“Toss one in there.”
“You sure? Could be where they hold prisoners.”
“Doubt it. Too close to the elevators. Most likely a security post.”
“Roger.” The demon stood to the side of the door and pulled the grenade’s pin. After a horrifyingly long two-count, he cracked the door open, tossed the grenade in, and slammed the door shut again. The door thumped and hissed. I heard screaming from inside within just a few seconds. Whatever wards or shields they had against hellfire didn’t seem to protect them from mundane sources.
We hit the room carefully, but there was no way to avoid all the sparks of phosphorus this time. Demonic hide held up well against the burns, but it still fucking hurt. Human skin, on the other hand, was not as fortunate. The security team inside was too busy trying to deal with the burning sensation to contest our entrance. We stacked their bodies in the corner and waved wisps of smoke away from our faces.
“You were right,” the grenadier said. “Check it out, Choirboys on camera.” A set of video panels showed different camera views, though several were showing nothing but static. Caleb’s team was flying, literally, down a hallway. I snorted and gestured at the security system.
One of the Intelligence demons started working on the computer while another started flicking through the camera controls. “There’s nothing labeled here for captives,” he said. “Unless part of this place isn’t covered by this security system, there aren’t any prisoners here.”
“Fuck,” I said. “Well, cross this one off the list.”
“Angels coming up the elevator,” another demon growled.
I stepped out into the hallway to greet Caleb. “Don’t step on the smoking white stuff,” I told him as he stepped out.
“Willie Pete,” he said. “I’m familiar with him. Did your team find anything?”
“Some offices. Security post. We’re setting up Leviathan’s toys and then we’ll be ready to get out. How about you?”
Caleb shook his head. “Lower floor was mostly housing and amenities.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“Two injured. They sealed the wounds, but have some purity stains on their uniforms. They’re staying in the back so nothing happens.” I looked past him to see two angels staying right at the elevator doors. “Your team?”
“One dead, one major injury, otherwise just bruises and scratches.”
“I’d say we’re done here, then.”
“Yeah. Once my guys are done here, we go out the way we came and go top speed for our exit portals.” I pointed up toward the surface. “No point trying to keep it quiet now. Priority is to get out.”
“That sounds fine-“
Before Caleb could finish his thought, the other elevator chimed. We whirled to look at it, the two injured angels whipping out their swords and crouching. A figure leapt out of the elevator as the doors opened. Magic flashed from their hands. I tried to put myself between the mage and Tink, only to find myself slamming into Caleb’s shoulder as he tried the same thing.
The leaping mage was fake. Illusionary magic rippled as the two angels cut through the image. The actual caster was still in the elevator. I tried to shout a warning, but it was too late. A spell flared out of the elevator and grabbed both of Caleb’s wounded. Gravity hauled them down and I heard cracks as angelic bones broke under the sudden unexpected stress. Caleb snarled something and started forward, but I grabbed his shoulder. “We need to extract, not fight!”
The angel stiffened. “Raziel is one of my veterans. I can’t just leave him!”
“He’s already dead,” I snapped. The force crushing the two angels was leaving a visible circular depression in the floor. Their bodies were contorted and bulging in places. “We need to leave now before purity sprays everywhere. It’s over! Come on!”
Caleb hesitated, but then barked out an order. The surviving angels fell in with him while my demon team rushed out of the security post. I pointed at our grenadier, then at the elevator car where the mage was still hiding. He got the idea and chucked a grenade to bounce right into the car. “Trick shot,” he called.
There was no boom. While our teams rushed back into the main arterial, I covered the rear, waiting for the mage to appear. A ball of hellfire floated over my palm. If this mage was strong enough to crush angels, stop a grenade from going off, and cast an illusion within less than ninety seconds, I didn’t stand a chance. The best I could hope for was to delay them long enough to get everyone out.
