around to attack before shifting away again. Taunting me. Playing with me, just as he had with the others.
My next attempt ended in his tail swatting me aside, as though I were nothing more than an irritating housefly.
He shifted across the warehouse, then returned to me.
“Looks like your time’s up.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Even after getting the amulet to work, we’d lost. We had our chance, and I blew it. We would all die here because of my failure.
“I don’t think I’ll kill you just yet,” Raxael said. “Let’s make this more interesting.”
He plane-shifted to Orion and pressed the edge against the back of his neck.
“Which of them should I kill first?”
Raxael appeared again behind Celia, who lay on the ground unconscious. The heat from his arm glowed red on her face, but he didn’t touch her.
I kept my mouth shut and did my best not to give him a reaction. We may have lost, but that didn’t mean I had to play along and give him the satisfaction he craved.
He let her go and moved to Ayla next. She was still conscious, still breathing heavily as she leaned back against the wall.
“This one, I can’t seem to figure out.”
She shrank away from him as he reached for her, and her blue eyes pleaded for help I couldn’t give. Over the years, we’d been on so many hunts that I’d been sure would end in our deaths. I always knew, going into every fight, that it could be our last, and this one had been no different.
I’d already suffered through losing Ayla once. She was more than my partner out in the field—she was my closest friend.
Orion was my only family.
Even Celia, who I hardly knew, had shown herself to be a fierce ally.
Moments before, I’d been ready to accept that we wouldn’t make it out alive this time. But now, as Raxael tormented me, plane-shifting around the sanctuary from one of my downed allies to the next, only one thought consumed me: I want them to live.
I wanted all of us to live, and I wanted to win.
I wouldn’t die here. Not like this.
And neither would my friends.
All the anger surged through me once more, and something powerful spread through my veins. Earlier, my pathetic attempt at magic had been nothing but sparks. This time, it came with an unfamiliar rush of strength.
This wasn’t my own magic. It was something else. Something that ran far deeper within me.
As I gripped my sword, I felt my bond with it return, stronger than it had ever been before. Somehow, as though it had a mind of its own, it wanted to strike down Raxael as badly as I did. Its thoughts rang through my head in a distorted version of my own voice.
Kill him.
“Leave them alone.” As I spoke, my words echoed the same way, and I had no idea if the distortion was only in my mind. “Enough of the games.”
Raxael rose slowly, still standing over Ayla on the balcony. When he spun around to face me, all of his malice spread across his face in a sadistic grin. Instead of shifting, he took slow steps in my direction, stalking toward me from above.
“I’m the one who planned all of this,” I said. “You want me? Come get me.”
When he vanished this time, I was ready for him.
I gave in to the power that echoed through my veins, and the energy I’d been building exploded. Every soul that Maki had claimed in his sacrifice cried out through me as green flames coated my sword in fire and fury.
The power consumed me as I carved my blade through the air, putting everything I had into the movement. My life depended on it. My friends’ lives depended on it.
The fate of humanity depended on it.
The magic swirled around me in a fiery tornado. I spun faster than I had ever been capable of moving, pulled by the sword in my hand and the energy it channeled.
It wasn’t just my rage that fueled me this time. It was a desperation unlike anything I’d ever felt before—a desperation for a future I wanted so badly to believe in. For myself, for my friends. For a world freed of the Council’s corruption and their deals with the devil.
It was hope.
Guided by our blood magic connection, my blade connected with Raxael at the exact moment he materialized, and the flame that surrounded me engulfed him.
I pulled my arms back and thrust my sword again, this time into his chest.
The demon lord’s wide green eyes were full of hatred and rage and a hint of something that looked like fear.
“Do you think my kin will allow this insult?” He spat. “You’ve declared war on the entire infernal plane. You—”
“You’re going to die,” I said, my voice strangely calm in the face of his threats.
With a twist of my sword, I drove the blade in deeper. The fire claimed Raxael, until the only noise that came from his throat was a hopeless gurgle, and his glowing eyes faded to a cold, empty black.
I pulled my sword free and stumbled away. The green flame retreated back into the amulet around my neck. I allowed myself to breathe as I stared warily at the heap of charred flesh at my feet.
Was it really over?
For a long while, I stood over him, waiting for him to recover, to shift away and murder someone I loved, to prove that this victory was just as impossible as everyone told me it would be.
None of that happened.
I nudged the corpse with the toe of my boot. It didn’t move. The tense stillness in the aftermath of the battle settled as the truth sank in: the demon lord Raxael was dead. I breathed out a relieved sigh, and even the air in the room seemed to sigh along with me.
A deep groan on the other side of the room cut short the thrill of victory with a reminder that though we won the fight, this wasn’t over yet.
I rushed over to Orion and fell beside him, suppressing a gag as I took a closer look at his shoulder. Part of his jacket had melted into his skin. From what I could tell, the heat from Raxael’s arm had sealed the wound, though I withdrew a little at the sight of it.
