by Sierra Dean
If we left, Sig would die, and Hell on Earth would be unleashed.
There was no plan B.
Wasn’t my job great?
Which was precisely why we found ourselves alone and waiting in the cold night air, hoping the Oracle had seen things right and we weren’t wasting our time on a hunch.
Though hunches weren’t really Calliope’s thing. And she had showed me this field clear as day. I had no doubt that this was the right place. It felt like Harry and I were back in that car, waiting for the cult to appear, and I knew the moment they showed up shit would hit the fan really quick.
When the first hooded figure showed up, I actually let out a sigh of relief.
The suspense was over. It was time for the rumble to go down.
“Now?” Shane asked.
I shook my head and lifted a finger to my lips to ask for silence.
These guys probably knew we’d be coming to stop them. I hadn’t been subtle or silent about my search for Sig, and in my bumbling super-sleuth manner, I had drawn plenty of attention to myself in this short trip back to the city. Davos might be locked up in a cell somewhere, but he still had reach, as evidenced by the thugs who had tried to grab me off the street only earlier that day.
Two more cloaked figures emerged.
Then two more.
Soon it seemed like cloaked figures were coming out from every part of the woods around the lawn. The original circle in L.A. had only needed six people to open it. Did they need more because of the size of this one, or had Harry lied when he told me the first one would only need six? A figure came out only fifty feet down the tree line from us, and it felt like a miracle that we’d chosen a place they hadn’t seen.
Miracles, though, were so often just plain dumb luck.
Whether luck or divine intervention, we were going to need one tonight, because by the time people stopped trickling out of the woods, there were about twenty-five of them in a circle almost two hundred feet wide.
Simultaneously, they pulled canisters from their robes and removed the caps. As they shook the containers, I realized they were holding spray paint. In a practiced movement, they worked in an arranged dance. Half the group moved in a slow, precise circle, while five made a smaller inner circle, and six or seven others began to create lines and symbols. One person in the middle began to trace out what I immediately knew was a pentagram, each of its lines at least fifteen feet long.
This was the biggest motherfucking demon gate I had seen in my whole life.
Now, granted, I hadn’t seen a lot of portals to Hell, but this was huge. They were using an enormous amount of the open space on the lawn, and the way they worked was so meticulous it had to have been choreographed like a dance routine.
These guys meant serious business.
Not that I figured they were in a demon cult on a whim, but it was still alarming to see how robotically they moved on the lawn, drawing out the lines. No one bumped into each other, no one outpaced anyone else. It was like watching a finely tuned clock run.
“What are they doing?” Holden asked.
“Drawing the circle to mark the gate,” Harry explained.
“Don’t they usually use charcoal?” I asked.
Harry tapped the side of his head as if saying it was a good question. “Chalkboard paint. It has, surprisingly, really similar characteristics. Saves groups like this a ton of money and keeps their hands relatively clean in the process.”
“Now I’m pretty sure I’ve heard everything,” I said.
“They’ve stopped moving.” Ingrid pointed to the field, where all twenty-five or so of the hooded figures were now standing equidistant from one another around the outside of their newly drawn circle. I noticed there was a space in their midst that looked as if it was meant for another person.
I suspected it was where Davos should have been, if he wasn’t chained up in a cell under police supervision.
As I was pondering the gap, a final cloaked person emerged from the trees, and this one was not alone.
I immediately recognized the figure of the man being dragged by the cloaked figure. The lean, tall, pale form of Sig was unmistakable, especially with his shirt off, gleaming under the moonlight like a bare-chested beacon.
“Sig,” Ingrid said, her voice breathless.
I could tell she wanted nothing more than to run onto the field and drag him away, but I also wanted to reminder her what had happened the last time she went toe-to-toe with these guys. She had to remember it, but apparently wasn’t worried.
Instead she clicked off the safety of her rifle and edged closer to the lawn. “I’m going to kill the fuck out of those black-hooded douche bags.”
What an incredible sentence to hear from the lips of a woman born in the 1300s.
Ingrid had always been so staid and poised around me. This was a whole different side of her personality, and honestly, I was pretty into it.
The new arrival led Sig into the center of the pentagram and shoved him so hard he went down to his knees. Even from this far back it was obvious Sig wasn’t himself. His head and limbs hung loosely, and he had the wavering look of someone drunk or exhausted, as if he wasn’t fully in himself.
Maybe seeing what they’d done to Ingrid had been the last blow for his resolve.
He appeared completely and utterly defeated.
Ingrid was right. These assholes deserved every single torment coming their way. I didn’t normally relish inflicting punishment on even the worst bastards out there, but man alive, I really wanted to break some bones and split some skulls any time now.
For my friends, and for myself.
This had been one hell of a week, and the last thing we needed to add to it was literal Hell.
Perhaps it was the power of negative thinking, some sort of sour-universe version of The Secret, but the second I started to imagine that portal opening, every single streetlight in the park flickered and went dark.
Moments later, all the buildings around us did the same.
We watched as the New York City skyline stuttered and turned black. Man, these guys had some pretty impressive connections if they were able to create a total blackout.
