The Demon Behind Me

by Christopher Nelson

  “You know it isn’t an immediately fatal wound,” Hikari said, much too calmly for having a knife in her gut. “But you’re acting like you’ve already won. Isn’t this the same gloating you warned me about?”

  Tink shrugged and looked at me. “I think we’ve earned this opportunity. But if you have a problem with how fast you’re bleeding out, let me help.” She grabbed the knife and pulled it sideways across the other woman’s stomach, drawing a horrific gasp from Hikari. “There. Better?”

  Hikari sunk to the floor and Tink stomped down on her hand, drawing another gasp of pain out. “I thought she was your friend,” Azriphel said. “I remember her sword at my throat once. She was a human worthy of a shred of respect. Times do change, don’t they?”

  “They do indeed, your Grace,” I said. “Tink, I hate to remind you, but we need to get the barrier down without making it explode.”

  “You want to take care of her, then?” She turned her back on me and began working on her spell again.

  I looked down at Hikari, slumped against the diamond barrier. “Yeah. I’ll take care of her. You work on the barrier.”

  She looked up at me as I dragged her away. Her breathing came in short gasps. I arranged her to sit against the far wall, and then sat down next to her, making sure to keep her good arm pinned behind her. “Not going to just finish me off? Put me out of my misery?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Would it make you feel better?”

  “Obviously.”

  “That’s why, then.” Her eyes met mine and I looked away. “I did love you, you know.”

  “I know you did.”

  I looked back up at her. “Did you ever love me?”

  She didn’t say anything right away, but she never looked away. “No. I didn’t. I liked you. I respected you. I enjoyed you and your company. Not everything was bad. We had good times. But, no. I never loved you. How could I? You’re a demon.”

  “Halfblood,” I said automatically.

  “Close enough.”

  “Did you know Chrissy was alive?” I asked.

  Hikari chuckled. “Maybe.”

  “I thought she was your friend.” She didn’t say anything. “How did it feel to know your friend was under the influence of this guy and wanted to kill me?”

  “It would have made everything simpler if she had succeeded.”

  We sat in silence for another few moments while Tink worked on the barrier. “Why’d you give up?” I asked.

  “Give up?”

  “You told me how you were able to kick my ass. You dropped enough hints for even a dumbass like me to figure it out. I know you’re not dumb. Well, I mean, you are, but you aren’t. So why’d you let it slip?”

  Her eyes looked toward Tink. “Damn,” she said with a deep, wet sigh. “Answers a lot of questions. The resonance spell. How she broke my hold. Why I couldn’t trigger the failsafe.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I should thank you for the hints. It was pretty good, to be honest. I think we both had a lot of pent up tension over the years.”

  “I don’t need to know the details.”

  “Just rubbing it in a little. Stop avoiding the question. Hikari, why’d you try to lose? Guilt? Double agent? Were you actually in love with me and figured out you didn’t want me to die after all?”

  She smiled as her eyes slowly tracked back to me. “Maybe I really am as dumb as you think.”

  “I don’t think so. Tell me.”

  She shifted her shoulder and her good hand crawled up toward her sling, fumbling with it until it fell off her shoulder. I didn’t try to stop her, not even when she reached down and pulled Tink’s knife out of her stomach. Blood gushed from the wound all over again and she grunted as she took a firm hold of the knife with both hands. “Forgive me, Zay,” she said as she stared into my eyes. “I’m going to leave you wondering.”

  I could have stopped her, but I didn’t.

  She cut, strong and sure.

  When the torrent of blood from her throat slowed, and the knife tumbled from her hands, I reached up and gently brushed her eyes closed. “Goodbye, Hikari,” I said softly as I kissed on her forehead.

  Tink looked up as I approached the barrier. “She dead?”

  I handed her the bloody knife. “She dead.”

  “Good.”

  Azriphel didn’t say anything, though I was sure he had been watching. His eye glittered faintly. I glared at him through the barrier. “Just to make sure, your Grace, you’re not going to try and kill us as soon as we let you out, right?”

  “You give me too much credit. Do you think I’d be able to fight in this condition?”

  “We saw Deshavin survive worse,” I pointed out.

