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“There’s one wounded.” I pointed out into the hall. My breath came fast but even, and I holstered my left-hand gun. Slid my sword back into its sheath. There was a lot of that fine, sparkling ash on the floor, swirling through the air. Just how many imps had come? None were left. “I just shot him once. Question him?”
“No need, the imps told me everything I need to know. Quickly. Out.”
I didn’t stop to argue. Ran for the window, wrenched it open—
— and ducked back as bullets chewed at the wooden frame, splintering the glass. Cursed savagely, Japhrimel’s hand closing around my arm.
“This way.”
Now this is more like it. I can see a demon doing this—but smashing me with a hover? No. “What did the imps tell you?” Dappled green light flared from my wristcuff, I held it up as Japhrimel pulled me out the shattered door, turning right, stepping over the moaning, bleeding man I’d shot. Japh didn’t quite drag me down the hall, but I had a hard time keeping up with him. His hand had turned to iron on my arm; he didn’t hurt me but I couldn’t have broken free if I’d tried.
“Enough that I see the wisdom of leaving this place now,” Japhrimel said. “Later, Dante. For right now, let us go.”
He didn’t have to tell me again.
Up the stairs. I heard something—thundering footsteps. Claws skritching against wood, a chilling glassy squeal. It didn’t sound human, whatever it was. Memory replayed itself, matched the sound—I’d heard it in the abandoned building, only that time it had been a sort of snarl. What was chasing us? More imps? But they didn’t sound scratchy, they sounded soft, padding, and almost wet, like strangling fingers in the dark.
One flight. Two. Three. It was getting closer, smashing against walls. It sounded big, and I smelled heat. Tang of smoke against my nostrils. The wristcuff squeezed my left arm, a terrible wrenching pain that made me gasp; the mark on my left shoulder flared in response. Japhrimel’s face was set, his eyes glowing so fiercely they cast shadows under his cheekbones, spots of green light flickering as he checked each hall.
Sixth floor. No more stairs, he whirled and headed down the hall, his boots soundless against threadbare carpet. I was too busy trying to keep up to ask him what the hell he was doing. I certainly hoped he had an idea, at least, because I was fresh out. He kicked another door open, my nose filling with the smell of dust and human desperation. I caught a quick flash of a room—done in green instead of red, a cheap table and four chairs, the remains of takeout cartons scattered on said table—before he pivoted and aimed for the window. “Brace yourself.”
I grabbed his shoulder, his other arm circled around me. What do you mean, brace myself?
He launched us both out the window, plasglass shattering and bullets screaming past. Fire dug into my right shoulder, and Japhrimel twisted, Power burning incandescent in the darkness. Clattering gunfire, a yell from high up on my left, the sound of a falling body. Whoever the sniper had been he was now dead—Japhrimel had shot him.
Anubis, this is going to hurt.
Impact. Too soon, I wasn’t ready, the breath driven out of my lungs in a long howling gasp. Japhrimel hauled me up, his fingers slipping in black blood dripping down my right shoulder. Orange citylight glinted off the gun in his hand. My breath plumed in the chilly air. Desultory rain steamed as it met Japhrimel’s aura. He literally burned with a mantle of Power so intense it was like looking into a furnace of black diamond flames. I had to blink fiercely to screen out my otherSight and see the real world.
It wasn’t the street below, but another rooftop. He finished pulling me to my feet as easily as I might have picked up a piece of paper. Well, that was wonderful; can’t wait to do that again; gods, what was that thing?
I gasped again, this time dragging a breath in as the hurt in my shoulder sealed itself away. Fine drizzling mist kissed my cheeks. “Sekhmet sa’es,” I hissed. “Warn me next time, will—”
He pushed me behind him so hard I skidded across concrete rooftop, my back slamming into a climate-control unit. I found myself squeezed between him and the unit’s plasteel side. He went suddenly motionless, both arms up, two shiny silver guns in his hands. His aura spread over me, hazing and sinking in through my skin. I blinked furiously, trying to see, relieved when otherSight retreated. He was damn near blinding me with that trick.
I swallowed. He so rarely used a weapon it was almost shocking. If he had both guns out like this instead of one, it was bad.
“Dante,” he said quietly, “if I tell you to, run down the fire escape on the other side of the roof. Do you understand?”
“What is it?” I whispered. “It didn’t sound like an imp.”
“It is not an imp.” His voice was so chill and sharp I could feel cold air touch my cheek. “As you love life, hedaira, do as I tell you this once. Will you?”
I gulped down another breath, lungs burning. My pulse pounded in my throat. “What is it?” It doesn’t hurt to ask, does it?
“Hellhound.” Steam rose, twisted into angular shapes. “Be still, now.”
Hellhound? That doesn’t sound good. That doesn’t sound good at all. I froze, barely even breathing. Watched the gaping hole in the building we’d just burst out from. The moisture wasn’t even enough to qualify as rain, more like a heavy mist, tapering off. It steamed away from Japhrimel’s aura, and I wondered why I felt so cold. “They’re going to try to flank us,” I whispered. “Japhrimel—”
It bulleted out from the hole in the side of the hotel, a low, streamlined lethal shape. I forgot about being quiet and screamed, the mark on my shoulder squeezing, my bloodslick right hand closing around my swordhilt. Japhrimel moved forward, the guns speaking in his hands, fire puffed out in small bursts from the side of the building as he tracked it. It moved with the same eerie speed he did, its eyes glowing unholy crimson. My sword sang free of its sheath. Blue fire crested, spilled free of the blade, the steel’s heart flamed white.
It was shaped like a leaner version of a werecain, low and four-legged with hulking shoulders and long claws that snick-snacked as it landed on the rooftop and snarled. It was made of blackness, a dark so deep and fiery it burned. A vapor trail followed, its heat scorching the water in the air.
So this was a hellhound. None of the Magi texts had ever mentioned anything close to it.
I’m going to have to tell the Magi a thing or two. Just as soon as I get out of this alive.
Teeth made of obsidian snapped, Japhrimel faded aside; he shot it twice. Watching him fight was always strange, he moved with such speed and precision it was impossible not to be impressed. He kicked the hellhound, a sound like a watermelon dropped on a scorching-hot sidewalk. It howled, a long screeching sound, and its eyes swept across the roof, locking on me.
My sword flamed blue-white, etching shadows on the roof. My rings sparked, a cascade of gold; the emerald on my cheek burned.
The hellhound let out an amazing screeching yowl. Its claws scrabbled.
Japhrimel hit it from the side again, his booted feet co
“Dante! Go!” Japhrimel bolted after it.
I set my feet in the concrete, my sword dipping, sudden knowledge flaring under my skin. I would not run, I would not let him face this thing on his own, no matter how good or inhumanly hard to kill he was. “Anubis!” I screamed, my cheek suddenly flaming with pain as the emerald answered, I leapt forward—
— and was knocked aside by a solid weight slamming into me, rolling in a tumbling mess of arms and legs, me trying to keep my sword from splitting my own flesh. I hurled a curse at whoever had hit me, got an accidental elbow in the face—a brief, amazing starry jolt of pain.