“Everyone knows that,” he snarled, shadows unfurling from his body in the form of wings. “I’ve never hidden what I am, Devi. And I will not bow down to these invaders.”
“Then come with me.”
I held my demon mark high, clearing a path through the hall to the doors. Then I turned around again.
“I have the powers of heaven and hell in my hands,” I said. “You can follow me into battle or die here like cowards—your choice.”
Without waiting for an answer, I pushed the doors open.
The portal’s light cast an eerie glow all around outside. The velvet sky appeared starless and distant as though every source of light in the world had been pulled into the pentagram. It shone, a beacon in the wasteland. No sign of any arch-demons or demigods… yet. But demons had assembled in front of the portal, waiting to strike.
Celestial light blazed from my hands, and the demon army faltered. But they weren’t my targets. I shone the light directly at the castle, and drew on the power from the warlocks behind me, particularly the ones who hadn’t elected to follow me. My demon mark blazed, and the castle trembled, bits of rock falling from the side.
“What are you doing?” demanded several warlocks.
I didn’t answer. I’d seen the castle from the outside enough times to know where the fallen were kept imprisoned. Half of it had collapsed already, and needed little encouragement to clear. The way out was open. If they wanted to leave—or help us—they could.
Power exploded from my hands. I didn’t even need to draw my blade. Demons fell, buckling beneath my power. Shimmering rays of light continued to spiral up into the sky from the portal.
As though on cue, the warlock army surged towards their enemies. Zadok took flight in a way not unlike his brother, dive-bombing the enemy from above. Wherever I walked, demons fled from the light, back into the portal.
Good. Now to follow them.
Letting the light die down, I approached the portal at a run. Light blinded me for an instant, and I floated. Pandemonium. Take me to Pandemonium.
I opened my eyes. At first I thought I’d landed on another world entirely. Demonglass pillars were shattered and reformed into sharp protrusions, like a barbed fence surrounding a cage. And… tunnels. The entrances to Pandemonium’s tunnels had been brought to the earth’s surface. Maybe when the Mother had crossed into our realm. It’d been totally levelled in the space of a few days. Or hours. Nothing like demon magic for large-scale destruction.
“Show yourself,” I shouted. “Abyss. I know you must be here.”
I didn’t have her true name and couldn’t summon her in person, but she must be close if she’d manipulated the realm to this degree. Even Emarial couldn’t have done it.
I walked, my footsteps crunching on shattered glass and broken rock, and a disturbing number of bones. Every time a demon crossed my path, I blasted it aside and kept going. My aura vision warned me they were coming. But nothing darker crossed my vision, no hints of an arch-demon’s presence.
I reached the edge of the palace’s former entrance hall, which had once been a balcony, and gasped.
The city had become a true maze, houses rising to form tall, sharp walls. Now I stood on ground level, the sky was entirely blotted out. Had it been put in defence mode, or had the arch-demon done it?
“Devi!” shouted a familiar voice.
I spun around. “Rachel? I thought you weren’t coming?”
“I couldn’t leave you to fight alone,” she said. “I used a portal. I had to see… I had to find him.” She looked around, a distraught expression on her face.
“Abyss,” I said. “She must have done this.”
She shuddered. “Yeah, I know. Javos—he left, he said he needed to warn the other warlocks. I think he knows Haven City is their target. But—but I can’t find Nikolas. No arch-demons either. If she did this, then she came from Babylon.”
“What—seriously? How?”
“Babylon’s damaged,” she mumbled. “From what happened before. I don’t know Abyss—I don’t know her magic, but she couldn’t have got in any other way. She turned it to ashes. And now she’s going to do the same to Babylon.”
“Not yet,” I said. “Zadok’s fighting, for what it’s worth. They won’t die.” My voice rose. “Show yourself, Abyss.”
“She isn’t here.” Inspector Angler stepped out in front of me, radiating power from his hand. Dark lightning collided with the floor inches in front of me. Nikolas’s magic.