The mage who turned the corner wore a full burqa. As she made eye contact with me through the slit in her head covering, I felt my heart drop into my socks. “My, Zay, I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” Hikari said as she shucked the covering. “Looks like it’s your lucky day. Mine too.”
“Is it who I think it is?” A sharp whisper from the nearest corner told me Tink had stuck around.
“If you’re here, your little bitch must be here too,” Hikari continued. She pointed at the corner and smiled. “Right there. Come on out, Tinkerbell. You don’t need to hide from me.”
Tink stepped around the corner. “Hikari-chan, what an unpleasant surprise to see you again,” she said.
“Likewise.” Hikari looked up and down the hallway. “You really trashed this place, didn’t you? How’d you find it? Oh. The prisoners, of course. What were you after?”
“Maybe we were after you,” Tink snapped.
“Unlikely.” Hikari waved her hand. I spotted the unexploded grenade dangling off one finger. “I’ll tell you, this place really isn’t all too important. It’s just a regional headquarters. Did you think it was something more? Is that why you smashed the place up? Or did you think there were prisoners here too?”
I shrugged. “There might have been, but we just came here to trash the place. Poke a finger in the Conclave’s eye. You know what I’m realizing, though? The Conclave isn’t as threatening as you’d like us to believe.” She gave me an incredulous look. “I’m serious. You’re winning because you ambush our people with overwhelming force. When we’re ready for a fight, it doesn’t go as well, like when your people attacked Caleb’s kids. Now we brought the fight to you, and you lost, Hikari. You lost a lot of good people.”
Hikari shook her head and laughed. “Come on, Zay, you’re just blustering. Top level security in a regional headquarters? They weren’t master combat mages. Their security forces were adepts, maybe some senior adepts. Of course they couldn’t stand up to you. Then I get here, trick two angels with a simple spell, step on them like they were bugs, and you’re running away in a panic.”
“We were planning on leaving within the next minute or so,” I said. “Plus, you know how resilient we all are. Those angels might not be dead.”
“No?” She looked down at the grenade in her hand and casually tossed it back over her shoulder. The explosion shook the hallway. “They are now.”
“All right, well, honestly, it’s been nice talking to you,” I said. “Really, we’ll have to do lunch sometime, have your people talk to my people and set things up, but we have a very important appointment coming up and we just can’t be late. See you later!”
“I didn’t say you could leave.” Her words were cold enough to make the remaining sparks of white phosphorus around her flicker and go out. “You don’t think you’re just going to walk out of here, do you?”
“No, I was planning on flying. It’s faster.”
Hikari sized me up. I saw her stance shift slightly and knew she was gearing up to fight. “I don’t think so. You’re too spent to fly. Your hellfire’s going out, you know.”
I glanced down at my palm and a kinetic spell slammed into me, throwing me a dozen feet backwards down the hallway. I tumbled and barely managed to avoid smashing my head on the floor. Tink intercepted the next spell and flung her own back at Hikari, but no matter how good she was, Hikari was unquestionably better. Being Nathan Kane’s bitch seemed to be rather good for one’s re
sume.
“Don’t worry, Tinkerbell, I’ll make sure you die together,” Hikari said as she walked forward, another spell flickering through the air toward me. I dove out of the way before I had completely caught my breath and ended up in a sprawl on the other side of the hallway.
“Fuck off, bitch.” Tink gestured with her middle finger and magic flashed between them. Hikari deflected the spell, but her advance slowed. I felt a swell of pride in Tink.
I pushed myself to my feet and prepared my own spell, using their fight as a distraction. It was a simple force spell, but using ichor instead of blood would make it strong enough to make Hikari pay attention to the fact it was two on one. I timed my cast perfectly, throwing it in a curve around Tink just as she cast her own spell.
Hikari flicked both hands downwards. One hand brushed my spell away as if it was nothing. She didn’t even deflect it. The spell simply ceased to exist. The other hand countered Tink’s spell. “I didn’t forget about you, Zay,” she called down the hall. “You can’t hurt me, no matter how much you want to. I know you too well.”
