Celestial Storm

by Emma L. Adams

  17

  Shuffling noises and growls came from the clifftop. I looked up, seeing dark shapes moving above. Tensing, I ignited my celestial hand and jumped, using my celestial speed to propel myself out of reach of the biter demons’ snapping teeth. A familiar stance took hold as my instincts kicked in, putting my growing panic over Nikolas momentarily on hold.

  I summoned my blade and slashed through the nearest biter demon, severing its head, and spun on the spot to intercept another. The blood on the cliff had drawn them here. I’d bet Casthus had left it there on purpose.

  Damn him.

  A huge spiny demon with porcupine-like spikes appeared over the cliff’s edge, its teeth bared. The leader of the biter demons lunged, batting at me with paw-like hands. I dodged easily, my blade severing its head. An impatient snarl tore from my lungs and I raised my blade at the remaining demons. “Get out or die.”

  The survivors fled, leaving bloodstains on the remains of the pentagram, but my rage remained undiminished. If I blasted my celestial power to the heavens, Casthus would spot me instantly. I was miles from the castle. I’d never be able to sneak in there without him spotting me, and a direct confrontation would be a suicide mission.

  I can’t leave here without Nikolas.

  More growling noises came from close by, and I swore under my breath, spotting another group of biter demons in the distance. Now I understood why Zadok had lived in an impenetrable demonglass tower. Everything out here wanted to eat me alive.

  Hands grabbed me from behind. I struggled, twisting on the spot to access my blade.

  “It’s me, Devi,” Rachel hissed in my ear. “We need to get out of here.”

  She released me, and I spun around. Fiona stood at her side, her eyes wide and her face pale under the luminous moon. “Devi—I’m sorry.”

  I could hardly speak. “Did he really take—?” I pointed at the distant dark shape of the castle with my blade.

  Fiona nodded, biting her lip. “We had to hide. He would have killed us otherwise. He has his bat demons flying around looking for trespassers.”

  It’s my fault. I should have known Casthus wouldn’t leave his territory unwatched. Not after I’d stolen the fallen from him.

  “We have to go,” Rachel said. “Before he comes back.”

  “I can’t leave him here.” But I knew I’d lost. I didn’t have the resources to mount a rescue mission. I was dead the instant I walked in there. To beat the arch-demon, I’d need to use my brain, not my blade.

  Rachel and Fiona all but dragged me through the canyon to the place where they’d left the pentagram Nikolas had set up while I’d been gone.

  We reappeared in Nikolas’s living room, where the full impact of my failure hit me like a freight train. I swore loudly at the ceiling, not much caring if anyone heard, and sank to my knees.

  Lythocrax wanted this. He’d wanted me to make an enemy of the shadow arch-demon. I wished I’d opened a door to Purgatory from Pandemonium after all, but who knew what Lythocrax would have done with an entire palace of demonglass? There was no way to get out of this without sacrificing lives. Humans, demons, angels and otherwise.

  I won’t let Nikolas be one of them.

  “What happened out there?” Fiona asked, her voice soft.

  I lifted my head. “I failed the test. I tried to upgrade my demon magic—Clover implied that was the only way I could destroy the demonglass without borrowing Casthus’s power—but the dickhead in charge of the testing forced me to kill an innocent celestial in order to upgrade.”

  Fiona clapped her hands to her mouth. “Did you—?”

  “What do you take me for? Of course I didn’t. I tried to kill him, and he kicked me out. And then I got back to Babylon and found out Casthus stole his son back. So we’re in twice the amount of crap as before.”

  The door rattled as someone knocked on it. Oh, today just got better and better.

  “Make that three times as much,” said Rachel. “Uh, I don’t think the warlocks bought Niko’s story about him being away on business for his first day as the warlocks’ leader.”

  The knocks grew louder. Fiona winced. “Can’t you fob them off with an excuse? Say he’s busy with important nether realm business?”

  “They don’t trust a word I say.” My nails bit into my palms. “Maybe I’ll scare them off. We have to get Nikolas back, and I’d rather not get torn to pieces by angry warlocks before we can think of a plan.”