“That’s probably not a great sign,” Harry said.
Then, Belphegor dropped from the sky, his leathery black wings flashing and his eyes glowing like stoked coals.
I looked at Harry. “You were saying?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Fuck.
A minute ago our odds had been seven against twenty-six. Which by my calculations wasn’t too terrible.
Now we were seven against twenty-six plus one very, very pissed-off Prince of Hell who I had already met face-to-face once and wasn’t too keen to repeat the process.
Belphegor looked bigger somehow. It seemed impossible, and yet looking at him he appeared to be taller than even the nearest trees, which meant he must have been pushing thirty feet.
Super-duper.
“What the hell is that?” Shane asked.
Siobhan let out a soft whistle, one that said she was impressed, but was too quiet for the group on the lawn to hear. “That’s a Prince of Hell,” she declared. “Never thought I’d see one in person, honestly.”
“What’s a Prince of Hell?” Shane apparently didn’t know as much about demons as his wife did.
“First-hierarchy demon,” I explained for her. “They’re the worst of the worst, basically. Even in Hell, they’re the bad boys.”
I was impressed Siobhan was able to recognize what Belphegor was at just a glance. All I knew by looking at him was Goddamn, that’s a big scary demon.
“Do we move in now?” Ingrid asked.
I guess a big bad demon was not a deterrent in her single-minded plan to get Sig back.
“I know you want to run in there, and believe me, so do I. I want nothing more than to turn the place into a shooting gallery. But if we go now, the first thing they’ll do it kill Sig so they can keep using his blood, so we need to be
patient.”
Ingrid looked like she wanted to go anyway, but for the time being she listened, and waited.
The group amassed on the field was in a tizzy. They had come here with the sole purpose of calling up a demon, and before they had even begun their ceremony, one had appeared before them. They must have thought they were really good at this.
“Who called me forth?” Belphegor boomed, so loud and deep it made the earth vibrate under our feet. We were farther away than I’d been the last time I’d heard him speak, but the sound was still skin-crawlingly unpleasant and made my ears ring painfully. Siobhan grimaced and Emilio briefly covered his ears to block it out, but Ingrid was so focused on Sig she didn’t react at all.
When compared to Belphegor’s bone-shaking tenor, the voice of the cult member who spoke up was weak and mousy. “We are the Children of Everlasting Night.”
I made a dramatic gagging noise. Why couldn’t these groups ever come up with a cool name? They always sounded like they were one step removed from being a goth poetry club. Children of the Everlasting Night? Did they all have discount cards at Hot Topic and think the lyrics of My Chemical Romance were super deep?
Cults suuuuucked.
“You use my mark,” Belphegor said. “Do you have an offering?”
He was prowling around the outside of the circle, and I took a sick sort of delight in seeing the cult members twist and turn uncomfortably, scared to have him at their backs. Yeah, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Demons seem super great until you have one of them looming over you with a voice that sounds like echoing tunnels of Hell are opening up inside your skull.
It’s all fun and games until you accidentally summon one for real.
“We have found you the oldest, most powerful blood in the country.” The man indicated the hunched form of Sig. The master vampire was possibly the only one present who hadn’t acknowledged the arrival of the demon. He just kept staring at the ground, bobbing faintly. I wasn’t sure he was in there anymore, really.
“Now?” Ingrid asked.
“Wait.”
I was just as itchy to see what would happen next, leaning closer to the action. This was the most messed-up theatre New York had ever seen, and that was counting the time I’d seen a guy in an off-off-off-Broadway show drink his own urine.
“Do you mean to open a gate?” Belphegor peered at the circle they had created, and the cultists nervously exchanged glances.
“We meant to call you.”
Belphegor laughed, and my skin went ice cold. I felt like I was covered in bugs, with spiders and roaches crawling under my fingernails. My blood turned to acid, and my lungs desperately, achingly wanted to scream and keep screaming until the sound of his laughter was drowned out. It wasn’t a fun sensation.
When he stopped chuckling, I gasped for air.
“No one tell that guy any jokes,” I whispered.
“He’s not really known for his sense of humor,” Harry offered.
“By all means,” Belphegor said. “Do your little ceremony.”
After a long pause of confusion and some muffled muttering I couldn’t make out, the head guy gave someone an almost imperceptible nod. This was all hard to see with only the moon overhead and the burning-ember glow from Belphegor’s eyes, but it was somehow enough.
Another cult member lit a torch and lowered it to the circle on the ground, filling the lawn with sudden warm light.
My heart leapt into my throat, and I bumped Ingrid with my elbow.
“Now, now. We go now.”
She only needed to hear it once, and she was out, sprinting across the grass. Siobhan pulled out two arrows and readied her bow, then barreled after the blonde. The rest of us fell in behind them, racing towards the circle as fast as our legs would carry us. The fire was spreading with alarming speed around the markings they had drawn, leaving glowing coal lines beneath it, just like the one in Los Angeles had.
Once the first circle was complete, the ground began to fall away. Huge chunks of grass and earth tumbled into an endless void. A bright orange glow rose to fill the emptiness, and the heat was almost overwhelming. Like we were running into an oven.
