“Luckily, we have the authority to do that ourselves,” said Farrell. “It’ll be quick. You want to protect your warlock friends… then it’s your own life which will be put on trial.”
Light shone around him, reflecting in his eyes. He was anticipating the moment he got to stab me and burn out my soul.
So that’s how he wanted to play.
Drawing on Rachel’s magic, I transformed into Farrell.
He blinked and stared for a moment, and that was all I needed. I spun around and pelted for the bus. The others were quick on the uptake. Nikolas had already snatched up the pentagram and taken it with him, while the other celestials still sat in the back. I dove through the open door, Rachel close behind, and Nikolas put his foot on the pedal.
“The guild?” Nikolas asked, as we picked up speed.
I grabbed the back of the nearest seat for balance. “You’ve got it. Time to shut down the portal before another inspector clone comes through.”
“That type of demon is rare,” Rachel said. “It must have come here alone, but I don’t see how it’s possible.”
“What, you mean shape-shifting demons?” Rachel herself was one. But there was little information on her demon magic in the guild’s files, and I couldn’t load them on my phone while hanging on for dear life as Nikolas drove. Several crashing noises and yelps from behind told me the celestials were having difficulty keeping their balance, too
“Zarth demons,” Nikolas said over the roar of the engine. “Very rare. They’re generally under direct control of their master—an arch-demon.”
“So he really wasn’t the inspector.” I winced as tree branches scraped against the bus’s side with a deafening sound. “He was a demon the whole time. They must have made the switch while the guild’s defences were down.”
“The good news is that I know which arch-demon it is now,” he said. “There are very few shapeshifter demons with those capabilities.”
“Who?” I asked. “You know what, tell me later. We need to figure out what the hell to do with the guild first. Their leader’s dead, and the only other people qualified to take over are following us with deadly weapons. Told you the inspector wasn’t the worst of it.”
“Let’s get that portal shut down first,” Nikolas said.
“That was the plan. I’m not cleaning up the guild’s mess, and I’ll be lucky to get out of this alive, let alone without making enemies of the rest of them.”
Unless everyone who thought I was an evil demon was killed in the conflict, there was no way the guild could continue the way it was after this. There were too many conflicts and divisions, and I’d hate it if the upper levels punished the celestials who’d agreed to fight with me. But all of that could wait. I needed to find out how many people had been replaced with demons. Even Damian Greenwood—he’d lied about fooling the inspector. Maybe he wasn’t human at all.
Nikolas parked down the road from the guild, and I turned to speak to the celestials in the back.
“The celestials in the infirmary are totally gone—they’re infected with the demon virus,” I told them. “They’ll attack you if they see you. What we need to do is shut down the pentagram in the west tower, but I don’t know if Damian’s anticipated us coming and planned an ambush. Either way, don’t go near it if you aren’t prepared to fight demons of Grade Three or higher.”
Shapeshifter demons were Grade Three, for sure. But if an arch-demon got through… it can’t. No portal is that strong, not even the guild’s.
Light shone over the brick walls and sloping roofs. Not natural light. The portal must be active. They knew, all right.
I approached the guild from the front. Several windows were broken, and a horrific noise came from inside, like crumpling metal and plaster. Glass shattered, and a gigantic tail lashed out, missing us by inches. I pulled out my sword and swung it, but the giant demon’s thick armour deflected the blade as though it was a rolled-up newspaper. Bristled spines prickled all over its hard skin, and its huge maw contained rings of serrated teeth.
The Mother. The inspector had left a friend behind.
Rachel froze next to me. The Mother’s body had crushed part of the roof, next to the place where the comatose celestials had been held. Crap.
The giant worm wrapped around the roof, half-buried in the collapsed building. Beyond it, hisses and snarls came from other demons spread throughout the guild. There might be people alive in there. We have to kill that thing.
Lightning fired from Nikolas’s palms, bouncing off the beast’s spiked armour. Footsteps came from behind, and to my surprise, several celestials ran from the bus to confront the smaller demons crawling from the guild’s ruins. Despite their obvious fear, their calling was to kill demons, and a whole bunch of them had trampled on our turf.
