by Ella Summers
Sera’s brows drew together. “Naomi, exactly what is Atlantis in the third circle of hell?”
“It’s a demon warlord’s stronghold,” Makani said.
“Of course it is,” Sera said with a resigned laugh.
“Atlantis has been compromised on earth. When we return there, we could very well pop up in the middle of enemy forces.”
“As expected,” said Kai. He didn’t look the least bit distressed.
“We’ll need to prepare our defenses.” Makani glanced at Kai. “We’ll cast a barrier of spells as soon as we arrive on earth’s Atlantis.”
Kai nodded. “Agreed.”
Naomi could already see the exit, a strand of pulsing silver magic that split off from the main river. “Ok, here goes.”
Clasping Makani’s hand tightly, she jumped out of the magic highway. A flash of light marked their exit. Hands linked in a daisy chain, they all dropped out of the sky. Hundreds of monsters and warriors looked up. Spears and arrows shot up from the spiky-towered castle. Before they hit, Naomi opened a passage in the veil and pulled them back to earth. They landed on a tiled floor. Makani’s and Kai’s spell barriers flared up around them.
Naomi looked around. They were standing inside the large hall of what seemed to be an administrative building. The moonlit sky shone through tall windows on every wall, but that pale light was soon displaced by the building’s interior floodlights flashing on. The lights must have been reacting to their presence.
A door opened, and a woman stepped inside, the click of her heels echoing in the cavernous hall as she strode toward them. Her hair was warm brown, her lips glossy pink, and her all-black all-leather ensemble was one-hundred percent badass. When she blinked, her long eyelashes kissed her cheekbones. In her case, the gesture was more grotesque than glamorous, though. It looked like she’d ripped off a bunch of spider legs to make those fake eyelashes.
As the woman’s eyes met Naomi’s, a cruel grin spread her lips. Crimson bled over her brown eyes.
“Claudine Evercast,” Naomi muttered.
The vampire Claudine Evercast had accumulated quite a criminal portfolio, one that included kidnapping, murder, torture, piracy, and spreading anarchy. That last one was Magic Council code for disrupting the peace between supernaturals and humans. For a vampire, that usually meant drinking from unwilling humans, whether or not the victim ended up dead. In Claudine’s case, they most certainly did end up dead. She didn’t have much regard for human life—or supernatural life, for that matter.
The Magic Council had followed the bloody trail of her crimes for years, but it was only last year that Naomi, Sera, and Kai had finally caught her. The vicious look in Claudine’s eyes now told Naomi that the vampire hadn’t forgotten that day.
“Naomi Garland,” Claudine purred coolly.
Naomi wasn’t surprised that Claudine remembered her face, but she was surprised that the vampire knew her name.
Claudine turned her red-eyed glare on Sera. “Serafina Dering.” Her gaze shifted, her grin widening as it settled on Kai. “And the infamous Kai Drachenburg.”
“Don’t kill them, Claudine,” a deep voice pierced the hall.
A man walked across the room. He was dressed in a business suit, exactly the sort you’d expect to find on a banker. Or on a corporate executive. The flicker of intermittent insanity in his eyes, however, suggested his professional aspirations lay along another path altogether.
He stopped beside Claudine. “I want to play with them a little first.”
Armed warriors trailed him, surrounding Naomi and the others.
“That is Silverblood.” Logan’s feet didn’t move, but his eyes were all over the room, tallying up targets.
Naomi had never met Silverblood, but she knew about the psychotic warlord who tortured people just to hear them scream.
Silverblood’s dark brows swept his hairline. “Slayer? Is that you? I didn’t recognize you under all those good intentions and nauseating righteousness.” The warlord glanced back at his army. “Tie them up. I have a few questions for them.”
“You’re a fool for making a deal with a demon,” Naomi told him.
“You don’t understand,” replied Silverblood.
Alex gave her eyes a long, slow roll. “That’s phrase number one out of the villain handbook.”
“But you will,” continued Silverblood.
“And there’s phrase number two,” Sera said. “Geez, these guys have got to learn to be more original. All they do is rehash the same old, tired lines. They’re boring me to tears.”
