by Krista Walsh
Zach gripped her arm and tugged her forward. She thought he said something, but she couldn’t make it out through the deep vibrations rumbling through her skull.
What are they doing?
Her stomach twisted and she stumbled forward. Zach’s fingers around her arm tightened and he jerked her back. She turned her head toward him to tell him off for being so rough, but froze when she caught something in her periphery.
Daphne turned her head slowly, and her stomach dropped.
In her discomfort, she’d been too distracted to check the room before they’d entered it. It was large enough to have been some kind of dining hall, but all the furniture had been cleared away, leaving only a very wide, very empty space. Empty, that is, except for the dozen demons that stood waiting for them, a variety of species and sizes.
The pain in her head vanished as her magic swelled within her, and she drew one foot backward, taking a defensive stance. At her side, Zach widened his posture, a low snarl ripping from his throat.
A blast of pure green magic shot through the room. It struck the wall beside Daphne’s head, and the stone crumbled to the ground. Her gaze flew to the person who had delivered the blow, a brunette who was wearing little more than rags. She was shorter than Daphne, almost mouse like, but her expression was feral.
Pressure built up in Daphne’s chest. At first she worried that whatever spell the woman had thrown at her was pushing against her, but she soon realized the sensation was coming from within. Anticipation. The drive for the fight.
If this is my last stand, I’ll be damned if I won’t make it worthwhile.
She glanced at Zach, and when he nodded, she sucked in a breath. With a thought toward her family, she released a cry and allowed her magic to flood through her body.
30
Molly felt her strength flagging. She’d continued to fight against Lozak as they’d made their way through the hallways and rooms. She had no idea where they were, but the place seemed massive. And freezing. Since she’d arrived, she didn’t think she’d felt a single warm draft. Just like the people she’d encountered during her visit.
The cold had sunk deep into her bones, hugging her joints, making them difficult to move. Nausea tugged at her guts, and exhaustion made every bounce and jostle on Lozak’s shoulder even more painful.
What was the purpose in fighting? Nothing she did would make him drop her. Zach hadn’t come for her, and now she was about to be thrown into a hellhole somewhere — if they even bothered to keep her alive.
Three times, she thought she’d sensed a change in the air around her. A pressure in her head and a surge of energy, like the feeling that came during a thunderstorm. Something was happening, and if the demons were able to move forward without the orb, then the only reason they were keeping her around was for Zach. Did she need to be breathing for them to use her against him, or would her mutilated corpse suffice?
Maybe she should just give up and take their fun out of it. It might hasten her death, but was that the worst thing?
Just as she’d made her decision to slump down on Lozak’s shoulder and allow him to throw her back in her cell, a phone rang.
Lozak grumbled and shifted Molly’s weight. “Hello?” His voice was so deep that every time he spoke, it took her by surprise. Was it because she was so close to him that it sounded even deeper than the last time she’d heard him?
“We have a situation in sector four-alpha,” said a man on the other end of the line. Molly was confused about how she heard him so clearly until she realized Lozak had put the phone on speaker.
She recognized the voice of the calm, well-spoken man who had come to her in the cells that first day. The one who had ordered Rega to step aside and Frank to step in. The one who had scared her with his apparent authority over this entire operation.
“I’m on my way to eight-sigma. It seems our little poodle found her way out of her cage.”
“Excellent,” said the man on the phone. “Bring her. It’s time she finally serves her purpose.”
Molly tensed. Her? How could she be useful against whatever trouble they were having? She might have been able to come to terms with them killing her, but she wouldn’t stand for being used as a tool against someone else. Any idea of giving up evaporated. With redoubled motivation, she thrashed against Lozak’s shoulder. She lodged the points of her toes into his sternum, repeating the blow again and again, exhilarated when she drew a grunt from him.
He dragged her off his shoulder and dropped her to the ground. She took the chance to run, but only made it a few steps before he grabbed the back of her shirt and tucked her under his arm, his beefy forearm squeezing her chest as he pressed her against his side. He hugged her lungs so tightly she could barely draw breath. She kept kicking and swinging her arms, but from this position, she couldn’t make contact.
Keep fighting, she told herself. She had to ignore the throb in her chest from her pounding heart and the numbness of her limbs as all her blood rushed to her core. She couldn’t make this easy for them.
They seemed to move faster on their way back up, making Molly wish she could trip her captor. Do something to hold him up and buy more time. If something was putting a wrench in their plans, she didn’t want Lozak to get there too soon to sort it out.
As it was, she pressed for every advantage, but when the sounds of a fight came to her from up ahead, the shouts and screams vibrating through her cochlears, she knew it was too late. The individual noises were indistinguishable, but she’d been present at enough demon fights to recognize one when she heard it.
Heat buzzed past her face, searing her eyebrows, and a rumble echoed behind her like the sound of stone exploding in a blast. It was followed by a cry that sounded so familiar it froze Molly to her core. It sounded like Daphne.
She couldn’t have heard correctly. Her mind was so overstimulated, it was making things up, making her hear what she wanted to hear.
