“No need to stay out after meeting you.” He smiled—predatory, again. “I found a great pizza place the other day—it’s only a few blocks away. I hear it has the best pizza in Chicago. Want to check it out?”
“I’ve been coming here every summer since I was twelve,” Sage cut in. “And despite my appearance, I have a voracious appetite. I know the best pizza place in all of Chicago. You can trust me on that.”
“Maybe we’re talking about the same place,” he said.
“I doubt it.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and smiled. “It’s a hidden gem—only locals know about it.”
“She’s right,” I added. “It’s amazing.”
“Fine, fine.” The demon held his hands up in defeat. “You win. Let’s see if this pizza is as good as you claim.”
That was quicker than expected—usually they put up more of a fight for us to go where they wanted. It was easier to get us to their designated alley that way.
At this point in the conversation, I typically had to pretend to get a text from a “twin sister” of mine saying she was going to meet us at the place we’d told the demon we were going. Since there was something about me the demons wanted, they never turned down the possibility of two for the price of one.
This demon was off his game. Maybe he’d indulged in one too many bourbons at the bar.
Bad for him—easier for us.
Sage and I led him out of the club, one of us hanging onto each of his arms. Judging by the sleazy grin on his face, he felt like the pimp of the century.
I couldn’t wait to see his reaction when Noah followed us into the alley and rammed the slicer through his heart.
As we made our way out, a wave of warmth passed through my soul. Unsurprisingly, I caught a glimpse of Noah and Thomas standing near the exit.
At least now I understood why my soul felt like it was singing whenever Noah was nearby. It was because of the imprint bond.
Once out of the club, we led the way to the alley we’d chosen ahead of time. We continued with the charade of being drunk, and the demon was more than happy to keep his arms linked with ours to help us walk straight.
Thanks to the warmth of the imprint bond, I didn’t have to turn around to know that Noah and Thomas were trailing behind. I also knew they hadn’t encountered any of the red-eyed shifters. Good.
The hunt tonight had been easy so far. We were getting better at this. Or maybe the universe was rewarding us for a job well done.
I couldn’t wait for Noah to finish this demon off so we could get to Avalon and I could learn how to kick demon ass like the best of them.
As Sage turned the three of us onto a less crowded street, we were so close to ending this that I could practically taste it.
“Where exactly is this place?” the demon asked, glancing around at the thinning crowd.
“Just a little bit further,” she said flirtatiously, stopping at the alley we’d selected. “Through here.”
The demon stared into the alley, his eyes blank. “You girls are good.” He smirked at Sage, and then turned his menacing gaze to me. He smiled, and I saw a flash of his pointed yellow teeth—what he truly looked like under the glamour. “Too bad I’m better.”
Before I could ask what he meant, the buildings swirled around us, my stomach dropped down to my feet, and everything went dark.
32
Noah
One second the girls were outside the alley, their arms linked through the demon’s.
The next, all three of them were gone.
“Raven!” I screamed, slicer in hand as I ran to where they’d been standing. Icy dread coursed through my body. I felt around me, hoping they’d used invisibility potion or something, but the space was empty.
They were gone.
The warmth I felt from being near Raven was missing. The imprint bond was still there, but my chest felt hollow with a void I hadn’t felt since leaving my pack behind in the Vale.
How could they be gone? I’d seen them. They were right there. This couldn’t be possible…
I ran down the alley, hoping to find them there. Thomas followed at my heels.
Two red-eyed wolf shifters waited at the dead end.
I muttered a curse, shoved my slicer back into my weapons belt, and started to shift. Slicers were only useful on demons, and while these creatures did have the same red eyes as demons, Sage hadn’t needed a slicer to kill whatever these creatures were. And we were better fighters in our animal forms.
Thomas was already expertly fighting the one on the left, and the one on the right jumped straight at me. I jumped as well, finishing shifting mid-air and sinking my teeth into his neck.
All of my anger from Raven’s disappearance channeled through me, and I ripped the creature’s head off with a ferocity I’d never fought with before. Blood splattered against the wall, and I dropped his body to the ground.
Whatever greater demon had taken Raven and Sage—and he had to be a greater demon, since he’d teleported away with them—had clearly been ready for us. He’d sent these demonic shifters to finish me off once he was gone.
Clearly he hadn’t anticipated Thomas hunting with us, or he would have sent more than two of them. He’d also underestimated me, since I could have handled two of them on my own, but that was beside the point. Because with Thomas on my side, the demonic shifters didn’t stand a chance.
I shifted back into human form just as Thomas was getting ready to finish his demonic shifter off.
But instead of going in for the final kill, Thomas held the shifter to the ground.
The wolf struggled against his hold, lying in a puddle of his own blood.
“What are you waiting for?” I growled and marched toward him. “Kill it so we can get out of here and figure out which greater demon just took our girls.”
“We need to figure out what these shifters are and who they’re working for,” Thomas said calmly, not breaking his gaze from the red-eyed beast’s. “We can’t do that if they’re both dead.”
