“A warrior of light?” he said. “I would remember if I marked one of you.”
My heart sank. “You asked for me.”
“Perhaps I was wrong.” He tilted his head. “You don’t look familiar to me, but I’ve seen a great many of your kind in my time.”
He’d killed people. Armies of them, even. What the hell was I doing here?
“I’m marked,” I said. “Apparently. By a demon, maybe an arch-demon. Considering I don’t remember how it happened or who did it, I figured you might know.”
Even beneath my fear, the old guilt rose—and the fear that I’d done something terrible on that world when I’d killed the demon. Something that had killed my partner and not me. But to be marked, when I’d never touched or even seen the demon responsible… it was impossible.
“No,” he said. “I can’t say I do, human.”
“Can I go, then?” I asked. Screw my so-called demon mark—I didn’t want to spend a moment longer in his terrifying presence. “If you can’t tell me who marked me, or who’s killing the celestials in my realm—”
“Let them burn,” he growled. “Let them all die, every last one.”
“You know?” I asked, my words half-buried in a clap of thunder as he rose from his throne. “You know who’s killing them?”
“I killed them,” he roared. “Every last one of them. This realm is purged of the light, forever.”
He means the celestials in this realm. My mouth tasted of ash. “And not people from my realm? Have you—”
Flames exploded into life before me, leaping to the high ceiling, boxing me in.
“Hey!” I shouted, panicking. Dammit, where the hell had Nikolas disappeared to? That’s what I get for trusting the word of a warlock.
The flames circled me, masking the arch-demon from view. A face appeared in the smoke, forming into the semblance of a man. Human-shaped, with long flaming wings.
“I get to play with a celestial?” said the fiery demon.
“Who the hell are you?” I took a step back, but a wall of flames roared behind, and the heat at my back indicated I was surrounded. Nikolas had gone. The traitorous bastard had left me here in a realm I couldn’t get out of. And apparently the arch-demon had a personal servant he’d sent to kill me.
The fire demon raised a hand. The smell of ash and charred fabric reached my nostrils, and heat surged from my feet to my ankles. My shoes. He’d burned them off. So much for kicking the shit out of him. I stepped back, my bare feet sticking to the smooth floor, and reached into the dimension between.
My sword appeared in time to deflect a flaming hand. The winged man had appeared before me faster than anything should have the right to move. Celestial light poured from my blade, sending him staggering back.
“Get away,” I coughed.
Heat choked my lungs. Demon fire. If I dropped my guard, it’d creep in and burn the skin from my bones. I’d be a pile of ashes in seconds.
I kept my blade high, surrounded by a shimmering wave of celestial light. A temporary shield against the flames. The fire demon flickered in and out of existence, camouflaged in the flames. Powerful—higher demon level, for sure. But my blade was designed to burn demons. Even ones who wielded a fire of their own.
I swung my blade, colliding with the edge of a fiery sword. The two of them burned, and the demon’s broke first, shattering into fiery shards. He snarled, the flames shrinking a little as he formed another sword of flame. So he does have a limit. I’d fought demons like him before. He’d burn himself out before he burned me. I’d make sure of it.
Blade hit blade, white fire burned against orange. He swept low, singing my jeans. Pain stung my thighs, but I sliced viciously upwards, and dark blood splattered the flagstones. He might be fire, but he could still bleed. Wrath radiated from his very being, and he reformed his weapon, bringing it down like an axe.
I dodged to the side, dropped to a crouch, and brought the celestial blade to the hilt in his chest. Flames burst around the wound, only to be extinguished. I twisted the blade, and he collapsed, the flames disappearing. His body crumpled in on itself, leaving nothing behind but ashes.
I stepped back, my knees stinging, the taste of ash on my tongue. “I won,” I said to the arch-demon. “Now let me go.”
“No.” The huge being rose from his throne. His looming muscled form towered over me, wings splayed, casting dark shadows across the flagstones and the ashy remains of the demon I’d killed. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t send you to hell, mortal.”
