Chapter 14
Mae’s pulseraced as she studied the demonic horde fixing them with ravenous stares. Her heightened senses and the power bubbling inside her raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
“I guess we should do as she says.”
Cortes unleashed his sword and whip and gave her a dark look. “I can’t believe we almost got eaten by a dragon the second we arrived in Hell.”
“I said I was sorry!” Vozgan protested where he was clashing horns with the hellmammoth.
“You know you’re the one who brought us to this exact location, right?” Vlad pointed out to the sorcerer.
Cortes scowled.
Nikolai watched a demon wipe drool from its chin.
“I bet we look like meat on a stick to them,” he said flatly.
Alastair squawked uneasily on his shoulder.
Mae sighed. “On the count of three?”
A haze of Hellfire Magic licked Nikolai’s frame and flashed in his crow familiar’s eyes. The veneer of incubus energy coating Vlad’s flesh and Tarang’s fur thickened. Cortes dipped his head.
Mae drew on her cores as she brought her barrier down. The demons and hellbeasts charged the instant Contain vanished.
“Wind Fury!”
The blaze that filled her veins when the spell left her lips made the air lock in her throat. A veritable tempest of crimson and black detonated around her.
Cortes cursed as he was pushed back some dozen feet. Nikolai stabbed his spear into the ground and hung on grimly to the weapon.
Only Vlad and Tarang were able to withstand the full force of the spell, their pupils bright with the unholy energy bubbling inside their own cores.
Mae’s scalp prickled as she tasted the potent forces coursing through every cell in her body. It wasn’t just her demonic energy that was being amplified by her current location. So too were her white and black magic. And just as Brimstone had said, the spell she’d invoked was bigger and more vicious than anything she’d ever manifested on Earth.
Wind Furyswept demons and beasts up into its vortex, the deadly currents cutting their flesh until their blood misted the inside of the spinning funnel.
Brimstone’s quivering tails crackled with demonic energy and black magic. His chest swelled as he inhaled.
The Wrath he unleashed felled three giant hellbeasts and a swathe of demons before blasting a fifty-foot-wide hole in a hill a quarter of a mile away.
Incubus energy swamped the air as Vlad and Tarang faced off against a score of ten-foot-tall monsters, their attacks so blistering Mae could barely keep up with their movements. The demons went flying into the air, bodies landing in a mess of broken limbs and caved-in chests and torn flesh.
Hellfire Magic engulfed the pack of hellbeasts leaping for Nikolai and Alastair. The sorcerer finished them off with a barrage of white magic spell bombs and a blast of Hell Flare.
Cortes fixed the two helltigresses prowling around him with a deadly stare, Popo’s wings and eyes blazing brightly on his shoulder. The beasts sprang on murderous roars, fangs and claws glinting.
Arcane Magic and steel split the skin and flesh of the first one as the sorcerer dropped to the ground and sliced its belly open from underneath. It collapsed heavily in the dirt, blood and guts spilling from its fatal wound.
A strangled sound left the second monster when Cortes’s whip found its throat. The crack its neck made when the sorcerer snapped it echoed in Mae’s ears.
It didn’t take long to dispose of the fiends and beasts that had ambushed them. More came over from the main battlefield, bloodlust brightening their pupils.
Vozgan returned from where he’d felled the hellmammoth.
“You guys are strong,” the helldragon said brightly. “We should have a mock battle.” He sobered at the sight of the approaching enemy. “But after we get rid of them.”
The energy pouring out of Mae’s cores made her very bones tremble. Her magic was flourishing with every minute she spent in this realm. Brimstone and Na Ri were experiencing the same thing, their souls welcoming the demonic strength their birthplace granted them.
“Let me try something.”
Her tone caused Nikolai to cast a worried look at her.
She stepped forward, heat surging through her bond with Brimstone, fusing their cores. A black aura bloomed around her. She raised a hand toward where the sky should be, the taste of magic making her tongue tingle.
“Eclipse!”
The spell that formed at the summit of the valley bathed the battlefield and the very mountains in twilight. A deafening silence rolled out across the landscape as every living thing stopped and stared at the phenomenon.
“Shit,” Cortes mumbled, sword and whip hanging limply in his grasp.
“Well, I think you just demonstrated to everyone here that you really are Azazel’s daughter,” Vlad told Mae flatly.
She met his crimson gaze and swallowed, the incubus energy in his pupils vibrating along the same wavelength as her own demonic strength. Brimstone towered over her, his and Na Ri’s presence bolstering her magic.
Even Astarte startled at the negative pressure that erupted from Eclipse when it fully manifested its devastating ability. Hellbeasts and demons panicked and shrieked as they were dragged across the ground and swept up toward the gigantic black hole.
Mae raised a shield around those who fought alongside the Goddess and Alicia, her growing powers and Na Ri’s soul allowing her to differentiate between friend and foe in a heartbeat. Brimstone’s tails quivered savagely as he poured his magic into the spell.
It took less than a minute for Eclipse to rid the battlefield of most of the enemy. Some managed to escape through tunnels in the mountains and burrows in the ground. The rest were cut down by Astarte and her alliance.
Mae shuddered and retracted her magic. She could only imagine the damage she could inflict on Earth if she ever unleashed Eclipse the way she’d just done in Hell. A wave of dizziness washed over her. She swayed.