As badly as I wanted to shift back into wolf form and tear my teeth through the demonic shifter’s throat, Thomas did have a point.
So I walked up to inspect the shifter, slicer in hand. The creature took deep, rattling breaths, his fur matted with blood. But despite how bad the wounds looked, he was already starting to heal. The blood loss would weaken him, but it wouldn’t be long until he was ready to fight again.
We couldn’t have that.
So I raised the slicer and jammed it through the wolf’s shoulder.
The wolf howled in pain, going limp as I pulled the slicer out of the wound.
“What was that?” Thomas glared at me before turning his attention back to the demonic shifter still under his grip.
“An experiment.” I twirled the slicer around in my hands, studying the shifter as he opened his red eyes again. “You see, this isn’t any average blade. It was dipped in heavenly water by an angel, giving it the power to kill demons.” I was saying this for the shifter’s benefit, since Thomas knew all of this already. “You have the eyes of a demon, so I figured it would be fun to see what the blade would do to you.”
The shifter bared his teeth and growled.
Thomas made a similar sound deep in his throat. “That was stupid and impulsive,” he said, his grip on the shifter tightening. “What if it killed him?”
“I didn’t stab him anywhere fatal,” I said. “Yet.”
Thomas pressed his lips together and kept his eyes on the shifter. He was difficult to read, so I wasn’t sure if he was pleased or pissed. I was just glad he was on my side.
Like me, he’d do anything to get the girls back to safety. Anything.
“Take a look at that.” I kept my eyes on the wound I’d inflicted, amusement creeping into my tone. “It isn’t healing.”
“You’re right.” Thomas now sounded equally as intrigued. “Try it again. This time, take off a finger. Better yet, a whole hand.”
I stepped
up, ready to do what was necessary to convince this creature to talk. Torture wasn’t my thing—I liked to give my enemies quick, clean kills—but extreme times called for extreme measures.
If I had to torture this beast to find Raven and Sage, then so be it.
As I was raising the slicer in preparation to slice off his paw, the creature shifted back into human form.
He was a thin, scrawny thing who didn’t look any older than sixteen. He must have been the runt of the litter. I would have thought he was harmless if it hadn’t been for his creepy red eyes.
And for the fact that he’d just tried to kill us and was clearly working for the greater demon who’d taken Raven and Sage.
“Please,” he begged, his lips trembling as he stared up at Thomas. “Don’t.”
“Tell us what you are, and who took the girls,” Thomas commanded.
“I’m a shifter,” he said. “And I don’t know what girls you’re talking about.”
“Liar.” I sneered down at him, and then looked to Thomas. “Can’t you use compulsion on him?”
“I did,” Thomas said. “He must be wearing wormwood.”
I frisked the shifter’s body as Thomas continued to hold him down. There were no wormwood pendants anywhere.
“Nothing,” I said, turning to Thomas again. “Have you ever met a shifter immune to compulsion?”
“No,” he said. “The only creatures immune to my compulsion are royal vampires, angels, and demons. So what are you?” He dug a finger in the wound I’d made with the slicer, and the boy winced in pain. “Because you’re clearly not just a shifter.”
“What gave it away?” The boy laughed. “Is it the eyes?”
I lunged at him, holding the slicer at his neck.
“Don’t test me,” I said. “Those girls who were just taken mean everything to me. Answer our questions, and you’ll live. If not…” I paused, pressing the edge of the knife hard enough against his neck to draw a few droplets of blood. “You’ll wish you were dead.”
“Fine.” The boy glared at me with dark hatred in his eyes. He’d transformed completely, no longer the trembling boy from a minute earlier. “You’re right—I’m not just a shifter. I bound myself to a greater demon, which made me stronger than ever.”
“How?” I rotated the angle of the slicer, pressing the tip of it into his neck. “Why?”
“As if I’ll ever tell you,” he said with a chilling smile. “By the way—Azazel sends his regards.”
He pushed himself forward into my knife, still smiling as he gurgled up his blood and collapsed dead on the pavement.
I pulled my knife out of his neck and stared down at him in horror.
Our only lead was dead.
Raven and Sage were gone.
How had this happened? I’d never imagined tonight would end like this. From the horror and despair in Thomas’s eyes, he hadn’t, either.
But I wasn’t going to back down so easily. Because while Sage and Raven were gone, they weren’t dead. At least, Raven wasn’t. If she were, I would have felt it through the imprint bond.
She was still alive—and I was going to make sure she stayed that way.
“Let’s go.” I looked away from the corpse and shoved the slicer back into my weapons belt.
“Where?” Thomas sounded like he was in shock.
“Back to the Bettencourt,” I said, already making my way out of the alley. “And Cassandra better be there. Because she needs to do a tracking spell to find our girls.”
33
Raven
One moment I was looking into the alley, getting ready to help kick demon ass.
The next moment, I was in some kind of underground bunker—one of those places doomsdayers built to prepare for the end of the world. We were in a hall with lots of doors. It was dimly lit and old, rust all over the metal.
Whoever owned this place clearly stopped up-keeping it a long time ago.
