“I’ll be waiting for you on the other side, bitch,” she hissed.
Something about her was familiar. I was sure I’d seen those red eyes before. Or maybe it was the sound of her voice. Whatever it was, I was convinced I knew this woman. But the pain she drove into my jaw and the fog in my brain from Devlin’s drugs made it hard to string the pieces together in any order that made sense.
Mousy Mommy released me and stepped back. Her eyes returned to normal.
“Mr. Silverman,” Devlin called from across the sanctuary. “It is time for the ceremony to begin.”
Ephraim smiled broadly. He looked like some teacher’s pet, who was happy when the mouthy kid in class got in trouble. God, he was such a little asshole.
“Devlin wanted you unconscious for the sacrifice to be safe,” he drawled. “He seems to think you’re soooo powerful.
“But you’re bound in silver, Cecily. There is nothing you can do.
“And I wanted you to see me plunge the knife into your heart. I want you to experience every agonizing second. I want you to see the demon materialize in the fire from your blood, feel each horrific moment as the life drains from you.
“So I administered a counteragent to the Thorazine he gave you. Congratulations. You get to be fully present for your death.”
I gave Ephraim my best fuck-you glare and tried not to be scared.
But I was terrified. How much would it hurt when he stabbed me? Would I cry out? Would I debase myself in front of this asshole? Would I give him the satisfaction he craved? Dear God, I couldn’t do that. Whatever he did to me, I could not let him be happy with the result.
How, though? What could I do? I was bound and powerless. And I was almost out of time.
Ephraim and Mousy Mommy put up their hoods. Ephraim picked up a silver knife with a six-inch blade from the altar and held it over my face.
“Behold,” he said. “The instrument of your death.”
“Wow,” I replied. “That’s a lot bigger than your penis. Good substitute!”
His hood hid his scowl, but I saw his shoulders tighten in anger. At the very least, I’d gotten in one last successful shot.
He and his keeper took up positions behind the altar. The other cultists moved to equidistant points around the pentagram.
“Devlin,” I said. “Alistair, please. Don’t do this. I know you think you’re serving the greater good. I know you think catching and killing this demon is the most important thing in life.
“But these people are evil, Alistair. If you join them, you’ll be evil too. You’re hooking on with the bad guys. Alistair, if you do this, you’ll be damned, not saved.”
He looked me over briefly. Utter sadness filled his eyes.
“So shall it be, then,” he said. “Let them damn me. Akashareth must fall.”
He set his staff aside for a moment and let his trench coat fall off his shoulders. Then unbuttoned his shirt.
“Devlin for God’s sake!” I cried.
He ignored me. Ephraim chuckled.
Devlin removed his shirt. Topless, he grabbed his staff again.
“I will remind you, Mr. Silverman,” he said. “You cannot strike until the appointed time. If you do, you will ruin the ceremony and possibly unleash Hell on Earth.”
“You’ve no need to fear, Demon Hunter,” Ephraim replied. “I know what to do.”
“The hell you don’t need to fear, Devlin,” I said. “You can’t trust this asshole. He betrays everyone. The only thing he cares about is hurting me.”
“Even if that were true,” Ephraim drawled, “I would want to cause you the maximum amount of pain, Cecily. And being the conduit for a demonic prince to enter this world will cause greater agony than simply stabbing you.”
Shit. I didn’t like the sound of that. Whether that tiny-penis bastard was telling the truth or just trying to scare me, I was truly worried. What the hell was I going to do?
Devlin nodded to the cultists, and they began chanting. This was it. They were actually conducting a human sacrifice to bring a major demon to Earth. And I was stuck, powerless in the middle of it.
I looked over at Ephraim. The silver dagger caught the light and glinted evilly. There was no way around it.
I was about to die.
Nineteen
So like I said at the beginning, I seriously don’t know how this shit happens to me. I was running away from all this. I left Cincinnati to get away from The Order and Ephraim and all that other bullshit. And instead, a three hundred fifty-year-old demon hunter tracks me down and uses me as bait to bring a demonic prince to Earth, so he can kill it. Peter Parker didn’t have this kind of luck, and every bad thing imaginable happened to him.
