by Laken Cane
Rune’s silver claws undulated before her, reaching, reaching…
But then something came out of the fire, a hulking, alien body, huge and shadowy and burning, and it grew taller and bigger as she watched.
Horner gave a shout of triumph, and the demon stepped through its fiery gateway.
Chapter Forty-Six
COS had fucked up. They would never be able to control the demon. They could never find a living, breathing vessel that could contain it. And they could never, ever transport it to Karin Love.
The idiots had simply opened a portal and welcomed the demon into their world, and it would destroy them all.
The fighting stopped as the humans and Others forgot they’d been trying to kill each other and stood frozen in terror.
It wasn’t the sight of the demon that caused such fear, it was the feel of the demon.
It cast horror and numbing despair like heavy shadows, covering them all with a sort of bleak hopelessness that even Rune had never imagined.
Although pain was coming—she was sure of it—the monster wouldn’t need to physically hurt them. It attacked their minds, crushed their will, and made their souls shrivel and crawl away to die.
Just by its presence.
Horner had stumbled back until he stood side by side with a vampire. “You fucking idiot,” she murmured.
He turned his head slowly to meet her gaze, his eyes wide, and he did not disagree.
The demon seemed to affect people in different ways—a deep, lethal depression smothered Rune. It sucked the meaning out of everything. Out of life, out of reason, out of caring. It made her realize that despite humanity’s coping skills, despite the survival instinct kicking in and hiding the truth, nothing really mattered.
A slayer beside her cut his own throat. The others glanced at him as he lay on the ground bleeding out, then went back to gaping at the demon.
Another slayer giggled, then covered his mouth as his giggles became full out laughter. In the same way Rune couldn’t control the bleakness that had overtaken her, the slayer couldn’t control his amusement.
“Shut up,” another slayer said, and shot him in the head.
And the demon looked at Rune.
“It knows your blood,” Horner said, his voice breathless and soft. Excited. “It’s a tracker demon.” He smiled. “It’ll go for you and the twins first.”
Rune forced away the demon-induced apathy. “Lex,” she screamed.
And as though her scream woke them up, everyone started moving again. Regaining control of their minds. In seconds, her crew surrounded her, and Lex was at her side.
“I’m fucking terrified,” Lex said. “I’m so fucking terrified.”
“We can’t kill it,” Rune told her. “You’re the only one who can.”
“How do you know?” Lex asked.
“Because I know,” Simon Kelic said, slipping up behind her, still careful not to touch her. The revulsion in his eyes was impossible to mistake. “I know what you are, kid. I’ve faced down one of yours. You can send that one—”
“Fin,” Horner screamed. “Get down here.”
But Cree wasn’t done with the traitor yet, and Fin did not come.
Fin wasn’t attacking Cree—he was trying to escape her, as though he didn’t want to hurt her.
If Horner had figured out some way of getting the demon inside Fin, of using Fin as a vessel, he was out of luck.
Fin wasn’t coming.
Thick red droplets of blood rained from the sky, splattering slayers and COS alike as the birds’ brutal fight continued.
The demon roared and went for Rune, then turned at the last minute toward the twins. The crew scattered, shivs in hand, but there was nothing they could do with mere blades.
“Lex,” the new master yelled.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, her voice calm and breathless at the same time.
Rune charged the twins, knocking them out of the demon’s path. She was fast, but so was the demon.
He came at them again like a rabid dog, his flaming arms outstretched as though he wanted to take them into his burning embrace.
At his core was something black, something the fire didn’t touch. As it—he—moved, the fire around him swayed and leaped, trying to stay attached to that black, rotten core.
“Rune,” Strad yelled, and threw his spear. The spear that had been with him for as long as Rune had known him stuck the demon like metal hitting electricity. It shook and buzzed and finally, it disappeared somewhere in the depths of the demon.
