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“You must be the Devil,” Lucas wheezed. “Pleasetameetcha. Can you guess m’name?”
I coughed again, hacked, made a low, wounded noise. Frantically scrabbled in the wreckage and dust. My sword, where’s my sword, gods above and below give me my sword, I need my sword—
“Deathless.” Lucifer’s golden voice stroked the word. I heard a hellhound snarl. A massive impact against my belly—Lucifer had kicked me, an afterthought. I was flung back, hit the wall, a short gasping sound jerked out of me. More plaster and stone shattered, dust poofing out. “You may leave. I have no quarrel with you.”
I never thought I’d feel grateful to hear Lucas’s grating laugh. There was a gritting sound—he had stepped forward, kicking something out of the way. “She’s my client, El Diablo. Can’t let you kill ’er.”
The air chilled even more. Lucifer’s attention shifted like a shark swimming through cold water. Brick and plasteel groaned, plaster dust filled the air.
The Devil spoke again. His voice tore the air, left it bleeding, and hurt me. “Leave now, or die.”
Lucas seemed to find this incredibly fu
I moaned. Made it up to hands and knees, coughing. My belly ran with razor fire. The sound of the rest of the world came back in a high towering wave, smashed into my sensitive ears. Crashing. Screaming, deep groaning coughs of werecain in distress. High chilling crystal screams from Nichtvren bleeding or burning.
I scrabbled away from the wall, coughing at plaster dust stuck in my nose. Had to hunch, it felt like Lucifer’s kick had ruptured something and my belly ran with lava. My sword, my sword—My entire world narrowed to finding my sword. I was in shock, the world graying out, my left arm singing with agony and my throat burning.
More crashes, unearthly screams, and Lucas’s laugh again. He was giving the Devil a run for his money, it seemed.
I don’t care who hired him. My sword. I need my sword, if Lucifer’s going to kill me, I want to die with my sword.
Then, like a gift, I spotted a black-wrapped hilt. My fingers closed on it just as Lucifer’s hand sank into my hair and he pulled my head up. I managed to get my feet underneath me, but my spine curved as he yanked my head back, exposing my throat as my knees folded. I crouched, dangling from his hand. My choked cry slammed shut midway, a spear of pain rammed through my stomach.
“I will tear the secret of your talent for inspiring such loyalty from your screaming ghost,” he said meditatively in my ear, broken plasglass and plaster grinding as he shifted his weight. Was the Devil crouching over me? “I will only ask once more, human whore. Where is she?”
I won’t tell you. I will never tell you. Do your goddamn worst, you sonovabitch. I coughed as if choking. I probably was. I couldn’t seem to get enough air in.
“Where is she?” He shook me.
I took a harsh tortured sip of air. Struggled to speak, to say what I had to.
I managed it. Two little words. “Fuck… you.”
He made a sound like the earth itself ripping in half. The sword thrummed in my grasp. Hair tore out of my scalp as he hauled on me again, this time hissing in his demonic language. I’d driven the Devil to a sputtering fit of rage.
Huzzah. Lucky, talented me.
I had only one clear, crystalline thought. Now or never.
I stamped my feet under me, dug in, and pushed with all the strength in my legs, his hand pulling terribly one last time at my hair. Power sparked, flooded up my left arm, my sword burning white as I twisted, the sharp edge of the katana facing out and the blunt edge along my forearm. As I turned I flexed my wrist, dragging my sword’s edge across the Devil’s belly.
I felt the blade Fudoshin bite deep.
A tremendous sound, like every key on an ancient pipe organ hit at once and fed through feedback-laced speakers, slammed over the abused air. I fell over backward, my head hitting a pile of bricks and plaster with stu
Then I heard something I never thought I’d be so happy to hear again.
“Touch her again, Prince,” Japhrimel said coldly, a pall of freezing closing over the demolished interior, “and it will be your last act on Earth.”
Silence like a nuclear winter. Ticking of time and plaster dust both falling through empty space. Lucifer spoke again, his voice killing-cold as a nuclear winter. “Did you just threaten me, Fallen?”
“No,” Japhrimel said quietly. “I simply inform you of a consequence. It is not fit to treat your Right Hand so.”
I dragged in a deep heaving breath, flinched as my gut clenched and broke open with hideous pain. I wanted to close my eyes and curl into a ball, let the world go on without me. So tired, so very tired. Exhaustion dragging down every nerve.
I braced my left hand against the floor. Pushed myself up. It took two tries before I could get to my knees, my left arm braced across my abused stomach. My sword dragged against metal and bricks, too heavy to lift. I coughed, rackingly. Spat black blood. My throat burned as if another reactive fire had been set off inside it to match the one in my middle, below my ribs.
“She was here,” Lucifer snarled. He sounded almost speechless with rage, and for once his voice wasn’t beautiful. “She—”
“She is your servant, wearing your trinket, and has already suffered violence because of it. Including attack from the other hunters you have sent.” Japhrimel’s tone was eminently reasonable, and colder than anything earthly. “Are you relieving us of the burden of your service, Prince? I can think of no other reason for such treachery.”
Oh, gods above, Japhrimel, what are you saying? I raised my head, muscles in my neck shrieking. It seemed to take forever.
Japhrimel stood in the middle of the wrack and ruin of the Haunt Tais-toi, his long wet-dark coat lying on his shoulders like night itself. Lucifer faced him, the Prince of Hell’s lovely face twisted with fury, suffused with a darkness more than physical. Japhrimel’s hand closed around Lucifer’s right wrist, muscle standing out under Lucifer’s shirt and Japhrimel’s coat as the Devil surged forward—and Japhrimel pushed him back.
If I hadn’t seen it, I would never have believed it possible. But Japh’s entire body tensed, and he forced Lucifer back on his heels.
The Devil stepped mincingly away, twisting his wrist free of Japhrimel’s hand. Retreated, only two steps. But it was enough.
Lucifer’s aura flamed with blackness, a warping in the fabric of the world. They looked at each other, twin green gazes locked as if the words they exchanged were only window-dressing for the real combat, fought by the glowing spears of their eyes. The two hellhounds wove around them, low fluid shapes. Lucifer’s indigo silk shirt was torn, gaping, across his midriff, showing a slice of golden skin—and as I watched, a single drop of black blood dripped from one torn edge. More spots of dark blood smoked on the silken pants he wore.
I’d cut the Devil.
One dazed thought sparked inside my aching head. Jado must’ve given me a hell of a good blade.
Then another thought, ridiculous in its intensity. Here. Japh’s here. Everything will be all right now.
Childish faith, maybe, but I’d take it. If it was a choice between my Fallen and getting killed right this moment, I’d settle for Japhrimel, no matter how much of a bastard he’d been recently. Fu