I squinted, getting so close to the glass that my nose touched.
My eyes widened when I realized what I was looking at.
There in the center of a circle was a person.
I’d bet my right arm, a young girl.
Someone easily manipulated. Someone not quite innocent, but ignorant in how dark the world could be. Someone that was meant to be an offering to the demon they were summoning.
The Antares Coven were bigger idiots than I’d realized.
I jumped to my feet, debating my options.
The first orb of fire went out. Shit.
I’d mistimed this. If I took the stairwell, it would be too late. Anyone not in the circle when it was cast wouldn’t be able to enter it. Which only left one option.
I stepped back and loosed the tie on my trench coat, quickly reaching for one of my guns. I pointed at the ceiling and hoped like hell that this plan wouldn’t kill me. I opened fire. The glass cracked. Pieces fell away as I shot in a wide circle. The only thing worse than what I planned to do was getting stabbed while doing it.
The second orb of fire winked out.
My backpack barely touched the stone roof before I ripped it open and pulled out a grappling hook attached to forty feet of rope. I kept one on me for most missions, just for moments like this. Grabbing the end of the rope, I pulled, and it all unfurled.
The third orb blinked out, the glow from below now muted.
In a single motion, I turned and hurled the hook over the edge of the cathedral.
I couldn’t wait for the light to go out completely. If that happened, it was all over. Without checking to see if the hook caught, I took a deep breath.
Then I jumped.
4
My coat flapped in the wind as I rushed toward the ground.
The screams of the night sky didn’t fade so much as it was replaced by the ominous chanting of the Antares Coven.
Thirteen members spoke in ancient Hebrew, a language I was uncomfortably familiar with. A chill ran through me right as my left arm pulled taut. The burn in my shoulder as the muscle stretched too far to stop my impact was minor compared to the jarring sensation of being suspended twenty feet above the circle.
I’m going to pay for this later. It was my only thought before I let go entirely.
I bent my knees and rolled when I hit the ground, thankful for my jacket when I felt the small shards of glass press into it.
A less experienced coven would have stopped. If they were lesser prepared, they would have run. These weren’t amateurs, though, and my arrival didn’t scare them in the slightest.
I looked around the circle at each hooded figure. I couldn’t see their faces, but I could see they held athames. Their palms were already cut. Blood dripped from their self-inflicted wounds.
Those scarlet drops splattered the marble floor as their chanting reached its crescendo.
One long note filled the cathedral. Like a battering ram to my memories, it shattered every coherent thought.
Pressure built as magic from another plane flooded the circle. It filled me just as it filled the girl, not yet a woman, who sat on her knees across from me. They’d dressed her in white. She was supposed to bow like the little lamb led to the slaughter. Instead, she’d watched me jump. She saw me land. Our eyes locked as the magic entering this world intensified.
Pain filled her features. Pain and a sudden terrible understanding, as if she only just pieced together why she was actually here. A coven of thirteen could summon a demon with their combined power, but it would drain them, and they needed a funnel. She would get the worst of it.
Under normal circumstances, the sacrifice always died.
Maybe she wouldn’t, though. Maybe my presence would be enough.
Light gathered in the center of the circle. Embers of red and orange grew, swirling around each other faster and faster.
There was no way to brace myself for what was coming. I knew it in my bones.
The magic released in a wave of blinding light.
It rolled through me, and I noted the lack of pain only a moment before she began screaming.
Steeped in shadow, a naked figure knelt in the circle where before there had been only light.
Cold rolled through the cathedral as the demon lifted its head.
I could not see its face. Only strong shoulders and dark hair, but I knew it was male by its sheer size.
The screams of the girl quieted. Uneasiness settled in my gut, followed by dread. I hoped I was wrong. I hoped—
“Who is it that calls to me?” His voice was deep as the ocean and expansive as the sky. It was dark and deceptively soft, yet . . . enticing.
A shudder ran through me.
“We have,” another voice said. One of the robed forms stepped forward and lowered his hood. He had light brown hair that was thinning into a widow’s peak and flat brown eyes. His chin was too pointed to be attractive. His skin was drawn tight in certain places and hung flaccid in others.
He was old and ugly and . . . he hadn’t aged a day in the ten years that had passed.
My lips parted as shock ran through me.
My heart pounded in overdrive.
It was him. Claude Lewis. The warlock who could fix her. If I could somehow capture him and—
The demon stood and my mouth went dry. All this time the solution to my problem had been right under my nose in this same city. Now that I’d found it, though, I had bigger problems to contend with than the idiot who should have known better than to try this after the first time.
The demon had to be over six feet tall and built of solid muscle. The shadows still clung to him, but I could see through them, taking in the contour of muscle and the markings that lined his arms and shoulders and back. They looked like tattoos, but I knew better.
A demon wore their name upon their body. Their true name.
It encompassed all that they were: magic, soul, and flesh—and it was completely unreadable to humans, or anyone for that matter, apart from other demons.