At the moment, hurting her was one of my primary goals in life, but getting the hell out of here alive was in close competition. “You can’t win against both of us,” I called back, shifting into my demonic form and preparing to rush her. If magic wouldn’t work, melee and hellfire at point blank range might. “Even you aren’t that good.”
“You know how good I am.” She flicked a hand at Tink, who countered the spell with another flourish. “Intimately.”
“Sometimes I regret ever touching you.”
“It wasn’t all bad.” She smiled and countered a series of spells from Tink without even seeming to look at her. “I don’t regret all of it. I learned so many things about you. Do you want to know, Tinkerbell? Like about how he loves being kissed on the back of his neck? It turns him on. Or how he loves to cuddle?”
“I don’t care,” Tink snapped.
“You don’t know him, but I did. I still do. That’s why he’s no threat to me.” She beckoned to me. “Come on, Zay, I see the look on your face. Let’s spar.”
I surged forward with a heavy beat of my wings and lashed out with my claws. Demonic fury was overwhelming me with every beat of my heart. I wanted her dead. She danced back as I struck at her, brushing my attacks aside with almost gentle touches. I tried to work new patterns into my attacks, but my demonic side didn’t want to think, just kill. If I shifted back toward human, I’d lose the killing edge keeping me alive.
After a minute of dodging and deflecting, she finally slammed a fist into my chest, blasting me backwards as if she had hit me with another spell. It was entirely possible she had added magic to the blow. I considered the possibility just before I hit the wall. The impact rattled my brain and by the time I could think coherently again, she was standing over Tink. “I told you I was better than you,” she said to the girl at her feet. “In every possible way.”
“Except being a decent human being.” Tink coughed and her voice held an undertone of pain. Some of Hikari’s spells had gotten through her defenses. “That’s something you’ll never beat me at.”
“I don’t know what you mean. You’re standing against humanity and with the demons. Do you think you’re being a decent human being? I don’t. You’re a traitor, not just to the Conclave, but to all of humanity.”
“I’m standing against the Conclave. You don’t speak for all of humanity. Don’t delude yourself.”
“Not yet,” Hikari said. “But we’re close enough, Tinkerbell. Now, which one of you gets to see the other die?”
I rubbed my chest where she had punched me and coughed. Nothing was broken, but my entire ribcage felt like one huge bruise. “You’re making a serious mistake, Hikari.”
She turned to face me and planted her hands on her hips. “Am I?”
“Yeah. You’re gloating over vanquishing your enemies before actually vanquishing them. They warn against it in the Evil Overlord list. You should read it more closely.” As she frowned, I showed her a grin full of fangs. “If you spend too much time gloating, rescue shows up.”
Caleb flew down the hallway and slammed his shield into her, full force. I could hear the crunch as something broke. She hit the wall only a few feet away from me with another delightfully crunchy sound. “Nice of you to come back and check on us,” I said as I struggled to my feet.
“Nice of you to distract her,” he replied, reaching down to help me up.
“Let’s finish her and get out of here,” I said, turning toward her crumpled body. “No sense leaving her alive.”
“No time.” Caleb grabbed my shoulder and yanked me away from her. I heard the ding of the elevator doors opening. He snatched Tink’s hand as we passed her. “No, listen, there are mages pouring out of the woodwork here. We’re going now before they can overwhelm us. It’s over. Come on!”
We both tried to protest, but the angel dragged us away. My chest ached with bruised ribs and I couldn’t find the breath to make a serious argument. Tink looked over at me with a sour look as we reached the exit stairwell. I nodded. We didn’t need our bond to tell we were in complete agreement: the next time we saw Hikari, she would die.
Chapter Sixteen
“So.”
“So.” Tink and I sat on either end of the couch. My ribs had healed overnight, her bumps and scratches were nothing to worry about, but both of us had an open wound on our conscience. “I don’t know why Caleb didn’t let us just fucking kill her. It would have taken just a couple of seconds for you to torch the bitch.”