  “I don’t think scaring them will do us any favours,” said Rachel.

  “They think he abandoned them,” I said. “It’s hardly worse. I can’t exactly tell them the shadow arch-demon kidnapped him, can I? They’d elect a new leader by the week’s end and free Talon and his dickhead friends from jail.”

  “Can’t you transform into Nikolas with that arch-demon’s magic?” said Fiona.

  “You’re seriously overestimating my acting skills,” I said. “I’ll go and get rid of them.”

  I marched to the door, too furious over my failure to care when the three warlocks on the doorstep shrank away from my glowing hands.

  “Nikolas is at an urgent meeting with the shadow arch-demon,” I told them. “If you want him to help you, go in there and ask Casthus why your business is more important than the nether realms.”

  The warlocks looked at one another, and I let the glow on my hands brighten.

  “If you’d prefer to wait for him to return, I’m in the middle of an experiment, and I wouldn’t mind having a few volunteers.” I gave a manic grin, my hands gleaming.

  This time they backed off.

  “Never mind,” one of them muttered. “Tell us when he’s back.”

  I closed the door behind them as they walked away. “Is it bad that I kind of wanted to throw them into Babylon as bait?”

  “Nope,” said Rachel. “They’re whining about unimportant council crap and have been driving us both out of our skulls for a week. I’m pretty sure Niko is gonna appoint me as his assistant, but—”

  “We have to rescue him first.” I turned my back on the door and stalked into the living room.

  “Let me guess,” Fiona said. “You have a wild and risky plan?”

  “I do, but it’s a long shot,” I said. “There’s one person who knows the castle as well as his brother does, but considering Casthus nearly burned him alive last time they saw one another, Zadok might not want to volunteer to help.”

  Rachel pulled a face. “I wish you weren’t right, but I bet Zad does know how to get in and out of the castle without being detected.”

  “The shadow arch-demon will be expecting us, won’t he?” said Fiona.

  “No way around that,” I said. “All we can do is outsmart him or be really fast.”

  He already had Nikolas. I wouldn’t let him take the others, too.

  I set up the pentagram, not bothering to do any fancy rituals this time. I didn’t have time to play verbal tennis: I’d walk right into Zadok’s palace and make him listen.

  Fiona stepped up beside me. “Ready?”

  “Fiona, I don’t think Zadok wants you to come into his palace.”

  “What, you think he’ll throw me out a window?” She set her jaw. “He can just try. Devi, there are demonic assassins after you and Lythocrax will do anything to stop you from getting around his plan to revive himself. I’m not leaving your side.”

  “Likewise,” Rachel put in.

  I sighed. “Don’t make me regret this. And don’t forget Zadok is an unstable element, too. For all we know, Lythocrax got to him as well.”

  I couldn’t believe I was depending on Nikolas’s unreliable brother to save his neck. Especially as he had very good reason to want to avoid his father. No demigod could outdo an arch-demon. But if anyone was slippery enough to know a way into the castle to get Nikolas away without being caught, it was Zadok.

  I walked into the pentagram and landed in Pandemonium’s throne room again, stepping out of one of the pillars. Zadok turned on the spo
t, his brows rising in apparent delight.

  “Zadok,” I said. “I need your help.”

  “Any reason you’ve brought an entourage?” He eyed Rachel and Fiona behind me. “I take it your quest on Babylon didn’t go according to plan?”

  “Casthus took Nikolas prisoner while I was in Purgatory.” No need to mention my little excursion.

  “Dearest Devi, please come and talk to me alone. I’d prefer not to discuss delicate matters in front of the mortals.”

  “I’m mortal,” I pointed out. “So are you.”

  “No deal.” He stepped towards a door at the back, between two pillars. “Talk to me alone, or not at all.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Guys, wait for me here. Zadok, if you harm them, then I’ll make you wish Casthus had taken you instead.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said.

