by Debra Dunbar
Greed demons aren’t usually very creative. Avarnak mirrored my attack, releasing my arms to lay a steady stream of blows on my head and upper torso. I let him, taking a quick second to repair my arms so I could wave them around ineffectually and try to push him off as he beat my face to a pulp.
At least that’s what it looked like. In reality, I was busy searching pockets and pouches for the gem. The thing was fucking huge. Unless he’d shoved it up his ass, I should be able to get my fingers on it, especially since he was focused on turning my head into a crushed, overripe melon.
Got it. My fingers closed around something big and hard with sharp edges. I palmed it, pulling it from the demon’s pocket just as he gave up on my face and yanked me up from the pavement. I was upright, gripping the object in my hand securely as I tried to repair my head injuries enough to see and hear.
My eyesight cleared just in time to feel myself launched through the air. I mean launched. It was like being thrown by a trebuchet. My back smashed into something solid, and I heard a crack. Scrabbling one-handed, I tried to find something to grab onto so I wouldn’t plunge fifty feet to the sharp broken bits of Pamersiel’s home that littered the pavement below. There was another loud splintering noise. The section of building I held onto jerked downward, and I realized that more than my bones had broken when I hit this wall.
Don’t drop the gem was my only thought as I fell. Well that and how much hitting the ground was going to suck. It did suck. I landed on the only clear place of pavement then bounced, coming down to impale myself on a foot-long spike of rebar. The section of tower that had been following me to the ground landed on top of me. And just to add to the Wile E Coyote-esqueness of the situation, I dropped the gem.
And saw it wasn’t the gem but a chunk of pink granite with no magic whatsoever.
Damn it. I needed to get out of here right now. Let Gareth get his own fucking gem. I was done with this guy. I tried to get up but, instead, just flailed about. At least my arms did. My spine and about everything below my ribcage was crushed by the weight of the tower shard. Seeing Avarnak approach, I decided to abandon my human form and recreated myself in my dragon form, easily tossing the glossy red boulder aside. One of my heads shot a bolt of lightning at the other demon, while the other two looked around for something useful.
The electricity sizzled around Avarnak then dissipated. “You waste my time.” He lifted a hand, and the ground trembled, making me thankful I had four legs to balance on. I stumbled forward, and a shining rock shot from the ground, twisting as if it were rope as it looped around my shoulders and back. I yanked against it and sharp edges cut through my tough scales. Pain shot through my chest and abdomen, and I realized he’d formed several spikes to impale me.
I lay gasping in pain, wondering what the fuck he’d created out of a bunch of sand that could go through a dragon’s hide like it was tissue paper. Holding as still as possible, I thought of converting my form back to that of a human. I’d be small enough that the sharp cage would no longer hold me tight, but the spikes driven through me had to have been ten to twelve inches in diameter. Not the sort of hole I’d want to have in a human body. And as sharp as they were, I’d bleed out a dozen times before I managed to wiggle my body off them.
“Mistress.”
I moved one head just enough to look at Snip without twisting my body any further. I was assuming the demon hadn’t returned to my house as ordered, judging from the big eyes and the way he was wringing several of his tentacles together.
“I’m stuck.” It wasn’t the sort of thing one usually admitted to a household member, especially a Low, but they’d all seen me in embarrassing situations before. They knew when they signed on with me that service to an imp meant witnessing this sort of thing on a regular basis.
“I see that, Mistress.” He tilted his head to the side and flicked a long tongue against my prison. “Dragon glass. It’s very sharp.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Obsidian. It wasn’t native to Hel. The fact that Avarnak had created it worried me. I didn’t want to think too deeply about that right now, especially when I was bleeding all over.
“If you shrink your form by thirty percent, you should be able to squeeze through these two pieces with minimal damage.”
Huh. He was right. Although there was still a rather painful hurdle to overcome. “I’ve got two pieces driven through my middle.”
Snip made a sympathetic clicking noise. “That’s going to hurt like fuck, Mistress.”
