My heart dropped somewhere below the earth.
He had it all along.
I ran from the warehouse, ignoring the crackle of the portal and the others’ shouts. “So, it was you,” I growled into the phone.
“Believe me, when you hear my story, it’ll make sense,” said Damian. “Can we meet in person?”
“It’d better be a fucking good story. You set up a demon portal here. You know people will die, don’t you?”
Silence answered, along with the crackle of flames. So he was nearby. There was no good reason for him to have betrayed the celestials. The glass had been at the guild long before he’d got bitten. He’s been planning this for longer than a week.
I hung up, then rang him back. The shrill sound of a phone ringing drew me in the right direction, around the warehouse’s side. I spotted him standing at a safe distance away, hands stuffed casually in his pockets. He turned on me, his face expressionless.
“So the demonglass was yours?” I asked. “Before all this happened, even? Just how long?”
He shrugged. “A while. The guild—there’s so much they didn’t tell us. It’s not right.”
“You know what else isn’t right? Stealing, working behind the guild’s back—oh yeah, and killing a shit-ton of people. Celestials included. You’ll get the death penalty from this if you survive, but I’ll see to it that you won’t.”
My hand tingled, demanding I use the demon mark against him, but I needed to find out how much he knew. And if he really did have a hand in Gav’s death—or Rory’s.
“It’s too late,” he said, jerking his head towards the warehouse. “I stopped believing in divine judgement a long time ago, so whatever they do to me is inconsequential. I’m just glad to be on the winning team.”
“There is no ‘team’,” I said. “You’re working for that pretender of a vampire king, aren’t you? Did you even get bitten at all? Or had you already volunteered yourself, and hid yourself amongst the victims so nobody would realise you were already a vampire?” A celestial vampire. And unlike Alyson, he appeared to be entirely in control of his mind and actions.
“The guild is astonishingly unobservant when they want to be,” he said. “You remember four years ago, right? When the guild burned down? This isn’t the first time they’ve been betrayed. They don’t learn from their mistakes, especially the inspector. They had plenty of opportunities to catch me, but they didn’t want to see what was right in front of them. You and I know that about them, Devi.”
“Stop trying to pretend we’re anything alike,” I snarled. “You killed Gav, or someone on your orders did.”
“Not me,” he said. “As for your friend, that was a freak accident… but it’s not my fault the guild disbelieved your reports and left them lying around. I have you to thank for that, Devi. And I’d have believed you.”
The world spun. The guild—they’d outright denied my reports on Rory’s death. And it had been an accident. But by refusing to investigate, they’d left the case information wide open for someone to steal, and thanks to their negligence, Damian—and whoever he worked with—had been able to figure out how to bring the guild down from the inside.
“Devi, you can join me,” he said. “You hate the guild like I do. We’re the same.”
“We’re definitely not the same. You killed innocent people.”
“The guild’s made us all into killers,” he said, shaking his head. “Besides, I think you’re meant to play a role in this. That’s the only reason I left you alone until now.”
“And now you want me to join your team,” I said. “Who exactly is in charge? Who’s the vampires’ king? The demigod?”
“He’s not a demigod,” said Damian. “And you’ll answer to him if you join me.”
So he’s not a demon? Crap. I’d been thinking it was another Azurial calling the shots.
“Not a chance in hell.”
I punched him as hard as I could in the neck. He fell back, gasping for breath, and I kicked him in the crotch for good measure. He yelled, the noise swallowed up in the racket coming from the warehouse. The sound of crackling flames grew to an inferno, followed by a series of crashes. Nikolas and Rachel were still in there, along with the Grade Four celestials.
“What advantage does this give you?” I spat in his face. “You die if you stop taking the cure, don’t you? Your celestial power backfires on you. It’d be a pity if we cut off your supply line, wouldn’t it?”
A scraping noise came from behind me. The warehouse roof had slid down, and smoke had begun to pour from inside. Worse, two demons clawed their way out of the top, and one of them leaped down, gaze trained on the houses in the distance.
