CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Winged creatures took flight and soldiers burst into movement, charging forward at terrifying speeds.
I screamed and squeezed Sarod’s sides. Everyone around us did the same, and the din filled my ears as Tabitha and Cyrus soared overhead, already lighting up the field with their fire.
Distant screams reached across the distance between us and the never-ending horde as they burned alive.
Lucifer’s words slithered through my mind—a memory. There’s something so purifying about fire.
My lips pursed with vicious satisfaction. I hoped, wherever he was, the devil was remembering those words, too.
The two armies collided.
I’d never known such pandemonium. The dying began instantly, on both sides, and if I hadn’t been so consumed with trying to survive, I would’ve agonized over who I might’ve already lost. Pain-filled shouts and terrified screams battered against my ears while I struggled to stay in the saddle, swinging my glinting sword at the tidal wave of demons.
Sarod sifted again and again, and every time we reappeared, the two of us worked in tandem. We were practically untouchable.
The sight of these creatures up close was horrifying.
Laurie fought a pale-skinned, humanoid thing with no eyes and multiple rows of teeth.
Narfu tore into a monstrosity that looked like a spider and spewed black tar.
Collith flayed a creature with the head of a reptile and the body of a man.
The smell of charred flesh stuffed itself up my nostrils amongst the stench of blood and horses.
And everywhere I looked, someone needed help.
“Sarod, get the wounded to safety!” I shouted.
The kelpie’s neck arched as he tore a goblin’s head off with his teeth. His voice seared through my head. I came here to kill, not to play nursemaid.
“It wasn’t a request.” Driving my point home, I ripped through the kelpie’s mind in an instant, giving him a taste of a Nightmare’s pure, unfiltered power.
Before Sarod could respond, I yanked my feet out of the stirrups, swung my leg over his broad back, and thrust myself into the chaos. I landed with a jarring thud. There was no time to acknowledge the pain as I raised my sword to leap into the fray. I didn’t look to see if Sarod had obeyed me.
At the same moment I swung my weapon forward, something grabbed my wrist in a vise grip.
Ice coated my skin and left a trail of frostbite in its wake.
I didn’t even register the pain, but I lost my grip on my sword.
It hadn’t even hit the ground when I plucked one of my knives from its hiding place and twisted.
I plunged the blade into the center of the demon’s throat.
It was beautiful, almost like the male version of Viessa.
For a shivering instant its pale eyes met mine—there was no flicker of emotion, no fleeting glimpse of humanity.
Coldly, I twisted the hilt and yanked it out at the same moment I heard someone shout a warning.
I spun swiftly, ducking another demon’s swipe.
I tucked my knee under and rolled, coming up right in front of it.
I reached for my sword, which was still on the ground.
But the creature turned faster than I’d anticipated, and a knife in its hand nearly sliced through my side.
I jerked out of the way. My opening appeared, and without hesitation I lifted my right arm and brought it down again, jamming the blood-coated dagger in and out of the demon’s jaw.
Wetness spurted out of the wound but I didn’t linger to watch the thing go down.
It all happened in a matter of seconds, and another wave was already closing in, despite the members of my Shadow Court who were clearly trying to protect me.
I finally snatched up my sword and took three demons down with one swift lash.
More blood splattered. I whirled and confronted what looked like a horse-sized praying mantis.
In a defensive response, it ejected some kind of glowing fluid from its face.
I felt my own twist with disgust as I dodged it and, in the same breath, lopped off the demon’s head.
More of the glowing liquid burst from its neck like a faucet, and as the rest of its body twitched, the ground bubbled and steamed everywhere that vile shit had landed.
Noted, I thought. Then I went to kill something else.
I thrust, cut, and slashed my way through the battlefield.
Sarod reappeared now and then, and every time, I sent him away with someone who had been freshly injured.
I was able to focus better, knowing they were away from here.
But eventually the kelpie lost me in the chaos of battle, along with my other allies.
I didn’t have trouble holding my own, at least until I spun to face a female with black lips.
I recognized her instantly—the galbraith demon that had kissed me the night we’d tried to save Thuridan.