Lozak set her on the ground but kept a firm grip on her arm, preventing her from moving away from him, no matter how hard she tried to jerk free. She hated the feel of his touch on her skin, so rough and hard, as though she were being held by a statue instead of a living beast.
“Let her go.”
The voice that reached her across the room sent Molly’s heart leaping into her throat.
“Zach?” She’d intended to call out to him, but her voice failed her and his name came out as little more than a wobbly whisper.
She didn’t want to believe it in case she was wrong and this was a moment of wishful thinking they would laugh at her for later.
“We’ve got you, kid,” he said.
A sob escaped her throat. They’d come for her. They’d made it. Then she remembered she’d walked in on a fight, and that Lozak was holding her. Yes, they’d come for her, but they’d put their lives at risk to do it. Tears streamed over her cheeks.
Her legs threatened to give out, and she wanted nothing more than to let them. After so many days in the darkness, with not knowing what was coming, all she wanted to do was let someone else take over so she didn’t have to worry about anything.
But even as the thought swelled in her mind, she pressed it down. They’d come here to rescue her, but she wasn’t a weak little girl who let other people fight her battles for her. She had to be ready to move. Ready to fight. As she steeled herself, trying to ignore the rapidity of her heartbeat, her legs steadied.
“Let her go, Lozak,” Zach said. “I’m here. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is an unexpected pleasure.” The mild, authoritative voice from the phone spoke up from Molly’s left, somewhere on the other side of the room. “I won’t say it’s the only reason we kept the girl, however. She has something we need.”
“She doesn’t,” Daphne said. “We do.”
“Then I suggest you cooperate and give it to us before we tear her arms off.”
The softness of the voice was so at odds with the order that M
olly didn’t believe him until Lozak yanked her closer and took hold of her other arm. She couldn’t breathe. She could barely register everything that was happening — only that Zach had made it, and they were still all going to die.
“You think we’re so stupid as to have brought it with us?” Daphne asked. “It’s back on the mainland, safe and secure, unless we get the girl back in one piece. So hand her over and we have a deal.”
The mild man chuckled. “Now who’s making judgments about whose intelligence?” His voice grew louder as he came closer. “Perhaps we can begin our deal by you removing whatever barrier is blocking me from casting our spell.”
A stretch of silence, and then Daphne chuckled. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t. If you can’t find a way around it, then maybe it’s a sign you’re not ready for world domination. Just give up now and save yourself the embarrassment.”
An urge to cheer for Daphne lurked deep inside Molly, but fear soon quashed it.
“The real tragedy, Miss Heartstone, is that I don’t think you understand how unnecessary your fight is. I’m not seeking to destroy anything. In fact, if you stand down and help with my vision, you could find yourself in a better world than you could ever imagine. Tell me, wouldn’t it be a relief to drop the character you play in your daily life? You could stop lying to your boss about how you gain information for your stories. You could step into the light and reveal your true nature to the world. You wouldn’t need to hide your power — you could broadcast it. You could put the humans around you in their places and show them who really deserves their respect. That’s the extent of my goal. To offer the otherworldly their rightful place in this dimension.”
“At what cost, Mayes?” Zach asked.
His identification of the voice made Molly gasp, the full picture of things beginning to fall into place in her mind.
“Very little, I assure you,” Mayes said. “If we have the cooperation of everyone in the otherworld, the change could come very easily, with very little loss of life. The trouble only comes if you fight back. What exactly are you fighting for? To remain in obscurity? To remain in fear of your secret being revealed? In the eyes of this mundane…cattle, we would be gods. Is it not time they viewed us as we are?”
“There are worse fates than being trapped in the shadows,” Zach said. “I’d rather see in the darkness than be blinded by the light.”
“Pity,” Mayes said. “Although from you, I’m hardly surprised. Ah, well. Do you know why I named this project Oracle, Zachariel? Because I have seen the future, and it is me.”
Ice ran through Molly’s blood at his proclamation and all the implications that came with it. A demon-run world, everything she cared about destroyed. And it was all about to happen if they couldn’t stop it.
“It would have been easier if you’d complied voluntarily,” Mayes said, “but we have other ways of ensuring your cooperation. Lozak, see to it, will you? There’s no need to keep them alive if you’re unable to. And kill the girl.”
Molly’s body went numb as she braced for Lozak to follow through with the threat to tear off her arm. Then a shout went out, and another burst of heat flew past Molly, its warmth sizzling her skin and the small hairs on the side of her face. Lozak’s grip tightened, and she bit back on a cry.
“Well, that was inconsiderate,” Mayes said, and his voice had changed, growing lower and more forceful. “That was my favorite suit.”
Molly gasped as light filtered through her vision. It wasn’t the first time the otherworld had pierced through her blindness to fill her world with red light, but the size of the shape taking form in front of her was larger than any she’d seen before. A far brighter red than Zach’s richer, deeper shade, it stretched taller, until it stood nearly double her height. It seemed to hunch forward, looming over the objects she sensed standing beyond him, and another stream of red stretched out behind him.
Before, she’d been limited to the light around the beings she’d seen, but this time the form grew clearer, almost as though it had stepped out of one of Frank’s illusions. She made out its smooth red skin and the spikes protruding down the length of the spine, which tapered into a long, whip-like tail. Thick, bulging arms reached out, its large hands ending in vicious claws.
