Fused in Fire

“Nothing to it,” Darius said softly.

I shook my head as I slowly lowered us. The guy had no idea what a loose cannon I was. Sure, the power was technically fused, and that did give me more control, but that didn’t mean I could leap from tall buildings in a single bound yet. I would fall out of a few and almost land on my face before I got the hang of it.

I’d just proved that.

Our feet hit the roof and we paused for a moment. Below us, demons ran every which way, some being chased, and some heading out in more organized groups. In the distance the pink dragon rose into the sky, a stream of fire scouring the ground under it.

“Let’s try to blend into the chaos and run out of here,” I said.

“Hide your power.”

Now that the suit had been neutralized, I wasn’t so sure I could. Which I didn’t mention. We’d succeeded in our mission, albeit messily. Getting noticed now would ruin everything.

I ran to the edge of the roof. His monster form met me there. One story. Darius swung off of the ledge and landed gracefully, like a cat. I tried the same thing, slipped, and fell in a lump. I caught myself with air before impact, then ripped the air away and landed on my butt. I glanced around quickly to make sure no one had seen me.

Now I would stop using my power.

We ran into a crowd heading toward the path leading out the front. A demon glanced our way and did a double take on me. Then flinched away when it saw Darius. It started to slow.

Darius jabbed its side with his claws and ripped forward. It staggered.

“We’re under attack from this side,” I yelled over the dying demon’s shout. Staggering to the ground beside it, I stabbed it with a spear of power, hardly noticeable. Hopefully, they’d buy it, caught up in the fever-pitch of battle, and they wouldn’t think too hard about how he’d come by his wounds.

When the other demons flocked our way, looking for the threat, I lurched up and into another crowd, running parallel. Darius joined me immediately. Another twenty feet and we cleared the corner of one of the large stone buildings. The roar of battle assaulted us from the side, smacking into our forces. Fire rose up around us, the power a blip compared to the demon in that high tower.

Without thinking, I tried to counter with ice, like the power of the defending demons whose ranks we’d joined. Instead, the fused power lashed out like a whip. It tore a strip off the demon’s face.

Oops. Yet another example of how terrible I was at keeping a low profile. Would I never learn?

Darius shoved me back toward the path, where the battle raged on. I couldn’t tell the demons apart. Which of the leathery, scabby, knobby demons were our pretend allies?

Did it really matter?

I pulled out my sword as we ran out of the sect grounds and onto the main path, following another cluster of demons. Chaos ran rampant. A screaming demon shoved a spear at me, but I blocked the blow and countered with my sword. Darius ripped into another. We tore through a one-on-one demon battle, and put on a burst of speed.

A roar shook the ground. I looked up, knowing I’d see a dragon, and trying to judge how best to dodge or duck to ensure it grabbed someone else if that was its design.

Upon seeing the magnificent beast soaring above us, I staggered into Darius. Huge—double the size of the others—it shimmered black with hints of blue and an occasional flare of red. As beautiful and graceful as I had come to expect, it beat its wings before swooping down low, cutting through the fighting. It didn’t shoot fire, or try and score anyone with its claws. Instead, it knocked people around, breaking up the clusters of battle.

A smaller roar announced the arrival of the pink dragon. It soared above the melee, but as soon as it got a look at the black dragon, it frantically lifted itself up and away.

The black dragon hovered for a moment, the flap of its wings audible, drowning out the shouts, yells, and clangs of battle. The fighting slowed. Crowds started to disperse.

Dread pierced me. Only the dragon of one person could stop this kind of carnage.

Lucifer.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Clearly the demons from the sect we’d just vacated hadn’t done a great job of holding Lucifer off.

“Run like hell,” I said to Darius, now shoving through the outer edge of the gawking crowd.

Something else flew above the crowds, not as big as a dragon, but a great bird of sorts. As it glided by, a shock wave of fear pulsed through me, stilling my heart and making me stop with my mouth hanging open. When the winged thing stopped above the largest cluster of—now frozen—fighters, I finally got a good look at it.

The flying demon had arms and legs like a man, with three toes that almost looked webbed. Like everything else in this place, its fingers ended in claws. The great wings, black against the sky, beat steadily, keeping it hovering in the air. Its hooked ears reminded me of horns, but if they were, I couldn’t see them from the distance. A tail whipped out behind it.

The crowd pushed away, giving the demon plenty of room to land. This was one dangerous mother trucker.

“Go, go, go,” I said, all action again, pushing at Darius.

We kept our heads down and weaved in and out of people, hiding at the back of the crowd against the hedge. At the bend in the path we’d abandoned before, I heard, “What has caused this? Where are your conspectors?”

I slowed without meaning to, hearing the enchantment in that voice. Not able to help myself, I looked back…

I expected to see a wall of demons.

Instead, as though I’d made it happen, a tunnel had opened up through the shifting sea of underworld creatures. A ways away, within a circle of empty space, stood a man clothed in form-fitting jeans and a white shirt. They were clothes Darius might’ve worn, and obviously created with magic because I doubted there was an abundance of human clothes in this place. He had slicked-back black hair and a lean but muscular body.

“Get your conspectors. Bring them to me,” the man called in a voice that carried. I heard it as though he was standing right next to me. Felt the magic powering it. Saw the weave that expertly blended the two halves of magic until they were one.

It could only be one person.

Darius pulled my arm as the man turned, showing me some of his face. Even from this distance I could tell he was handsome, with poise and a confident bearing. He stood among the demons as if he owned them, fully in charge. At ease, though he’d just interrupted a grizzly battle.

Come, Darius said, pulling me along.

I had the fleeting impression that the man was turning toward me, but I stepped behind the wall of demons once again, out of sight.

“That was my dad,” I whispered as I ran on wooden legs. “I felt it.”

Almost certainly. We must go.

I shook my head against the longing to meet him, more powerful than I would have expected but probably typical of adult children in similar situations. Okay, only similar in the never-met-your-father way. I picked up speed, staying tight to the hedge. When I looked back, I saw a few demons glancing our way, more running toward the neighboring sect—probably to get their master. The pink dragon was flapping in the air at the edges of the battle, its head pointed right at us.

“I hope that black dragon doesn’t let the pink one go flapping around.” I pushed in tighter to the hedge. I certainly didn’t want the black dragon to see us go.

We ran out the way we’d come, up the hill and toward the beginning of the illusion. Except when we got there, we didn’t find a desert. Or a lovely green field dotted with wildflowers. We found a wide pathway that led to two arched doorways. Fire raged within the frame of the one on the right, and on the left, fluffy white clouds drifted across a bright blue sky.

“I feel like I have just sat down to a poison duel with a Sicilian,” I mumbled.

What? Darius frowned at me.

I shook my head. He needed to watch more movies. “Basically, the fire door looks terrible. You’d assume whoever set this shebang up is trying to steer you to the blue door—and you do not want to do what they want you to do. So then you take the fire door. But, what if they realized that you’d think it was a trap, and they knew you’d take the fire door, so in the end, it’s the blue door that is safe?”

His frown became more pronounced.

“If you’d gotten the Princess Bride reference, you wouldn’t be confused right now.” I glanced back the way we’d come. The sect had disappeared, replaced by a vision of a path crowned with glistening arches of ice that abruptly ended in an inferno. Flames curled up from a huge pit, reaching into the black sky above. “Nice.”