We were close.
The subterranean hallway jutted like a scar through the building. I scanned the doors, looking for identifying marks in the demonic symbols scratched into the wood. I remembered red double doors on Belias’s quarters, but it was likely that had changed in the decades since.
Except they hadn’t changed. The doors were still red. I recognized them the moment I saw them. But they weren’t the warm, inviting red of an office building.
They were rust red. Red that flaked off as if it weren’t meant to be used as paint.
Red like dried blood.
Dom moved beside me, pressing a hand to her mouth beneath the hood.
I felt sick, too.
I kept walking, leaving behind the bloody doors before I ripped them off the hinges to make a point.
Past Belias’s quarters, we found a nondescript black metal door. No blood painted on this one, thankfully; no identifying marks at all, as if none of the demons had claimed the room as theirs.
Something told me this was our stop.
I gave another furtive look around, then opened the door.
We passed from the greenish light of the hallway into a dim room illuminated by a single red lightbulb mounted on the wall inside the door. The scent of musk and old books wafted to me, and I breathed deep. It had been a long time since I’d tasted the scent of knowledge.
Just beyond the edge of the light, bookcases stretched into the darkness. Bingo.
Without a word, Dom and I split up to begin our search.
This small, unmarked library contained an entire written history of Kremlin Circle’s witches. Alphabetized by coven, subcategorized by last name. Someone had put a lot of effort into cataloguing these books. But why? Did Belias have some sick obsession with spellbooks?
Dom snapped her fingers to get my attention. I glanced at her standing in the pool of red light by the door, a large dark book held aloft.
I joined her and tried to make out the words burned into the leather cover. “That was fast.”
“Lucky for us, I spent my childhood demanding Father’s life story. Once I realized it was alphabetized by coven, it was a cinch.”
“Thank God for know-it-alls,” I teased. She stuck her tongue out at me. “Hold on to that thing, and let’s get the fuck out of here before our luck runs out.”
Dom clutched the book to her chest and waited for me to open the door. I was pretty sure if a demon tried to take it from her, they would have to pry it from her cold, dead hands.
We left the library, and I eased the door shut with a barely audible click. When I turned to look at Dom, I froze.
Behind her and gliding elegantly down the hallway, as if they had all the time in the world, were two armed nymphs. Even without eyes on their blank faces, I knew they were coming for us.
27
“Run!” I barked, shoving Dom away from the demons.
We took off in the opposite direction, putting the nymphs at our backs. I knew they were deadly fast and having them at our backs was suicide, but I forced myself to keep my eyes forward. To not look back.
Pausing even long enough to do that could get me dead.
“We have to get out of here!” Dom skidded around a curve in the hallway. She slid into the wall with a cringe-inducing thwack but kept moving. “They have the upper hand in this building!”
To be fair, I kinda thought the nymphs had the upper hand no matter where we were, but now was not the time to argue.
But she had a point. As long as we were inside, we were in the nymphs’ domain. If we could get outside, we’d have a better chance of surviving long enough to reach St. Basil’s and—hopefully—sanctified safety.
I changed my trajectory, snatching Dom’s arm before she could keep running. A small, rectangular window was set high on the wall, just below the ceiling. Granted, it wasn’t the kind of window that meant safe escape for normal people, but it was an escape, nonetheless—especially considering we were belowground and safety was right outside that glass.
I leapt up the wall and latched onto the windowsill with the tips of my fingers. Taking a deep breath, I heaved myself up, trying to find purchase on the wall with my boots. I scanned the window for a lock or a knob—any kind of opening function. Nothing.
I braced myself against the ledge with one arm, then slammed my other elbow through the glass.
The blow sent immediate shockwaves through my body. But the full pane of glass disintegrated, giving us a way out.
I dropped back to the ground and ripped the spellbook from Dom’s hands. “Up.”
For once, she didn’t argue. She gracefully slithered up the wall and through the small window, then turned to retrieve the book from me.
