by Krista Walsh
Vera flashed him a wry smile. “It seems your son has a different effect on me. I’m immune to most of his charms.”
Gabe grinned at her, his heart swelling with love for this goddess in front of him. Adrenaline still pumped through his veins, and now that one lust had been satisfied, another rose up to grab his attention.
“Fascinating,” Frank said, glancing between them. “Very interesting.” He released a breath, then offered a smile that appeared just as genuine as it was forced. “I’m happy for you, son.” He gave his stomach another rub. “I’m so glad I got the chance to see you again. And that I could meet you, Vera.” He took her hand and pressed her fingers between his. “Maybe sometimes the Fates aren’t such selfish beings as I’ve believed them to be for the last couple of years.”
The warmth in Gabe’s core evaporated at his father’s tone. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Frank stared into his sunglasses. “Ending this. I’m going to go destroy that software for you. You can go do whatever you need to do to keep everyone busy and then get out of here, but finding the software will waste too much time. No one knows I’ve turned yet — no one alive, anyway. So no one will get in my way.”
Gabe’s heart dropped. “No. You’re in no better shape than we are. I can’t let you take that chance.”
At his side, Vera wobbled on her feet. Gabe grabbed for her again, and when he turned back to his father, Frank had already reached the door. Gabe made to pursue, but Vera grabbed his arm. “He’s right,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Gabe, but he is. He knows this place better than we do, and he can move faster than we can. Have you heard from Percy?”
Gabe scowled. “No. I don’t think we ever reconnected when we came up from the tunnel.”
Vera’s brow furrowed. “There’s a chance your father can still move through these crowds without drawing suspicion, but if we went with him, we’d be torn apart. I say we move out and either find this warlock or find the rest of us. Once we have Zach and Daphne, we can make a real stand. It’s the only way to help your father now.”
Gabe bowed his head. His sunglasses slipped from his nose, and he caught them before they fell.
“You’re right. I know you’re right. I hate this.”
Vera took his hand and pressed her lips against his. “I love you. We’re going to get out of this.”
Gabe wished he could believe her. Unable to lie, he only offered a smile in response. She squeezed his fingers, adjusted the satchel on her shoulder, and led him toward the door. Despite Frank’s ministrations, he caught the way she hunched over her middle, clearly still in pain but not able to admit it. If she was going to stay strong, the least he could do was be worthy of her. He pulled his shoulders back and stared down the now-empty corridor. His father was nowhere to be seen.
Accepting that the only way to go was forward, he followed Vera out of the room as they pressed their way deeper into the prison.
33
Zach stared at the demon standing in front of him and struggled against the instinct to run.
A moment ago, Mayes had been nothing more than a man in his sixties with a trim white mustache and an expensive suit, looking exactly as he had in his headshot on the Mayzell Industries website. Now he’d evolved into a beast who stood taller than Zach by an easy three feet, broadening to stretch the full width of the corridor, a monster of muscle and fire. Deep red eyes glared down at him over a stretched mouth full of sharp fangs. Fire flickered along the outsides of its arms and down its back to its sparking tail.
Zach had wondered how it was possible that a businessman could have taken over a prison and held so many demons in check. Now he understood.
At his side, Daphne had summoned enough magic that her entire body was touched by her golden aura. He wanted to warn her to hold back, to not push too hard, but if he were honest with himself, he knew they didn’t stand a chance if they didn’t throw everything they had against this nightmare.
Beside Mayes, Lozak leered at them with a grin that cooled Zach’s blood beneath his scales. The scars on the mountainous demon’s face had spread since their last meeting, and he appeared taller, larger. His grip on Molly’s arms didn’t loosen as he pulled the girl away.
Zach growled and moved toward him, but Mayes stepped forward, whipping his tail out to block Zach’s path.
“I hear you’ve come into your own, Zachariel,” he said, his voice a rumble with an underlying hiss, like drops of fire steaming in a tub of cold water. “Show me what I’ve created. If you’re sincere about your desire to stop my plan, you know you’ll have to make it through me.”