  “Even if I could, why would I do such a thing to my rescuers?” He gave me another toothless smile.

  “Because you’re you,” Tink said.

  “She’s got a point.”

  “I promise, no harm shall come to either of you from me or my House, for as long as I shall live. You have my word.” We both looked up at him. He was still smiling at us. “Assuming, of course, we all live to escape.”

  “It’s a nice promise,” Tink said, looking back at the rune on the barrier. “Worth the paper it’s printed on. All right, I think my spell’s ready. If it’s not right, well, it might not blow up and I’ll get another try.”

  “Great. Let’s do it.”

  She touched the rune and a hole opened in the barrier, just large enough for Azriphel to step through. I reached toward him as he stooped and stepped one foot out with a jerky tremor. He ignored my hand and gestured me away. I stepped back and sighed. I’d forgotten about Lucifer pride.

  When he was out of the cell, Tink took her hand away from the rune and the hole snapped closed. “So, give me an excuse,” she said, brandishing her knife at Azriphel. “I thought you were dead years ago. Give me any excuse to make it happen now. Come on.”

  “Tink,” I said. “Please don’t.”

  “You murdered my family for hundreds of years.”

  Azriphel didn’t flinch. “It was vengeance,” he said softly. “I can offer you nothing but an end to the spiral. You and I, we have an enemy in common now, and I have a rather pressing desire to slaughter as many of them as I can.”

  As I watched, his hands seemed to be shifting back into place. “You’re healing, your Grace.”

  “Indeed.” He looked down at his hands. “The barrier impeded my capability to produce ichor. I have little to spare. Even this much is exhausting.”

  “Save your energy,” I said. “We’re miles away from the nearest portal and we’re in the middle of Antarctica. It’s cold out there.”

  “Neither of you are paying attention to me,” Tink snapped, but she sheathed her knife. “Fuck it. We’ll settle up once we’re back home.”

  “Can you fly?” I asked Azriphel. He shook his head and I looked up toward the hole in the ceiling. “Hey! House Asmodeus! Someone send Boomy down here!”

  When no one came through after a minute, I started to worry. Leaving Azriphel and Tink alone together was a disaster in the making, but it was the only way I’d find out what was going on up above. Luckily, before I could make any binding decision, a demon dropped through the hole, hauling another one with him. “Sorry, Marquis,” Boomy said with an oozing green smile. “I got unlucky.”

  “Marquis?” Azriphel asked.

  I ignored him and helped the newcomer sit Boomy up against the diamond barrier. The grenadier’s ribcage was open as if someone had unzipped him from neck to crotch. A demon with Azriphel’s power would probably be able to survive this sort of injury. I’d seen a Duke survive some rather grotesque injuries. The grenadier wasn’t quite strong enough. His ichor and regeneration couldn’t keep up. “Shit, Boomy, who’s going to blow things up for me now?”

  “I know a guy who knows a guy.” His grin stayed in place.

  “Is Becky all right?”

&nbs
p; “I had someone take her back outside. They’re working on making sure we go out with a bang.”

  I looked to the demon who had hauled him down. “Thanks. Take the Duke upstairs to the guardroom. Any word from the other Houses?”

  Boomy waved the other demon away as he started to speak. “I got this. Take the Duke. Amon and Leviathan are fighting their way toward us. Lost a few in the process but this base is done for good. They’ll have to rebuild from scratch. Generators are toast. Network fried. Choirboys already made it back. They’re holding the outer part of the chokepoint.”

  I heard Azriphel calling out as the other demon hoisted him up through the hole. “Amon and Leviathan? Choirboys? What is going on here?”

  I looked over at Tink, who was staring down at Boomy. “Anything you can do for him?” She shook her head. “Shit. I don’t want to leave you here.”

  “No worries, Marquis. They won’t take me alive. I saw what they did to prisoners. They won’t get anything out of me.”

  Tink clapped her hands. “I got it. Boomy, want to go out with a huge explosion?”

  “Oh, girl, you’re the best. Don’t tell Becky I said that.”

  We dragged him over to the barrier and Tink scrawled a circle around him, making sure to draw part of it on the diamond itself. She added a couple of runes and placed Boomy’s hand on one of them. “The barrier’s set to explode into a million shards of diamond,” she said. “You’re the switch. It’s using your ichor as part of the circuit. Once you move your hand, boom.”