I leapt one last time and grabbed the scratched wooden sill to follow her to safety. I was dangling by my fingertips, about to heave my ass out the window, when the nymphs caught up to us.
Fingers the consistency of stone wrapped around my ankles. Their magic drifted around me—tendrils of hormones that made me want to let go, to sink back to the ground and let them have me. Every nerve in my body frayed beneath their magic. I was absolutely ready to give myself over to them.
Until a pickax flew past my head and embedded itself in a nymph’s face.
I gaped at the demon as she fell away and her solid fingers loosened from my ankles. The dulling hormones faded enough for me to gather my wits.
Dom reached through the window and snatched my robes with both hands.
“Kick!” she screamed, her eyes wild.
At that moment, I was more scared of her than I was the nymphs at my heels. So I obeyed.
Dom heaved, dragging my torso through the window as I lashed out at the nymphs. I caught both remaining demons with my boots, though whether it hurt them or just pissed them off, I couldn’t tell.
We didn’t stick around to figure it out.
I flew over the snowy cobblestones of the Square, my breath coming hard and fast. Dom stayed just ahead of me, clutching the book with one arm and the remaining pickax in her other hand as she raced towards the cathedral. I still had my dagger at my hip, but honestly, Dom with her pickax was the baddest bitch for miles. If any of the demons caught up to us, I was unleashing the climbing queen to bash holes in their heads.
She scaled the cathedral’s icy front steps with ease, while I slipped and landed on my hands and knees like an oaf. The roar of a pissed-off ice demon from the watchtower pushed me right back to my feet, and I took the rest of the stairs two at a time. We slammed through the front door of the cathedral right as a wave of demons poured from the watchtower.
I barricaded the door as soon as it shut behind us, while Dom sprinted up the stairs with the book. I waited, holding my breath to see if the demons could get through the door, despite the sanctity of the church.
An interminable amount of time passed before the stomp of feet on crunchy snow signaled the demons had arrived. I leaned against the door, my stomach a lot farther north of my navel than it should have been.
If St. Basil’s couldn’t protect us, we were dead.
But the rustle and movement of demons outside was joined by another sound—an irritated chorus of howls and growls that cheered me right up.
They couldn’t pass the threshold. For the time being, anyway, we were safe.
I retrieved my bow and arrow, and then took the stairs two at a time. By the time I reached the ruined tower, Yulian had already begun the spell to bless the bone weapon.
“Do we have everything we need?” I asked as I came to a halt beside Dom.
“Yeah. Are we safe?”
I crossed to the edge of the ruined tower wall and looked down on the Square. I knew we’d been followed—obviously—but I hadn’t realized just how many demons had spilled from the watchtower. The Square was a veritable sea of demons, milling around slightly confused as they stared at the cathedral.
“Fuck. That’s a lot of demons.”
Dom peered over my shoulder and
sucked in a breath. “Jesus. What if they get in?”
“They can’t. It’s sanctified ground.”
She grimaced, her blue-eyed gaze drifting over the growing crowd below. “How long will that last in a church that hasn’t held worship for more than half a decade?”
I didn’t want to approach that question with a ten-foot pole.
Yulian continued his chanting behind us, either ignoring us or not hearing us over the spell. I felt semi-helpless—unable to offer him assistance for this part of the journey, and unable to do anything more than wait.
But a crash from down below caused Yulian to falter in his chanting. He found his rhythm and jumped right back into the spell, but not before giving us a very clear Go check that out! glare.
Dom and I exchanged looks and took off for the stairs.
We both flew down the staircase and hit the main floor running. As we coasted into the foyer, we were met by unintelligible demonspeak and irritated roars that sounded way too close for comfort.
One of the large front doors had been split clean down the middle. A huge, frozen spiked forearm of an ice demon had gotten stuck inside the crack. His face was barely visible through the crevice, but the whole of Kremlin Circle could hear his frustration.