Zach wished he could be sure that wasn’t true. He wished he could believe that once Vera and Gabe got the book and destroyed the software, once the Collegiate destroyed the prison, this would be over.
But he didn’t believe in luck or half measures. To run now would be to accept probable defeat, which was unacceptable.
The air popped and sparked around him as Daphne summoned more magic into her palms. The blow she’d struck at Mayes had taken a chunk out of the wall behind him, but it didn’t appear to have harmed more than a singed patch of his expansive shoulder.
The other demons, including the sorceress, that they’d walked in on earlier stood ranged around them. Before Mayes had come in, Zach and Daphne had managed to take down four of the twelve, but the other eight, though breathing heavily, were still in the fight. One sorceress, two Ghurgzic demons, two Lingor bitches, and three of Zach’s Korvack kin. He scanned over the beasts that, in another life, might have been his brothers in arms. Their red-scaled frames were hunched forward, their shoulders back as they braced to run at him. The ridges along their spines caught the torchlight with deadly sharpness.
If he wanted to get the upper hand on the situation, he’d need to dig deep into his own power and, like Daphne, hope he didn’t lose himself in the current.
Breathing heavily, he tapped first into his more familiar demon strength. It burned his skin as the scales slid over his hands and up his arms. His shoulders filled out, and the seams of his coat finally gave way. He peeled it off and threw it to the floor as his black T-shirt stretched against his chest and stomach.
Mayes threw back his head and laughed. “Is that really the best you can do, daemelus? You’re nothing more than a beetle that believes itself to be a god because it stands taller than the ants.”
Zach snarled, refusing to allow the beast to goad him into pushing too hard too fast.
Using the moment of their distraction, Daphne stirred up the air. The fire rising between Zach’s scales ebbed and flowed as electricity pulsed around him. What remained of his skin tingled with the energy, the hair tugging at his pores, creating goosebumps that faded as his scales took over.
The demons around Mayes and Lozak backed away, eying Daphne warily. The temperature in the room changed, growing hot beneath Zach’s feet even as it grew colder toward the ceiling. The pressure closed in around Zach, and he stepped closer to Daphne, not wanting to be standing too far from her when she let loose.
She raised her hands and pulled moisture from the walls. It gathered together overhead, and a fog began obscuring everyone’s view of the room.
The other sorceress standing across from them worked to clear it, but Daphne pressed on. The fog rose higher, forming heavy dark clouds that drifted across the ceiling. The rag-covered sorceress shot blasts of magic at them, but all that did was disperse the clouds, which quickly joined together again.
A lightning bolt shot down to the floor, scoring the stone with its blast. A sharp, acrid scent filled the air as smoke drifted upward. The demons pressed themselves away, but more lightning struck. One bolt caught a Ghurgzic demon on the top of its flat, glistening head, and its corpse dropped to the ground. Another bolt struck the wall, freeing chunks of stone that fell outward and crushed a fleeing Lingor demon beneath their weight.
The sorceress threw a blast of magic in Daphne’s direction, but Daphne threw up her ha
nds and seemed to brace herself against it. The magic shimmered in the air as she twisted her fingers, gaining control, then she sent the weaker power flying toward the trio of Korvack demons that were still standing. It struck one of them in the chest, bringing him down, but the other two were barely pushed back.
Zach had already squeezed his hands into fists and charged, taking advantage of their shock. His fist landed against the cheek of the nearest one, cracking the scales beneath his knuckles. The demon recovered and struck back, but Zach ducked beneath its blow and caught his arm around the demon’s chest, slamming it into its brother. But the two recovered quickly, working together to push Zach back and surround him. They each grabbed an arm and pulled tight, stretching Zach out as the remaining Ghurgzic demon stepped forward. It delivered a blow to Zach’s stomach with such force that his lungs seized, forcing out his breath.