Yeah. And there was no way around it. The longer I stayed here, the more distance Avarnak put between us. As much as I wanted to abandon this quest, I knew I couldn’t. That gem had four more charges. If one charge had done this to Avarnak, what would it do in the hands of another demon? Of an ancient? Ahriman wasn’t the only demon who held a grudge against the angels. Within hours, word of Avarnak’s new skills would be all over Hel. I gave it two days before some ancient figured it out and either killed the greed demon or stole the gem.
I needed to get out of here. Find the bastard. Steal the gem. Maybe he’d get drunk in Eresh to celebrate his revenge against Pamersiel, and I could lift it off him then.
But first.... I took a deep breath, which was the wrong thing to do with two sharp spikes tearing up my internal organs, then shifted to a slightly smaller dragon form. Snip was right. The edges that had cut into my sides were several feet away. Any relief I felt was negated by the proportionate increase in internal damage I received.
I put my four feet against the spikes, trying to ease myself up and off them. They were deep into the ground, and my clawed feet bled against the sharp edges. I’d only gotten a few inches up when the blood on the spikes loosened my grip, and I slid back down.
Damn it all. I panted, realizing the only way I was going to get out of here was if I treated these spikes like arrows. Break them off at the base and push them through. I couldn’t break them off, but I had something that could.
The Iblis sword wasn’t exactly designed for the clawed dragon feet currently serving as my hands. I awkwardly gripped the hilt with one foot, pivoting it and jabbing at the dragon-glass spike. Bits of black obsidian chipped like ice from a block. Each stab of the sword tightened abdominal muscles against the sharp edges. My bloodied hands slid on the hilt of the sword, but I gritted my teeth and kept chipping away. Snip cheered me on, which made me want to turn the sword on him and take his head off instead.
Finally the spike broke at the base. I lurched forward, slicing even more of my innards on the other one. Everything went white, and I braced my feet on the ground to catch my breath. Then I went to work on the second spike. By the time I was free and wiggling my way out of the obsidian cage, it was dark. A crowd had gathered, and their shouts of encouragement were doing nothing for my temper. I shoved the spikes out of my body and rolled around the sand for a few moments in agony before summoning strength to convert my form.
My newly created human form was naked, but it was without injury. Even so, I was exhausted, it was dark, and I still had to track down Avarnak.
“Did anyone see where the other demon went? Avarnak? The one who killed Pamersiel?”
There were a lot of murmurs, mostly about stupid imps and that no demon with a brain in their head would chase after someone who’d managed to kill an ancient without hardly breaking a sweat. Fuck them. I picked up my sword and headed toward my house. I’d sleep then track down Avarnak in the morning. At least now I knew who he was. And any demon sporting that much power wouldn’t go unnoticed. I’d find him eventually.
“Mistress?”
“Not now.”
Snip’s crestfallen face sent a pang of guilt through me. He was a good little guy, but I just didn’t have the patience to deal with him right now. “But, Mistress, I know the answer to your question.”
Which question? Fuck I was tired. As horrible as Ahriman’s house was, it was looking pretty welcoming right now.
“Avarnak. He went back through
the gate.”
Damn it. I used to be a lucky little imp. What the fuck had happened? Nothing was easy anymore. Although if I honestly thought about it, nothing really ever had been easy. Not since day one.
“Which gate?” It was a dumb question, and I realized that as soon as it was out of my mouth. Avarnak might have the ability to teleport all over the place now, but Snip hardly would have seen him go through a gate unless it was the one he’d just come in through.
“The one by the borderlands, by the Western Red Forest,” Snip confirmed. “I’m fast. Really fast. I chased him then came back to tell you. No one pays attention to Lows. He didn’t even notice me.”
Great. I didn’t like the idea of Avarnak running around among the humans, but at least on that side of the gates I’d have a host of angels at my back. Maybe I’d get lucky and they’d take him out for me, deliver the gem giftwrapped with a little bow on top. Yeah. Lovely fantasy.
“Thanks, Snip. I’ll go after him in the morning.” No, actually I wouldn’t. I’d go after him now. The more I thought about it, the more I worried. Why would Avarnak go back? He’d just returned to Hel. Clearly he had revenge as the first item on his to-do list, but what was second? What would take him back across the gates where his new energy signature would set off a ton of alarm bells? He’d be like a huge walking neon sign to the angels, and as tough as he was, Gregory would turn him into a pile of sand in three seconds flat. What was so important that he’d risk death? The answer to that question had to be something bad, really bad.