“Don’t get all squeamish on me now.” He attempted a chuckle, but it came out as more of a pained gasp.
“Stay still,” I said, shushing him. “You’ll be alright.”
“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that.”
I used my sword to cut free a strip of leather from his ruined jacket and handed it to him. “Bite down. This won’t be fun.”
He bit back his scream as I tore the jacket away. Pieces of skin pulled free along with the jacket, and blood oozed from the wound.
I tore away his t-shirt to get a better look. Angry red lines of corruption lurked just beneath the surface of his skin, spreading like tree branches from the point of impact. The wound itself was a mixture of charred black chunks and yellow bits of skin. It looked like an old, festering infection that had been left alone far too long.
“I’ve had worse,” Orion said.
“Oh, really?” I raised a brow. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
“Yeah, maybe not.” He winced. “Go check on the others. I’ll be fine here.”
While I’d been taking care of Orion, Ayla had managed to drag herself downstairs to Celia. I jogged over to join them. Celia still hadn’t moved, and she showed no signs of waking up.
I gave Ayla a questioning look, and she pressed two fingers against the side of Celia’s neck.
“She’s alive,” she said, her voice hoarse. “She’ll be okay.”
I knelt down to examine her injuries more closely. Raxael hadn’t slashed any major arteries or made any deep cuts, and though she had a broken wrist and a nasty burn, none of her injuries looked life-threatening.
He really had just been toying with us.
“She must have passed out when she fell,” I said, checking
her head. “We’ll see how she is when she wakes up.”
“Do you have any healing herbs?” Ayla asked.
“Not enough for all of us. Besides, her wounds are all infernal. What about you? How are you doing?”
“Don’t worry about me. Aside from still feeling like death from that injection, I’m surprisingly doing alright. He wasn’t all that focused on me.”
“Good,” I said. “I’ll go get a first aid kit, so we can at least get them bandaged up.”
When I returned, Orion had joined the others. I handed Ayla the kit and sat down beside him.
“It’s really over,” I whispered.
“Yeah. You did it,” he said. Not even the pain could stop his grin. “Owen would be proud.”
Despite everything that had happened, the mention of my father brought a smile to my face.
A loud hissing noise coming from behind us interrupted our moment of peace. Black tendrils snaked out from Raxael’s limp form. As they spread across the floor, the concrete cracked beneath them, caving in toward the demon lord.
“Get down!” Ayla yelled.
I turned around to shield Orion as a pulse of black smoke and green light boomed through the warehouse. The windows shattered, and the ground shook like an earthquake beneath us.
There was a long stretch of silence, but I didn’t dare move. As quickly as the air exploded outward, it sucked back in, as though the world had exhaled and was now drawing in another breath.
With a nauseating squelch, Raxael’s corpse began to shrink in on itself. Folds of flesh converged and fused together like a vile imitation of a child rolling Play-Doh into a ball.
When everything stilled, only a strange black orb, covered in spikes like those on Raxael’s body, remained at the center of the cracked floor.
My curiosity got the better of me, and I started walking toward the orb. It was about the size of a baseball, textured with the rough exterior of Raxael’s form, and it pulsed like a beating heart. Lines of green glowed beneath the surface, as though bright veins ran through it.
Orion called out for me to stop, but I ignored him. I needed to know what it was.
Whispers followed me to the orb, drowning out his warning. The closer I got, the louder the whispers became, until they were an intense, cacophonous presence buzzing in my ear, chanting in time with the pulsing of the orb. I couldn’t make out any human words from the guttural, demonic whispers in my ears, but I knew the orb was calling me somehow.
I continued forward, drawn in by the whispers.
What did they want?
Riley Collins.
My name broke through the whispers as I stood before the orb. They were calling out to me directly now, chanting my name.
They needed my help.
And I needed them.
I had to get closer—nothing else mattered. The sound of my own name thrummed in my ears as I leaned down, reaching out my hands for the orb.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Don’t touch it!”
Orion’s voice rang out in my ears, but I couldn’t stop. Just as my fingers hovered above it, only a few inches away now, someone slammed into my side and knocked me over.
I blinked back groggy confusion. The room spun like I’d just been through a night of heavy drinking, and I couldn’t quite focus on anything.
Orion dropped what was left of his tattered leather jacket over the orb, then knelt down beside me. He dragged in heavy breaths.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Shame filled me as he waited for my response. With the wound on his shoulder, he was in no condition to tackle me, but he had done it anyway.
Why had I tried to touch an unknown demonic artifact? I knew better than that.
“Riley?” Orion pressed when I didn’t respond.
“I’m fine,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “What was that?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said.
“It was like you were in a trance,” Ayla said.
I shook my head to clear away the last of the strange whispers. With the orb hidden, they were weaker than they had been, but they still echoed faintly through the dark corners of my mind.