But it bought them enough time to dodge out of the demon’s way. And just as they moved, a bloody and battered Fin fell from the sky to land with a sickening thump right at the demon’s feet, crushing two motionless slayers beneath his huge, heavy body.
Horner leaped at Fin and yanked a vial from his pocket. Then, throwing fearful glances at the demon, he poured blood into Fin’s mouth. Chanting gibberish, he gained the demon’s attention.
The berserker grabbed Rune’s arm. “I’m getting you out of here.”
“We’re not leaving until we take care of the demon.”
“And Horner,” Levi said, his voice grim. “Don’t kill him. I need to.”
“Yes,” Rune agreed, but they didn’t move toward the COS leader. The demon’s power was making them indecisive and full of self-doubt.
They watched Horner as his words reeled the demon in, and Rune started to believe that maybe he really could control it. If the demon was inside a man, the crew had a better chance at defeating it.
But then it roared, shook its huge, misshapen head, and grabbed Fin off the ground.
“Not yet,” Horner said. “He’s not ready.”
Horner was so calm, so sure of himself. He knew what he was doing. And he truly thought he could handle the demon.
Smoke poured from Fin’s body as the demon held him, and the sharp scent of singed feathers mingled with the copper scent of fresh blood.
Fin awakened with a howl, a sound so full of shock and agony that gooseflesh arose on Rune’s skin.
“Shit,” she whispered.
She ran at the beast before she was even aware she was going to. The berserker yelled and grabbed the back of her shirt, but he was too slow. She slipped free of his grasp and leaped for the demon, her claws slashing.
Honestly, she had no idea what she was doing. She didn’t want to save the traitorous Fin—she just wanted to stop his pain.
Chapter Forty-Seven
She dimly heard the shouts of her crew as she flew at the demon. She was intent on one thing—piercing the monster’s heart.
It had worked with Damascus. Sort of.
Fin started flopping in the demon’s hot grip like a frantic fish, his screams becoming weak and wheezing.
Her claws entered the demon, slipping easily through the fiery crust, but then she hit the black core and it stopped her with a force that bent her claws.
She yelped in pain as the shock of the impact traveled up her arms and shook her entire body. Her brain quivered, hitting her skull with a jolt that made the world tilt.
The demon’s core repelled her like a force field and she fell hard, sure her spine was crushed.
Lex knelt beside her, her face stark with terror. “Rune. Rune?”
“I’m okay.”
Then Strad reached down and helped her up, his stare on the demon. “What can we do?”
“Nothing.” She was aware most of the vampires had melted away and the only COS members remaining were Horner and a few pale guards with terror-filled eyes and slack jaws.
Even the crew might have split then, had not the demon reached out with his free hand and plucked Raze off the ground.
Raze dropped his blade and grabbed automatically for the demon’s hand, grunting in pain. For Raze, that was a scream of pure agony.
“Oh God, Oh God,” Lex chanted. “No. No way.”
There was time for the terrible thought to flash through Rune’s mind�
�if any of her crew died, she could not feed them to bring them back. Would not.
They would just be gone.
“No,” she screamed, and sprang once more for the demon. She ran, then jumped—flying, almost—to where the demon held Raze high above the ground. The demon was growing taller. Bigger.
She wrapped one burning arm around Raze’s neck and held on with everything she had, using her free hand to hack at the demon. She tried to cut through the monster’s arm, screaming the entire time, barely hearing herself. She had to free Raze. Had to.
The demon contemplated her, his scorched face holding black eyes that looked like cigarette burns in vinyl.
And then, her earlier overwhelming black despair came back, bigger than ever. She ground her teeth as Rune the monster fought with Rune the girl, the girl who was predisposed to depression with a fucked up brain that had tried its hardest to destroy her.
But it hadn’t succeeded then and it wasn’t going to succeed now.
A bird screeched, but it wasn’t Fin. He continued to struggle silently in the demon’s grip, his glossy eyes showing no clues to the particular thoughts or fears the demon might have been calling forth in him.