“You don’t need to go after him, Mistress.” Snip sounded pretty damned happy. The Low was usually cheerful, but this was beyond his typical level. “I’m sneaky and fast, and Avarnak has never been a demon to pay much attention.”
I turned to him and saw the little Low bouncing a large gem back and forth between tentacled hands. Son of a bitch. I let out a squeal and grabbed Snip, hugging him tight.
“Mistress! I is sorry, so sorry. Don’t kill me. Don’t crush me to death. I was only doing what you told us to do.”
I abruptly let go. In my years among the humans, I’d become comfortable with their physical methods of affection. Hugging didn’t mean affection to a demon, it meant bones crushing and blood spurting from your nose and mouth.
“Sorry.”
He handed me the gem, and I cradled it in both hands, feeling the sharp bite of its magic. Done. My task was complete. All I had to do was run this gem ten blocks over to Gareth’s shop, and my debt to him would be wiped out. I still owed the favor to Kirby, but Amber would take care of that in a few months. And Amber’s request would be honored as long as I hustled my ass back and helped Gregory with the gateways.
But... Damn it all, Avarnak was through the gate, among the humans. He’d taken down an ancient in record time. If this had been a pay-per-view fight, it would have been over before the first commercial break. Maybe Pamersiel had underestimated the greed demon and been mortally wounded before he realized his mistake. I’d played the same game and prevailed many times against much stronger foe. Maybe. But did I want to take that chance? I hadn’t been trying to kill Avarnak, but he’d also held back when fighting me. There was a good chance that even with my sword as a shotgun, he’d beat me. There was a chance he could beat an archangel. There was even the slightest doubt in my mind as I envisioned Gregory taking him down. Six-billion-year-old archangels should easily beat a mid-level greed demon, even one hyped up on a power-increase spell, but then again, who would have thought paper beat rock?
I needed to get through the gate pronto and warn Gregory, just in case Avarnak had plans that involved more than popcorn and a movie. And something told me to keep this gem close, just in case. Not that I intended on using it on myself. Oh no. Not that. But it was pretty, and Gregory might want to examine it. Or something. Yeah.
I went to stick the five-carat alexandrite in my pocket and realized naked women have no pockets. Damn. It was going to suck to carry this thing around, tying up one of my hands that I might need for fighting. Besides, everyone would see it and know I’d stolen—errr, kept it. Temporarily.
“Here, Mistress.” Snip tore a pocket off the weird trouser-like garment he was wearing and untied the strip of leather from around his waist. The pants bagged around his slimy hips.
“Thanks.” I stuck the gem in the pocket and tied it shut with the rawhide string, looping it safely around my neck. It sat heavy between my boobs, right against my heart.
“I haven’t forgotten about your promised vacation,” I told the little Low. “Just got a few quick things I need to do with the angels, and then I’ll be back for you.”
He danced with excitement. “Will there be a beach? And alcoholic drinks with bendy straws and plastic decorations? And half-naked humans who might consent to sex with a Low? Or maybe not tell the angels if there is no consent?”
Shit. I could tell I would need to reiterate the rules surrounding his visit. “I’ll do my best.”
Then, leaving Snip behind, I closed my eyes and willed myself to the other side of the gate.
Chapter 22
It was inconceivable for Columbia Mall to look any worse than it had when I’d left, but it did. Had the apocalypse occurred in my short absence? One kitten had done considerable damage. Perhaps Avarnak had also tried the spell on a larger creature, like a sheepdog or a goat, and it had just taken the animal a few hours to make their way here. Whatever creature had come through the mall recently had exploded several walls, turning the main area into one giant open space of rubble. Kiosks were burning throughout the food court. All it needed was some overturned cars and vagrant homeless people cooking rats over the flames to complete the image.
I kicked over an e-cigarette display and froze when I heard someone call out.
