Chapter 25 #3
The whole house moved at once, a living thing. Wolves loped out the door, witches whispered their last incantations, vampires melted into the dark. The angels followed, silent and certain.
I trailed after them, heart thumping, head clear and clean.
Menace grabbed my arm. “You see Maltraz, you don’t try to kill him. You can’t—not in that space. You focus on the target.”
Archon nodded. “If you linger, you risk more than your own soul. The longer you’re inside, the more the hellspace bends reality. That’s how Maltraz wins.”
Kazimir finally spoke, his accent rolling out smooth as silk. “You are brave, Gunner. But don’t let it blind you. Sometimes the deadliest traps are the ones that look most like home.”
I looked at him, and for the first time, saw the flicker of respect in those old, ancient eyes.
At dusk, the entire compound blurred into motion.
Wolves and witches and the occasional vampire swept across the grounds with a purpose and an urgency I hadn’t seen since we moved against Greenbriar.
I watched it all from the front porch, the last sliver of sun catching the glass in Bronc’s hand as he barked out orders.
I could taste the battle in the air; copper and grit and the old, cold tang of fear dressed up as adrenaline.
The plan was simple, as all good suicide runs were: Get in.
Get Brie. Get out before Maltraz realized we’d come to burn down his house.
Bronc and Wrecker would drive the lead vehicle; I’d ride with them, Menace too, because apparently if you’re going to run headlong into hell, you might as well do it with royalty at your back.
Doc and Big Papa took the second truck, with Arsenal and Aspen in their back seat.
The rest followed. Juliet, Harper, Maddie, and Ms. Pearl stayed behind to manage the fallback.
Parker and Savannah were everywhere and nowhere, tailing the convoy in the tech van controlling the comms. Savannah drove while Parker parked her ass in the back of the van, where she was already streaming live feeds from several drones back to the house and to their location.
Everyone had been given instructions to watch the screens for anything out of the ordinary.
“I don’t care if it’s a naked angel, or a tornado made out of bees. You report it,” Parker instructed.
I loaded up in the back of the Expedition, the seat already stinking of Wolf and sweat and gun oil.
Wrecker sat in front of me, arms folded over his chest like he was riding to a picnic.
Menace was next to me. His white-blonde hair spiked up, glowed in the dying light, and I caught a flicker of the scar on his jaw when he glanced over at me.
“You ready, Gunner?” he said, voice calm and lethal.
“I’m fucking getting my mate back,” I replied.
He smiled, sharp and clean. “That’s the spirit.”
Bronc led the convoy, his truck’s engine growling so loud it made my bones itch.
In the mirror, I saw Arsenal’s truck, the man himself barely visible behind the wheel.
Aspen sat in the back with Big Papa a look of pure murder on her face.
I wondered what it would feel like to have two kinds of magic burning through your blood, but mostly I was grateful she’d be on our side when the gate opened.
We hit the highway hard; the sun melting down behind us and the road stretching flat and endless ahead. Every few miles, I saw another car, another piece of normal, and wondered if any of the humans had the slightest clue that monsters were at war just beyond the reach of their headlights.
The Palo Duro Canyon cut through the plains like an axe wound, the road falling away to a lip of orange and blood-red rock.
I’d been here as a kid, back when my grandfather used to hunt jackrabbits and tell stories about “the old ones” who still walked the cliffs at night.
Now the parking lot at the rim was empty except for our trucks, the air cold and sharp with the promise of a coming storm.
Bronc called a halt at the lot. I climbed out, boots crunching gravel, and took in the gathering.
Everyone was already in position: Wrecker sweeping the perimeter with his eyes and his Glock; Arsenal and Aspen heads together, arguing over a battered duffel full of charms and medical gear; Doc hunched over the hood of the truck, loading magazines with iron-tipped rounds while Big Papa said a prayer over the open box.
Aspen and Oscar pressed sigils on the boxes of ammo so that should they hit their demonic targets only a gooey mess will be left. Disgusting, but effective.
Rafe pulled up in a midnight-blue Escalade that looked like it had never been dusted in its life.
He brought with him a woman I recognized instantly as Gwen—pack witch, sorceress, and the only human alive who’d ever gotten Rafe to shut up for more than a minute.
She walked in Arsenal’s shadow, eyes steady, lips pursed, the air around her faintly crackling with the promise of something arcane and deadly.
The angelic contingent made their entrance without a sound.
Archon and his four Seraphim stepped from nothing onto the sand.
They wore robes that seemed iridescent in the fading light, their faces so perfect it hurt to look at them for long.
They stood at the edge of the parking lot, eyes turned to the canyon, hands folded as if waiting for a train.
Their wings were folded, no flaming swords in sight; just presence.
The kind that made everything else in the world seem a little less real.
They moved everyone to the mouth of the canyon.
Archon spoke first, his voice rolling out like a choir in a stone cathedral.
