Chapter 16 Jasmine/Torch #2
The crowd parted for me. The assembled freaks, geeks, and demons of the night made space as I walked the aisle.
Some bowed, others hissed, a few just grinned with mouths full of other people’s teeth.
At the far end, on a dais built from carnival wreckage and rusted bikes, sat the Flame Mistress herself.
Lilith’s true form was never the same twice, but tonight she’d gone for a kind of post-apocalyptic dominatrix look—skin pale as vodka, hair a literal fireball, eyes so black the whites had given up and left town.
Her mouth was a perfect red bow, and when she smiled, the temperature in the tent spiked ten degrees.
At her feet, the ringmaster slumped, head lolled to one side, strings of drool catching fire as they hit the floor.
He wasn’t dead, but he was close enough to smell it.
“Jasmine,” Lilith purred, stretching my name out until it covered the entire room. “You made it. I was starting to think you’d changed your mind.”
I felt every eye in the tent on me, each one a mosquito bite just beneath the skin. My brand tingled at the attention, but the real heat came from the place where the bond to Torch ran. I wondered if he could feel it, wherever he was. I hoped not.
I took three steps forward, then knelt. Not out of deference, but because I was pretty sure my legs wouldn’t hold. Lilith grinned wider.
“So formal. You never knelt for me before, dear. Not even at the beginning.”
“Times change,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the burn pattern in the rug. “You wanted me. I’m here.”
She laughed, the sound rolling over the crowd like a cloud of stinging bees. “What a good girl you are. Did you bring your little soldier, too?”
“No,” I lied, though part of me knew the bond would drag him here, one way or another.
Lilith’s gaze sharpened. “Stand up.”
I did. She swept down the steps with impossible grace, heels clicking on the metal and bone. She circled me, close enough that I could smell the ozone on her breath.
“Let’s see it,” she said, voice velvet-wrapped razors.
I hesitated, then slipped my shirt down to reveal the shoulder. The skin was clear, the mark almost gone. Lilith’s eyes narrowed.
“Clever,” she hissed. “You always did have a knack for loopholes. But you know what happens to those who try to game the system.”
She reached out, one nail tracing the ghost of the brand. The pain came back, sharp as the first time, but I didn’t flinch. I wanted her to see the difference. I wanted her to know she hadn’t won yet.
She smiled, then turned to the crowd. “She’s grown, hasn’t she?” Lilith shouted, and the freaks bayed their approval. “Even now, she tries to defy me. But there is no defiance in Hell. Only delay.”
The ringmaster groaned, tried to crawl up the steps. Lilith snapped her fingers, and he froze, eyes rolling back in his head. She flicked her gaze at me.
“You know why I summoned you here, don’t you?”
I nodded, feeling the words coming even before she said them.
“You’re the battery,” Lilith said, all pretense of affection gone. “The link. The bridge. You and your little club boy—two halves of a new chain. I want it. I need it.”
She leaned in, lips at my ear. “But it’s not complete. Not yet. You need him here. Together. Otherwise, you’re just a dead circuit.”
The crowd jeered, but I barely heard it over the sound of my own heart detonating. All this time, I’d thought the sacrifice would be enough. That my death—my surrender—would be the end. But it was just another opening, another crack in the wall for her to slither through.
Lilith stepped back, firelight blazing in her hair. “Bring him,” she commanded. “Or I will bring the city down around you both.”
She turned to the ringmaster, snapping her fingers again. The man jerked upright, eyes vacant, then let out a howl that shook the whole tent.
“Find him,” Lilith ordered. “Drag him here. Alive.”
The tent erupted into motion, demons and carnies and things that had never been human streaming out into the night. I stood in the wreck of the throne room, skin buzzing with fear and regret.
It wasn’t over. It was just beginning.
Torch
I woke with the sensation of a needle being driven into the bone just below my shoulder. The kind of hurt that meant business, not warning. The brand flared, hot as arc weld, and I shot upright, adrenaline drowning whatever sleep I’d managed to scrape up.
The first thing I saw was the empty space where Jasmine should have been.
The next was the note, crumpled in my fist before I even realized I’d moved.
Her handwriting was neat, apologetic, desperate to convince itself.
Don’t follow. Lilith wants a finale, and she needs me for the fireworks…
You’ll be free… Don’t wait up. As if she didn’t know I’d been waiting my whole life to get even with a bitch like Lilith.
I ground the paper to pulp and tossed it in the sink.
The apartment felt hollow, all the air sucked out, the wards on the door faint and useless.
For a second, I considered letting it ride—seeing if Jasmine could pull off the suicide play, if she could actually outmaneuver the Queen of Hell.
But the brand wouldn’t let me. Every few seconds it pulsed, and each time it did, I caught a flash: Jasmine walking through the midway, Jasmine on her knees in front of the throne, Jasmine staring back at Lilith with a hatred that could have boiled oceans.
The bond didn’t give me words, just snapshots, enough to keep the rage simmering at a low, productive boil.
I hit the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, and caught my own eyes in the mirror.
They were blue as always, but the whites had gone thin and shadowed, ringed by a halo of bloodshot.
The scars on my arms had started to glow, lines of blue-white light running from wrist to elbow.
The new mark, the one that matched Jasmine’s, throbbed in sync with the rest. I grinned, ugly and hungry.
The prep took fifteen minutes, because I’d been doing it since the day I left the pit.
Black T-shirt, jeans, jacket lined with runed plates.
The 1911, reloaded with custom hollowpoints.