  I shot Fiona and Rachel an apologetic look as I walked after Zadok, hoping he didn’t plan to set his demons against us. The last time he’d seen Fiona, he’d wanted to recruit her, not harm her. Besides, it wasn’t like they were incapable of defending themselves.

  Zadok pushed the heavy gold door open, revealing… a laboratory.

  I blinked in surprise. While the hall looked more or less the same as it had when Themedes had owned the place, and then the vampire king, this was new. It was like Zadok had transplanted his lab from Babylon here in its entirety, demonic equipment and tools included.

  “Wow,” I said. “Did you have someone sneak all your equipment over here before or after you sent Abyss packing?”

  “Before, naturally,” he said, picking up some pieces of metal and moving them around the heavy wooden desk. Multiple half-finished contraptions filled the available space. I couldn’t tell if they were decorations or torture instruments. “I initially set up a safe house to store my possessions and some of my army until I was able to take control. I planned to stay here long-term, after all.” He moved a huge sheet of a rippling luminous metal behind the table. Where had I seen it before? Oh. The pentagram. He’d once made a pentagram which enabled the person who used it to summon their target anywhere they liked. Including another dimension.

  “You planned this takeover well,” I said. “So, I assume you have just as elaborate a plan to get back into the castle on Babylon, right?”

  He finished placing the metal on the floor. “Not at the present moment, no.”

  “Come on,” I said. “I know you.”

  He shook his head. “Do you, Devi? I think not. I have no intention of provoking my father. I was forced into doing so before, and I’d prefer not to repeat the experience.”

  “I don’t need you to actually go into the castle,” I said, abandoning all pretence. “Is there a way to get Nikolas out? I can get back to Earth from any dimension if need be. You’ve had more experience dealing with Casthus than I have.”

  “I suppose I have,” he said, with a casual shrug. “Not with being his prisoner, I have to say. I assume his death will be quick.”

  I seized a hunk of metal from the desk and threw it at his head. Zadok dodged, his mouth curving in a scowl. “That wasn’t necessary, Devi.”

  “He’s your brother!” I snapped. “I don’t care how many years the two of you have spent trying to do one another in, he’d come for you if you were captured. He would. I’m not even asking you to show up in person.”

  “No, you’re asking for the impossible. I have no way of knowing what changes my father has made to the castle since I was last there, let alone what trap he might have devised to hold my brother. Unlike him, I don’t have his convenient ability to quickly travel between realms, though I’m sure Casthus locked that down first.”

  Damn. He was probably right. “You know him, though. The shadow arch-demon. You must know how he thinks.”

  “Arch-demons are largely incomprehensible even to us, Devi. You should know that.”

  “He’s your father. He created the place, for crying out loud. And you’ve escaped Nikolas’s attempts to lock you up in the tower a thousand times.”

  He tilted his head. “I suppose I have. But the answer’s still no.”

  “Look, Zadok. The enemy is going to destroy Haven City tomorrow. You’ll be next. I bet even your demonglass palace can’t keep out rogue angels.”

  “I’m prepared, as is the rest of my army, for any number of attacks on the palace, Devi. They won’t catch us unawares.”

  “Dammit, Zadok,” I said. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but—”

  “You know perfectly well what game I’m playing. It’s the same one every demon has played for millennia.”

  “What, the one where you betray, kill, conquer and destroy everything?”

  “I suppose that’s one way of putting it.”

  I released a frustrated noise. “Your brother’s life is in danger. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that you actually have a way to beat the shadow demon here somewhere. Do you?”

  “I’m not interested in open conflict at this particular moment, Devi. I’d prefer to issue a challenge in my own time.’

  “Look, your brother—”

  “Is a bloody fool, and far too human to survive in our realms for long.”

  “He’s a better person than you.”

  “Ouch,” he said, mockingly. “As a matter of fact, I have several strategies, none of which involve suicidal rescue missions. I’m interested to hear your theory about these angelic traitors coming here, though. What makes you think they’re formidable enough to overcome my father?”

  Damn him. “Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “I will enlighten you on the nature of the overpowered fuckers coming to conquer the netherworld, if you agree to help me free your brother. Deal?”