“This is as far as we go,” he said, raising his chin toward Bronc.
“Dominion Law forbids us from crossing into hellspace unless the Creator specifically commands it. We will open the path and hold it, but what happens inside is your fight alone.”
Bronc nodded, grave. “We’re ready.”
Archon’s gold eyes fell on me. “Are you?”
I swallowed, felt the answer rise up from somewhere below my ribs. “Yes.”
He smiled. “Then attend.” He raised his hands, palms outward, and the Seraphim mirrored him.
The air went electric; the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood up like it wanted to run away.
The wind died, replaced by a low, humming vibration that crawled up my spine and settled behind my eyes.
“She is on the other side,” Archon said.
“There are wards—old ones, deep as the bones of the world. They will try to confuse you. To turn you against each other. To make you doubt.” He swept his gaze over the gathered army.
“Demons don’t conquer by blade alone. Their greatest target is an unguarded heart and mind. ”
I looked at Menace, saw the grim set of his mouth, then at Big Papa, who’d taken Aspen’s hand and wasn’t letting go for anything.
Archon continued, “When you feel the cold, that is their breath. When you hear voices, ignore them. When you see things that cannot be, remember your purpose.” He smiled, eyes suddenly full of wild, brilliant humor. “You’re wolves. You know how to hold the line.”
Doc snorted. “Can you give us anything stronger than a pep talk, Boss?”
Archon grinned. “You already have everything you need. But if you survive, I’ll buy the first round.”
Even the Seraphim cracked a smile at that.
I stepped closer to the rim of the canyon, the mate bond pulling me forward like a chain around my heart. The air was thick, heavy, and tasted of lemon and frost. I remembered what Maltraz had said. “Come find us.” I intended to.
The others lined up behind me: Bronc and Wrecker, then Rafe, then Menace, then Arsenal and Aspen, then Doc and Big Papa. Gwen hovered just behind Rafe, her hand on his sleeve, her other hand clutching a bundle of dried herbs and bone.
Lucia and Kazimir had hung back, but as Archon started the ritual, they stepped up to the edge, vampire eyes gone full black. I was glad they were here, and that they had our backs.
Aspen leaned in and whispered, “When you see her, don’t hesitate. The longer you wait, the more it eats away at you.”
I nodded. “I’ll bring her back. Promise.”
She squeezed my arm. “See that you do.”
Archon raised his hands higher, the hum swelling into a physical force that made the rocks at our feet vibrate.
He began to sing—not in words, but in notes, long and deep and ancient.
The sound bounced off the canyon walls, set the world spinning just a little slower, made the moon seem bigger and brighter overhead.
The wind stopped. The sky went utterly still. For a heartbeat, every single thing on earth seemed to listen.
The stones at the rim of the canyon began to glow, first gold, then white-hot.
The glow crept along the dust and grass, crawling toward the center of the overlook where Archon and the Seraphim stood.
As it reached them, the air split—not with a bang, but a soft, insistent tearing, like silk being ripped by careful hands.
The witches held hands and quietly chanted something low and ancient.
A shimmer appeared in the open space above the canyon, wavering and flickering, then resolving into a perfect oval of blackness. Beyond it, the world was inverted—sky below, canyon above, and something like stars burning in the void.
Archon’s voice cut through the hum, clear and final. “Go! Run as one. Do not falter. Do not hesitate. Unity is your armor. Your purpose is your shield. Let no demon claim what is not theirs!”
For half a breath, no one moved.
Then Bronc nodded, and we all ran.
I heard boots hitting gravel, heard Wrecker’s voice counting off in my ear, heard Rafe bellow a war cry that made the canyon echo like a thousand wolves had come to the party. I heard Aspen’s feet behind me, heard the click of Arsenal’s magazine, heard the rush of blood in my own ears.
The veil shimmered, and then we were through.
For a second, I thought nothing had changed.
The ground was the same, the air cold, the canyon walls red and sharp in the night.
But the sky was wrong. Too dark, too close.
The stars were different—jagged, moving, alive.
The canyon floor below boiled with shadows, things moving in the dark that had no shape or sense.
I felt the mate bond in my chest, a white-hot wire tugging me forward, down, into the abyss.
Behind us, the gate glowed low and dark. A slit in reality, waiting for us to finish our mission and return.
The world was silent except for the pounding of my heart.
I looked at Menace, who grinned, feral. “Showtime, cowboy.”
We moved as one, down the trail, into the screaming dark, into the jaws of hell.
For the first time since this started, I didn’t feel fear.
I felt home.
Brie was close. I could feel her. The closer I got, the stronger it pulled, until there was nothing else—no doubts, no pain, no memory of a life before this.
Just the promise.
Just the hunt.
Just the sure, unbreakable knowledge that nothing in this world—or the next—would stop me from finding her.
I grinned into the dark, and let the wolf have the reins.
Hell had never met Iron Valor before.
They were in for a surprise.