The demon’s eyes, brighter than the rest of him, burned so deeply they made Molly’s head ache. Any trace of the mild man he’d presented himself to be had disappeared. His glamor had dropped.
Molly hadn’t spent much time studying religion, but you didn’t get to be sixteen years old without hearing the most interesting stories. Lazarus. The parting of the Red Sea. Revelations.
Before they had all just been stories for her, but now she had to wonder if there wasn’t something to them.
Because standing in the doorway, where Mayes had been, was the devil himself.
31
Vera stared at the horror of Rega and his minions standing in the doorway and moved back into the room, creating as much distance as possible in the space that suddenly seemed too small and closed in. She felt as though she’d stepped into the recurring nightmare that had haunted her since the day her bookstore had burned to the ground.
Rega had nearly killed her, and the two warlocks with him had facilitated his attack. Vera had run through the scene so many times since that day, wishing she could have been stronger, moved faster. Done something to eliminate the threat permanently before Lozak had arrived to take charge.
Now she would get her chance.
Behind the three in the doorway, two more demons lurked in the corridor. Even without them, the coming fight would be unfairly balanced, but she would do her best to make it difficult for them.
Rega’s gaze flicked toward Gabe as though he’d heard some silent challenge, but it seemed that otherwise his focus was on Vera. And she was happy to return the favor. She needed this. Rega had violated her home and had literally crawled under her skin. If she ever wanted to be free of him, she needed to be the one to destroy him.
Her thoughts were racing too quickly to think of anything beyond assessing her surroundings for advantages. The room was at least twenty-foot square, with nothing but the computer desk to her left to fill it. She fingered the satchel at her side, shifting it behind her so it wouldn’t hinder her movements, but that was all she had time to do before Rega stepped forward and the other four demons poured into the room, turning it from a spacious lab into a cramped battlefield.
Vera deflected a few blows as they came at her, but Gabe and Frank quickly drew the fire of everyone other than Rega, leaving her to focus solely on the black-eyed man in front of her. His grin never faded, carrying a hint of extra smugness from the last time they’d encountered one another.
Screams broke out in the room, but Vera couldn’t tear her gaze away from the demon closing in on her, unwilling to give up the second it might take to protect herself.
Anger sparked through her veins at his cockiness, urging her on, fueling her strength even as it left her alert for any sudden moves.
“I’ve been dreaming of this moment,” he said. The rasp of his voice penetrated into her head, grating on her nerves.
“As have I,” she said. “It’s given me nothing but pleasure, imagining how satisfying it will be when I tear your heart out.”
His lips curled in a sneer as he came at her, fists flying. She managed to duck beneath the first one, but the second glanced against her cheekbone, sending vibrations through her skull. Vera grabbed his arm and twisted her body upward, lodging her knee into his solar plexus, then delivered a kick to the side of his head when he bowed over. He grabbed her standing leg and yanked, pulling her off balance. Before she could fall, she lurched forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, a moment of intimacy between foes.
Rega jerked back, and she brought her head down to crack against his nose, but then he used her proximity to land a blow in her stomach.
The air pushed out of her lungs and she bent over, working to gain it back. In that moment
of recovery, she thrust her mental fingers toward Rega’s mind, but her blood froze when she saw no response from Rega except a wider smile.
“You think I haven’t learned my lesson, goddess?” He spat her heritage as a curse. “You won’t find your way in here.”
He tapped his fingers against his temple, and she understood that his earlier smugness hadn’t been overconfidence. He’d immunized himself against her greatest defense. If she was going to win this, it would be with her fists.
She hoped she had enough strength to keep going, but so many nights of little sleep and the strain of the journey had taken their toll. Her limbs were tiring, her head was aching, and it was only her determination to see this through that kept her meeting blow for blow.
She sucked in a deep breath and threw herself at him again, leveling her shoulder so it struck into his chest, forcing his shoulder into the wall to their left.
Behind her, the sounds of the fight continued, shrieks and screams cutting into her already sensitive hold on her throbbing head. She wanted to turn around to make sure Gabe was all right, to reassure herself that Frank was holding his own, but she couldn’t risk the distraction. Instead, she slammed her foot down on Rega’s instep and threw a double-fisted punch into his stomach.
Blood was dripping from his broken nose, and as he raised his black eyes to hers, she was struck by the heat of his loathing, the strength of his rage. Before she could stop him, his fingers were around her throat, and he turned to thrust her up against the wall. The back of her head slammed against the stone, and a cracked shard prodded into the small of her back.
A pain shot through her body, warming her even as it froze her, and at first she couldn’t place what had happened. Had the shard of stone pierced her skin? She dropped her hand to her side, and her mouth went dry when her fingers brushed over a length of cold steel protruding from her gut.
When she raised her hand, her fingers came away wet, and Rega’s grin returned as he leaned his lips close to her ear. “And just like that, I’ve proved I’m the better man, you arrogant little bitch. You have no idea the fun I’m going to have with your body after you’re dead.”