“You’re the one who took him?” I should have guessed.
“The children of arch-demons cause too many complications.”
“Then I’ll have to take it up with Lythocrax again.”
“You’d better believe it,” said Rachel, her voice deepening as her demon form took over.
He laughed. “A disgraced celestial and a bastard hybrid. How convenient.”
“What the fuck is even going on?” I demanded. “You’re supposed to be at war with Abyss. You’re on Lythocrax’s side, right? Aren’t you meant to be fighting, not stalking me? Or do you have to wait for your master’s command before you blow your nose?”
“You still aren’t taking this war seriously. I’m here to set the stage for the battle, on Lythocrax’s orders. No more.”
“This petty little war of yours nearly cost me everything, so you’d better believe I’m taking it seriously. Doesn’t mean I’ll come and meet you on your own terms, dickhead. Tell me what you did with Nikolas.”
“You’re failing to see the bigger picture.”
“What, the part where you make a big performance, rather than doing the sensible thing and taking care of your little feud in the infernal realms, not Earth?”
“Your realm contains so much more potential,” he said. “So many of these realms are already lost. Not yours. Look how easily you were marked, gifted with divine power and darkness both. Imagine others like us.” He grinned wickedly. “You’re the bridge, Devina Lawson. And you’ll help me bring the battle to the city you love so much.”
Chapter 22
“No,” I said. “I wasn’t even supposed to get my powers back, according to Lythocrax. But I won’t submit to him. I told him that.”
“You never spoke to him, you lying human.”
I summoned the swirling current of magic I’d taken from the warlocks. “Not lying. He reactivated my mark.”
“Then he must have decided it was worth the risk,” he said. “Since the end is so very near… what entertainment you must be. They’re enjoying watching you scuttle around like an ant avoiding a magnifying glass.”
“You are such a creep,” I said. “I keep forgetting you’re not one of the shapeshifters. So they’re coming, but not Abyss? Are both arch-demons sitting this out? Cowards.”
“Merely practical,” he said. “Does a king need to conquer in person to take a throne?”
“You’re not—” I stopped. “There’s only one demon army, right? That’s it. Lythocrax and Abyss are on the same side. Those attacks were just their attempt to take out Babylon.”
A smile curled his lips. “Right you are. Why do you think your realm has remained safe for so long? Babylon’s presence protected it. No longer.”
Hate exploded inside me, at the same time as he lunged forward with preternatural speed. Divine light surged from my left palm. Let him see the fire he’d rejected used against him.
He dodged, ducking behind a smashed pillar. The divine light bounced off it, dissipating. Dammit.
The former inspector laughed from behind the pillar. “You cannot destroy me, Devi.”
The power pouring from my hands never touched him. Instead, it veered to the side as though dragged by an invisible force. Towards the portal.
Dammit.
They’d set me up. Both sides. Earth would be their battlefield one way or another, and I’d take the fall. The conniving bastards.
“It won’t be so bad,” he said softly. “This is how it’s meant to be.”
With a guttural snarl, Rachel leapt on him from behind, pinning him down. Lightning shot from his hand, narrowly missing her. Recent. He’d seen Nikolas, not long ago.
As though my thoughts had conjured up the image, my celestial hand lit up, a tugging sensation pulling me towards one of the open tunnel entrances. Right—I had advanced tracking magic now. Was it telling me Nikolas was underground?
Rachel flew to the side, landing on her feet beside me. Lightning surged towards us but I absorbed the power and threw it back at him. He flew back several feet, tumbling head over heels. Inspector Angler shouted a curse, and jumped into the portal.
“Dammit,” I said. “Nikolas is in one of those tunnels.”
“You’re joking,” said Rachel.
“Nope. You don’t have to come. Seriously.”
“I’m not sitting behind like Javos wants me to.” She scowled. “Now he has an issue with me fighting. The hypocrite.”
I stood over the place where the lightning had struck. Nikolas’s magic. Its echo passed over my demon mark, but it was my celestial mark that glowed, honing in on its presence.