“You opened the door,” the demon said, tilting his head. Then, slowly, he turned his cheek. One side of his full mouth curved up in an inhuman smile. “But you are not the one that calls.” He turned around, and my eyes dropped to the ground just beyond him, to the girl.
She laid with her arms sprawled. Dark hair swept to one side, her face was turned at just enough of an angle that I could see her expression.
The glassy-eyed look was hollow. Any sign of life gone.
I swallowed.
Dead.
She was dead.
The magic to summon and contain the demon in their circle had eaten entirely through her and somehow not harmed me. Had neither of us been there, it would have taken its toll on the coven. As it was, we were—and it hadn’t made a damn difference in keeping her alive.
That realization settled around me. If I’d killed the coven as I’d been hired to do, she might have actually lived.
I didn’t, and her death would follow me to the grave.
Few did, even after years of killing. But this one would.
This one was personal.
My fingers felt numb around the handle of the gun. I slowly raised my gaze from the dead teen to the demon in front of me.
Eyes the color of steel and winter nights stared back.
Cold. So cold.
My chest squeezed as my breath caught in my throat. He was the most beautiful and terrifying thing I’d ever seen. The sharp angles of his face were savage. His physical form was perfection, but it was those eyes that told the truth of what he was. The beast beneath the man shone in them.
“We humbly offer this sacrifice as payment—” the man started. His voice harsh and grating.
“Silence, human,” the demon commanded. It only served to rile the coven leader further.
“We have summoned you, creature of the night, being of sin and shadows. You are ours to command!” He raised his voice toward the end, and yet the demon
didn’t react.
I wasn’t shocked by his lack of subservience. While the knowledge was almost nonexistent, I knew that summoning didn’t actually gain a coven control of the creature they brought to the world. That’s part of what made it so dangerous.
That and the fact that the magic they used to call them forth nearly burned every member to their source. They could barely complete the actual summoning, let alone what it would take to truly bind a creature from beyond.
The demon regarded me, turning its full attention my way.
The thing that surprised me was its total lack of reaction. There was no anger. No wrath. If anything, he seemed not to care at all what the coven leader said.
He was too busy staring at me.
“You,” he said softly, in that voice of night. “It is you.”
“What is me?” I asked him. The words came out softer than I’d intended. His nostrils flared as he took a step in my direction, not even sparing Claude Lewis a glance.
“You are the one that called.” He took another step, and my very tiny sense of self-preservation kicked in. I stepped back. The demon narrowed his eyes.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Not like this, anyway.
They were supposed to summon it, and I would bargain for information. If I were lucky, the creature would turn on them. If not, I had enough bullets.
But this . . . this heat, this pounding . . .
This wasn’t supposed to be here.
But neither was Claude Lewis.
I’d come here willing to do anything for an answer, and I’d been presented with two.
That stumped me. Without bargaining with the demon, I had little chance of walking away. I needed him on my side, even if it were only long enough to shoot and run.
“I wish to bargain,” I managed to say, thankful that my voice sounded stronger—surer than I felt.
“Bargain?” he repeated. Not like he didn’t understand the word, but like he didn’t understand what place it had here. Which was crazy because bargains were the only way that a summoning could even work. Not that one ever had.
“For freedom,” I said, a plan developing in my mind. “And . . .”
“And?” the demon prompted, taking a step closer. A chilled brush of something ran up my spine, leaving a trail of gooseflesh in its wake.
“I want you to kill them,” I said. My words were met by a cry of protest from those around the circle. While they were not in it, they were also bound to it. If even a single one ran, the circle would break, and with it, any hold they had in keeping us there. I half hoped they would. It would make it that much easier. “That one lives.” I pointed to Claude without looking at him.
The corners of his lips lifted slightly, but it wasn’t a kind expression. It was amused, if not a little cruel. “Is that all?” he asked, stepping forward once more.
“Yes,” I said.
I was making a deal with a devil. Quite literally.
If I didn’t make a deal, though . . . the consequences would be worse. I couldn’t die. Not yet. Not before I fixed her.
The demon took another step forward, coming to stand directly before me.
“Very well,” he said, softly. “I will bargain with you.” I wished I could say that I was relieved, but had I known that Claude would be here, I never would have let them summon a demon. For what demons gave, they asked so much more.
And this demon? I had a feeling he’d demand more than any of them.
“What is the price?” I asked him.
He smiled, and it was tragically alluring. Beautiful and awful at once.
My heart skipped as he leaned forward, our faces only inches apart.
The silver in his eyes was anything but human. It swirled around the dark pupils like mercury. Unnatural and deadly.
I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach what he would ask in return. That didn’t make it any easier to hear.
“You.”
5
Me.
He wanted me.
My head pounded with the beat of drums. Of battles. Adrenaline flooded my system and my skin became sensitive. Even the brush of air against it felt sharp. Painful. My breath turned ragged.
