by Bella Klaus
We continued to Namara’s office and stood in full view of Hades’ lair. I turned to Coral and asked, “So, what happened after you escaped?”
She ran a trembling hand through her hair, her gaze darting to the fighting men. Her breaths turned shallow, and a tight fist of sympathy clenched at my heart. It was hard to concentrate on anything after discovering she’d been duped.
Coral clenched her teeth and inhaled a deep breath, looking like she was trying to gather her thoughts. “We all ran around the back of Kenwood House to Hampstead Lane and piled onto the 210, not knowing where we were going.”
Her eyes turned distant, and she shook her head as though remembering that harrowing night. “At the bus station in Finsbury Park, the lights flickered on and off, but the driver didn’t open the door.”
I leaned close, my eyes widening. “Was he a supernatural?”
“It was that bloody bastard.” Coral flung out an arm toward the fighting monarchs. “He introduced himself as Pluto, saying he was part of an undercover operation of demon hybrids Kresnik had attacked during the last war.”
My jaw clenched. At least that explained why Hades had disappeared, leaving the enforcers to find me in that broom closet. The bloody bastard was busy hijacking a bus.
After seeing Coral punch Kresnik with her flaming fists and his attempts to defend himself backfiring, I should have known Hades wouldn’t have left her alone.
Bitterness coated the back of my tongue. What if the daughter Kresnik was so desperate to find was Coral? By now, he would have worked out why he had been unable to hurt her and would be desperate to sever their connection. Maybe Kresnik wanted a chance to resurrect again, this time without it being tainted by her blood?
Coral’s shoulders sagged. “I’m so disgusted. With him. Myself. Grrr! You must think I’m such a gullible twat.”
I gave my head a vigorous shake. “You all ran for your lives from a madman who admitted to bringing us into existence to consume our magic. With no money and no contacts outside the Flame, I’d also welcome shelter from someone who had a grudge against Kresnik.”
A streak of movement flashed out of the corner of my eye, followed by a crash of what sounded like something heavy and made of glass. Hades roared a Latin obscenity that I didn’t care to translate.
“You look different.” I let the unspoken question hang in the air, mostly because I didn’t want to remind Coral of how she’d sold her youth to faeries in exchange for synthesized thrall.
She brought a hand to her cheek and sighed. “Pluto offered to restore my looks in exchange for three wild nights of passion.”
I winced at the memory of the thermos flask, hoping Namara had exaggerated about Hades’ true proportions. “Sorry.”
She shook her head. “I knew he was too good to be true.”
“How many nights do you have left?” I asked.
Coral dropped her gaze to her feet, and her face twisted into a scowl. “Today was supposed to be night six.”
Without meaning to, I clapped a hand over my mouth. “No!”
“Not anymore.” She bared her teeth in a snarl. “But what the hell are we going to do about breaking everyone out of Hell?”
I peered through the doorway, just as Valentine flew through the air, landing on a portrait of a shirtless Hades and the three-headed dog. Before his feet even hit the wood floor, he disappeared in a streak of movement.
“Maybe nothing for now,” I murmured. “If Hades is keeping you all safe and out of Kresnik’s hands, maybe that’s the best place right now.”
She reared back. “What?”
I pressed the heel of my hand into my sternum, just over where the needle had struck. “Trust me. The last thing any of us want is to encounter that monster.”
Coral flicked her head toward the office’s interior. “Why are they fighting? It looks personal.”
“Kresnik is claiming to have Valentine’s father’s soul,” I muttered. “Although I’m not sure why Hades isn’t just handing over the information.”
“Hades?”
“That’s what he told me to call him.”
“So, you know each other?” Her lips pursed, and the muscles of her face pinched as she folded her arms across her chest.
My skin tightened. This was the kind of look she gave me when she compared my situation with Valentine with the mistreatment she’d suffered at the hands of vampires.