“Where are you?” Had a human been trapped in the building since Destructo Kitty’s rampage? Shit, I hoped it wasn’t the imagined goat-sheepdog who’d added to the damage. No way I wanted to meet that thing.
“Here!”
Unless the goat-sheepdog had been granted the powers of speech, the voice calling me was human. I made my way through the jungle of broken plastic, metal, and concrete. The voice was near the Bath and Body Works store—or what had once been the Bath and Body Works store. I grabbed hold of a huge shelving unit wedged between two bent metal posts and tugged. Stuck. I contemplated just blasting it out of the way, but I doubted I could do that without the chance of the ceiling coming down. The mall was like a fucking house of cards as it was, and any demolition attempts on my behalf would probably kill whoever was trapped in the store.
So I grabbed and put my back into it. There was a lot of sweat and swearing involved, but I finally managed to move the shelf enough to squeeze by. “Hang on. I’m coming.”
“Sam? Sam, is that you?”
Beatrix. I stared at her, barely able to breathe. She lay under a concrete pillar, her wings pinned to the ground with metal roofing struts. She was like a mangled butterfly, stuck without care to a display board.
And she was crying. “Hold still. I’ll get you out of there. Just hold still.”
I’d never seen her wings before, beyond the odd tracings I saw with all the angels. When I’d first met her, I wasn’t even sure gate guardians had them. They were narrow, like feathered dragonfly wings, only instead of four, there were two of them. They were broken, bent, shredded.
Shit. I knew how sensitive the things were, how impossible it was to retract our spirit-self from our angel wings. If she was lucky, she’d carry the scars for the rest of her life. If she was unlucky, she’d never fly again.
“Are they just holding you to the ground, or do they actually go through your wings?” I walked around her, scrutinizing the load and determining how to get the roofing pieces off without damaging her further.
“One is about six inches into the cement. The force of impact drove it into the floor. The other is flush with the ground.”
I was naked anyway, so I took the
gem pouch from around my neck and looped it loosely over my arm. Then I changed into my dragon form, careful not to knock anything over that would destabilize the building or add to all the shit on top of Beatrix. Wrapping my forelegs around the one flush with the ground, I unfurled my wings as far as I could.
“Cover your head and brace.”
I heaved, using my wings to help me lift. Dust flew everywhere, but I managed to lift the metal off her and place it to the side. Now came the hard part.
“This is gonna hurt like fuck,” I warned.
“I know,” she panted. She hadn’t moved the wing I’d freed, her face creased in pain.
I removed the second roofing strut with the same process. Beatrix screamed as the weight left her wing. She flailed around as I put the metal next to the other.
“Careful. Can you at least heal your physical damage? Do you need help?”
She’d managed to get to her feet, leaning heavily against a sideways display case. Her wings were hidden, but I still saw the gold tracings of them twisted as they arched from her back. “I’ll be okay. Where are Grial and Mizan?”
“Who?”
“The two enforcers. Once I realized what was coming through the gate, I called for backup.”
Shit. I was getting that heavy feeling of dread. “That mid-level greed demon? He used the gem on himself.”
“By all that’s holy, I thought I recognized his energy signature, but he was so much more powerful than before that I thought I was mistaken.” Her eyes met mine, and even with all the blood and dirt, I could see she was worried. “That’s not just one level up, Sam. The kitten—now that was some crazy stuff—but this? It’s unbelievable that that could have been the same demon.”
Yeah. I didn’t want to think about that until after I’d spoken with Gregory.
“Are you okay enough to help me find your buddies? Where did you see them last?” I was hoping they were pinned or trapped somewhere else in the mall but doubted it. Gate guardians weren’t very strong. An angel powerful enough for Gregory to appoint as an enforcer wouldn’t be held down by a few metal beams. No, those angels had mandates to go down with the ship. If they were alive, they were pursuing Avarnak. Otherwise they were dead. And if the latter was the case, I’d rather Beatrix remain behind. Beyond a few that I’d become rather fond of, and one that I loved with all my being, dead angels didn’t mean anything to me one way or another. Beatrix had probably known them for millions of years, though. She’d worked with them this past century, no doubt had the angel equivalent of coffee and bagels with them, chatting around the water cooler.