Cree appeared in the dark sky, then dive-bombed the demon like a living torpedo. Why she continued to fight, Rune could not imagine. The Cree she knew would have fled long ago.
So she fought her personal demons and hacked at the monster’s arm, desperate to save Raze.
But it was as though the demon had no real flesh—just a sort of dense liquid fire that bathed her bent claws in heat, a fire that could not be smothered.
Raze stared at her with a quiet resignation, the flesh of his arm bubbling and blackening as she watched.
“Fuck no,” she said. “Raze…”
Then she understood why Cree continued to fight. It wasn’t to destroy the demon or help the crew or save the world, it was to punish Fin. She was raging, scorned because of Fin’s deceit, and she was going to kill him. The demon was intensifying those feelings.
Horner’s voice drifted to her as he continued to chant, hardly taking a breath. Her crew should have killed him, but maybe they feared, as she did, that he was the only one who knew for sure how to defeat the fucking demon.
Fin jerked and his eyes widened. He opened his sharp, curved beak and screamed, and that scream knocked Rune from her tentative perch. Her entire body went numb and her arm slid away from Raze’s neck, and once again, she fell.
“Damn you, Rune,” the berserker said, bending over her singed, aching body.
Rune opened her mouth and screamed the name of the one person who had a chance in hell at conquering the demon. “Lex!”
Jack hauled her to her feet. “Lex can’t help, Rune. She’s…” He hesitated, then tapped his head. “She’s not in there anymore.”
“The fuck she’s not. Bring her to me.”
Strad shook his head. “The demon is fucking with our minds.”
“I know,” she snapped. “I am aware of that. Now go fetch Lex from whatever fucking corner she’s hiding in and bring her to me.”
Jack was back quickly, Lex slung over his shoulder. He hadn’t been exaggerating. Lex’s eyes were empty, her body still. She’d fled the demon and whatever hell he dragged her into.
“Lex,” Rune said, her voice gentle. But there was no time for gentle. High above, the demon moved. He took a step, like a nightmare giant, and began to…solidify.
To become something other than licking flames and black core.
Horner’s voice deepened, his drone becoming one long, uninterrupted vocalization. He didn’t breathe, or change inflections, and it was one of the scariest, strangest sounds Rune had ever heard. It compared to the horror of Lex’s continuous scream when she’d seen the twins brutalized.
Rune shivered as her flesh shrank against her bones, trying to retreat from the demon, from Horner.
From death, from terror.
She looked around, dazed, and saw that the twins were lying side by side on the ground, completely still and bone-white. Their skin gleamed like pearls in the moonlight, bloodless and plastic.
“Look,” Strad said, his stare on the demon.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
Fin hadn’t stopped screeching, but his beak opened, opened impossibly wide, and he started to suck in the demon.
The vessel was doing exactly what he was meant to do.
If he succeeded, he’d carry that demon straight to Karin Love.
And then the real nightmare would begin.
Chapter Forty-Eight
“Lex,” Rune yelled, and tried to shake the emptiness from the girl’s eyes. “The demon is killing Raze.” She softened her voice and put her lips against Lex’s ear. “Hear me, Lex. He’s killing Raze.”
Lex turned her head with an abrupt and shocking quickness and buried her teeth in the side of Rune’s neck.
The bite hurt, but the feeding did not.
The agonizing, overpowering pain of feeding didn’t appear.
Rune held still, letting Lex take what she needed. Lex was their only hope. She could eat all of them if she wanted to.
And then Rune realized that Lex hadn’t been hiding—she’d simply disappeared into the depths of her mind to find her demon.
Rune had done the same thing countless times, and she recognized it. Maybe because they were connected by Lex feeding, or maybe because she was so familiar with the internal search for monsters.
Lex had gone looking for her demon.
And when she pulled her mouth from Rune’s flesh and shoved herself out of Jack’s arms, Rune knew she’d found it.