Silverblood’s eyes narrowed to serpentine slits. “On second thought, their words are meaningless. That incessant jabber, that irrelevant chatter.” He cackled. “It’s not even worth the fun of torturing them.” He waved his army forward. “Kill them all.”
The warriors charged—and bounced right off Makani and Kai’s barrier.
Silverblood nodded at a woman wearing a loose blue dress that bore an uncanny resemblance to a nightgown. The nightgown woman waved her hands in the air, weaving glowing threads of magic. Gold and purple, they swirled together, forming the shape of an elemental bull.
A beast with the power of elemental magic, an elemental bull ranked right up there with zombies when it came to fun times. This bull was currently channeling lightning magic. The nightgown woman summoned three more elemental bulls: earth, fire, and water. She’d covered all her elemental bases. The bulls charged, trailing rainbows of shifting colors.
Makani and Kai hastily channeled more magic into their defensive barrier. The four bulls didn’t ram the barrier, however. Each of them slammed into one of the building’s four walls. The walls shook. Chunks of split stone and crumbled rock flew in every direction. The defensive barrier sizzled from hundreds of tiny impacts—and a few larger ones.
Silverblood’s face was positively manic. “Original enough for you?” he chanted, practically bouncing with excitement.
High above, the roof expelled a low, ominous groan.
Sera looked up at the ceiling, her eyes wide. “How much can this barrier withstand?”
“Our elemental barrier is offensive magic masquerading as a defensive spell,” Kai replied. “It’s a hack, sweetheart, not a true defensive spell like Dal can make.”
Sera and Alex added their spells to the barrier.
“It won’t be enough.” Makani’s gaze traced the hall’s interior walls. “The barrier will be unable to hold off the weight of an entire building.”
“We have to get out of here,” Kai agreed.
Past the elemental bulls’ lightning storms, geysers, earthquakes, and fires that were eating away at the building’s structure, there were openings forming in the broken walls. Some of those openings were even big enough for a person to pass through, but there was no escaping through them. Hell’s army had thought of that. Monsters waited just outside the holes, ready to snap up anyone who tried to make a run for it.
Naomi frowned at Silverblood, Claudine, and their big, stupid army. “You idiots, you’ll be crushed right along with us.”
Silverblood simply laughed. An enormous transportation glyph lit up under him and his entire army. They were going to escape, just like the leader at Alcatraz had.
“See you in hell,” Claudine snickered, giving Naomi a little wave.
“Not this time,” Makani declared, his eyes cold.
Magic shot out of his hands, gold and explosive. It looked like a Magic Breaker spell, and yet different somehow. Darker. His spell hit the glyph under the army, dissolving it. The glyph reformed a moment later beneath his feet, filling the space inside the protective barrier.
Silverblood roared in anger as magic flashed, the glyph whisking Naomi and the others away. They reappeared in the courtyard outside the building. As the walls collapsed, Makani thumped his fists against the glyph on the ground. Sizzling strands of elemental magic streamed out of it. Makani’s hands closed around the spells, yanking them up like unwanted weeds. He angled t
he magical stream toward the beasts surrounding the building. They all exploded at once with one decisive boom. Dead monster pieces rained down on the paved courtyard.
“What was that?” Naomi gasped.
“I usurped the glyph to transport us out of the building. Then I pulled the elemental bulls’ magic through the glyph and redirected it at the monsters waiting here,” Makani said casually, as though he did something like that every day.
“Cool,” Alex and Sera chimed in unison.
“Will you teach us how to do that?” Alex asked.
“If we survive this,” Makani replied practically.
Naomi looked across the brick-paved courtyard of Atlantis. Rumor had it there was magic in those sparkling white-and-blue bricks, but Naomi didn’t know what kind of magic it was supposed to be. It was probably just a myth, a tale told to scare the prisoners.
Scraping sounds drowned out the low, constant hum of the churning ocean crashing against the rocky shores of the island. People poured out of Atlantis’s three remaining buildings. Heading the army of evil were Harrison and Olivia Sage, a brother and sister from an old magic dynasty with more money than sense. They’d been convicted of following the Grim Reaper’s mad campaign to take over the supernatural world.