Fire raged in his eyes, a thousand times worse than the lesser demon he’d sent at me. This was the sort of power that toppled armies and boiled the waters of oceans.
“One of your people marked me,” I said. “For whatever reason, you chose me. And you called me here to talk to me. If you look at my aura, you should be able to see the—”
“Mark. You do wear a mark.” He sank heavily back onto his throne. “That means your soul is bound to another demon, and I cannot harm you.”
You might have checked before you nearly killed me, you bastard.
“And?” I said warily. “What does it mean? Do I have magic?”
“Magic?” His body surged with flame. “You call this magic?”
I call it fucking scary. Demon mark or not, every inch of me rebelled against the terror projected by the flaming damnation in his eyes.
“I was an angel, once,” he said. “Did you know? I commanded legions of foolish apes like you, against the armies of hell. You all died. All of you.”
“Wait. You commanded celestials?” Of course… arch-demons were fallen angels, former Divinities. So it stood to reason that he’d have once been on the opposite side of the celestial war. Nikolas hadn’t mentioned that tiny little detail when he’d brought me here.
“Of course I did,” he crowed. “They were so devoted. Pity for them.”
Ice wormed through my chest. He’d led armies of people like me to the death. I should attack him, turn him to ash like I’d done to the other demon.
“Why?” I asked. “Why fall? What’s the point?”
“You fight on the wrong side, celestial. As a demon, however… we could offer you much more.”
“I’m not a demon,” I said. “I’ve spent years training with the celestials. A Divinity raised me from the dead.”
“Oh, you’re one of those?” He laughed, a terrible laugh like crackling flames. “Assuming you survive long enough to see the truth of our war, you’ll find that the battlefield looks no different no matter which side you stand on. I regret nothing of my choices, so don’t stand there and look upon me with your righteous justice, celestial. You’re one step from being damned yourself.”
“Because one of you marked me. Why would you do that?”
“If I had to guess, you went into hell, young celestial,” he said. “You went to hell, and you didn’t come back the same way.”
How does he know?
I stepped away from him. The ashy remains of the other demon’s fire stuck to the soles of my feet, and as I glanced down for a split second, I glimpsed my reflection. My aura burned, black as night.
No. It’s a trick. A demon trick.
I glanced up, at the pillar at my side. Whiteness outlined my body, but my right hand was laced with a dark shadow like a glove. As though hypnotised, I stepped towards it, raising my right hand. My reflection did the same. Her hand met mine, and where it should have met smooth marble, hot ash burned my palm.
I yelped and snatched my hand away. The pillar went transparent, revealing burning ash in the shape of a… pentagram. Wait. I knew that pentagram.
“You can’t hide from me, celestial!”
Flames roared across the floor, consuming everything in their path. I raised my marked hand—not the one holding the blade, but the one with the burned palm, and pressed it to the clear glass again. Flames seared it, and the pillar vanished as I fell forwards—through nothingness.
Chapter 14
/> My knees hit the alley floor, sending a shock of pain through my nerves. I staggered upright, colliding with Nikolas. “Devina!” His eyes widened. “What happened?”
“What happened is you jumped ship.” I punched him in the chest with my free hand.
To my surprise, he hissed and stepped back. “What’s that on your hand?”
A black arrowhead marked my right wrist, in the same spot as the celestial mark on my left, but pointing the opposite way. “Oh shit.”
“Your demon mark,” he said. “It’s manifested. What did he do to you?”
“First his pet fire demon nearly torched me, then he gloated about murdering celestials for a bit before trying to kill me.” Adrenaline pumped through my blood, my body shaking so much I had to lean against the wall to catch my balance. “I got the impression he wasn’t exactly… stable.”
“Neither are your shoes.”
I looked down. There wasn’t much left of my boots. That was almost me. Hellfire and ash.
“But you didn’t say how you escaped,” Nikolas said. “I’ve been trying to get through the pentagram, but he sealed it off. You shouldn’t have been able to come through it.”