“I’ll need your help,” Lex told Rune, her chin covered with blood. “Take out Fin so I can concentrate on the demon.”
“Whatever you need,” Rune replied. Then she looked at Strad. “Kill Horner’s guards and shut him the fuck up. Keep him alive.” She’d promised the twins.
Lex took her hand, and Rune suddenly understood how Lex had managed to mirror her movements when they fought.
They were connected by something so strong, so solid, it was almost as though they were one person. And as Lex had surely felt Rune’s darkness, now Rune felt Lex’s.
And it was dark.
“We are not afraid,” Lex said. “Let’s go destroy that motherfucker.”
Or maybe Lex hadn’t said a word.
It didn’t matter.
They jumped, the monster and demon, and let go of each other as soon as they made contact with the roaring, flaming demon.
Rune grabbed onto Fin’s wings and held on while burying the claws of her free hand into the bird’s heart. They all had a job to do. Her crew would take care of Horner and the remaining slayers protecting him, she’d chop Fin into hamburger, and Lex would free Raze.
Then they’d stand back and let Lex fight the demon.
It was a good plan.
But Cree got in the way.
She wanted Fin and she wasn’t about to let anyone take him from her. After all, if he died, she couldn’t punish him for hurting her.
And that was just Cree.
Long streams of fire and essence and blood continued to flow into Fin’s open mouth as Cree dive-bombed Rune and hit her face with a sharp, lethal beak.
Hot blood poured from the deep gash, but her hands were occupied and she couldn’t wipe it from her eyes. She blinked, ignoring the pain as she pulled her claws free and sent them once more, slashing and hard, into Fin’s chest.
But the demon had made Fin something more, and the bird continued to suck the demon into his body.
Lex gave a scream of fury and jerked Raze free, then dropped him into the midst of the crew battling on the ground.
Rune didn’t understand how Fin continued to live. His chest was a raw, gaping wound, his jagged heart lifeless and bloody in the open cavity.
But he lived on.
She’d have to decapitate the bastard. He couldn’t do anything if his head was lying on the ground.<
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But again, Cree went for Rune. The bird screamed, her voice full of fury. Had Rune not jumped free, Cree would have taken her head off with her enormous, snapping beak.
She hit the ground with a bone crunching thump, but jumped back up immediately, not understanding at first that Strad held her arm.
“Horner is contained,” he told her.
She nodded, then ran, jumped, and grabbed onto Cree.
The bird was making a sound almost like a human sobbing as she tried to wrench Fin from the demon’s grip.
Maybe she didn’t want to kill him after all. Maybe she wanted to save him.
It made little difference.
Rune ripped through Cree’s wings with her razor-sharp claws, and when the bird let go of Fin, screaming in horror, Rune grabbed him.
She brought her claws down to take his head, but Cree slapped her in the face with the strong edge of her burning wings.
The hit sent Rune slamming into the demon’s chest, and before she could fling herself back at Fin, she caught sight of the berserker’s spear.
Without hesitation she dove into the demon’s vast center, concentrating on one irresistible objective—getting Strad back the weapon that was as much a part of him as his very skin.
If the berserker lost his spear, he’d be different. And there were already too many changes. She had to give him back his weapon.
Maybe it was stupid, maybe it wasn’t.
It was something she had to do.
The demon was being pulled two ways and his mind was not on Rune. Fin continued to inhale, but that wasn’t the biggest threat to the demon.
Lex was.
Now the demon’s roar was one of fear.
Rune swam in a lake of liquid fire, and her skin began to melt—but that didn’t matter. It wouldn’t stay melted for long. Her monster would see to that.
She’d been bathed in fire before.
She wrapped her desperate fingers around the berserker’s spear and then flipped her body and pushed her way back to the air. Back to the world. She’d have time to analyze the horror inside the demon later.
Her clothes and weapons were lost somewhere inside the demon, but she had her claws and fangs and that’s all she needed anyway.