Dom put on a burst of speed and raced past me to sink her blade in the arm. The demon roared, and he struggled to get his arm back through the hole. Dom sliced downward as she yanked the knife out, exposing bone.
The door shook from the force as the demon smashed the wood with his other fist. If a roar could have ripped down the rest of the door, his would have.
“So you just made the demon even angrier,” I pointed out.
The spiked arm jerked back through the crack in the door, losing some icicles in the process.
Dom gestured to the suddenly demon-free doorway. “Got him to take it back, didn’t I?”
It was too dark outside to see any movement beyond the sizable gash in the wood. I took a step forward, eyeing the damage. “The better question is how did he even get his arm in? He shouldn’t be able to cross the threshold of a house of God.”
“It must have been a fluke. Lucky strike, maybe?”
I looked around for anything that could help us seal the breach. The empty church wasn’t a great source for emergency supplies. “We need to make sure they aren’t lucky again.”
As if in response to my declaration, the door exploded inward.
A large projectile of broken wood smashed into my face, knocking me on my ass. I lay stunned for an eternity of seconds. My vision disappeared completely behind flashing lights. The longer I lay there in the dark, my head ringing with a probable concussion, the more terrified I became that my sight wouldn’t return.
Dom growled what I’d come to recognize as her war cry, then I heard the meaty thwack of her dagger hitting home.
Something about her cry cleared my head. Sound and color rushed back in, though a tainted fuzziness remained at the edges of my awareness.
I scrambled to my feet and reached for my bow over my shoulder but stopped cold.
The door had been completely obliterated. Not only that, but three ice demons had crossed into the sanctified interior of the cathedral.
Terror ripped through me. This wasn’t possible. St. Basil’s had been a house of God for much longer than it had been a house of government. If demons could come inside, that meant God was no longer here.
God was no longer here, in the last remaining bastion of faith in Kremlin Circle.
I let my hand sink. My bow scraped the stone floor, and I stared at the incoming ice beasts with tunnel vision. We were alone. Yulian, Dom, and I alone against an army of bloodthirsty demons.
Even God had abandoned us.
“Gad!” Dom screamed. “Come on, do something!”
I turned my head in the direction of Dom’s voice, but I felt completely removed from the action, as if a heavy veil weighted my movements. She whirled around an invading ice demon, her blade sinking expertly into the fleshy part of his neck. She danced around another and sliced him from ear to ear, then felled a third, all without breaking a sweat.
At any other moment I would have marveled at the way she could be so graceful and so fierce all at once.
But this wasn’t a battle we could win.
Suddenly, the fog lifted. Like a beacon in the dark, a new figure joined me. He hefted a sword that glowed as radiantly as his body.
I didn’t call him Golden Boy for nothing.
Raphael lifted the faceplate on his armor to train his stern gaze on me. “Get it together, Gadreel. You won’t lose this battle if I have anything to say about it.” He tapped the armor back down over his stupidly beautiful face and charged into the advancing horde of demons.
What the fuck was I doing? That pretty boy asshole just pranced in here and stole my limelight.
I set an arrow in my bow and loosed it, taking down an ice demon before it could strike Dom. I followed the bloody path Raphael had left in his wake, raining arrows and kicks, taking down anything made of ice in my path.
My resolve returned as I fought alongside my old friend and the woman I loved, but the feeling of accomplishment didn’t stay long. As I removed an arrow from a fallen demon to aim for another, I caught a glimpse of smooth gray skin and a faceless head gliding toward us.
Nymfa.
Shit.
Raphael whistled over the heads of a trio of ice demons as they rushed him. “Shove up under the left breast!”
In another setting, this could have been a slightly erotic line. I eyed the nymph as she picked up speed, her motionless, featureless breasts barely moving.
Fuck. Which left? Mine or hers?
The nymph lashed out with her razor-sharp claws. I dodged the blow—barely—and located the proper breast. I feinted left, then doubled back, catching her on an upswing. The arrow sank skillfully into her skin, angled up behind her breast.