No you don’t.
I ran, grabbing my celestial blade, but Damian tackled me from behind. I managed to tilt my head so I didn’t smack my face off the pavement, but hot blood trickled down my neck where I’d scraped the side of my ear. As I shoved at him, a huge chunk of the warehouse roof flew past.
“It’s going to blow up!” he yelled in my ear.
“Shouldn’t have opened a portal, then, should you?” I yelled back, my ears filled with the sound of crackling flames. “I don’t suppose it has an off switch? Or does it keep going until the whole city is in flames? You’ll burn the same as the rest of us when it does. You’re no immortal.”
“It’s contained,” he said, but he didn’t sound certain.
I jabbed my elbows into his ribs, shoving him off me, and sprinted to the warehouse. Nikolas. Rachel. The portal had expanded to fill the entire space, though from the dazed-looking celestials running around the wreckage, they’d called a retreat in time to get out of the way.
Not the others, though. Not my friends. The flames soared, climbing higher, and the vortex containing the portal continued to burn.
Again, I’d lost people I cared about to the fire.
No. I refused to believe they were dead. And the fire didn’t scare me as it had before. The demon mark tingled, drawn towards the orange light. I had nothing more to lose.
With my fists clenched at my sides, I walked into the flames.
Chapter 21
Demon fire had burned me before, but this felt different. More like when I’d got close to the dying arch-demon, as he’d given me some of his power. Maybe that was my power. Infernal fire, instead of celestial fire.
The power I’d feared. Always. But what choice did I have, let them die? One thing was certain: either Azurial was involved, or the person who’d set up the portal was drawing on his power to fuel it from the other side. It was definitely his fire—the same power he’d inherited from his arch-demon father. No wonder it no longer hurt me.
If he was involved, killing him would be no problem this time.
Through the flames, the shape of the portal began to appear, a rectangle of demonglass surrounded by dark stones. The portal would close the instant they burned out. Demons crawled out of the wreckage, bearing horrible injuries. My stomach twisted, but I didn’t see Rachel or Nikolas amongst the dead.
The vibrating bloodstones surrounding the demonglass flickered with flames. I walked through the wreckage, over dead demons and pieces of the fallen warehouse ceiling, certain the vampires’ king would rise from the portal as I approached it… but he didn’t. What’s the issue? I thought this was about him finding a way into this realm.
Unless it was a test. A way to draw out the high-ranked celestials. They’d barely got away from the explosion in one piece. And the others were back at the guild, too far away to come and help if anything worse got loose.
I kept walking. The flames didn’t hurt me, at all, and this time, I didn’t even hear Rory’s screaming.
Nikolas and Rachel are alive. They have to be.
My feet finally touched the edge of the portal. In the next instant, the palace of Pandemonium appeared around me. Pillars climbing high to the ceiling, reflecting a steel grey sky—and the huge winged shape of Azurial, a man made of flames. Chains wrapped arou
nd his muscular arms and legs, binding him to a pillar beside the throne that he’d once briefly claimed.
“I should have known it was you,” he said, in a slurred voice. His wings drooped behind him. “You should be dead.”
“I’m hard to kill.” I willed my celestial blade to appear, and it did. Continuing to walk, I approached him. Killing him would give the portal one huge burst of power, which wasn’t ideal, but it’d last only a few seconds. Then it’d burn out on this side, and die off altogether.
The path was clear. Too easy. But Azurial was right there. Live bait, and half-dead already. Thick chains bound his ankles to the demonglass pillar. The whole portal would be fuelled by his magic, and the demonglass gave it a focal point. Pity I couldn’t destroy that.
But something wasn’t right. “Where are the demons?” I asked. “Was that the last of them? What was the point in exploding the warehouse and killing half of them in the process?”
I stopped walking, squinting closer at the chains. Nice try. Magic flickered from his feet, burning fire. He wasn’t trapped at all.
Except he couldn’t have known I was immune to his flames.