  “Tell me first,” he said. “You’re asking me to put my life at risk, and I value it highly. More to the point, if my father decides to declare war on me as a side effect, then you’re putting this realm in as much danger as any. Unlike you, I won’t let it be collateral damage.”

  “I opened the way into Purgatory on Babylon to avoid you and your followers being collateral damage, dickhead,” I said. “But fine, whatever. I’d be prepared for the possibility of your people working with Lythocrax either way.”

  Zadok stepped towards me, his expression cool. “The arch-demon is dead, you told me. You killed him.”

  “I thought I did,” I said. “Not only is he still alive—in a manner of speaking—he killed the angels on Purgatory and is now in possession of a rogue army of angels, fallen or otherwise. He’s an arch-demon of creation, the only one of his kind.”

  “An arch-demon of creation?” he repeated. “This is the demon who marked you, correct?”

  “Yep,” I said. “He tied his soul to the demonglass he smuggled from this realm, the same way a saphor demon can latch onto a human. His magic comes from demonglass, and he has five pieces all around Haven City. The moment he turns it into a pentagram, he’ll be revived, and a portal will open on top of the city.”

  He stilled. “That’s not possible. To make a portal that size, he’d need—”

  “An angelic army? He has one.” I gave him a level stare. “I went to Purgatory to try to stop him, but—”

  “But you failed and let my brother get captured by our father instead,” he said. “Interesting. So this divine conspiracy is a result of your meddling, is it?”

  I glared at him. “I didn’t ask to be marked. You were partly responsible for backing me into a corner and forcing me to go directly to Lythocrax for help when you let Abyss and the vampire king take over your realm. It was Lythocrax who sent them. He’s been playing on both sides longer than I’ve been alive. Even Azurial played into his hands, though it was the vampire king who told him what to do. The vampire king was marked by Lythocrax, too. See where I’m going with this?”

  “Every bad thing that’s happened in the last year is down to a single divine rebel?” he asked. “That seems unlikely.”

  �
�He didn’t start it.” I hadn’t the faintest clue where the other Divine Agents might be, but Lythocrax hadn’t started off working alone. Not that it really mattered at this point. “I might add that the only way I can destroy his demonglass is to borrow some of Casthus’s power, which is what I was trying to avoid doing by going to Purgatory to begin with.”

  Zadok’s mouth twisted. “Devi, I’ll be blunt. The shadow arch-demon can’t be fooled, and if you thwart him again, you won’t be as lucky as last time. The only way to get my brother back from him in one piece is to trade him something he wants very much, but there are very few things you can offer… except for the obvious.”

  “Earth.” I clenched my fists. “Why is it always Earth?”

  “Your realm is a free resource.”

  “Not to me, it isn’t. Or the other seven billion people living on it. Besides, if I don’t stop Lythocrax, it blows up in a day anyway.”

  “I thought not,” said Zadok, moving behind the desk again. “As it happens, I’m working on something at the moment which might be able to circumvent my father’s magic.”

  He lifted the metal sheet, revealing a rough framework set into place with five crude points.

  “A pentagram,” I said, a memory stirring. “That—”

  “This is a version of the trap I used to draw Abyss out of the palace so I could kill her,” he said. “It works, Devi, as you remember from when you used a similar device of mine on that abomination of a vampire king. And with your help, I may be able to make a version that contains enough power to imprison an arch-demon.”

  Damn. He’d remade his demon summoning device—the one Nikolas had taken from him and then later destroyed so it couldn’t be used again. “Have you lost your wits? You know what happened last time.”

  “You need to trap a demon, don’t you?”

  “An arch-demon,” I corrected. “It’s not the same. Besides, if we summon him, he’ll break out in two seconds and kill everyone in sight. I suppose I can try to summon Nikolas instead, but for all I know, the castle is warded against summonings.”

  “You’re not wrong,” he said. “My father will doubtlessly have upped the defences. But if you were to summon Nikolas within the castle, he’d be drawn out of whatever trap my father has designed and the two of you would be able to leave the place—”