I held up my palm, and the mark, which burned dark as the aura on my reflection. “The pillar was made of this reflective stuff. When I touched it, I fell through it and ended up back here.”
“The mark.” He grabbed my wrist. Instinctively, I hit out at him. He dodged smoothly, apparently reluctant to get hit with magical blisters. I’d bet they wouldn’t have worked on the arch-demon.
“Get it off,” I told him. “Seriously. If the celestials see the mark—I’m dead.”
“I think the celestials are the least of your problems.” He examined the remains of the pentagram at our feet. “But I’m very curious as to how you got out. Not all of us can cross dimensions.”
“Wait. You mean… I can move between this realm and that one? Like you can with your home dimension?”
“Apparently,” he said. “But you need a material to work with. Mine is shadows. You mentioned you touched the pillar… it must have been made of demonglass. Like this.” He nudged the pentagram with his foot, stirring up glittering fragments. “The portal was already set up, which must have helped.”
I raised my hand to my chest, where my heart beat like it was trying to escape. “But—it’s absurd. Sure, you can travel between dimensions, but you’re the son of an arch-demon. I’m not even a warlock. And if Themedes didn’t do it, who did?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “Perhaps another demon you’ve interacted with told him.”
Dienes? No way—he was a lesser demon. Not everyone got to speak to an arch-demon. But that dimension was connected with the murders. I was certain of it.
“That’s it, then,” I said. “I’m out of a job, I’m marked by an arch-demon, and another one of the bastards destroyed my bloody shoes.” The shoes were the least of my problems, but walking home barefoot was the peak of the shittest day in the history of shit days.
“I can help with the shoes,” he said, looking me up and down. “It’s lucky that’s all you lost, considering the arch-demon’s power.”
“Sorry to deprive you of another strip tease.” I folded my arms, feeling oddly vulnerable under his gaze despite my—thankfully—fully clothed state. “Also, it wasn’t the arch-demon who blasted me with fire, but his whiny little pet.”
“His son, I’d guess,” said Nikolas. “Did he give any clues about who might have marked you?”
“Nope,” I said. “He’s definitely the first arch-demon I’ve seen or spoken to, as far as I’m aware. And if anyone’s capable of killing celestials without even being in the same dimension, it’s him.”
“I don’t doubt your reasoning, but he can’t move between dimensions. He could only summon us there because he knows my name. Besides, he has no interest in destroying the celestials in this dimension. His power will expire by the year’s end.”
“Sure as hell didn’t seem like it to me.” I took another step, grimacing when a stone poked my bare foot.
“I offered to replace those shoes,” he said. “If you come with me, my place isn’t far from here.”
I sighed. “Hell, why not. Knowing you, you’ve got a bunch of pet demons camping out in your attic.”
“Not quite,” he said, reaching to take my hand, apparently to help me walk out of the glass-covered alley. “Your defences are somewhat inconvenient.”
“Yeah, but at least I’m not drooling in the corner while you and your warlock buddies play tag with my soul.”
I trod around the pieces of broken rock to find some smooth ground to stand on.
“Why are you celestials so fixated on the soul?” he asked. “Your soul doesn’t belong to the demons, whatever mark you wear. The same with the Divinities.”
“There’s a difference there,” I said. “The arch-demon definitely said my soul is bound to the one who marked me.”
“He meant in the sense that your demon magic comes from the one who marked you,” he said. “Like your celestial power is on loan from the Divinities.”
“Except I’ve never seen a Divinity.” I gritted my teeth as I trod on another rock. “I’ve no more idea why they chose me than why the demons did.”
As we reached the end of the row of houses, he lifted a loose fence panel, beckoning me after him.
“We’re trespassing now?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Not at all. This is my house.”