Salt canisters, iron dust, holy water in a flask I’d filched from Vin’s old stash.
Everything fit into the same bandolier I’d used when this was just about killing demons, not saving them.
The hardest part was waiting. I checked the phone—no messages, no calls, just the steady crawl of time toward sunrise.
Outside, the city was still, not quiet, just holding its breath.
I listened to the sound of my own pulse and tried to time it to the rhythm of the bond, but Jasmine was moving too fast for me to keep up.
Every time the brand flared, it brought a new rush of emotion.
At first it was just fear, sharp and honest. Then anger, so bitter it made my gums ache.
Then guilt, a tidal wave that knocked me back against the wall.
I leaned into it, let myself feel every spike.
It was the only way to track her, the only way to get ahead of what Lilith wanted.
When the sun finally started to edge over the horizon, I moved.
The walk to the carnival was short, but it felt longer, every step pulling me further from what little humanity I had left.
By the time I hit the parking lot, the world had changed.
The air tasted of iron filings and burning sugar.
The sky bled pink, then red, then something darker.
The main gate was wide open, flanked by the same shadows that had haunted Jasmine’s vision. They didn’t try to stop me. One even bowed, a flick of its chin that was half mockery, half respect. I walked past, boots crunching on broken glass and old wrappers, hands loose at my sides.
The midway was a graveyard, every ride abandoned but running. The carousel spun, horses screaming. The Ferris wheel turned backward, each car empty but heavy with memory. The calliope blasted its dirge, notes warping and splitting with every rotation.
I saw the carnies before they saw me. A cluster near the tent, whispering in a dialect that would have made a linguist eat their own teeth. I ignored them, cutting straight through the ring of guards and into the heart of the Ten-in-One.
Inside, the throne room was lit for murder.
The crowd had doubled since Jasmine’s arrival, and every one of them stared as I walked the aisle.
At the far end, Lilith sat with the ringmaster at her feet and Jasmine beside her, arms bound, head bowed but eyes alive.
The moment I entered, the bond between us snapped taut, and every nerve in my body screamed with the need to do something—anything.
Lilith clapped, the sound echoing like a gunshot. “Torch!” she shouted, drawing out the word. “So glad you could join us.”
I stopped ten paces from the dais. “Cut the shit,” I said. “You want a show? Fine. Let’s make it quick.”
The crowd roared, but Lilith just smiled, lazy and confident. “You’re every bit as predictable as she said you’d be. How sweet.”
I glanced at Jasmine. Her jaw was set, eyes rimmed with red, but the line of her back was straight. She wasn’t broken, just pissed.
Lilith rose, hair a whip of flame, dress catching and releasing the light with every step. “You two are special, you know. Not just for the drama, but for the potential.” She caressed Jasmine’s shoulder, then turned to me. “Imagine what I could do with a matched set.”
I felt the bond spike—Jasmine’s horror, my anger, her disgust, my need. It looped between us, winding tighter with every second.
“Let her go,” I said. “Or I burn this whole place down.”
Lilith laughed, the sound bright as razors. “You think I fear fire? I invented it.”
She waved, and the crowd surged forward.
I had two seconds to brace before the first demon hit me, all teeth and slick skin.
I sidestepped, drove an elbow into its throat, then put three rounds into the next one’s chest. The bullets did the job, but the bodies didn’t fall—they just melted into the air, replaced by more.
I worked my way forward, every motion fueled by the pain in my arm and the rage in my gut. The crowd thinned, but only because Lilith wanted it to. She watched, smiling, as I carved my way closer.
When I reached the dais, she stepped aside, gestured with mock politeness. “By all means, hero. Rescue your damsel.”
I leveled the gun at her, but she just grinned. “Shoot me, and you shoot her. We’re all connected, darling.”
The bond flared again, this time with a wave of nausea. I felt Jasmine’s fear, her hope, her absolute certainty that if I fired, she’d be the one to die. I dropped the gun, went for the knife.
Lilith saw it coming. She caught my wrist, twisted, and bent me backward over the steps. The pain was sharp, then cold, then gone. I looked up, saw Jasmine struggling against her bonds, saw the terror in her eyes.
Lilith leaned in, lips to my ear. “It’s not about killing you,” she whispered. “It’s about breaking you. Both of you.”
She pressed her hand to my chest, right over the brand, and I felt the heat punch through my ribcage.
Every old scar burned to life, every failure, every mistake, every loss.
The room blurred, the crowd vanished, and I was back in Hell, drowning in the same blue-white light that had chewed up and spit out so many before me.
I let it in. I let it burn. And when the fire got close enough, I grabbed it and turned it back.
The bond went nuclear. For one perfect second, I saw Jasmine—not just her body, but her mind, her heart, her fucking soul. I saw every memory, every regret, every secret wish she’d never said out loud. I sent her my own, every ounce of love and hate and pride and pain.
The force of it broke Lilith’s grip. She staggered back, eyes wide, as I rolled off the steps and lunged for Jasmine. The bonds melted under my hands, burning away with a hiss. She fell into me, shaking.
We stood together, facing the throne.
Lilith recovered, but the fear was there now, flickering in her eyes. “You think you’ve won?” she spat. “You’re nothing but meat and ashes.”
I smiled, all teeth. “Yeah, but we’re the last ones you’ll ever taste.”
The world narrowed to a tunnel, just me, Jasmine, and Lilith at the far end. I braced for the charge, muscles singing with adrenaline and something older, deeper.