I looked at him calmly. He frowned back, apparently expecting more of a reaction. Then I dropped through the demonglass floor and reappeared out of the pillar directly behind him, sword aimed at the back of his neck.
He swung around. The chains rose and came down, slamming over my head. I leapt through the pillar again at the last second, the chains whispering against the back of my neck. Close call. I could avoid the fire, but not the chains. Grabbing a stake, I jumped through the floor and emerged directly underneath him, stabbing his leg. He yelled in anger, kicking out, but I jumped down, out of range again. Using my ability to leap in and out of the floor, I stabbed him twice more, but his regenerative abilities made inflicting minor wounds a futile effort. With the chains protecting his body, it was a waste of time trying to deal a fatal blow. Nikolas and Rachel were my priorities.
“Pleasure seeing you again, but I have other places to be.” I threw myself through the nearest pillar, demon mark flaring, willing it to carry me to them—
And landed in a circle of vampires. None of them looked surprised in the slightest to see me. Blackness shimmered in their eyes.
“Nice of you to drop in,” Rachel said from behind the vamps. She was chained up… and so was Nikolas.
Behind them was the vampires’ king, cloaked as he’d been before, and with a dozen vampires at his side.
Visceral horror struck me. I’d never seen Nikolas subdued before. How? The vampires’ king couldn’t be that powerful. But then Rachel shifted, and I saw her face was badly burned on one side. She didn’t have regenerative abilities like Nikolas did, and from the state of his clothes, he must have shielded her from the fire when they’d come through the portal. So that’s how they got him.
My hands balled into fists. Doubtless he was scheming a plan, but I didn’t have one, short of killing the vampires’ leader and ending his scheme to infect the people of Haven City. And now I knew for sure he was a demigod, not a vampire. That meant he had a weakness.
I pulled out my celestial sword, but the vampires moved first, closing in around me. All carried sabre-like blades, their eyes gleaming like dark glass. I’d take them on—were it not for the others. Several knives pressed to Rachel’s neck, hard enough to draw blood. Even the infected vamps didn’t appear to want to get too close to Nikolas, but with his adopted sibling in danger and the chains binding him, he didn’t move.
I lowered my blade. “Let them go,” I growled.
“What’s the fun in that?” said the vampires’ king quietly. His voice was oddly muffled, as though disguised.
“No offence, but who the hell even are you?” I asked. Most of my adversaries who fitted his description were dead. He was human, or at least half human. It’d taken me until now to realise he’d been speaking to me in English the whole time, not High Chthonian like Azurial and Themedes had. “What’s your issue with me?”
“Nothing, Devina,” he said. “Your friends, on the other hand, have an irritating habit of getting under my feet.”
“Yeah, we do,” said Rachel. “What’s the deal with the mask, anyway? Demons always show their faces. What you are is nothing more than a human coward.”
“I’m far more than human,” he said. “Devi… I’m surprised you haven’t guessed.”
I shook my head. “You all blur together, to be honest. Bad guys aren’t made like they used to be. I’m disappointed you’re no demon, and you’re not even a proper vampire either. Go on. Get on with it.”
He removed his hood. I blinked at the unfamiliar white-haired man underneath. Nobody I knew well… but definitely someone whose face I’d seen.
For instance, in memorials at the celestial guild, of those killed when the old headquarters had burned down. Inspector Kenneth Angler.
Maybe he’d expected more of a reaction than he’d got. But all I could think about was Inspector Deacon. His former partner. If he knew what the guy he’d assumed dead was doing here… I bit the inside of my cheek, seized with the bizarre desire to laugh at the weirdness of the whole setup.
“You were raised from the dead as a demigod?” I asked. “I’m completely lost. I don’t think we’ve ever spoken, for a start. If you wanted more of a response, you should have appeared dancing in the pentagram in front of the Grade Fours.”
“Stories of your defiance of authority reached even me, Devina,” said Inspector—ex-Inspector—Angler. “And I wasn’t raised from the dead. My former partner saw fit to put me in harm’s way to further his own ambitions.”