Instantly going into self-defense mode, I let my arm go limp and pulled it out of the demon’s hold. Sage had already reached for her dart full of potion that would force the demon—who was clearly a greater demon, since he’d teleported with us—back to his previous location.
The demon must have been prepared, because he swatted it out of her hand before she could jab him with it. It landed on the floor and he crushed it under his shoe.
Her eyes widened in panic.
But the demon was still focused on Sage. So I reached for my boot knife and surprise attacked him, shoving it straight into his back.
He didn’t react at all—not even a flinch. I might as well have stabbed an inanimate object. He simply reached for the handle and pulled the knife out of his back.
“What’d you do that for?” he asked with the grin, tossing the knife down at my feet. “Messed up a perfectly nice jacket.”
I knew regular knives couldn’t kill demons—only slicers could do that—but this didn’t look like it hurt him. It hadn’t even drawn blood.
We were so totally screwed.
Sage growled and started shifting into wolf form.
I picked up my knife and bolted down the hall, hoping to find safety. I hated running, especially since I was leaving Sage to fight off the demon. But we’d trained for this. She was a supernatural and I wasn’t. Getting out of this place and finding help was the most useful thing I could do to make sure we both survived.
I didn’t make it far before the hall hit a dead end. Crap. I ran to each of the doors, trying to open them, but they were all locked. No amount of kicking or hitting them made them budge.
We were trapped.
I looked back over at Sage to see how she was faring against the demon just as three big men burst into the hall behind them. Flashes of red eyes and yellow teeth over their otherwise normal features showed me they were demons as well.
“Watch out!” I yelled to Sage, but it didn’t matter. One of the demons had already thrown a potion pod of sludgy brown liquid at her. It was the same potion the demon in Nashville had used on Noah—the one that had stopped him from shifting.
Sage shifted back into human form, straining against the change the entire time. From the looks of it, the potion didn’t just stop a shifter from shifting their animal form—it also forced a shifter already in their animal form to shift back to their human form.
Once human again, Sage breathed heavily on the ground, glaring up at the greater demon in hatred.
I ran up to help her, but one of the other demons grabbed me into a hold. I tried every self-defense move I’d learned to get out of it, but it was useless. I wasn’t strong enough to fight supernaturals. Not as a human.
Sage got up and reached for her two boot knives, holding one in each hand and gearing up to fight.
The greater demon stepped back, motioning for his two other minions to take the lead.
Sage got a few good slices in, but in minutes, the two demon henchmen had disarmed her and were holding her steady between them.
The greater demon stepped toward her and removed a needle full of deep blue potion.
Complacent potion. How had he gotten a hold of that? Witches didn’t sell complacent potion—they weren’t even supposed to brew it. Using it was against the law because it took away free will.
Then again, these were demons. They wanted to erase all the supernaturals from the Earth. They clearly didn’t care about following the law.
Stuck in the demon’s grasp, I couldn’t do anything but watch as the greater demon stepped up to Sage and injected her with the dark blue potion.
The fire disappeared from Sage’s eyes, and she stopped fighting the demons’ holds. Her expression slackened until she looked like a shell of her former self.
All I could do was watch in horror.
I hated being human. I was weak—a liability.
If I made it out of here and got to Avalon, I was going to pass the Angel Trials no matter how hard they were.
I’d get turned into a Nephilim or die trying.
>
“That’s better.” The greater demon smiled at Sage. Then he turned to check on me. “Marco,” he said, addressing the demon holding onto me. “Bring Raven over here. I want to see both girls’ expressions during my big reveal.”
Marco dragged me over until I stood next to Sage. She watched me hopelessly, a single tear slipping out of her eye and down her cheek.
We’d faced speed bumps on our hunts, but I’d always trusted we’d get through them and win.
Now, I wasn’t so sure.
I tried to reach out to Noah through the imprint bond for help. The bond wasn’t broken—something in me instinctively knew Noah was alive. But I couldn’t feel him. His warmth was gone.
How far did the imprint connection reach? Was it possible that we were too far away for me to communicate with Noah?
“Where are we?” I asked the greater demon, on the off chance he might actually answer. “Why did you bring us here?”
“We’re someplace where no one’s going to find you,” he said with an evil grin. His yellowed pointed teeth flashed over the illusion of his perfect ones, and I recoiled in disgust. “As for why I brought you here, you’ll find out soon enough. But first,” he said, turning to one of the demons holding onto Sage. “Give me the antidote pill.”
“Be a good girl and stay right where you are,” the demon cooed in her ear. “No more fighting, you hear?”
She nodded, her eyes panicked as he let go of her. It was like she wanted to fight, but she couldn’t.
Stupid complacent potion.
The demon reached into his pocket, pulled out a pastel pink pill, and handed it to the greater demon. It looked like a Pepto-Bismol chewable tablet, and I knew from experience that it tasted similar to one, too.
The greater demon popped it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. The air around him went fuzzy and he morphed into someone I’d seen twice before—someone I would never, ever forget.
Azazel.
34
Raven
The Angel Trials- The Complete Series Page 43