Chapter 13
Vlad’s heartthundered violently in his chest as he stared at the hellish landscape before them from where they bobbed inside Mae’s spells.
They were in an immense valley ringed by dark, towering peaks. Rivers of lava spouted from their summits in violent eruptions, filling the air with clouds of smoke and acrid sulfur. The yellow haze hid the distant sky and blanketed the dark forests covering the flanks of the mountains.
His stunned gaze switched to the two armies fighting one another viciously in the cradle of the valley. The ground trembled as giant beasts clashed horns and tusks and claws, the demons sitting astride them bellowing orders to their troops while they tore into the winged enemies surrounding them with their weapons.
“What kind of amusement park did Artemus Steele go to when he was a kid?” Nikolai said hoarsely.
Vlad had to agree. It was a scene from another world. A nightmarish one where monsters ruled and only the strongest and most vicious among them survived.
Tarang made a soft sound and pressed closer to him. Vlad touched the tiger’s head and swallowed past the lump in his throat.
It was becoming clear that one side was defending the city that rose in the midst of the otherwise barren terrain.
Mae scanned the battleground with a guarded look. She seemed much calmer than Vlad felt.
Then again, Na Ri was born in the Underworld.
“Brim, do you know what’s happening?” Mae asked the fox tensely.
Brimstone transformed, Contain enlarging to accommodate his growing size. They stared.
“Is it me or is he bigger than usual?” Cortes said.
Popo’s gaze dropped. “Whoa, look at the size of his?—!”
“My demonic powers are stronger in this realm,” Brimstone interrupted, towering over them, “hence my true physical manifestation.” He looked at Mae. “You, my witch, are infinitely stronger here than you are on Earth.” His crimson gaze switched to Vlad. “And so are you, son of Ilmon.”
Vlad’s throat tightened. “Is that why I’m feeling strange?” He touched his belly. “Like there’s some kind of fire in me?!”
A hot feeling had ignited within him since they’d materialized in the Underworld. It was expanding at a speed that made his insides churn. In its wake came a sense of potency he’d never experienced before.
His bond with Tarang thrummed with the same formidable energy.
“You should both stop resisting it.” The nine-tailed fox nudged Tarang gently with his snout before straightening and looking out across the battlefield. “As for what we are witnessing, it appears we have found the reason for the Soul Reaper queen’s disappearance.”
They followed his gaze. Mae sucked in air.
Alicia Calvarro carved the heads off a score of ten-foot-tall demons where she fought not far from a bridge that led to the gates of the city. Her black cloak fluttered around her skeletal form and her giant scythe dripped with the blood of the enemies she had felled.
A chill danced down Vlad’s spine when he spotted the allies who fought alongside the Reaper queen. They were hard to miss.
Each ruby-eyed, demonic figurehead was as big and as powerful looking as Barquiel. The enormous monsters they rode stamped on lesser fiends and beasts, the helldragons among them decimating entire hordes of the enemy as they spewed jets of black-tinged flames from their wicked jaws.
But the figure that captured his attention was a female demon with inky wings and an enormous spear whose shaft was made of dozens of hissing, black vipers the width of his arm. She moved like a Goddess of death across the battle ground, her lone figure blurring and her weapon and fists and feet raining damnation on all those she struck.
“Is that Astarte?!” Mae gasped.
“Yes. That is Astaroth, the Great Duke of Hell. She was the Goddess Astarte before she fell from Heaven. The ones fighting alongside her are Leaders of the Grigori. They too were once powerful Heavenly beings.” Brimstone’s eyes flashed. “It seems we are to be called to battle sooner than we anticipated, my witch. We must assist?—”
A shadow engulfed them. They looked up.
Bile burned the back of Vlad’s throat.
A pair of snarling helldragons was plummeting toward them.
Mae cursed and hastily maneuvered Contain.
The falling beasts missed them by inches, the monsters’ passage sucking the magic sphere into a powerful downdraft before Mae stabilized it.
The helldragons carved a giant depression in the ground when they crash-landed.
The smaller, purple beast slipped out from under its enemy’s body and batted it with a thick, horned tail. The green helldragon screeched as the barbs raked its face and left eye. The purple beast sank its teeth into its foe’s wing with a mighty growl and ripped a jagged tear in the upper pinion.
The green helldragon opened its jaws on a fireball that seared Vlad’s vision. He blinked in time to see the purple helldragon jump aside nimbly and charge the enemy.