My mind raced, desperate to find a way out of this. Despite the fact that I’d been a fuckup my whole life, I was not ready to die. I mean, I couldn’t think of an especially good reason to go on living, but I wasn’t exactly a quitter, you know? If I died, I’d never get a chance to do something right.
Plus, I was determined not to give Big Brother Asshole the win.
So I needed something. And there just had to be a way out of this. I’d seen too many action movies and read too many comic books to believe I was doomed. John McClane always found a way to escape trouble, and he had a biting and clever insult for the bad guys to go with it.
Stupidly, I pulled on my chains, hoping, I guess, that they had been weakened since last I tried this. But no, they held just as fast as before.
Panic started to descend over my mind like a blanket. Soon, Ephraim’s knife would slice into my chest, penetrating my heart. Agony would rip through me. I’d cry out like a baby, and he’d just laugh at me.
Damn it, Sassy, stop it! Thinking like that is guaranteed to get you killed.
The chanting of the cultists had increased in intensity while I’d been defeating myself. I was running out of time.
“It won’t be long now, Sis,” Ephraim said, as if he’d heard my thoughts.
“At least I won’t have to listen to you anymore,” I said.
Okay, come on, Sassy. There has to be something. Let’s go over what we know.
The Girl Inside only wears chains if she wants to.
Really? Well, assuming that girl is me, I don’t want to be wearing these chains. So what the hell are they doing here?
The Man with the Staff does not know who you are.
Okay, that had to mean something. I’d told her in my dream that Devlin does know my identity. So there had to be more to it than that. The cryptic little girl must have meant something else. But what?
Devlin knows what I can do. That’s why he chained me.
But that’s also why he drugged me. And Ephraim had deliberately woken me up. He’d mocked Devlin’s caution.
In the six months I’d known Ephraim, I knew that he constantly overestimated his own ability. He’d thought he was the perfect person to kill D’Krisch Mk’Rai. He’d smuggled a weapon into the party in case I failed. When something went wrong, he’d gone rogue and gotten himself captured. Mk’Rai had easily bested him.
Likewise, he’d put together his elaborate plot to get a vampire to kill me. But he hadn’t actually expected I would be good enough to survive it. He thought there was no way naïve, little Sassy could possibly take down an elder vampire.
Ephraim overestimated himself and underestimated me. So it stood to reason that Devlin’s precaution was well-advised.
You must discover yourself.
Okay, right. The little girl was trying to tell me something about all this. I only wear chains if I want to. Devlin doesn’t know who I really am. I have to discover it.
So who am I? What do I have to discover?
Everyone says I’m the N’Chai Toroth. Whether that’s true or not, my ability works differently than everyone else’s. Instead of having powers of my own, I pull in eldritch energy and make it do whatever I want.
If my magic works differently, then maybe it doesn’t have the same weakness as e
veryone else’s. If I can sunder the magical world, maybe I don’t operate under the same restrictions.
Which would mean that maybe silver doesn’t take away my power like it does other creatures.
The girl inside only wears chains if she wants to.
Holy shit. Was that actually the key?
The whack-job acolytes around the pentagram had raised the pitch of their voices. The excitement was growing. Which meant I only had a few sands left in my hourglass.
I closed my eyes and blanked my mind. Then I reached out with my Jedi senses like Devlin had taught me.
There was a metric fuck-ton of magic swirling around me. That shouldn’t have been surprising, since these assholes were conducting a ritual to bring a demon to Earth. As casually as I could manage, I tried to pull some of it in.
It came easily, like I was sucking soda through a straw.
Oh, hell yes! I wasn’t dead yet. An idea popped into my head. It was perfect. Not only would it save my life, it would piss off Ephraim. And that would be the absolute best way to thwart these assholes’ plans.