“So glad to see you again, Kai,” Olivia purred with a smoothness perfected by decades of self-entitlement.
“Stop flirting with the enemy,” her brother chastised her. Harrison’s face was practiced; there wasn’t a twitch or flicker out of place on it.
“I’m just having a little fun,” Olivia tittered.
“You only ever have fun.”
She pouted out her lips. “And you never do.”
“Why do you always have to be the center of attention, Olivia?” Harrison demanded.
The two Sage siblings were always fighting—and yet always on the same side, serving the same evil purpose. They represented everything that was wrong with the elite magic families—and the reason the Grim Reaper had been able to corrupt so many of them. They cared about power—both in the mundane and magical sense. And they were willing to do whatever was necessary to get what they wanted.
They weren’t alone either. The mass of supernaturals standing behind them had all drunk from the Grim Reaper’s cup. Naomi recognized many of them. Christopher and Ariana Reyes, a mage and fairy couple, stood at the forefront.
“So your demon master has collected all of the Grim Reaper’s flunkies,” Sera commented.
“Do not call him that,” Olivia hissed.
“He’s dead. I don’t think he minds.”
Olivia’s smile was hard enough to cut a diamond.
“Enough of this,” said Harrison.
“Indeed.” Olivia giggled.
An army poured out of the nearest building, mages dressed in headscarves and trench coats. They were also sporting some serious eyeliner. These warriors were none other than the Princes of Twilight, pirates who’d tried to take over Fairy Island last year.
Olivia’s eyes glowed like boiling honey, lit up in an inferno of insanity. She waved her hands around, weaving her telekinetic magic through the courtyard. Thump. The ground shook. Rattle. The shutters on the buildings jiggled. Smash. A huge chunk of concrete broke off and shot toward Naomi and her companions.
Kai shifted into a dragon, intercepting the concrete chunk. A shrill cackle burst out of Olivia’s mouth as Kai shot a meteor shower of ice balls at her.
Harrison summoned both a flock of giant flying eagles and the vampires riding on their backs. As Makani’s dragon Eero went after the eagles and vampires, Makani faced down Harrison. Alex and Logan ran right into the middle of the pirates’ army. Sera cast a lightning whip, slashing out with it to counter Christopher Reyes’s own lightning whip. A storm raged over them, thunder booming every time their whips clashed.
“They say you’re a Spirit Warrior,” the fairy Ariana Reyes said to Naomi, smiling widely.
“That’s right,” replied Naomi.
“It won’t help you.”
Naomi matched her smile. “We’ll see.”
As Naomi stepped forward, her foot sank into the ground, like the paved stones were made of quicksand. A ring of fire blazed up around her, drenching her in heat. Sweat trickled down her face. She tried to free her foot, but the more she struggled, the deeper she sank. Her leg was submerged halfway to her knee now. Naomi looked up at the night sky. The stars seemed to have shifted. They weren’t where they’d been just a moment ago.
“It’s all an illusion,” Naomi muttered to herself.
Almost as soon as she said the words, Ariana’s illusion shattered. The fairy stumbled to the side, reeling from the aftershock of her breaking spell. Before she could right herself, Naomi hit her with a blast of spirit magic. Ariana fell to the ground.
“Your illusions suck,” Naomi told her. “The stars weren’t even in the right place. I’d expect more attention to detail from a fairy.”
“You know nothing about being a fairy, half-breed,” Arianna spat, trying to push herself off the ground.
“Hating others for being different is so cliché,” Naomi sighed and blasted her again.
Ariana’s arms and legs collapsed under the weight of her unconscious body, and her face hit the pavement.
Naomi scanned the courtyard. Makani and Kai were still fighting Harrison and Olivia. Sera had defeated Christopher Reyes, but Alex and Logan were still busy with the Princes of Twilight. There had to be nearly a hundred of the pirates.
“Shall we give your sister a hand?” Naomi said to Sera.
“I don’t know. She looks like she’s having so much fun,” Sera chuckled, but she charged at the pirates anyway.
