Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
I ndolex’s presence pummeled Ashe like a sandbag to the head. He’d been expecting this visit since the failed witch abduction.
He lowered himself into a submissive crouch and pressed his forehead to the floor. They hadn’t known the child was more powerful until they’d taken the mother. Only then had her bind of her daughter’s power revealed that they’d taken the meal and left the banquet behind.
“Ashe.” Power throbbed through Indolex’s voice, grating on Ashe’s nerve endings.
Their new base of operations was larger and better equipped than the one they’d been forced to abandon. As if Indolex had anticipated Eddie’s rescue and already planned for the eventuality. It shouldn’t surprise him. Indolex weaved plans within plans like a venomous spider from the center of a vast web. “Master,” he replied.
“What happened, Ashe?”
Ashe’s flesh crawled. Indolex sounding reasonable was more terrifying than his unbridled rage. “I was not aware that the child was the more powerful source of magic,” he said. “It was only once we’d taken the mother that her true power was unbound.”
If he tried to lie or prevaricate, Indolex would end him for certain. With each new infusion of Nephilim power, Indolex grew stronger, more unassailable.
The hem of Indolex’s robe stirred Ashe’s hair. “How did you not know?”
“The witches grow warier. They are concealing their magic.” Ashe kept his thoughts carefully blank. Indolex’s latest nasty trick was the ability to read surface thoughts.
“You should have anticipated that.” Indolex’s toe nudged the top of his head.
Keeping his eyes on the concrete floor, Ashe raised his torso. “Yes, I should have.”
“Hmm.” Indolex moved closer still, the fabric of his dark blue robe brushing Ashe’s nose. He smelled of the sickly-sweet bouquet of death and decay. “I am disappointed, Ashe.”
Ashe braced himself. A disappointed Indolex meant his death. He’d witnessed hundreds of demons end this way. The futility of the last few months threatened to choke him. All he had done, risked, lost, all his desperate actions and frantic maneuverings would count for nothing. He had given up everything, the very core of his being, and now it didn’t count. “I understand, Master.”
This was how he ended. He could mouth off in one final act of defiance, but that would be futile, and he wouldn’t be the one who paid the price. Even at the moment of his annihilation, Indolex owned him. “I know you comprehend the price for failing me.” Indolex’s voice scraped like metal over stone.
Even knowing it was futile, Ashe had to try. “Will you spare them?”
“You know better than that.” Indolex chuckled. “You do not beg for your life?”
“No, master. I accept the consequence of my failure.”
“Ashe.” Indolex tangled long, skeletal fingers in his hair, scraping his scalp. “You are making assumptions.” His grip tightened in Ashe’s hair, tugging the roots painfully. “Always so clever. Always thinking, scheming, planning and making assumptions. Ashe of the agile brain.”
Ashe had always thought Lucifer would be the one to end him. No, he had hoped it would be Lucifer. He owed Lucifer that much for his betrayal, and whatever punishment Lucifer could dole out would pale in comparison to Indolex’s.
“You do not ask what assumption you have made.” Indolex released his hair.
“Master?” Ashe looked up into the blazing black holes of Indolex’s eyes.
“Ask me.”
To the end, they played this Indolex’s way. “What assumption have I made?”
“You have assumed I have no more use for you.”
Shock ricocheted through Ashe. His thoughts hadn’t gotten beyond knowing what the consequences of his failure had been.
“I have a more important task for you.” Indolex turned and walked to his stone throne. The thing was so fucking ostentatious and straight out of a cheap horror movie. Ashe buried the thought deep. Then it hit him that he might not die today. Relief made him lightheaded. Not for himself. There was only one way this ended for him—obliteration, wiped from creation as if he’d never existed. If Indolex didn’t end him, Lucifer would. “You want me to recover the witch child?”
“No,” Indolex bellowed. “Still your mind, demon. Your thoughts are not welcome. You have only to obey.”
Ashe lowered his gaze. More time. He’d bought them more time.
“The final of the three has entered the earth plane.” Indolex smiled, revealing his rows and rows of serrated teeth. “Get her for me.”
* * *
Bianca couldn’t remember how she got out of that awful place, or even when she’d stopped screaming, but she felt numb as Lucifer drove.
“Raphael will arrange for them to be taken to their next of kin,” Lucifer said, glancing at her. “It’s not much, but at least they will know what happened and get some closure.”