Careful not to totally disrupt the ritual, I started siphoning off eldritch energy, storing it inside me. I figured I would need a big reserve to take all these motherfuckers. I wanted to be ready.
The chanting reached a fever pitch. The crazies in the black robes were shouting and undulating their bodies as they cast their spell.
“Mr. Silverman, the moment is nigh,” Devlin called.
Ephraim stepped forward. He raised the knife above his head.
“Time to die, lovechild,” he drawled. “Prepare yourself.”
Oh, I’m ready, Bro. Come at me.
Devlin nodded. Ephraim raised his head.
“Akashareth, we summon thee,” Ephraim cried. “Accept this sacrifice in your name. Come!”
He brought the knife crashing down towards my chest. Just before it made impact, I replicated Ephraim’s armor ability.
My skin turned to steel. The ceremonial knife shattered on impact. Ephraim practically fell on top of me. His arms shook with the reverberation, and he gasped in horror. I looked him dead in the eye.
“Oops,” I said.
I sent a bolt of magic into the chains, shattering their connections. Free at last, I shoved Ephraim back and kipped up on top of the altar.
My shoulders and arms ached. My jaw hurt from where it had swollen after Ephraim’s cowardly punch. Time to pay him back for that.
“That’s . . .” he stammered. “That’s not possible.”
“Wrong as usual, asshole,” I said.
Then I drove my best reverse punch into his face. His nose crunched under the impact from steel fingers. He staggered backwards and fell on his ass.
Now, that was satisfying!
Devlin’s eyes were as wide as oceans. He stood twenty feet away, gripping his staff and looking horrified.
“Your turn, fucker,” I said.
“No!” someone cried.
I turned to my left to see Mousy Mommy tear off her robe. She was wearing a chainmail bikini of all things, and she rapidly shapeshifted into a demon – red skin, huge batwings, black horns and hair, a spiked tail.
“This time, I’ll kill you!” she roared.
Holy shit! It was Stormy the Succubus – the demon that was supposed to help me kill the dragon but had really been there to set me up and capture me for her masters! Ephraim was working with her?
She launched herself into the air. I still had chain remnants dangling from my fetters, so I snapped one at her, turning it into a whip. I’d never been trained to fight with a whip before, but the principle was pretty straightforward. The end of the chain connected with the demonic bitch’s face, and she tumbled ass over elbows through air away from me.
“You’re back for more?” I said. “One whuppin’ wasn’t enough for you?”
Stormy regained her balance. She glared hatefully at me. An ugly cut from the chain marred her face.
“That is the second time you have bloodied me,” she roared. “I will peel the skin from your bones for this affrontery.”
I tapped my steel chest, causing it to ring through the ruined church.
“Come get some, bitch,” I said.
“No!” Devlin screamed. “You mustn’t break the circle!”
I whirled and saw Charlene, her hood down and a wild look in her eyes, charging me from behind with a knife. I flicked my wrist and sent a chain snaking towards her. It wrapped around her neck, and I yanked hard. Her forward momentum pulled her off her feet. She fell, and her skull smashed open on impact with the altar.
Bye, Crazy Bitch.
As soon as her blood touched the stone, though, fire erupted from it. I leaped off the altar just as the most hideous demon I had seen yet rose from the flames.
“Who dares summon me?” it roared.
Oh, shit. Akashareth was here.
Hell had officially broken loose in the middle of Iowa.
Twenty
It’s hard to describe just how terrifying seeing that demon was. Up until now, the ones I’d fought had all been like aliens in some science fiction movie. They might have had magical powers, and they might have looked weird as all fuck. But they were similar to the creatures I knew and understood, especially since I played a lot of D&D.
Akashareth was on a whole other scale. First, he was big. By the time he’d fully manifested, I swear he was fifteen, maybe twenty feet tall. It was like standing underneath a giant. I was afraid I’d get stepped on and squashed.
He looked similar to other demons. He had red skin, massive, black, ox horns, a spiked tail, and cloven hooves for feet. He wore a black, fur loincloth that matched the thick black hair on his shoulders and spine.
