Ties That Bind: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 5)

by Pippa Dacosta

  “Oh, for hell’s sake. You’re scared of cars? Really?” Prima donna demons. What next?

  A passing car screeched to a halt. The driver immediately climbed out, lifted his cell, and snapped a few pictures. Li’el, in all his Prince of Pride wisdom, flashed a devastating smile and spread his wings. Another incoming car slowed to a halt.

  “Hey,” I rolled my eyes and snapped my fingers, distracting Pride. “Focus. We’re going to Baal’s sanctum. Are you with us?”

  “I will meet you there.” With that, he clamped his wings closed and dissolved into thin air.

  “Wonderful,” I muttered, slamming the car door. “Step on it Jenna.”

  “Right, yeah…” She pulled the car away from the curb. We’d arrive at Nahant in a few minutes. “He’s demon, right?” she asked. “I mean, there aren’t angels, just demons. He’s not an angel. Is he?”

  He’d saved me without a price. “He’s one hundred percent higher elemental. Demon, angel, those are convenient labels.” I paused. No. No such thing as angels. “He’s a trap, like all the others. Don’t let the feathers and the sexy disarm you.” I was hardly in a position to judge. He’d disarmed me the first time I’d seen all of him too. “Jenna, when we get there, I can’t say how long we’ll be in the netherworld, but if we succeed and Jerry restores the veil, the demons are going to be pissed. They won’t let us leave without a fight. We might need some help when we come back through.”

  “Okay, want me to call in a team, just in case?”

  “Only if you can personally guarantee they won’t shoot Stefan or me.” She pursed her lips. “Yeah, didn’t think so. I’d much rather you had my back than a trigger-happy enforcer with an axe to grind.”

  “I should call Ryder. He’ll want to be here. He can bring Coleman and SRT.”

  “Do what you gotta do.”

  A wash of blinding light blanched everything, including the insides of my eyelids. With a hiss, I flinched away, lurching in the seat. Jenna cursed and slammed on the brakes. For a few seconds, I couldn’t see a thing and blinked into the brightness. Gradually, color bled back into the world. We’d reached the halfway point along the two-mile causeway stretching between the island of Nahant and the mainland. I expected to see houses crowding the peninsula, but Nahant was gone. In its place, a mile wide hole throbbed purple and black against the serene Massachusetts sky.

  “Er, Muse, I don’t think that’s normal.”

  The netherworld heaved, spewing coils of tangled undergrowth around cars and houses. Lesser demons crawled through broken windows, over roofs. Over a thousand people must have lived on that island. By the looks of the abandoned cars and discarded bikes, they hadn’t escaped in time. Ryder’s discarded Mustang blocked the road ahead. I was out of Jenna’s car before I could think what any of this meant. Chaos tugged on my demon, urging me forward. I glanced at Jenna over the hood of the car. A muscle fluttered in her jaw. Her hand rested on her sidearm. She stared into the nightmare like she might do something stupid. “You can’t go any closer,” I warned.

  “There are people…”

  “There were people. If the demons didn’t get them, the netherworld air would have.” I stepped forward. “Call the Institute. They need to seal off this causeway.” I had to get inside the netherworld. Stefan was in there. Something had caused the veil to tear and spill over here, and my gut told me that something was Dawn.

  “What are you going to do?” Jenna asked. “You can’t go in there.”

  I rolled my shoulders, freed the demon in me, and flashed her some fang. “Nothing in the netherworld can hurt me. Not anymore.” She looked at me with awe in her eyes, but her hand stayed on her gun.

  In a flurry of black feathers and glossy black skin, Li’el poofed into existence beside me. Jenna had her gun out, finger on the trigger, before he could say “boo.”

  “Holy shit,” she snarled. “Demon, that’s a grand way to get yourself shot.”

  Li’el rolled his eyes in a purely human way. “Come, Destruction, Baal’s sanctuary has been breached. The King is missing. We must find him before the princes do.”

  My heart sank as my hope we’d restore the veil drifted further out of reach. “Call Ryder. Get him here. Contain the demons. I’ll stop this…” Or die trying, I added in my own mind.

  Jenna nodded, and after I’d walked a few steps with Li’el, she called, “End it, Muse. End them.” I didn’t need to see the desperation on her face. Her words were weighed down with it. I was the Deathbringer, the Destroyer, the Mother of Destruction. I was made for the end of all things. This was my time.