Those witches—some of them hers—had been drained of their magic, and then their lives. Bianca couldn’t imagine the agony they must have suffered. Followed by the indignity of being left to rot in a large, metal room. She should have noticed what was happening sooner. Gone to the police. Gone to Shade. She should have done any of a number of things other than the nothing she’d fooled herself into calling caution. Now her coven sisters were dead. Leona’s crystal glowed in her hand. Bianca hadn’t been able to put it in her bag. As long as that crystal glowed, Leona was alive. “We need to find her.”
“Yes,” Lucifer said. “I was thinking we should contact your coven and see if they can strengthen the tracking spell.”
Thank God one of them was still thinking. She needed to think, not sit and wallow in self-pity. Leona and her children needed her to be smart and act quickly. “The grimoire will have something.”
Lucifer took her phone out of the cup holder. “Call them.”
She tried Patty first, but the call went to voicemail. Then she tried Lynn, and finally Christen. “Nobody is answering.”
Lucifer frowned, slowing down as they entered a quiet residential street. Two boys were playing street hockey like they were out of some nostalgic nineteen forties moment.
Bianca took notice of her surroundings for the first time. “Where are we?”
“Some or other small town.” He shrugged. “We need to stop for petrol and get you something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
One of the boys shot the puck into the net.
“You will eat,” Lucifer said. “Starving yourself will do those dead witches no good.”
His insensitivity hit her like a kick in the solar plexus. “Fuck you.” Her heart sped, and blood pounded in her head. How dare he speak to her like that. How dare he be so callous. He needed to apologize for speaking about her people like they didn’t matter.
“Fuck,” Lucifer whispered but he was looking at the boys.
They were arguing, chest to chest, both red in the face.
“Rage demon,” Lucifer said and looked at her. “Ah!” His gaze narrowed on hers. “I see you can feel it.”
On the road, the argument had escalated to shoving.
It was disconcerting to see two young boys going at each other like bar toughs.
Bianca’s anger thrummed beneath her skin, and she clenched her fists.
One boy threw a punch.
“Is nobody going to stop them?” Bianca examined the houses for a concerned parent. The doors remained shut.
Bianca flung open her car door.
Lucifer came after her. “Bianca.”
The boy who’d been punched scrabbled for his hockey stick and swung.
“No.” Bianca broke into a run. “Stop.”
At the rate their fight was escalating, someone was going to get seriously hurt.
The door to the house on her left opened, and a woman charged for the boys. “Hit him. Riley,” she screamed. “Pick up your stick and hit him back.”
The boys were rolling, grappling, and punching.
Another door opened further down, and a man ran for the fighting children. “How about I hit you, you fucking cunt?”
More doors, more people, more yelling.
The man and woman almost collided. She slapped him. He grabbed her by the throat.
One boy was bleeding from the nose and lip. The other from the eyebrow.
A second man flung himself on the man who had the woman in a chokehold and pounded him.
Someone started screaming.
Strong arms fastened around Bianca’s waist and pulled her back. “Stay clear,” Lucifer said against her ear.
Punches flew. Faces locked in rage, eyes hard and deadly.
“It’s the rage demon,” Lucifer said.
Bianca watched in horror. These people—neighbors—were trying to kill each other. “Do something.”
“Cease!” Lucifer’s voice echoed through the neighborhood.
A wash of power hit the combatants.
Bianca caught the outer edge of it and staggered.
The fighters stood frozen in their grisly tableau.
Lucifer took a huge spring that launched him over the still scene and halfway up the garden behind. His wings released. Two sweeps of their glittering black and silver span took him as high as the treetops.
Wind whipped his hair around his face as he searched. He locked on something and arrowed for a garden shed. A glittering black blade appeared in his fist, and he disappeared behind the shed.
Something issued a pained bellow, and a light flashed.
The pressure in Bianca’s chest eased.
People on the street started moving again, looking at each other in confusion, exclaiming in shock.
Bianca’s anger drained away.
Witnessing people’s horror as they realized what they’d done to each other was nearly as bad as the fighting. She wanted to turn away, but her gaze stayed stuck in sick fascination.
Lucifer strolled out from behind the shed.
People went silent and watched him as he approached Bianca. “Come on.” He took her elbow in a firm grip. “Time to get out of here before the questions start.”