Divine light sizzled from my palm and bounced off the giant worm’s armour. To do any damage, I needed to get at its vulnerable head. Problem: the top of its skull was covered in spikes, and snapping rows of teeth blocked my path every time I took a swipe. I ducked and swept low, willing my demon mark to activate. Fiery light poured from my right hand, hitting the already shattered window instead.
The Mother writhed, her tail slapping down. I took the blow on my sword’s edge, staggering back a few steps. A human-sized figure crawled from the building’s ruins, straightening upright.
“Grace!” shouted one of the celestials. “You’re alive!”
“Don’t,” I warned, too late. The girl turned on him, dark eyes gleaming, and ran at us with a vampire’s speed. Her aura wasn’t white, but greyish-black. I raised my sword, fending her off, but just going near my blade made her skin smoke like a demon’s did. No humanity shone from her gaze at all. She was gone—entirely demon.
My blade sank into her chest, and she slumped down.
You’ll pay for this, demons. The blade burned out anyone with the demon’s mark, and if I had to destroy my former allies to stop the virus infecting anyone else, so be it. Every time the other celestials hesitated, it cost them. I had to end this.
“Fight me,” I growled at the Mother.
I had no reason to fear her barbed touch like the others did. I slammed my two marks together, and let them burn.
Chapter 17
Celestial and hellfire clashed between my hands, sending a torrent of white-hot flames towards the giant worm. At the last second, the worm thrashed out of reach, and my attack slammed into the building instead. And I’d thought carving my name into the wall in the quadrangle was bad enough. I’d fantasised about burning the place to the ground so many times, but felt no triumph to see the guild consumed in an inferno. From the state of the place, there was no way anyone was left alive inside it. Who knew how many the demons had killed.
Energy crackled overhead, turning the sky neon orange. No way would the humans not notice. Innocent people would get caught up in this if we didn’t shut down the portal.
I caught Nikolas’s eye, and he nodded. He understood my plan. Shadows cloaked his body, reforming into shadowy wings, and he flew at the worm. Its head reared, snapping at him, taking its attention off me. Its dark red aura pulsed, indicating it was definitely gaining some kind of power from the portal. Then I’ll destroy it.
I ran for the wrecked building, skirting the edges. Vaulting heaps of rubble, I kept my gaze on the blazing light behind the ruins, sword high and demon mark at the ready.
A person stumbled onto the bloodied floor of the former quadrangle.
“Get out!” yelled Sammy. “Stop terrorising us and get out.”
“Me? Not the giant worm?” I waved over my shoulder, hoping the others were holding it off. The portal was barely ten metres away, for crying out loud. “Maybe let me destroy the giant blazing portal behind you before you accuse me of anything? Get out of the way.”
Unbelievable. I’d bet he’d believed his inspector was innocent up until the end.
“I won’t,” he said. “You’re disobeying the law.”
“Fine. Come and see the demons with me, and I hope one of them eats you.”
I took one step, and he moved to block the way. He smiled a familiar smile, his face changing, warping before my eyes. It was the same demon who’d posed as the inspector. It must have regenerated into a new body. That, or it had a sibling. Crap.
The worm screamed and thrashed behind me. It sounded like the others were giving as good as they got, yet it refused to die. As long as I didn’t shut down that damned portal, it wouldn’t.
Hellfire and celestial flames danced across my palms, colliding in front of him. He laughed, and I think he said, “You’re wasting your time, celestial,” but his words were lost in the crackle of flames as he turned into ashes.
I climbed over piles of debris, approaching the blaze of light. My demon mark itched, drawn to the dimension beyond. The tower door hung from its hinges, and I ran towards it.
A demon leaped from the portal, colliding with my celestial blade. Holding it one-handed, I continued to walk. The roar of flames became louder the closer I got, pushing against me with the force of a strong breeze. Unlike homemade portals, the pentagram needed no bloodstones to fuel its power. It’d keep burning until I switched it off. Sammy had been a decoy. Worse would await me inside that tower.