  * * *

  Jerry’s stones had toppled, fractured, and broken apart as though split apart from the inside. Any debris larger than a fist bore scorch marks. The waterlogged ground squelched and hissed under my superheated footfalls. Chaos hung ripe and sweet in the air and licked across my skin. The princes had attacked.

  “Can you hear them?” I asked Li’el, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet since leaving Jenna. “The other princes?”

  He’d drawn his wings in, wrapping them around him like a cloak. “They are scattered. I hear…fragments.”

  “What are they saying?”

  He cocked his head. “They hunt the half blood made of chaos. She attacked. Ah…” He winced. “It’s fragmented.”

  My demon heart spluttered. “Do you know where they are?”

  “Mammon’s fortress.”

  I faced him, brow raised. “And you didn’t think to tell me this before now?”

  “I did not know. It is difficult to ascertain their location when in the human realm, especially when chaos is in flux.”

  Ugh, demons. “Take me there.”

  Li’el’s churning eyes assessed me. “What do you plan to do?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe go all destruction on their asses.”

  “Muse, you are mortal. You cannot possibly hope to repel the Princes of Hell and subdue the chaos girl alone.”

  “I’m not alone. I have you, the all-powerful, deliciously sexy Prince of Pride.” I knew he’d buy it. Pride loved nothing better than to hear how wonderful he was.

  With a resigned sigh, he opened his arms. “Very well, but quench your fire.”

  It was probably for the best I’d lost my wing all those years ago, because it turned out, I was afraid of heights—or more accurately, afraid of falling. I clung to Li’el’s barely-there body, tucked my wing in, and thought happy thoughts as the wind rushed around us. Things screeched and cawed in the swirling air, unseen behind clouds of chaos energy.

  “It will be more difficult to restore the veil with his sanctum destroyed.” Li’el’s voice whisked inside the wind. “Those stones and Baal’s markings contained the energies dispersed in the ritual.”

  Wonderful.

  Because nothing was ever easy in the netherworld.

  The clouds thinned as we approached Mammon’s fortress. Hewn from a mountainside, the fortress clung to cliff-like slopes. A sea of demons churned around its grounds. Battlements crawled with lessers. From our height, they looked like glistening rivers of ants flowing through the fortress gates and lapping at its towers.

  “Looks like the party started without us.” I’d have sounded blasé, if not for the quiver in my voice.

  Li’el tucked me into his embrace, pulled his wings in, and we dove, fast and sleek. My insides felt as though they’d dropped through my feet. Wind whistled past my face. I wasn’t cut out for flying. We landed on a battlement with the sea of demons rippling below. Li’el let me go. Head spinning, I staggered back and breathed.

  “Mammon is inside.” He straightened his spine, threw his shoulders back, and glowered. “You resurrected him.”

  “Yeah.” I peered over the edge and gulped. Demons. Thousands. I could snuff out a few, but the second I did, they’d sense me and rush in. Li’el was right. I was mortal. They had mind-boggling numbers on their side. Above, cawing hunters circled, turning the netherworld sky black. I�
��d pulled off some impressive pyrotechnics the day of the Boston battle but had no idea if I’d survive the same again. And even if I could, more demons would spill in to fill the void my meltdown would create.

  “He is not what you expected, is he?” Li’el asked.

  “No. But I know him now.” If you think you know Ahkeel, you don’t. With a growl, I shoved Jerry’s little nugget of wisdom aside.

  “I’ll rip the air from his lungs while you quench his fire. Together, we can make him lesser.” Li’el spread his wings, bolstering his size, as though making himself bigger did the same for his words.

  He would tear into Mammon without much thought. That kind of revenge was dangerous and foolhardy. I’d been there. Demons rush in where angels fear to tread. If pretty Li’el went against Mammon, my money was on the lava-veined badass. Pride had saved me. I couldn’t let him do something foolish. “Mammon is mine.” I’d expected Li’el to bristle and bluster. His swirling eyes narrowed—the argument was coming—and then he nodded, accepting my authority. No fight? Could Li’el genuinely be good? All I’d had from him was honesty, allegiance, and respect. If I hadn’t been in the middle of a war, I’d have sat him down and talked him around in circles, trying to figure out what made him tick. Now, all I had was my less than reliable gut, which told me Li’el was one hundred percent thoroughbred demon, who was setting me up for a fall, probably from a great height. “How are we going to get inside?”

