“You look bored,” Booke said, and the half demon spun. I wouldn’t call them Nephilim anymore, now that I knew the truth.
That was my cue. I crawled forward, using the edge of the stone table as cover. With preternatural speed, the demon lunged at Booke, who fired off a round. It pinged into the rock and ricocheted; I couldn’t watch the fight any longer. I had to find some way to free Kel. Bonds of shimmering energy coiled around his wrists and ankles, but I couldn’t find a genesis point on top of the table. From what I knew, all energy required a source, or continuous concentration. Since the half demon was trying to choke Booke at the moment, he couldn’t be the source. Which meant something near the table was keeping Kel in check.
Booke slammed a statuette to the ground and a riot of dark energy blossomed up. It wrapped around him like a cloak, lending him a terrifying aspect, as if he’d become death itself. Even the half demon paused his assault. Then he pressed, only to find that the black-violet tendrils lashed at him like snakes, and when they struck, they pulsed with a paler power, as if siphoning out his life force. The torturer scrambled back, seeing that he couldn’t complete a direct attack.
“You cannot defeat me,” he told Booke. “I am Nephilim. I am Ahadiel, enforcer of divine will.”
By his tone, he actually believed that. Poor bastard. They’d told Kel that he was God’s Hand, and that all the bad shit they made him do was ordered by a higher power. Now I knew that wasn’t true. And when he realized that, I didn’t know how he could live with it. He didn’t kill easily or lightly; each death weighed on him, but at least before he had the comfort of believing it was for the greater good.
“Your handlers had a sense of humor,” Booke responded, his tone gentle.
“You mock heaven itself.”
“No, I don’t.” He raised the Glock and fired, the dark energy still whirling about him. “And you’ve weakened. The reason that’s so interesting? The spell I used is a demon drain.”
“That’s not true.” Shock and horror colored the words. “I am Nephilim.”
“So they’ve told you.” Booke sounded sympathetic.
I dropped to my knees, knowing how much my thigh would hurt if the numbing powder wore off. Possibly my movements were damaging my leg even more, but I had to get Kel off this table, and if the torturer noticed somebody coming in the back way, no telling what he’d do. Right now, Booke had him off guard, and that was the best-case scenario. The wizard was smart as hell; maybe only he could provoke an enemy to chat during a fight.
Angling my head, I peered beneath the table. Bingo. There were four gems inset into the stone, reminiscent of the soulstones that powered the gate between earth and Sheol. Hoping they weren’t full of somebody’s spirit, I took a deep breath and grabbed the one closest to me. Pain howled through me like a banshee’s wail, hot and cold at once, so my palm felt as if it was simultaneously smoldering and flash freezing. My nerve endings couldn’t process the overwhelming stimuli, so they shut down, leaving me with a numb right hand—and the jewel didn’t budge. I pulled with dead fingers, agony driving up my forearm toward my elbow. Only death and demon magick tended to be that strong. Please don’t let these be soulstones. If the paralysis reached my lungs, my heart, my brain, well, it was over. But I’d already started, so there was no way out but through. I wouldn’t let Kel down.
Maybe there’s a trick to it. I pushed and pulled, twisted, until I heard a click, and the crystal dropped into my hand. Inert. With trembling fingers, I set it down. Three more to go. Maybe setting a circle for protection would’ve helped, but I didn’t have witch magick, and the touch hadn’t responded; there was no emotional charge in these gems, just pure, crackling power. It’s too late to draw a demon magick circle.
I knee-walked to the second spot. Booke was cursing, so I guessed the fight was back on; Ahadiel had chosen to disbelieve the truth, but the demon-drain spell was making it hard for him to melee. And that gave Booke a fighting chance—strategy, not brute strength, would carry the day.
This time, I knew how to remove the gem, and my hand was already dead, so I didn’t feel much new pain, though the old anguish was busy chewing my biceps, up toward my shoulder. It felt as if there were tiny teeth savaging their way through tendon and muscle. Pretty soon, my arm would hang limp at my side, and I’d be unable to use it, except as a club.
Two more.
I couldn’t manipulate my right hand well enough to remove the jewel so I used my left, and the pain came at me fresh. This time, I wasn’t strong enough to stop the scream. It bubbled up from my throat, past my lips, into a pathetic sound that roused an answering howl from Butch, who was still cowering in my bag. The sounds echoed in the chamber, ringing off the walls. No hope he didn’t hear.
“Is someone else here?” Ahadiel demanded.
“No,” Booke said quickly. “Let’s finish this.”
“I heard a woman. Where is she?” He didn’t wait for a reply.
Instead I heard footsteps cracking closer and closer to where I fumbled with the third stone. As Ahadiel peered under the table, it dropped into my hand, and a shot rang out. The half demon toppled forward, cracking his head on the rock. The back of his head oozed blood, then Booke limped into sight. His cheekbone was bruised, his lip split and puffy, and I could see the marks from where he’d been throttled. The demon-drain spell must’ve worn off, giving Ahadiel the opportunity to fight.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“He very nearly stabbed me in the kidney. Bloody fast, that one. But I dropped a spell just in time. Are you almost done?”
“Almost,” I said.