I shook my head. “He should have killed her. I would have been fine if he did. I mean, I’d like for one of us to do it, but I’m not picky, as long as we get to see.”
“I am. I want to do it myself.” Tink toyed with her knife as she spoke. “I want to take my time and make her hurt.”
“Do you really?”
“Yeah. I am a little fucked up, you know.” She sighed and flipped the knife around. I resisted the urge to play off her words. “You’re right, though. We can’t be picky. She’s dangerous, she’s seriously fucked in the head, and worst of all, she has something on you. You couldn’t touch her. You weren’t even getting close. What was that all about? I didn’t think you were pulling your punches, but were you really trying?”
Her tone wasn’t accusing, just questioning, and it was a fair question. “I gave it everything I had,” I said quietly. “I let all my bloodlust out. I didn’t hold anything back, I just wanted her dead.”
“Well, then, why the hell was she able to block every single thing you did without even paying attention?” Tink couldn’t sit still during these sorts of discussions and she jumped to her feet to pace. “She was working to keep my spells countered, and I know she had to pay attention to keep me from tagging her. She didn’t focus on you at all. So how was she winning?”
I closed my eyes and leaned back to think. “She said she knew me better than you did, and that’s why I was no threat.”
“Bullshit, she knows you better. We’ve been working together twice as long as you dated her. If there’s anyone who knows you, it’s me, or maybe Caleb.” I could hear her pacing pause in place. “Unless you’ve been keeping secrets from me. Do I need to cut them out of you?”
“Do you think we can keep secrets from each other anymore?” I opened my eyes just long enough to see her suspicious glare. “One direct question and it’d be too obvious.”
“What do you mean?” Her question was flat.
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
I sighed without opening my eyes. “Every time we renew the contract, our bond gets stronger. I’ve felt it for years. You should have noticed it by now. If you say you don’t, I’ll know you’re lying.”
“I hoped I was just imagining things.” I felt her flop back down on the couch. “Yeah, I noticed. Blood bonded and contracted. That’s another reason why I don’t think she
can know you as well as I do. She doesn’t have the same bond. We have something special. Ugh. It sounds kind of gross when I say it out loud.”
“Caleb doesn’t have that bond with me either,” I said. She snorted. “We do have a good friendship, but the only blood bonding we’ve ever done is shedding it together. I don’t think it counts.”
“Well, aside from the Gates,” she pointed out. “But I get what you mean. She’s referring to something else, assuming she’s not bullshitting.”
“She’s not.”
“How do you know?”
I finally opened my eyes and looked across the couch at her. “Remember when we fought Victor?”
“Which time?”
“In the playground when they bushwhacked us with a contract of their own. The last real fight.” Those memories were very clear for me.
“I remember.” She shuddered. “Hikari hit me after you blew the fucking world up. Then Victor used me as a hostage to keep you from killing her. The fucker ruined just about everything.”
I bit my lip. The exchange of words between Hikari and me back then had left scars. “You missed a couple of minutes, then.”
“I did?” Genuine surprise showed on her face and echoed through our bond. “Guess she rattled my brain more than I knew. What happened?”
“I let my demonic side out back then too,” I said, skipping the reasons. “She used a spell to completely undo my transformation and negate my ichor. It was like she turned me completely human for a moment.”
Tink leaned toward me. “No way. Shouldn’t be possible.”
“I agree,” I said. “Long story short, she was so focused on keeping the demon side down, she didn’t pay attention to what a human could do, so I punched her.”
“Not hard enough.”
“Obviously, but that’s when Victor popped back up. Before he saved her ass, though, she let a lot of things slip. Girl doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. You’d think she would have learned by now. Two things stand out. First, she talked about how she helped rebuild my body. Said she knew how to flick the switch, more or less. Remember how she kept a spell on me after I was up and about? I think she was just practicing. Maybe some sort of insurance policy.”
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