Power boiled from the pentagram, making my teeth chatter. So much… crackling in my demon mark and raising every hair on my body. Fire demanded to leap into my hands, but unleashing that sort of power would only make the portal more powerful. Focus, Devi. One foot in front of the other…
A head poked out of the pentagram. Lava-coloured and covered in spines, it spat venom at me. I recoiled, grimacing when it splashed on my shoes, but kept walking. Swinging my celestial blade, I decapitated the beast mid-jump. Whatever you throw at me, I’ll kill it. I knew who waited behind the pentagram before he appeared, smiling the way he had before. Not a friendly smile. More like the look of a demon before it tore up its prey.
“Hello, Devi,” Damian purred, positioning himself in front of the pentagram. “Wouldn’t you like to give me a taste of that remarkable magic of yours?”
No. He was trying to lure me into using my power on the pentagram, to make it even stronger.
Rather than using my celestial blade, I drew a stake and threw it at him. He raised his arms and blocked, the weapon clattering to the floor. I squinted at him. Though the pentagram’s roar drowned out any other noise, he wore a plain leather jacket. The stake shouldn’t have bounced off like I’d thrown it at the armoured worm.
He’s using magic. I’d known he wasn’t Damian—hell, maybe Damian himself had been replaced a while back. Like the inspector, he was an impostor. But what level of demon might he be? The beast thrashing in the building’s wreckage was Grade Four—miles above all our levels. The inspector, maybe Grade Three. He had a weakness somewhere, but my priority was switching off that pentagram.
Drawing another stake, I feinted, then hurled it at his neck. Again, it bounced off an invisible shield. The same noise had come from the Mother when I’d tried to hit her. Might she be a fake, too? If there were no limits on what shapeshifter demons could turn into, anything was possible. But… that meant the portal was fuelling his power, too.
Fire swirled behind him. Definitely Pandemonium. Think, Devi. In my demon mark, I carried Rachel’s magic as well as the fire, not to mention Nikolas’s lightning power. Shadow magic wasn’t from that realm, so it wouldn’t give the portal more fuel. And I’d seen Nikolas knock doors down and blast holes in walls with that power.
Dark-edged lightning exploded from my right palm, over Damian’s shoulder. He grinned, not realising I’d missed on purpose. For all its power, the portal wasn’t nailed down. It was attached to the pentagram, and I already knew how to turn it off. I just needed to access the switch.
A second palm of lightning sizzled from my fingertips, through the tower door, aiming at the floor. The pentagram shifted, momentarily lifted off the ground, and the fiery inferno tipped over, warping the tower around it.
“You can’t break it, Devi. This is only the beginning.” His voice boomed, slipping into Higher Chthonic. The demon language of Pandemonium.
“Who the hell even are you?”
I aimed the lightning at Damian himself this time, drawing a knife. Shielding is one of his powers. But it wasn’t a primary demon ability. Neither was shapeshifting. He must be…
A demigod.
I leapt, lightning surging from my hand in twin streams. One bounced off his armour. The second collided with the pentagram’s side, sending it crashing into the tower’s wall. If I’d aimed right, it should have hit the switch.
The fire disappeared, going out. Damian made to run towards it, but I jumped, kicking him in the face with Rachel’s boots. The momentum sent us both crashing to the ground, but he transformed first, turning into Rachel. I pinned the fake Rachel beneath my knees, and he turned into Damian again. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“So who’s your arch-demon parent?” I asked, holding the knife to his neck.
He laughed. “One who cannot die. I am dust and ashes, and I cannot be destroyed.”
“We’ll see.” I cut his throat. Invincible or not, the blade sliced through flesh easily enough.
His body dissolved beneath me. I waited, knife in hand, but he didn’t reappear.
This isn’t over. I’d killed the inspector, but he might even have been the same demon. For some reason, killing him—even reducing his body to ashes—didn’t destroy him the way it did to other demons.
But the portal was gone. I walked to the tower door, reached inside, and picked up the gold-edged pentagram. Fire tingled along my palms, but no inferno appeared. I wasn’t sure I could even destroy it with my magic without opening it again. I’d just be providing another source of fuel for its power.