  Boomy looked down at his ichor-stained hand. “So I get to pick when I go?”

  “Sure,” she said. “If you change your mind, touch the other rune before you move that hand. Just so you know, if you die before triggering anything, it’ll go off once your ichor dries up.”

  “No pain, right?” He looked up to me. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to uphold, you know.”

  “Of course not,” I promised. “You sure about this?”

  “If you ask me again, I’ll move my hand now.” His grin seemed forced now. “Get out of here. Save the world, Marquis!”

  Tink and I ran to where the ceiling had fallen in. “Done it a couple of times already,” I called to him. “It’s in good hands!”

  He gave us a thumbs up, thankfully with the correct hand, and I popped my wings out and lifted us up. Before we reached the ceiling, my eyes fell down on Hikari’s body, lying limp below, and a pang of regret ran through me. She deserved a proper burial, not a shredding. I owed her that much. Her silent, still form sitting against the wall was the last I saw of her as we pierced through the hole in the ceiling.

  Combat was still roaring through the facility as we rose through the main prison area, but it was further away. I flew us up to the top floor and we ran to the guardroom. “Situation?” I called, making sure Azriphel was in sight. He was sitting on the floor and his one eye flared as he saw me.

  “Leviathan’s stragglers just hit the checkpoint. Amon and Asmodeus are all here or accounted for.” This demon was one of Boomy’s crew and he looked much the worse for wear as well. “Choirboys are falling back with the last Leviathans now.”

  “Good,” I said, snapping my head around as I saw an angel fly through the guardroom door. “Caleb?”

  “Zay!” He touched down in front of me and grinned. His sword dripped red on the floor between us. “I see we have Azriphel. Good, and I have something even better for you.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  An archon buzzed to life over his shoulder. Caleb pointed at the glowing sphere. “I called in a favor from the Syndicate. They’ve been carving a tunnel through the ice for us to the underground portal. They just finished.”

  “Twelve miles of tunneling? How did they do it?”

  The archon flared brightly and I could feel warmth on my face. “They have their ways,” Caleb said.

  “Fine, but we still need to hike or fly twelve miles.”

  “No, it’s a two mile flight to the entrance of the tunnel,” he said. “Then it’s a straight slide to the portal. They’ve been bringing sleds to the entrance, so we can just push ourselves down.”

  “How did they…no, never mind, I don’t want to know. It’ll spoil the magic of the most ridiculous part of this mission so far,” I said. “I love it. Let’s get out of here, everyone! Follow the archons!”

  Halfway through the evacuation process, the floor heaved below us. Tink and I looked at each other. I hoped Boomy had taken a couple of mages with him. The rest of the evacuation was a fighting retreat. Tink and I were almost the last ones out, and mages were storming the guardroom as the last demon flew up through the ice shaft. “Last one!”

  “Let it go!” roared Becky’s voice. I jumped up into the air even higher as a team of demons threw hellfire into the concrete below the ice sheet. The ceiling was weak from our entrance and it didn’t take much to collapse it entirely. Any survivors would need to backtrack and find a new exit to follow us.

  With our retreat covered, we flew toward the tunnel, archons flickering into sight along our path to keep us on track. At the entrance, pairs of archons were dropping sleds on the ground, each one barely large enough for a single adult. Caleb was already waving demons through. When he caught sight of me, he beckoned. “We already sent Azriphel through with some of your House,” he said. “All you need to do is push and you’ll glide the whole way. The archons are making sure no one stops partway down. You can take the next one if you want.”

  I looked behind me to see Tink shivering. “I think we should,” I said.

  Caleb offered me a sled and I set it in place. Tink stepped toward it as I sat down in the back half. “What if I wanted the back?” she asked through chattering teeth.

  “Just get on,” I said. She sat in front of me, leaned back, and I pushed us into the tunnel, lit with the soft blue glow of hundreds of archons saluting us as we passed.

  Chapter Twenty

  Opheran, Tink, and I paused in front of the door. “You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be,” I said to her. “I know how hard it is.”

  “Don’t try and protect me.”