I gaped at him a little. “The inspector? To be honest, I thought he was the villain.”
“Of course you did.” His mouth twitched. “He’s never been good at hiding his true nature, and it tends to come out in times of crisis. I’d have forgiven him for what he did if I hadn’t survived the attack, only to end up in a demon’s realm. Imagine my shock when I fought my way out, only to be told there was no place at the guild for me anymore. The guild isn’t good at accepting its outcasts. They haven’t changed.”
No kidding. But I hadn’t even known this demon realm had been involved in the attack on the guild’s former headquarters. The story—documented with witnesses—was that Faye Carruthers, former celestial, had summoned a brutal demon and set it loose in the guild. Many had died, this guy included.
Except not only was he not dead, he’d now joined forces with the demons who’d attacked the guild.
“Vampires weren’t involved in that attack,” I said.
“No,” Inspector Angler said. “They came along later, thanks to the information provided by my contact inside the guild. The vampires in this realm are harder to find than the ones in yours, but they’re very adaptable, and were helpful in aiding Azurial in his coup.”
“You and him? You want to share power with an arch-demon’s child?”
“Power? No. But I’m curious to know how you survived that fire. I have my guesses, but… I’d like to hear it from you directly.”
I reached for my sword instead, and an explosion of noise hit my ears. Bits of chain flew outwards from where Nikolas was tied up—or had been tied up. A pair of dark shadowy wings sprouted from his shoulders, and he whirled around, black lightning arcing across the room and striking the former inspector in the chest. He staggered but didn’t fall, and I took my chance to grab my celestial blade again.
Rachel dropped to her knees as Nikolas stabbed the two vampires who’d held her, then launched himself at the enemy. The two collided in a deafening crash that shook the whole room. Lightning appeared and flared out, making my hair stand on end with static. I might be able to walk through demonic fire, but demonic lightning would fry my skin off.
Both fought with handfuls of dark-edged lightning, eerily similar-looking. But the vampire king—Inspector Angler—wasn’t shadow-aligned, and even demigods couldn’t use more than one type of magi
c at once. How did he get that magic?
Then fire burst from his hands, aimed directly at Nikolas. He dodged, his wings carrying him out of range. That was Azurial’s fire. The exact same. But he’d used Nikolas’s lightning before. Could he steal magic? Was that his ability?
Nikolas’s wings beat, and he landed at my side. If not for the anger, the rage and the fear, I’d have taken more than a second to admire his true demigod form—a fallen angel with shadowy wings, etched in glowing light like the lightning he wielded.
“I can’t get a handle on him at all,” he growled at me. “He’s drawing on power—from everywhere.”
“He uses other people’s magic,” I said. “Other demons. He’s using Azurial’s—and yours. Can’t you stop him?”
“No, I can’t. I don’t know if he has a weakness. He’s no demon.”
“Then how can he use your power at all?”
Azurial appeared in a beat of wings and a flash of fire.
“That wasn’t part of the deal,” he said to the former inspector. “I need that power.”
“Too bad for you,” responded Inspector Angler, conjuring lightning to his hands. “It takes a demigod’s power to beat another demigod. As for the girl—”
“She has a name,” I cut in. “What did you do with the portal? Why go to all that trouble just to blow up your own demons?”
“Those two weren’t meant to survive.” He jerked his head at Nikolas, then he laughed. “Looks like your little pink-haired demon girl ran away.”
Rachel. Had she come up with a plan? It wasn’t like any of us could match the magic of two individuals with demigod-like power single-handedly. Nikolas would certainly try, but with the enemy able to draw on his power and Azurial’s at the same time, how could we hope to overcome both of them at once?
“You never should have broken your chains,” Nikolas said to Azurial. “This time you’ll be buried in a more permanent manner.”
“Damn right.” I ran at him, but the former inspector appeared in front of me, black lightning surging over my head.
Celestial Fire (Celestial Marked Book 2) Page 19