“Look,” I said, trying not to bristle the way I did whenever she used that tone of voice. “They’re not fighting over me if that’s what you’re thinking. Those two have a lot of history—”
An alarm cut off my words, and Namara rushed through the door, jostling us aside.
“My lord,” she cried. “Theodore is at the wards, screaming at the enforcers to let him inside. He escaped Kresnik!”
Chapter Twenty-One
I stared at the screen, reeling at Theodore’s disheveled state. Since we’d last seen him while tied up in Ritual Room One, he had lost his wings and the use of his left arm. The limb hung loosely as he ran through the wooded areas of Richmond Park, startling joggers and making a herd of deer scatter through the trees.
Blood and burns coated his face, and his clothes had been reduced to tatters. Each time he disappeared from the range of a camera, another would pick up his movements. I scrubbed a hand over my face. It was a marvel that the demon was still able to move.
“Why didn’t he escape into Hell?” I asked.
“At this level of injury, weaker demons desperate to power up would strip him of his magic.”
When Theodore glanced at something over his shoulder and screamed, all thoughts of Hades’ intentions toward Coral faded to the background. “We need to bring him in through the wards.”
Valentine folded his arms over his chest. “What if he’s a Trojan horse?”
“Does it matter when Kresnik’s minions could descend at any minute?” Hades hissed. “We have enough supernaturals in Logris to deal with any traps.”
Coral stepped forward, clutching the edges of her dressing gown. “What’s going on?”
“Leave us.” Without looking at her, Hades flicked his wrist, making her disappear.
“Where did you put her?”
“Back in Hell with the others,” he muttered.
“But you said—”
“Silence,” he hissed.
I flinched at the harshness of his tone. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that he was a former Greek god, the Demon King, and the ruler of an entire faction of Hell.
Valentine bared his teeth and snarled, “Never address Miss Griffin with such disrespect.”
Hades stepped forward, closing the distance between himself and Valentine until they were a mere foot apart. “The level ten wards require the authorization of two monarchs. Accompany me to the dodecahedron and help me bring my man to safety.”
“It’s a trap,” said Valentine. “One tortured and injured demon cannot break out of a stronghold of fire users unless they allowed him to escape.”
I bit down on my bottom lip and swallowed. Valentine had a point, but some demons were extremely powerful. What if Theodore had been enduring the torture and biding his time until Kresnik was distracted? Hades was also right. Between all the monarchs of the Supernatural Council, the enforcers, and other powerful beings, they could disable a trap if it really existed.
Hades clenched his fists. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Valentine raised his chin, fixing Hades with a cold stare. “You will confirm my father’s location in Hell or otherwise, or find another monarch to convince to open the wards.”
My gaze darted from the screen to the two kings, who glared at each other with a hatred that burned hotter than the fireplace. If another fight broke out and no one interrupted it, I had no idea who would win.
Hades was several times Valentine’s age—tens of thousands of years old, based on the amount of time Prometheus spent chained to that rock. He had hellfire, ancient magic, a
rtifacts, and could access the power of the Fifth Faction.
Valentine had fought evenly with Kresnik and had vast reserves of power. While he couldn’t teleport like Hades, he moved faster and appeared to be physically stronger. But his body wasn’t immortal. Nor was it indestructible.
I rubbed my dry throat, hoping they were just posturing and I was wrong about the fight. They were both in the wrong. Valentine needed to let Theodore inside, but Hades also needed to stop withholding information on the location of King Antonius.
“The longer you two stand there glaring at each other, the more chance Theodore will get recaptured by Kresnik,” I said.
Neither man turned in my direction. The fire behind them cracked and popped, seeming to grow brighter with the intensity of their anger.
“Hades, please pull up your roster and see if King Antonius is in Hell,” I asked.
“Denied,” he growled.
I folded my arms across my chest and frowned. “Why not?”
Hades’ nostrils flared, and the corner of his lip curled into a sneer. “The Vampire King has taken something that’s rightfully mine.”