But he absolutely radiated evil. This dude was sheer malevolence, and he did not belong in this world. All the human cruelty, bigotry, hatred, and just plain shitty behavior was watered down compared to Akashareth. He was evil incarnate.
Being in the same room with him, let alone next to him made my skin crawl. I felt as though worms were slithering all over me, and I shivered in revulsion and fear as the animal part of my brain screamed at me to make a run for it.
“Who invites death and damnation by calling forth a Prince of Hell?” he roared.
His voice sounded like babies being murdered. It was horrific, disturbing, and paralyzing. I wanted to flee, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I stood rooted to the dais, praying he wouldn’t notice me.
“The circle is broken!” Stormy shouted. “He is not contained!”
Akashareth turned his attention to her. She hovered not far from him.
“You, succubus?” he said. “A functionary brings a prince to Earth? Die for the insult.”
He opened his hand, and a bolt of black doom shot from his palm, striking Stormy the Sex-Demon full in the chest and abdomen. She screamed, sailed back, and crashed to the marble floor.
“Miriam!” Ephraim cried.
He raced to where she had fallen and knelt over her, stroking her black hair from her face. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I noticed that he called her a different name than I knew her by. Under ordinary circumstances, I’d have wondered about that. Right now, I was preoccupied with the giant demon bent on eating us all.
Ephraim stood and activated his armor skin. His face was all shiny murder. Was he seriously thinking of taking on a demonic prince with just his Nephilim powers?
He didn’t get the chance, though. Seeing the object of his quest standing just yards way, Devlin aimed his staff and cast his binding spell. He shouted words I didn’t know, whirled the staff twice more, and pointed it at Akashareth. A bolt of indigo energy that seemed to have stardust in it raced towards the behemoth.
Akashareth turned and casually swatted the spell aside.
“Alistair Devlin,” it drawled in a voice that sounded like the screams of an entire town dying in a fire. “I see I did not teach you well enough in our last encounter.
“Your summon
ing circle is broken. I cannot be contained. You cannot hold me long enough to bind me.
“I will burn from your body the flesh that holds my brethren.”
He pointed a finger at Devlin, and a stream of fire erupted from it. Seeing Devlin – the only person who could do something about this fucked-up situation – about to die snapped me out of my fear-induced stupor. I was the God-damned N’Chai Toroth. I needed to get my ass in the game.
I channeled some of the magic I’d stored into superspeed. Then I took off like I’d been shot out of a gun, putting myself between Devlin and Akashareth.
The demon’s gout of fire was as large as D’Krisch Mk’Rai’s dragon breath. But it was not as easy to absorb. Hellfire was far more intense, much hotter and more destructive.
As soon as it touched me, I felt my skin searing, charring. A scream escaped my lips as I struggled to unthread the magic from its intent. Mk’Rai’s fire had been easy to defeat and convert. Akashareth’s required every iota of concentration I had.
I saw myself burning to a cinder. I felt myself unraveling.
No. He did not get to win. I hadn’t made Ephraim or Devlin pay for bringing him here yet. I hadn’t shown them they had messed with the wrong woman.
Gritting my teeth, I sucked the Hellfire into my being. I wailed as my soul smoldered, but I refused to let it ignite. I pulled the demon’s power in and took it from him.
Moments later it was over. The fire was out. I was not just alive, I was brimming with energy. I had so much magic within me, it felt like I would explode.
Akashareth’s demonic, red eyes were open wide. I grinned like a feral cat sneaking up on an unsuspected bird.
“Who dares stand between me and my prey?” the big fiend cried.
I stood slowly, keeping the grin firmly etched on my face.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Sassy Kincaide, aka the N’Chai Toroth. And your sorry ass is going back to Hell emptyhanded.”
For a second, Akashareth looked stunned. The look of confusion on his enormous face was comical. Like, how did someone that big and powerful look anything other than threatening and self-assured.
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