“Seriously?” I ducked under the panel, wet grass sliding under my bare feet. The small square lawn was unremarkable, and so was the brick house in front of us. It might have been any ordinary home. Nikolas strode to the back door and unlocked it. I darted across the gravel path as quickly as possible. Inside was a dark, neat kitchen, and I sank into a chair with relief. “Ow. Bloody fire demon.” My jeans were shredded at the knees, but the pain didn’t suggest the burns were serious.
“Which demon?” he asked.
“A guy made entirely out of fire. I stabbed him with my blade and killed him.” I yanked off the remains of my boots, and began picking gravel out of my feet.
“Killed… ah. No. Azurial is a demigod, and he’ll be pissed, but alive. The children of arch-demons don’t die easily.”
“So he’s like you?”
“Not in the slightest,” he said. “In terms of power level, though—yes. Azurial is Themedes’s most trusted assistant. I’m surprised you survived, though I doubt he’s faced a celestial before.”
“Nope, because Themedes himself killed all of them,” I said. “He was in charge of their army, and he intentionally led them to their deaths. You didn’t want to mention that before I met him?”
“I didn’t think you’d agree to meet with him if I did, and I thought he was the one who put the mark on you. Some demons mark as part of ownership, some don’t, but it’s rare for a human to end up with a mark and not remember how it got there.”
I gritted my teeth, pulling a particularly sharp piece of stone from my foot. “You still suspect me, don’t you? When we first met, you all but said you were happy to watch the celestials punish me for my supposed crimes. I’m a little lost on why you’re helping me, to be honest.”
“At the time, I thought you’d intentionally asked another demon to mark you,” he said. “As I spoke to you, however, it became clear that you’re not aligned with a rival demon. I wouldn’t have taken you into my dimension if you were. But that doesn’t mean you’ve told me everything.”
“I thought you were an expert on my history.”
I didn’t want to talk about Rory, or my suspicion that whatever had triggered his death had been what’d marked me. It wasn’t relevant, and besides, there was no proof. And I hadn’t lied. I’d never seen an arch-demon besides the one I’d met today, and I’d be seeing his face in my nightmares.
Nikolas opened a cupboard. “There’s burn medicine in there, for your knees. I’ll get the shoes. Oh, and don’t
touch the books,” he added, retreating from the room.
Naturally, once I’d removed the last stone from my foot and applied a layer of burn cream to my knees, the first thing I did was look for whatever books he meant. It came as a surprise to find his house was fairly ordinary. I mean, the guy had a castle in his home dimension, and after the palace I’d just been in, I was expecting something more… netherworld. Instead, plain wooden furnishings and neat shelves contained what looked like the entire contents of a chemist specialising in all things demonic. Jars and bottles of bright powders lined the shelf, while the one above contained a row of ancient-looking books, some engraved with runes. I stood on tip-toe to get a closer look, running my finger along the shelf. I could read a little of some demon languages, but not much.
Footsteps announced Nikolas’s return. “Why am I not surprised you didn’t do as you’re asked?”
“The last thing you told me to do was to jump into an arch-demon’s palace,” I said. “These are…”
“Not connected with the case, before you ask. They’re from my home dimension. I don’t keep valuables in the castle. The reason I asked you not to touch them is because that defensive spell of yours will mess with the bindings.”
“Fair enough. They look pretty valuable.”
“Yes, but your guild has copies of every one of them.”
I hadn’t known that, but I didn’t want another argument about the celestials. Considering how the dimensions where the celestials lost the war had turned out, I knew how things would end up if they were destroyed. I doubted he’d like it much, either.
He held up a pair of plain running shoes. “These are Rachel’s. They might be a little loose, but they’ll do.”
“Suppose they will.” I took them from him. “You and the arch-demon dude have a history, don’t you?”
“In a manner of speaking. He and my father fell at roughly the same time.”
“By fell, I assume you don’t mean literally.” I sat down at the table again to put on the new shoes. “So you don’t think it’s a coincidence that he invited us into his dimension right after you noticed my demon mark—and right after someone with fire magic killed a bunch of celestials?”
Celestial Magic (Celestial Marked Book 1) Page 13