“I can track him,” I told Rachel.
We entered the tunnel side by side. The path ahead was clear, branching off into several other tunnels. There must have been a whole labyrinth underground while the palace had been standing.
Several venos demons leapt at us. I burned them to cinders without a thought, concentrating on the echo of Nikolas’s magic inside my demon mark. My celestial power honed in on it, telling me which tunnels to head down. Rachel followed close behind, her body tense.
Then I stopped. Inside the cave ahead of us, Nikolas was tied to the wall with crude ropes, and he wasn’t alone. The inspector was tied up beside several other celestial soldiers. At least half a dozen. So they brought them here from the headquarters? No wonder it’d been so easy for the demons to seize power.
“You shouldn’t be here,” said Fiona’s voice.
She sidled into view from behind the prisoners’ slumped bodies. But it wasn’t her gaze that looked at me, nor her aura that burned like fire.
My hand buzzed, the light bending in her direction. I clenched my fist and the light hit the floor instead. Sensing Azurial’s presence, my divine power was trying to kill her. Stop it. Now.
“Go on,” Azurial said softly, cracking a smile.
Shit. Shit. Was it like this for the Grade Fours all the time? No wonder they were so trigger-happy. I clenched my fist, willing the light to die down, but it burned on relentlessly.
“I wish we’d had the chance to know one another better, Devi,” Azurial said. “We might even have ended up on the same side. I know everything about you. I took all the knowledge from her head. All your hopes and fears, everything you confided.”
“Get out of the way,” I said. “And get out of her head.”
My celestial hand vibrated intensely.
“She said you were considering appealing directly to the arch-demons,” Azurial said. “Did you? You could have asked for anything, you know… you could have asked her to be freed.”
My heart sank. I could have. But the demons would have found a way to twist my words, and as much as I cared for Fiona, she’d slap me if she found out I’d sacrificed the world for her sake.
The only way to be rid of Azurial was to use my celestial power and kill her in the process.
My celestial hand ignited, insistent. Reaching for her.
No.
I grabbed her with my demon-marked hand instead, letting my grip tighten. Furiously, like she was the enemy.
“All right then,” I snarled. Divine power thrummed in my blood. “So be it. Sorry, Fiona.”
“What are you doing?” Azurial asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m burning you.”
I raised a hand—and Fiona’s terrified gaze stared back. I pulled my hand away, and she collapsed into my arms.
“My head,” Fiona moaned. “He’s going to kill me.”
“You’re okay.” I sagged with relief. I hadn’t really believed it’d work. Azurial would be back eventually, but we needed to get the others out of here first.
“No,” she said. “I’m not. You should have killed me, Devi. Otherwise—”
“He’ll find someone else,” I said. “Or disappear. He shouldn’t have survived in the first place, but he’s drawn to fire, right? So he can just find a new vessel.”
An idea sparked. Light grew in my palm, and she yelped, veering away.
“Sorry,” I said. “Look—this is about as bright as it gets. What if I ‘persuade’ him to take up residence somewhere else?”
“I don’t—”
The rumble of a force like an earthquake passed through the cave. Then the world tilted sideways. Literally. I fell onto my side, my arm bruising on the floor, Fiona slipping from my grasp.
“What now?” she asked, her voice half-hysterical.
Nikolas’s head snapped upright, his eyes opening. “It’s a side effect… of the bridge.”
No. We were too late.
“Nikolas?” I crossed the cave to him. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, but we need to get out of this cave before it collapses.”
Rachel stood beside the celestials, as though unsure what to do. “Should I free them? These are the good guys, right?”
“Except that guy.” I jerked my head at the inspector. “He’s out cold, by the look of things.”
“He’s been here the longest,” said the celestial nearest me, his voice faint. “What—what are you doing here, Devi?”
“Rescuing everyone, assuming the world doesn’t turn on its head.” And assuming there’s anything of Haven City left. “Inspector Angler must have opened the bridge. How the hell do you close it?” I addressed Nikolas.