My split second of hesitation cost me when she got close enough to reach for my face.
I knew, even as I raised my sword, that I’d be too late.
Before the demon could make contact, she froze.
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she crumpled to the ground like a pile of perilously balanced rocks.
I frowned and looked up. My gaze collided with that of a young witch.
I nodded at her, and she nodded back. Then we both turned away to keep fighting.
I stabbed the galbraith demon in the chest as I hurried by, making sure she was good and dead.
It wasn’t long before I realized just how badly I’d underestimated Lucifer’s numbers.
While I was focused on killing one demon, more always attacked from the sides or behind.
I kept trying to check on my weak spots, just as Adam and Gil had taught me, but no amount of training could have prepared me for the chaos of battle.
Without Michael’s power, I wouldn’t have been able to endure the grueling, relentless pace.
It was taking much longer than I’d thought it would to reach the Gate.
We’d gotten halfway across the battlefield when I forgot to check my blind spots.
Just as I moved to behead the vampire I was fighting, fingers clamped down on my arm, biting and relentless.
I tried to wrench myself free and the demon used my own momentum to swing me around.
Two arrows lodged in its face, and then the fingers were gone.
My head jerked to see who’d just saved my ass.
Sorcha Cralynn met my gaze.
Surprise shot through me, but I hid it as I gave her a begrudging nod. “Thanks,” I muttered.
The shapeshifter tossed me a new dagger. “Don’t mention it.”
“Well … good luck.” After an awkward pause, I began to turn away. Sorcha’s voice stopped me.
“I was wrong about you. All of this …” She looked around, her beautiful face caught somewhere between bewilderment and awe. “You did something no one has been able to do since the Fall.”
I’d hated Sorcha for so long that it was my first instinct to snarl back at her. I stopped myself and mumbled, “Yeah, well, Lucifer’s arrival here was sort of my fault, so I can’t claim too much credit.”
I expected the faerie to jump on the chance to insult me or lay the blame at my feet.
But Sorcha’s mouth just tightened, as if she’d tasted something unpleasant.
“He would’ve found another way in,” she said.
“You were just the easiest. Everyone knows you tend to open your legs for any pretty face that bats their eyes at you.”
And with that, our nice moment was over.
There was no time for anything else, anyway; the tide was still coming.
I forgot Sorcha and moved to rejoin the fight.
Brandishing my new weapon, I threw it at yet another demon that was nearly on top of me.
It embedded in the thing’s face. I barely heard the sound of the creature’s shriek as I moved on.
The ground ran blue, red, and black. The snow was long gone, turned to cold mud beneath our boots.
Gore kept splattering across my face. Still we fought.
Still we battled. The night went on and on.
Sarod never came back, which meant that he was either dead or lost to bloodlust. Some part of me wondered if, later, I would be ashamed at how much death I’d dealt out.
But right now, I was high. I felt a thousand years old, a creature of primordial power, swinging this way and that.
Killing everything that dared to take me on.
Silencing every voice that raised against mine.
The violence—it couldn’t compare to any movie, video game, or battle I’d fought so far—didn’t penetrate the haze.
Images imprinted on my mind, though. Moments that part of me registered in the midst of all the adrenaline and chaos.
A werewolf’s innards hanging out. A fae male on the ground, legless and screaming while a swarm of dog-sized demons ate him.
A black bear locked in battle with a female with tentacles shooting out of her mouth. I saw it all, and I saw none of it.
Time only stopped again when my gaze caught on a familiar face. I froze, my mouth thinning into a grim slash, and I instinctively held my sword a little tighter.
Iris.
She stepped over the water nymph she’d just killed, her eyes gleaming with anticipation as she looked back at me. We both knew this fight had been a long time coming.
“You hurt my friend,” I said flatly, starting toward her.
Because of this witch, Lyari had turned to Lucifer.
She’d been tortured and isolated for months.
Because of this witch, Bella O’Connell had come after me, which set off the chain of events that led to Oliver’s emergence into the world … and Finn’s death.
I was going to make this slow, I decided as I raised my sword, my lip curling. Slow and painful.