There was a deafening crash, vibrating through the floor. Dust flew over my head and I whirled around. Nikolas’s winged form brought the giant worm’s body crashing to earth with another tremendous thud. Shards of lightning whirled around his hands, piercing the worm’s armour. Horrible screaming noises gurgled from its throat. Then… silence.
I turned my back on the ruins of the tower and approached Nikolas. His wings remained out, dark and shadowy. Thick demon blood stained his arms to the elbows, and he was bleeding from cuts which had presumably come from the monster’s spiked armour or teeth.
“It’s not dead,” I said. “The pentagram might be, but the portal isn’t. It’s still active on the other side. In Pandemonium.”
“I suspected so,” he said. “But I’ve never seen one like that before. Portals are usually static. If I had to guess, a force on the other side was constantly pumping power into it. That’s an incredibly dangerous thing to do. If there’s not an equal force on either side, it can cause ruptures in the weaker realm.”
“Meaning this one,” I said. “Shit. I wasn’t too late, was I? What sort of side effects are we talking about?”
“Dimensional rifts opening and spitting demons out, higher levels of demons coming through weaker portals… that sort of thing.” He eyed the pentagram in my hands. “Not ideal, but survivable.”
“Assuming the celestials rebuild,” I said. “It’s a global collective, but if there’s that level of corruption elsewhere… not to mention the ones who helped me will have to explain this crap to the celestials’ council. Because I sure as hell can’t.” The celestials’ leaders generally had the same ability to see auras as the Grade Fours. As much as they needed to rebuild, as much as this realm desperately needed the celestial army to survive… I couldn’t be a part of it. Not as long as I was marked.
“The Grade Fours haven’t caught up yet,” he said. “There’s nobody else living in this building. Either the demons drove them out or they killed them.”
I shook ashes from the pentagram. “Where’s Rachel?”
The celestials who’d fought alongside us stood in a huddled group, but there was no sign of
Rachel.
“She went to scout for survivors.” He jerked his head in the direction of the east wing, which was mostly intact. The front of the building had taken most of the hit. “Like the real inspector.”
“There’s no way he survived,” I said. If I was a demon, I’d have finished the job, anyway.
A celestial from the group at the academy tentatively approached us. Sandra Yun, who’d survived more than one assault at the demons’ hands, not to mention losing her partner a few weeks ago.
“Hey,” she said. “Devi… is the portal closed? Is it where that thing came from?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Damian, too. He was a demon in disguise. And the inspector. I don’t know where the real guy is, but I think you’re going to have to nominate a new leader until backup from outside the city arrives.”
Before the Grade Fours take power.
I didn’t know if she heard my unspoken words, but she dipped her head. “I know. There might be one or two… it’s just so confusing.” Her gaze passed over the dead bodies of the vampire celestials, her former comrades. “Were they under mind control?”
“Sort of,” I said. “The parasite—that was its final form. They lost their minds to the virus. There’s—there’s no cure.” My throat closed up. “I’m sorry.”
“Who did this?” she asked quietly.
“An arch-demon,” I said. “I can’t say I know which. Or where it came from.”
“Hey!” Rachel waved at us, crossing the bloodstained pavement from the wrecked building. “No more demons in there. But I’d shut down that pentagram, permanently.”
“That was the plan.” I looked at Nikolas, then at the celestials. They not-so-subtly moved away from Rachel, possibly because she had her extra set of teeth out. Like a pink-haired girl with an unhinged jaw dripping blood everywhere was the weirdest sight they’d ever seen.
“And us?” asked Sandra. “We can fight if called for, but since we don’t even know who the enemy is…”
“Normally I’d say they won’t attack the guild again,” I said, “but the source on the other side of the portal is still active. So if they try to get through again, they might use the same route. Because this part of our realm is weaker. The guild’s headquarters directly overlaps with the place they keep making portals.”
Celestial Ashes: The Celestial Marked Series: Book Three Page 15