Nikolai steadied her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you okay?” the sorcerer said quietly.
Mae met his concerned gaze, her chest tight. “I’m not sure.” She looked blindly at her fingers, doubt assailing her for the first time in months. “This power is insane. Surely, no one should be allowed to wield something like this.”
Cortes exchanged a guarded glance with Vlad. Vozgan stared, puzzled.
Do not fret, Mae, Na Ri murmured. We will need that spell when we join our allies in the final battle against Satanael.
Mae’s heart lurched at the reminder of what she’d learned when she’d first manifested her magic. That they were destined to join the army humanity would need to defend itself at the End of Days.
“Na Ri is right, my witch.” Brimstone lowered his giant head and almost sent her tumbling to the ground when he nuzzled her affectionately with his snout. “You must not fear your abilities. The daughters of Azazel and Ran Soyun would never abuse the powers gifted to them.”
“He’s right, Mae,” Vlad said.
Cortes nodded.
Nikolai straightened. “Here they come.”
Astarte and the demon commanders were making their way over, their armored boots raising dust as their armies parted deferentially ahead of them. The ground quaked in their wake, Vozgan’s black helldragon father and the colossal hellbeasts they’d ridden in battle following them.
The Goddess and the demons looked even more daunting up close, the power they emitted distorting the air around their monstrous physiques.
Nikolai stepped in front of Mae, his expression devoid of fear.
Astarte raised an eyebrow. “You sure are courageous, sorcerer. But I suspect your witch does not need your protection.” Her expression softened a little when she looked up at Brimstone. “It is good to see you again, Sotsuna.”
Brimstone bowed his head. “The pleasure is mine, Goddess.”
“Sotsuna?” Cortes whispered to Nikolai.
“That was the name given to him by Na Ri,” he murmured.
Astarte stopped a short distance from them. Her brow furrowed. She turned and scrutinized a spot some fifty feet to Mae’s left.
Vlad drew a sharp breath. His head moved mechanically to follow the Goddess’s line of sight. Surprise jolted Mae.
A powerful tide of incubus energy was washing across the valley.
A portal opened where Astarte and Vlad stared. The figure that stepped out of it made the incubus freeze and Mae’s eyes round.
It was a magnificent, handsome demon with alabaster skin, artfully curved black horns, and crimson points flaring in the center of his inky eyes. A scarlet robe hung upon his dark armor, adding to his majestic presence.
“What are you doing here, Ilmon? You know it’s dangerous for us to travel through rifts right now.” Astarte’s tone hardened. “You’re meant to be guarding Armaros’s keep.”
One of the demon commanders beside the Goddess waved a hand irritably. “Dial down the incubus charm, will you? My troops look like they’re going to keel over from lust.”
The demon soldiers and beasts behind him flinched, faces flushed as they stole covetous glances at the new arrival.
Ilmon only had eyes for Vlad. He hesitated before slowly making his way over.
Vlad swallowed heavily and stood his ground. Tarang’s tail started swinging as he stared at the approaching figure. He let out a friendly huff.
Ilmon stopped opposite Vlad, his scarlet gaze roaming his face hungrily.
“Are you really Ilmon?” Vlad said thickly.
Ilmon nodded. His chin quivered. A strangled sound left him.
He rushed over, took a stunned Vlad in his arms, and hugged him tightly.
“My little—my little malyshka!” the king of Incubi and Succubae mumbled weakly.
“Malyshka?”Mae hissed to Nikolai and Cortes.
“It’s a Russian endearment,” Nikolai replied.
The sorcerer looked like he was trying hard not to curl a lip at the display of affection taking place before them.
Alicia approached.
“Hey, is that really Ilmon’s kid?!” a demon commander asked the Reaper queen in a stage whisper.
“Yeah.” Alicia swung her scythe onto her shoulder and cut her eyes to Astarte. “You should stop him. You know what happens when he gets emotional.”
“Why? What happens?” Cortes asked warily.
“He once flooded a city with his tears when he broke up with a girlfriend,” Astarte said absentmindedly.
Everyone except the Goddess stared at the tears rolling down Ilmon’s cheeks and the puddle forming by his feet. Cortes inched away from the Incubus king.
Mae chewed her lip. Vlad’s darkening expression indicated he was giving serious thought to dinging his father’s ear.
A demon commander started making gagging noises. The guy next to him looked pleadingly at the sulfurous clouds high above the valley and muttered, “Just kill me,” under his breath.
“Stop him before he turns this place into a lake!” another demon snapped at Astarte.
“Come now.” Astarte sighed heavily before going over to gently pat the Incubus king’s shoulder. “You’re embarrassing yourself in front of your son.”
“I don’t care,” Ilmon blubbered. “My little rabbit is finally home!”
He squeezed Vlad so hard the incubus choked.
“Christ,” Nikolai muttered with a disgusted expression.
Several demons sucked in air and eyed the sorcerer disapprovingly. A few made the sign of an inverted cross, like he’d said something blasphemous.
Alicia pinched the bridge of her skull when Ilmon’s sniveling intensified.
Astarte scowled. “For Hell’s sake, comport yourself like the king that you are!”