“Miss Griffin belongs to me.” Valentine pounded his chest.
There was no love in his words or any trace of the romantic symbolism people used when they talked about belonging to each other. Valentine delivered that sentence with the entitlement of a person talking about an object they had purchased.
Despite the urgency of the situation, despite the sight of Theodore stumbling through the woods of Richmond Park, desperately trying to reach the sanctuary of Logris, I clutched at my heart and grimaced. At least Hades made a pretense of caring. No matter how many times I reminded myself that Valentine’s soul was damaged, hearing such impersonal words from his lips stung.
Hades rolled his eyes. “All you see is a phoenix, and you can’t even remember the beautiful young woman beneath the fiery exterior. In the time you were preternatural, Mera and I formed a connection that went soul-deep. She’s become my beloved, my Innamorata.”
“Transparent lies,” Valentine snarled.
I clenched my teeth, holding back a barrage of insults. Valentine had lost his soul nucleus, not his sanity or his sight. Who did Hades think he was trying to fool?
“While you two are posturing, Kresnik is seconds away from capturing Theodore,” I snapped. “This time, Kresnik will crack that poor demon and force him to locate his immortal body. Is that what you want?”
“No,” they both growled.
Nodding, I exhaled a long breath. “Please, form a truce until you’ve destroyed Kresnik. After that, you can both spend an eternity bickering.”
Hades turned his gaze toward me and sniffed. “What will you give me in return?”
“I won’t burn you into ash for fabricating a nonexistent relationship. I also won’t cleave you in half for sleeping with my sister.”
His eyes sparkled. “Do I sense a little jealousy?”
“Will you form this truce or not?” I growled.
With a huff, Hades stretched out a hand and snatched out a yellowing scroll from thin air. “Very well.” He shook it out, letting it roll to the ground. His gaze finally left Valentine’s, and he scanned the contents of the ancient parchment. “King Antonius arrived at the banks of the River Styx in 1517 but remained for five minutes before his soul was recalled.”
“Meaning?” Valentine asked.
The scroll vanished, and Hades turned his gaze to me. “Some supernaturals reach the shores of the river while they’re at the brink of death. If a Healer returns them to life before their soul boards the ferry, they may be recalled.”
“Then what happened to my father’s soul?” Valentine asked.
Hades brushed an imaginary speck of lint from his shoulder. “In this case, Kresnik or a minion with the ability to enter realms retrieved the soul of King Antonius.”
My thoughts darted to Hades’ limousine driver. How had the water nymphs referred to her? “Will Karen remember seeing him?”
“Kharon never forgets a soul,” Hades drawled.
“Who is Karen?” Valentine asked.
Hades turned his attention to Valentine. “My ferryman, who is currently occupying the body of a female Neutral. In between bounty hunting expeditions, he ferries my lovers around London. I’ve confirmed that your father didn’t make it to Hell, now you return the favor and authorize the opening of the wards.”
Valentine inclined his head and tucked me under his arm. “Let’s go.”
Hades led us through his cheval mirror into a control room that resembled the inside of a gamer’s dice. The floor was a ten-foot-wide pentagon with identically sized screens forming walls that sloped up to a pointed ceiling. Each panel, including the one on the floor, depicted part of Logris’s surroundings, from the overcast sky to the network of human tunnels and sewers that ran beneath Richmond Park.
I chewed the inside of my cheek, waiting for Hades to object to my presence after the callous way he had dismissed Coral, but all he did was sweep his arm toward a pentagram down on the left.
Dogs and deer and other small animals stampeded from a copse of trees, bringing up clouds of leaf litter. Theodore charged behind them, with a loping gait that favored his right leg. Black smoke rose from his back, making me wonder if he was already burning from the inside out.
My heart flip-flopped. I recognized this stretch of parkland. In a few steps, the wards had moved Theodore from the east of Logris to the west, just as it would a human who was jogging through our territory. The demon’s steps faltered, and he spun around and gaped. He was probably confused that he hadn’t been granted access into Logris.
