Chapter 3 Cinder #2
A disembodied whistle sounded from behind it, and its ears perked half a second before it attacked.
I lunged to the side, trying to avoid its razor-sharp teeth, and I crashed into a mirror, shattering it.
Shards of magical glass rained onto the floor, and the glowing sigils on the mirror across from it dimmed, turning ashy gray before disappearing as if they’d never been etched into it at all.
The temple groaned in protest like it had felt the mirror break in its soul. And the dog…? Gone again. If it was really even there to begin with.
I gazed at my reflection in another mirror, tilting my head and furrowing my brow as an idea wriggled into my consciousness. The glass felt cool beneath my fingertips, and I blew from my throat, clouding the surface before drawing the fire witch sigil, a triangle inside a triquetra, in the fog.
The menacing, masculine laugh echoed through the chamber again, making my muscles crawl beneath my skin. “Whoever you are, you don’t belong here,” I said.
“Neither do you.” The voice sounded like it came from everywhere around me and from inside my head.
In the mirror’s reflection, a shadow passed behind me. Heart pounding, I spun, facing the opposite mirror, and the image of Tumult wearing crimson fatigues, so dark they were nearly black, appeared behind me. I gasped and spun again, slashing my dagger right and left.
He wasn’t there. Neither physically in the room, nor in the opposite mirror’s image. I turned again, and there he was, standing behind my shoulder.
“How the hell…?” I stepped closer to the mirror, narrowing my eyes at the demon. I could feel his presence as if he really loomed behind me: the lower vibration of energy, the shifting of the air as if someone moved, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, reacting to…nothing, it seemed.
“Where are Discord and Hecate?” I glared at Tumult, tightening my grip on the dagger.
“Do you truly believe I would give you that information?” He inclined his chin, looking down his nose at me.
His condescension irked me, so I laid my magic on thick. “I do, because I know you want to.”
“You know nothing,” he growled.
“Lucifer is volatile, ready to explode at any minute, and do you know why?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “Because he wants Hecate back. Imagine his surprise and appreciation when you return to the palace, not with my head, but with his one true love.”
He blinked, his brows drawing together as if the idea intrigued him. Good. My persuasion magic was working.
“Think about it,” I said. “The whole reason he wants Discord and me dead is because Hecate left him. Bringing him our skulls won’t appease him for long. He needs his woman by his side.”
He laughed again, deeply and heartily, throwing his head back as if I were the funniest person he’d ever met. “Foolish witch.”
My mouth tightened. Maybe my magic wasn’t working. “You’re starting to sound like a movie villain. Either come out here a fight me or skedaddle. I’ve got a goddess to find.”
“Revenge is more satisfying than any woman’s touch. Lucifer shall have your heads.”
I rolled my eyes. “Tell me you suck in the intimacy department without telling me you suck.”
Confusion contorted his features for a second before he worked out the meaning of my words. “You dare mock Tumult, Crown Prince of Hell?”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Crown prince, eh? Someone thinks highly of himself. How does that even work when the king is an immortal god? It sounds to me like you’re fighting to be by his side, to be his servant, to win second place…and we all know what second place is.”
He arched a brow, clearly not getting the reference.
“It’s the first loser, dipshit.” I turned on my heel and strode toward the next mirror.
Tumult whistled, and the black dog appeared before me. I barely had time to call him a good boy before he sprang. I threw up my arms, preparing for impact, shielding my face from his vicious maw with one hand, and jabbing the dagger at his chest with the other.
Wind whipped my air backward as the dog passed through me and disappeared.
My heart took up residence in my throat with the attack, so I sucked in a deep breath and swallowed hard. The dog wasn’t real. Or…maybe it was real, but it wasn’t really there. Tumult was creating it like a hologram, sending it into the room with some kind of projection magic.
And if the dog wasn’t really there, the demon wasn’t either.
I turned to the next mirror. Tumult’s image smiled wickedly back at me, but…why didn’t I have a reflection?