“You don’t.” His forehead pinched. “When worlds collide like that… they change, warping, merging together. Even if we win this…”
Earth as we knew it would be gone.
Molten fury rose in my veins. “Then I’ll slaughter every last one of them.”
I examined the chains that held him, and blasted them with Nikolas’s own lightning power. The chains broke, freeing his hands and feet. He immediately staggered backwards, cursing under his breath.
“He drained me,” he said, his fists clenching. “Even my regenerative power—I need access to Babylon to recharge.”
“I can take you there, but Fiona—”
“I’ll take her,” Rachel said quickly. “I can handle Azurial.”
I doubt it. I swallowed down the words. The ground vibrated, a steady thrum that pulsed in my bones and blood. The portal.
“You’re not leaving us here!” shouted the celestial.
“Depends if you’d like to jump through a demon portal into a war,” I told him. “You too, inspector.”
He didn’t stir at my words, but several celestials moved in to help him.
“You’re welcome to follow us,” I said. “Don’t go any deeper underground. There are monsters down there.”
We left the cave via the same route I’d come in. Several times, the whole place trembled, knocking people off their feet. Thanking Rachel’s shoes for sparing my dignity, I kept going until we reached the palace’s shattered ruin on the surface.
The portal was a mass of swirling light across from us, masking the view of the city beyond, and the realm on the other side. Or realms. Was Babylon there—or Earth? Damn it all. The palace’s demonglass must be fuelling it, but the boundaries between realms had been weakening ever since the first portal had been set up here.
I moved closer to Nikolas, instinctively. His wings weren’t out. Drained of power, he couldn’t fly directly into the portal to Babylon without passing directly through the battlefield. Or use his shadow power. Oh shit. I needed to get him back to Earth, but the portal had expanded to cover half the demonglass ruins.
“Want me to take you back so you can shift through to Babylon?”
; He shook his head. “No. I won’t sit this one out.” Now the chains were gone, his dark aura had begun to return, shrouding his body. Being close to Babylon was recharging his magical ability.
“What the devil…” The inspector’s voice was faint, but unmistakable.
I turned to him. Two celestials carried him awkwardly between them.
“Hey there, Deacon,” I said. “I wasn’t going to say ‘I told you so’, but well. Judge for yourself.” I waved a hand at the portal. “You guys are welcome to follow me. I can’t say I know what’ll happen when we reach the other side, but I’ll clear the road.”
“And I’ll be right behind,” Rachel said. Fiona was draped over her shoulders, while the celestials helped one another. My body hummed in tandem with the magic surging around the portal. Celestial fire kept burning my palm, and I didn’t dare help carry Fiona in case it burned her.
Instead, I ran towards the portal.
Demons cringed away as I tore a path through them, leading the others. Picking up speed, I ran towards the swirling currents of fire, already seeing echoes of those awful visions the angel had shown me. My city, alight in fire. Pandemonium and Babylon transplanted on top of one another, on top of Haven City. I’d never seen anything like it before—never thought it might be possible.
The world tilted under my feet. One second I stumbled on the ruined demonglass of Pandemonium—the next, I was on a tarmac road in which terrified humans fled from a venos demon. As I stabbed it, the beast disappeared, and so did I, the street replaced with a narrow opening between towering stone walls. Pandemonium—inside the maze. I summoned my celestial blade and cut down the demon. As it died, Babylon’s violet sky replaced Pandemonium’s pale grey one, and the huge facade of the castle loomed overhead.
Crap. I’d lost sight of the others. Nikolas better have made it here. But that road—it’d been Haven City. The three realms were colliding. Any of the unlucky humans living near the portal were effectively trapped between three worlds, and now I was, too. My steps should have carried me closer to the portal’s swirling centre, but the wind knocked me sideways. It was like walking into a tornado.
Celestial Ashes: The Celestial Marked Series: Book Three Page 20