Naomi followed behind her. With every step that she took, she could feel the pull on her magic growing stronger. Something was drawing her forward. It was the tear in the veil the ghosts had wanted her about. She’d found it! And, boy, was it a big hole.
“I’m going to close the tear in the veil before we have more company,” she told Sera.
Her friend gave her a brisk nod, then slammed the heel of her hand against a pirate’s chest, breaking his magic to knock him out. As Naomi made a run for the tear, magic hit her hard in the side, blasting her across the courtyard. She fell into the rubble of the fallen building.
She peeled herself out of the broken stones, looking up to stare into a face she did not know. He wore the uniform of the Atlantis prison warden—and a superior expression only a demon could master so well. She could feel the sick drip of demonic magic splashing against her senses.
“You’re the demon,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath after the wind had been knocked out of her.
He was one of the three demons left on earth. He’d taken over the Atlantis warden’s body. He’d replaced the Atlantis guards with hell’s prisoners who’d escaped through the tear. Then he’d built up his earthly army from the convicted criminals here and in Alcatraz.
“What’s your name, demon?” Naomi asked.
He grinned. “Gluttony.”
Naomi rolled her eyes. “This is what happens when demons are allowed to name themselves.”
“I didn’t name myself. Some other demons did.” He smacked his lips. “But I liked the name.”
“Of course you did.”
Orange flashed in the demon’s eyes as they honed in on Sera and Alex. “When the battle is over, I will feast on their magic for days.” Longing trilled in his voice, like he’d been denied this meal for far too long.
It all clicked together. The orange eyes. Those smacking lips. The desire to eat Sera and Alex. In the seventh circle of hell, Naomi had once encountered a demon with a big appetite.
“We’ve met before,” Naomi said. Back then, the demon had been in his own body: tall, bulky, and resembling a centaur mixed with a eagle.
“Indeed we have, Spirit Warrior.” The demon was still grinning. It was really starting to creep her out.
Naomi hurled a bundle of spirit magic at
the demon, but he moved too fast. Her spell exploded against the cobbled ground. Bricks shattered, the shards shooting in every direction.
“What is this?” demanded the demon. “You’re trying to expel me from my home? Fairies are supposed to be polite.”
“We are polite, but that man’s body is not your home,” Naomi countered. “You don’t belong in there. And you don’t belong in this realm.”
“You’re really no fun at all.” The demon pulled out a knife.
Dread coiled in Naomi’s stomach. She recognized that weapon all too well. It was a Shadow Skin knife, an ancient ceremonial knife favored by vampires of the sixteenth century. Its gold hilt, adorned with red gemstones, was deceptively beautiful. Its curved black blade dripped blood. And it was pretty much the most cursed knife you could find. Potions and sprays could not cure the wounds it inflicted. The only cure to the deadly Shadow Skin Curse was a specific counter spell performed by an accomplished healing mage.
The blade didn’t even need to cut you to spread the curse. Every part of that knife was cursed, right down to the hilt and all the gemstones on it. The demon Gluttony was wearing Dragon Skin gloves that protected his host’s body from instant death.
Gluttony slashed out with the knife. Naomi hopped back and darted between two pirates. She made a run for the tear in the veil, weaving her magic through it to knit the gash between realms back together.
The demon knocked aside the pirates who happened to be between him and Naomi. He slammed into her back. One arm locked around her middle, the cursed knife edging ever closer. His other arm closed tightly around her neck. Dots flashed in front of her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. Her vision went black.
“You smell good, Spirit Warrior,” the demon hissed into her ear. “Like the fresh perfume of hell. Delicious, delectable. The perfect after-dinner snack.”
Naomi had fought so many demons over the past few months. No matter how many showers she took, she couldn’t get the demonic stench off of her.
The demon breathed down her neck, drinking in her scent. He was purring like a cat salivating in front of a bowl of catnip. He was intoxicated with the idea of eating her, Naomi realized with disgust. As his hold relaxed, she slammed her elbow into his stomach. Fairy Dust pulsed out of her body, ripping through the demon, stunning him. She grabbed him by his shoulders and slammed his face against the nearby brick wall.