Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Everi stared at me with wide eyes, and Dani stared at the bodies with wider eyes.
“What the hell was that?” she asked, wiping the goo off of her cheek with a single finger.
Everi let out another high-pitched scream and backed farther away from the scene.
I gazed at the bodies. Whatever it had been … it was strong. But we were stronger; we had to be stronger. We would defeat this utter darkness that had come from up above. We would kill each angel, each prophet, anyone who wanted to destroy us.
Those Envies were weak. They always had been and always would be. The Two-Faced Prophet could try to destroy as many weak men and women down here as she wanted. It’d help me find the strongest for my army of demons.
When we forced God’s hand and made her fall through the clouds and come to us, we would be waiting. We would be strong. We would win.
I turned to Everi, who was grasping Dani’s arm.
“Find me who this prophet is. She is someone in Hell. She is someone you’ve seen with them lately.
She corrupted their minds, possessed a demon.
Run through everyone you can, Everi.” I grasped her wrist, pulled her closer to me, and brushed my lips against her ear.
“Do whatever you have to do, and you can have it all.”
She gulped. “I’m not looking to get caught up in this mess,” she said, gazing down at her fellow Envies. “I’m not going to die that way.”
I ran a hand through her hair. “You want it all, don’t you?”
I tilted my head and stared deep into her eyes, weaving my thoughts into hers and making her want what I wanted, making her bend to my every command. Then to seal the deal, I placed my lips on her and let them linger.
She tasted like used dog shit, nothing like Dani … nothing like Eros … but I kissed her anyway. When I pulled away from her, her eyes were wide.
“Wha-what …”
“Are you going to find me that information?”
She looked as if she was resisting my command, and for a moment, I thought that she had already been corrupted by the Two-Faced Prophet, but then she nodded her head.
“I will go to the queen, ask around my kingdom, see if anyone has seen anyone new hanging around them.”
I drew a finger down her jaw. “Good girl.” Then I pushed her toward the door. “Now, leave.”
She walked out of the room, down the stairs, and out of my kingdom. Dani walked ahead of me, heading straight for the portal room. I followed after her, pulling my coat over her nearly bare shoulders.
“We need to call for a meeting between all of the commanders,” she said.
“This is my problem,” I said. “Let me handle it.”
“No.” She yanked the door open and stepped inside of the portal room, brushing the snow off of my coat, and arched a brow at the guards.
“We will call a meeting. An angel has fallen. This so-called Two-Faced Prophet is deceiving demons. We need to prepare. The beginning of the end is approaching. Hell as we know it … is about to disappear.”
We stepped through the portal and walked into Dani’s kingdom’s portal room. Tonia stood in the portal room, brushing herself off and breathing deeply.
“Tonia?” she asked. “What’re you doing here?”
Tonia took a deep breath and glanced at me. I arched a brow, my lips curling into a smirk.
“I invited Tonia to join us later,” I said.
Dani glanced at her, then at me, and then she smiled. “Well, I’m going to contact the other commanders for a meeting tonight.” She stepped closer to Tonia, toying with a strand of her hair. “But … we’ll have some time before then. Why don’t you and Tonia meet me and Eros at the bar? Five p.m.?”
“We’ll be there,” I said.