Man, we should have had a better plan.
They hadn’t even cut Sig open, which was an insane testament to the power of his blood, that just having his body at the center of the circle was enough for the summoning to work. The dark magic of the flame wanted to devour him, and he was sitting there, letting it happen.
We weren’t even halfway across the field when Ingrid, while still running, raised her rifle and took out three of the nearest cult members. Pop-pop-pop and down they went. Her focus was raw, and I didn’t think she would stop for anything now that I’d unleashed her.
A wicked voice in the back of my head said, Good.
The flames inched closer to Sig, turning his porcelain skin an amber shade. When running into this fight, I’d opted for my sword instead of my gun, but I was starting to see that Ingrid had the right idea. Take out as many of them as possible before we ever got close enough for them to hurt us back. They were, as far as I could see, unarmed.
This was going to be too easy.
Which meant it wouldn’t be easy at all.
Hearing the sound of Ingrid’s gunshots, Belphegor whirled around and let out a roar of pure, unadulterated rage. I would take that over his laughter any day.
“You,” he snarled.
Aw, he remembered me.
“Me,” I yelled back. Okay, so my one-liners could use a little work. Whatever, don’t judge me. You try being super clever when a thirty-foot-tall demon is screaming at you, and tell me what great comeback you come up with.
“Don’t let them destroy the circle,” he demanded. “The circle must be completed. The sacrifice must burn.”
“That’s not happening,” Ingrid said through gritted teeth.
Several of the cloaked figures stayed behind to protect the fire, but the rest ran to meet us head-on. Whether they were vampires or humans didn’t matter to Ingrid, she fired at anyone who came near her, and her shots were deadly accurate. These guys were going down, and they weren’t getting back up.
Emilio had taken down a couple of his own, and judging by the two or three bodies with arrows sticking out of them, Siobhan was clearly doing her part too.
“No, no, no,” Belphegor said, watching his disciples getting mowed down in front of him. There weren’t even ten of them left standing at this point. Guess when you leave all the dirty work to your underlings instead of fighting your own battles, the results can be disappointing.
He slammed his fists into the ground and screamed, “Rise.”
One by one, all the fallen bodies shuddered and then got to their feet. I was right in the midst of them now, and the sight of so many dead cult members coming back and taking faltering steps towards us, well, it brought back a lot of unwelcome memories.
Zombies weren’t real, but these looked an awful lot like zombies to me.
It also meant that instead of seven against ten we were right back to where we started, and apparently it didn’t matter if we killed these cult weirdos, because their demonic benefactor could just keep restoring them whenever the whim struck him.
This wasn’t great.
I stopped running and looked around me at both the living and the ambling undead. “Guys, shooting them isn’t enough. We need to behead them.”
Nothing comes back from a beheading.
Except my mother, but that’s another story.
Suddenly my sword was looking like a smart call after all.
“We shoot, you behead,” Ingrid said, and continued to fire round after round without slowing down. The fact that these guys were just going to get right back up again didn’t slow her down one bit, which was pretty scary but also insanely badass.
Ingrid was absolutely my new first pick for my apocalypse team.
Which was what this was, come to think of it.
I took a steadying breath and l
ooked at the crowd of black hoods moving in around me, then stared up to the massive demon looming over me.
“I’m going to take them down, and then I’m coming for you,” I said.
He chuckled at that, and the sound of his laughter instantly made me regret how I’d chosen my words. One of the hooded acolytes dove at me, and I swiftly divorced his head from his shoulders.
The rest of the group had inched closer to the blazing circle, which was now almost completely alight, and still Sig hadn’t moved a muscle. The ground continued to fall away beneath the smoldering lines, showing a bottomless burning pit underneath him.
Something down there was stirring.
Scratch that. A lot of things down there were stirring.
I dispatched more heads from the bodies nearest me, but the bulk of the group had turned their attention to my friends as the cult realized we were bent on dismantling the circle and shutting their precious gate.
The first clawed hand cleared the cusp of the pit when I was about fifteen feet away from the edge. Over this past week I’d come to realize something about demons and how they looked. When you see those old wood-cut drawings of demons that look borderline goofy, it’s most likely because someone who actually saw a demon went absolute batshit insane as a result, and then tried to explain what they had seen to an artist.
So you’re telling me it had horns and wings and a face made out of melted babies?
Seriously, go look at old demon art and tell me that’s not someone doing their best to draw the words of a crazy person.
The thing that came out of the pit could, politely, be described as fearsome. It was dark gray, its skin covered both in crocodile-like scaly flesh and singed feathers. It didn’t have horns, but rather ridges of hard skin or bone running down its scalp all the way to the base of its back. No tail, either, but it did have four legs, each with clawed toes.
It sniffed the air cautiously, then spotted Belphegor and gave a modest bow. “Liege. We wondered what had become of you.” Its voice was rocks in a garbage disposal.
“We must rid ourselves of the human complaint here,” Belphegor said, indicating all of us, including the cult contingent. He clearly didn’t care who ended up dead, as long as the gate remained open. “Our brothers and sisters must be freed.”