Fury rose within him, white mixing with red as these villains — these bastards who should have been locked up beneath the prison instead of roaming the world, free to wreak chaos — assailed his body. The scales on his chest cracked, and the fire that licked out from beneath them seared his middle. He absorbed each lick of pain, using it to fuel him as the white heat pressed deeper into his bones.
Mayes’s laughter filled the room, but Zach tuned it out. He had to save Molly. These insignificant insects could only hold him down for so long.
Around him, Daphne’s power ebbed and flowed. Another chunk of rock fell from the ceiling and pounded into the Lingor demon dancing around Zach, crushing it.
His power grew stronger as his muscles filled out. His back hunched as the ridges along his spine pressed through his T-shirt, and blood trickled down his forehead as horns broke through his brow. A cry of agony burst through his lips as his ribs shifted, expanding and contracting to make room for the new bones pressing outward. The material of his shirt ripped as wings tore through his skin.
The last time he’d experienced this change, he’d been close to death, already in so much pain that he hadn’t noticed the added torment. This time, it was enough to take his knees out from under him, and if the Korvack demons hadn’t been holding him steady, he would have fallen.
As soon as his wings were through, the pain turned to a warmth that threatened to set all of his nerve endings on fire. The sensation pulsed down his left arm, concentrating into a sharp press against his skin as a sword extended out of his arm and grew into his hand.
Gripping the hilt, he swung his elbow backward into the demon on his left and used the space he created to swipe the sword across its neck. The blade, as lethal as the weight of Justice herself, struck its head from its shoulders. As the corpse tumbled to the ground, Zach spun on his heel and drove the blade through the chest of the last Korvack demon. It released Zach’s arm and wound its fingers around the sword, attempting to pull it free, but contact with the spirit-forged metal only burned the demon’s hands, filling the room with the stench of burning flesh and scales as it died.
The Ghurgzic demon had stepped back when the first Korvack demon fell, but as Lozak shouted orders to attack, he lumbered forward. Zach didn’t move. He raised the sword in front of him, its blade now dripping with thick black blood, and angled it in such a way that when the Ghurgzic demon came within reach, it took no effort at all to slice through the top of its yellow-fleshed head. It fell to the floor with a sickeningly wet thud. By this time, Mayes had stopped laughing.
Zach turned toward him, and at the sight of him, his angelic brain tapped into the bank of transgressions the angels collected against the members of the otherworld. The demon Akutiel, who in this form called himself Arthur Mayes, had been the first prisoner of the guardians, long before the construction of Tartarus. He had been a raging evil in the mundane world, intent on raising the otherworld above all of humanity.
The guardians kept him enclosed for centuries, working to retrain him to their purposes, using him to help keep the demons at bay. He’d complied. Or at least he had seemed to. When the demon wars broke out, the guardians released him to fight alongside them, promising liberty if he obeyed their commands. He had done so, and fought loyally as far as Zach was aware, but considering where he stood today, Zach wondered just how much effort he’d put into protecting his former captors.
“You had your chance at freedom, Akutiel,” he said, and the demon sneered at the sound of his true name. “The guardians proved you couldn’t achieve your goals, and they gave you an opportunity to atone. You had the opportunity to take a better path. Why would you risk everything just to make another attempt?”
Akutiel stepped forward, his tail flicking from side to side. Molly shrieked as the tip of it caught her leg, but Lozak held her firmly in place when she tried to pull away.
“Why?” he asked, his tone amused. “Because no one was watching. The guardians were gone, and the demons, who had all but won, the cowards, were too ignorant to know how to take advantage of their success. They were satisfied with not having anyone overseeing their affairs, but they changed nothing. When no moves were made on our side to replace the guardians, or to ensure they never rose again, I realized the time had come to take a stand. The world has changed in the last hundred years, Zachariel. The demon wars were meant to give us a higher place in this dimension, but we remain in hiding. Worse, in this time of social media and constant observation, we work harder than ever to protect our secrets. So I used my position to gain access to the prison. I used the knowledge and experience I had gathered in my human form, waiting until I had the strength to reveal myself.”