I spun to the opposite one. No reflection there either. I stepped to the next one in the line. Nothing. Either I’d turned into a vampire or Tumult was messing with my mind.
The dog snarled and charged. I stood my ground, resting one hand on my hip as it approached. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little scared the beast would be solid this time, but I wasn’t about to give the infuriating demon the satisfaction of watching me flinch.
The beastie passed through me once again, and I let out a relieved breath. The dog didn’t have to die this time.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I straightened and strolled to the next mirror.
No reflection once again. My stomach soured as I leaned toward it, and I pressed my fingertips against the glass.
The twin panes reflected each other into infinity, but it looked as if the dog wasn’t the only being who wasn’t really here. It seemed I wasn’t either.
Tumult strode into the reflection, a million demons stretching on forever in the glass, their smiles menacing, their gazes wicked.
Wait. Last time, I only saw him in the one mirror. If he was reflecting back on forth now, that meant he…
I whirled around, and his fist hit my jaw.
Pain exploded on the side of my face, and I careened backward, into the mirror. It shattered like the other one, and the walls groaned with its demise. A sharp, stabbing sensation throbbed in my left triceps, and I yanked out the offending piece of glass before lunging at the demon.
He disappeared…because of course he did…and my momentum hurled me into the opposite mirror, shattering it too. Dirt rained from the ceiling above, and I had to wonder if maybe these mirrors really were pieces of the temple’s soul.
Or of Hecate’s. Goddess, I hoped not.
I clutched my dagger in one hand, held a shard of glass in the other, and turned in a circle. “Only a coward does drive-bys. Are you afraid of a little, mortal witch?”
He landed a punch to my gut as he came fully into view. I doubled over, sucking in a breath before straightening and jabbing my dagger upward. The blade hit his chin, penetrating the skin and slicing into his tongue.
I yanked it out, and blood poured from his mouth as he roared. Talons extended from his fingertips. He swiped his claws at my throat. I jerked away before he could rip out my windpipe, but the tips of his razor talons nicked my neck, stinging like papercuts.
“Son of a banshee!” Blood rolled into my cleavage.
Tumult cracked his neck, and the edges of his wound stitched themselves back together. I lunged, aiming my dagger at his heart. He knocked me aside like I was nothing more than a pesky fly.
My butt hit the ground, my tailbone screaming at me to stop—for the love of the goddess—landing on my ass.
I scrambled to my feet and feinted with my right hand, drawing his attention to the dagger while jabbing the shard of mirror into his chest. The sharp edge sliced into my palm with the impact, and blood pooled both in my hand and on his shirt.
He flinched, surprise widening his eyes, but my makeshift weapon obviously had not gone in deep enough to obliterate him. I swung the dagger, ready to sink it into his heart, but he recovered, grabbing my wrist and wrenching the blade from my hand.
Tumult clutched my throat and hurled me toward the entrance. My back smacked the stone wall, and my breath whooshed from my lungs. Intense, prickly pain radiated from the small of my back, down both legs, and, my vision swimming, I slid to the floor.
The demon dragged me up by my hair and pressed the dagger to my throat.
Fantastic. I was to be annihilated by my own blade.
I didn’t have the strength left in me to fight, so I turned on my magic full-blast one last time. “You know Discord will be obliterated the second you kill me, right? You’ll never get his skull.”
He sneered. “I’ll be quick.”
I was about to launch into a persuasive speech about how he’d need us both together to be that quick, but my thoughts were interrupted by the most melodic, beautiful, guttural roar I had ever heard.
Discord burst into the room, his nostrils flaring, his eyes wild with malice. Tumult shoved me aside, and as his image began to fade out, his corporeal form slipping back onto whatever plane he had come from, Discord grabbed him by the throat and yanked him out of the room.
I tried to follow, but a wall materialized where the doorway should have been. With an echoing bang, the firelight extinguished, plunging me into darkness, the sigils glowing on the edges of a single mirror providing the only light in the room.