  Li’el moved to the edge alongside me and scanned the fortress. “They will head for the throne room where the king’s original symbols control the elements. The entrance is blocked, but if we enter there” —he pointed at the highest tower, crawling with Scorsi scorpion bodies— “we will find the halls less choked.”

  “Why are they all here?”

  “Chaos. It calls.”

  Chaos. “Do you mean Dawn?”

  “The girl?” He narrowed his eyes and listened. “Yes, it would seem so.”

  “Is she…controlling them?”

  “I believe so. We will know more once we’re inside.” He moved to wrap his arms around me.

  “Wait.” I shivered. “Do you hear Stefan?”

  “The Winter King is close. We must hurry.”

  Li’el carried me close to the tower. He hovered outside a window, allowing me to ignite the Scorsi clinging to the stones, and then shoved me inside with an ungainly push. I fell to the floor of a chamber. Thirty or so pairs of Scorsi eyes swiveled toward me. They clung to the walls and ceiling, their barbed scorpion tales twitching.

  “Lovely.” Straightening slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements, I stoked the fire inside me. “Hi, there. I don’t suppose we could talk about this—” They lunged. All of them. At once. Instinct blasted fire from my flesh as I cringed away. Thirty demons burst into ash clouds, and dust rained over my lava-veined skin. I spat out their remains with a curse.

  Li’el-shaped air swirled in through the window, churning ash in his wake. “Come.” The door flung open, seemingly of its own accord, and lessers spilled into the room. With no time to think, I focused tight bulbs of heat and struck at anything that moved. They burst apart, one after another, after another, until the flow slowed, and I was able to press forward into a hall. The walls rippled with demons. The ceiling heaved. I killed them all, cremated them as easily as the flick of a light switch, and walked on, leaving a trail of settling ash in my wake.

  Yes, this was my purpose. Was it any wonder they called me destroyer and death-bringer? They were right. It felt right. As I carved through the demons, their numbers blurred until I no longer saw individuals. Their deaths continued around me, and I walked through their ashes—chin up, wing relaxed—toward the throne room.

  Chapter 30

  The scene greeting me inside the vast throne room was, predictably, one of chaos. I‘d entered a storm of demons, and for a few breathless seconds, couldn’t make any sense of the madness. Jerry, in his huge multi-winged reptilian body, pinned a screaming Dawn down onto the massive table. Eel-like chaos tendrils lashed and knotted around her, trying to unmake the King of Hell, but the aura of symbols around his body deflected her horrible power. She bucked and snarled, fury burning in her ink-black eyes.

  I took a step inside, and time slowed.

  Demons poured in through the windows and spilled across the floor. A wave of claws, wings, teeth, and blood—so much blood—swelled around two princes of fire and ice. Stefan and Mammon fought, side by side, one with a sword and shield of ice, the other brandishing the elemental blade. Were they holding back the demons so Jerry could kill Dawn? The walls, the ceiling, crawled with demons, all desperate to tear into Jerry. Chaos swirled in the air, the colors of the veil spiraling in a furious maelstrom above our heads. And Dawn’s screams rose above the baying demons.

  Li’el hovered around me like a fog and then vanished, only to reappear a blink later behind Mammon. He hooked his arm around Mammon’s throat, spread his wings, and yanked the Prince of Greed out of the melee. I drew in a breath to warn Li’el. Maybe that was my cue to tear the fire from Mammon’s soul, but even if I had, it wouldn’t have been in time to save Li’el. Mammon turned on Li’el with a bone-jarring roar. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t even blink. He snatched Li’el by the throat, dwarfing the Prince of Pride. Liquid fire rolled over Li’el’s flesh, rushed up his wings, and flash burned his feathers to dust, all before he could pull his vanishing act. Li’el let out a terrible, heart-wrenching howl and burst into a cloud of dust, not dead but definitely gone. It had all happened in the space of a few seconds. No time to react, to think. Li’el was a fool, blinded by his own foolish pride. Demons surged into the space he’d occupied. Stefan reeled in a flurry of biting ice. Dawn screamed, and finally instinct kicked me into the melee. I funneled a blast of heat ahead of me and carved a path through the demons toward the heaving mass of chaos that was Dawn. “Jerry, stop!” Demon snarls smothered my shout. A claw nicked my wing. I spun and blasted the nearest demon. Another knocked into me from behind. I twirled, kicking out, pinned him down with fire, and blasted him apart. But there were too many. They rained from the ceiling. The floor boiled with demon bodies. “Jerry!” I tugged my arm free of a grip, punched at something, blasted another. I was tiny compared to these demons. As quickly as I incinerated them, more rushed in. I turned, stumbled, and fell to a knee. Claws tore at my wing, my shoulder, my arms. They’d rip me to shreds in seconds. If I went nuclear, I’d kill every demon in that chamber, including Stefan and Dawn. If I didn’t, I’d be dead in minutes.