“You want me?” I asked because my thoughts were scrambled. I needed to buy time.
I could have sworn I saw amusement in his eyes as he said, “I did not stutter.”
“Why do you want me?” I replied, a harder tone entering my voice. The amusement that twinkled slowly bled out as something else took its place. Something dangerous.
“Does it matter?” he replied.
“Yes.”
“You called to me,” he said slowly. “I am intrigued.”
“Intrigued?” I repeated.
Slowly, I edged to the side, taking a single step. Black fire raged in his eyes as I did so. Faster than I could react, his hand locked around my wrist, the one not holding the gun.
A jolt like electricity shot through me.
My heart quickened. I sensed my defenses falling. I was approaching that dangerous precipice where there was no coming back.
I couldn’t let that happen. For a decade, I’d kept my secret from the world.
It would be another decade before I would let anyone reveal it.
“That’s unfortunate,” I said softly, my voice mirroring his own. I mimicked the tone intentionally. Even as my heart rate approached that treacherous line.
“How so?” he asked me, clearly perplexed by my words.
The corners of my lips turned up. I lifted the free hand with my gun and pointed it between his eyes. “You can’t have me.”
Fury flashed through his features. The corded muscle in his neck went taut. The demon’s nostrils flared, and I felt the hand locked on my wrist tighten.
Then I pulled the trigger.
A single shot echoed throughout the cathedral.
The hand gripping me slipped, and I darted to the side. While my knowledge of most of the supernatural world was good, demons were in a league all their own. They didn’t originate in this world, and there were so few of them that information about them was scarce. I had no idea if that bullet would put him down, or—if it would—for how long.
Magic pulsed within the circle, and it had nothing to do with the coven.
I turned and fired my gun at the witch closest to me.
Red splattered the dais steps as she fell to her knees and toppled sideways. Her athame clattered to the ground. The circle broke.
Cloaked figures ran, sensing their inevitable end.
I popped off two shots and killed the two closest to me that were running toward the side door.
There was ten members left. Nine of them could not leave here alive, or I’d have an even bigger problem on my hands. I fired off another round of shots, but before I could see how many coven members went down, a man stepped in front of me.
No . . . not a man. A demon.
His shadow eclipsed me entirely.
My breath stuttered.
“That was unwise,” the demon said.
“Oh?” I replied, considering my options.
He stared at me with an intensity hotter than the sun. The black flames in his eyes seemed to be reaching for me, wanting to set me on fire. I stumbled back, and he clasped both hands around my wrists.
“You called me into this world. You asked to bargain. Then you dare attempt to kill me—to run from me.” The rage in his voice called to something within me. He leaned forward, his nose skimming my blood-splattered jaw. The demon followed the trail to the hollow of my ear and down my throat. “You won’t be going anywhere.”
Faster.
Faster.
Faster.
My heart beat. I pulled, trying to break his grip, but it was like moving a mountain. He didn’t budge an inch.
Panic blossomed in my chest. It was the spark, my wild, erratic emotions the fuel.
And then it happened.
My heart stopped.
&nbs
p; I blinked. Red tinted my vision. Rage consumed me. I bared my teeth at the demon, who jerked back to see my face. He cocked his head, watching me curiously. Keenly.
I pushed at him again, and this time he budged.
Surprise flared in his eyes.
My foot slammed into his shin at the same moment my hands dropped. I flung my head forward, into his nose. I followed it up using all my strength and momentum to spin on my heel and aim an elbow-shot at his jaw.
Another crack echoed through the cathedral.
I turned to run and one of his hands tightened around my wrist once more.
The rage hammering through me burned bright. Blinding. I clenched my fist, and white flames erupted down my arm, fueled by the intensity of my hatred.
I opened my palm and unleashed every bit of fire I had in me.
The blazing inferno slammed into his chest, sending him flying.
He landed in the center aisle between the pews. Marble cracked under the impact.
I didn’t stick around at that point. One quick sweep told me the members of the Antares Coven were long gone.
Which meant not only did I lose any bargaining power with the demon by refusing him, but now I’d also lost Claude Lewis.
The white fire died down, and with it, the unholy rage lifted. I was still angry, but not like before. Red still tinted my vision, and I knew it would be longer before the other side effects passed.
Unfortunately, now I had an even bigger problem. Several of them, really.
Gritting my teeth, I bolted down the hall and out the back door. The metal panel banged against the brick siding, the sound ricocheting down the alley. I stepped outside and slammed the door shut behind me, taking off the way I’d come.
As I rounded the corner, two of the cloaked members stood there.
I lifted my gun, and a sharp masculine command had the metal barrel crumpling inward. I cast it aside. Speaking low under her breath, the witch started to chant softly. The warlock next to her quickly joined in.
My muscles locked. My feet became leaden. I froze on the spot, unable to move.
Touched by Fire: Magic Wars (Demons of New Chicago Book 1) Page 3