“Surrounding yourself with people like Jermaine Hershel,” Daphne spat. At the sound of her voice, Zach flicked his gaze toward her. Her magic flickered around her like golden fire, licking outward as though she were about to set loose on the room. Her hair was standing on end, and her voice had developed a second layer, a rougher, deeper sound that hinted at the power she kept under the surface. The rag-clad sorceress lay dead at her feet.
Akutiel barked a laugh. “That pustule. That sycophantic traitor. Did you know he was attempting to take my plan and turn himself into a challenger for my rule? He and that dandy incubus. They were fools. Did they seriously think I didn’t know what they were doing?”
“I don’t think you did know,” Daphne said, stepping forward. “I don’t think you could have even guessed at the sort of trouble Jermaine set in motion for you, or how his little games would create the doorway that would lead to your destruction. You say he was trying to become your challenger. The fact that we’re here right now is proof he succeeded.”
Akutiel released a roar that shifted the air around the room, filling it with the reek of sulfur. Zach raised his sword and moved toward him, but Lozak stepped in his way. “You take one more step, daemelus, and I’ll turn this girl into mulch. Stand down.”
Red filtered through Zach’s vision, and his wings stretched out toward either side of the room, the feathers ruffling.
To his left, a door opened, and two figures ran through. Zach tensed, ready for more enemies to come at them.
“Looks like you guys started the party without us,” Gabe called, and Zach’s heart pounded with relief. With reinforcements, they might stand a chance against these two goliaths.
Lozak turned toward them, and Molly sank her teeth deep into the flesh of his arm. He jerked away in surprise, and she bolted out of his reach. Zach doubted her maneuver would have worked if there hadn’t been so many other distractions, but luck seemed to be with her. Lozak darted after her, but Vera cut in front of him and slammed her fist so hard into his cheek that a tooth flew into the wall and lodged in the stone.
Gabe grabbed Molly and shoved her behind him, then moved her back, away from Vera and from the doors where any other demons might come through. Molly was only a dozen feet away or so, close enough that Zach could grab her and run, just as they’d planned. But running with her wouldn’t keep her safe. Not while there was still this devil to contend with.
Zach retu
rned his attention to Akutiel, who didn’t seem to have processed all the turns of events. He looked to Lozak, then to Gabe and Vera, then back to Zach. His shoulders heaved with the strength of his breath. In the seconds Zach had looked away from him, he appeared to have grown another four feet, the horns on his head nearly brushing the ceiling.
“No matter what Jermaine intended,” he said, and his voice shook Zach’s insides, “you will not win. This world was meant for the demons to rule, and we will have our day.”
His tail lashed out and caught Zach in the ribs, knocking the wind out of him and forcing him off his feet. Despite the layers of scales covering his skin, the heat cut right through, scoring the side of his chest. Zach growled and breathed deeper to summon more of his strength as he stood back up, his Korvack genes stirring as a reaction to the pain. The scales on his body grew thicker, bubbling upward to create a heavy layer of armor. His feathered wings shifted as a thinner layer of scales stretched to cover the flesh beneath them. From his right hand, a whip of fire uncoiled toward the floor and he flicked it out, the sharp snap echoing against the walls.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Vera exchanging blows with Lozak. The mountainous demon was bleeding and falling back, but the tide was turning against her. Just as Zach had witnessed back at the trade college, Lozak was more than he appeared. His skin was growing dark as shale-like scales broke out over the backs of his arms, catching the torchlight with a glitter that would have been hypnotic if it hadn’t covered such a hideous frame. His fists widened and hardened, turning his punches into falling rocks as they hurtled toward Vera’s face. Vera fell back and struck her head against the wall. The impact cracked the stone, scattering pebbles across the floor.
Akutiel’s tail flicked toward Zach again, but this time he saw it coming. Lashing out his whip, he caught the tail before it struck and yanked it back. The demon barely shifted his weight, instead using the connection to jerk Zach forward, causing him to stumble closer to Vera and Lozak.