“Show yourselves,” said Hades.
A pair of enforcers appeared, two men about my height clad in white uniforms. The faint ozone and clean magic radiating from their bodies indicated that they were angel and wizard hybrids. Logris only allowed the most powerful to operate the wards protecting the supernatural city. Straightening, I tried not to squirm in the presence of such highly skilled ward masters.
“Your Majesty,” said the one on the left, a pale-eyed man with ebony skin and hair as white as his uniform. “How may we be of assistance?”
“Allow that demon into Logris.” Hades gestured at Theodore.
His companion, a man with skin even paler than mine that contrasted with his black hair, turned to Valentine, seeming to wait for him to confirm the order. “Open an intermediary pocket realm.”
Hades snarled loud enough to make the screens tremble. “We had an agreement.”
“Your concern was to move Captain Theodore to safety and prevent his recapture,” Valentine said with a sniff. “I would never endanger an entire supernatural community to safeguard a single individual.”
“And if that individual was Miss Griffin?” Hades snapped.
Valentine turned to the pale ward master. “Is it ready?”
He bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Fireballs flew from the trees, one of them hitting Theodore between the shoulder blades. The demon stumbled forward, and a whimper reverberated in the back of my throat. I clapped a hand over my mouth, urging him to keep going.
“They’ve tracked his location,” Hades roared.
“Bring him in before they catch up,” I said, my voice rising with panic.
“Your Majesties?” asked the dark-skinned ward master.
Hades vanished, and my stomach plummeted. What on earth was he going to do?
Valentine turned to the ward master, his features unchanging, and said, “My previous order still stands. Set up the pocket dimension.”
Both men inclined their heads, and a white screen unfolded from their joined hands and floated six feet in the air. “This hexagon has opened a hundred feet away from Captain Theodore’s location. We will secure the ward the moment he steps inside, but if his pursuers follow, we will trap them for interrogation.”
“Won’t they be able to shimmer away?” I asked.
The
paler ward master shook his head. “We’ve tested these wards against a variety of fire users’ magic. None have broken through.”
My insides clenched at the implication that they’d kept some of the fire mages alive for experiments. It was the same nausea I’d felt when the Mage King had trapped me in a sphere of shadows and suggested that I would become his test subject. Right now, I couldn’t comment because every ounce of my concentration was willing Theodore to reach safety.
Onscreen, glowing white bullets raced over the demon’s stumbling form, some of them causing the fireballs to explode into sparks. I sucked in a breath through my teeth. Hades must have gathered a group of guards to give Theodore some cover.
“Come on,” I whispered under my breath. “You’ve gotten this far, Theo. You can make it to the pocket realm.”
Valentine peered down at me with a curious frown. Ignoring him, I clenched my fists, urging Theodore to run faster, harder, to duck.
One of the bullets hit Theodore’s shoulder, and another slammed into his chest. My mouth fell open, and I reeled forward. As the demon stumbled to his knees, flinching at the spray of bullets hitting his torso, a scream tore from my lips.
“What are they doing?”
A blur of fire raced up to Theodore and leaped over him like a blanket. He threw his head back and screamed. The fiery arms of an ifrit wrapped around his neck, and they both shimmered out of existence.
I turned to meet Valentine’s expressionless eyes. “They took him.”
Valentine’s lips tightened. “Captain Theodore would have reached the pocket realm if those enforcers hadn’t shot at him.”
Bile rose to the back of my throat, its membranes thickening with emotion. I’d only met Theodore once, and we hadn’t even spoken, but the betrayal cut like a jagged knife.
Not long ago, Kresnik had held me in place with magic and gotten his zombie to bore a hole through my breastbone. It was nothing compared to the days Theodore had spent being tortured, but the thought of him being so close to safety only to have his allies shoot him down… What incentive did the poor man have to withstand Kresnik’s torture?