  Even though her words were sharp, I felt a hint of her anxiety. Without conscious thought, I took her hand in mine. Opheran knocked on the door. “Come in.”

  Duke Azriphel of House Lucifer sat behind a desk in the office we had loaned him, a laptop open in front of him. As we walked in, he rose and gave each of us a shallow bow. “Good morning, Azzy,” I said. “You’re looking a touch healthier.”

  He gave me a thin smile. Most of his injuries had regenerated. The only physical reminders of his torture were his skeletal gauntness and the eyepatch covering the empty socket. Over time, he’d be able to restore himself completely if he chose to. “Respect, halfblood,” he said. “If you please.”

  “It’s almost time for the High Council to meet,” Opheran said. “I wanted to see if you were going to spring any last moment surprises on us.”

  Azriphel chuckled and gestured for us to sit. “Even if I didn’t owe your House my life, I’d stand with you. I’ve spent every waking hour reading what you’ve supplied. I’ve spoken with Amon, Leviathan, and even Belphagor. Yes, their faction knows I live.” He smiled at Opheran’s sudden frown. “I had to assure myself you were providing me accurate information. You’d do the same.”

  “And you accept what we provided?”

  “Shockingly unbiased. Almost suspiciously so.”

  “We had no reason to hide anything from you.”

  Azriphel’s gaze flicked over to Tink. “Only this one loose end remains.”

  She stiffened. “Not only mine.”

  “Oh?”

  “You gave our friend Chrissy a suggestion to kill this one,” she said, tilting her head toward me. “If you release the suggestion and reaffirm what you promised us during the rescue, I’ll relinquish any claims to vendetta against you and your House.”
>
  His expression seemed amused. “I suppose you’ve proven yourself worthy of my respect. Very well. You and your family shall fear nothing at my hands or those of my House for as long as we both shall live. I shall also remove the suggestion on your friend at your convenience. These things I do swear in the presence of witnesses. Removing the suggestion may take some time, I must say. I am a touch rusty.”

  “I accept your word,” Tink said. “And in the presence of those same witnesses, I relinquish my claims to vendetta against you and your House.”

  “Isn’t this wonderful,” I said. “Peace in our time.”

  Tink leaned forward and her knife appeared in her hand as if by magic. “Now with the formal bullshit out of the way, I don’t forgive you, and I’ll never forget. If I could kill you right now, I would. If you dare take a single step out of line, if you fuck with anyone I care about, if you try a goddamn sneaky ass trick, I will make it my life’s mission to end you and your entire House, and this time I won’t let anything stop me. Are we clear on this, Azriphel?”

  The demon blinked. Well, winked. “I have no desire to push you, human, but do not test my patience. For both our sakes, let us agree to avoid interaction as much as possible.”

  “Fine by me.” Tink’s knife went away and she leaned back.

  Azriphel’s eye looked back to Opheran. “Well, then. I dare say it is time for the meeting, is it not?”

  “Indeed it is,” Opheran said, rising from his chair. “Allow me to congratulate you in advance, High Prince Azriphel of House Lucifer.”

  Azriphel slowly rose from his seat and bowed. “I thank you, High Prince Opheran of House Asmodeus. I and my House are deeply in your debt.”

  Opheran snorted. “Please. Rescuing you and your House is a means to an end. Any debt you may feel you owe us will be repaid by your return to the High Council.”

  “Even so,” Azriphel said, his gaze finally turning back to me. “If there is a debt I owe, it is to you, halfblood.”

  “I’ll let it accrue some interest before I call it in.”

  A few minutes later, we filed into the High Council chamber in Camp Asmodeus, finding most of the seats already filled and an argument in process between Amon and Mammon. When Azriphel appeared in the doorway, the argument ceased and all eyes focused on him. When he took his seat at the table reserved for House Lucifer, there was nothing but silence until Opheran stood and clapped his hands three times. “House Asmodeus calls this special meeting of the Infernal Host High Council to order. As host, House Asmodeus reminds all present that we are still in a state of hostilities with the Angelic Choir and we are bound to secrecy concerning all discussions of this meeting, upon pain of treason and death.” He cleared his throat and smiled. “Let us assure a full quorum is present before continuing with business.”