She allowed him to bundle her into the car and get behind the wheel. It took four blocks before she could produce a coherent sentence. “A rage demon caused that?”
“Yup.” His face settled into grim lines as he checked the cross street before entering the intersection. “We don’t allow them on the earth plane for obvious reasons.”
“Shit.” It didn’t bear thinking about what would happen if one of those things got hold of a large crowd.
Lucifer glanced at her. “Quite.”
“What did you do?”
“I ended him.” Lucifer drove toward the center of town. “And he was a lot stronger than he should have been.”
She wrapped her arms around her torso for comfort. “That was fucking terrifying.”
“Yup.” He eased into a parking space in a strip mall. “And if I don’t find Ashe and who he’s working for, it’s going to get a lot worse.”
She peered at the large department store in front of them. “What are we doing here?”
“Retail therapy,” he said. “And then food for you.”
“Are we shopping for weapons?”
Lucifer blinked at her. “Weapons? Why would we do that?”
“For the demons.” One of them wasn’t keeping track of this conversation, and she had the sinking feeling it was her.
He opened his car door and climbed out.
Bianca followed him into the store. “Excuse me? Are you going to answer my question?”
“I’m contacting Raphael.” He strolled toward the men’s section. “And no, we are not shopping for weapons.” He scoffed as he flipped through shirts on a rack. “I hardly need human weapons to fight demons. They wouldn’t work anyway.” He growled at the shirts. “Don’t they have natural fibers?”
“Try there.” Bianca pointed to a section displayed under the name of a well-known designer.
Lucifer headed off with a smug grin. “Yes!”
She followed him with a building need to smack the back of his head. Not ten minutes ago, he’d ended a rage demon who had almost managed to get an entire neighborhood to kill each other. Now, he was choosing between a charcoal and a slate button down. “Would you stop doing that and tell me what we’re doing here.”
“I can hardly be expected to continue wearing these disgusting track pants.” He stared at her aghast.
A glimmer of outraged comprehension blinked through her confusion. “You’re clothes shopping. Now?”
“Of course.” He took both shirts and closed in on a rack of suits.
“Can I help you?” A dapper shop assistant appeared beside Lucifer, beaming with the promise of a big commission.
“No, thank you,” Bianca snapped.
“Ignore her.” Lucifer returned the man’s smile. “I’ll need a couple of suits, some shirts?—”
“I can’t believe?—”
“I wouldn’t bother,” Raphael spoke from behind her. “Instead, why don’t you tell me what happened and why he wants me here.”
Lucifer was heading into the fitting rooms with a delighted assistant in tow.
She may as well talk to Raphael, because clearly, they weren’t going anywhere until Lucifer fixed his wardrobe.
“We encountered a rage demon stirring people up in a neighborhood.” She turned to find Raphael flipping through a stack of sweaters. “Really!”
“Sorry.” He dropped a sweater back on the pile and blushed. “Lucifer dealt with the rage demon?”
“Far more efficiently than he is picking out shirts.” The assistant bustled back to the shirt rack and selected another three.
Raphael grinned like a proud parent. “He prides himself on his sartorial elegance.”
“Back to more important issues.” Bianca would be a long time before she didn’t see those dead witches piled into that room like trash every time she closed her eyes. “Did you deal with what we found?”
Raphael’s beautiful face softened. “All were returned to their nearest and dearest.” He put a strong, warm hand on her shoulder. “How are you doing?”
“I’m not.” A gaping wound between her ribs had opened and it throbbed now. “Some of them were people I knew. Friends. Coven sisters.” Tears, if she could find them, would be a relief. “They were all important to someone, loved and valued, and for them to die like that…”
“We will stop this.” Raphael’s rich, smooth baritone made everything seem possible, but she couldn’t believe in dreams anymore.
“But will we stop them in time to save Leona?”
“Everything that can be done, is being done.” Raphael cradled her hand between warm palms. “Wrath and Haziel are monitoring the situation in hell. Zeb and Levi are looking for who is leading this.” He placed his free hand on his chest. “We archangels are scouring our archives and those around the world for clues as to how to repair the seals.”
It made her selfish that she cared more about what was being done to save Leona and the witches who had been taken from other covens. “And the witches?”
“You, me, and Lucifer will find them, and then we’ll find who is doing this. And we will stop them.”