  A leathery cat-like beast burst through the demons, knocking them aside. It whipped its three heads around and tore chunks out of anything that moved. Another surged in from my left. Jerry’s neko demons, my guardians. They were protecting me. Fire surged across my flesh, but it wasn’t enough. Hunkered down, I blocked out the sting of claws and the bite of teeth and called to the netherworld heat. It came, fast and hungry, spilled over my flesh, and burned blue. As I rose to my feet and called it all, liquid flame turned blinding white. Demons scrambled and tore over each other to get away. Finally able to breathe, I pushed forward toward the table.

  The King of Hell loomed over Dawn, terribly demon. He leaned all of his monstrous weight through his arms and pinned her tiny thrashing body down. Underneath Dawn, inside the stone table, the anti-elemental symbols swirled. She seemed so small, held down by the King of Hell, but the fury rolling off her was no small thing. Chaos tendrils whipped and lashed.

  “Stop.” My demon voice came from the part of me crowned Destruction. It was an order spoken with enough weight to pull Jerry’s slitted eyes to me.

  “Destruction, go!” Jerry snarled. “You should not be here.”

  “Let her go—”

  Mammon hooked an arm around my waist, swung me around, and shoved me into the mêlée of demons. It had to be Mammon. He was the only demon in that room who could touch me without bursting into flames. Demon bodies tumbled over me and promptly exploded in clo
uds of ash. I pushed to my feet and turned to find Mammon standing between Dawn and me, wings spread, head dipped as though ready to charge. Demons clawed at him. He plucked them off and tossed them aside. Fire churned in his dark eyes.

  Dawn’s cries sharpened, and she broke into sobs. “Muse—M-Muse! Make them stop! Make them stop.”

  Mammon stretched his wings wide and stood firm. He knew I could tear the fire out of him, knew I could destroy him. “Half blood, Destroyer, leave. There is no place for you here.” Mammon’s thick demon voice reached me even through the din. It always had.

  “Don’t do this to her!”

  “It is the only way.”

  The only way? I’d thought he wanted to hand Dawn over to my father, and here he was, fighting side by side with Stefan? Just whose side was he on? “No, there must be…” The floor trembled. Tightness stretched across my skin, and a cool blast of fresh air trickled over me. I smelled pine and wood mulch, scents I knew well. Demons bayed and yipped. The veil rippled. The air thinned, and behind Jerry, behind the empty thrones, the shimmering veil dissolved, revealing the inside of Blackstone, Akil’s house. A groan rumbled through the fortress. Great jagged cracks snapped through the walls. Debris rained from above. Chunks of stone fell and clattered into the scattering demons.

  Dawn’s little voice turned dark and vicious. “I will unmake you all! Let me go! Let me go!” Her dark tendrils spun outward in all directions and plucked with blinding speed at anything and everything. She hooked into one of Mammon’s wings and ripped through the membrane. Jerry’s unearthly roar scattered demons, and still the very air itself shook. She was unmaking everything. This had to stop. Now.

  I lunged for Mammon, but he knew me too well. When I dodged the sweep of the elemental blade, he anticipated my low lunge. He scooped me out of my dash and tossed me as easily as tossing a ragdoll across the room. I plowed into a bank of demons and tumbled in a mass of demon flesh, vaporizing those unlucky enough to cushion my fall. Dawn’s screams and howls clawed at my skull. My humanity told me this was wrong. It was all so very wrong. There had to be another way.