It headbutted the green helldragon violently in the chest and sent it stumbling and rolling to the ground. The green helldragon shook its head dazedly before climbing unsteadily to its feet. A fireball struck it straight in the face. The wounded party whirled around and took flight, one wing drooping.
“And there’s more where that came from, scumbag!” the purple helldragon shouted after its enemy.
“Shit,” Cortes mumbled. “It can talk?!”
Popo released a worried squawk.
“What I want to know is who taught him to say scumbag,” Nikolai commented dully.
The helldragon noticed their presence for the first time.
Vlad’s knuckles whitened on his diamond-edged swords as it lowered its head and squinted at them.
Cortes cut his eyes to Mae. “Didn’t Violet warn us about a purple helldragon called Vozgan?”
“Oh.” The helldragon blinked, surprised etched across his face. “You know Vi?”
“Yes.” Mae lifted her chin. “We are friends of Violet and Artemus Steele.”
The helldragon brightened. “You’re pals with Art too?”
“Seriously, why is he talking like that?” Nikolai hissed to Cortes. “It’s freaking me out!”
Cortes shrugged. “At this point, I’m willing to believe anything.”
Mae hesitated. “So, you’re Vozgan?”
The helldragon straightened to his full height and thrust his chest out. “I am indeed the Almighty Vozgan.”
Vlad pursed his lips. He was willing to bet the dragon had added that title to his name himself. From Mae’s narrow-eyed expression, she was thinking the same thing.
Vozgan watched them broodingly.
“What?” Mae said uneasily.
“It’s a shame. I was just thinking it was time for a snack.”
He licked his chops. A sliver of drool fell from his jaw and splattered onto Contain.
It would have drenched them had it not been for the spell.
The aura that detonated around Brimstone startled Vlad and made the dragon’s tail stiffen.
“How impertinent of you, dragon!” the demon fox snarled.
The air outside the barrier whineddespite the spell containing most of the power the familiar had unleashed. Rocks and dirt lifted off the ground.
Vozgan studied the violent storm of magic and demonic energy bubbling around Brimstone uneasily. “Sheesh. It was just an observation.” He turned toward the battlefield. “Hey, Dad?” the helldragon bellowed. “There are some humans here!”
A black beast of a helldragon raised his horned head in the middle of the combat zone and spat out the body of the helltigress he had just impaled with his teeth. “That’s impossible, son!”
“Well, there’s a bunch of them right here and they say they know Artemus and Violet,” Vozgan whined.
He pointed a claw at Contain.
Alicia’s gaze found them through the warring armies. Her expression turned horrified, which was saying something for a skeleton.
Mae waved weakly.
Crimson bloomed in Alicia’s orbits. “What the hell are you guys doing here?!”
Her voice boomed across the battleground and resonated in their ears.
“Sound sure carries well in this place,” Nikolai muttered.
Astarte slowed at the sound of the Reaper queen’s snarl and stared in their direction. She scowled. “Wait. Don’t tell me that’s?—?!”
A dark helldragon dove toward her, claws extended to tear her apart. Astarte flashed out of the path of its talons and kicked it in the face.
“I’m trying to have a conversation here, asshat!” she hissed.
The dragon went flying backward into a hellmammoth and took it to the ground, crushing some hundred demons and smaller hellbeasts in the process.
Vlad flinched when Astarte’s scarlet gaze pierced them where they floated inside Mae’s spell.
“I see that we’re going to need to have a nice, long chat when this is over.”
The Goddess cracked her knuckles in a way that made it clear that words were not the only things that would be exchanged in said heart-to-heart.
“Are we sure she’s on our side?” Cortes said dubiously. “She looks like she wants to kill us.”
Popo fidgeted nervously on his shoulder. “I can sense her murderous intent from here, my Enrique.”
Vozgan scratched his snout with a claw. “Father said Aunt Astarte had a nasty temper even when she was in Heaven.”
A surprised “Ooof!” left the helldragon as a hellmammoth slammed into his flank.
Tension knotted Vlad’s shoulders. Dozens of demons and hellbeasts had surrounded them.
“Well, what are you waiting for, you fools?!” Astarte shouted from the other side of the battleground. “Use your damn magic and fight them!”
“Anyone else get the feeling she’s going to be a major pain in our ass?” Cortes said leadenly.