“I couldn’t help it. It’s like it was calling to me,” I said.
Orion and Ayla exchanged a worried glance.
“What was it saying?” she asked.
“Just my name.”
“A talking fleshy ball that tries to make you touch it,” Ayla muttered. “That’s not creepy at all.”
“What should we do with it?” I asked.
“Normally I’d say we should take it to Ed Moran, but I’m not sure we’ll have that option,” Orion said.
“Unless we go back to Haygrove.”
The others looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
“We killed a demon lord, and that orb is proof of it. If we go back to Haygrove, we might be able to convince the Council that we can kill the rest.”
“There’s no way we can convince Marcus to back down.”
Celia’s voice surprised me. I wasn’t sure when she woke up, or how long she’d been listening.
“I agree,” Orion said.
“Well, if not the Council, then we can convince everyone else,” I said.
Celia shook her head. “They’ll never let us get that close.”
“Then, we’ll figure something out. We need Ed’s expertise.”
“One thing at a time,” Orion said. “We can figure out what to do about the Council later. We need to get Celia to a hospital first.”
“Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. What about you?” She gestured to his injury.
He grimaced as he attempted to move his shoulder again. “I’m not sure civilian doctors will be much help.”
“They’re better than nothing,” Ayla said. “That’s an infernal wound. You can’t just leave it alone.”
“I’m aware,” he said, shooting her a glare out of the corner of his eyes. “But unless your ability to use magic came back—”
“Let me try,” I said. “I defeated Raxael with magic.”
I rested my fingertips gently on Orion’s skin, as close to the wound as I dared. I’d never used healing magic before, but Ayla made it seem straightforward enough.
Closing my eyes, I thought about my relationship with Orion—all the times he’d been there for me as a child and as an adult, the way I saw him as a second father. I focused on the love I had for him, my only remaining family.
Nothing happened.
When I tried to search for the threads of my magic, I found nothing.
I shook my head. “It’s gone.”
“Don’t worry,” Orion said. “Once our magic returns, you’ll be able to heal me.”
“If our magic returns,” Ayla said.
“What about Celia?” I asked. “She wasn’t injected with that magic suppressing crap.”
“You’re asking me to do healing magic?” she asked, startled. “That’s dark magic.”
“Much as I’d love to have this argument again, I’m feeling like I just got dragged through the infernal plane.” Ayla leaned to the side and retched as another fit of sickness took her. When she finished, she wiped her mouth. “Let me know when you figure out what’s next for us.”
“So, there’s an us now?” I asked. “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with Arbiter business.”
“Well, I guess you guys aren’t Arbiters anymore, are you?” Ayla’s smile didn’t touch her eyes. Given how sick she was, she’d pushed herself way too hard.
Hell, we all had.
“Do you need help getting out to the car so you can rest?” I asked.
“I can handle it.”
We watched her shuffle outside, too stubborn to accept the help she needed.
“I’m worried about her,” Orion said.
“We’re just lucky to be alive. This could have been much worse,” Celia said.
“Yeah,” I said, glancing over at Maki, face down in a pool of his own blood. It would have been so easy for the rest of us to end up the same way—dead and forgotten.
If I hadn’t killed him to power up the amulet, none of us would have made it out alive. I supposed that was the best justice I would get for all those he killed.
At least he deserved his fate.
Orion followed my gaze. “I wish he would have just told me what he was doing when he left Haygrove. Maybe things could have been different.”
“Would you have believed him?” I asked.
He considered that for a while, then sighed. “No, I guess not.”
“We should give him a proper funeral. Do the rites and everything,” I said. Whatever fate Jay Maki deserved now, he’d once been a different person, and Orion deserved to know he would be at peace in death.
“Yeah. You’re right.” He started walking over to Maki, but I held out my arm to stop him.
“Wait. Let me.”
“I can handle—”
“You’re hurt,” I said sharply. “We don’t know how badly. The fight’s over, so you can stop pushing yourself now. I’ve got this.”
For a moment, he looked as though he might argue. Instead, he laughed. “Since when do you give me orders?”
“Well, you’re not exactly my commanding officer anymore, are you?”
“No, I guess I’m not.”
Something dark flashed across his face, and I wondered if I pushed on that nerve too soon. It had been hard for me to give up the only life I’d ever known, but I could only imagine how hard it must have been for Orion. The Arbiters had been everything to him, and he’d given them so much of himself over the years.
At least we still had each other. We would get through this.
***
Setting up a funeral pyre proved more difficult than I expected. While I’d been talking with the others, it had been easy to feel like I made it out unscathed. All three of them were far worse off than me.
But the fight with Raxael had taken a lot more out of me than I realized. Now that the thrill of battle had worn off, my entire body ached with injuries I hadn’t even noticed. I found cuts and fresh bruises forming everywhere I looked.