The nymph stiffened, her arms and legs locking. She keeled over like a falling bookshelf. She hit the ground as the gray pallor of her rocky skin faded to a rosy pink. Within seconds, the nymph had completely transformed back into the woman she had been before Belias.
I stumbled away from the nude woman, retching. The logical side of me knew that nymphs were human once, and that Belias morphed them to be her super soldiers and serve her faithfully, if only because she hated their beauty.
To see the outcome of the woman’s death at my hands… It stung.
“Look sharp, Gadreel!” Raphael called, slicing expertly through an ice demon’s neck and jamming his sword into a nymph in one motion.
I whirled around in time to duck a bumbling ice demon attack. I lashed out with an already bloody arrow, and the beast fell to the ground.
Raphael’s appearance had buoyed me, to be sure. But I was running out of viable arrows, and the influx of demons pushing through the debris at the door was beyond our manpower.
I jutted an arrow into another demon’s neck and looked around for Dom. If I could get to her pickax, I could use that to do some major damage.
I caught sight of her by the staircase. Just in time to watch an ice demon sink his spikes into her shoulder.
Her pained cry sliced through me, removing all thought but getting to her. I lunged through the crowd, shoving any demon that dared get in my way. I ramped off the back of a fallen demon and launched my body at the beast that had impaled Dom. We went down in a tangle of limbs, and his spikes ripped away from Dom’s skin.
She fell backwards, her dagger skidding across the floor.
I had no arrows left, but I had plenty of fury. I struck my fist into the demon’s soft spot three times, each punch gaining momentum from the last, until he gurgled blood.
Dom grabbed my arm. Her right shoulder and part of her chest were a patchwork of indentations where blood oozed from beneath her shirt. “We have to retreat. Now!”
I stumbled to my feet, my fist throbbing from the assault. I whistled for Raphael, wh
o sliced off one last spiky head before hurrying after us.
Our footsteps as we raced up the stairs made hardly any sound at all compared to the thunderous herd of ice demons following at our heels. Loose plaster rained from the ceiling and walls under the force. Like a single flimsy tower door could keep that kind of power at bay?
We reached the ruined tower where Yulian stood before his spell, still chanting that strange archaic language.
As Raphael coasted into the room behind us, Dom slammed the door shut and threw the bolt.
Dom peeled her shirt away from her bleeding shoulder and winced at the damage. She motioned at Raphael with bloody fingers. “Friend of yours?”
I glanced at the Seraph. He took up entirely too much space with his huge golden wings and vicious sword. But he had saved our asses.
So I replied, “Something like that.”
Dom accepted Raphael’s angelic presence with a shrug, then cringed as more blood oozed from her wounds. “We have to keep Father safe so he can finish the spell. I didn’t know how else to do that beyond barricading ourselves in this room to give us a fighting chance.”
I nodded and turned to the door, eyeballing the contents of the tower. I motioned to the broken desk in the corner behind Raphael. “Grab that and shove it in front of the door.”
Raphael saluted me. “Yes, sir.”
“You can’t wave your perfect fingers and seal the door, can you?” I asked.
Raphael bent low, using his knees to shove the desk in front of the door like a plebian. He shook his head as he stood and brushed his hands on his blue jeans. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
“You gonna lose your wings for it?”
“No, but I will assuredly receive a stern rebuke when it’s done.”
I couldn’t help but grin. “Good. Asshole.”
“Gad! Cover the wall!” Dom barked.
I palmed my bow and raced across the room, sparing a glance for Yulian. He stood before the altar, his eyes closed, his palms hovering over the bone sword. His lips moved so fast I couldn’t make out the words, but I felt the raw magic emanating from his magical circle.
I snatched my second quiver of arrows off the floor near Yulian’s magic circle, and then nocked an arrow as I leapt onto the edge of the ruined wall.
The Shadows and Sorcery Collection Page 35