Chapter 25 #2
And he tried to take him from me.
A glut of blue flames leaves my hands and crashes into him, hot and pure. He staggers back half a step…
And laughs.
The sound scrapes against my skull and makes my teeth ache. Behind me, the cavalry bursts into action.
Wylder enters on my left, his hands raised, vines erupting from the ground to wrap around a demon crouched near the hostages.
Rowan sprints right, shadow magic coiling around her fists, the dark shadows creating a wall between us and the demon horde.
Sebastian races in beside me, his hands raised, spirit magic arching off him. His affinity is the same as mine but tainted darker—a result of the battle against Tharuzel five years ago with my mom.
He has his own score to settle with this demon.
Eliza and Declan lead the charge against the horde, their tiger-forms massive and snarling.
Wood splinters. Beams crack.
Orion follows, his white tiger gleaming in the crimson light, and behind him two wolves and a leopard pour through the gap.
Chaos unleashes.
Demons lurch from the shadows by the dozens. Hunched things with too many joints, claws like rusted daggers, faces barely formed. They shriek and charge.
Orion collides with the nearest one, his mighty jaws clamping around its throat. Black ichor sprays. The demon claws at his side, raking deep, but Eliza is there, slamming into it with the force of a freight train.
I lose sight of them as a demon lunges at me.
I roll, spirit fire lashing out. It catches the thing across what might be eyes, and it reels back screaming. Sebastian's magic slams into it a heartbeat later—necrotic energy that rots flesh on contact. The demon crumples.
"Help the hostages!"
Clara and Izzy are already moving, weaving between combatants toward the containment circle. Asher follows to help them. He reaches a teenage boy, pale and shaking, and works to free him.
"Orion, get them out!" Eliza screams.
Orion changes course to help Asher, Clara, and Izzy. Good, I like the idea that there’s some violent force watching over them.
A demon crashes into me from the side.
We hit the ground hard, its weight crushing, claws slashing. I’m pinned in an awkward position and can’t wriggle free. Instinct flares, and I throw up a shield. The demon crashes against it with all its bodily might.
The shield holds, but barely.
The demon's hot breath reeks of rot and sulfur, its distorted face inches from mine.
Wylder's there in an instant.
Thorned vines punch through the demon's back, erupting from its chest. It convulses, shrieks, then goes limp. He hauls the beast off me and grabs my wrist to pull me up to my feet.
“Good timing.”
He winks. “I do my best.”
Rowan unleashes a wave of shadow magic that sweeps three demons back, pinning them against the wall. Reid and a wolf shifter tear into them before they can recover.
Tharuzel hasn't moved.
He stands at the circle's center, watching. Feeding. I can feel it through the bond, the way he's pulling power from the sigils, from the hostages he ate, from the chaos itself.
"Hurry. He’s getting stronger by the minute.”
Sebastian’s expression grows even grimmer. "Everyone who’s able, focus on Tharuzel.”
Wylder falls in beside us, and we charge.
I lead with spirit fire, twin streams pouring from my hands. Sebastian's necromantic energy joins mine, black and blue magic spiraling together. Wylder sends vines snaking across the floor, trying to entangle Tharuzel's legs.
The demon raises one elongated arm, and the sigils flare.
Our magic stops. Mid-air. Like insects frozen in amber.
There’s a loud crack! And then the magic reverses.
Sebastian’s spell rebounds and slams into him. He flies backward, hitting a support beam with a sickening thunk. The way he crumples into a heap has my heart pushing at the back of my throat.
Wylder's vines wither to black rot in an instant. He curses, clutching his chest as the backlash hits.
My spirit fire turns against me at the same moment.
It wraps around my wrists like shackles, burning cold instead of hot. I scream, trying to smother it, but it digs deeper.
Tharuzel moves in a blur.
One moment he’s in the center of the room. The next he's in front of me.
The vertical mouth in his belly opens wide.
Tentacles surge from his chest cavity, black and glistening. They coil around my waist and throat, yanking me forward.
The blood-bond ignites.
Pain beyond anything I've felt rips through me. It's not physical—it's deeper. It feels like Tharuzel the Soul Thresher is tearing pieces of my soul away, pulling me apart from the inside.
I can't breathe. I can't think.
This is it.
This is how I die.
“You are mine, Poppy Hallowind.” The tentacles drag me closer to that gaping maw, teeth rotating, waiting…
Golden light erupts between us, and my world shifts.
Asher.
I feel him before he appears in the space between Tharuzel and me. No weapon. No armor. Just my beautiful bestie, glowing with radiance so pure it makes the demon's red light look like dying embers.
The tentacles recoil.
Tharuzel shrieks, the sound fracturing into a thousand discordant notes. Where Asher’s golden light touches him, his flesh sizzles, blackens, and peels away.
Asher's eyes blaze like two suns—not his usual hazel—but gold and incandescent.
"Poppy is not yours. She will never be yours.” His voice carries the weight of divine command.
Tharuzel steps back, looking furious, his massive arms raised to shield the horrific damage to his face. The tentacles retreat into his chest, the cavity sealing with a wet slop.
The blood-bond still burns, but the pull lessens.
Asher moves forward, his arms outstretched, each step making the heavenly light he’s giving off intensify. Tharuzel shouts something in a demonic tongue. The hissing command has all the demons turning.
Orion's jaws close around the neck of a demon with a dog’s head, and it dissolves into black smoke.
Tharuzel lets off a screaming roar that echoes in my head and makes my vision black out in spots. My mind rings with the vibration of his fury, and before I can clear my vision, a burst of energy erupts with the force of a bomb.
I’m blown off my feet, thrown to the side and land in a demon ichor slip and slide. By the time the ride ends, my hip is screaming in protest, and I’m covered in black and purple goo. I scramble back to my feet and flick my hands, throwing off the worst of the ick.
Demons pour into the portal that opens, abandoning the fight.
Tharuzel stops at the mouth of the portal and snarls back at me. “This changes nothing, Poppy Hallowind. You are mine… and one day soon, you will accept that.”
With one final roar, he steps through the portal and is gone. The sigils die. The red light extinguishes. The mill plunges into darkness, broken only by Asher's fading golden glow.
My knees buckle, but strong hands catch me. Wylder has recovered from the black rot enough to stand. Barely. He looks nauseous and has blood dripping from his nose. "I've got you."
I scoff. “And who’s got you?”
He rolls his eyes, and I focus back on the moment. "Sebastian went down hard."
"He’s conscious," Rowan calls from across the room. "Broken ribs, maybe worse. He needs Izzy."
Asher—my amazing guardian angel—looks me over. His golden light dims as he takes in my post-battle state. As he relaxes, his eyes fade back to hazel. But there's something different. Something ancient and powerful lurks beneath his usual goofball gaze.
"You okay, Pops?"
“I’ve been better, but I’ll survive.”
Around us, the Brigade regroups. Orion shifts back to human form, naked and bleeding from a dozen wounds, but grinning fiercely. Eliza and the other shifters prowl the perimeter, making sure nothing's left.
Clara and Izzy are outside with Declan, working on the hostages and wiping all memory of this exposure fiasco from their minds.
We didn’t save them all, but we saved most.
And Tharuzel escaped.
He’s entered the physical plane.
The good news… if he can bleed, he can be stopped. His reaction to Asher’s pure light gives me hope. And if Mica can forge the weapons we need to send him back to hell, we’ll be in good shape.
The bad news… we don’t know where he went, and he will no doubt wreak havoc over the human population until we find him.
The war is far from over.
Good thing we’re just getting started.